NCAA Football Quiz: 1) Who am I? I ran for 2,015 yards for
Northwestern from 1968-70 and then went on to the NFL. 2)
Who coached Northwestern’s 1995, 10-2, #8 AP team? 3) Who
is on Notre Dame’s top ten rushing list, carried the ball 369 times
for 2,341 yards, and is associated with an American president?
4) Who was Notre Dame’s quarterback 1966-68, initials T.H.?
5) Who replaced T.H. at quarterback, 1968-70? Answers below.
The Death of Sean Taylor
I have little to say myself on Taylor’s death, especially not
knowing all the facts, but he was obviously no angel. Was he
nonetheless turning his life around after the birth of his daughter?
Many say he was, but we’ll find out sooner than later if he had
been truly a changed man when we learn what the real motive of
the killer was. Lots of stories flying around, that’s for sure.
By coincidence, all four NFL players to die in the past year
[Darrent Williams, Damien Nash, and Marquise Hill being the
others] were 24.
Michael Wilbon / Washington Post
“(We’re) going to have a different conversation in this space –
about the violent and senseless nature of the act that took (Sean
Taylor’s) life, about trying to change course when those around
you might not embrace such a change, about dying young and
black in America, about getting the hell out of Dodge if at all
possible.
“I wasn’t surprised in the least when I heard the news Monday
morning that Sean Taylor had been shot in his home by an
intruder. Angry? Yes. Surprised? Not even a little. It was only
in June 2006 that Taylor, originally charged with a felony,
pleaded no contest to assault and battery charges after
brandishing a gun during a battle over who took his all-terrain
vehicles in Florida. After that, an angry crew pulled up on
Taylor and his boys and pumped at least 15 bullets into his sport-
utility vehicle. So why would anybody be surprise? Had it been
Shawn Springs, I would have been stunned. But not Sean
Taylor.
“It wasn’t long after avoiding jail time and holding on to his
football career that Taylor essentially said, ‘That’s it, I’m out,’ to
the world of glamorized violence he seemed comfortable
negotiating earlier. Anybody you talk to, from Coach Joe Gibbs
to Jeremy Shockey, his college teammate, will cite chapter and
verse as to how Taylor was changing his life in obvious ways
every day….Everybody saw a difference, yet it didn’t help him
avoid a violent, fatal, tragic end.
“Coincidence? We have no idea, not yet anyway….But would it
surprise me if it was more than (a random act), if there was a
distinct reason Taylor was sleeping with a machete under his
bed? A machete. Even though his attorney and friend Richard
Sharpstein says his instincts tell him ‘this was not a murder or a
hit,’ would it stun me if Taylor was specifically targeted? Not
one bit.
“You see, just because Taylor was changing his life, don’t
assume the people who pumped 15 bullets into his SUV a couple
of years ago were in the process of changing theirs.”
On the comparison between Taylor’s death and that of basketball
phenom Len Bias:
“We were so much more innocent in June 1986, and Bias’s death
was a complete shock. There was no warning, no hint that he
had ever courted danger or that it had ever gone looking for him.
And Bias, though unintentionally, harmed himself. Taylor, no
matter what he might have been involved in at one time, was a
victim in this violent episode, a man in his bedroom minding his
own business.
“But what they do share is dying too soon, unnecessarily so,
while young and athletic, seemingly on top of the world. Though
we’re likely to struggle in great frustration to understand the
circumstances of how Taylor left so soon, how dare we not put
forth an honest if sometimes uncomfortable effort to examine his
life in some greater context than football.”
Stuff
–The Baseball Hall of Fame released the candidate ballots the
other day, including the Veterans’ ballot. The ten managers/
umpires for the Veterans Committee to muse over are:
Whitey Herzog, Davey Johnson, Billy Martin, Gene Mauch,
Danny Murtaugh, Billy Southworth, Dick Williams, Doug
Harvey, Hank O’Day, Cy Rigler
One question. Just why do we have umpires in the Hall of
Fame? As for the managers, I’m partial to Billy Martin, but
Billy Southworth’s record is intriguing with St. Louis and the
Boston Braves, 1940-51. A 16-member electorate votes on the
Managers/Umpires, with 75% required for induction. This will
be announced on Dec. 3.
As for the 2008 regular ballot, only 25 are on this year, to be
picked over by more than 575 voting members of the Baseball
Writers’ Association of America. The only newcomer on the
ballot worthy of any kind of real consideration is Tim Raines.
The real issue becomes do Goose Gossage and Jim Rice get in
this time?
Gossage received 71.2% of the ballot last year, while Rice was
named on 63.5%. [Andre Dawson has an outside shot given he
received 56.7% in the ’07 vote.]
Lastly, Mark McGwire is on again. I’ll say he gets 18%
approval, down from 23.5% last year. Results for this ballot will
be announced Jan. 8.
–The search for a new coach at Nebraska took an interesting turn
this week as Wake Forest’s Jim Grobe was interviewed. Ken S.
in Nebraska kept me updated hourly as reports came in about
flights coming and going. Phil W. did the same from Carolina.
Us Demon Deacons, while recognizing that the Nebraska job is
one of the high-profile positions in America, can’t quite
understand why Grobe would consider leaving Wake.
But of the 12 Division I coaching spots open thus far, including
Houston Nutt going from Arkansas to Mississippi, Brian
Christopherson of the Lincoln Journal Star wrote of the lowly
Duke job:
“Another football coaching graveyard. Coach K doesn’t share
any of his wins with the program.”
And Phil W. noted it’s pretty funny that North Carolina coach
Butch Davis received a $291,000 raise after a 4-8 season. “After
all, Georgia Tech’s Chan Gailey goes 7-5 and gets fired!”
commented Phil.
But as Ken S. was alerting me to all the flights in and out of
Lincoln, Nebraska, Phil passed along a note on the Web site
flightaware.com. Can’t say I had known of this one. Check it
out.
You start off by plugging in an airport code on the home page,
then click “View Airport Activity” and you’ll see all the
flights that have gone through that airport. Put your mouse over
a particular one and you’ll find out who owns it, etc. Very cool.
As Melissa Lee of the Lincoln Journal Star noted, “So,
hypothetically, let’s say you check the airport’s schedule and
find a jet departed for Winston-Salem, N.C., this morning and is
due back late tonight. Coach Jim Grobe rolls off the tongue
pretty nice, doesn’t it, Osborne?”
Nooooo! Don’t do it, Coach!
–Boy, Big Ten basketball is going to suck this year. Wake
Forest, for example, another year away from being a force on the
national scene again, defeated Iowa 56-47 despite hitting 1 of 15
from three-point land. [Iowa was 2 of 15….yikes.]
–J. Robert Cade, the inventor of Gatorade, died Monday at age
80.
Douglas Martin / New York Times
“The sports and energy drink industry – led by Gatorade and
worth more than $19 billion last year – began with a question
asked in 1965 by Dwayne Douglas, a football coach at the
University of Florida: Why didn’t his players urinate after a
game?
“Part of the answer came quickly: football players lost so much
fluid in sweat in swamplike Florida that they had none left to
form urine. It took longer to explain how the loss of fluid and
electrolytes affected blood pressure, body temperature and the
volume of blood.
“In a subbasement, Dr. Cade and his researchers then concoted a
drink to rehydrate athletes, and to replenish carbohydrates, in the
form of the sugars sucrose and glucose, and electrolytes (sodium
and potassium salts). There was one problem
“ ‘It didn’t taste like Gatorade,’ Dr. Cade said in an interview
with Florida Trend in 1988. In fact, a football player who tried it
and spat it out more than hinted that it tasted like bodily waste.”
Well, it was Cade’s wife, Mary, who suggested adding lemon
juice, and Jim Free, a research fellow, came up with the name
Gatorade, after the Florida “Gators.”
“Florida first used the new product in a game against LSU in
October 1965, in 102-degree heat. LSU wilted in the second
half.
“In 1967, when Florida beat Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl,
Bud Carsen, Tech’s coach, said his team lost because they did
not have Gatorade.
“By 1969, Hank Stram, coach of the Kansas City Chiefs,
attributed his team’s Super Bowl title to Gatorade.”
Well, by the mid- to late-80s, Gatorade was a smash hit. But as
Douglas Martin writes, Dr. Cade had big problems with the
University of Florida, which didn’t want to market the drink. He
initially sold the formula to Stokely-Van Camp for a cut of the
royalties.
Soon, though, the royalties reached $200,000 and then Florida
wanted Gatorade back. Dr. Cade said, “I told them to go to hell.
So they sued us.”
It was a long court case and Gatorade was eventually sold to
Quaker Oats, which merged with Pepsico, and after a settlement
both Cade and the university shared in the royalties. [Florida has
raked in $150 million alone since 1973, according to the AP.]
Cade, by the way, once ran a 4:20 mile in high school.
–Mel Tolkin, RIP…Tolkin was head writer for Sid Caesar’s
“Your Show of Shows” that aired from 1950-54. Imagine a 90-
minute, live, weekly that featured writers Mel Brooks, Neil and
Danny Simon, Larry Gelbart, and even Woody Allen (1954), as
well as cast members Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard
Morris and Caesar. Mel Brooks said of Tolkin, who died at the
age of 94, that “Mel taught me that the best comedy had to come
from the human condition. He was never Bob Hope
contemporary – he never mentioned the president or what was
happening in the country at the time. It was always the human
condition, what happened in the human heart, and he taught me
that. I was very fortunate to be a student in the Mel Tolkin
class.”
Margalit Fox / New York Times
“Broadcast live on Saturday nights, ‘Your Show of Shows’ was a
voracious beast that had to be fed 90 minutes of pitch-perfect
comedy every week. For the writers, this meant laboring seven
days a week, 39 weeks a year, in the famed (and famously
unsanitary) Writers’ Room, an office on West 56th Street in
Manhattan.
“In the heady atmosphere of cigar smoke, pooled coffee and
cures for a thousand diseases growing on long-forgotten
sandwiches, Mr. Tolkin and his colleagues paced, muttered,
swore, occasionally typed and more than occasionally threw
things: crumpled paper cups, cigars (lighted) and much else. The
acoustical-tile ceiling was fringed with pencils, which had been
flung aloft in a rage and stuck fast; Mr. Tolkin once counted 39
of them suspended there.
“The room was an orgy of interruption. ‘Nobody ever finished a
sentence,’ Mr. Tolkin told the New York Times in 1982.
‘Somebody else would jump on it, competitively grab a sentence,
a thought.’
“When the pace slackened, Mr. Tolkin had the perfect spur.
‘Gentlemen, we’ve got to get something done!’ he cried. ‘Jews
all over America will be watching Saturday night!’
“As Mr. Tolkin and other writers made repeatedly clear in
interviews, a shtetl past, which many of them shared, proved an
ideal qualification for the job.
“ ‘I lived through pogroms in the Ukraine,’ Mr. Tolkin told the
Los Angeles Times in 1992. [He was born Shmuel Tolchinsky
there on Aug. 3, 1913.] ‘The pressurs made heroes of some, and
poets and violinists of some. But it made for a lot of broken
human beings too. I’m not happy to have to say this: It created
the condition where humor becomes anger made acceptable with
a joke.’”
–The great jockey Bill Hartack died at 74. He was a five-time
winner of the Kentucky Derby (1957, 60, 62, 64 and 69). He
also won the Preakness three times and the Belmont once.
Hartack was so good he was inducted into racing’s Hall of Fame
in 1959 at 26. Hartack died while on a hunting trip in Texas.
I’m pretty sure Dick Cheney was back in Washington taking care
of his latest heart issue, in case you were just musing as I was.
–Steve Politi / Star-Ledger
“This was 24 hours after one of the most putrid performances by
a Giants quarterback since they wore leather helmets, and we
demanded answers from Eli Manning.
“Did he pound his fist on the steering wheel as he drove out of
the Giants Stadium parking lot? Slam the refrigerator door after
fetching a post-game snack at his Hoboken condominium? Give
brother Peyton, in attendance at this latest debacle, a mean-
spirited noogie?
“Anything?
“ ‘You treat it like any other loss,’ the Giants quarterback said as
he stood at his locker yesterday, employing an impressive
collection of clichés and platitudes to explain why his four-
interception outing against Minnesota hadn’t made his blood
boil. ‘We have lost games this season and in the past. Our
attitude hasn’t changed.’
“So if seeing Manning knock over a Gatorade bucket will make
you feel better about this 41-17 loss, it isn’t going to happen –
unless you try dressing the bucket up in a Vikings uniform. He
might drill it with an errant pass.
“Otherwise, Manning was his usual aw-shucks self after the loss,
and was again yesterday, and will be tomorrow, and the next day.
We are exactly 50 starts and 50 post-game press conferences into
his career now, and it is time we come to grips with something.
“This is who he is….
“The problem has nothing to do with Manning, the leader, and
everything to do with Manning, the passer. Because just as it’s
clear he won’t change as a person, it’s starting to become
obvious that he is who he is as a quarterback, too.”
And that ain’t good, Giants fans.
–The Chia Pet!!!!!
Owen Edwards has a piece in the December 2007 issue of
Smithsonian on the inventor of the Chia Pet, Joe Pedott, 75. Like
almost all products of this kind, it seems, Pedott describes the
Chia as “a really lucky accident.”
“In the mid-1950s, after moving from Chicago, where he grew
up, to San Francisco, the 25-year-old Pedott opened his own
advertising firm. He continued to return regularly to his
hometown, however. In 1977, on the lookout for potential
clients, he attended the annual housewares show in the Windy
City. There he asked a buyer from a large West Coast drugstore
chain about his big holiday sellers. ‘He told me that something
called the Chia Pet always sold out,’ Pedott recalls. ‘So I went
over to talk with a man named Walter Houston, who was
importing the little figures from Mexico.’ Houston, however,
wasn’t turning much profit on the enterprise.”
Pedott thought he could do a better job and negotiated to buy the
product from Houston. He then went to Mexico to check out
where the Chia were made. It was there he learned a middle man
had been cheating Houston, thus the reason why Houston didn’t
turn a big profit.
So Pedott began manufacturing, importing and advertising the
Chia. “Back in San Francisco, at an agency brainstorming
session, someone pretended to stutter the name; Pedott knew a
good thing when he heard it, and ‘Ch-ch-ch-Chia’ entered the
Valhalla of memorable advertising catchphrases.”
Owen Edwards adds, “The ch-ch-ch-Chia is so much a part of
American consumer lore that it was ch-ch-ch-chosen to be
included in a New York Times time capsule, to be opened in the
year 3000, along with a Purple Heart medal, a can of Spam and a
Betty Crocker cookbook.”
That’s the beauty of Spam. It will be the same consistency in
3000 as it is today.
Back to Pedott, his company also produces and advertises the
Clapper, which my brother did give me one Christmas, providing
hours of enjoyment while drinking premium beer.
–Just last week, a salmon farm in Northern Ireland was
destroyed when jellyfish moved in, laid down a carpet, and
suffocated one of man’s best friends. [In case you haven’t
figured it out, when the next Bar Chat All-Species List comes
out, the salmon will have moved up significantly in the
rankings.]
So the Wall Street Journal had a front page story on Monday by
Sebastian Moffett on the Nomura jellyfish that has invaded the
waters off Japan. “The creatures can measure six feet across and
weigh up to about 450 pounds. They have been drifting en
masse to places like Oki, a small island 40 miles off the coast,
bobbing beneath the surface of the water like pink mines. They
rip holes in fishermen’s nets, and they poison fish.”
Run for your lives!!!!
There was a time when only a few were seen in the Sea of Japan,
but during the biggest invasion, in 2005, “an estimated 500
million jellyfish – not yet mature – drifted in each day.”
Nothing worse than an “immature” jellyfish, I always say.
“It’s hard to calculate financial damage to fishermen, but the
Japanese government last year counted about 50,000 incidents of
jellyfish trouble. Fish poisoned by jellyfish tentacles die with
their mouths agape. That mars their appearance and reduces
their value by as much as 20%. ‘When their mouths are wide
open, it means they’ve died going, ‘I’m in pain! I’m in pain!’’
explained fisherman Ryoichi Yoshida.”
Almost sounds like the Nomura jellyfish is into waterboarding,
as incongruous as this might seem.
Researchers, looking into the causes of the explosion in the
Nomura population, blame pollution and the Three Gorges Dam
in China, which could be changing water flows to the sea.
–So I’m reading the paper and I see this note on the ten most
shark-infested beaches in the world, via forbestraveler.com, and
I’m thinking, good, something to pass along to the readers.
But then I read the full piece and it really doesn’t have anything
interesting, plus, more importantly, I see the article was written
with the help of the International Shark Attack File.
No wonder the story was worthless. As you all know from my
exclusive work on the topic, the researchers at the ISAF produce
fraudulent data. For example, you know that the island chain of
Vanuatu is the biggest place in the world for shark attacks, with
some 43 fatalities a day, but Vanuatu is nowhere to be found on
the top ten list. Truly bogus.
Some day when I run for political office, one of the crowd
pleasers in my stump speech would be, “And we need to know
the truth about shark attacks!” [Aarghhh!!!!!]
[I was just told by my political adviser that I may instead want to
stick to tax cuts and more funds for education. Point taken.]
–A Faberge egg owned by the Rothschild banking family is
expected to fetch anywhere from $12 million to $18 million at an
auction by Christie’s International. The previous record for such
a trinket is $9.6 million. The Rothschild egg was first hatched in
1902, an engagement gift (once it was gussied up) to Baron
Edourd de Rothschild. It has a clock and a diamond-set cockerel
that pops up every hour and flaps its wings. Go on to Christie’s
site just to get a load of this thing. The auctioneers must be
scared to death. “I ain’t touching it…you pick it up!”
Actually, auction sites are among my favorites. For example,
Christie’s, at a separate auction of American art, is selling a
Norman Rockwell painting of a 1939 Saturday Evening Post
cover of Santa. Estimate? $2.5 million to $3.5 million. Too bad
the Rock Man can’t share in the proceeds.
–Phil W. passed along an article by Wallace Matthews of
Newsday on our beloved New York Mets. In all honesty, there
is zero reason to be optimistic about the coming season. Coupled
with last fall’s historic collapse, I will be committing hari-kari
around May 15.
–In “For Worse….,” Michael Patterson has now sold six copies
of “Stone Season,” but Dr. P. is attempting to manipulate the
New York Times bestseller list in true dirtball fashion. Actually,
Jeff B. and I don’t know this for a fact but we’re convinced the
truth will finally be revealed this weekend.
Top 3 songs for the week 11/29/69: #1 “Come Together /
Something” (The Beatles) #2 “And When I Die” (Blood, Sweat
& Tears) #3 “Wedding Bell Blues” (The 5th Dimension)…and…
#4 “Take A Letter Maria” (R.B. Greaves…if you could
remember this guy’s name, pour yourself a cold frosty) #5 “Na
Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” (Steam) #6 “Smile A Little
Smile For Me” (The Flying Machine) #7 “Leaving On A Jet
Plane” (Peter, Paul and Mary) #8 “Yester-Me, Yester-You,
Yesterday” (Stevie Wonder) #9 “Down On The Corner /
Fortunate Son” (Creedence Clearwater) #10 “Eli’s Coming”
(Three Dog Night………….great top three, rest of the list blows)
*Jeff S. reminded me that songwriter Jimmy Webb [“Wichita
Lineman,” “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” “Galveston,” and
“Up, Up and Away”] also wrote the Brooklyn Bridge’s hit song
“Worst That Could Happen.”
So once again, get out of your cubicles and let’s all sing along.
Girl, I heard you’re getting married
Heard you’re getting married, this time you’re really sure
And this is the end, they say you really mean it
This guy’s the one that makes you feel so safe, so sane and so
secure
And, baby, if he loves you more than me
Maybe it’s the best thing
Maybe it’s the best thing for you
But it’s the worst that could happen to me
I’ll never get married
Never get married, you know that’s not my scene
But a girl like you needs to be married
I’ve known all along you couldn’t live forever in between
And, baby, if he loves you more than me
Maybe it’s the best thing
Maybe it’s the best thing for you
But it’s the worst that could happen to me
And, girl, I don’t really blame you for having a dream of your
own
Hey, girl, I don’t really blame you [now shout into the stapler….]
A WOMAN LIKE YOU NEEDS A HOUSE AND A HOME,
BABY!!!!
If he really loves you more than me
Maybe it’s the best thing
Maybe it’s the best thing for you
But it’s the worst that could happen
[Find a trumpet player in your office, who remembered to bring
one in….]
Taaa…taaa….ta ta ta ta ta….taaaa….taaaa….ta ta ta ta ta….
Oh, girl, don’t wanna get married
Girl, I’m never, never gonna marry, no no
No, it’s the worst that could happen
The worst that could happen
Oh, girl, the worst that could happen………………….
NCAA Football Quiz Answers: 1) Mike Adamle rushed for
2,015 yards for Northwestern, 1968-70, before spending six
years in the NFL. 2) Gary Barnett coached Northwestern’s great
1995 squad. 3) George Gipp averaged over 6.3 per carry for
Notre Dame, 1917-20. 4) Terry Hanratty quarterbacked Notre
Dame, 1966-68, including the #1 team in ’66. 5) Joe Theismann
replaced Hanratty, 1968-70.
*Tidbit: The 1966 edition of the Fighting Irish outscored its
opponents 362-38, including the famous 10-10 tie with Michigan
State.
Next Bar Chat, Monday.
