Super Bowl Quiz, part II [some easy, some hard]: 1) SB VII:
Who was Washington’s quarterback in its 14-7 loss to Miami? 2)
SB VIII: In Minnesota’s 24-7 loss to Miami, Chuck Foreman
rushed for only 18 yards on seven carries. Who rushed for 32 on
11 carries for the Vikes? [Not Tarkenton] 3) SB IX: In
Pittsburgh’s 16-6 win over Minnesota, name the Steelers’ front
four that held the Vikes to 17 yards rushing for the game on 21
carries. 4) SB X: In Pittsburgh’s 21-17 win over Dallas, who
was Dallas’ leading rusher with 56 yards on 16 carries? 5) SB
XI: In Oakland’s 32-14 win over Minnesota, name the two
Oakland backs who combined for 210 of the team’s 266 yards
rushing. 6) SB XII: Who were the Co-MVPs in Dallas’ 27-10
win over Denver? Answers below.
The Australian Open
It’s too bad American viewers don’t get to catch much, if any, of
this one live due to the time difference, but it was an historic
event as Serena Williams mounted one heck of a comeback in
returning from the dead and her #81 world ranking to capture her
8th major in whipping Maria Sharapova into submission like a
rented mule.
It was Williams’ first major since the Aussie Open title in ’05
and it seems like eons ago when she was dominating her sport
with the Serena Slam…the French, Wimbledon and U.S. Open
titles in 2002 and then the Australian Open to start off ’03.
Then there’s Roger Federer….Tiger and Roger…Roger and
Tiger. We’re watching the two best to ever play their sport;
pretty special stuff.
Federer now has ten majors (3 Australian, 4 Wimbledon and 3
U.S.) and is just four behind Pete Sampras. He’s also now a
phenomenal 10-1 in Grand Slam Finals, and he’s just a good guy
to boot.
As for Tiger, he’s now won seven PGA Tour events in a row,
trailing only Byron Nelson’s seemingly untouchable 11 from 1945,
following his win at Torrey Pines this weekend.
British Open…67-65-71-67…(-18)
Buick Open…66-66-66-66…(-24)
PGA Championship…69-68-65-68…(-18)
WGC-Bridgestone Invitational…67-64-71-68…(-10)
Deutsche Bank Championship…66-72-67-63…(-16)
WGC-American Express…63-64-67-67…(-23)
Buick Invitational…66-72-69-66…(-15)
Apollo I
This past weekend, Jan. 27 specifically, marked the 40th
anniversary of the Apollo I tragedy that took the lives of
astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.
I was 8-years-old back then and it’s one of my first vivid news
memories as I sat in front of the television trying to comprehend
this awful event.
The three were in the Apollo capsule, going through a test-run
for the launch, when some faulty insulation around a wire
sparked a flashfire, igniting the atmosphere of pure oxygen
around them. The three died in seconds, never having a chance
to escape because the door to the capsule had been bolted shut.
Richard Corfield / Washington Post:
“The disaster paralyzed NASA and the burgeoning American
space industry. All work on the Apollo program was halted
while the cause of the fire was determined and steps taken to
prevent a repetition. There was little time, though, because the
late president John F. Kennedy had mandated that the United
States land a man on the moon – and return him safely to Earth –
by 1970, less than three years away.”
[Ironically for Grissom, in the summer of 1961 he had almost
died after becoming the second American to fly into space
aboard Mercury Liberty Bell Seven. “When the capsule landed
in the ocean, its door blew off, and Grissom nearly drowned.
Grissom’s nemesis was ever to be the door to his spacecraft.”]
But it was truly incredible, following such a disaster with Apollo
I, that indeed, 30 months later, Neil Armstrong was setting foot
on the moon.
So this got me thinking about a trip I took over six years ago that
I chronicled in this space, December 2000, and a visit to
Wapakoneta, Ohio, the home of Neil Armstrong, All-American
Boy. There is a terrific museum there, dedicated to both him and
the space program.
Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930, on his grandmother’s
farm near this charming town. He was fascinated with aviation
as a child and actually received his pilot’s license before he
could drive at the age of 16.
The museum had a great collection of articles that I wish I
could have spent more time going over, and his high school
yearbook was pretty funny. Armstrong’s senior quote was, “He
thinks, he acts, ‘tis done.” Actually, the fellow right across from
him (the yearbook wasn’t alphabetical…they were rebellious
back in 1947) is one Donald Frame. Frame’s quote was, “Not
too serious, not too gay, but a very good fellow in every way.” I
wish I could have looked at some of the others. It was a more
simplistic time, that’s for sure. [On the other hand, my senior
quote from 1976 had to do with my love for spice cookies,
perhaps the most moronic verse in the history of high school
yearbooks and thus probably precluding me from ever running
for political office.]
After high school, Armstrong attended Purdue on a U.S. Navy
scholarship before serving as a fighter pilot in the Korean War,
during which he received three combat citations for his 78
missions.
Following the war he finished up his degree and did some
graduate work, settling down at NACA, the forerunner of NASA,
in Cleveland (where our own Dr. Bortrum did a little work as
well). Armstrong was a test pilot and in 1962, he was selected as
part of the 2nd group of astronauts.
Neil took part in the Gemini program, one that tested some of
the maneuvers to be used in the upcoming Apollo mission.
Commanding Gemini 8, Armstrong performed the first
docking in space. This was almost a disaster as the module they
were docked to began to spin out of control when they separated
from it.
On April 14, 1969, the Wapakoneta Daily News ran the lead
headline: “Neil probably first man on moon.” Just imagine the
excitement in this small town. As part of the normal rotation of
astronauts, Armstrong’s name was simply next in line to
command the historic mission.
But Armstrong had already developed a reputation for being
rather aloof. He shied away from the publicity. I read the
following quote from reporter William Furlong in the 7/6/69
edition of The National Observer newspaper. Furlong had
interviewed Neil.
“It slowly became evident that the man who will be first to touch
the surface of another body in the universe is not simply an
unemotional, robot like man in whom the flesh is perfectly
subjugated by the intellect. He has other interests, only he
doesn’t care to talk about them.” And Furlong added, “He does
not display any sense of personal destiny.”
And so on July 16, 1969, commander Neil Armstrong was at the
helm of Apollo 11. Accompanied by Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and
Michael Collins, the crew was headed for its rendezvous with
history.
The purpose of this article isn’t to describe the mission in any
detail, but I had forgotten a few things. One being that as the
lunar module approached the surface, warning lights began to go
off (which NASA told Armstrong and Aldrin to ignore) and then,
just a few hundred feet above the intended landing site,
Armstrong sighted some huge boulders. He maneuvered the
craft at the last second and Eagle touched down on more level
ground. Just 30 seconds of fuel was left. A billion people were
to hear his famous words when he finally emerged. When Aldrin
set foot later he spoke of the “magnificent desolation.”
[Armstrong’s mother, incidentally, was worried her son “would
sink in too deeply.”]
President Nixon addressed the men on the moon.
“Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a
part of man’s world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of
Tranquility it requires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace
and tranquility to earth.
“For one priceless moment in the whole history of man all the
people on this earth are truly one – one in their pride in what you
have done and one in our prayers that you will return safely to
earth.”
When the astronauts returned, Buzz Aldrin’s wife was asked how
her faith sustained her.
“I talked to my minister today and asked him if he had been
saying a lot of little prayers. He said, just one big one. That’s
what I said I had been doing. So, maybe God can take a rest
now.”
These were incredible times. Often it seemed like the country
would be torn apart and the concerns on the international front
were stupendous. If you ever get down on America, just
remember what our space program accomplished back then. I
guarantee you your heart will well up with pride. Sitting alone in
that theater in Wapakoneta, Ohio, mine sure did.
Assorted Space Tidbits
–Teach your children: The original Mercury 7 astronauts were
Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom,
Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton.
–Initially, astronauts were selected using the following strict
criteria: Due to size constraints, they couldn’t be more than
5 feet 11 inches tall. They also had to be under 40 years of age,
have 1500 hours of flight time and be military personnel.
–Freedom 7: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space,
going up and down without orbiting, 5/5/61. This was just 23
days after Russia’s Yuri Gagarin, 4/12/61. John Glenn then went
up 2/20/62, orbiting 3 times and spending almost 5 hours in
space.
—
Joe Namath, Bachelors III…part II
If you didn’t read the last chat you might want to skim it first.
So, continuing with the tale of Broadway Joe and the episode
over his Bachelors III restaurant in Manhattan that NFL
Commissioner Pete Rozelle made him give up following the Jets’
Super Bowl win in 1969, the following December, Joe sat down
with Playboy magazine.
Playboy: What finally made you decide to sell your interest in
Bachelors III and go back to football?
Namath: Well, up until the day I did it, I really didn’t think I
would ever play again. Rozelle and I were meeting and he said
that even though I might agree to sell the bar, from now on, I
also had to ‘stay out’ of Bachelors III. Well, I wouldn’t give him
my word on that, because some night I might just want to drop
in, with a girl or solo. My friends were there and I just wasn’t
going to stay away permanently. And then he said, ‘You know,
Joe, if you really want to, you can do it. You gave up smoking
that way. When you put your mind to something, you do it.’
And I said, ‘What the hell is this all about? I don’t want to sell –
so I’m not selling.’ We’d been meeting for two and a half hours
and, man, I knew what was right and I put my mind to it: Do
what the hell you want to do and, if you haven’t hurt anybody,
then you’re OK.
[But Namath sold and even though he wanted to walk away from
football, on principle, he came back.]
Namath: I think Rozelle was right in the way he acted, in that it’s
his job to keep football above suspicion. That’s why he’s
commissioner. When all the magazine stories were out, the
public was wondering just what the hell was going to happen.
Well, I realized then, as I do now, that to answer the public and
keep any question about football’s integrity from even being
raised, getting me the hell out of Bachelors III was the only
answer….By selling and having pro football take me back, I
think it indicates that I wasn’t involved with any person or
establishment or with any crap games and things like that.
While all this was going on, Namath was accused in Sports
Illustrated of running a craps game in his apartment.
Namath: I think Sports Illustrated might check out their stories a
little more closely before publishing them. If they had, they
would have discovered that my next-door neighbors are three
FBI agents sharing a pad. Somehow, I don’t think it would be
very wise for mobsters to hold big crap games in a location like
that. [Sports Illustrated later backed off.]
But on a different topic, Namath was such a great athlete the St.
Louis Cardinals offered him $15,000 when he was a junior in
high school, a large sum for the time (around 1959). “When my
dad asked me what I planned to do with the money, I told him I’d
seen this great-looking convertible; he didn’t exactly think it
would be such a great idea if that’s all I wanted.”
Namath was then offered $50,000 his senior year by the Cubs.
Playboy: What had you done to attract all this attention?
Namath: Nothing in particular; I was just a really outstanding,
power-hitting outfielder. I could throw and I could hit.
Playboy: Do you think you could have gotten as far in baseball
as you have in football?
Namath: No. I think I could have become an outstanding
professional baseball player, but I don’t think I could have
reached the heights that I have in football….
Playboy: Is that why you finally passed up the baseball offers?
Namath: No. Shoot, when I got those offers, I sure as hell
wanted to take the money and run. But my mom and dad wanted
me to go to college.
But Joe Willie’s college selection wasn’t that easy and next time
we find out how he ended up at Alabama and turned down Notre
Dame. [Source: “The Playboy Interviews: They Played the
Game”]
Stuff
–NHL Hall of Fame goaltender Gump Worsley died. Born
Lorne John Worsley in 1929, he was called Gump because as a
kid his hair stuck up like a comic strip figure of that time, Andy
Gump. For those of us of a certain age, Worsley was one of the
great characters in the game and consider he didn’t wear a mask
until the last year of a 21-year career.
However, he’s in the Hall of Fame with a below .500 record,
335-352-150. I have to admit I didn’t know this until reading his
obituary. This is kind of disturbing, frankly. But to give him his
due, he was 40-26 in the playoffs.
–The following is really for a good friend who needs to go
nameless, that being the story of Liz Renay who died the other
day at the age of 80. As one headline I saw read, it’s really about
“The colorful and lurid life of Liz Renay.”
You see, as John L. Smith wrote in the Las Vegas Review-
Journal, “F. Scott Fitzgerald whined, ‘There are no second acts in
American lives.’ But Fitzgerald didn’t know Liz Renay.”
“Liz was larger than life and had the bust line to prove it.
[44DD-26-36] Even as she approached her 80th birthday last
spring with her bum hip and other age-related maladies, she still
led with her best assets. In the right light, she could still turn
heads and charm the chips from casino players’ pockets.”
Renay was an actress, author, artist, stripper and convicted felon.
Born Pearl Elizabeth Dobbins in Mesa, Ariz., her mother was a
dirt-poor religious zealot who tried to steer Pearl toward a
righteous path.
But Pearl went to Hollywood where she won a Marilyn Monroe
look-alike contest and became “eye-popping arm candy for a
number of big-screen stars and big-time gangsters.”
Renay was convicted of perjury in 1959 during the federal tax
evasion trial of her boyfriend, gangster Mickey Cohen, and
ended up serving 27 months behind bars. But while in prison
Renay took up painting and wrote a best-selling memoir “My
Face For the World to See.” She picked up some acting gigs in
pictures such as 1964’s “The Thrill Killers” and notched a few
husbands (seven) along the way. She also gained some notoriety
in 1974 by streaking down Hollywood Boulevard at high noon,
which earned her a charge for indecent exposure. But a jury
acquitted her (8 of the 12 were males) with one male juror asking
her for an autograph “for his 15-year-old son.”
She later wrote a second memoir, “My first 2,000 Men,” that
detailed her partying with everyone from Joe DiMaggio and Cary
Grant to Regis Philbin and Burt Lancaster.
–That was quite an incident with the couple that had a brush
with death after meeting a mountain lion while hiking in a
California state park last week, wasn’t it?
Jim and Nell Hamm, about to celebrate their 50th wedding
anniversary, were hiking in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park
when the cat pounced on Jim.
“He didn’t scream,” said Nell. “It was a different, horrible plea
for help, and I turned around, and by then the cat had wrestled
Jim to the ground.”
Neither had seen the killer before it attacked, but it was Nell who
saved the day, grabbing a four-inch-wide log and beating the
mountain lion with it.
“Jim was talking to me all through this, and he said, ‘I’ve got a
pen in my pocket and get the pen and jab him in the eye,’ so I got
the pen and tried to put it in his eye, but it didn’t want to go in as
easy as I thought it would.”
As reported by the AP, “When the pen bent and became useless,
Nell Hamm went back to using the log. The lion eventually let
go and, with blood on its snout, stood staring at the woman. She
screamed and waved the log until the animal walked away.”
Well you have to picture that Jim was a mess, as a photo of him
in the hospital later revealed, but the two walked a quarter-mile
to a trail head and waited for a ranger to come by. Jim had to
have his lips stitched back together and underwent surgery for
his scalp laceration.
But in reading the story, I noticed that Nell is just 65 (Jim is 70)
and their 50th anniversary is next month. Hmmmmmmm.
–Goodness gracious…check out this horror story from a piece
by Patrice Kohl of the Anchorage Daily News.
“On a late December day, Tobie Hansen was running his 12-dog
team on a trail in the Kasilof area when he met with an
unexpected attacker. A moose, spooked by Hansen’s team,
reared up on its hind legs and then weaved through his dog team
as it tried to stomp on them.
“Hansen ran his team as fast as he could, but no matter how fast
the team ran they couldn’t escape the moose….
“After running through the dog team two or three times, the
moose turned its attention to Hansen, running alongside him and
trying to shove him and his sled off the trail using her body.
“ ‘She started shoving me in the woods with me on my sled, and
I dumped my sled and let go of the dogs to try and get away from
her,’ he said. ‘I jumped in the woods and she started coming
after me.’….
“(The) moose wasn’t content with just shoving Hansen, so he
darted between trees trying to dodge the moose’s attack until
finally the moose turned away.”
Hansen was able to corral his dogs and get the hell out of the
area.
Meanwhile, wildlife experts say never stand your ground if a
moose attacks.
“With a moose, I recommend people get out of there, run,” said
Larry Lewis, an Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife
technician. “If you stand your ground, they’ll nail you.”
So if you see a moose at your door, looking for a beer or selling
Girl Scout cookies, Jeff Selinger of the Fish and Game
Department advises that you need to check for agitation. “An
agitated moose may……[actually, this is too gross]….and lick
its lips. And if it lays back its ears, lowers its head and bristles
the hairs on its back, it’s time to be worried,” said Sellinger.
Advice on dealing with moose…another free feature of Bar Chat.
–In the New York area this winter, there has been a college
basketball tale of woe that is sort of in the background at least
twice a week; that being the story of Iona, now 0-20 and the only
Division I school to remain winless this season.
As I’d hear the results of their games, I’d muse, ‘When was it
that they appeared in the NCAA Tournament? Was it 2005?
What a comedown.”
Actually, it was just last year that Iona was a #13 seed in the
tourney and played competitively against #4 seed LSU before
succumbing 80-64. LSU then went on to the Final Four.
I mean this has to be one of the biggest collapses in all of sports
history, frankly. From the penthouse to the outhouse, you could
say. And you ought to see the press conferences with Iona
Coach Jeff Ruland. It’s as if he’s going to kill himself right there
in front of the rest of us.
Basically, Ruland lost four seniors off last year’s squad and the
fifth best player who was supposed to lead the team this season
got hurt. Others expected to step up either got hurt, too, or were
declared academically ineligible. Heck, at this point it would be
worth going to the YMCA to see if they could find a stringer,
don’t you think? What can the NCAA make Iona do…forfeit?
[Next up for the Gaels…10-10 Canisius on Monday.]
–At the start of this college basketball season I said I was taking
it off in terms of following my Wake Forest Demon Deacons.
That proved to be the right decision and I’m not losing sleep over
the fact we are now 1-7 in ACC play and 4-20 over the past two
years.
But as the Winston-Salem Journal’s Lenox Rawlings points out,
it is hard to believe that just two years ago we were #1 in the
country. Maybe Iona has competition when it comes to all-time
collapses and perhaps I should be losing sleep. As Rawlings
notes, Wake’s program is “a raging depression” right now.
What sucks is that on one hand you can use the excuse, ‘Well,
we have 11 freshmen and sophomores on scholarship and you’d
expect them to struggle.’ What’s increasingly clear, though, is
that only three or four of them should probably be getting
substantial minutes the next two years. They just don’t seem to
be improving much. Rawlings is dead on when he adds that all
one has to do is look at Duke and North Carolina. They’re also
loaded with underclassmen, but their talent is superior to ours.
And so, folks, you now know why I continue to loathe Chris Paul.
The way he left after his sophomore year (late in terms of the
recruiting game) really killed the program. Coach Skip Prosser
also has just one more year to turn it around or he’s done.
[Thanks for passing on the article, Phil W.]
–Nice effort by #17 Arizona the other day at home against #4
North Carolina. Arizona shot 1-of-23 from 3-point land in losing
92-64.
–You know who I’m anxious to see in the NCAA tournament?
Nevada’s budding superstar Nick Fazekas.
–OK, I have to admit I had the New York Knicks winning all of
16 games this season and they are now 19-27. Plus they’ve been
mildly entertaining the last month or so. In fact, I think I’ve
watched about 50 minutes total thus far, or 10 more than all of
last year.
But as a hoops fan you also have to acknowledge guard Jamal
Crawford’s effort the other night…52 points for the
Knickerbockers in just 39 minutes on 20 of 30 shooting from the
field (8 of 10 from downtown), this after starting out 0 for 4.
–Vodka sales have grown by an annual rate of 7% from 2000 to
2005, vs. 4% for rum, 3.5% for bourbon and 2.0% for scotch.
The fastest selling vodka during this time is Grey Goose, which
has seen its sales grow at a compound annual rate of 50%. Next
is Ketel One at 15%. Profit margins on high-end vodkas can top
40%. [Deborah Ball / Wall Street Journal]
–Not for nothing, but did you see what happened in this week’s
Champions Tour event in Hawaii? Fred Funk won by 11 shots.
–“For Better or For Worse” is heating up again as Liz has
returned from Mtigwaki and her chopper ride with Flyboy
Warren. April is prodding Liz to say she still likes Warren,
while our own Jeff B. is adamant that Pitiful Wimp Anthony will
end up with the increasingly erratic Liz, who sometimes appears
to age 30 years from one panel to the next. Both Jeff and I are,
however, now worried that kid sister April seems to be on drugs,
witness her incredibly bulging eyes in Saturday’s strip.
Meanwhile, Jeff reminded me that those old bats from Michael
and Deanna’s apartment, the ones who set the fire, are probably
due to be released from the hospital soon. Will they then walk
over to the Patterson’s house and set it ablaze, too?
Top 3 songs for the week of 1/31/70: #1 “I Want You Back”
(The Jackson 5) #2 “Venus” (The Shocking Blue) #3
“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” (B.J. Thomas)…and…
#4 “Whole Lotta Love” (Led Zeppelin) #5 “Without Love”
(Tom Jones) #6 “Don’t Cry Daddy” (Elvis Presley) #7 “I’ll
Never Fall In Love Again” (Dionne Warwick)
Super Bowl Quiz Answers: 1) SB VII: Billy Kilmer was
Washington’s QB. He was 14 of 28 with three interceptions. 2)
SB VIII: Oscar Reed rushed for 32 yards on 11 carries for
Minnesota. During the regular season he had 401 yards and
2,008 for his career. For the life of me I don’t remember this
guy. 3) SB IX: Pittsburgh’s front four, the Steel Curtain, was Joe
Greene (6’4” 275 lb.), Ernie Holmes (6’3” 260 lb.), Dwight
White (6’4” 255), and L.C. Greenwood (6’6” 245). These guys
were massive for their time, the mid-1970s. By the way, in
Super Bowls VIII and IX, the Vikings’ Chuck Foreman rushed
for a combined 36 yards on 19 carries; not exactly getting it
done. 4) SB X: Robert Newhouse was Dallas’ leading rusher
with 56 yards. That season, 1975, he had his best year, 930
yards, and rushed for 4,784 in his career. 5) SB XI: Clarence
Davis, 16 carries for 137 yards, and Mark Van Eeghen, 18 for
73, spearheaded a ferocious ground attack against the likes of
Carl Eller, Alan Page and Jim Marshall. 6) SB XII: The Co-
MVPs were Dallas DE Harvey Martin and DT Randy White.
Denver QB Craig Morton had a nightmare game, 4 for 15 with 4
interceptions.
[Our final round of Super Bowl quizzes next time.]
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
