OBSERVATIONS: A World Series game with no strikeouts

By HAL McCOY

UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, hunkered down with a refrigerator full of Yuengling Lager, Shiner Bock, Heineken and two boxes of Montecristo White Label Churchills. What more do I need? Not toilet paper.

—This statistic floored me, almost like the day I fell down the steps last November and broke my hip.

The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the New York Yankees, 10-9, in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series on Bill Mazeroski’s iconic home run.

There were 19 runs, 24 hits and five walks. Guess how many players struck out? Zero. None. Nada. Neither team struck out a single time. Teams can’t play a half-inning these days without at least one strikeout.

—QUOTE: From baseball legend Babe Ruth: “I’ve never heard a crowd boo a homer, but I’ve heard plenty of boos after a strikeout.” (So there were no boos in Forbes Field in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, but one mighty cheer when Bill Mazeroski connected.)

—When the University of Louisville fired basketball coach Rick Pitino after the school was accused of paying players, a friend said Pitino would never coach in college again. I bet that he would.

And I won. Iona College hired Pitino over the weekend. Although Pitino claims he knew nothing of payments to players, the NCAA stripped UofL of 123 victories and the 2013 national championship. So Louisville fired him.

And there is more coming. The NCAA soon will impose some heavy sanctions on Louisville for a lengthy list of 2017 violations, which could include a suspension from coaching at any NCAA school for Pitino.

Maybe Iona, a small mid-major school in New Rochelle, N.Y., thought it was hiring Rick Pitino, Jr., the University of Minnesota coach.

—Former University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith was not talking about the University of Dayton’s Flyers when he said this, but it applies perfectly: “Basketball is a beautiful game when the five players on the court play with one heartbeat.”

And that heart of the Flyers was as big as a medicine ball and had one large and loud heartbeat.

—Love him or hate him, ESPN’s Chris Berman had some hilarious nicknames for athletes. Some of my favorites:

Jim “Two Silhouttes on” DeShaies, Roberto “Remember The” Alomar, Bruce “Eggs” Benedict, John “I ain’t no” Kruk, Tom “Cotton” Candiotti, Sammy “Say it ain’t” Sosa, Bert “Be home” Blyleven, Andre “Bad Moon” Rison.

Mike “Pepperoni” Piazza, Moises “Skip to” Alou, Rollie “Chicken” Fingers, Todd “Highway to” Helton, Jeff “Brown Paper” Bagwell, Albert “Winnie the” Pujols, Greg “Math” Maddux, Bernard “I am not” Gilkey, Al “Cigarette” Leiter.

—An announcement made at a hockey game: “Will the woman who left her six kids at the skating rink please take them off the ice. They’re beating the Maple Leafs, 4-0.”

—If they shut down all grocery stores and tell us we have to hunt for our own food I’m in trouble. I have no idea where the natural habitat is for donuts and Fritos.

—Will somebody please connect the dots for me. Some guy in China ate a raw bat and contracted coronavirus and now we’re out of toilet paper?

—Tom Brady, Phillip Rivers, Cam Newton, Andy Dalton: Which one will sign with the XFL, if the XFL is still alive when the world gets a grasp on coronavirus?

—Movies to watch during the sports blackout:

BASEBALL: Major League, Field of Dreams, Eight Men Out, Bull Durham, The Natural, A League of Their Own, Moneyball, Bad News Bears, It Happens Every Spring,

FOOTBALL: Remember the Titans, We Are Marshall, The Longest Yard, Concussion, The Blind Side, Rudy, Brian’s Song, Friday Night Lights, Leatherheads, The Replacements, Radio, The Waterboy.

BASKETBALL: Hoosiers, White Men Can’t Jump, He Got Game, Blue Chips, Coach Carter, Rebound: The Legend of Earl the Goat, One on One, Fast Break.

HOCKEY: Slap Shot, The Mighty Ducks, Miracle, Goon, The Rocket, Youngblood.

HORSE RACING: Seabiscuit, Secretariat, 50 to 1, National Velvet, Phar Lap, The Winner’s Circle,

AUTO RACING; Ford Vs. Ferrari, Days of Thunder, Senna, Rush, Talladega Nights, LeMans, Grand Prix, The Fast and the Furious,

That should take you until the first Saturday in September when they run the Kentucky Derby, which the may have to rename “A Run for the Weeds.”

—Wash hands and hunker down.