Baseball Quiz: Name the top ten lifetime in hits. [Hints: #10 is
at 3283. Two retired in 1928, one 1917, and another 1930. None
played the bulk of their careers pre-1900…Cap Anson (1876-
1897) is #23]. Answer below.
Ladies and Gentlemen……THE BEATLES!!!!! [Aarghhhh!]
Yes, February 9 is the 43rd anniversary of The Beatles’ first
appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. I’ve saved some articles
from 2004, previously unreleased material for Bar Chat, plus I
added a new book to the library.
David Fricke / Rolling Stone
“Shortly after 8 p.m. on Sunday, February 9, 1964, a short, stiff
man with rubbery bloodhound features – Ed Sullivan, the host of
the highest-rated variety hour on American television –
addressed his New York studio audience and the folks tuned in at
home over the CBS network.
‘ ‘Yesterday and today, our theater’s been jammed with
newspapermen and hundreds of photographers from all over the
nation,’ Sullivan said in a nasally chuckling voice. ‘And these
veterans agreed with me that the city never has witnessed the
excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool.’ He
droned on for a few more seconds. Then the sixty-two-year-old
Sullivan uttered the nine most important words in the history of
rock & roll TV:
‘Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles! Let’s bring them on!’
“No one in Studio 50, the 728-seat home of The Ed Sullivan
Show, at 53rd Street and Broadway, heard anything else for the
next eight minutes, except a monsoon of teenage-female
screaming. The Beatles – guitarist John Lennon, 23; bass
guitarist Paul McCartney, 21; drummer Ringo Starr, 23; and lead
guitarist George Harrison, two weeks shy of twenty-one –
opened their U.S. debut performance with a machine-gun
bouquet of twin-guitar clang and jubilant vocal harmonies: ‘All
My Loving,’ ‘Till There Was You’ and ‘She Loves You.’ Forty
minutes later – after songs and routines by Frank Gorshin, British
music-hall star Tessie O’Shea and the Broadway cast of ‘Oliver!’
– the Beatles returned to tear through both sides of their first U.S.
Number One single, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ‘I Want To
Hold Your Hand.’
“ ‘But you could not hear them playing anything,’ says John
Moffitt, associate director of The Ed Sullivan Show, who was
vainly calling out cues to the cameramen shooting the band.
‘The noise was incredible. Nobody could hear a thing except the
kids in the audience, screaming. They overpowered the
amplifiers. The cameramen couldn’t hear. Even the kids
couldn’t hear anything, except each other screaming.’”
John Lennon would later remark “I’ve never seen anything like
it in my life.”
73 million people watched on television that evening. Think
about it. 95 million watched the Super Bowl last Sunday and the
nation’s population is now 300 million. Back in 1964, it was 190
million.
John Lennon told Rolling Stone in his famous 1970 interview,
“We knew we could wipe you out – we were new. When we got
here, you were all walking around in f***in’ Bermuda shorts,
with Boston crew cuts and stuff in your teeth.”
McCartney told Rolling Stone in 1987, “John and I knew we
were writing good songs. You had to be an idiot to listen to what
we were writing and not say, ‘Hey, man, this is good….We could
even do well in America.’”
But as David Fricke writes: “Yet the Beatles could not have
achieved so much, so fast, without Sullivan’s Sunday-night
might.”
Sullivan was in London on Oct. 31, 1963, at the airport, when the
Beatles returned from a Swedish tour to a tumultuous reception.
“At first, Sullivan thought everyone had turned out to greet the
queen mother. But by November 11, he was back in New York,
negotiating with (Brian) Epstein.”
The Beatles were actually given double-billing not just Feb. 9th
but also the 16th (from the Deauville Hotel in Miami) and a taped
segment on Feb. 23rd. In return for all this exposure Epstein
accepted a total fee of $10,000, far less than the $7,500 Sullivan
paid for big acts for a single show.
Back in February 2004, the New York Daily News’ David
Hinckley had some of the following thoughts.
“The Beatles’ first visit to New York, Feb. 7-9, 1964, lasted less
than 72 hours. It hardly seems like enough time to change
American popular culture. It was.
“True, 12 months of brilliant musical and promotional buildup
didn’t hurt. But it took the Fab Four to close the deal, a process
that began as they stepped off Pan Am Flight 101, the Yankee
Clipper, at 1:20 p.m.
“It had been a tense flight, simply because everyone knew what
was at stake. This was America. This was showtime.
“When they poked their heads out and saw the first sea of fans,
road manager Neil Aspinall says one of them asked, ‘Is the
President’s plane about to land?’ No, this was for them, and once
they knew it, they rode that giddy wave inside the terminal to
meet the American press.
“One of the few things grownup America had tolerated about
rock stars to this point was that they shut up. Elvis Presley rarely
said anything, and it was widely assumed the species spoke only
in primeval grunts.
“Not the Beatles. They were outgoing, witty, articulate and
irreverent about everything, including themselves.”
Press: “What is the secret of your success?” Ringo: “We have a
press agent.”
Press: “What do you think of the campaign in Detroit to stamp
out the Beatles?” John: “We have a campaign to stamp out
Detroit.”
“As this repartee crackled out to countless radio stations,
suddenly all bets were off. America was fascinated by
something it had written off 24 hours earlier as a teenage flavor
of the month….
“No, the two biggest factors in the Beatles’ triumph were the two
best showcased that February weekend: 1) The postwar baby
boom had delivered a huge army of teenagers and adolescents
primed for a culture of their own, and 2) The Beatles had the
musical goods.”
In early 1965, New York radio legend Jean Shepherd was
assigned to cover the Beatles for Playboy as they toured England
and Scotland and after getting to know each other over the course
of a week, Shepherd sat down with them at a hotel. Following
are a few excerpts from the book “The Playboy Interviews:
Larger than Life”.
Playboy: When did you know that you had really hit it big?
There must have been one night when you knew it had really
begun.
John: Well, we’d been playing round in Liverpool for a bit
without getting anywhere, trying to get work, and the other
groups kept telling us, ‘You’ll do all right, you’ll get work
someday.’ And then we went to Hamburg, and when we came
back, suddenly we were a wow. Mind you, 70 percent of the
audience thought we were a German wow, but we didn’t care
about that.
Paul: We were billed in the paper: ‘From Hamburg – The
Beatles.’
John: In Liverpool, people didn’t even know we were from
Liverpool. They thought that we were from Hamburg. They
said, ‘Christ, they speak good English!’ Which we did, of course,
being English. But that’s when we first, you know, stood there
being cheered for the first time.
Paul: That was when we felt we were –
John: On the way up –
Paul: Gonna make it in Liverpool.
Playboy: How much were you earning then?
John: For that particular night, $20.
Playboy: Apiece?
John: For the group! Hell, we used to work for a lot less than
that.
Paul: We used to work for about three or four dollars a night.
[On making it in America…]
John: The thing is, in America it just seemed ridiculous – I
mean, the idea of having a hit record over there. It was just, you
know, something you could never do. That’s what I thought,
anyhow. But then I realized that it’s just the same here, that kids
everywhere all go for the same stuff. And seeing we’d done it in
England and all, there’s no reason why we couldn’t do it in
America, too. But the American disc jockeys didn’t know about
British records; they didn’t play them; nobody promoted them,
and so you didn’t have hits….
But it wasn’t until Time and Life and Newsweek came over and
wrote articles and created an interest in us that the disc jockeys
started playing our records. And Capitol said, ‘Well, can we
have their records?’ You know, they had been offered our
records years ago, and they didn’t want them. But when they
heard we were big over here they said, ‘Can we have them now?’
So we said, ‘As long as you promote them.’ So Capitol
promoted, and with them and all these articles on us, the records
just took off.
Playboy: There’s been some dispute, among your fans and
critics, about whether you’re primarily entertainers or musicians
– or perhaps neither. What’s your own opinion?
John: We’re moneymakers first; then we’re entertainers.
Ringo: No, we’re not.
John: What are we, then?
Ringo: Dunno. Entertainers first.
Paul: Still, we’d be idiots to say that it isn’t a constant inspiration
to be making a lot of money. It always is, to anyone. I mean,
why do big business tycoons stay big business tycoons? It’s not
because they’re inspired at the greatness of big business; they’re
in it because they’re making money at it. We’d be idiots if we
pretended we were in it solely for kicks.
John: We love every minute of it, Beatle people!
[Next chat….Paul gets in a bit of trouble over some comments he
makes to Playboy about religion….this isn’t John’s infamous
miscue.]
Stuff
–All-time Grammy Winners [Courtesy of Rolling Stone]
31 – Georg (sic) Solti
27 – Quincy Jones
26 – Pierre Boulez
25 – Vladimir Horowitz
24 – Stevie Wonder
22 – U2
20 – Alison Krauss, Henry Mancini
18 – John Williams
17 – Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Vince Gill, Pat Metheny
16 – Leonard Bernstein, Eric Clapton, Robert Shaw, Paul Simon,
Sting
15 – Yo-Yo Ma, James Mallinson, Itzhak Perlman, Al Schmitt,
Jimmy Sturr [Mr. Polka]
14 – Chet Atkins, David Foster, B.B. King
13 – Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney,
Leontyne Price, Bruce Springsteen, Dan Tyminski
–SHARK!!!!!
From Bob S., shark hunter, comes this tale off Florida’s Fort
Myers Beach. It seems that a shrimp boat crew was attacked by
a bull shark on January 29 but they just told their story to the
local NBC affiliate on Monday.
Captain Roger Schmall told Channel 2 “We get hundreds of
sharks following the boats when we’re working, and it gets pretty
scary sometimes. Throwing trash over and watching them in a
feeding frenzy.” [I hope Captain Schmall’s trash is
biodegradable.]
From Channel 2, “Around 3:30 a.m. about 100 miles off the
coast…Schmall and the rest of the crew aboard the ‘Christy
Nichole’ felt something slam into the boat. It was a bull shark.
Experts say it is aggressive, territorial and has more testosterone
than any other creature on the planet.”
“Schmall rushed to put the engine in neutral, but before he could
the boat began taking on water. ‘It bogged the engine down, and
snapped the tail, and that’s actually where we started with our
problem,’ said Schmall.
“Captain Schmall realized his boat was sinking and he radioed
his friend Henry Gore. ‘It was just getting out of hand. The
water was coming in faster than the pumps were keeping up,’
said Captain Henry Gore, rescuer.”
It took Gore two hours to get to the boat and the Christy
Nichole’s crew scrambled aboard after abandoning ship. The
boat sank.
HOWEVER…in yet another Bar Chat Exclusive, Bob S. informs
me that there are some in the area who say the story is bogus;
that it’s an insurance scam.
But Bob and I are in total agreement. This was no scam, nor
an attack by a bull shark. No, this has all the markings of an
attack by a Megalodon pup. We can’t prove it, especially since
the species is said to have been extinct for millions of years, but
my best information is that four breeding pairs survive off
Vanuatu, near Fiji, which would help explain the very high death
toll there by sharks that is never reported in the official Shark
Attack File, which by now you’ve learned is a total fraud,
anyway………….DEVELOPING…………
–AP Men’s Basketball Poll
1. Florida
2. UCLA
3. Ohio State
4. Wisconsin
5. North Carolina
6. Texas A&M
7. Pitt
8. Memphis
9. Kansas
10. Butler!!!
12. Nevada!!!
[And lurking in the ‘receiving votes’ category, Winthrop!]
–Southpaw pitcher Steve Barber died at the age of 67. Barber
was 121-106 in a solid career that spanned 15 seasons, with his
most productive stretch with the Orioles, the first 7 ½ years.
Barber was a member of the “Baby Birds” starting staff that
I generally define as 1961-64. In ’61, for example, Barber (23),
Chuck Estrada (23), Jack Fisher (22) and Milt Pappas (22)
combined to go 56-43. Later Fisher was traded and 19-year-old
Wally Bunker and Dave McNally came up. [Jim Palmer was
after them.]
Steve Barber was the first Baltimore hurler to win 20 games in
1963 and was 10-5 in the team’s 1966 drive for the
championship. He didn’t pitch in the teams winning World
Series performance against the Dodgers, though, due to injury;
something that plagued him throughout his career.
But by 1967 it had appeared his arm troubles were over and in
his first start of the season, he held California hitless until Jim
Fregosi singled with one out in the ninth. Just two starts later,
Barber faced the Tigers in the first game of a doubleheader.
Once again, the opposition was hitless after eight and Barber
took a 1-0 lead into the ninth despite having walked seven and
hitting a batter.
According to “The Biographical Encyclopedia of Baseball”:
“The Orioles made several spectacular plays in the field, perhaps
the best by Barber when he stopped Jim Northrup’s line drive
through the box with his left hip and recovered to throw him out
at first base. The Orioles scratched out a run in the bottom of the
eighth without a hit, on three walks (one to Barber) and Luis
Aparicio’s sacrifice fly. Barber issued a pair of walks to start the
ninth, and (they were sacrificed over to second and third). Willie
Horton fouled out to the catcher for the second out, and Barber
got ahead of Mickey Stanley, 1-2. Catcher Larry Haney called
for a slider, but Barber shook him off for a changeup. The
delivery bounced well in front of the plate, hit Haney on his chest
protector, and rolled about 20 feet toward the first base dugout.
“Dick Tracewski, the pinch runner on third base, remembers,
‘We were looking for a wild pitch because he was so wild. He
was usually borderline wild, but on this day he was very wild.’
Tracewski slid home, beating Haney’s throw to Barber, and the
score was tied.
“Barber walked Stanley for his 10th free pass of the game, one
short of the AL record for a nine-inning contest, and Stu Miller
relieved. Don Wert hit a bouncer up the middle. Shortstop
Aparicio raced to his left to flag it down, but rookie second
baseman Mark Belanger, who would win eight Gold Gloves at
short, dropped Aparicio’s throw. A second Tigers run crossed
the plate on the play and they held on for the 2-1 win. Barber
had thrown 144 pitches in the first combined nine-inning no-hit
loss in major league history. ‘If you can’t get the ball over the
plate, you don’t deserve to win,’ he said afterwards.”
So there was Barber with two eight-inning no-hitters in his first
three starts of the 1967 campaign, but he would win only two of
his next 10 decisions, get traded to the Yankees, and in the next
seven years he played with six different clubs, going 26-31.
While with Seattle, Barber was constantly in the trainer’s room
and became a target of teammate Jim Bouton who was working
on the book “Ball Four.”
–And former Milwaukee Braves pitching great Lew Burdette
passed away at the age of 80. Burdette, who went 203-144 in an
18-year career, is perhaps best known for his spectacular
performance in the 1957 World Series vs. the New York
Yankees as he won three starts, two by shutouts, and was
selected MVP in the Braves’ seven-game triumph. The
clinching win, a 5-0 whitewash, was on two days rest due to
Warren Spahn’s bout with the flu and his effort is generally
acknowledged to be the best in Series history since Christy
Mathewson’s three shutouts for the New York Giants against
Philadelphia in 1905.
Over his career, Burdette gave up a ton of hits, 3,186 in 3,067
innings, but his control was impeccable. In one three-year
stretch he yielded just 33-38 walks each season while throwing
from 272 to 289 innings. But he was also known as one of the
premier spitball pitchers.
On this topic Burdette was quick to point out, “They talk as if all
you had to do to throw a spitter was to crank up and throw one.
Don’t they know it’s the hardest pitch to control? It takes a lot of
practice and you just don’t throw one when you figure it might
get the hitter out. I’d love to use it, if I knew how. Burleigh
Grimes told me five years ago not to monkey around with it, but
to let them think I threw it. That’s what I’ve done.”
As for the Yankees, they got their revenge in 1958 when they
beat Burdette twice.
Then on May 26, 1959, Burdette was involved in one of the more
famous pitching performances in history. Pittsburgh’s Harvey
Haddix threw 12 perfect innings, but his mound opponent, Lew
himself, matched him by pitching 13 shutout innings while
scattering 12 hits. In the 13th Joe Adcock homered off Haddix
and Burdette got the win. Then in 1960, Burdette no-hit the
Phillies, facing the minimum 27 batters as his lone walk was
erased on a double play. [Sources: “The Biographical
Encyclopedia of Baseball; Richard Goldstein / New York Times]
Johnny Mac points out that Burdette was signed by the Yankees
in 1950 and in the summer of 1951, the Yanks stupidly sent Lew
and $50,000 to the Boston Braves for Johnny Sain, who only had
two decent seasons left in his arm. A rare bad move for the
Bronx Bombers…very bad.
*By the way, “Lew” spelled his own name “Lou” when he wrote
it out. And now you know……………the rest of the story.
–Watching the Super Bowl, I kept wondering where Eli and
Archie Manning were. I then found out the next day that the two
were in NBC’s luxury box and I guess CBS had a problem
shining a camera on them. Of course now it’s almost comical
how CBS avoided all crowd shots because of how pitiful the
rain-logged fans would have looked.
But I saw another story where Giants quarterback Eli was
basically hiding and you keep seeing these stories of how “shy”
Eli is, let alone the tale I had after the Giants’ playoff hopes went
down in flames on Eli’s issues as a child and such.
The more you think of it the more bizarre it is. It’s as if he’s
scared to compete; perhaps a gross overstatement, I’ll admit, but
the guy is troubling and one has to wonder just what were the
Giants thinking in making their move for Eli in the first place.
At his news conference following his coronation, brother Peyton
told the assembled throng, “I think Eli is going to be fine. There
is no doubt in my mind he is a quarterback who will lead his
team to a Super Bowl, probably more than one. I know how hard
he works.”
But as the New York Daily News’ Gary Myers wrote on
Tuesday:
“Peyton just made life so much tougher for Eli one year after
Ben Roethlisberger, who would have been the Giants’
quarterback if they hadn’t traded for Manning in 2004, won the
Super Bowl last year for the Steelers. Now all Eli needs is for
Philip Rivers to win it for San Diego next season and he could be
headed to law school to pursue a new career.”
While Peyton was talkative after his triumph, “Eli Manning was
oddly uncooperative Sunday night when asked about his
brother’s accomplishment. Perhaps already anticipating the
comparisons, he offered only, ‘I’m not talking about him. It’s
his night. I congratulated him. It was a good game. Let’s leave
it at that.’”
What a messed up dude, eh? Geezuz, just say “I’m freakin’
thrilled for my brother! He has busted his ass for this moment
and no one deserves it more than him. Now it’s my job to see if I
can bring home another trophy for the family with the Giants!”
Yup, looks like Giants fans will have a field day should Eli get
off to a rough start next fall. Heck, I’ll have one!
As for Peyton, as so many others put it, he’s the perfect face for
the NFL right now. But the league is going to have more and
more problems with the concussion issue. You can book it.
–Back to the weather during the Super Bowl, the New York
Times’ Richard Sandomir reviewed the whole tape and found
CBS cut to the crowd a whopping four times the entire telecast.
For its part CBS later said it was trying to preserve the camera
lenses that didn’t have a lot of condensation on them.
–I was looking at the Parade All-America Football Team for
2006 and saw there’s a cool link at ‘parade.com’ to check out
past rosters. It’s kind of interesting to go back and see how
many actually made it big in some of these classes.
For example, on Parade’s 1996 team we have the following
quarterbacks.
Tim Couch, Quincy Carter, Odell James, Earl Haniford, Ryan
Kealy, Raschard Casey, Kevin Carty, and Tamaurice Martin.
Yikes…not exactly a list of future NFL superstars.
At running back in 1996 you had:
Patrick Pass, Edgerrin James, Vernon Maxwell, Ron Dayne,
Leon Callen, Elijah Burkins, Darrell Bush, Daymon Carroll, Joe
Dawkins, Omari Howard, Damone Boone, Rahshon Spikes
Boy, sure hope these guys aside from James and Dayne got their
degrees, don’t you?
Among the few other notables on the ’96 squad are Plaxico
Burress and Roland (“Champ”) Bailey, and two or three
journeymen. That’s it.
–Great story by Pete Thamel and Thayer Evans in the New York
Times on Illinois’ football program. With Wednesday being
signing day, it appears the team that has gone 4-19 the past two
seasons, 1-15 in Big Ten play, scored some real recruiting coups
that have rivals in the conference wondering just how the Illini
were able to pull it off.
For example, Martez Wilson, a defensive end from Chicago who
is supposedly the number one prospect at his position in the
country, and Arrelious (nice name) Benn, a wide receiver from
Washington considered one of the top three at his position. Benn
is already enrolled and taking classes. Both had been heavily
recruited by the likes of USC, Ohio State and Notre Dame.
John L. Smith, the recently fired head coach at Michigan State,
told the Times’ Thamel and Evans: “If they had a winning
program and all of that, it would be a different deal. If they had
the greatest facilities in the world, then maybe they could sell
them. But what are they selling?….Where there’s smoke, there’s
probably fire.”
Jim Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten, defends Illinois,
but Tom Lemming, a recruiting expert, said that with Illinois’
record, “I’ve never seen anything like it in 28 years.”
Illinois’ athletic director Ron Guenther did hire an outside law
firm to investigate all the anonymous tips and complaints rolling
in about suspected recruiting improprieties, but as the Times
notes, when it comes to wide receiver Benn, his selection of
Illinois is strange.
“He had talked eagerly throughout his recruitment about playing
at Notre Dame with the country’s top-ranked quarterback
prospect, Jimmy Clausen. Instead, he chose to play in the Big
Ten’s worst pass offense with Isiah Williams, who completed
less than 40 percent of his passes last seasons and was
statistically one of the country’s worst passing quarterbacks.”
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
–Oh, it’s going to be fun in New York this spring and summer,
because once again it will be A-Rod time. On Tuesday, Alex
Rodriguez was in New York to promote a new children’s book
about a child, Alex, who screws up in a baseball game
(seriously), and it proved to be another nightmare.
Joel Sherman / New York Post
“This was classic Alex Rodriguez. He wrote a children’s book
and invited the media to a midtown bookstore yesterday for a
little promotion, the kind of cocktail that usually fosters happy
talk and book sales.
“But this being Alex Rodriguez, a version of Altamont broke out.
The athlete who cares the most about his public perception
surrounded himself with media-relations buffoons, who through
incompetence and rudeness decided the best way to sell the
product was to keep the very press they had invited to talk with
Rodriguez away from A-Rod.
“From the moment they finally let about a dozen print reporters
chat with Rodriguez, they were shouting over the interview
trying to stop it. Two New York City cops mysteriously
emerged; one sporting sunglasses indoors decided it was a good
idea to manhandle a writer who is about as threatening as
SpongeBob. The store’s security, empowered by the p.r. dolts,
turned the sale of a book designed to uplift children into a nasty
confrontation better suited for Jerry Springer.”
A-Rod went on to describe Derek Jeter as a “good friend” and
their relationship as “great.” Of course it is far from that. It’s
going to be another long year for Mr. January.
–Frankie Laine died. The singer who sold 100 million records in
his career was 93. Laine was born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio
in 1913, the oldest of eight children of Sicilian immigrants who
settled in the Little Italy section of Chicago. His father was a
barber and Al Capone a customer. Laine’s maternal grandfather
was the victim of a mob hit.
Laine’s career path wasn’t an easy one as he didn’t hit it big until
the late-1940s. As he described in his autobiography, “Armed
with $40 and a letter of introduction (from a friend of Louis
Armstrong’s), I headed off for my second shot at New York.
With my club experience and those new songs, I figured I’d be
singing in about a week. It took me three days to get in to see the
radio executive, and 15 minutes for him to show me the door.”
Laine used up “my pathetic little bankroll” and was forced to
sneak into hotels and sleep on the floor. After getting thrown out
all the time he ended up on a Central Park bench and used some
of his last money to buy four Baby Ruth candy bars, 4 cents
apiece, which he then rationed.
But then he got his first break…a $5-a-week-gig singing on a
live half-hour show at WINS radio. The program director
changed his name from LoVecchio to Laine. Laine then headed
to Los Angeles and recorded a few songs for Mercury Records,
one of which was an oldie, “That’s My Desire.” It was his first
hit, reaching #4 the spring of 1947, though the first stations to
play it regularly were in Harlem. “I was told I sounded ‘too
black’,” Laine recalled, noting how he became known as one of
the first blue-eyed soul singers.
By the fall of ’47, Laine had his first royalty check for “Desire,”
$36,000. In 1949-50, Laine had three #1s… “That Lucky Old
Sun,” “Mule Train,” and “The Cry of The Wild Goose.” Later
he would record the theme song for the long-running Western,
“Rawhide,” which helped launch Clint Eastwood, and he
appeared on the soundtrack for “Blazing Saddles.”
–“For Better or For Worse” update. We’re now back to Jim,
stroke victim, who in his recovery is saying the word
“Blackbeard” when he means to say “Ben.” I’m no Dr. Kildare,
but it would appear Jim has a long ways to go. Nonetheless, we
wish him the best…while hoping we get back to real action, as in
Flyboy’s efforts to help Liz, who we’ll soon learn is in drug
rehab.
–And this final installment from Playboy’s December 1969
interview with Joe Namath.
Playboy: Do you make a point of going to bed with a girl on the
eve of a game?
Namath: I try to.
And that, friends, is the conclusion of our totally haphazard, ill-
conceived series on Broadway Joe. More next fall, if you keep it
where it is.
–Thru Tuesday night’s action, the Boston Celtics had lost a
franchise record 15 in a row! Great way to honor Red
Auerbach’s memory, eh?
Top 3 songs for the week of 2/10/73: #1 “Crocodile Rock”
(Elton John) #2 “You’re So Vain” (Carly Simon) #3 “Why
Can’t We Live Together” (Timmy Thomas…boy, having trouble
placing this one)…and…#4 “Oh, Babe, What Would You Say?”
(Hurricane Smith…great tune) #5 “Superstition” (Stevie
Wonder) #6 “Do It Again” (Steely Dan) #7 “The World Is A
Ghetto” (War) #10 “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love” (Spinners)
Baseball Quiz Answer: Top Ten lifetime in hits –
1. Pete Rose (1963-1986)…4256
2. Ty Cobb (1905-1928)…4189
3. Hank Aaron (1954-1976)…3771
4. Stan Musial (1941-1963)…3630
5. Tris Speaker (1907-1928)…3514
6. Honus Wagner (1897-1917)…3420
7. Carl Yastrzemski (1961-1983)…3419
8. Paul Molitor (1978-1998)…3319
9. Eddie Collins (1906-1930)…3315
10. Willie Mays (1951-1973)…3283
26 have 3000 hits. Craig Biggio has the highest total, 2930,
among active players. Barry Bonds is at 2841.
*I watched a powerful documentary on HBO the other night,
“Bastards of the Party,” on the history of L.A.’s street gangs. A
must see, albeit very depressing.
Next Bar Chat, Monday p.m.
