[Next Bar Chat will not be posted until Tuesday.]
NCAA Men’s Basketball Quiz: 1) Name the only four schools to
have a winning percentage of .700 or better entering 2005-06
(including tournament games), minimum 20 seasons. 2) Name
the seven active coaches who came into this season with 700
career wins (min. 5 seasons in Div. I). [No tricks here.]
Answers below.
Super Bowl Pick
It’s an EXCLUSIVE, sports fans. And sorry to Jeff B., who has
been begging I not select the Steelers…but one must do what he
has to do. Go with the gut.
Pittsburgh 20….Seattle 16
Art Rooney, Part II
So you thought this series would be about the former Steelers
owner, eh? Wrong.
It’s the spring of 1958, and Lamar Hunt, age 26, was rich. The
son of self-made billionaire Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, whom
Fortune described in 1948 as the world’s wealthiest man, Lamar
joined his father’s Hunt Oil Co. after graduating from SMU in
1955. But Lamar wanted to make his own name and became
interested in owning a sports franchise.
For a while, Lamar was interested in baseball and he was
intrigued during 1958 about talk of a third major league, but his
first love had always been football.
The Chicago Cardinals’ NFL franchise was in deep trouble and
in Feb. 1959, Hunt thought he could make a play for it, hoping to
move the Cardinals to Dallas if he could convince the Wolfners,
who owned the team, to sell. But Walter Wolfner suddenly had a
change of heart and acted as if he wanted to stay in Chicago so
Hunt was on a flight back to Dallas when a light bulb went off in
his head.
Why not try to put together a new football league from the many
suitors the Wolfner family was turning down for the Cardinals?
From Michael MacCambridge’s “America’s Game: The Epic
Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation”:
“Hunt had long had a habit of taking copious notes on whatever
paper was available, and many of his brainstorms had been
sketched out on the back of envelopes or in the margins of
magazines. But with this bolt of inspiration, he knew he needed
more. He asked a stewardess for some stationery, and hurriedly
sketched out the plans on three sheets of (paper) with an
American Airlines letterhead.”
Hunt began thinking about the profit-and-loss potential for a six-
team league.
“Writing in short, neat printing strokes, Hunt finished his outline,
drawing up provisions for owners, even making rough estimates
on the costs of equipment and the revenue from ticket sales. By
the time the plane arrived in Dallas, Hunt’s idea seemed fully
formed. He drew up a rough schedule for the first season, going
so far as to sketch out the likely weekends the regular season
would begin and end.”
Hunt told no one of his plans, but he kept scheming.
“Within weeks, he became convinced that his idea was perfectly
timed. If Major League Baseball, with sixteen franchises and
slumping attendance, was in need of expansion – as Branch
Rickey persuasively argued – then there was an even greater
necessity for expansion in pro football, with but twelve
franchises and rising attendance in each year of the ‘50s.”
In March 1959, Hunt approached NFL commissioner Bert Bell
about an expansion team but Bell wasn’t interested until the
Chicago Cardinals’ ownership situation was straightened out. At
that point, Hunt realized he’d have to pursue his new league idea
and he began to assemble potential owners like fellow oil man
Bud Adams of Houston.
On June 2, 1959, having lined up some folks though still not
calling a press conference, Lamar Hunt went to Philadelphia to
have lunch with Bell and his associates, including Bert Jr.. Hunt
once more asked for an expansion franchise but Bell said he
wouldn’t expand until there was greater competitive balance.
At the end of the meal, Bell asked Hunt, “What in the world did
you come up here for? What in the world do you want?” Hunt
repeated his interest in expansion and Bell reiterated, “The
owners are not interested in any kind of expansion, they have no
expansion plans…As far as I am concerned, I don’t believe they
will ever vote to expand.”
So Hunt went home to Dallas, not telling Bell what was really on
his mind. The next month he sent an emissary to Bell to tell him
of Hunt’s plans for a new league and as it turns out,
Commissioner Bell himself chose a U.S. Senate hearing on
football’s antitrust application to announce to the world that a
new league was being formed and that, as Bell told the
committee, “We are in favor (of it).”
The “American Football League,” as it called itself, held its first
meeting August 14, 1959, at the Chicago Hilton. But two weeks
later Hunt was informed that the NFL was now looking to
expand in 1961 and the two franchises would most likely be in
Houston and Dallas. Hunt wrote the following press release.
“Everybody has been knocking on their door for years and
they’ve turned everybody down. It is obvious what they are
trying to do, and it can get them into trouble….They’re trying to
knock out Dallas and Houston, but this doesn’t change our plans
at all and we’re moving ahead.”
As the 1959 NFL season kicked off, Commissioner Bert Bell,
now 66, was ready to return to the ownership ranks. He thought
he would retire at the end of the year and buy the Eagles and he
had already worked out the arrangements with one of the Eagles’
partners, with Bell having lined up the financing. But no one
knew, including his sons Bert Jr. and Upton.
On Sunday, October 11, 1959, Bert and Bert Jr. went to Franklin
Field for the game; father still hiding his plans. Bell was up in
the stands when with two minutes to go he collapsed from a
massive heart attack.
One writer said, “It was like Caruso dying in the third act of
‘Pagliacci.’ Red Smith wrote, “It was almost as though he were
allowed to choose time and place.”
Unfortunately, Bert Jr. never knew of the plans to buy the Eagles
until two days after his father’s death when Philadelphia National
Bank informed him “the Eagles deal was off.” What deal?
Meanwhile, the new American Football League began play in
1960, with an advantage the NFL didn’t have. A television
package. Bell’s death would lead to the rise of Pete Rozelle. But
those are stories for next fall. Football season is over as of
Sunday.
Art Rooney? Turns out there really isn’t too much of interest to
pass on. Except one final story.
Following the Jets win in the Super Bowl, Jan. 1969, merger
talks were heating up between the NFL and the AFL. Some
wanted to keep the AFL identity and even Rozelle initially
thought the 16-10 ratio between the number of NFL and AFL
franchises should remain. But at that, Paul Brown, now owner in
Cincinnati, exploded because he had been led to believe that if he
signed on with the AFL, there would be a full merger in 1970.
With the NFL possessing teams in each of the top ten television
markets, while the AFL had only one, unless the two leagues
were fully merged and the television money divvied up equally,
the AFL would always be at a competitive disadvantage.
So Rozelle announced that yes, indeed, there would be a 13-team
National Football Conference and a 13-team American Football
Conference. Only one problem. What three NFL franchises
would cross over to the junior circuit?
All were in agreement that some teams were off limits; such as
the Packers, the Bears, the Giants and the Cowboys.
But Cleveland owner Art Modell announced he would move to
the AFC if his buddy Art Rooney would take his Steelers there
too. [Baltimore, meanwhile, was chomping at the bit to join the
NFL and a division with Joe Namath and the Jets.]
Dan Rooney, at Modell’s hospital bedside, where Modell was
being treated for a bleeding ulcer, said “There is no way the
Pittsburgh Steelers are going to join the American Football
Conference.”
“Now, Danny,” said Art. “Not so fast.”
As the owners raided the liquor stash of NFL Films chief Ed
Sabol at the league’s midtown New York headquarters, the
merger meeting stretching into a 30th hour, Dan Rooney walked
into Rozelle’s office and was handed a slip of paper, on which
the commissioner had written:
CLEV…PITT…HOU…CINCY
Dan Rooney realized he had lost. Father Art walked in, was
handed the paper, and said, “What’s this?”
“That,” said Dan, “is our new division.”
As it turned out it was a brilliant move. Cleveland and
Pittsburgh retained their two games a season rivalry, former
Cleveland owner / coach Paul Brown’s new Cincinnati franchise
was in the mix, and Houston had the Astrodome, which was then
considered state of the art.
Finally, football commentator Beano Cook once wrote
Commissioner Pete Rozelle following the upheaval of the mid-
1980s management turnover in the NFL, with Baltimore’s move
to Indianapolis, the Raiders to L.A., the Rams to Anaheim and
the Cardinals to Phoenix.
“I can say this because I’m not Catholic,” wrote Cook. “At one
time, a handshake was all that was needed in the NFL. Credit the
nuns. Most of the owners were Catholic. They fought like hell
with each other but when a deal was made, that was it. A
handshake. No lawyers. You know that when Art Rooney gave
his word, that was it. Same with the Mara brothers. Now
nobody cares except for a few owners. In many ways, the NFL
reminds me of the Roman Empire.”
The USFL was on the way. The NFL survived.
—
The 5th Dimension
This is really for LT, who’s been saying “When are you going to
do a story on the 5th Dimension?” “But there’s no drugs and big
arrests. What fun would they be?!” I replied.
Oh well. Marilyn McCoo is one of the most beautiful women on
the face of the planet, and we’ve never been against that, so here
is your brief tale of this highly successful group.
It’s 1966. Marily McCoo, Florence LaRue (no relation to former
Wake Forest QB Rusty LaRue), Lamonte McLemore (no relation
to former NBA player McCoy…at least that I’m aware of), Billy
Davis, Jr. and Ron Townson (the big one) were in a vocal group
called the Versatiles. McLemore and McCoo previously had
been with the Hi-Fis, an outfit that included future members of
the Friends of Distinction.
The Versatiles were traveling with the Ray Charles Revue when
in Feb. 1967, they were signed by the great Johnny Rivers (boy,
you talk about underrated…it’s him) and his new record label.
The group changed its name to the 5th Dimension after Rivers
told them the Versatiles was dated. Ron Townson takes the
credit for the new moniker.
In May 1967, rehearsal pianist Jim Webb was at a fair, he saw a
hot air balloon, and that weekend he wrote “Up, Up and Away.”
Webb had been working with the 5th Dimension, he presented the
song to them, they loved it, and the rest is history. It was their
first top ten, peaking at #7 that summer.
In Feb. 1968, “Up, Up and Away” swept the Grammys; five in
all including ‘Record of the Year’ and ‘Song of the Year.’
The 5th Dimension appeared on every show imaginable, and
stayed off the crime blotter. It was really quite unremarkable.
In 1969, the 5th Dimension had their two #1s… “Aquarius / Let
the Sunshine In”, which sold 2 million copies in three months,
and Laura Nyro’s “Wedding Bell Blues.” That July, McCoo and
Davis got married and after the hits dried up in 1972, left the
other three to go off on their own.
McCoo and Davis then had the #1 “You Don’t Have To Be a
Star”, Jan. 1977, and of course Marilyn later hosted “Solid Gold”
as well as appearing on Broadway and some soaps.
Other top twenty Billboard tunes:
2/67 – Go Where You Wanna Go…peaked #16
6/68 – Stoned Soul Picnic…#3
10/68 – Sweet Blindness…#13
8/69 – Workin’ On A Groovy Thing…#20
11/70 – One Less Bell To Answer…#2 [Bacharach / David]
3/71 – Love’s Lines, Angles And Rhymes…#19
10/71 – Never My Love…#12
4/72 – (Last Night) I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All…#8
9/72 – If I Could Reach You…#10
But now I’m ticked off. These guys were good…a helluva lot
better than Gladys Knight and the Pips. And the Pips are in the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the 5th Dimension isn’t.
Nor is the Dave Clark Five!!! But then you already knew that.
Stuff
–Are you hungry? If not, you will be after this one.
From Robin Young of the Times of London:
“A delicious giant crab imported to Norway by Stalin is ravaging
marine life. The answer is on a plate.”
It’s all about the red king crab, introduced to the Barents Sea by
Stalin, and of late, “millions of these monsters have been
marching south along the coast of Norway, devouring everything
in their path. Already they have overwhelmed the fishing ports
of northern Norway and advanced more than 400 miles
southwards.”
One of the top chefs in London, though, has been taking
advantage of the situation. Pascal Proyart of One-O-One says:
“We sell 45 to 60 kilos of these giant crabs each week…It is very
versatile; you can use different parts of the animal for different
dishes, and a single crab can easily feed a party of eight or ten.”
These suckers can weigh up to 25 lbs. and have “a claw-span of a
metre and a half. A snap of the giant’s claws can break a man’s
finger, and it is virtually omnivorous, thriving on kelp, dead fish,
seaweed, fish eggs and almost anything else that it can find on
the floor of the ocean.”
There are no natural predators. Chef Proyart adds:
“This crab tastes better than lobster. The long legs are tubes full
of meat….the king crab has little cartilage.”
But get this…talk about a market:
“The Norwegians started commercial fishing of the species only
in 2002, but now they aim to remove 280,000 male crabs a year
from their waters. Experts, though, say that there are at least 50
million of the creatures on the move, and that the population is
exploding.”
Oh, baby, I want some of those.
But there is also a clear and present danger. Will they take over
the world?! Will they link up with the giant squid?! What if
they start buying up soon to be depressed coastal real estate (due
to the coming crash in that sector)?!
–The NFL Players Association commissioned a study on the
health of its players and while the findings are far from a
surprise, they are still a bit disturbing. From a report by Thomas
Hargrove of Scripps Howard News Service (and ESPN.com):
“Most of the 130 players born since 1955 who have died were
among the heaviest athletes in sports history (and) were more
than twice as likely to die before their 50th birthday than their
teammates.”
Offensive and defensive linemen “had a 52 percent greater risk
of dying from heart disease than the general population.”
This past summer more than 500 players on NFL training camp
rosters were listed at more than 300 pounds. Many of us can
remember a time in the 1960s / 70s when there were maybe 3 or
4 in the entire league. For example, the study showed that the
heaviest position, offensive tackle, went from 281 pounds two
decades ago (250-260 in the 1970s) to 318 pounds today.
–Feb. 4, 1941. “While trying to create a refrigerant, chemist
Roy Plunkett produces a fortuitous find later called Teflon,
which he patents. It is used to make valves employed in building
the first atom bomb. In 1954, French engineer Marc Gregoire
sprays his wife’s pans with the slippery substance and creates his
own marketable invention: nonstick cookware.” [Smithsonian]
Of course these days we’re finding out that the key ingredient in
Teflon just may cause cancer…at least in rats in some studies.
As Roseanne Roseannadana said, “If it isn’t one thing, it’s
always something.”
–With New Orleans’ population at around 135,000, down from a
pre-Katrina level of 484,000, the New Orleans Hornets will be
playing the bulk of their games next season in Oklahoma City.
The Hornets’ players, meanwhile, couldn’t be more thrilled with
the reception they’ve received in Oklahoma City. In my trips
there the past ten years, I’ve certainly felt the love. These folks
are among the best on the planet.
–AP Men’s College Basketball Top Ten
1. UConn
2. Duke
3. Memphis
4. Villanova
5. Gonzaga
6. Illinois
7. Texas
8. Florida
9. Pittsburgh
10. George Washington
Poor Northern Iowa. They cracked the Top 25 this week, at #25,
and then went out and lost to Creighton. Doink!
–You know, there are times in life when an animal comes along
that is truly special. Yes, it’s probably correct to say we have our
“Animal of the Year” for 2006 already.
Little Bird….the half-ton bull that, incredibly, scaled the safety
barrier at Mexico City’s historic bull ring and proceeded to injure
scores.
I mean think about it. The bullring is 60 years old and Little Bird
was the first, ever, to jump the fence. What a feat. It’s greater
than that other historic moment in Mexico City; Bob Beamon’s
long jump at the 1968 Olympics, about two-feet further than
anything that had been done prior to that date.
Alas, should we decide to give Little Bird the honor at year end,
it will have to be presented to his parents, Bob and Britney Bull,
because Little Bird was summarily dispatched in the stands by
one of the bullfighters.
–Uh oh…Federal authorities have killed some 200 coyotes in
southeast Arizona, ranchers having complained they were eating
calves. Being a big fan of veal……..oops….perhaps I shouldn’t
go there. Never mind………
–From the pages of Smithsonian magazine, I learned that male
hippos, especially the stronger ones, often have a harem of 20
females. Huh.
–One of Roberto Clemente’s sons, Luis, said his father’s #21
should be treated the same as Jackie Robinson’s #42…retired for
all teams in major league baseball. When apprised of this,
Sharon Robinson, Jackie Robinson’s daughter, was quoted by the
New York Daily News as saying baseball shouldn’t retire
Clemente’s number.
“To my understanding, the purpose of retiring my father’s
number is that what he did changed all of baseball, not only for
African-Americans but also for Latinos, so I think that purpose
has been met. When you start retiring numbers across the board,
for all different groups, you’re kind of diluting the original
purpose.”
I couldn’t agree with her more. No doubt, Clemente was a key
figure in the battle against racism in the sport, but there were a
lot of players who in one way or another helped the cause. There
was only one Jackie Robinson, though.
–And on a somewhat related topic, I saw a piece in the Star-
Ledger by Julia M. Scott concerning a local history professor,
Lawrence Hogan.
Hogan is one of about a dozen who received a grant from the
Baseball Hall of Fame to do extensive research on statistics from
the Negro Leagues for the purposes of selecting more for the
Hall.
For instance, Hogan has been poring through newspaper archives
in attempting to construct stats on some of the lesser known
figures from the league that was in existence about 25 years.
Hogan is also the author of the book “Shades of Glory: The
Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball”
which it’s my understanding has just been released.
Scholars and former players and coaches are assembling in
Tampa, FL, later this month to vote on inductions from a list of
38 candidates. Thus far, of 260 inductees in the Baseball Hall of
Fame, only 18 are from the Negro Leagues. Players will still
need to receive 75% from the dozen voters to get enshrined.
–Here’s something halfway interesting from the pages of
Business Week.
Gillette is set to launch its new five-bladed Fusion razor at the
Super Bowl. But in real dollars and cents (not adjusted for
inflation), here is the evolution of the razor.
Original Safety Razor (1903, single blade)…$0.05 per
replacement blade(s)
Trac II (1971, two-bladed cartridge)…$0.20
*Sensor (1990, spring-mounted blades)…$0.79
Mach3 (1998, three blades)…$1.63
Fusion (2006, five blades plus a trimmer)…$3.00
$3.00 for a replacement blade?! You’ve gotta be kidding me.
*Sensor is the official razor of Bar Chat.
–So I’m reading in the New York Post about the memoirs of
New York magazine restaurant critic Gael Greene, “Insatiable:
Tales From a Life of Delicious Excess,” and evidently Ms.
Greene has led one wild life. To wit:
On Clint Eastwood: “He came to my room at the Beverly
Wilshire. I opened the door, and my knees buckled at the impact
of his Clint Eastwoodness…I was a puddle of Jell-O. I forget
any questions I need to ask. I’m not sure we even spoke. It
never occurred to me that what we had might go on beyond the
Beverly Wilshire…..”
I need to cut it off here out of fear I’d lose my International Web
Site Association license. I’m also prevented from commenting
on my hero, Mr. Eastwood.
–But then there’s Anna Benson. She has just signed a deal to
promote Golden Spirit Poker, an online gaming site. Sources say
she may be popping out, err, popping up at celebrity poker games
down the road. Check your local listings.
–Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry, who caught 31
passes this year, his rookie season, is now a “Dirtball of the
Year” candidate.
It seems he pulled a 9mm pistol on a group of folks, early last
Saturday morning, down in Orlando.
“An officer directing traffic aimed his gun at the 22-year-old
Henry and ordered him to drop the pistol, the police report says.
“Henry froze, then moved toward a limo in the street and threw
the gun inside the car…The officer pulled Henry away from the
limo and pushed him to the ground.”
Nice tackle.
Last month Henry was arrested on a drug charge in Kentucky,
which means he’s a one-man national crime wave.
–The Weather Channel and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration have put together a new scale for
snowstorms, similar to that of hurricanes except in this case a
grade will be issued after the fact.
Snowstorms will be categorized 1 to 5, with ‘5’ being “extreme.”
The system is dependent not just on actual snowfall but the
number of people affected. For example, a Category 1 snowfall
is just 4-10 inches while impacting 20 million – 40 million. But
a Cat 5 would be 4-30 inches impacting 65 million, with most
getting 20-30 inches.
Top 3 songs for the week of 2/3/73: #1 “Crocodile Rock” (Elton
John) #2 “You’re So Vain” (Carly Simon) #3 “Superstition”
(Stevie Wonder)…and…#6 “Oh, Babe, What Would You Say”
(Hurricane Smith…super tune) #8 “The World Is A Ghetto”
(War) #9 “Do It Again” (Steely Dan)
NCAA Men’s Basketball Quiz Answers: 1) Only four schools
with a winning percentage of .700 or better, including
tournament games, min. 20 seasons. Kentucky, .765; North
Carolina, .732; UNLV, .712; Kansas, .706. [Duke is 5th, entering
this year at .691…and around .693 up to date.] 2) Active
coaches with 700 or more victories, totals entering 2005-06. Bob
Knight, 854; Eddie Sutton, 781; Lute Olson, 740; John Chaney,
724; Mike Krzyzewski, 721; Jim Calhoun, 703; Jim Boeheim,
703. Billy Tubbs is far back in 8th, 624, beginning of the
season.]
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday.
*Note: This time it will really be Tuesday. I’ll be out of town,
gathering information if all goes according to plan.
