Kansas City Chiefs Quiz: 1) Who has the most passing yards, career? 2) Most passing yards, season? 3) Most passing yards, game, with 504? [Different answers for all three.] 4) Who is the only Chief to score five touchdowns in a game. [Hint: Think 60s.] Answers below.
*Congrats to the Tampa Bay Rays!!! A most likeable team, plus it was cool to see David Price wrap it up last night. Price certainly has the potential to be the next great lefty and could be super for the sport.
The great lead singer of the Four Tops passed away at 72 in his hometown of Detroit on Friday.
Stubbs was born in Detroit, 1936, and met Abdul ‘Duke’ Fakir at high school. Shortly after they then hooked up with Lawrence Payton and Obie Benson while singing at a mutual friend’s birthday party. In 1953, the newfound friends formed a group called The Four Aims, signing a deal with Chess Records. Later they changed their names to the Four Tops to avoid being confused with the Ames Brothers. It was in 1963 that they moved over to Motown and the rest is history.
Motown founder Berry Gordy assigned the writing team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland to the group and it took a year to come up with “Baby I Need Your Lovin’,” followed by “I Can’t Help Myself,” and then the hits flowed.
Brian McCollum / Detroit Free Press:
“Unlike Marvin Gaye, who used his voice to caress, or Smokey Robinson, whose silky croon sparkled, Stubbs headed straight for the guts of his notes, summoning a distinctive grit and fire. For most vocalists, the perky melody in the line ‘sugar pie, honey bunch’ was an invitation to go sunny and sweet. For Stubbs, it was a chance to insist – to plead, cajole, declare, demand.”
The Four Tops were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and only Abdul Fakir survives, Payton and Benson having died in 1997 and 2005, respectively.
*Among the others was the #24 “Ask The Lonely” from ’65…another super song.
I had my own personal experience with Levi. It was around 1996, when I was at PIMCO Funds, and we were co-sponsoring an investment conference for one of my favorite firms to work with, IM&R. However, my PIMCO buddy and I had spent three days manning a booth and these deals got old real fast.
But in this instance, my associate and I (as was our wont to do), had a good time the last day when our work was done and were in a good mood by the time the final dinner arrived. Sitting with our two good friends from IM&R, Don and Steve, and their spouses, the Four Tops were the after dinner entertainment.
Well, I grabbed Don or Steve’s spouse (with their permission) and hit the dance floor. One problem. The group was on a low riser and I was standing right in front of Levi, all of 10 feet away. He looked down, scowled, and waved me the heck away from him. Oh yeah, I deserved it…big time. But I still got a signed photo of the whole group and it’s prominently displayed with my other rock ‘n’ roll autographs in the pool room. Oh, the memories. I think I was drinking ‘domestic’ that day.
Here’s a good one concerning the death of Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, 79. The onetime Chicago bookmaker ran four Las Vegas casinos in the 1970s and had a near-death experience with a car bomb, all of which inspired the movie ‘Casino.’
From Dennis McLellan / L.A. Times
“Rosenthal, who was barred from casinos because of alleged mob ties…and was once called ‘the greatest living expert on sports gambling’ by Sports Illustrated, is credited with bringing sports betting to Las Vegas casinos in the ‘70s.
“ ‘He really brought the glitz and glamour to what we now know as sports books,’ Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said at a news conference Wednesday. [Goodman once worked for Rosenthal.]
“As a casino boss, Rosenthal was a demanding perfectionist who ‘wouldn’t tolerate anything except the very best in customer service,’ said Goodman.
“One time, (Goodman) recalled, when Rosenthal was walking through the Stardust and saw a cigarette butt on the casino floor, he picked it up himself – then fired the person who was responsible for cleaning the area.
“Although Goodman said Rosenthal always treated him ‘decently,’ Rosenthal once ordered his casino security men to crush the right hand of a card cheat he had caught.
“ ‘He was part of a crew of professional card cheats, and calling the cops would do nothing to stop them, so we used a rubber mallet – metal hammers leave marks, you know – and he became a lefty,’ Rosenthal recalled in a 2005 interview with the Miami Herald.
“ ‘I didn’t care if they tried to scam other houses,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to make it clear that they couldn’t do it at mine.’”
Rosenthal got a job as a floor manager at the Stardust Hotel and Casino in 1974 – “The only guy below me was the shoeshine man," he later said – when he was appointed to a $250,000-a-year executive position with Argent Corp., which oversaw the Stardust, Hacienda, Fremont and Marina hotel-casinos, and was controlled by the pension fund for the Teamsters Union.
Bruce Weber, in his obit for the New York Times, writes of Allen Glick, the man who owned Argent at the time and who was surprised to learn he had to take orders from one of his own employees, a discovery that came about in a conversation with Rosenthal in October 1974. Glick recounted it to author Nicholas Pileggi.
“He said, ‘It is about time you become informed of what is going on here and where I am coming from and where you should be. I was placed in this position not for your benefit, but for the benefit of others, and I have been instructed not to tolerate any nonsense from you, nor do I have to listen to what you say, because you are not my boss.”
Rosenthal was “an obsessively detail-oriented businessman who made sure that every blueberry muffin coming out of the Stardust kitchen had at least 10 blueberries in it, and, Mr. Pileggi said in an interview Friday, among other innovations, Rosenthal was the first casino operator to seek out and hire women as dealers.”
In 1976, the state Gaming Commission ruled that Rosenthal was unsuitable for licensing to run casinos, partly on grounds of alleged organized crime associations. Rosenthal denied any involvement and stayed involved behind the scenes.
But it was on the evening of Oct. 2, 1982, that Rosenthal, having finished a dinner at Tony Roma’s in Vegas, got into his Cadillac Eldorado, turned the ignition, and a bomb under the gas tank exploded. He apparently had the door open, though, when he started the car and was blown out of it, suffering only minor injuries. An important safety tip for all of us, boys and girls. After the attempt on his life, Rosenthal left Vegas, but in 1988, the Nevada Gaming Commission listed him in the state’s “Black Book” of people barred from casinos there.
Rosenthal’s life story was told in Nicholas Pileggi’s nonfiction book “Casino,” which inspired director Martin Scorcese’s 1995 movie of the same name.
No big upsets, but it’s clear who No. 1 is these days…Texas…off its wins over Oklahoma and Missouri. And can you believe QB Colt McCoy? 160-for-197, 81.2%, with 19 TD passes and just 3 interceptions. He hasn’t exactly been doing it against the Sisters of the Poor. Two more big tests for the Longhorns, though; undefeateds Oklahoma State and Texas Tech the next two weeks.
Meanwhile, Penn State fell behind 17-7 before mangling 2-5 Michigan, 46-17, and Rutgers beat UConn 12-10 as the Huskies’ kicker missed three field goals. [Well, this second one was a big contest for these teams, you understand.]
Speaking of missed field goals, Wake Forest’s All-American Sam Swank sat out a second straight game because of injury and his replacement missed two early attempts, thus setting the tone for a 26-0 washout against Maryland. In fact, to show you how screwed up, and mediocre, the ACC is this season, all three ranked teams, #17 Virginia Tech, #18 North Carolina, and #21 Wake lost; in the case of the first two to Boston College and Virginia. Talk about parity.
But how would you like to live in the state of Washington these days? Trust me, you don’t. Washington State is 1-7 and Washington is 0-6. Eegads.
Lastly, my betting slump continues as I won just 2 of 6 and now stand 10-8 on the season. Three of the losses, though, could have easily gone the other way. Like how could Louisiana-Monroe give up two late TDs to North Texas, allowing the latter to beat the freakin’ spread?! Very disheartening. Very, very disheartening.
[I’m just in a slump with regards to my whole life, actually. Gotta break out of it. Let’s check the channel and see if the Mets are still in the playoffs….]
7. Oklahoma State 7-0
8. Texas Tech 7-0
9. Georgia 6-1
17. Pitt 5-1…I’m a closet Pitt fan as both my parents graduated from here
3. Penn State
Finally, Virginia Tech, North Carolina and Wake Forest were replaced in the AP poll by three new ACC entries; No. 21. Georgia Tech, No. 23 Boston College, and No. 24 Florida State.
Since when do Chicago and Minnesota belong to the WAC conference? Chicago won 48-41.
Tennessee is now 6-0. Nice running game. LenDale White, 17-149 (in case you wondered what happened to him) and former East Carolina back Chris Johnson, 18-168. It was the first time Tennessee had two backs with 100 yards since 1977.
There is no bigger jerk in the game these days, aside from Pacman Jones, than the Giants’ Plaxico Burress.
–This is kind of funny. Yankee Stadium memorabilia isn’t exactly flying out the door, thanks to the economy, one would assume. The AP reported that the last ball hit out of the place, a home run by catcher Jose Molina, was expected to fetch up to $400,000 but was pulled after offers fell short of the suggested opening of $100,000. And a collection of 15 World Series and American League championship rings from 1947 to 1964 that once belonged to former owner Del Webb was also pulled after the high bid, $325,000, fell short of expectations.
–Not for nothing, but golfer Dave Stockton, who turns 68 on Nov. 2, finished tied for 4th in the Champions Tour event this week behind Bernhard Langer, Lon Nielsen, and Fred Funk.
–Some Manhattan a-hole paid $400,000 for the right to own the two best New York Jets tickets at the new stadium, opening 2010, as part of the team’s auction for the super-hyped 2,000 Coaches Club seats directly behind the team bench. Most thought the personal seat licenses would command no more than $70,000. Understand the seats will also go for $700 a game. The most expensive ones in the current stadium cost $115.
–Speaking of PSLs and luxury boxes, satirist Joe Queenan had some of the following thoughts in the Wall Street Journal.
“The role of sports as an emotional unguent comes into sharp focus in dark times such as these. With fortunes disappearing, corporations imploding, retirement plans being annihilated, and careers being destroyed, it’s at least nice to know that the World Series will still take place, that the Super Bowl will go on as scheduled, that March Madness, as always, will erupt in March….
“Alas, the status of sports as a psychological buttress is now under ferocious attack. Sports franchises cannot survive without immense support from corporations. An overwhelming source of revenue is generated by leasing luxury boxes. But now, with some of the most revered corporations in American going under, sports teams can no longer count on the inexhaustible revenue stream generated by these behemoths. Lehman Brothers is gone. Bear Stearns is gone. Wachovia is gone. Washington Mutual is gone. Many other mauled titans are sure to follow.
“Because the federal government has already committed itself to bailing out Wall Street, it will soon find itself obligated to bail out many of the ancillary enterprises that depend upon Wall Street for survival. One of these is sports franchises. The government will be forced to lease the sky boxes at stadiums that were previously occupied by brokerage houses, commercial banks and investment banking firms….
“The only positive element in this grim scenario is that a federal sky box bailout will have a salutary effect on luxury-box culture. Luxury boxes are basically clubhouses where fat cats who have no interest in the games themselves try to get their clients hammered so they can rope them into bad real-estate deals in Boca Raton.
“A federal luxury box bailout would change all that. The folks who run the Department of Education are not hard drinkers. Employees of the Fish and Wildlife Service do not party hearty. And nobody has to worry about guests getting bombed out of their skulls while watching a football game from their perch in the IRS Sky Box. Nor need taxpayers worry about getting stuck with the bill for the refreshments. In the IRS Sky Box, if you want something to eat, you’d better bring along a brown bag.”
–Kelly Whiteside of USA Today had a story on sports and economics in down times. For example, during the Depression, football was still making money at the major schools, but Professor Ronald A. Smith of Penn State says they didn’t make much, and it impacted minor sports.
“A lot of schools were dropping sports at that time. They would cut back on football, but they would (eliminate) others and you didn’t have to worry about women’s sports then.”
Revenue declined, writes Whiteside, and “Smith points out that Harvard’s athletic program, mostly because of football, brought in $706,000 in 1929. In 1934, close to the depths of the Depression, it plummeted to $292,000. At Ohio State, athletic revenues were $429,000 in 1929 and fell to $129,000 in 1932. Smith doesn’t believe any major schools dropped football during this time.
“During the Depression, schools such as Southern California, Michigan, Minnesota and Notre Dame won national titles. ‘Many of them were state universities, and a lot of the same were the ones who built stadiums. And if you build a stadium, you want to have a winning team to fill it up,’ Smith says.”
–Philippe Naughton / London Times
“The organizers of a Tehran food festival were licking their wounds today after spending two days building the world’s longest sandwich – only to see it devoured by the crowd before anyone had a chance to measure it.
“More than 1,000 volunteers worked from early this morning to make the 1,500-meter sandwich, using a whole ton of ostrich meat and hundreds of loaves….
“In the event, however, the waiting got too much for thousands of spectators waiting in Tehran Mellat park – or there is an untapped demand for ostrich in the Iranian market. The crowd started attacking the sandwich before any of the three Guinness representatives present had the chance to confirm its length.”
–And you all probably saw the story of Brad Sciullo, which I need to get down for the archives and a future “Bar Chat: The Book”. Sciullo, 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, took 4 hours and 39 minutes to eat a 15-pound burger with toppings and a bun that brought the total weight to 20.2 pounds. So in other words he ate 60, quarter-pounders.
The burger was the product of Uniontown, Pennsylvania’s Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub, Uniontown being where Sciullo hails from. “About three hours into it, things got tough,” Brad said after.
Sciullo’s reward? $400 and three t-shirts. That’s all?!
–Goodness gracious….this Madonna / Guy Ritchie divorce is going to get very ugly. According to a report in the New York Post by Susannah Cahalan (rhymes with Palin) and Stefanie Cohen:
“The singer claims that Ritchie, 10 years her junior, told her that she ‘looked like a granny’ onstage (ed. she does), that she couldn’t act (ed. she can’t), and that she was ‘past it’ when she hit 50 in August (ed. hey, I’m 50!), according to London’s Daily Mail.
“The divorce suit will accuse Ritchie of emotional neglect, arguing that he caused the ‘80s diva to feel vulnerable and alone….
“Even when they (got) intimate, Ritchie complained to pals that it was like ‘cuddling up to a piece of gristle.’” Ouch! I’m not a big fan of gristle either. That’s why I stopped buying Omaha Steaks because the quality has really deteriorated. But I digress…
“The skeletal-looking superstar apparently engages in weird anti-aging rituals, smearing thousands of dollars’ worth of creams on her skin before sleep and stuffing herself into a plastic suit meant to keep her skin supple.”
Meanwhile, during her current concert tour, Madonna has been dedicating the tune “Miles Away” to “the emotionally retarded,” referring to Guy.
So all New York is asking, just what the hell does A-Rod, who can have anyone in the world following his own divorce, want with Madonna? Not to offend my huge Kabbalah audience, but the Material Girl is strange…very, very strange…and 16 years your senior, A-Rod!
–Barry Williams, aka Greg Brady, says Marcia Brady’s claims she bedded him are true. I’m assuming Alice saw this but there was some kind of pact whereby she kept her mouth shut.
But Greg, err, Barry, said “I was very surprised” Marcia, err, Maureen, “traded her body for blow.”
It shocked a lot of us, Greg. The nation is yearning for role models during these trying times and trading ones’ body for blow isn’t the kind of example we want our nation’s youth to follow as we head to the polls on Nov. 4….not that Marcia is on the ballot.
–This is funny. The Luxor Las Vegas signed magician and David Copperfield wannabe Criss Angel for 10 years and $100 million to produce a magic show incorporating Cirque du Soleil-type material in an act called “Believe.” But the New York Post’s Page Six reports it is a total bomb.
“Criss had 100 percent creative control over the show,” a Vegas businessman said, “and, so far, it looks like it might backfire.” Guy Laliberte, the head of Cirque, reportedly walked out of a preview. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the show “is a possibly unsalvageable waste of time and a dead end that literally bored some audience members to sleep.”
–Uh oh, Miley is close to straying…if she hasn’t already. As reported in the Post:
“Miley Cyrus had better be careful. The precocious 15-year-old Disney star showed up to L.A. Fashion Week Wednesday to catch her 20-year-old boyfriend, Justin Gaston, walking in the Christian Audigier show – and eyebrows rose at the pair’s behavior.
“According to an eyewitness, Gaston and Cyrus – who was there with her mother, Leticia, and her manager – ‘were all over each other backstage.’ The heat extended to the runway where, every time Gaston walked, he would blow a kiss and wink at his teenage girlfriend, who in turn, ‘licked her lips seductively as he passed her.’
“The source also overheard a conversation in which Cyrus told a friend that ‘she was probably staying at Justin’s tonight and that they were going to skip the after-party and have a party of their own.’”
My word. You’re 15, girl! A rep for Cyrus, however, said the sleep-over never occurred.
–And talk about too much information, actor George Hamilton confirmed during an interview on “The View” Thursday that he slept with his mother, at the tender age of 12!
Good gawd. Well, it was his stepmother. “Yeah. She was about 28, 30. It was very normal.”
–Here’s a sad tale. UNC Asheville senior Kenny George, at 7-foot-7 college basketball’s tallest player and one who has legitimate NBA potential, having averaged 12 points and seven rebounds last season, had part of his right foot amputated as the result of a battle with MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant staph infection. In August, he had an infection in his foot and after returning from a basketball camp to his home in Chicago, doctors there suggested he see a specialist. He’s been hospitalized in Iowa since, enduring several surgeries and at one point battling for his life, according to ESPN.com. George is expected to return to campus to complete work on his degree. Hoops is now secondary.
The actress, comedian and singer died at the age of 81 the other day. Adams’ long and varied career included Broadway (“Wonderful Town”), movies (“The Apartment”), and television (all manner of guest spots and briefly her own variety show). Adams was also married to famous comedian Ernie Kovacs, though when he was killed in an auto accident in Los Angeles in 1962, he left her with a $500,000 debt to the IRS, which Edie then paid off in five years by working her butt off.
But if you had to pick two items for which Edie Adams was best known, first you have her role as the Muriel Cigar girl. In a series of commercials running 19 years in which Muriel sales increased tenfold, Adams, clad in outrageous and sexy outfits, extolled the virtues while encouraging men, “Why don’t you pick one up and smoke it sometime?” Believe me, for you younger folk out there this was incredibly racy for its day, the late 1950s and 60s.
It was another performance of hers that was memorable for a different reason. As described by the New York Times’ Bruce Weber, Adams sang a song on the final episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” in April 1960.
“The show was the last in the long partnership of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz; their marriage had crumbled and they were no longer speaking on the set. As part of the convoluted plot of the episode, Ms. Adams, with Vivian Vance at the piano, performed a bell-clear, heartbreaking rendition of the Alan Brandt-Bob Haymes classic ‘That’s All,’ which reduced the entire crew to tears.
“ ‘Say it’s me that you adore, for now and evermore,’ Ms. Adams sang. ‘That’s all, that’s all.’”
–And former New York Yankee Tom Tresh passed away. He was 70. Tresh was American League Rookie of the Year in 1962 and played in three World Series, ‘62-‘64, hitting four homers in the Fall Classic. Over a career that spanned 1961-69 (he was up only 8 times in ’61), Tresh hit .245 with 153 home runs, including four seasons of 20+.
Tom Tresh was the son of Mike Tresh, a major league catcher for 12 seasons, mostly with the White Sox. Richard Goldstein of the New York Times had the following touching story in Tom’s obituary.
Tresh learned to play baseball as a youngster during batting practice at Comiskey Park.
“ ‘My dad and I would go out to the center-field fence and he’d pitch to me,’ Tresh once recalled. ‘We used the fence as a backstop. He made me a switch-hitter’….
“When Tresh came to the plate in the eighth inning of Game 5 in the ’62 World Series, his father was seated in the stands behind home plate. Mike Tresh, who hit only two home runs in his 12 major league seasons, moved to the standing-room section, hoping that that might bring his son luck.
“Then came Tom Tresh’s drive into the right-field seats. ‘The instant he hit it, I cried,’ his father said after the game. ‘I didn’t care who saw me.’”
“South African authorities are closing Robben Island for two weeks in November to cull thousands of rabbits that have overrun the windswept island where Nelson Mandela spent years in prison.”
–Did you see the picture of Angelina Jolie on the front page of the Times’ Arts & Leisure section? How do…..never mind. I’m in enough trouble as it is.
–Say it ain’t Sooooo-ul! “Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius, now 72, was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence. No word on who he is suspected of assaulting.
Top 3 songs for the week 10/23/71: #1 “Maggie May” (Rod Stewart) #2 “Superstar” (Carpenters) #3 “Yo-Yo” (The Osmonds)…and…#4 “Gypsys, Tramps, & Thieves” (Cher) #5 “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” (Joan Baez) #6 “Do You Know What I Mean” (Lee Michaels) #7 “Go Away Little Girl” (Donny Osmond) #8 “Sweet City Woman” (Stampeders) #9 “Theme From Shaft” (Isaac Hayes…he’s a bad m—-) #10 “If You Really Love Me” (Stevie Wonder…one of my favorites of his)
Kansas City Chiefs Quiz Answer: 1) Len Dawson, 1962-75, is career leader with 28,507 yards. 2) Trent Green is the season leader with 4,591 yards in 2004. 3) Elvis Grbac threw for 504 yards on 11/5/00. 4) Abner Haynes scored five TDs back on 11/26/61.
*I remember Haynes as being among my first football cards, 1967, but I forgot how great his career was, 1960-67. Abner led the AFL in touchdowns, ’60-’62, while with the Dallas Texans, the forerunner of the Chiefs, and rushed for 4,630 yards and a sterling 4.5 average. But he also averaged 12.3 yards on 287 receptions and…10.3 on punt returns and 25.0 on kickoff returns. As Ronald Reagan said at the time…not bad, not bad at all.
And where did Haynes go to school? North Texas. Girls, wow your boyfriend or hubby with that one. Just go, “Bet you didn’t know where Abner Haynes went to school.”
