NFL Quiz: Kansas City’s Jamaal Charles is averaging 5.6 yards per carry for his career, second all time among running backs. [Michael Vick is tops at 7.1] Name the running back who is No. 1 at 5.7, a Hall of Famer…and it’s not Jim Brown, who finished at 5.2. Answer below.
NFL Review
–Nice game Monday night for Baltimore kicker Justin Tucker, six field goals in the Ravens’ (8-6) critical 18-16 win over Detroit (7-7), including the winning 61-yarder with 43 seconds remaining. In NFL history just 14 field goals from 60-plus yards have now been made in the regular season, including Matt Prater’s record 64-yarder for Denver eight days earlier.
And Tucker’s kick mathematically eliminated the Jets from playoff contention. Whatever. The Jets had the final wildcard spot right there in front of them heading into their bye week, 5-4, but proceeded to lose 4 of 5.
So will Rex Ryan be back? If the Jets beat Cleveland and Miami to finish 8-8, almost everyone believes that will ensure Ryan does return. If not, it’s probably 50/50 he’s gone. Actually, if they lose both, his home in Summit will undoubtedly be put on the market by New Year’s.
–As for the fate of Washington’s Mike Shanahan, he is owed $7 million for next season so he’s not going anywhere…at least if he has anything to do with it. No one seems to know what owner Daniel Snyder will do, but what seems clear is it can’t be good for Robert Griffin III if Shanahan remains. Word is the two “haven’t been on good terms since about the middle of last season,” according to the Washington Post’s Jason Reid.
Griffin has taken his season-ending benching in stride, publicly, but he’s seething.
–Jonathan Clegg of the Wall Street Journal notes that Eli Manning’s main strength, going deep, has hardly been the case this year.
“During the 2011 season, which culminated in the team’s Super Bowl XLVI triumph, Manning amassed 1,490 yards and 12 touchdowns on throws that travelled at least 20 yards downfield, according to the statistical outlet Pro Football Focus, a record for quarterbacks since the site began charting pass distances in 2008.
“Since then, however, the Giants’ deep-passing attack has fallen short. Last season, Manning gained just 1,014 yards and eight touchdowns on passes of 20 yards or more. With two games remaining this season, he is on pace to finish with just 738 yards and five touchdowns on those throws.”
Now, as Clegg points out, the Giants’ lousy offensive line plays a major role in this lack of production deep…as in the Giants have allowed 38 sacks this season, twice as many as all of last year.
But in 2011, the Giants ranked last in rushing “and Manning was pressured on 254 dropbacks. But he still had the most prolific season of his career.”
“Of the 12 teams currently in position to make the playoffs, eight rank in the bottom half of the league for quarterback salaries. Conversely, of the top 15 highest-paid quarterbacks, only four are on track to make the playoffs.”
Quarterbacks get “tons of money while the other 52 players on the roster fight over the rest of the league-imposed $123 million salary cap….Eli Manning alone accounts for 17% of his team’s salary cap space.”
The purpose of Clark’s piece is to point out the absurdity of Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick, neither of which is the highest-priced QB on his team! [Tavaris Jackson of Seattle and Colt McCoy of San Francisco both make slightly more.]
To be fair, as Clark adds, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees “are supporting the arguments for high-priced quarterbacks.”
—Peyton Manning was named Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year. I can’t complain about this, but in the purest sense, Formula One’s Sebastian Vettel should have received it. Not only did he finish the year with nine consecutive wins, he now has four world driving championships at the age of 26!
College Football
–Louisville QB Teddy Bridgewater said he is “undecided” whether to return for his senior season, even as he’s the general consensus to be selected No. 1 if he comes out. But I can see what he’s doing. He wants to focus on the Cardinals’ bowl game against Miami before making the call. He also actually graduates Thursday with a degree in sports administration. Good for him. The first member of his family to graduate from college.
Bridgewater said the reason for returning for his senior season would be “playing in a new conference (ACC) against better talent and being able to play another year with guys I’ve had great relationships with at Louisville.”
Whenever he leaves school for the NFL, Teddy said he wants to be able to say, “I was able to leave college a better person than when I came to college.”
—Jameis Winston said he will play baseball with the Seminoles this spring and hopes to play both Major League Baseball and in the NFL at the same time.
“We’ve been waiting for someone to come along and do what Mack Brown did on Sunday, when he showed everyone the right way to end a glorious career, or at least a glorious tenure at one school. Maybe Brown coaches again. Maybe not. But his days coaching at Texas are done, and while there is much to be said about the 16 years that came before it, I’m going to focus instead on the day he said it was over.
“First of all, Brown got out of the way. He left. He saw that Texas football was not as good as Texas football should be, and he stepped aside. Was he forced out? Sure he was. Mack didn’t wake up last week and decide to give up the greatest job he will ever have simply because it was the right thing to do. He gave up this job because lots of Texas fans wanted him out and because some of the richest Texas boosters wanted him out and because school president Bill Powers lacked the principle and recently hired athletics director Steve Patterson lacked the power to make the meddlers stop.
“Brown needed to go, but how many great coaches have needed to go and actually left? Joe Paterno didn’t. He coached until he was 84, a figurehead at the end, presiding over a Penn State program he built from scratch and built so well that it was running on legacy for his final decade. Paterno needed to go, but wouldn’t until the job was taken from him. Paterno stayed so long, so overly long, that he damn near coached to his deathbed. He was fired Nov. 9, 2011. He died 11 weeks later.
“Bobby Bowden needed to go, but didn’t. He coached until he was 80, a Florida State figurehead for even longer than Paterno was at Penn State….
“(The point being): Coaches don’t have the right to stay until they damn well please.
“The way he left? Even more admirable. Brown didn’t mourn the loss of his career on Sunday. He mourned the loss of 13 young men, kids really. College students. Somebody’s children. That’s where Mack Brown went when he was asked what he would change about his 16 years at Texas, a tenure that ended with Texas fans calling for his resignation and Texas boosters making it happen and his bosses doing nothing to stand in the way of that.
“ ‘Two things,’ Brown said. ‘I would want Cole Pittman back. And I would want the bonfire not to have happened at A&M.’
“Cole Pittman was a Texas sophomore defensive end who died in 2001 in a one-car accident. That came barely a year after 12 Texas A&M students died during construction of the annual bonfire the week of the Texas game….
“ ‘When you lose your children, there is nothing worth that in the world,’ Brown said Sunday. ‘I think about that every Thanksgiving because there are 12 families that don’t have a good Thanksgiving. That will never go away.’
“That was Texas football coach Mack Brown’s answer to the final question on the day he announced he was resigning. I can’t think of a more difficult way to end that press conference. Can’t think of a better way, either.”
–Army dumped head coach Rich Ellerson after the Black Knights lost to Navy for a 12th consecutive time, five under Ellerson who was 20-41 at West Point. After Army went 7-6 in 2010, it has gone 3-9, 2-10 and 3-9.
—AP All-American First Team
QB – Jameis Winston, Florida State
RB – Andre Williams, Boston College; Ka’Deem Carey, Arizona
WR – Brandin Cooks, Oregon State; Mike Evans, Texas A&M
TE – Jace Amaro, Texas Tech
All-purpose player – Jordan Lynch, Northern Illinois
DE – Michael Sam, Missouri; Jackson Jeffcoat, Texas
DT – Aaron Donald, Pittsburgh; Will Sutton, Arizona State
QB – Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M
RB – Tre’ Mason, Auburn; Bishop Sankey, Washington
WR – Sammy Watkins, Clemson; Davante Adams, Fresno State
TE – Eric Ebron, North Carolina
–USA TODAY Mock NFL Draft
1. Texans…Teddy Bridgewater
2. Rams (via WASH)…Anthony Barr, LB, UCLA
3. Raiders…Jadeveon Clowney, DE, South Carolina
4. Jaguars…Blake Bortles, QB, UCF…are you kidding me?!
5. Falcons…Jake Matthews, OT, Texas A&M
6. Browns…Derek Carr, QB, Fresno State…wow
7. Buccaneers…Greg Robinson, OT, Auburn
8. Vikings…Brett Hundley, QB, UCLA
9. Bills…Sammy Watkins, WR, Clemson
10. Titans…Khalil Mack, LB, Buffalo…don’t be surprised
13. Jets…Mike Evans, WR, Texas A&M…that would be sweet
College Basketball…AP Poll
1. Arizona
2. Syracuse
3. Ohio State
4. Wisconsin
5. Michigan State
6. Louisville
7. Oklahoma State
T-8. Villanova
T-8. Duke
10. UConn
11. Wichita State
13. Oregon…Duckwear close to making it back to primary sports drawer
14. North Carolina
20. Colorado
22. UMass
24. San Diego State
–So it’s been an incredibly ugly start to the season for New York fans of the Knicks and Nets, but on Monday, what a horrid, stupefying ending to the Knicks-Wizards game, a 102-101 loss at the Garden.
“This one’s different. After this calamitous loss, the questions are simpler than any that have come before, speaking to the very competence of the basketball operation….
“It’s one thing to lose, after all. It’s something else entirely to do as many things wrong as the Knicks did in the final 24.2 seconds of this game – mental, physical, all of it, right down to a team-wide basketball IQ that barely hovers around room temperature now….
“Still (after New York’s Beno Udrih missed a foul shot with the Knicks then up 101-100), the Knicks were armed with certain advantages. They had a foul to give. They had a pretty good idea who was going to take the shot. Most important, they had three timeouts – two fulls and a 20 – if they had to stare down a worst-case scenario. They had an answer for everything. Everything except one:
“A self-imposed clown show.”
They never used the foul to give. Washington’s Bradley Beal got the ball, “raced past Udrih as if he weren’t there, so Udrih couldn’t take the foul. He reached the basket before Andrea Bargnani, among others, could impede him or take the foul.
“Beal made the layup. He gave the Wizards the lead. But there was still this: There were still 6.9 seconds left. You call timeout. You regroup. You get the ball at midcourt. And you have a star player, Carmelo Anthony, who is overdue to make one of those buzzer beaters he used to be famous for in Denver.
Coach Mike Woodson didn’t call a timeout. “He had three. He left the game with three. He wakes up this morning with three. Maybe he figured he can use them if there’s traffic on the Tappan Zee one of these days?
“ ‘I probably should have taken a timeout there at the end,’ Woodson would admit later, in one of the no-kidding comments you’ll ever hear. He is a good man, and has been a good coach for these Knicks but after this, after failing to get across to his team to use their foul-to-give and then freezing as the game bled away?”
Melo launched a futile 30-foot desperation attempt that of course missed, “as the buzzer groaned, as 19,812 people frantically screamed, ‘CALL A #$$@#$%%$ TIMEOUT!’”
Fire Woodson.
[Meanwhile, point guard Pablo Prigioni broke his right big toe and is out for at least two weeks, while Amar’e Stoudemire is out indefinitely with another knee issue (though he says he’s not hurt!), and center Tyson Chandler could be back Wednesday night.]
“(This) year’s Knicks have been historically bad considering the expectations. In the past 25 years, only one team – the 1996-97 Pacers – has failed to finish .500 after returning its top five scorers and coach from a 50-win team, according to Stats LLC.”
Ball Bits
–The announcement that former major leaguer Ryan Freel was suffering from the degenerative brain disease CTE when he committed suicide last year is garnering lots of publicity, with some arguing baseball potentially has a problem on par with football, which is beyond absurd. But, no doubt, there are a handful of players who have suffered multiple concussions because of their aggressive play, as was the case with the way Freel played the outfield, and baseball needs to ever more vigilant with them.
During his playing days, Freel estimated he had sustained up to 10 concussions. He missed 30 games in 2007 after a collision with a teammate’s elbow, an injury that caused Freel to be taken off the field in an ambulance.
Two years later he was hit in the head on a pickoff throw.
—Major League Baseball reached agreement with the Japanese league (NPB) on “posting” ballplayers. In the past if a Japanese player wanted to play in the Majors, there was no limit on what the MLB team paid the Japanese team owning the player. [The Red Sox paid $51 million for Daisuke Matsuzaka and Texas got Yu Darvish for $51.7 million.] But now a maximum limit has been set at $20 million and any team that ties for the highest bid can negotiate with the player.
So in the case of Rakuten pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, you’ll undoubtedly have multiple teams putting in the $20 million bid.
Tanaka wants to be posted and Rakuten was going to honor the request but now they may want another year from him before letting him go. After his heavy workload last season, I’d be curious to see how he holds up next year in the NPB before I’d take a flyer on him here. Scouts are divided whether he is on the verge of serious arm issues.
–The Yankees signed Baltimore second baseman Brian Roberts to a one-year contract for just $2 million with incentives. He is hardly a replacement for Robinson Cano, but a decent gamble. Roberts, 36, is a two-time All-Star who has suffered one injury after another since 2009, including: a herniated disk in his back, a strained abdominal muscle, multiple concussions, hip surgery, an operation for a sports hernia and a strained hamstring. If he could manage, say, 130 games in 2014, though, this will have been a nice move.
“A historic baseball Babe Ruth signed and gave to a gravely ill Essex Fells boy will soon be for sale.
“The Yankees’ legend wrote ‘I’ll knock a homer for Wednesday’s game’ on the baseball for 11-year-old ‘Little’ Johnny Sylvester, who was kicked in the head by the horse he fell off during the summer of 1926…
“After sending Sylvester the ball, Ruth went out and clubbed three homers against St. Louis in Game 4 of the 1926 World Series. It was his first career three-homer game.
“Three days later, Ruth sent a handwritten note to Johnny, saying he’d try to hit him another home run, ‘maybe two.’ Ruth hit that homer in Game 7 of the series, which the Cardinals eventually won.
“A few months after, Ruth personally visited Johnny. Sylvester eventually recovered. He died at age 75 in 1990.”
The record for a Ruth ball is $388,375 in Baltimore in 2012.
And I see where this baseball will be on display at the Yogi Berra Museum in Montclair (N.J.) from Jan. 22-26 and Jan. 29 to Feb. 2, if you happen to live in the area. That’s a super museum, by the way. I’ve been meaning to go back for years.
Thoughts on Peter O’Toole
[I didn’t have time to put something together last chat upon the passing of the great actor at the age of 81.]
O’Toole’s eight Oscar nominations – but no wins, a record.
T.E. Lawrence in “Lawrence of Arabia,” 1962. Lost to Gregory Peck, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Burney, the 14th Earl of Gurney in “The Ruling Class,” 1972. Lost to Marlon Brando, “The Godfather.”
Maurice in “Venue,” 2006. Lost to Forest Whitaker, “The Last King of Scotland.”
“When the first of (O’Toole’s) screen faces comes to mind, it is, of course, the supernally beautiful and mysteriously epicene visage of T.E. Lawrence in ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ There’s little in the history of cinema to match the grandeur of that film – if only all our lives could be lived in 70mm – and nothing to match the sight of its star begowned in white, arms upstretched to the heavens like a latter-day Moses parting the Arabian sands.”
“O’Toole always relished talking about ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ whose shooting locations included Jordan, Spain and Morocco.
“ ‘How could one not, since it was the touchstone of all things excellent and changed my life completely?’ he said in a 2001 interview with the Mail on Sunday, a British newspaper….
“O’Toole recalled that on the first day of filming in the desert, (Director David) Lean stood next to him and said, ‘Well, Pete, off we go on a great adventure.’
“ ‘And it was!’ O’Toole exclaimed. ‘I was a young man, keen to get on the business, working with great people, living in a part of the world that fascinated me, and forming an enduring friendship with Omar Sharif,’ who played Sherif Ali.
“While making the film, O’Toole recalled, he and Sharif would ‘film nonstop for 10 days and then have three or four days off.
“ ‘We had the use of a private plane to fly to Beirut – this was in its better days – and misbehaved ourselves appallingly! Terribly! Omar loved gambling, too, so we’d lose all our money at the casino – we once did about nine months’ wages in one night – and then get up to the usual things young men get up to.’”
But as O’Toole said in a 1963 interview with writer Gay Talese for Esquire, he became obsessed with the man, Lawrence, and he was “emotionally bankrupt after that picture.”
Peter O’Toole was famous for his partying ways with his British version of the Rat Pack including Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Peter Finch. As he once said of his health regime: “The only exercise I take is walking behind the coffins of friends who took exercise.”
And in a December 2008 interview on “TCM Word of Mouth”:
“Many years ago I sent an old, beloved jacket to a cleaner, the Sycamore Cleaners. It was a leather jacket covered in Guinness and blood and marmalade, one of those jobs…and it came back with a little note pinned to it, and on the note it said, ‘It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.’ So that will do for me. That can go on my tombstone.”
Man’s Best Friend, Part XXXVIII
Pete Donohue, Erik Badia and Rocco Parascandola / New York Daily News
“It was the miracle under 125th St.
“A blind man and his loyal service dog fell from a subway platform in Harlem Tuesday morning and together ducked beneath an arriving train without a second to spare – suffering little more than a laceration between them.
“Orlando, a black Lab, stood by Cecil Williams in the railbed after the 60-year-old Brooklynite fainted and tumbled off of a northbound A train platform at the 125th St. station.
“Williams was dazed. The train was quickly rounding the corner into the station and transit flagman Larmont Smith was screaming for him to lie down in the trough between the rails.
“ ‘I only had seconds,’ Smith told the Daily News. ‘I yelled, ‘Put your head down! Put your head down!’ I don’t think he heard me the first two times, but after the third time, he put his head down.’
“Then, and only then, did Orlando do the same – just in time to dip under the lead car, Smith said.
“ ‘One more second, he would have been dead,’ Smith said, still amazed by Orlando’s instincts and devotion.
“Orlando had tried to prevent Williams from falling when the blind man grew faint while waiting on the platform at about 9:30 a.m. He was en route to the dentist.
“When Williams fell, Orlando went with him onto the tracks. Williams was laying in the railbed with his head up. Straphangers screamed and yelled and summoned help. The train was coming – fast. Orlando wouldn’t leave Williams’ side.”
Williams suffered a minor cut to his head and some bruises.
Orlando turns 11 on Jan. 5 and will have to be put up for adoption soon because Williams’ insurance will no longer cover the cost of caring for the dog. But not to worry, the public won’t let this happen.
–The World Boxing Council stripped Vitali Klitschko of his heavyweight belt, though for the right reason. He has been proclaimed “emeritus champion” and can return to fight for the title when he’s ready.
You see, Klitschko has emerged as a prime opposition leader in Ukraine where he is chairman of the Udar party. Depending on how things shake out the next few weeks he could be running for president as early as 2014 if early elections are set. Otherwise, 2015 is the next scheduled vote.
Klitschko said in a statement that he couldn’t imagine returning to the ring. “I am now concentrating on the politics in Ukraine. I feel people need me there.”
Klitschko’s record is 45-2, 41 knockouts, and he defended his WBC belt nine times.
Mauricio Sulaiman, the WBC executive secretary, said in a statement: “Vitali is showing to the world what is the true heart of a champion by leading his countrymen to battle in the streets in their search for human equality, rights and peace for the great country of the Ukraine.”
–So I’ve been talking for years, really, about what a mess the World Cup is going to be down in Brazil and the 12/23 issue of ESPN The Magazine has an extensive piece I haven’t read in full yet, but the subtitle of the article is “Fury, Anarchy, Martyrdom: Why the youth of Brazil are (forever) protesting, and how their anger may consume the World Cup.”
As Wright Thompson puts it: “There’s really no way to know if the World Cup will come and go peacefully or if a million people will once again demand change. Last month, when I went to Brazil looking for clues about what might happen next summer, I found all the players assembled for a battle that has happened over and over again. It’s reborn in every place and in every time, yet it still manages to surprise us, whether it’s the cafes of Paris in 1788 or the mountains of Cuba in 1957 or, perhaps, San Francisco in 1967. Brazil in the shadow of the World Cup is one of those places, and right now is one of those times.”
It’s all about the billions spent on World Cup stadiums, charges of corruption, and the fact “Hospitals and schools are falling down” as the stadiums rise.
Of course in the past few weeks we’ve learned the stadiums are tinker-toy in quality. Three of them aren’t close to meeting deadlines imposed by FIFA. I mean you can’t have the first World Cup game in June and just open a stadium on May 20. They needed to all be finished by end of the year to undergo months of testing and inspection. [Check the toilets first.]
—Pope Francis’ favorite soccer club in Argentina, San Lorenzo, clinched its first title since 2007 on Sunday, which as Jonathan Gilbert of the New York Times noted, was not only stunning but prompted speculation about divine intervention.
“Eighteen months ago, San Lorenzo, one of Argentina’s big five soccer teams, was on the brink of relegation to the second division. It kept its hopes alive on the final day of the season before winning a playoff to remain in the top tier.”
San Lorenzo was founded by a priest more than a century ago and Francis used to attend matches as a boy.
On Sunday night, San Lorenzo won the first half of the 2013-14 Argentine season.
“What joy!” exclaimed the pope on hearing the news, according to Italian media reports.
–The great country singer Ray Price died. He was 87. As Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times wrote: “Not satisfied to be merely a standard-bearer of honky tonk, he began to experiment by tinkering with rhythm and later even adding lush strings, reshaping country music with a vibrant new energy that continued long after the 1950s and ‘60s.”
Ray Noble Price was born Jan. 12, 1926, in Perryville, Texas. When he was young his parents split up and his mother took him to Dallas, while his father kept Price’s brother.
Price actually was more drawn to the music of Bing Crosby than country as a boy. He quit high school at 17 to join the Marines, lying about his age, and served three years in World War II.
After going to school on the G.I. Bill, he settled in Grand Prairie, Texas and ended up with a group of veterans who played at Roy’s House Café in Dallas. “One night Price got up and sang a song with the band, an experience that sparked his calling in music.” [Lewis]
By 1951 Price landed a deal with Columbia Records and racked up 18 Top 10 hits in the 1950s. He put together his own band, the Cherokee Cowboys, the name reflecting the Native American part of his lineage.
Get this. Among the alumni from Price’s band were Willie Nelson, Roger Miller, Johnny Paycheck, guitarist/drummer/singer Johnny Bush and steel guitarist Buddy Emmons.
Price recorded many songs written by Hank Cochran, including “Heartaches By The Number,” a No. 2 hit from 1959.
Randy Lewis: “The song, written by Chuck Seals and Ralph Mooney, opens with the line ‘Now blue ain’t the word for the way that I feel.’ But far from sounding dour or depressed, Price place his crystalline tenor voice with the emotional crack atop an invigorating beat that got listeners on their feet and dancing in honky-tonks from coast to coast.”
Other No. 1 country tunes were “My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You,” “City Lights,” “The Same Old Me,” For the Good Times,” “I Won’t Mention It Again,” “She’s Got To Be A Saint,” and “You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me.”
For me, I’ll always associate Ray Price with 1970’s “For the Good Times,” written by Kris Kristofferson, that I’ve mentioned from time to time over the years. Price won a Grammy Award for it, and the tune was named single and album of the year by the Academy of Country Music and the following year the Country Music Assn. named his collection “I Won’t Mention It Again” as album of the year. [“For the Good Times” was also a crossover hit, peaking at No. 11 on the Billboard Pop chart.]
“For the Good Times”
Don’t look so sad, I know it’s over
But life goes on and this old world will keep on turning
Let’s just be glad we had some time to spend together
There’s no need to watch the bridges that we’re burning.
Lay your head upon my pillow
Hold your warm and tender body close to mine
Hear the whisper of the rain drops flowing soft against the window
And make believe you love me one more time
For the good times.
I’ll get along, you’ll find another
And I’ll be here if you should find you ever need me
Don’t say a word about tomorrow or forever
There’ll be time enough for sadness when you leave me.
Repeat chorus…
–The other day I mentioned how snowy owls were killed at JFK Airport. Well I missed that the Port Authority bowed to public pressure and will now trap and relocate the birds, a la Boston’s Logan Airport. Good move.
–We note the passing of actor Tom Laughlin, 82. Laughlin created the “Billy Jack” movie series of the 1970s.
The initial movie was produced for about $800,000 in 1969 and after Laughlin sold distribution rights to Warner Bros., grossed only $6 million.
But after a legal battle to reacquire the rights that he won, Laughlin mounted a nationwide advertising campaign and, bottom line, the film grossed $80 million.
Laughlin, who was born in Milwaukee, played football at Marquette and the Univ. of South Dakota.
–As noted in U.S. News & World Report Weekly, philanthropist (and billionaire investor) David M. Rubenstein paid $19 million for the only copy of the Magna Carta in the United States in an anonymous auction. Mr. Rubenstein is now displaying it at a gallery named after him at the National Archives. Very cool.
–In a true Christmas miracle, Brian Griffin of “Family Guy” returned to his Rhode Island home, rescued by Stewie and his time machine. Alas, I watched “The Simpsons” but forgot to catch this one.
–From “Calvin and Hobbes”
Calvin [writing a letter overseen by Hobbes]: Dear Santa, Every year at this time I send you a list of what I want for Christmas. And every year you callously ignore it and bring me practical things I don’t want at all. What’s the deal?! Are you insane? Have you gone senile? Can’t you read? Or are you just a vindictive, twisted elf bent on destroying little kids’ dreams?!?!
Editor: See, kids? Once again my 24-hour rule comes into play.
–I can’t complain too much about the 2014 class for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Linda Ronstadt, Nirvana, KISS, Hall & Oates, Peter Gabriel, and Cat Stevens. The E Street Band will be given the Award for Musical Excellence, a special award for sidemen come April in Brooklyn at the Barclays Center.
Of course I was disappointed the Zombies didn’t get in, and also Yes, who I feel like I’m rediscovering.
Because of KISS being inducted, you know they’ll put on a big show, and you have Dave Grohl and Kurt Novoselic of Nirvana, and the E Street Band backing Springsteen for a set. This is actually one HOF award show that might work.
Top 3 songs for the week 12/18/82: #1 “Maneater” (Daryl Hall & John Oates…love these guys, but not this one…) #2 “Mickey” (Toni Basil…talk about a tune not aging well….) #3 “Gloria” (Laura Branigan…Nooo!!! I hate this one!!! I break out in hives!!!)…and…#4 “The Girl Is Mine” (Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney…their collaborations were truly hideous…) #5 “Truly” (Lionel Richie…eh…) #6 “Steppin’ Out” (Joe Jackson…this one depressed the hell out of me for some reason…probably because this wasn’t a particularly good year for me…though I did land my first job on Wall Street four weeks earlier, thanks to Boss Ross…) #7 “Dirty Laundry” (Don Henley…I get my laundry detergent at Dollar Tree…why pay more?) #8 “Sexual Healing” (Marvin Gaye…endless drivel…blows….) #9 “Rock This Town” (Stray Cats…just hated music at this time…rediscovered Oldies…) #10 “Muscles” (Diana Ross…the diva everyone says she is…)
NFL Quiz Answer: The number one career rusher all time in terms of yards per carry is Hall of Famer Marion Motley, Cleveland 1946-53, Pittsburgh 1955. Motley averaged 5.7, 4720 yards on 828 carries. Adrian Peterson is at 5.0, in case you were wondering.
