NFL / Super Bowl Quiz: 1) Name the two linebackers to be
voted MVP. 2) Name the one cornerback to be selected MVP.
3) Name the five wide receivers. [Hint: Two are recent.] 4)
Name the first running back to be named MVP. Answers below.
1968
Using Jules Witcover’s “1968: The Year the Dream Died” as a
guide, we’ll spend 2008 taking a look back from time to time,
mostly on Thursdays.
Jules Witcover:
“On the eve of the new year 1968, Americans faced a somber
outlook, judging from what greeted them in their daily
newspapers and on their network television screens. A holiday
truce in the Vietnam War had been marred by incidents of
violence on both sides, offering little promise that the mayhem of
1967 in Southeast Asia – and the protests against the war at
home – would diminish substantially in the new year.
“President Lyndon Baines Johnson seemed determined to press
on with his prosecution of the war. According to a Harris
Survey, 61 percent of Americans still supported their country’s
involvement, though with considerable reservations. But only 39
percent in a Gallup Poll approved of Johnson’s handling of the
conflict and a growing and more demonstrative minority,
particularly on college campuses, sought to get all U.S. forces
withdrawn from the stalemate and brought home. The effort was
driven in part by altruism, in part by self-preservation, among
principally the better-heeled members of the 50 million baby
boomers born into security in the decade after the end of World
War II.”
The oldest of the baby boomers turned 22 in 1967. “With the
threat of nuclear war everpresent, many navigated adolescence
with an abandon often punctuated by experimentation with
drugs. In some polls most of the baby boomers surveyed said
they believed nuclear war would occur in their shortened
lifetime, and many of them lived accordingly.”
A few tidbits:
David Miller was the first protester prosecuted as a draft card
burner and was sentenced to two and a half years in federal
prison. The judge said he understood Miller’s position against
the war but “I must be concerned for the thousands of our men in
Vietnam, many of whom, I am sure, are just as opposed to this
war, philosophically, as you are.”
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was formed at Ann
Arbor in the spring of 1960 by a group of University of Michigan
undergrads, including Tom Hayden. In 1962, the Port Huron
Statement, named after the SDS retreat, was issued.
“We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest
comfort, housed in universities, looking uncomfortably to the
world we inherit,” it said. “Our work is guided by the sense that
we may be the last generation in the experiment with living.”
Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman were forming the Yippie
movement in New York at the same time; a New Left that
presented a more radical voice than the older, more traditional
opposition. The “counterculture” was now in full swing.
Witcover:
“Youth dominated this new culture, although it did not have
exclusive domain, and the rock music of the young was its
signature, disdained as it often was by the older generations,
especially uncomprehending parents. ‘The only real loyalty that
exists in the American teenager today is to his music,’ said
rocker Frank Zappa.”
Top Ten Albums…Jan. 20, 1968
1. Magical Mystery Tour…The Beatles
2. Their Satanic Majesties Request…The Rolling Stones
3. Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd….The Monkees
4. Diana Ross and the Supremes Greatest Hits
5. Herb Alpert’s Ninth…Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
6. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…The Beatles
7. Disraeli Gears…Cream
8. Love, Andy…Andy Williams
9. Farewell To The First Golden Era…The Mamas & The Papas
10. The Turtles! Greatest Hits
Debut Artists of 1968
Herb Alpert, The Archies, The Band, Archie Bell & the Drells,
The Brooklyn Bridge, Joe Cocker, Cream, Creedence Clearwater
Revival, Tyrone Davis, Deep Purple, The Delfonics, Jose
Feliciano, The First Edition, Mary Hopkin, Robert John, Andy
Kim, The Steve Miller Band, The Moments, The 1910 Fruitgum
Company, The Bob Seger System, Sly & the Family Stone, O.C.
Smith, Steppenwolf, Al Wilson, Bobby Womack, Betty Wright,
Tammy Wynette [Source: “Rock On Almanac,” Norm N. Nite]
Stuff
–So, do you think the Houston Astros are fired up they acquired
shortstop Miguel Tejada on Dec. 13? The next day he was
implicated in the Mitchell report, and now Congressmen Henry
Waxman and Thomas Davis have recommended that the Dept. of
Justice investigate whether Tejada lied to a House committee in
2005 about using steroids and other performance-enhancing
drugs.
–Brett Favre is 43-5 at home when the game-time temperature in
Green Bay is 34 degrees or lower, and the temp on Sunday for
the Packers-Giants contest is expected to be around 10 degrees,
max. Ergo….
–Phil W. correctly notes the Giants came together as a team the
minute Tiki Barber retired.
–What a story out of West Virginia, as both player and football
program files have gone missing from the former office of ex-
coach Rich Rodriguez, now at Michigan. From ESPN.com:
“Paperwork detailing every player on West Virginia’s roster, as
well as the program’s activities over the past seven years, went
missing between Rodriguez’s resignation as coach to take over at
Michigan and the team’s return from the Fiesta Bowl, the
Charleston (W. Va.) Gazette reported.”
There’s an ongoing lawsuit between Rodriguez and West
Virginia over his contract, but after the Christmas break staff
found everything missing. According to a source in the athletic
department at WVU, “the missing files include all of the players’
personal files, which encompass contact information, scholarship
money awarded, class attendance records and personal conduct
records.”
Multiple sources “said several people…reported seeing
Rodriguez and at last one of his assistants, video coordinator
Dusty Rutledge, in Rodriguez’s private office shredding
paperwork on Dec. 18 – the day he returned from Ann Arbor
after being named Michigan’s new head coach. Those who say
they witnessed the action said they either paid it no mind or did
not know what was being destroyed, according to the report.”
West Virginia is trying to recover $4 million from Rodriguez for
leaving with six years remaining on his contract. Rodriguez, in
turn, said West Virginia breached the contract by not fulfilling all
of its terms of the deal. Rodriguez’s agent said the school’s
claims on the missing files are exaggerated.
By the way, Rodriguez has now been placed in the December file
for consideration for “Dirtball of the Year.”
–This Just In…….. “Columbus Probably Brought Syphilis to
Europe, Gene Study Finds.” As reported by Rob Waters of
Bloomberg News:
“The first explorers of the Americas probably contracted a
tropical disease caused by the same family of bacteria that causes
syphilis and carried it back home, where it mutated into the
sexually transmitted disease,” research from Emory University
concludes. The first outbreak devastated Europe in 1495.
Curiously, cases of syphilis recorded in the U.S. in 2006 rose
11.8 percent from the year before. No one is saying this, but it
can’t just be a coincidence that “Borat” was released in the States
at that time.
–Speaking of sex, I’ve been meaning to note a piece on the
passing last year of both Charles Nelson Reilly and Brett Somers,
as reported by Rob Hoerburger in the Sunday Times Magazine a
few weeks ago. Many of us were big fans of their main vehicle
“Match Game.”
“(If) you were one of the millions of housewives or home-sick-
from-schoolers or summer vacationers who carved out a portion
of the day to spend with these shows, you knew that there could
be a form of higher intelligence involved: the campy rejoinders
of Paul Lynde (who died in 1982) on ‘Hollywood Squares’; the
droll sarcasm of Richard Dawson on ‘Match Game’ (before he
became a kissing fool on ‘Family Feud’); and, on that same show,
the daily barb exchange of Brett Somers and Charles Nelson
Reilly. For nine years Somers and Reilly provided a
midafternoon snack of comedic pas de deux that was sometimes
bawdy, sometimes puerile but somehow never cheap….
“Many viewers were introduced to Somers and Reilly on ‘Match
Game,’ as if they’d sprung straight from the Spiegel catalog, the
Paris Hiltons of their day, famous for being famous….Somers
was the middle-aged man-hungry ‘dumb brunette’ with the lefty
chicken scrawl, Reilly, the fussbudget forever disparaging her
answers, her wardrobe, her decorating skills. In that sense they
were forerunners of Will and Grace, the gay man and his gal pal
with a bitchy, loving disregard for each other.
“Not that there wasn’t a sexual vibe on the show. In those days,
daytime was getting really racy, as young, robust actors on soap
operas started showing more skin and stepped up their bed-
hopping. But Somers might have been the true sexual pioneer.
She wasn’t Mae West, 80 trying to act 20, or an embalmed
Gabor, but rather, with her Elton John glasses and Toni Tennille
hairdo and saucy answers, an average-looking menopausal
woman with a healthy regard for sex. In one of the most
memorable broadcasts, Somers’ husband, Jack Klugman, was on
the panel and seemed to be rushing the host, Gene Rayburn,
along, as if to say that he and Somers had something better to do.
“Reilly, meanwhile, was both strapping and doughy, in one sense
the embodiment of the pre-AIDS sissy stereotype, with his
ascots, hairpieces, shirts opened to the third button and tidy
penmanship, and also a prophetic send-up of the post-AIDS
hypermasculine gay man, especially when he lowered his voice
and became ‘Chuck,’ the pipe-smoking alter-ego.”
–SHARK! Paul P. passed on a tale from New Zealand…
“A popular beach remained closed on Tuesday as two lifeguards
told how a large bronze whaler shark attacked their inflatable
boat, causing it to start to deflate. ‘It was just like Jaws,’ Lauren
Johnson, 19, told the Dominion Post. ‘It had ‘kill’ on its mind. I
thought I was going to die.’”
It turns out Johnson and her fellow lifeguard took a boat out from
Omaha Beach, north of Auckland, “to confirm reports that a big
shark was cruising about 100 meters offshore and chase it away.
But the shark, which was as long as their 3.8-meter boat, turned
on the boat, repeatedly ramming it from below.”
Bronze whalers have a mixed reputation. At least that was my
memory, so I turned to the “Encyclopedia of the Seas” by
Richard Ellis.
“Bronze whalers reach a length of about 10 feet, and although
they have a reputation in Australia for aggressiveness, it is
mostly unfounded. They feed mostly on bottom fishes.”
Not in this case. Said lifeguard Kris O’Neill:
“This one just cruised along beside the boat and I slowed the
boat down a bit and the next thing it was smashing its head up
underneath the boat and started chewing things up.”
Kris and Lauren headed to shore when one of four air-filled
pontoons deflated. Up to six sharks were seen off the same
beach, so if you’re thinking of jetting to New Zealand for the
weekend, be careful out there.
–And now…with the above as prelude…your revised….
COORS LIGHT/BAR CHAT ALL-SPECIES LIST!
1. Beavers…not only avoided the subprime disaster, but
maintained quality of craftsmanship.
2. Gibbons…understood before others that Roger Clemens was
spinning us. Also picked LSU to take BCS title.
3. Dogs…not number one because they still hang with most of
MLB’s steroid abusers.
4. Grizzlies…fearsome, but I’m not about to tell them they aren’t
top five.
5. Crows…smarter than dogs, but they wreak havoc on golf
greens, thus keeping them out of top three.
6. Groupers…Father Bill’s story the other day convinced me
they were vastly underrated and out to protect us. Also taste
delicious.
7. Orangutans…slipped due to shady dealings with palm oil
industry. Might be accepting payment and timeshares in Hawaii
in exchange for their habitat in Borneo.
8. Dolphins…up from No. 16 in last June’s listing, but would be
higher if we could understand them.
9. Elephants…winning the war in India.
10. Raccoons…ex- the rabid ones, still amazing what they can do
with their hands.
11. Tigers…bad rap regarding the San Francisco Zoo incident.
12. Killer whales…love the way they outsmart seals; seals being
incredibly overrated.
13. Chimps…recent Austrian Supreme Court ruling that
chimpanzees are not people, coupled with their nasty attitude, are
prime reasons for the fall from the No. 8 slot.
14. House cats…maintain No. 14 ranking, but not really sure
why.
15. Black bears…not in the news enough. Perhaps a change in
PR firms would work.
16. Yaks…Entering the chart with a ‘bullet’. Look to rocket
higher in six months.
17. Lions…failed at stopping the violence in Kenya.
18. Condors…fly above it all.
19. Badgers…underrated. Deserving of a closer look.
20. Eagles…plummeted from No. 9 because of incident in
Alaska where 50 of them dived into a garbage bin and harmed
themselves, thus questioning their intelligence. Need an image
consultant to regain top ten status. Also need a real legal eagle
to sue the waste company.
21. Humans…down from No. 17, and with good reason.
22. Sea lions / seals…see above. Also extort zoos for higher pay
and caviar.
23. Wildebeest…good guys, but not necessarily that bright.
24. Polar bears…allowing themselves to be exploited by German
zoos. Then again, mothers have been eating their young.
25. Crocs and alligators…how can you not respect their
longevity and gene line?
26. Galapagos tortoises…ditto. Friends of Darwin himself.
96. Deer…major cause of death and destruction on our roads.
Destroy all that is beautiful and meat rots quickly.
97. Weasels….can’t be trusted.
98. Squirrels….until they learn to look both ways, will remain
mired near the bottom.
99. Pigeons
100. Turkeys
101. Plankton
–So Wake Forest lost to Boston College in men’s basketball,
112-73 last weekend, and then on Tuesday recovered somewhat
to put up a fight in losing at Maryland, 71-64. But for crying out
loud, my Demon Deacons shot 5-for-30 from 3-point range
against the Terps. Yikes.
–I saw in a newsletter that Director Ridley Scott will team up
with a group of entertainment and political veterans on a film
project about the Reykjavik summit between Ronald Reagan and
Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, one of the more historic moments of
the Cold War. This could be super, and having a director best
known for action flicks makes total sense to me. Completion is
set for end of 2008.
–We note the passing of former major league pitcher Don
Cardwell, 72. Cardwell was 102-138 in his 14-year career,
primarily with the Cubs, Pirates, Phillies and Mets. In 1960 he
threw a no-hitter for the Cubs and in 1969 helped lead the Mets
down the stretch drive of the pennant race.
While Cardwell was just 8-10 that season, he went 4-0 over six
starts from Aug. 17 to Sept. 21, allowing just five runs in 45
innings, helping the Mets catch the Cubs.
But it was Sept. 12, specifically, that was a memorable date for
the Mets that Miracle Season. Cardwell and Jerry Koosman
tossed 1-0 shutouts against the Pirates with both driving in the
only runs, allowing the Mets to up their lead to 2 ½ games at the
time. [Actually, Cardwell was relieved in the 9th by Tug
McGraw. As for Kooz, the RBI was his only one of the entire
season. He went 4-for-84 at the plate that year!]
Don Cardwell, on the other hand, helped himself some at the
plate his whole career as he slammed 15 homers in 698 at bats,
including 5 in 77 ABs in ’60, but his overall batting average was
just .135.
One of the 6,000 regrets in my life was that I didn’t seek
Cardwell out when I was going to school in Winston-Salem, Don
having some car dealerships there. All I wanted to do was shake
his hand.
–A probe of steroid abuse in Albany, N.Y., points to a number of
R&B/rap stars who have been using…like Mary J. Blige, 50
Cent, Timbaland and Wyclef Jean, though it doesn’t appear they
broke the law. Some claim steroids and HGH have anti-aging
qualities, which have never been proved.
–Shelby Lynne, one of my favorite singers, is coming out with
an album, Jan. 29, that covers Dusty Springfield tunes.
Interesting piece on her in last week’s Sunday Times Magazine.
She’s a bad girl…baaaaaad girl.
–I forgot to note the passing the other day of Ken Nelson, 96,
who helped reinvent country music in the 1950s, post-Elvis and
Carl Perkins, by creating the Bakersfield Sound of Buck Owens
and Merle Haggard. But his first hit was with singer Sonny
James and one of my own all-time favorites, 1957’s “Young
Love.”
Top 3 songs for the week 1/16/65: #1 “Come See About Me”
(The Supremes) #2 “I Feel Fine” (The Beatles) #3 “Love Potion
Number Nine” (The Searchers)…and…#4 “Downtown” (Petula
Clark) #5 “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” (The Righteous
Brothers) #6 “Mr. Lonely” (Bobby Vinton) #7 “The Jerk” (The
Larks) #8 “Goin’ Out Of My Head” (Little Anthony and the
Imperials) #9 “How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You” (Marvin
Gaye) #10 “Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow The Sun)” (Del
Shannon)
NFL / Super Bowl Quiz Answers: 1) Linebackers: Chuck
Howley (Dallas) SB V; Ray Lewis (Baltimore) SB XXXV. 2)
The only cornerback is Larry Brown (Dallas) SB XXX. 3) Wide
receivers: Lynn Swann (Pittsburgh) SB X; Fred Biletnikoff
(Oakland) SB XI; Jerry Rice (San Francisco) SB XXIII; Deion
Branch (New England) SB XXXIX; Hines Ward (Pittsburgh) SB
XL. 4) The first running back selected was Larry Csonka
(Miami) SB VIII.
Next Bar Chat, Monday.
