Baseball Gold Glove Award quiz, part II: Name the following,
all winners of at least 3 gold glove awards. [Award first
instituted in 1957] 1) 3B…initials E.C. 2) Pitcher…initials H.H.
3) Catcher …initials B.F. 4) 1B…initials J.P. 5) SS…initials
R.M. 6) OF …initials G.P. Answers below.
NCAA Football Quiz: Where is Northwestern State located?
**Congratulations to Tony Stewart for winning his 2nd NASCAR
title**
The Rolling Stones, Part I
When I was on Prince Edward Island, Canada, recently, I
purchased a book titled “The Rolling Stones: An Oral History,”
by Alan Lysaght. It’s from a Canadian publisher, McArthur &
Company of Toronto, and is about a series of interviews done
with the Stones and those who worked in their orbit back in 1983
and at other times as part of a 21-hour radio documentary titled
“The Complete History of the Rolling Stones.”
So I’ve decided over the coming few weeks to select a few
excerpts.
February 24, 1963. The Stones play their first gig at the
Crawdaddy Club.
Bill Wyman: It was every early in 1963 and we were doing a few
gigs…Suddenly people really started to catch on to us. The top
band used to get very offended because we started to become
more popular in our fifteen-minute spot than they were in the
lead spot. So we got thrown out of that and then it was
impossible to find anywhere to play, no one would book us. We
were the outcasts. We were like the black sheep of all the club
things going on then. In the end we met Georgio Gomelski, who
was almost a kind of a manager at that time, and he found this
place that did have music – a pub in Richmond called the Station
Hotel. The band that was playing there previously packed it in
for some reason, and he said, there’s an availability there, so we
took that over in about Feb. of ’63.
I hadn’t been to that part of London and the student thing was
going on. They were the people that started to follow us, and it
was very, very different and a bit special in a way. I knew
something was happening. I didn’t quite know what it was, but I
knew I wanted to be in on it.
It went from nobody the first night, just six or twelve people, to a
point six or seven weeks after where there were four hundred
jam-packed in with a fire regulation total of one hundred and
sixty. And the local council and the police got excited and the
newspaper the Daily Mirror wrote an article, and it really became
big. Like, “What’s happening in Richmond?” And then we got
thrown out of there.
I used to have a great big amplifier about the size of a door. We
used to call it the wardrobe. It was so big that you couldn’t stand
it up, so I used to lay it on the floor on its side and sit on it in the
back. We used to sit on rusty old stools we stole out of some old
club somewhere. We would sit almost in a circular way facing
each other, just play like we were rehearsing at the pub in
Chelsea. We’d sit around, play a number, then we’d have a beer
and a smoke, and then we’d play another number. We didn’t
really take much notice of the people, but then this Richmond
thing started happening and suddenly we’d see these kids
stripped to the waist, swinging their shirts around their heads and
on each other’s shoulders, and up on tables, and it started to get
really mad.
They started to invent dances for our music, which had never
been done before…The ‘Ready, Steady, Go’ people, the TV
people, they heard about it and they sent their people down to
find dancers for the show, and while they were doing that they
found us as well, you see, so that was how our relationship with
the ‘Ready, Steady, Go’ people happened. It was an accident.
[This proved to be crucial to the Stones’ success.]
Keith Altham (publicist for the band): I think my initial
impression of Jagger was of a slightly foppish individual. I
didn’t appreciate the resilient qualities I see now in him, or the
fact he used a lightly dandified, almost decadent effeminacy at
times to kind of convey a feeling of rebelliousness or
something…Keith Richards was much more relatable, really, in
those days – more of a man’s man so to speak than Mick was.
The two of them together, when you did interviews, were
absolutely lethal, because they’d send you up like mad….
Brian Jones was a different character. I mean, to be fair to Mick,
Brian Jones made Mick look like Burt Reynolds. Brian was even
more foppish than Mick….Brian really was a very delicate
figure, actually….Brian had all the earmarks of one of nature’s
victims.
May 10, 1963. Decca’s Dick Rowe meets Beatle George
Harrison at a talent contest in Liverpool.
Dick Rowe (who would sign the Stones up): I was talking to
George and I said, “You know I really had my backside kicked
over turning you lot down.” And he said, “I wouldn’t worry too
much about that. Why don’t you sign the Rolling Stones?” And
I said, “The Rolling Who?” He said, “The Stones.” I said, “I’ve
never heard of them. What do they play? Where can I see
them?” He said, “You can find them at the Station Hotel at
Richmond.”
[Rowe went to check them out.]
Gradually I began to make out what it was about. I could see the
group, and then I noticed that the room was full of young fellows
– there wasn’t a girl to be seen – and they were standing in little
groups of two or more talking to each other. No one was
dancing, there were no girls, they were just listening to the
music, and all the time they were up and down on the balls of
their feet to the rhythm.
[The next morning Rowe started chasing them around and
eventually got the contract.]
August 23, 1963. The Stones make their first appearance on
‘Ready, Steady, Go.’
Bill Wyman: We had to start to do TV shows. The first time we
went on TV, Andrew (Oldham…the manager) said, “Look, they
will not let you be on television dressed without uniforms. You
have to have a uniform.” We had big fights with him about that,
and in the end we went down to Carnaby Street, which was
almost unknown then, and he talked us into buying black trousers
and houndstooth jackets – black and white with velvet collars –
and what were later called “Beatles boots,” which we found in
Drury Lane. They were these Spanish black leather boots, and
after we told the Beatles about them they went down and got
some. After that they were called “Beatles boots” [Laughs]
So, we had to wear these terrible uniforms to get on this TV
show, which we had to do to be seen in the rest of the country.
At the time we’d never played outside London – the suburbs was
the furthest we’d go. We hated the suits, and after that one show
we felt so ridiculous that we conveniently managed between us,
one by one, to lose a jacket, and then someone lost their trousers,
and two lost their shirts. And then we tried these much hipper,
blue-leather waistcoats, which everybody tried to buy afterwards,
and then one of us would wear the waistcoat and the trousers,
one would wear the jacket. And suddenly we were back into
nonconformist – no uniforms – and we got away with it.
January 6, 1964. The Stones begin their second British tour with
The Ronettes as one of the opening acts.
Ronnie Spector: On all the tours, Phil (Spector) used to send all
the bands telegrams saying, “Please do not talk to the Ronettes.”
We could never understand why the guys in the Stones were so
reluctant to have anything to do with us and wouldn’t talk to us.
Then my sister asked Mick, and he showed her the telegram from
Phil. It happened everywhere we went – whether it was a tour or
a club date, Phil would send a telegram saying, “They’re here for
a reason, not a season.”
Ian Stewart (former band member and then employee): I mean,
Phil Spector’s got to be the most overrated producer of all time.
His idea is to throw everything including the kitchen sink on the
track and then add tambourine, handclaps, and some girl singers.
And he’s a pain in the ass. I mean, more by luck than judgment
he’s produced a couple of good tracks like “The Doo Ron Ron,”
but that’s about it.
March 27, 1964. Andrew, Mick, and Keith meet Marianne
Faithful for the first time at a party.
Marianne Faithful: I was at school in Reading, where I lived in a
convent, doing my exams to go to university. I went to a party
with a boyfriend I had, and Andrew was there, and Mick and
Keith and some of the Beatles were there…all sorts of people.
And I was seventeen and I was very, very pretty and Andrew
asked my boyfriend if I could sing and would I like to make a
record, and he said I could, and so they suggested I make a
record, and I did. People said “As Tears Go By” was written
especially for me, but no, the song had been written already and
it wasn’t suitable for them, so they had that song going. That’s
why it happened, I’m sure….But I always thought it was a bit
odd for me to be singing a song like that. It was really meant for
a woman of about forty who is looking back on her life, not some
innocent seventeen-year-old girl. It took a long time to take off –
about three months before it got onto the charts.
[Ah, to be honest about it, everyone just wanted to, you know,
err, with Marianne and stuff.]
June, 1964. The Stones arrive in New York. [Remember, the
Beatles made their splash that February.]
Keith Richards: The Beatles to us were always like…somebody
knocks on the door, such as the gas man, and gets in, gets his
foot in the door, and he’s the salesman. They were the ones
people would open their door to. If we had knocked at the door
first, forget it, they’d have just put the other chain on. So it was
like using the Beatles to open the door for us, and using the
differences between us and the Beatles as soon as we could. In
actual fact, they were the same kind of blokes as us, but the way
they were projected meant that we had to make a difference
between ourselves and them, which wasn’t that difficult. In a
way, we were encouraged, especially by Andrew, to be a little
more outrageous than we even felt. Since then it’s become a
well-known scam. [Laughs]
(The first time we went to Omaha) I really understood how
heavy it could get. We were just sitting around drinking whiskey
and Coke out of little cups before we went on, and the cop
walked in and said, “What’s in that cup?” “Whiskey, sir.” “You
can’t drink that here, it’s a public place. Throw it down the
drain.” “No.” I look up and there’s a loaded .44 pointed at my
head. That’s when we started to see the dark side of America
and what could happen.
Mick Jagger: We first played L.A. and it was great, and so was
New York, but the bits in the middle…that was depressing. It
was still segregation in the states and it was very repressive and
prejudiced. It was all very narrow-minded in a way.
Bill Wyman: Going to America the first time was great in a lot of
ways but it was really disheartening to find the way you were
treated. I mean, we were really badly treated and badly
promoted. The record company was useless. We never really
had a big hit in England….We had a great stage presence but we
could never put it on record, whereas most bands made very
good records. The Searchers, the Hollies, and Billy J. Kramer,
they were awful onstage. We were the opposite – we were great
onstage but we couldn’t get the records right. That was our
biggest problem, and in the end we decided we’d go to Chess
Studios in Chicago.
[More next chat.]
Stuff
–Al Barkow has written a book on golfer Sam Snead titled
“Sam: The One and Only Sam Snead.” Recently, Golf World
had an excerpt and following are two tidbits from the piece.
For starters, Sam Snead was a highly complex man. He could be
crude, cheap and dismissive, but he was also “generous to a fault
and a scrupulously honest tournament professional,” as Barkow
puts it. “His attitude or disposition depended on the context of
the moment – the significance of the event, how he felt about
himself and the people around him and his sense of how they felt
about him.”
“Doug Ford recalled an episode that was indicative of an
important aspect of Sam’s character, and of how you made a
friend of him or lost him. It revolves around money but has
nothing to do with parsimony. Ford was playing a practice round
with Sam at the 1968 Masters. Ralph Guldahl was playing in a
group ahead, and Doug noticed that Sam was not and had not
been at all friendly with Guldahl. It seemed odd to Ford, because
he knew that Sam and Guldahl went back to the 1930s as playing
partners in best-ball tournaments, and of course as rivals. Ford
mentioned this to Sam, who then pulled a piece of paper out of
his pocket that was folded in fourths. He unfolded it and showed
it to Ford. ‘It was an IOU for $1,600 signed by Guldahl in
1939,’ said Ford. ‘1939! And this is 1968. I told Bob Goalby
about it but he didn’t believe it until he was on a fishing trip with
Sam in Alaska and mentioned it to him. Sam whipped out that
same piece of paper again, and showed it to Bob.
“ ‘The thing about it is, Guldahl never spoke to Sam about the
loan. If he had said, ‘Hey, Sam, I’m still a little short but I’ll get
it to you when I can; or, let me pay you back 10 a month,’ or
anything that showed he remembered the debt, Sam would have
told him not to worry about it, that he could pay it back when he
had it. He might even tell him to forget about it. But when he
didn’t say a word, ever, that got to Sam. That upset him. It
wasn’t the only incident like that with guys on the tour that he
lent money to.’”
And here’s a great one.
“In 1963, when the issue of racism in the United States was at
perhaps its highest heat, a bartender at a West Virginia golf club
where Al Schwabbe, a close friend of Snead’s from White
Sulphur Springs, W. Va., was a member, asked Schwabbe if the
upcoming West Virginia Open was really open. Could he play in
it if he entered? No black had ever played in the event.
Schwabbe told the fellow to send in his entry and see what
happened. He did, and the executive director of the tournament
had no problem with it. Still, Schwabbe was a little concerned
about what might happen when the fellow showed up to play, so
he called Sam and told him the situation. ‘Sam asked me if the
bartender could play, and I told him the fellow can shoot 75 on
sand greens. That was good enough for Sam, who said they
should pair him with him. Which they did. The guy was
nervous as hell the first few holes, but Sam was nice to him,
encouraged him, wouldn’t putt out before the fellow did so the
crowd wouldn’t rush off to the next hole, and he eventually
calmed down and played some nice golf.’
“The interesting thing about this episode is Sam asking, first of
all, if the fellow ‘could play.’ He wasn’t interested in a token
appearance. In Sam’s value system you first had to be qualified
by ability, which seems to be a very sensible as well as honest
way of going about things.”
–Wow…too bad the USC – Fresno State football game on
Saturday night was on so late for many of us. #1 USC held off
#16 Fresno State, 50-42, in what proved to be Reggie Bush’s
Heisman clinching performance.
Bush had an astounding 513 total yards of offense…294 rushing,
68 receiving, 135 on kickoff returns and another 16 on punt
returns. The previous Pac-10 mark was 384. So far in 2005,
Bush is averaging 8.6 yards per carry.
Elsewhere, congratulations to Joe Paterno and Penn State for
finishing up 10-1. Millions such as yours truly buried Paterno
years ago. Well, the sonuvagun proved his detractors wrong in a
big way.
Latest AP Poll
1. USC
2. Texas
3. LSU
4. Penn State
5. Virginia Tech [Miami lost to Georgia Tech, 14-10]
And Johnny Mac’s East Stroudsburg University advanced in the
Division II tourney with a 52-39 win over unbeaten
Bloomsburg State. Jimmy Terwilliger threw another four TD
passes. But I’ve got to ask, does anyone play defense at this
level? Goodness gracious. [Next up for ESU…CW Post…
which ESU already defeated 66-49 (see?) as Terwilliger had
nine, yup, freakin’ nine TD strikes.]
Meanwhile, I had a crushing week on the betting front; losing
both of my picks to drop back below .500 at 9-10.
Boston College defeated Maryland, 31-16, when I had Maryland
and 2 ½. And South Carolina lost to Clemson, 13-9, when I had
the Gamecocks and 1 ½.
However, I shall return! Stay tuned as I give you one or two last
picks guaranteed to lift the spirits and fill the bank account this
holiday season.
–The Chicago Bears…Da Bears…7-3?!….7-3?!
And….ahem….my pick to win it all, Indianapolis, is 10-0.
–This deal with having the number of ‘seconds’ played listed in
an NBA box score is absolutely driving me nuts.
–I first wrote of Derrick Caracter on 7/5/01 when he was an 8th-
grade basketball phenom. Since then this jerk (believe me, not
too harsh a term, even at his age) has been a basketball vagabond
and just this past week the Star-Ledger and USA Today had
major pieces on him. In four years in high school, Caracter
hasn’t been in the same program two years in a row and is now at
Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Mass., after academic difficulties
at his last New Jersey stop, powerhouse St. Patrick’s. He’s also
been involved in numerous physical altercations over the years.
And now at Notre Dame Prep, he’s at it again, missing classes
and being suspended for games as a result. But he’s already
announced an intent to play at Louisville next season and if he
becomes academically eligible countless millions will be singing
his praises.
–No doubt, the Wake Forest basketball team was overrated at
#18 and I’ll be happy if they just make the Big Dance come
March. But perhaps I shouldn’t be so tough on them this early
after seeing Hawaii defeat #5 Michigan State, 84-62.
And we congratulate Savannah State for snapping its 65-game
losing streak Friday night, beating Wilberforce 63-59. In
finishing 0-28 last season, Savannah State became just the
second winless Division I team in the last 50 years.
–Sports Illustrated just released its formal college basketball
predictions and Duke is #1 here just as in all the others. Texas,
UConn, Michigan State (doh!) and Oklahoma round out the top
five. SI had Wake #16.
–Back to my alma mater, the ladies fell to Duke in the field
hockey semis, thus missing out on their shot at winning an
unprecedented fourth straight NCAA title. Boooo booooo…..
just kidding, girls.
But the men’s soccer team won its first round game, defeating
#17 South Carolina in the NCAAs.
–Curt Eichelberger of Bloomberg News had a piece on some of
the nation’s gigantic high school football programs. Most of you
are undoubtedly familiar with Massillon High School in Ohio,
for example. But did you know its booster club raised $575,000
for scoreboard improvements? The club also pays the $5,000
annual lease for the team mascot…a live tiger cub. Hell,
Massillon draws upwards of 20,000 a game.
Others in the fund-raising stratosphere are Hoover HS in Hoover,
Alabama ($815,000), Westlake in Austin, Texas ($500,000), and
Brookwood HS in Snellville, Georgia ($789,000).
And high school coaches are now receiving big bucks at the
larger programs. The head coach at Ennis HS in Ennis, TX,
receives $103,000 in base salary and doesn’t have to teach
classes. At Valdosta HS in Valdosta, GA, the coach receives
$87,000 plus the booster club provides him an automobile and
car insurance. Randy Allen at Highland Park High in Highland
Park, TX, earns $105,000.
–Ralph Edwards died at age 92. He was the producer of “This Is
Your Life” and “Truth or Consequences,” among others. From an
obituary in the Los Angeles Times by Dennis McLellan.
Edwards had amazing power. For example on “This Is Your
Life,” one of the stories concerned “educator Laurence C. Jones,
who struggled for 50 years to establish Piney Woods College in
Mississippi. His appearance in the 1950s generated more than
$700,000 in contributions to the small college’s endowment after
Edwards suggested that viewers each send Jones a dollar for the
fund.”
“During a broadcast at Pearl Harbor in 1958 honoring Rear Adm.
Samuel G. Fuqua, the last man to swim off the sinking battleship
Arizona after the Japanese attack, Dec. 7, 1941, an on-air appeal
resulted in viewers contributing the seed money for the USS
Arizona Memorial.
“But celebrities were the show’s big draw….including Jack
Benny, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, Nat King Cole…
“The trick was to make sure the honorees were truly surprised
when Edwards and his camera crew approached them.
“ ‘Usually, we’d go through the spouse – and we went as deeply
as you could go this side of Scotland Yard,’ Edwards once
recalled.”
–The Pittsburgh Steelers are on pace to have the best local TV
ratings since the Green Bay Packers drew 49.8% of their local
TV homes in 1997. The Steelers were at 45.4 going into this past
weekend’s play. [Green Bay is #2, Buffalo #3 and K.C. #4.]
–According to Mike Linn in USA Today, scientists have been
employing a tiny fly in the battle against the fire ant.
The fly lays an egg in the ant. “The larva feeds off nutrients in
the ant’s head. About two weeks later, the ant’s head pops off, the
newborn fly takes wing, and the cycle starts anew.”
Kind of gross, I think you’d agree.
–The Wall Street Journal points out that the hippo population in
Congo’s Lake Edward has declined from 9,600 in the 1970s to
less than 700 today due to poaching. It’s time for the hippos to
make a stand, but having seen the video that they flee from
crocodiles and hyenas, I’m beginning to have my doubts.
–The total purse on the PGA Tour in 1998 was $96.1 million. In
2006 it will be $270 million. [Though with the new TV contract
being negotiated for 2007 and beyond, we could be at a peak.]
–Nick Schulman, just 21, won $2.1 million in a Texas Hold ‘Em
tournament at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut on Friday night.
–It really is funny. Last year Latrell Sprewell rejected
Minnesota’s three-year, $21 million contract extension, because
“he had a family to feed.” And where is Sprewell today? One of
the true dirtballs in the history of sports is sitting at home.
–Rocker Gary Glitter, he of the song “Rock and Roll (Part 2)”
that fills sports arenas, is at it again. Glitter was arrested in
Vietnam on allegations he engaged in “obscene acts with a
child.” Glitter has had numerous run-ins with the law,
worldwide, including for possessing child pornography.
–Uh oh….I’m reading Travel & Leisure magazine when I see a
Q&A with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Q: What do you do to unwind?
Wolf: Believe it or not, I love spas and try to get facials on a
regular basis. I’m also a deep-tissue massage kind of guy.
Oh brother. Hey, Wolf, how about “I love sitting at a sidewalk
café in Vienna, drinking beer and watching the world go by,” or,
“I read a good book,” or, “I go golfing,” or, “I love NASCAR,”
or, “Nothing better than sitting in front of the tube and watching
a good football game,” or, “Seriously? Going for a long run.”
Or, “Snuggling up in front of a roaring fire with my wife
(girlfriend, mistress).”
But a deep-tissue massage?!
–From a story in the New York Daily News comes word that
Match.com “is being accused of sending ringers on fake dates
with lonely hearts to keep them from dumping the service.”
A current racketeering lawsuit in Los Angeles alleges “the wildly
popular online dating service secretly employs people as ‘date
bait’ to send bogus enticing e-mails and to go on as many as 100
dates a month – three a day – to keep customers ponying up.”
Top 3 songs for the week of 11/20/65: [It’s such a good week,
here is the top ten.]
#1 “I Hear A Symphony” (The Supremes) #2 “1-2-3” (Len
Barry…very underrated tune…has aged well) #3 “Get Off Of
My Cloud” (The Rolling Stones…still in my Stones top three)
#4 “Rescue Me” (Fontella Bass) #5 “Let’s Hang On!” (The 4
Seasons) #6 “Turn! Turn! Turn!” (The Byrds) #7 “A Lover’s
Concerto” (The Toys) #8 “Ain’t That Peculiar” (Marvin Gaye)
#9 “Taste Of Honey” (Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass) #10
“You’re The One” (The Vogues)
Correction: Last chat I listed the top three for 11/15/68…I meant
11/15/69: #1 “Wedding Bell Blues” (The 5th Dimension) #2
“Come Together” (Beatles) #3 “Something” (Beatles)
Baseball Gold Glove Award Quiz answers, all with at least three:
1) Eric Chavez, 3B, four
2) Harvey Haddix, P, three
3) Bill Freehan, C, five
4) Joe Pepitone, 1B, three
5) Roy McMillan, SS, three
6) Gary Pettis, OF, five
NCAA Football Quiz: Northwestern State is located in
Natchitoches, LA.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
