Feb. 3, 1959

Wake defeats Duke, 70-68

Super Bowl Quiz: 1) SB XIII: Pittsburgh 35 Dallas 31…who am I? On the Steelers, initials B.C. 2) SB XIV: Pittsburgh 31 Los Angeles 19. Who was L.A.’s leading rusher with 60 yards on 17 carries; a back who had over 6,000 yards for his career. 3) SB XV: Oakland 27 Philadelphia 10. Who am I? Eagles wide receiver, initials C.S. 4) SB XVI: San Francisco 26 Cincinnati 21. Who was San Fran’s leading rusher in the game, initials R.P.? Answers below. 

Next Tuesday, Feb. 3, is the 50th anniversary of his death at the age of 22. Incredible. [Apply your own cliché on how quickly time flies.] 

Charles Hardin Holley (sic) was born on Sept. 7, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas, the third son of Lawrence and Ella Holley. The Holleys had moved to west Texas in the 1920s when the area had begun to experience an economic boom occasioned by the advent of cotton farming. 

The Holleys were a musical family. Buddy’s eldest brother, Larry, played violin and guitar, while brother Travis played the accordion, piano and guitar. And sister Pat could sing. 

“Buddy’s musical debut was something of a gentle hoax; his mother had insisted that his brothers take five-year-old Buddy along with them to a talent contest they’d entered in the nearby town of County Line. They greased the strings of his toy fiddle so he couldn’t sour their sound and used him as a prop. But it was Buddy who took home a $5 prize for singing a number his mom taught him, ‘Down the River of Memories.’” 

Buddy eventually settled on the acoustic guitar as his instrument of choice and began to teach himself Hank Williams songs such as “Lovesick Blues.” By the early 1950s, he had formed a country-oriented combo called the Western and Bop Band with school friends Bob Montgomery and Larry Welborn. 

The group was good enough to land a half-hour Sunday afternoon segment on local radio station KDAV and in 1956, Welborn was replaced with Don Guess. Buddy then signed with Decca Records and lost the ‘e’ in his name because of a misspelling in the contract. The Decca deal was uneventful but for a country song Buddy issued, a tune called “That’ll Be the Day.” 

“Back in Lubbock, Buddy and drummer Jerry Allison crossed over into rock and roll after opening for Elvis Presley at the Lubbock Youth Center. The next day, Holly talked Elvis into accompanying him to Lubbock High to meet some of his friends and teachers. Forming the Crickets (Joe Mauldin on bass, Jerry Allison on drums, Niki Sullivan on guitar), Buddy re-cut ‘That’ll Be the Day’ with a rock edge, and it got picked up by the New York-based Coral-Brunswick label, which made it a top 5 hit in 1957.” [It hit #1 on the Billboard Pop Chart] 

Holly followed up this success with the #3 “Peggy Sue,” #10 “Oh, Boy!” #37 “Rave On” [can’t believe it wasn’t top ten], and #17 “Maybe Baby.” 

As Timothy White writes, Holly had a “blushing tenderness and a rollicking brand of goodwill unlike any rock has enjoyed before or since…each was sung with a straightforward zeal that never wavered and a bright outlook that never turned mawkish or hackneyed.” 

As was so typical of the music business in those days, success came quickly and Holly seemed unfazed by it. He usually appeared onstage in a black suit, or blazer, a bowtie and those horn-rimmed glasses. Buddy was proud and purposeful and never thought about being mistaken for a wimp, “and his anachronistic appearance became so popular that fans began sporting horn-rims fitted with ordinary glass. Offstage, he rarely drank. His forays into the wild side of paradise were occasional back-of-the-bus crapshoots with roustabout Chuck Berry.” 

But Buddy Holly was too trusting. He married Maria Elena Santiago, a Puerto Rican girl from New York, in 1958, and with her help they began to investigate his financial arrangements. Buddy confronted his manager Norman Petty about the presence of Petty’s name in the writing credits of several songs and it turns out the management of Buddy’s career had a been a mess. Buddy was sick about it, left the Crickets, and moved with Elena to New York’s Greenwich Village. 

“Money was tight, so he took a new group, consisting of guitarist Tommy Allsup, drummer Charlie Bunch, and green young bassist Waylon Jennings, on the road to raise seed money for his fledgling publishing company.” 

And so it was on a bus tour in the winter of 1959, that Holly met his end. It was February 3…Holly and Jennings were standing out on the tarmac in Mason City, Iowa (after a show in Clear Lake) when Jennings gave up his seat on the plane to The Big Bopper, opting to take the bus instead because of the bad weather. “I hope your damned bus freezes up again,” Holly kidded Waylon. “I hope your ole plane crashes,” responded Jennings. Shortly after 2:00 a.m., the plane carrying Holly, The Big Bopper, and 17-year-old Richie Valens, disintegrated in a field nine miles from the airport. As you can imagine, the incident haunted Waylon for years. 

The Waylon Jennings angle to the Buddy Holly story is well known, but less so is the one with Dion DiMucci…a k a Dion. 

Born on July 18, 1939 in the Bronx, Dion DiMucci had a rough childhood. His father hardly worked, there never was any money, and the fights were legendary. Escaping his wretched family life, Dion sought escape through music. And he also discovered heroin at 14! 

Growing up his idols were Elvis and Bill Haley and after getting a recording contract of his own, the record company formed Dion and the Timberlanes, only Dion didn’t know who the backup singers were. So Dion was like, heck, I can do better with guys from the neighborhood, and a few months later you had Dion and the Belmonts with Dion as lead singer and Fred Milano, Carlo Mastrangelo, and Angelo D’Aleo as the supporting cast. The name “Belmonts” came from Belmont Ave. in the Bronx where they lived. 

Oh, those were the days. The group would rehearse its doo-wop sound on the 6th Ave. D Train to Manhattan and by May 1958, they had their first big hit, “I Wonder Why,” which peaked at #22. By October, Dion and the Belmonts were touring with Buddy Holly, Frankie Avalon, Bobby Darin and others. 

Then in January 1959, Dion and the boys started off on the “Winter Dance Party” with Holly, Valens, and The Big Bopper. During the February 2 concert in Clear Lake, Iowa, Mastrangelo played drums on Holly’s last set because his regular drummer was suffering from foot frostbite because of the unheated bus that they all were touring in. 

It turns out that Dion had an opportunity to fly with Holly and the other two but it was going to cost $36, a month’s rent. So but for lack of a few dollars, we almost lost Dion that tragic night, the death of innocence for rock and roll as later memorialized in Don McLean’s “American Pie.” 

And when it comes to Waylon, you wouldn’t have had #1 country hits like the following: 

Buddy Holly would have been only 73 this coming March 7. I can just picture him at the Grammys in his later years. Kind of a distinguished Tony Bennett for the rock crowd, Buddy having been able to maintain his success into the mid-1970s (meaning he adapted with the times) before he went into retirement, only to reemerge in the 1990s doing some classic duet albums with stars from both country and rock (eclipsing Rod Stewart’s efforts to do the same). They are having a big party in Clear Lake, Iowa, this weekend. That would be a pisser. 

The fallout over the Joe Torre book, “The Yankee Years,” continues, though I imagine most will wish they had waited 24 hours before unloading on him. Like Mike Vaccaro / New York Post. 

“Why would you soil your legacy this way, throw dirt on your reputation like this? Why would you do anything to crush our communal memory of what should be among the greatest eras in the history of sporting New York – the Joe Torre Era with the Yankees? 

“Why, Joe? Why would you take a blowtorch to that bridge? Why would you justify all the sinister things your enemies always hinted about you: that you were a champion grudge-holder, that the disparity between public pied piper and private grouch was considerable, that you were someone who’d do just about anything for a buck?” 

The key is the book was written in the third person, with Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, so Torre has the deniability card should he choose to play it. After all, the book says: 

“Back in 2004, at first (Alex) Rodriguez did his best to try and fit into the Yankee culture – his cloying, B Grade actor best. He slathered on the polish. People in the clubhouse, including teammates and support personnel were calling him ‘A-Fraud’ behind his back.” 

“ ‘He was phony,’ said Mike Borzello, the former Yankees bullpen coach and one of Rodriguez’ close friends, ‘and he knew he was phony.  But he didn’t know how to be anything else at that time. Then he started to realize what it is all about and what people feed off of, and thought, ‘Hey, I can really be myself.’” 

Of Derek Jeter, the book notes: “In his own way, Rodriguez was fascinated with Jeter, as if trying to figure out what it was about Jeter that could have bought him so much goodwill. The inside joke in the clubhouse was that Rodriguez’ pre-occupation with Jeter recalled the 1992 film, ‘Single White Female,’ in which a woman becomes obsessed with her roommate to the point of dressing like her.” 

Meanwhile, A-Rod’s “people” put out various statements, including “He doesn’t feel like he had any real relationship with (Torre),” and that the manager’s close relationship with Jeter kept him from ever warming up to A-Rod. Rodriguez is also still smarting from being dropped to 8th in the batting order in Game 4 of the 2006 playoff series with the Tigers. 

“Alex was really hurt by that,” one friend of A-Rod’s said Monday. “He believed that Torre did that to embarrass him and he knew then what Torre thought of him.” 

And on a separate matter, as the New York Mets rapidly tear down Shea Stadium as they prepare to move into their new adjacent park this spring, the Yankees are years…years…from knocking down Yankee Stadium even though they are moving into the new version the same time as the Mets. The New York Times’ Harvey Araton writes, “Enough is enough. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: Tear down this stadium, Mr. Bloomberg!” 

Picture that the land taken up by the old Yankee Stadium is supposed to be parkland and it’s a disgrace the ball parks sit, side by side, as one of the poorest congressional districts in the country suffers even more. 

The Yankees said one of the reasons why they haven’t begun tearing down the old stadium is because new offices weren’t ready (until just now) in the new structure. But as Araton writes, “Why couldn’t the Yankeees have conducted business in a temporary shelter for a few short months to expedite the demolition process?” 

But then there is this other excuse, given by the Office of the Mayor. “The demolition of Yankee Stadium, with a lot of adjacent construction, utility work and proximity to the elevated subway structure, requires a complicated public procurement process.” Yeah, so what? Mets officials have been able to take down Shea.  

Oh, by the way. I just saw a piece in Crain’s New York Business. 

“The cost of replacing more than 22 acres of South Bronx parkland displaced by the new Yankee Stadium has skyrocketed 67% to nearly $195 million.” 

Back to the game itself, Andy Pettitte’s signing gives the Yankees a pretty formidable rotation. 

CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Chien-Ming Wang, Joba Chamberlain and Pettitte. 

[And this just in on the ticket front…the Mets have sold 25,000 seats per game for the first season in Citi Field, with no more than 2 percent backing off commitments made before the stock market collapse. The Yankees previously announced they have sold the equivalent of 39,000 tickets per game thus far. But…the issue hasn’t been the Mets or Yankees and ticket sales the first year in a new park. It’s about 2010. And outside of New York, I’m going to be most curious to see attendance this summer. If ticket sales, on a relative basis, hold up in, say, Atlanta or Houston, assuming these are roughly .500 ball clubs, it could be a good economic indicator. I’ll have to refine this over the coming month or two.] 

25 years ago, the then Los Angeles Raiders waxed the Washington Redskins 38-9 in the Super Bowl. The L.A. Times’ Sam Farmer commented on some little known facts surrounding the effort, down in Tampa, coincidentally the site of this year’s contest. 

“Washington is a lot closer to Tampa than L.A. is, but (Raiders owner Al) Davis wanted the Redskins to feel like strangers in a strange land. 

“So Davis, in a brilliant piece of psychological warfare, rented benches and billboards all over Tampa and plastered them with signs reading ‘COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE.’ [Ed. The Raider mantra at the time.] He made a special effort to post those along the Redskins’ route from the airport to their hotel. 

“What’s more, Davis had thousands of paper place mats printed with the Raiders’ logo and sayings, and distributed them to all the fast-food restaurants around Washington’s hotel. Anything to make the Redskins feel like guests who had worn out their welcome. 

“Lastly, he made sure that 60,000 Raiders pompoms were handed out by Boy Scouts in the surrounding parking lots before the game. The NFL wouldn’t allow the Raiders – or any team – to hand those out at the gates. 

“Davis also knew what motivated his players – and it wasn’t pompoms, place mats or bus benches. 

“An undeniable incentive was the $38,000 each member of the winning team would receive. That was a staggering amount, considering the average NFL salary in 1983 was $152,800. 

“To inspire his troops the week before the game, Davis had team executive Mike Ornstein withdraw a huge amount of money in $1 bills – Ornstein remembers it being $100,000 – and form a massive pile of cash in a large meeting room. The money was then covered with a sheet that Flores pulled off with his team watching. The message: If you win, here’s what your reward will look like. 

“ ‘The players went nuts,’ Ornstein recalled. ‘When you see that much money sitting there, it’s pretty impressive.’” 

There was far more in Al Davis’ bag of tricks, but I loved this bit from Farmer’s article concerning Steve Sabol of NFL Films. 24 hours before kickoff he was at Tampa Stadium, going through the steps with his film crew, when he had to use the men’s room. 

“There, he heard a woman’s voice coming from one of the stalls. Then, he heard a man’s voice coming from the same stall. Awkward as it was, he walked over and slowly pushed open the door. 

“Inside was a sheepish and fully clothed couple dressed head to toe in Raiders garb. At their feet was a cooler, presumably containing their dinner. They had planned to sneak into the game by waiting it out in the restroom – overnight! – and made Sabol promise not to rat them out.” He didn’t. 

When I did my story on Coach Chuck Noll the other day, I didn’t have my football encyclopedia handy and just wanted to give a classic example of how championship teams are built…at least in the days when the draft was more important than free agency. 

Here are the Steelers’ first five picks in the ’74 draft. [No 3rd-round selection] 

By contrast, these are the first five picks for the New York Jets that same year. 

Round 1. Carl Barzilauskas, DT…70 games in highly mediocre NFL career
Round 2. Gordon Browne, T…23-games
Round 3. Godwin Turk, LB…14 games with Jets, 56 total in NFL
Round 4. Roscoe Word, DB…37-game career
Round 5. Gary Baccus, OG…didn’t play a down in NFL 

So that, sports fans, is how on one hand you build a champion, while on the other hand you have a prime example of how you can torture your fan base…year after year after year after year…. 

The Concussion Saga Continues 

The New York Times’ Alan Schwarz has covered the topic of concussions and football as well as anyone. Following is a portion of his most recent column on the subject, Jan. 28. 

“Brain damage commonly associated with boxers has been found in a sixth deceased former NFL player age 50 or younger, further stoking the debate between many doctors and the league over the significance of such findings. 

“Doctors at Boston University’s School of Medicine found a condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the brain of Tom McHale, an NFL lineman from 1987 to 1995 who died in May at age 45. Known as C.T.E., the progressive condition results from repetitive head trauma and can bring on dementia in someone in their 40s or 50s. 

“(Doctors) have now identified C.T.E. in all six NFL veterans between the ages of 36 and 50 who have been tested for the condition, further evidencing the dangers of improperly treated brain trauma in football. 

“ ‘It’s scary – it’s horribly frightening,’ said Randy Grimes, who played center next to McHale on the Buccaneers for several years. ‘I’ve had my share of concussions, too. More than my share. My wife says I have short-term memory loss. It’s really scary to think of what might be going on up there.’” 

McHale began developing severe pain in his shoulders and other joints ten years after retiring and this led to a downward spiral as he went through drug rehab, various times, before succumbing to a lethal, and probably accidental (according to police), combination of oxydocone (OxyContin) and cocaine. 

–The Mountain West Conference, which includes Utah, TCU and BYU, all of whom finished in the top 16 this past college football season, is seeking an automatic bid in the BCS. Ain’t gonna happen. 

–The story about the Texas high school basketball coach whose Covenant School girls team racked up a 100-0 win over Dallas Academy, and was then fired, hit right before I went to post last time so I wasn’t able to provide any detail. But on reading it, I just have to add that Dallas Academy has eight girls on the varsity team and only 20 in the entire high school. “It is winless over the last four seasons. The academy boasts of its small class sizes and specializes in teaching students struggling with ‘learning differences,’ like short attention spans or dyslexia.” 

Edd (sic) Burleson, the director of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, said that while there is no mercy rule in girls basketball, “a golden rule” should have been applied. 

Yup, I’d say the Covenant coach, Micah Grimes, deserved to be fired. And he goes straight into the December file for an as yet to be determined year end Bar Chat award. 

–And last time I didn’t have a chance to add details on the passing of a Medal of Honor winner, James Swett. It was in World War II that Swett shot down seven Japanese dive bombers near Guadalcanal and then as he attacked an eighth, his own plane was hit, shattering the windshield and damaging his engine. 

“ ‘It was all over in about 15 minutes,’ he would recall. Lieutenant Swett ditched in the sea, and then came another harrowing experience. 

“ ‘I was cut up around the face by flying glass,’ he told The Oregonian in 1991. ‘I made a good water landing, but my shoulder straps were too loose and I hit my head on the instrument panel and broke my nose. I struggled to get out of the cockpit as the plane sank, but my parachute straps got caught and dragged me under. I don’t know how deep I was before my life raft inflated and popped me to the surface.’ 

A few months later, Swett was shot down near the island of New Georgia and was rescued by two natives in a canoe. That fall he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his “superb airmanship and tenacious fighting spirit” in downing the seven bombers. 

Lieutenant Swett continued flying and flew support missions in the Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns. He is credited with downing 16 planes in all, and possibly another nine. But to his death, he was upset he didn’t get credit for the eighth dive bomber, which he says he downed even as his own plane hit the water. “I’m still mad at the Marine Corps for confirming only seven.” 

–Sunday marked the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scottish poet Robert Burns. If you remember anything about the man, it’s that he wrote “Auld Lang Syne.” 

So I pulled out my MacMillan Dictionary of Quotations and we see that Burns was responsible for some of the following as well. 

[When you are pulled over by a cop, do not break into the above or you’ll likely end up in the slammer on suspicion of drunk driving.] 

–Dwight Gooden denies that steroid dealer Kirk Radomski took urine tests for Gooden in the early 1990s, as Radomski claims in his new book, “Bases Loaded.” 

“I’ve made mistakes through the years, and I’ve admitted them, but that never happened,” said Doc. 

–Great news! The population of mountain gorillas in the Congo’s Virunga National Park has risen by 12.5% according to a new census. 81 are now living “permanently” inside the park, and 211 total were “estimated to be currently residing” in Virunga. So that means 130 are jetting around, like to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum. Not sure if this is the best use of their limited resources. There are only 720 mountain gorillas remaining in the world, with 320 living in Uganda. 

–Nice start to a PGA Tour career….that being Wake Forest alum Webb Simpson’s, who in his first two starts of 2009 has two top tens and over $324,000 in earnings. Fellow Demon Deac Bill Haas is also off to a solid start. 

[Mark your calendar. On Feb. 11 at 9:00 p.m. ET, the Golf Channel is airing a story on the history of black golfers in the early days of the sport. It should be good. As Tiger Woods says all the time, if there hadn’t been a Charlie Sifford or Lee Elder to pave the way, there probably isn’t a Tiger.] 

–LeBron James had his 20th career triple-double the other night; 23 points, 15 rebounds, 11 assists. 

–Matt Damon on the difference between James Bond and Jason Bourne. 

“They could never make a James Bond movie like any of the Bourne films. Because Bond is an imperialist, misogynist sociopath who goes around bedding women and swilling martinis and killing people. He’s repulsive.” 

I don’t know. Numbers one, three and four aren’t all bad. 

–We note the passing of media giant James Brady, 80. Brady was responsible for the New York Post’s Page Six, at the time a revolutionary gossip column when he became the first editor. But most of you are aware of Brady from his Parade magazine column in the back of that publication. These were fluff columns, but I imagine most of you were like me and always curious at the ages of those he was interviewing. Brady was an institution in the New York area and a good guy, best revealed by his nickname, “Gentleman Jim.” 

Super Bowl Quiz Answers: 1) Bennie Cunningham, tight end. Played with Steelers from 1976-85 and caught 202 passes. 2) Wendell Tyler, RB, Rams. 6,378 yards and a sterling 4.7 career average in a career spanning 1977-86 for L.A. and San Francisco. 3) SB XV: Philly wide receiver Charlie Smith, caught 218 passes in a career spanning 1974-81, all with the Eagles. 4) SB XVI: Ricky Patton led the 49ers in rushing that day, 55 yards on 17 carries. Only had 885 yards for his career, 1978-82. 

Top 3 songs for the week 1/28/78: #1 “Baby Come Back” (Player…no relation to golfer Gary Player)* #2 “Short People” (Randy Newman…no relation to racer Ryan) #3 “Stayin’ Alive” (Bee Gees)…and…#4 “You’re In My Heart” (Rod Stewart…no relation to Martha) #5 “Slip Slidin’ Away” (Paul Simon…no relation to Simon of Chipmunks fame) #6 “We Are The Champions” (Queen) #7 “How Deep Is Your Love” (Bee Gees) #8 “Come Sail Away” (Styx) #9 “Just The Way You Are” (Billy Joel) #10 “(Love Is) Thicker Than Water” (Andy Gibb) 

*Speaking of Gary Player, this past weekend Player bettered his age (73…b. 11/1/35) in all three rounds at the Champions Tour event…70-71-71 to finish -4 to winner Bernhard Langer’s -18. Player had the fewest putts of any golfer in the 36-man field for the tourney, just 76. Great stuff.