Sports news, commentary and rumors.

I already skinned my knees jumping off the bandwagon after a frustrating home-opening loss to Ottawa. The Leafs looked shakey early, especially Raycroft and then they pretty much dominated for a good 30 minutes, checking like animals and playing quite well, with lots of scoring opportunities. But then, as the end of the game drew near and they had a 3-2 lead things started falling apart. The Senators tied it up and won in overtime. I have read this plot before, oohhh so many times. I am glad I at least switched back and forth watching the Bionic Woman and various other shows so as not to have been hurt too badly emotionally by the Leafs blundering end and yet another sad start to another season that could very well follow their past pathetic escapades…..Ok, it is only the first game of the season and I have moaned enough. Maybe the Toronto Maple Leafs will not SUCK this year. Maybe I should get right back on the horse before I fear falling again.

We will call this little bit of sports news the ‘dual ace’. Two swings, two aces - two balls in the same cup. Moments after Thomas Brady scored a hole-in-one, Dennis Gerhart stepped to the tee and matched it at Forsgate Country Club in Monroe Township.

“I’ve never heard of that happening anywhere in the world,” Jim Woods, director of golf at the club said Thursday, a day after the dual aces were recorded on the club’s Banks Course. “Two balls on the same hole in the same group is pretty impressive.” Neither Brady nor Gerhart had ever made a hole-in-one before. The odds of a golfer scoring an ace are about 5,000-to-1. But the odds of two players in a foursome doing it are 17 million to 1, according to a Golf Digest article in 2000.

“To have two happen like that, back to back, is just unbelievable,” Brady said Thursday. Brady, 41, of Lopatcong, used a six-iron on the 179-yard seventh hole, a downhill par-3. It hit the green and rolled about 30 feet into the hole.

“Everybody was just high-fiving each other,” Gerhart said. Gerhart, 57, an electrical contractor from Point Pleasant, then made his ace with a five-iron after hitting to about 20 feet. “It landed on the green and started trickling toward the pin. I thought it was going to stop short, but it kept rolling,” he said.

“His ball hit in almost the same spot on the left side of the green and rolled to the hole,” Brady said. The group could not be sure the ball wasn’t behind the pin until they drove up to the hole, he said.

“It was just utterly incredible,” Gerhart said. “I’m just ecstatic when I stick the green and get a shot at par.” The U.S. Golf Association and the World Golf Hall of Fame had no immediate information on the frequency of back-to-back aces.

Gerhart described himself as a “weekend hacker” who plays 15 times a year. The ace contributed to a personal best score of 84. Brady, a skilled player with a 9.5 handicap, had a 79 on the par-71 layout, but even the pros find holes-in-one to be elusive. In June, Bruce Vaughn, a player on the Champions Tour, had two aces in two days this June, each on different holes at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, N.Y.

Yusaku Miyazato recorded two holes-in-one during the same round at the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2006 in Nevada, which is believed to be only the second time that feat was ever done on the PGA Tour. Gerhart and Brady said they would save the scorecard and the balls. The foursome also included Thomas White, of Brick Township, and James Sydlo, of Edison.

The back-to-back aces were first reported in The Star-Ledger of Newark. Quite amazing if you ask me and I am glad you did.

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Barry Bonds said the man who bought his 756th home run ball and announced plans to let the public decide its fate is an “idiot.” Fashion designer Marc Ecko had the winning bid Saturday in the online auction for the ball that Bonds hit last month to break Hank Aaron’s record of 755 home runs. The final selling price was $752,467, well above most predictions.

Ecko, 35, has set up a Web site that lets visitors vote on three options for the ball: give it to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, brand it with an asterisk before sending it to Cooperstown or blast it into space on a rocket ship. The asterisk would suggest that Bonds’ record is tainted by alleged steroid use. The Giants slugger has denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs.

“All of those options don’t weigh anything,” Bonds told the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday night in Phoenix. “In baseball, that number (756) stands.” Bonds said Ecko could have found a better way to spend three-quarters of a million dollars.

“He’s stupid. He’s an idiot,” Bonds said. “He spent $750,000 on the ball and that’s what he’s doing with it? What he’s doing is stupid.” Ecko did not directly respond to Bonds’ comments Wednesday, but said in a statement he would make Bonds a custom T-shirt that says, “Marc Ecko paid $752,467 for my ball, and all I got was this ’stupid’ T-shirt.”‘ Ecko plans to announce what he will do with No. 756 after voting ends Sept. 25.

Ben Padnos, the California entrepreneur who submitted the $186,750 winning bid on Bonds’ record-tying 755th home run ball, said Tuesday he also plans to have the public vote on what to do with it. I wonder if they can put an asterisk because a ball player is an asshole.

This trick football play is just way too funny!!

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin analyzed every pitch from the 2004 through 2006 major league seasons to explore whether racial discrimination factored into umpires’ decisions to call a pitch a strike or a ball.

Just as discrimination in the labor market can affect disparities in wages, promotion and performance evaluation, the researchers said, possible discrimination by umpires could affect the outcome of games and careers.

During a typical baseball game, umpires call about 75 pitches for each team (they call about 400,000 pitches over the whole season—this figure excludes foul balls), so an umpire’s evaluation heavily influences pitcher productivity and performance.

The researchers found if a pitcher is of the same race or ethnicity as the home plate umpire, more strikes are called and his team’s chance of winning is improved.

The power to evaluate players’ performances disproportionately belonged chiefly to white umpires, while negative calls particularly impacted minority pitchers, Hamermesh said.

But, this behavior diminishes when the umpire’s calls are more closely scrutinized—for example at ballparks with electronic monitoring systems, in full count situation where there are 3 balls or 2 strikes, or at well-attended games.

This is one of those dirty little secrets that really makes you think.