THREE UP, THREE DOWN – Fordham flash finds fame
Andy Warhol famously said that everybody will be famous for 15 minutes. He said nothing of the weirdness that precedes it.
By now, you’ve probably seen the video of the Fordham baseball player scoring a run by acrobatically flipping over the Iona catcher like Nadia Comaneci in the floor exercise. What you didn’t see was that Brian Kownacki had been hit by two pitches in the same inning before he leaped into “SportsCenter” history — and that he was plunked three times in all since entering the game in the fifth inning.
You also might have seen Kownacki getting brutally taken out in a double play at second base earlier this season, but only if you subscribe to Sports Illustrated and have a photographic memory. He was pictured in one of those artsy-fartsy photo spreads in front.
In fact, Kownacki’s body now looks like an Andy Warhol painting and/or a can of Campbell’s tomato soup.
But Bob Costas and other baseball old-timers will tell you that Kownacki’s flip would only rate the silver medal if footage of a home-plate collision involving Chicago Cubs baserunner Jimmy Qualls and Cincinnati Reds catcher Pat Corrales still existed.
The June 13, 1969, play was eerily similar, except Qualls flipped much higher and landed about 20 feet beyond home plate. He raced Corrales back to the dish and just got his hand in ahead of the tag, triggering a huge rhubarb, as Red Smith and those other old sports writers used to say.
On July 8, 1969 — just 16 months after Warhol uttered his “15 minutes” remark — this same Jimmy Qualls, who had a grand total of 139 major-league at-bats, hit a line-drive single with one out in the ninth inning at Shea Stadium, spoiling Tom Seaver’s bid for a perfect game.
Twelve days later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. His 15 minutes has lasted a little longer.
THREE UP
■ MORE ON THE FLOOR: The South Point has purchased the floor used at this year’s NCAA women’s regional in Sacramento, Calif., and is planning to host as many as three college basketball tournaments this December in its state-of-the-art rodeo arena — one for men, one for women and one for both. I’m sworn to secrecy, but one of the men’s teams showing interest has won the national championship and would put a lot of rear ends in the seats, provided Butler isn’t playing on TV.
■ SEE WHAT THE 51S STARTED?: After last year’s “Road to Wrigley” Triple-A game featuring the Las Vegas 51s and Iowa Cubs, kids were allowed to line up and run the bases. The opportunity was so well received that the Illinois Cubs will offer kids at their games the same opportunity following one Sunday game of every month. You haven’t seen joy until you have seen a kid run the bases at Wrigley. And you haven’t seen sorrow until you have seen Alfonso Soriano try it.
■ KASUAL KRUGER: I saw a photo of UNLV basketball coach Lon Kurger after he attended the “Viva Elvis” Cirque du Soleil show at Aria in CityCenter and his shirttail was hanging out. It was as if the Rebels were playing Wyoming.
THREE DOWN
■ SATURDAY NIGHT’S ALRIGHT FOR FIGHTING: A brawl after a mixed martial arts fight on TV is a bad thing? Better check the replay, Gus Johnson. If the Allison brothers didn’t tag-team Cale Yarborough with their fists after the 1979 Daytona 500 with the CBS cameras running, they might be showing NASCAR races on the Hee Haw channel.
■ JIMMER GOT HACKED: Brigham Young’s Jimmer Fredette has declared for the NBA Draft, after which he was sent to the line to shoot two more free throws.
■ ALL THEIR EXES PLAY IN TEXAS: OK, I admit I was wrong. I thought the idea behind Findlay Prep was to send blue-chip basketball recruits to UNLV, not Texas.
Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.
