Heisman Trophy Quiz, cont’d: 1) 1977: Earl Campbell won. Identify the next two in the voting, initials T.M. and K.M. [Very hard] 2) 1978: Billy Sims won. Identify the next two in the voting, initials C.F. and R.L. 3) 1983: Mike Rozier won. In the next four in the voting, three were QBs, one played on defense. The initials are S.Y., D.F., T.G., and T.H. [You get this one right, treat yourself to a premium.]
**Congratulations to Michael Phelps…Sports Illustrated’s ‘Sportsman of the Year.’ Talk about a lay-up. But in the accompanying article, I love this line from Alan Shipnuck on the scene at an awards dinner for the U.S. swim team held in New York the week before Thanksgiving.
“Mingling with a cocktail crowd that had paid as much as $1,250 a ticket to attend was Dara Torres, swimming’s answer to Diane Lane – a woman who only gets better as she gets older.”
And not for nothing, but us guys used to say that we’d love to be Tom Brady for a day. Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t mind being Michael Phelps instead, especially after reading of his time in Vegas following the Olympics.
As you are now aware, Plaxico Burress was suspended without pay for the final four games of the season by the New York Giants, plus he was placed on the reserve/non-football injury list which prohibits him from returning to the team the rest of the year. As for the remainder of the five-year, $35 million contract, the guess today is that Plax has played his last in New York, regardless of what happens in the criminal case.
As for linebacker Antonio Pierce, who was involved in the cover-up, I’m guessing he gets off, though perhaps is suspended a game or two by the team, the league, or both. But that’s just my opinion as I write early Wednesday afternoon.
Addressing the press Wednesday morning, coach Tom Coughlin looked at the assembled crowd of reporters and asked, “Something new today?” Coughlin said little except that he had had a conversation with Plaxico and “He was very humble, very remorseful. Obviously, that doesn’t change anything. But you have to understand, he is part of our team.”
Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is ticked off at all involved, including New York-Cornell Hospital.
“Our children are getting killed with guns in the street. Our police are getting killed. I think it would be an outrage if we didn’t prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”
Burress, who was cuffed and arraigned in Manhattan on Monday morning, faces what for most folks is a mandatory 3 ½ years on felony gun charges.
From the New York Post
“He nearly got away with keeping his bullet wound a secret – thanks to a series of shady assists…that left Bloomberg calling for heads to roll, including at the hospital, which said last night it suspended one employee.
“Detectives are furious that Giant linebacker Antonio Pierce wouldn’t meet with them after the NFL reneged on a promise it would present him for questioning at the 17th Precinct. He later made his normal paid radio appearance on WFAN.
“Police now believe that Burress and Pierce arrived at the Latin Quarter at around 1 a.m. Saturday, and that running back Ahmad Bradshaw – on probation for a 2006 larceny rap – was already there in another part of the facility…
“The state Health Department and NYPD launched investigations into New York-Cornell Hospital, which finally admitted it broke the law by hiding the fact that Burress – under the alias Harris Smith – was treated for a gunshot wound….
“Bloomberg trashed the Giants after it was revealed that cops learned about the shooting only from television reports hours later, despite the team’s apparent knowledge of the events. The mayor added that anything short of the mandatory 3 1/3-year minimum for Burress, if convicted, would be ‘a sham, a mockery of the law.’
“A member of the Giants’ medical staff was interviewed by detectives after the NFL initially failed to produce two team trainers for questioning.
“NYPD officials were livid over the roadblocks being thrown up by the Giants and NFL Security, the league’s investigative arm.”
Meanwhile, Pierce told WFAN host Mike Francesa, “I don’t got nothing to run from. Obviously, it was a tragic and very accidental situation that happened the other night. None of us are pleased by it.”
Andrea Peyser / New York Post
“Plaxico ‘Brain Dead’ Burress walked into the courtroom without a visible limp – or a clue.
“He carried nothing except a gigantic chip on his shoulder, several pounds of stupidity, and a pinch of arrogance. But no weapons. Thank God.
“Plaxico shuffled silently from one foot to the other as he rose to his slim, 6-foot-5 height – evidently not accustomed to being ignored. Or maybe he didn’t like being ridiculed by the normally adoring mob….
“The man once called a $35 million wide receiver with magic hands is now known as the butt of a not-so-funny joke. Now he’s the dangerous dolt who shot himself in the thigh with an unlicensed pistol to keep from spilling his drink.”
Mike Lupica / New York Daily News
“Burress’ lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, says his client is a ‘fundamentally decent man in a difficult situation.’ There are probably guys in Rikers who probably feel the same way. That it was all a big mistake. Or that the gun law is too tough. Or that they are victims of life’s circumstances because they got picked up for carrying a gun without a permit in New York.”
But when Burress has his hearing in March, if not before, his attorney will undoubtedly argue that an incident that occurred earlier in the week was the reason for his client packing heat when he went to the Latin Quarter. It seems that fellow Giants receiver Steve Smith was robbed at gunpoint at 4 a.m. on Nov. 25. According to the New York Post’s Dan Mangan:
“Smith had returned to his townhouse in a gated community…in a chauffer-driven car.
“There, a person approached Smith from behind with a gun. The perpetrator said, ‘Give me everything you got,’ and Mr. Smith did turn over his jewelry and cash,’’ said Clifton (N.J.) Detective Robert Rowan. The robber then ran off.”
Burress knew Smith had been robbed. But for Plax to then carry a gun, illegally, to protect his jewelry and the large amount of cash he was carrying is hardly an excuse.
[This is too much. Since Plaxico checked into New York-Cornell Hospital under the assumed name Harris Smith, authentic (fake) “H. Smith” No. 17 jerseys are already on the market. An NFL sales clerk told the New York Post yesterday that there were no prohibitions against them.]
On 11/13 in this space, I noted the passing of former Brooklyn Dodgers’ star hurler Preacher Roe, but being in Hong Kong and not having access to all my baseball books, I said I’d add a little material later.
First, about that name, Roe had an early desire to be a preacher, having been reared in a very rural area of Arkansas, Ash Flat. His real name was Elwin Charles Roe and his father, having been a minor league ballplayer himself, wanted one of his six sons to be a major leaguer.
Elwin attended Harding College, a religious school, where he averaged 18 strikeouts a game. Five teams sent scouts to check him out and the Yankees and Cardinals made the best offers. Roe recalled, “But this part of the United States isn’t Yankee country, if’n you get me. The Yankees was thought of as the best club in baseball, which no doubt they was, but down here we talked about the Cardinals.”
Roe signed with St. Louis for $5,000. He was promoted immediately but in his debut allowed 4 runs on 6 hits in 2 2/3 innings so it was down to the minors, where he toiled from 1939 to ‘43. By 1944, though, he was the Pirates’ Opening Day starter and lost a two-hitter, 2-0. But as World War II ended, other talented players returned and then Roe was injured in a weird off-season incident. Preacher got into an altercation with a referee at a high school basketball game. “He decked me. I got a skull fracture and a lacerated brain. The fracture ran 8 inches long,” recalled Roe. Worse, his left arm, his pitching arm, was damaged.
The following year, 1947, was a disaster as he went 4-15 for the Pirates with a 5.28 ERA. Then on December 8, 1947, Dodgers’ GM Branch Rickey made one of his customary great trades, acquiring Roe and Billy Cox for Dixie Walker, Hal Gregg and Vic Lombardi. It was at this point that Roe added a spitball to his repertoire and thus began a great stretch where he went a stupendous 93-37 for Brooklyn, including a 22-3 campaign in 1951. Alas, that was the year the Dodgers blew a 13 ½ game lead to the Giants and you know what happened later…Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”
Roe would go on to pitch in the 1949, 52, and 53 World Series, going 2-1, but had retired by the time the Dodgers finally won one, 1955. For his career, Roe was 127-84 and appeared on five All-Star teams.
Casey Stengel once said of the Preacher, “I tell ya, it’s impossible to outsmart him. He’s a smart operator all right; just about the smartest pitcher around today.”
“Of course, Roe’s effectiveness depended on the spitter. Reds manager Luke Sewell once complained: ‘Without his spitter he wouldn’t be half as effective, and you can quote me.’ When Roe finally confessed in Sports Illustrated [July 1955], his former teammates still played dumb. ‘He never threw one against me in batting practice so I take it he never threw one in the game,’ quipped Pee Wee Reese. Roe himself later said he allowed the article to be printed in an attempt to get the spitter legalized.”
I came across this bit on Stan Musial from Daniel Okrent’s and Steve Wulf’s book “Baseball Anecdotes” that had a reference to Roe.
“If ever a ballplayer played out a long career wanting in classic anecdotes, it was Stan Musial: a gentleman, respected by all, modest in habit and in language, he simply went about his business – and his business was hitting.
“What the record reveals is three stories, all of them are strikingly similar in message, and all of them likely to be true:
“Before Willie Mays’s first appearance against the Cardinals, Leo Durocher ran down the St. Louis batting order for him, telling the rookie how the various hitters should be played. He described the lead-off batter, and the number two man, and then moved to the clean-up hitter.
“Before the 1951 All-Star Game, Ed Lopat of the Yankees told Brooklyn’s Preacher Roe that he’d figured out a way to pitch to Musial. In the fourth, Musial stood against Lopat and lined his first pitch into the right-field seats. Thereupon Roe shouted to Lopat, ‘I see what you mean, but I found that way to pitch to him a long time ago, all by myself.’
“Finally, Roe again, in 1957 explaining how he pitched to him, as Musial’s illustrious career – more than 3600 hits, 475 home runs, a lifetime average of .331 – was winding down: ‘I throw four wide ones, and then I try to pick him off first.’”
But in looking up stories on Roe, I found another. Remember The Rifleman, Chuck Connors? Born in Brooklyn, 1921, Connors was a solid athlete who played professional basketball for Rochester and then the Boston Celtics, 1945-48, though in his two seasons with Boston, encompassing 53 games, he was a mere 99 of 393 (25%) from the field, and 41 of 87 from the foul line (47%) in compiling a 4.5 point average.
During the rest of the year he was rising through the Dodgers’ farm system, with three years off in the military during WWII, 1943-45. At one point, Connors played alongside Jackie Robinson, and in 1948, the 6-foot-5 first baseman was moved up to the top farm club, Montreal, where he hit .307 with 17 HR and 88 RBI. He followed that up with a .319, 20-108 season in Montreal and would later play with the Cubs in 1951, batting .239 in 201 at bats. By this time, though, he was 30 and Hollywood called.
Back to ’49, Connors had a solid spring training for Brooklyn and achieved the goal he had wanted all along, to play for the Dodgers.
But he was backing up Gil Hodges at first. Tony Salin, in his book “Baseball’s Forgotten Heroes,” picks up the story.
“By May 1 the Dodgers had won six and lost six and were playing at home against the Phillies. The box score shows names like Reese, Campanella, Robinson, Cox, Hodges, Furillo, Ashburn, Hamner, Waitkus, and Ennis. Preacher Roe [ed. sorry, the only reference here to him in this particular tale] started the game for Brooklyn; Russ Meyer tossed for the Phils. Meyer went into the ninth with a 4-2 lead, and with one out Gil Hodges singled, bringing the potential tying run to the plate. The Dodgers would go on to win the pennant by only one game – every game counted. Over the PA it was announced, ‘Now batting for Furillo, Chuck Connors.’ It really was a ‘Casey at the Bat’ situation. Although he couldn’t win the game, Connors could tie it or at least keep the rally going. The table was set for the tall Irish kid who had grown up 10 blocks from Ebbets Field. But in front of 20,507 spectators, the hometown kid failed in the clutch. It was his one and only plate appearance for the Brooklyn Dodgers in a major league game.
“Chuck Connors joked about this one at bat for the rest of his life, but in reality it must have given him much pain. Connors hit a grounder back to Russ Meyer, who threw to Granny Hamner at second for the force on Hodges. Hamner, after a quick pivot, then threw to Waitkus at fist, erasing Connors and ending the game.
“Manager Burt Shotton was asked later why he had sent Connors up, and with a grimace he explained to a reporter from the Brooklyn Eagle, ‘To reduce the possibilities of a double play.’”
Well, twelve days later, after his first and only at bat for Brooklyn, Connors was sent back to Montreal (as Don Newcombe was brought up to fill the roster spot). Later, Chuck, after being traded to the Cubs, played with their farm team in Los Angeles (and then the Angels’ affiliate there) where he made connections in the entertainment industry.
Connors (whose real full name was Kevin Joseph Aloysious Connors) got a bit part in a picture, picking up $500 for three days’ work, liked it, and asked for more roles. Then he retired from baseball in February 1953, but the bigger parts were slow in coming and he was mostly in low-budget movies before getting a break in 1957’s Disney flick, “Old Yeller.” That led to his starring role in “The Rifleman.”
Connors, no fool, asked for 10 percent of the show’s profits in addition to his salary. By 1959, he was earning a reported $150,000 a year, more than Ted Williams or Mickey Mantle, and soon after Connors was taking in $20,000 a week as one of the best-paid entertainers in the world.
Chuck Connors was also known as just a real good guy and highly intelligent. His secretary once said he read 250 books a year and “retains it all.”
But Connors really despised the whole Hollywood scene and “those phony cocktail parties,” telling a writer in 1966:
“If it weren’t for baseball and golf I’d go mad in Hollywood. Maybe baseball is a healthier, purer way of making a living…I’m more comfortable with sports people. I’m not from the same cloth as show people, although I like and respect many of them. Actually, I feel I’m stealing money in their business.”
Connors, a conservative, was tabbed by some for political office (sound familiar?) but he later said that “Being around so many politicians, I became a little cynical about politicians in general.” Connors also simply had a reputation for speaking his mind.
And so it was in the late 1960s, as related by Tony Salin, that he was invited into the television booth during a nationally broadcast baseball game.
“An up-and-coming young star lined a ball into the gap and turned what looked like a double into a three-base hit. The announcer exclaimed, ‘Looks like the young fellow is quite a hitter.’ Added Connors, ‘Yeah, the f—-r can run too!’”
Chuck Connors died in 1992, having appeared in more than 60 films and playing the lead in seven television series (including “Branded”), but it was at his ranch in 1986 that a reporter called and asked him to reflect on his past.
And so we toast an American original and success story, the late, great Chuck Connors.
–Notre Dame’s coach Charlie Weis is returning, it would seem. In his four years he has posted a 28-21 record. Oh, what the hell. Give him one more shot…so some of us have something to write about.
–I was reading a column by Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post, another piece bitching about the BCS and the Big 12’s employing it as a tiebreaker, when I saw this:
“The Mountain West (Utah, BYU and TCU), which feasted on the Pacific-10, is at worst the fourth-best conference in the country this year, maybe third (behind only the Big 12 and SEC, which right now has just two fearsome teams, Florida and Alabama).”
But you know what? Check out the standings yourself. Wilbon is right, though I’d place the Mountain West 4th, behind the Big 12 (so far ahead of the others, it isn’t even close), SEC and ACC. As noted last time, the ACC ended up being far better than its early season press clippings.
I mean talk about competition, of the 12 teams in the conference, 10 were either 5-3 or 4-4 in league. That’s incredible, with all 10 finishing .500 or better, overall. By comparison, only 8 of 12 SEC teams finished .500, 7 of 12 Big 12, 7 of 11 Big Ten, 5 of 9 Mountain West, and 5 of 10 Pac-10. The Big East (6 of 8) is intriguing, but when Rutgers is tied for second best, it’s tough to build a case for the conference’s inclusion in a top 3 or 4 conversation.
Back to the Mountain West, while it was very top heavy, a Wyoming win at Tennessee helps their cause big time, because I mean to tell ya, otherwise, Wyoming sucked. [As did Tennessee, but now I’m rambling too much……]
–The Star-Ledger’s Tom Luicci had some good bits the other day in his college football column. First, congratulations to Temple, which finished 5-7, its best year since 1990. As Luicci adds, “Let the Al Golden-to-Syracuse rumors begin.”
Luicci also points out that USC is 27-0 in November under Pete Carroll, while Rice, in finishing 9-3, recorded its highest victory total since 1953.
–“Pit” Martin, a four-time NHL All-Star in the 1960s and 70s, died in a snowmobile accident after plunging into an icy lake in Quebec. He was 64. Martin was driving on Lake Kanasuta in northwestern Quebec on Sunday when the ice cracked. As of this writing, divers had been unable to retrieve his body. It turns out he lived on an island in the lake that was reached by boat in summer and snowmobile in winter, but as former Chicago Blackhawks teammate Dale Tallon said, there were always tricky periods in the spring and fall.
Martin, aside from his days in Chicago, also played with Detroit, Boston and Vancouver, amassing 809 points from 1963 to 1979. He had three 30-goal seasons and a career high 90 points in 1972-73 with the Blackhawks.
But he’s also known as being part of one of the biggest trades in NHL history in 1967, when he and two other players were shipped to Chicago in the deal that sent Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield to Boston.
The Blackhawks had been planning to honor the line that Martin shared with Jim Pappin and Bobby Hull this winter.
–Rickey Henderson is among the first timers eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame as the 2009 ballot was just released. Henderson, the all-time leader in runs and stolen bases, while banging out 3055 hits in a 25-year career, should get in the first go around, but the big issue this time will be Jim Rice, who has his last opportunity to collect the needed 75 percent, having hit the 72.2 mark last time.
Also on the ballot is Mark McGwire for a third time, McGwire having failed to garner 25 percent the first two.
Andre Dawson, 8th time on the ballot, and Bert Blyleven, 12th, are two others that will get some attention; Dawson hitting 65.9 percent in ’08 and Blyleven 61.9.
[We also learn on Sunday who, if anyone, gets into the Hall out of the Veterans Committee. “Dear Lord, please give the nod to Ron Santo.”]
–Only four appear to be in the running for the Heisman Trophy; quarterbacks Sam Bradford / Oklahoma, Colt McCoy / Texas, Tim Tebow / Florida, and Graham Harrell / Texas Tech. I’m sticking with Bradford.
–Elite Eight, NCAA Men’s Soccer Championship…games played Dec. 5, 6, or 7
15. Wake Forest…I’m not sold. Big bodies, but little outside shooting
5. Texas A&M
–NJIT lost its 39th straight in extending its NCAA men’s b-ball Division I record for futility. And I was a little surprised by this factoid. South Carolina beat Princeton on Tuesday, 84-58, which just so happened to be the Tigers’ worst loss at home in the history of Jadwin gym going back to 1969. [Useless trivia…another free feature of Bar Chat.]
–Attention lovers of Carolina Barbecue. I was perusing the latest issue of The Weekly Standard and Terry Eastland reviewed a new book titled “Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue,” by John Shelton Reed, Dale Volberg Reed, and William McKinney [UNC Press]. Why it’s the perfect Christmas gift!
Now I’ve told you all on more than one occasion of my love for Carolina ‘cue, and how one time I was a sales manager in the Carolinas and called my territory the barbecue run, so I just have to include this passage from Eastland’s review concerning the iced tea angle.
“Beer and wine are usually not sold at barbecue places. Neither goes well with the smoke-flavored meat, and anyway the ethos of a barbecue place tends to be ‘family.’ Lots of places are closed on Sunday. To be sure, soft drinks are available, but the most common liquid refreshment is tea, meaning sweet tea, really sweet tea. The authors define this tea by citing the food critic Alan Richman – ‘Sweetened ice tea in North Carolina isn’t a beverage. It’s an intravenous glucose drip’ – and say there’s a reason for this: ‘The vinegar base of most North Carolina sauces cries out for something sweet to complement it.’ The recipe included in Holy Smoke calls for upwards of two cups of sugar and eight cups of water.”
Yup, a good barbecue joint is one place I never, ever complained about not being able to pick up a bottle of domestic.
–Not for nothing, but the Nets’ Devin Harris is carving out quite a name for himself in these parts, a hard thing to do amid all the big names in all sports, including dirtballs like Plax and Steph. Harris is averaging 25 points per game in his first 14 contests (he’s missed some due to injury), including an impressive 47-point explosion against the Suns.
The New York Times’ Harvey Araton comments on the trade that brought Harris to the Nets last year from Dallas.
“(Owner Mark) Cuban and his Dallas Mavericks fell in love with the legend of Jason Kidd last winter. They had to have Kidd, an aging maestro, for a title run that didn’t survive the first round of the playoffs. As a magnanimous gesture, Cuban’s negotiating team threw two first-round draft choices into an eight-player deal the Nets’ president, Rod Thorn, later said he would have made even if it were Kidd for Harris straight up.
“With one of the picks, Thorn drafted a 6-foot-10 forward out of California, Ryan Anderson, who has already ably demonstrated that he has an N.B.A. future. Next year’s Dallas pick is not lottery protected – the Mavericks barely made the playoffs last season and have started this season as a .500 team.
“That leaves the Nets with the 25-year-old Harris, Anderson and a potential lottery pick for Kidd, who is still capable of a triple-double on any given night and is still a visionary ball distributor, but who too often looks 35 going on 50 when matched against the likes of Tony Parker and Chris Paul. Cuban has denied regretting this deal, but that is the pride of a billionaire getting in the way of the plain, hard truth. He knows the Mavericks were fleeced.”
–NHL goon Sean Avery was suspended indefinitely by the league for using vulgar language with reporters (“inappropriate public comments, not pertaining to the game” as the commissioner put it) in discussing his former girlfriends now dating other hockey players.
After a morning skate in Calgary, Avery, now with the Dallas Stars, asked if a camera was present and when told there was, said “I’m just going to say one thing. I’m really happy to be back in Calgary; I love Canada. I just want to comment on how it’s become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my (former girlfriends). I don’t know what that’s about, but enjoy the game tonight.” He then walked out of the locker room.
One of Avery’s ex-s, Elisha Cuthbert of “24” fame, is dating Calgary defenseman Dion Phaneuf and has also been linked to Mike Komisarek of the Canadiens. Avery also dated Rachel Hunter, now the girlfriend of Kings’ center Jarrett Stoll.
Goodness gracious. I can’t imagine what Avery really said. [And I’m not checking YouTube to see if it’s there.]
–A year ago I was in Berlin and reported on my chat with Knut the polar bear, who, it turns out, wasn’t really that talkative and was also no longer cute.
So I just saw that Knut, now 2-years-old, is getting frisky and ready to mate, but the Berlin Zoo can’t raise the cash for a new compound that would give him (and a future brood) more space. As reported in the London Times by Roger Boyes, a tourism authority spokesman says “Berlin is set to lose one of its best ambassadors.”
But good god, Knut is already 8 ft. 2 in. tall! And “His star is on the wane and he has grown more grumpy, less inclined to perform.” Of course Knut’s keeper, Thomas Doerflein, died suddenly in September so Knut is undoubtedly still bummed about that.
Well, it’s time for Knut to move on, and one possibility is a Swedish bear park, where I imagine Knut would have the pick of the hotties……or did I just cross the line…
–Brad K. passed along the following from the AP… “Deer gets revenge after hunter shoots him.”
Sedalia, Mo. – A hunter bagged a big buck on the second day of firearms season, but the kill caused him a lot of pain. Randy Goodman, 49, said he thought two well-placed shots with his .270-caliber rifle [Plaxico Burress had a .40-caliber Glock…but I digress] had killed the buck on Nov. 19. Goodman said the deer looked dead to him, but seconds later the nine-point, 240-pound animal came to life.
The buck rose up, knocked Goodman down and attacked him with his antlers in what the veteran hunter called “15 seconds of hell.” The deer ran a short distance and went down, and died after Goodman fired two more shots. [Ed. I bet it was more like 60.]
Soon Goodman started feeling dizzy and noticed his vest was soaked in blood. So he reached his truck and drove to a hospital, where he received seven staples in his scalp and was treated for a slight concussion and bruises.
[Post-script: New York Giant linebacker Antonio Pierce offered to cover up the fact Goodman shot the deer 60 times, but Goodman declined the help.]
But what do we really learn from the above, boys and girls? It’s pretty simple. As Brad says, “Assume nothing. The buck played possum and got his final revenge before succumbing.” I’d add it’s kind of like Jim Bowie at the Alamo.
–And this from a wire service report: “James Sheep, the Penn State senior who plays the Nittany Lions mascot, was arrested on a DUI charge and his status for the Rose Bowl is in doubt, police and school officials said.”
It’s pretty obvious what happened. Sheep was at a bar and someone said, “Hey, Sheep, what’s the deal with the Lion costume?” Sheep, suddenly confused as to his true identity, drowned his sorrows, alone, in a corner of said establishment, after which he hopped in a car instead of getting a taxi home.
–The Grammy Awards folks issued a list of 28 songs to be inducted into their Hall of Fame. Past selections include everything from “Whole Lotta Love” and “Yesterday,” to Ethel Merman’s “You’re The Top.”
So among the new honorees is Roy Rogers’ & Dale Evans’ “Happy Trails.” How the hell could this have not been picked in 1973 when the Grammy nincompoops started coming up with Hall quality tunes?! This is outrageous! And what of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare For The Common Man”?! They are just getting around to that one?! Or Jimi Hendrix’s “The Star-Spangled Banner”? A 2009 pick and not 30 years earlier? C’mon.
Oh well, there are some great tunes on this new list…like “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Wooly Bully,” “Ohio,” “The ‘In’ Crowd,” and… “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly”!! [Trader George and I will celebrate this one over the holidays with some domestic.]
For you older folks, “Banana Boat (Day-O)” and “Mule Skinner Blues” are also now in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
**Another Christmas gift alert!!! Last time I said I was going to pick up Seal’s new album, “Soul”…covers of Soul tunes. Well, being the only person in my town who actually goes to a record store to buy CDs (we’re lucky we still have a store of that kind), I did acquire it and I’m here to tell you it’s a winner. Guys, if you can’t [transmission garbled] this one, there’s something wrong. Tracks include “A Change Is Gonna Come” (Sam Cooke), and Al Green’s “Here I Am” and “I’m Still In Love With You.” Seal is perfect for this genre.
–35 years ago, the Allman Brothers’ “Brothers and Sisters” LP was No. 10 on the album charts. [No. 1 was Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”] On the singles charts then, Todd Rundgren’s “Hello It’s Me” was No. 8, peaking at No. 5 a few weeks later. This one is in my top three all time, alternating, depending on my mood, with “Fooled Around And Fell In Love” and “Crystal Blue Persuasion.” I hasten to add, this doesn’t make me a bad person.
Top 3 songs for the week 12/4/82: #1 “Truly” (Lionel Richie) #2 “Gloria” (Laura Branigan…I break out in hives when I hear this) #3 “Mickey” (Toni Basil)…and…#4 “Maneater” (Daryl Hall & John Oates) #5 “Heartlight” (Neil Diamond) #6 “Up Where We Belong” (Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes) #7 “Steppin’ Out” (Joe Jackson) #8 “The Girl Is Mine” (Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney) #9 “Dirty Laundry” (Don Henley) #10 “Muscles” (Diana Ross)….time to go back to the 60s…
Heisman Trophy Quiz Answers: 1) 1977: Terry Miller, HB, Oklahoma State, and Ken MacAfee, TE, Notre Dame. 2) 1978: Chuck Fusina, QB, Penn State, and Rick Leach, QB, Michigan. 3) 1983: Runners-up in order…Steve Young, QB, BYU; Doug Flutie, QB, Boston College; Turner Gill, QB, Nebraska; Terry Hoage, S, Georgia. I’m impressed if you got Hoage. Pour yourself a frosty, but ask your boss for permission first…especially in this labor market.
