Minnesota Twins / Washington Senators Quiz (1901-present): 1)
Who are the only three MVPs (all Minnesota)? 2) Who was the
winner of the Cy Young award in 1970? 3) Who was Rookie of
the Year in 1959? 4) Which five have had their uniform retired?
5) Who are the six to hit 200 homers in a Twins / Senators
uniform (all played at least part of their career in Minnesota)? 6)
Who am I? I had a 30-game hitting streak in 1980. Answers
below.
The Death of Oldies Radio
Folks, you’ll have to forgive me as I open with a parochial issue,
that being the sudden demise of WCBS-FM radio here in New
York this past Friday. As I was working on another column
Friday afternoon, and as I do every day here at StocksandNews, I
was switching back and forth from having the sound on for
CNBC (more often than not it’s off) and the oldies station, CBS-
FM. Around 4:00 I had CBS on for a brief spell, turned it back
on around 8:00 PM and thought “What the f@#$!” It wasn’t the
oldies music I was used to. Instead, it was something called “The
Jack.” It had to be some kind of mistake and mix-up in the radio
signals, I mused. But then when I went online to learn more I
soon found out at 5:00 PM the format had switched over. There
is no pure oldies station now for the New York market. [There
are a few minor alternatives originating in New Jersey.]
I have written of CBS-FM on numerous occasions in the past
because it was the home for some of the great DJs of all time;
men like Cousin Bruce Morrow (“Cousin Brucie”), Harry
Harrison, Dan Ingram, Ron Lundy, Bobby Jay, Don K. Reed,
Bill Brown, Bob Shannon, and a recent hire, Mickey Dolenz of
Monkees fame. In fact, Dolenz had just celebrated his 100th
show with a special deal at B.B. King’s on Friday morning. The
people at the station were given one hour’s notice of the
changeover.
Hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners are in a state of shock.
The Daily News quoted a typical fan who lives in the Bronx.
“I came home and turned the radio on and it was not there. I
thought I was going to faint…I really am sick. Part of my family
is gone.”
Ironically, CBS was doing well in the ratings in this incredibly
competitive market but ownership at Infinity Broadcasting, the
bastards, was concerned with the demographics for the average
listener, 35 to 64, as we”re aging rapidly and not as appealing to
advertisers. Instead they want the hipper 18- to 34-year-olds.
This twit Chad Brown, station manager for The Jack, came on
over the weekend to try and explain the change. [Chad has been
immediately enshrined in the Bar Chat “Dirtball Hall of Fame,”
thus bypassing the normal waiting period.]
But in talking to my brother late Friday night, he summed it up.
“We’re getting old.” Yes, we are. I realize countless readers of
this column wonder why I can’t come up with something more
recent for the “Top 3 songs” category down below. Hell, I was
born in 1958, I love 60s music in particular and I can’t get into
too much of the new stuff (outside of my heroes, U2).
Yes, radio has changed. But we can acknowledge the history of
it and I have to quote a few paragraphs from Richard Neer’s
book “FM…The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio.” Many of the
DJs that CBS employed came over from the famous WABC-
AM, 770 on the dial, after its own demise with the advent of FM
radio around 1970. [CBS-FM adopted its oldies format in 1972.]
Back in the early 60s, WABC’s program director was Rick Sklar.
As Neer writes:
“Sklar quickly learned three basic tenets that would sustain him
throughout his lengthy broadcast career. First, he learned the
value of promotion….
“Second, his association with Alan Freed instructed him that a
short playlist works better than a lengthy one. Although called
Top Forty, the playlist was pared to fewer than twenty songs
throughout much of his career. At one point, Sklar’s research
told him that the audience didn’t want to hear anything more than
three years old. Overnight, to the jocks’ chagrin, oldies
disappeared. But even with a longer list, emphasis was always
put on the seven or eight most popular songs. Rotations and
clocks were designed to ensure that at peak listening times, the
record would always be played, to the point where the number
one record might be aired every forty minutes. Repetition, the
bane of all who work in radio, was seen as a key to keeping an
audience. An old saw goes, ‘Just when your jocks are getting
sick of a record, the audience is just discovering it.’
“The third cornerstone to Sklar’s success was to hire interesting
personalities and give them some creative license. Like a
football coach, a programmer must sketch out a framework of
inviolate rules that apply to everyone, but allow room within the
system for individual expression. Thus, when Sklar took over at
WABC, Bruce Morrow was allowed to screech and bellow at
night, while Dan Ingram delighted his afternoon audiences with
racy double entendres and self-parody. Scott Muni was the
music guru who respected artistry and lionized those who created
the songs that were the mainstay of his early evening soiree.
Diversity was encouraged as long as one executed Sklar’s
mechanics flawlessly.
“WABC’s success was largely a product of Sklar’s design, but
sometimes plain old luck entered into the picture. As with any
product, ‘ease of use’ is something the consumer expects, and
only notices in its absence. If a product isn’t simply and
logically laid out, people gravitate toward one that is. In radio,
this translates to dial position and signal strength, something a
programmer can’t easily control. At 770, WABC enjoyed an
easy-to-remember frequency and call letters. Along with the
network engineers’ foresight in choosing an antenna height and
location, the low dial position resulted in a strong signal that
could easily be heard throughout the metropolitan area. Its reach
was so powerful that longtime afternoon jock Dan Ingram once
accurately quipped, ‘We’re only the fourteenth-highest-rated
station…in Pittsburgh.’…
“In the early days of rock radio on the AM band, broadcast
companies were confounded by the new music. They didn’t
understand the appeal of what was commonly referred to as ‘race
music.’ But the numbers didn’t lie – the music was selling to
teenagers with disposable income and those same teens were
glued to the radio, often on distant stations when local ones
didn’t serve their needs. As a boy in Lynchburg, Virginia, I
listened to the powerful signal of WABC booming in at night,
and revered Scott Muni and Dan Ingram from four hundred miles
away. It didn’t take long for every market to realize the
economic windfall to be reaped by playing rock and roll on the
radio. So they followed an age-old pattern: Find a successful
disc jockey in a small market and pay him more to work in your
bigger market.”
Ergo, Alan Freed, Wolfman Jack, Dr. Don Rose in Atlanta and
all the rest. Well, that’s enough for now. As for Cousin Brucie
and the DJs of CBS-FM, LT and I were debating just what would
become of them. She’s convinced they go to satellite radio. I
say they will just end up on a struggling New York station, of
which there are many. Regardless, one thing is for certain;
getting old sucks.
Stuff
–RIP, George Mikan
The first dominant center in professional basketball, Mikan died
the other day at the age of 80. 6’10” and 245 lbs., Mikan was his
sport’s star during the period 1946 to 1956 and he led his teams
to seven league titles in nine seasons. Mikan also led the league
in scoring three times and for his career averaged 22.6 points a
game in an era when scoring was way down. In an AP poll,
Mikan was selected as the best basketball player of the first half
of the 20th century.
Former Celtics’ great Bob Cousy said “He literally carried the
league. He gave us recognition and acceptance when we were at
the bottom of the totem pole in professional sports.”
Mikan also changed the way the game was played. As spelled
out in an obituary by the New York Times’ Frank Litsky:
“(Despite numerous injuries), he prevailed, even when rules were
introduced to limit his effectiveness. At DePaul, he once
recalled: ‘We would set up a zone defense with four men around
the key and I guarded the basket. When the other team took a
shot, I’d just tap it out.’
“To negate that, the NCAA banned goaltending in 1944.
“In the NBA, when his team had the ball, Mikan set up one step
from the basket. The league countered during the 1951-52
season by widening the lane under the basket, where an offensive
player could stay for only three seconds at a time, to 12 feet from
6 feet. But Mikan scored 61 points in a game that season against
Rochester.
“In a November 1950 game, the Fort Wayne Pistons decided the
only way they could beat Mikan and the Lakers was to hold onto
the ball. They won, 19-18, the lowest-scoring game in NBA
history. In 1954, the NBA introduced the present rule that
required a team to shoot within 24 seconds of getting the ball.”
He was so dominant that Madison Square Garden once marketed
a game with the following on the marquee:
WED BASKETBALL
GEO MIKAN vs KNICKS
As J.A. Adande wrote in the Los Angeles Times:
“Mikan is at the roots of the NBA’s big-man family tree. From
him, it branches out and the arguments grow. Russell or Wilt
Chamberlain? Shaquille O’Neal? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?
Moses Malone? Hakeem Olajuwon? They all had their
contemporaries, their rivals, arguments for and against being the
best of their era or all time.
“But there’s no debate about who came first and paved the way.
George Mikan.”
–For the first time in state history, New Jersey has issued a bear
alert for all 21 counties. Bears have even been spotted at the
Jersey Shore, for crying out loud, which would be quite a rude
awakening for some babe lying face down on a towel when she
gets a furry tap on the shoulder, know what I’m sayin’?
Yes, it’s also mating season and according to the Star-Ledger,
while females (bears, that is…not beach babes) have a range of
only 6.5 square miles, a male bruin’s range is up to 70 miles
because they have to go trolling until they find the perfect match.
[It’s probably easier for the bears to fill out the personality
questionnaire on eHarmony.com.]
Well, as the colorful ABA basketball player Marvin “Bad News”
Barnes used to say… “Men move at night.” [Huh?]
Anyway…I also learned that Jersey bears reach breeding weight
much faster than their counterparts in Minnesota and Canada
because food is more plentiful here in the Garden State. Bet you
didn’t know that. For starters we make a better pizza.
–Glad I didn’t pay good money to fly over to Paris and see
Belgium’s Justine Henin-Hardenne dispatch with Mary Pierce in
the French Open finals in 62 minutes. That would have been a
waste. And how about stud Rafael Nadal, the youngest winner
of a grand slam event since 1989? Talk about having the world
by the, err, you know.
–Jack Nicklaus has most likely played his last round in a PGA
Tour event on American soil at this weekend’s Memorial
tournament. But Jack, ever the competitor, said “I just can’t
stand finishing with a 77.” Hell, the guy is 65, shot 75-77, and
finished one shot behind Davis Love, Vijay Singh and Mike
Weir…far from embarrassing. Nicklaus will be playing in the
British Open as his last official event and every golf fan in the
world will be pulling for him to somehow make the cut. It would
be a super sports moment.
–Just a random musing, but I’m reading the local Sunday sports
pages and see that my old high school here in Summit just won a
state lacrosse title with two key members of the squad having
also been the backcourt tandem for our title-winning basketball
team this past winter. Which pretty much sums up the plight of
many high school baseball programs these days. The best
athletes, who always gravitated towards baseball in the spring,
have over the past ten years in particular been electing to play
lacrosse. That certainly has been the case at Summit. Actually,
these kids then have a better chance of getting a Division I
scholarship to continue with the sport than they do with baseball.
–Leon Askin died at the age of 97 in Vienna. You know him…
Askin was better known as General Albert Burkhalter, Col.
Klink’s superior on “Hogan’s Heroes.” It was a terrific bit of
casting. In real life, Askin had been born in Vienna, fled to
France in the 1930s where he was a cabaret performer, and then
moved on to the U.S. to flee the Nazis yet again.
–Leslie Smith, the founder of Matchbox Toys, passed away in
England at the age of 87. One day in my youth I lost one of
these and as punishment my mother put my initials on every car I
had (indelible ink). Well…you can imagine this hurt the future
value some and, frankly, I haven’t been the same ever since. To
her credit, though, my mother did not throw out my baseball
cards and anyone needing a Vic Roznovsky or Al Luplow to fill
out their collection can contact me through the site.
–Trader George passed along this Darwin Award nominee.
“The following mind-boggling attempt at a crime spree in
Washington State appeared to be the robber’s first (and last), due
to his lack of a previous record of violence, and his terminally
stupid choices:
1. His target was H&J Leather & Firearms, a gun shop
specializing in handguns.
2. The shop was full of customers – firearms customers.
3. To enter the shop, the robber had to step around a marked
police patrol car parked at the front door.
4. A uniformed officer was standing at the counter, having coffee
before work.
“Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-
up, and fired a few wild shots from a .22 target pistol.
“The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, the police officer
with a 9mm Glock 17, the clerk with a .50 Desert Eagle, assisted
by several customers who also drew their guns, several of whom
also fired.
“The robber was pronounced dead at the scene by Paramedics.
“Crime scene investigators located 47 expended cartridge cases
in the shop.”
An autopsy revealed 23 gunshot wounds from 7 different
weapons.
Kind of like Butch and Sundance’s last moments when you stop
to think of it.
–From the New York Daily News:
“In a study published Tuesday in the Journal of
Neurophysiology, researchers – studying brain scan images of 17
newly in love college students – found high amounts of activity
in a ‘reward’ part of the brain when the smitten subjects were
shown photos of their honeys. That part of the brain has
previously been linked to the desire for cocaine, chocolate and
money.”
For yours truly, this part of my own brain is the area that craves
bad news on the Barry Bonds health front.
–Here’s another bit from the Daily News, a piece by Leslie
Casimir; by way of follow-up on a story I did a few weeks back
on the private club scene in the Big Apple.
“The dating game has come to this: The controversial Harlem
Club, a semiprivate gentlemen’s organization, opens tonight in
Murray Hill, stocked with liquor, self-described professional men
and sexy babes trolling for potential mates.
“The club created an uproar in the black community last year
when the requirements for women who don’t want to pay the
$2,500 membership fee came to light: They have to be pretty, in
great shape, single, have no children – but be under 35 to ensure
fertility – and boast a bachelor’s degree.”
Just another reason to stay in school.
–And when I die………from the pages of GolfWorld:
“Scattered…At Laurel Valley GC in Ligonier, PA, on the eve of
last week’s Senior PGA Championship, the remaining ashes of
1965 PGA champ Dave Marr, by his son, David Marr III.
According to Marr III, a Golf Channel announcer, the ashes of
his genial father, who won the PGA at Laurel Valley and died in
1997 of stomach cancer at 63 after a career as a TV announcer,
were sprinkled at Seminole, Pebble Beach, Winged Foot,
Cypress Point, Shinnecock Hills, National GL, Princeville,
Augusta National, Memorial Park (Houston), Walton Heath and
Royal Birkdale. ‘I think he’d be happy,’ Marr III said. ‘He’s in
all the places that were so dear to him.’”
So this gets me thinking again….what to do with moi? I’ve
noted before I’d need to have some of my ashes scattered on
Lahinch Golf Club in Ireland. But now I’m thinking maybe a
few at Mount Rushmore, a gorgeous spot, or elsewhere in the
Black Hills. I’d have some scattered at Shea Stadium because of
the importance of the Mets in my life but Shea will one day be
replaced and I’d then be removed to some garbage dump to be
picked over by seagulls. No that wouldn’t work. Actually, the
crows at Lahinch are pretty destructive and they could carry me
anywhere, though they frequent a great pub on the coast there
called O’Looney’s so there are worse places I could end up.
What it boils down to is you want to pick locations for your
ashes where there is at least some chance a hundred years from
now it remains as you knew it (thus the choice of Mount
Rushmore). Just more free advice from your editor.
–Some baseball fans are total idiots. As of last week, the leading
vote getter for N.L. shortstop in the All-Star game is Nomar
Garciaparra, who was 8 for 51 before he got hurt.
–Box Office / 1985…what films we watched:
1. Back to the Future…$193mm
2. Rambo: First Blood Part 2…$150mm
3. Beverly Hills Cop…$142mm
4. Rocky 4…$103mm
5. Cocoon…$76mm
6. Witness…$65mm
7. The Goonies…$61mm
8. Police Academy 2…$55mm
9. A View to a Kill…$49mm
10. National Lampoon’s European Vacation…$49mm
–The New York Times reports that among the Roberto
Clemente-related items being auctioned off this week are two
pieces of the prop plane that Clemente died in when it crashed on
that fateful New Year’s Eve in 1972. Clemente’s family is
distraught over the matter. Son Roberto Jr. said “It’s disgusting.
It’s a shame that something so sacred to my family would go on
the market like this. It’s ridiculous. It has nothing to do with
baseball. He’s a human being. He lost his life. There’s nothing
funny about that.”
–All those who have run one had to get a kick out of the story
emerging from the recent Chicago Lakeshore Marathon. The
course was set a mile too long and was 27.2 miles instead of
26.2. Actually, the whole race seems like a disaster. According
to the Chicago Tribune, there were also missing mile markers
(like the one at 26…which would have given me a clue) and
unstaffed aid stations. Race organizer Mark Cihlar apologized.
“(Last-minute changes) caused us to miscalculate and we
foolishly added an extra mile – how terrible!” Frankly, Cihlar
should be thrown in prison.
Top 3 songs for the week of 6/2/73: #1 “My Love” (Paul
McCartney & Wings) #2 “Daniel” (Elton John) #3
“Frankenstein” (The Edgar Winter Group)
Minnesota Twins Quiz Answers: 1) MVPs: Zoilo Versalles, SS
(1965); Harmon Killebrew, 1B-3B (1969); Rod Carew, 1B,
(1977). 2) Cy Young, 1970: Jim Perry. 3) Rookie of the Year,
1959: Bob Allison. 4) Retired uniforms: #3 Harmon Killebrew,
#6 Tony Oliva, #14 Kent Hrbek, #29 Rod Carew, #34 Kirby
Puckett. 5) 200 home runs: Killebrew, 559; Bob Allison, 256;
Kent Hrbek, 243; Tony Oliva, 220; Kirby Puckett, 207; Gary
Gaetti, 201. 6) Ken Landreaux had a 30-game hitting streak in
1980.
–USC announced that it will no longer sell alcoholic beverages
inside the Coliseum at home football games. Heck, I didn’t
realize it sold them in the first place. In fact I thought all schools
banned beer at games but now I learn several schools allow the
practice. Why wasn’t I apprised of this beforehand?
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
