NFL Quiz: 1) In postseason play, who is the only player to have four interceptions in a game? [Hint: 1979…Houston vs. San Diego] 2) This year Indianapolis tied what team for most consecutive seasons in the postseason at 9? [Hint: Steak started post-1970] 3) Name the two players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the initials T.M. [Modern-day, careers for both started post-1955] Answers below.
The Final Four
Green Bay at Chicago…cloudy, 20s…Packers by 3 ½
Jets at Pittsburgh…partly cloudy, 20s…Steelers by 3 ½ [Bodog.net]
To say the least, the pre-game atmosphere for Jets-Steelers is quite different from the prior New York-New England affair. May the best team win, I say. Nothing but respect from me when it comes to Pittsburgh. And the two coaches like each other, a lot. To wit:
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin: “I love Rex. Rex has a lot of fun with you guys (the media). But when you see past all of those things, man, this is a great football coach. He has the pulse of his football team. And his glass is always half full. I appreciate that.”
Earlier, Ryan, fresh off his trash-talkin’ win against the Patriots, said of Tomlin: “I have a huge amount of respect for (him). He’s one of my favorite coaches.”
Ryan then talked of a time when he was Baltimore’s defensive coordinator and Tomlin’s Steelers thrashed Ryan’s Ravens 38-7.
“We were getting crushed [35-7 at halftime], and they ran the ball on every snap in the second half,” Ryan said. “He wasn’t trying to rub our nose in it. He had respect for us.”
“[The Steelers] had a fullback who was telling Bart [Scott] to look at the scoreboard and he was talking on the sideline. And there was a timeout and Bart came over and said, ‘Come on back in because we don’t play to the scoreboard. We are going to play as hard as we can anyway,’” Ryan said. “Tomlin looks over and goes, ‘Bart, you want a piece of him?’ Bart goes, ‘Yeah.’ [Tomlin] sends the kid back in there. They run isolation and Bart separated the kid’s shoulder. That’s one of my favorite stories and it told me a lot about Mike Tomlin. He’s that kind of guy. He’s a man’s man and his team plays like that.” [Mark Cannizzaro / New York Post]
Yes, the tone is quite different compared to Jets-Patriots. In the aftermath of the Jets’ players celebrating on the Patriots’ turf, New England wide receiver Deion Branch ripped them.
“I think the embarrassing part came after the game with some of the classless guys that they have on the football field. After the game, just some of the classless guys…All the stuff they were doing on the football field [was classless.]”
Oh shut up, Deion. All-World corner Darrelle Revis responded: “Just take the loss like a man, just take it like a man. And move on. [The Patriots] do stuff as well….If they would have won, I’m sure they would have probably did…the taunting, like they do. Last game we played them, their secondary was doing the ‘airplane’ [a Jets celebration] and just teasing us. So you’ve got to take it both ways when you win or lose. When you play, just try to prove people wrong and win the game, that’s all I can say.”
And then there was Bart Scott, who after the Jets’ win Sunday totally went off on New England, Deion Branch and Wes Welker’s pre-game remarks about Rex Ryan and the foot videos. Before the game, Scott said of Welker: “Be very careful what you say about our coach. His [Welker’s] days in a uniform will be numbered. Put it like that.”
Afterwards, Scott said: “They made it personal ‘cause they attacked my coach. I’ll go to war for a man who’s willing to put himself on the front line and fight with his troops, instead of dictating from a tower and sending ‘em into battle. Because the reason people have his back is he’s protecting us. He was saying [last week] it was his fault that we lost last time. We know we didn’t play our best, that they came out and had more of a sense of urgency than us, and took it to us. We knew we played a huge part in that defeat. Yet he puts himself out there. How can you not play hard for a man like that?”
For his part, Coach Bill Belichick said the day after his team’s devastating loss: “Disappointing today. We had our chances yesterday. In the end, we couldn’t make as many plays as they did. That’s playoff football.”
As Mark Viera of the New York Times described it, “At a news conference at Gillette Stadium, Belichick wore an emotionless expression with his trademark sweatshirt and spit words from his mouth as if they were pieces of rotten fruit. He cracked a wry smile twice – barely.”
“The job is to run across the middle of the field and catch passes while avoiding the assorted 270-pound sociopaths who would like nothing more than to knock him into the nearest head-trauma unit. He is asked to literally risk life and limb on every play, and for four seasons now, no one in New England has done it better than Wes Welker.
“He has led the league in receptions twice and is the only NFL player ever with three straight seasons with 110 catches. He came back from reconstructive knee surgery dangerously fast, and was awarded the NFL’s Ed Block Courage Award. He has been named to the Pro Bowl three times, including this year when he will play for AFC coach Bill Belichick, assuming he keeps his mouth shut.
“Welker has earned nearly every award and honor out there, but apparently there is one thing he has not yet earned.
“As CBS reported before kickoff Sunday, Welker was bounced from the Patriots’ starting lineup and benched for one offensive series for speaking out of school. It was not the most shocking news of the day – that, of course, would be Jets 28, Patriots 21 – but it was a surprise nonetheless. If Belichick has one rule, it is this: We do what’s best for the team, always and without exception.
“Unless someone makes a footie joke. Then we make an example of him in front of 43.5 million people.
“How did this help? Who did this serve? Welker is the second-most important offensive player on the Patriots, and he sat out the first eight offensive plays. He came off the bench to make seven catches for 57 yards. He dropped a ball at the goal line. He had a decent game, nothing great. The Patriots offense, which had operated like the NFL version of the Blue Angels for the last two months, sputtered and stalled. Welker’s punishment probably had nothing to do with the ineffectiveness of the offense, but if we put it to the Belichick test, we have to ask: How did it help the team?
“On WEEI yesterday, Vince Wilfork said, ‘People have opinions and my opinion (is) I wouldn’t have done it because of what the game meant.’
“I wouldn’t have done it because I thought what Welker did was brilliant. After days of insults and obscenities from the Jets – they called his quarterback an [expletive], among other things – Welker returned fire, and he did it in a remarkably clever and subtle way. In fact, when he made 11 foot references in one brief press conference, some people weren’t sure if he even had any mischief in his heart. He kept everyone guessing. Kept them on their toes, if you will. It was performance art. Steven Wright would have been proud….
“Belichick went about it a different way: He benched his star receiver, berated an assistant coach on the sideline, and failed to take responsibility for the botched fake punt.
“Somehow the man who came to define the Patriots Way lost his way and lost the game. He broke his own golden rule: he didn’t do what was best for his team. Maybe it’s not the biggest upset in NFL history, but it’s up there. This one is going to leave a mark.”
“The rational part of our brain wants to congratulate the Patriots for exceeding preseason expectations and compiling the best record in the NFL. This is a young team that was facing a rugged schedule, and some of us (me) thought they would go 8-8. They had a raft of undrafted free agents (22) and 11 rookies. They ran the table in the second half, beating opponents by more than 21 points per game. They won at Pittsburgh, at Chicago, and at San Diego. They dealt Randy Moss, then magically got better on offense….
“It was all teed up for a return to the Super Bowl, a chance to right the wrongs of the upset in the desert at the hands of the Giants Feb. 3, 2008. The 14-2 Patriots had the highest-scoring offense in football. They set an NFL record for fewest turnovers and had a plus-28 advantage in takeaways. They had home field for the playoffs. They had the scary Colts and Ravens taken out of the mix. All they had to do was beat a team they beat, 45-3, then beat another team they thrashed on the road…and they were back in the Super Bowl….
“So this season goes down as a failure. It was a golden opportunity and it is gone. There are only going to be so many of these opportunities in the professional lifetime of Tom Brady. We all know the Patriots should have gone to Dallas.
“Compounding the missed opportunity we have the emergence of the Jets. Make no mistake about it; the Jets are going to be a nightmare for years. Sunday’s shocker at Gillette is to the Jets what the 2004 American League Championship Series was to the Red Sox. Jet fans always are going to be able to throw this in the face of Patriots fans. Forever.
“ ‘This is probably the first time the Jets have taken something important away from the Patriots,’ said linebacker Bart Scott. ‘Game on. And they hate us forever because the feeling is mutual…At the end of the day, this is a soft group…I guess you guys got the guru on the other side. You guys talk about how great he is. Maybe you guys will start giving our coach some credit for what he’s doing.’
“The Patriots cleared out their lockers yesterday and noble Patrick Chung took all the blame for the botched fake punt that turned the game around at the end of the first half. Chung comes across as a stand-up guy, but I still can’t figure out why a second-year player is allowed to make a decision of that magnitude. If Terry Francona tells David Ortiz that he’s on his own on the base paths – and then Big Papi gets thrown out trying to steal home – do we blame Ortiz?
“Bill Belichick still hasn’t adequately explained the nonchalant play calling in the fourth quarter. Trailing by 10 with 13 minutes to play, the Patriots went about their business with no urgency, running 7:45 off the clock with a 14-play drive that produced no points. After that, it was too late to do anything….
“So it’s a long, cold winter. Watching the rest of these playoffs will be unbearable because the Patriots were in position to return to the Super Bowl. They haven’t won a playoff game in three years. They still should be playing. And that’s why this season was a failure.”
And as I noted in my own comments following Sunday’s game, Jim Nantz and Phil Simms missed the importance of former Jet Dennis Byrd’s speech to the team on Saturday night, when there were few dry eyes in the house, as it emerged.
“This is it,” Byrd told them, he having recovered from a paralyzing neck injury suffered on the field in 1992. “It’s not looking to the future, it’s not next year or we need this piece or that piece, or we’ll be better when we do this. It’s now.”
Guard Brandon Moore described the scene. The room “went quiet” when Byrd came out after a video of his career was shown.
“The room was emotional,” Moore said. “The story and what he was trying to get across wasn’t the fact that he got hurt. The story was more about the mind, the body, that spirit and will we all have inside of us.”
Braylon Edwards, of whom I noted last time was immensely moved by Byrd prior to the game, said of his 15-yard TD reception, “I felt Dennis Byrd with me as I made that play. I felt his spirit.”
“I had a sense of that we needed to win this for him.” [Mark Cannizzarro / New York Post]
Understand that the beloved Byrd had never spoken to the Jets team since his injury, but he told one of the scouts with the organization he wanted to send the team the jersey he wore on the day he was paralyzed to help inspire them. The scout talked to Rex Ryan and Ryan said, get him out here to talk to his men directly. A brilliant move.
Lastly, for the final word (for now) on Jets-Pats and why us Jets fans are handling this tremendous win the way we are, I turn to Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal.
“What if the New York Jets weren’t the New York Jets? What if Rex Ryan’s green rogues were instead a beacon of humility – a soft-spoken franchise that didn’t crow, didn’t chirp, didn’t predict Super Bowls, didn’t crudely curse their opponents, didn’t thunder at every slight real or imagined, didn’t celebrate victories by running around with their arms outstretched like Boeing wings, and weren’t led by a loud coach fond of distilling a team sport into a narcissistic revenge fantasy?
“Let’s curb all the cheap, easy moralizing about the Despicable Jets. Time to end the caterwauling about the End of Sports Civility and the theatrical hand-wringing about the pristine sensibilities of young fans. Let’s stop leaving a copy of John Wooden’s ‘Pyramid of Success’ on Mr. Ryan’s bedside table and hoping he’ll transmogrify into the genteel Wizard of Westwood. Call off the town-meeting intervention with Tony Dungy, Coach K and Miss Manners. The pitchfork parade of Jets haters, so eager to see Earth’s Most Obnoxious Team get a comeuppance, has officially become prissy, joyless and sooo last week.
“In a swaggering rebuke, the Jets backed their big talk on Sunday…Confirmed loon Mr. Ryan outcoached confirmed genius Bill Belichick, the earthbound Mark Sanchez out-quarterbacked the otherworldly Tom Brady, and the ‘Same Old Jets’ will leave their Meadowlands garage apartment for a second consecutive AFC Championship game. The Great Jets Comeuppance is postponed – at least until Sunday in Pittsburgh. The wild-card Jets are the NFL guest that won’t leave – propping a pair of muddy cleats up on Roger Goodell’s coffee table, belching loudly and asking what’s left in the fridge.
“Surely there are those who will continue the high-minded crusade against the Jets. No doubt Mr. Ryan and his men do and say foolish things, but there has been something misplaced and overbaked about the outrage. This is football, after all – cartoonish, violent, excessive entertainment. It’s a multibillion-dollar sport with high-tech gimmicks that still has old men reaching into their socks to pull out red kerchiefs to stop play. It’s supported by beer commercials that depict men as 13-year-old half-wits and women as appendages. It has Tony Siragusa and Ron Jaworski and Chris Berman. It’s goofy. It’s not church.
“Does football really want the Jets to tone it down? The game’s establishment loves to condemn misbehavior in the short term, only to turn around and celebrate the same misbehavior a generation later….
“(As) more than one Jets employee shouted Sunday as the players merrily ran off the field, arms stuck out horizontally, this is why the games get played. If there is one hazard of a brutish New York Cinderella in the semifinals, it’s the inevitable attention they will suck away not only from the formidable Steelers, but also a delicious Chicago-Green Bay NFC Championship – the latter a matchup so classic and old-school it should be played in two feet of snow and broadcast in black and white.
“This is not the Jets’ concern. They’re not worried about the Steelers, Bears or Packers. They’ve been telling you since the summer that they’re going to win the Super Bowl. You don’t have to like them, but maybe now it’s time to start taking their crazy words a little more seriously.”
Oh, for sure the NFL loved Jets-Pats. It proved to be the most watched divisional playoff game ever, peaking at 52.3 million viewers in the fourth quarter.
College Basketball Review
AP Men’s Poll
1. Ohio State*
2. Kansas*
3. Syracuse
4. Duke
5. Pitt
6. San Diego State*
7. Villanova
8. UConn
9. BYU
10. Texas
22. Saint Mary’s…only losses to BYU and SDSU
*only remaining undefeateds after Syracuse lost, post-poll, to Pitt.
So I watched as much college basketball on Monday as I have in one day since last March and the two Big East contests, Villanova at UConn and Syracuse at Pitt, didn’t disappoint, though the ‘Nova contest took a while to get going as both teams shot 24% from the field in the first half. But once again the Huskies’ Kemba Walker hit clutch shots down the stretch, including another game-winner. The guy has been remarkable this year.
But Johnny Mac and I were exchanging notes during the Pitt game and, boy, we agreed the Panthers have a very nice club. Experienced and gritty. Would love to see them in the Final Four. [For new readers both my parents went to Pitt and my relatives hail from the area so I’ve had a soft spot for the Panthers….and growing up it was fun being a part-time Steelers fan, especially when the Jets sucked.]
AP Women’s Poll
1. Baylor
2. UConn
3. Duke
4. Stanford
5. Tennessee
21. Wisc.-Green Bay
–Last time I wrote that the Los Angeles Clippers were “rapidly improving,” and then a few hours after I posted on Sunday night, the Clippers defeated the Lakers. And then the next day, Blake Griffin went off for 47 points on 19 of 25 shooting from the field as the Clippers defeated Indiana. Suddenly, the Clippers, longtime 4th fiddle to the Lakers, have gone 10-4 after starting out 5-21. True, they have a long ways just to get back to .500, and probably won’t this season, but finally there really is light at the end of the tunnel for this pathetic franchise. Just as a sports fan, you want them to succeed. It would also be great for Los Angeles to have an inner city rivalry.
–Meanwhile, my Knicks (22-19 heading into Wednesday’s contest) are suddenly moving in the wrong direction just as they were successful in winning back fans. In fact the Knicks now have their first waiting list for season tickets in ten years.
–The LPGA Tour doesn’t begin until Feb. 17 and it’s getting so bad for the ladies that of only 25 events this year, 13 are overseas and in one, called the Founders Cup, honoring those who played in the first LPGA tournament in 1950, the ladies have to play for free just like the pioneers of their tour did 60 years ago! “An imaginary $1.3 million purse for the 132 players in the Founders Cup will count toward the LPGA official money list, and Rolex Ranking points also will be on offer.” The commissioner, Mike Whan (in his second year), is hoping to raise $500,000 for the LPGA Foundation and its support of girls golf.
So of the then 24 events offering real, not Monopoly, money, 12 of them will also have limited fields of no more than 100.
What did I write in my exclusive comparisons of the PGA and LPGA tours? Only about 30 women make a comfortable living…30…when you take into consideration the very considerable expenses involved, and now, forget that there are only 24 paying tournaments, half of which are limited fields, but you have the 13 overseas events! Thailand, Singapore, China, Malaysia, South Korea, France…and Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico in April, which Commissioner Whan readily admits will probably be canceled due to the drug war. “(As) I always say, ‘I wouldn’t send anybody anywhere I wouldn’t send my daughter.’” Do you think some rather hefty travel expenses are involved? Good luck LPGA in 2011.
–You know those rumors that Dustin Johnson was not only dating the LPGA’s Natalie Gulbis, but that he withdrew from a tournament the other day to take care of business back home, like tell his other girlfriend he was seeing someone else? Johnson said last weekend he hasn’t been dating anyone for two months, not even Gulbis, which might be a surprise to her.
Johnson spoke out because he said he was tired of hearing gossip that he withdrew over his relationship with Gulbis. Dustin claims he broke up with college girlfriend Amanda Caulder a few months ago. “For people to say I went home to repair the relationship is completely false.” He says that when it comes to Gulbis, yes, they’ve spent time together but they are not in a relationship.
Well, Dustin, sounds like Natalie thinks it’s something more. But do us golf fans a favor. Clear this all up soon and start refocusing on golf because the tour needs you performing at top level.
—Davis Love III is going to be the U.S. Ryder Cup captain in 2012, no surprise after being Corey Pavin’s vice captain. So that will be another Cup squad led by a largely emotionless figure, though Love has always been popular among his fellow players.
–New York Giants safety Antrel Rolle is one of the true jerks on a planet filled with them. During an interview with a Miami radio station, he said, “On a personal level, honestly, [head coach Tom Coughlin] is one of the best guys to be around. Very caring. Honest guy. Very straightforward.”
But then Rolle was asked about Coughlin as a head coach and Rolle responded:
“Honestly, that’s where the problem comes in with me, as a coach. Since I’ve been playing the game since the age of six, to me it’s never been about the money, it’s never been about anything more than winning and having fun.”
So, Antrel, you’re not having fun playing for Coughlin?
“Honestly, I’m not having the fun….I feel like if he just loosened up just a little bit, still run the ship the way you want to run it, still run the program the way you want to run it but let us have a little fun…because at the end of the day that’s what it’s all about.”
You see, Antrel is jealous of that other team sharing the Meadowlands.
“And people like to talk about Rex Ryan and this that and the other. That team is going to war for him.”
Giants teammate Kenny Phillips, appearing on the radio program with Rolle (the two were also teammates at the Univ. of Miami), concurred. “I would love to play for a guy like Rex.”
Gee, nothing like throwing your coach under the bus, when it was you guys, Giants, that choked in historic fashion down the stretch.
–Interesting goings on in St. Louis as Albert Pujols says if a contract extension isn’t worked out by the start of spring training, he’s cutting off negotiations. Pujols is earning $16 million in this his option year, but as I noted during the Derek Jeter negotiations, what do you pay Pujols? He just turned 31 last weekend
–The Milwaukee Brewers signed Prince Fielder to a $15.5 million, one-year contract, the highest single-season contract for an arbitration-eligible player. The Brewers know they won’t be able to keep Fielder past the upcoming season, after which he becomes a free agent, so it’s yet another sign the Brewers are going all in to win it this year. Fielder is still just 26, so imagine what he’ll get in free agency assuming he has another solid season, plus he’s represented by agent Scott Boras.
–Speaking of cash, it was in 2007 that the Kansas City Royals showed they weren’t afraid to spend money in signing pitcher Gil Meche to a five-year, $55 million contract.
But in his fist four seasons he was just 29-39 with a 4.27 ERA and on Tuesday, Meche announced he was retiring due to shoulder problems. His first two seasons under the contract he actually pitched well despite going just 23-24, throwing over 200 innings each year with a quality ERA, but then as ESPN.com points out, in a June 17, 2009 effort, he threw a career-high 132 pitches in shutting out Arizona and was 2-10 with a 6.86 ERA afterwards.
So, that’s the other side of the ‘number of pitches thrown’ debate. At least Meche did the honorable thing and walked away from the final year of his contract, said to be worth $12 million. He could have hung on and collected that rather considerable sum.
–The Mets signed another pitcher who has basically been sidelined with injury the last three years, 6’10” Chris Young, who spent the last five seasons in San Diego. As Johnny Mac said, the Metsies are looking like the Island of Misfit Toys. But Young is a Princeton graduate, and recently signed Chris Capuano is a Phi Beta Kappa out of Duke, and pitcher R.A. Dickey is an academic All-American out of Tennessee. Of course we’re still going 43-119, but I’m just so proud of them. I love talking about how smart my team is.
—Lance Armstrong’s troubles are far from over, according to the latest Sports Illustrated, which claims the investigation of his steroids activities, headed up by agent Jeff Novitzky, the man responsible for the probes of Barry Bonds and Marion Jones, is heating up further, with SI’s writers on the story claiming, “If a court finds that Armstrong won his titles while taking performance-enhancing drugs, his entourage may come to be known as the domestiques of the saddest deception in sports history.”
“In the late 1990s, (Armstrong) gained access to a drug, in clinical trial, called HemAssist, developed by Baxter Healthcare Corp. HemAssist was to be used for cases of extreme blood loss. In animal studies, it had been shown to boost the blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity, without as many risks as EPO.”
There are claims of airport searches of Armstrong’s luggage, which was filled with drugs and syringes, but his handlers were able to convince customs agents it was vitamins and he was injecting them.
USA Cycling sent drug test results to a UCLA specialist in 1999, tests said to be Armstrong’s, which showed extremely high ratios of testosterone vs. normal readings, and well above what would be considered “abnormally high” ratios.
It goes on and on. Novitzky doesn’t give up, and the big thing is Armstrong’s sponsorship by the U.S. Postal Service and possible conspiracy charges involving drug-running.
—Zenyatta won Horse of the Year, beating Blame 128 to 102 in the voting by followers of the sport. She was runner-up for the honor in 2008 and 2009. Zenyatta cost her owners Ann and Jerry Moss only $60,000 when they purchased her as a yearling in 2005, and now Zenyatta has retired to Lane’s End Farm in Kentucky, where the boys are lining up, I tell ya.
—Wendell ‘Bud’ Hurlbut died. He was 92. Hurlbut is credited with turning Knott’s Berry Farm into a modern amusement park. I’ve only been there once but have fond memories. I think it was spring 1969 and my father had a conference in Los Angeles and I was dragged out of school to go with my parents, which was a big thing for them to do, looking back on it. Then again, they already knew I was a lousy student so what was missing a week of fifth grade going to do?
Anyway, that same trip a friend of the family took me to Dodgers Stadium for a game against the Astros, which was very cool, but the payoff was we were staying at the same hotel as the Astros.
Now this was a different time, and I just stood by the elevator, waiting for the players to come down and they signed my blank sheet of paper. I filled it up, including a signature from Joe Morgan, years before he was traded to Cincinnati and became a superstar.
But in one of life’s true tragedies, not to be overly dramatic about it, I distinctly remember the box I put it in back home and then around my college years, lost the sheet of paper. Now I’m getting upset all over again.
Anyway, back to Knott’s Berry Farm, I didn’t know it was started by Walter Knott and his wife, Cordelia, who opened a tearoom, berry market and nursery to sell berry plants in the 1930s. By the 1940s, according to Keith Thursby of the Los Angeles Times, “they had a successful chicken dinner restaurant and added a ghost town.
“Hurlbut, who went to school with two of the Knotts’ children, started working with them in the 1950s, operating a merry-go-round at the farm.”
Hurlbutt then designed and built two of the signature attractions, the Calico Mine Ride and the Timber Mountain Log Ride. I went to both Knotts’ Berry Farm and Disneyland on this particular trip in ’69 and I distinctly remember liking Knotts better.
[Drat…now I’m wracking my brain all over again trying to figure out what happened to that autograph sheet….Hey, maybe it’s in my safe deposit box! Why I haven’t checked on this in decades! And I think I have a gold coin from Alaska’s founding in there! This could be exciting! Now what the hell did I do with the safe deposit box key?….uh oh….]
—Jennifer Aniston said she hated the hairstyle she had as Rachel on “Friends.” Personally, I love any hairstyle of Ms. Aniston’s.
–The great rock impresario Don Kirshner passed away at the age of 76. To some of us, Kirshner was best known for “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert,” which brought live acts to television instead of the often lip-synched sessions on shows like “Ed Sullivan” or “Shindig.” But he was far more than this.
From 1973 to 1982, Kirshner would introduce the likes of the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Sly & The Family Stone, Pink Floyd and Aerosmith. As one music critic told the Los Angeles Times, Kirshner was the bridge between Sullivan and MTV. Paul Shaffer also famously parodied Kirshner on “Saturday Night Live.”
But it was the same Don Kirshner who came up with the idea for the Monkees, after observing the success of the Beatles and their movie “A Hard Day’s Night.” The Monkees’ success led to them being dubbed “The Prefab Four.” But the group’s members tired of Kirshner’s total creative control over the Monkees’ material. Mike Nesmith famously put his fist through the wall of Kirshner’s home at the Beverly Hills Hotel during a heated session.
The Monkees would win and Kirshner was fired, so Kirshner then went out and founded the Archies! [Which was nothing more than a bunch of nameless studio musicians.]
Kirshner also had a music publishing company that hired rising songwriters Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka, and teams such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Plus he served as music supervisor on three Oscar-willing films, “To Sir With Love,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” and “Born Free.” And, he also had a huge role in the careers of Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Garry Shandling and David Letterman. Way back in 1963, he sold his publishing catalog for $3 million, a huge sum in those days.
I didn’t realize, though, that after “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” ended, he went into virtual seclusion in Florida with his wife, Sheila, though he had to file for bankruptcy, despite all his earlier success, because of bad business deals, including the loss of ownership of the master tapes from the “Rock Concert” series that were sold at auction for $125,000.
Don Kirshner was also bitter in his later years over not being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of its non-performer honorees.
Top 3 songs for the week 1/16/71: #1 “My Sweet Lord” (George Harrison) #2 “Knock Three Times” (Dawn) #3 “One Less Bell To Answer” (The 5th Dimension)…and…#4 “Black Magic Woman” (Santana) #5 “I Think I Love You” (The Partridge Family) #6 “Lonely Days” (Bee Gees) #7 “Groove Me” (King Floyd) #8 “Stoned Love” (The Supremes) #9 “Stoney End” (Barbra Streisand) #10 “The Tears Of A Clown” (Smokey Robinson & The Miracles)
NFL Quiz Answers: 1) Rookie defensive back Vernon Perry had four of Dan Fouts’ five interceptions in the 1979 division playoff game between Houston and San Diego. Perry had just three INTs in the regular season and finished his short career with 11, total. 2) Dallas had nine consecutive playoff appearances, 1975-83. 3) Wide receiver Tommy McDonald, 1957-68, and guard Tom Mack, 1966-78. I think McDonald was my first football card.
