NFL Quiz: 1) Who was the last to score six TDs in a game? 2) Who holds the record for points in a season with 186? 3) What two players led the league in scoring a record five times? 4) What three players had the most service (seasons) in the NFL? 5) What two had the most seasons with one club? [Not the same as No. 4] Answers below.
“David Checketts, an investor and owner of sports teams, approached me in late May about investing in the St. Louis Rams football franchise. As a football fan, I was intrigued. I invited him to my home where we discussed it further. Even after informing him that some people might try to make an issue of my participation, Mr. Checketts said he didn’t much care. I accepted his offer.
“It didn’t take long before my name was selectively leaked to the media as part of the Checketts investment group. Shortly thereafter, the media elicited comments from the likes of Al Sharpton. In 1998 Mr. Sharpton was found guilty of defamation and ordered to pay $65,000 for falsely accusing a New York prosecutor of rape in the 1987 Tawana Brawley case. He also played a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot (he called neighborhood Jews ‘diamond merchants’) and 1995’s Freddie’s Fashion Mart riot.
“Not to be outdone, Jesse Jackson, whose history includes anti-Semitic speech (in 1984 he referred to Jews as ‘Hymies’ and to New York City as ‘Hymietown’ in a Washington Post interview) chimed in. He found me unfit to be associated with the NFL. I was too divisive and worse. I was accused of once supporting slavery and having praised Martin Luther King Jr.’s murderer, James Earl Ray….
“The NFL players union boss, DeMaurice Smith, jumped in. A Washington criminal defense lawyer, Democratic Party supporter and Barack Obama donor, he sent a much publicized email to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell saying that it was important for the league to reject discrimination and hatred.
“When Mr. Goodell was asked about me, he suggested that my 2003 comment criticizing the media’s coverage of Donovan McNabb – in which I said the media was cheerleading Mr. McNabb because they wanted a successful black quarterback – fell short of the NFL’s ‘high standard.’ High standard? Half a decade later, the media would behave the same way about the presidential candidacy of Mr. Obama.
“Having brought me into his group, Mr. Checketts now wanted a way out. He asked me to resign. I told him no way. I had done nothing wrong. I had not uttered the words these people were putting in my mouth. And I would not bow to their libels and pressure. He would have to drop me from the group. A few days later, he did….
“There is a contempt in the news business, including the sportswriter community, for conservatives that reflects the blind hatred espoused by Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson. ‘Racism’ is too often their sledgehammer. And it is being used to try to keep citizens who don’t share the left’s agenda from participating in the full array of opportunities this nation otherwise affords each of us. It was on display many years ago in an effort to smear Clarence Thomas with racist stereotypes and keep him off the Supreme Court. More recently, it was employed against patriotic citizens who attended town-hall meetings and tea-party protests.
“These intimidation tactics are working and spreading, and they are a cancer on our society.”
Michael Wilbon / Washington Post
“The free market, rather loudly, told Rush Limbaugh it wasn’t interested in what he sells. Undoubtedly there are NFL owners who share Limbaugh’s brand of conservatism. A few, I’m told, are so far to the right politically they think Limbaugh is liberal. But the voices that spoke up in the private club Limbaugh wanted to join shouted him down.
“It was noticeable enough that several players, very eloquently in some cases, said they wouldn’t want to play for a team he owned. But then there was an owner, the Colts’ Jim Irsay, who went on the record as saying he wouldn’t vote to accept an ownership group that includes Limbaugh. And most important, the NFL commissioner himself, Roger Goodell, said very firmly that Limbaugh’s public utterances as they relate to race, to African Americans specifically, are ‘divisive’ and ‘polarizing.’
“It was obvious at that point that Limbaugh wouldn’t be part of an NFL ownership group. And it’s fair. Limbaugh, every day and very publicly, judges people, turns thumbs up or thumbs down on someone’s candidacy or worthiness. Now he’s been judged: Thumbs down, not interested. Millions of people believe what Limbaugh believes about politics and race. But millions of others believe something else and, more to the point, reject what Limbaugh espouses. And the push-back was more than Limbaugh was going to overcome, so it’s over….
“(Limbaugh) has a long history of the same insults and race baiting, to the point of declaring he hoped the president of the United States, a black man, fails. I never understood why someone with Limbaugh’s gift for communication was so nasty and, in my opinion, gave cover to bigots everywhere under the guise of conservatism. Clearly, I’m not alone.
“The smartest expression I’ve heard on the entire subject came from Mathias Kiwanuka of the New York Giants, who said, ‘I am not going to draw a conclusion from a person off of one comment, but when it is time after time after time and there’s a consistent pattern of disrespect and just a complete misunderstanding of an entire culture that I am a part of, I can’t respect him as a man.’….
“Limbaugh has the right to say pretty much whatever he wants on his show. People with opposing views have the right to say, ‘We don’t want to be associated with that.’
“Mark Cuban (writes): ‘The problem with Rush is that it’s his job to take on all of life’s partisan issues and problems. Not only is it his job to take on these issues and problems, it’s key to his success that he be very opinionated about whichever issues he feels are important to him and/or will cause his very large audience to tune in….The wrong thing said on the show, even if it’s not spoken by Rush himself, about a sensitive national or world issue could turn into a Black Swan event for the NFL…This isn’t about free speech. It’s about the NFL protecting their business. There is no reason to put it at risk.’….
“It would have been interesting to see what might have happened, what fundamental changes might have come about in Limbaugh, had he become an owner. It’s one thing to demonize people from afar, but quite another to do it after you’ve just hugged and cried with somebody of that race or ethnicity after a shared joyous experience.
“But we’ll never know, not in the context of Limbaugh and the NFL anyway….
“Limbaugh is a great communicator of his message. I wonder if he heard this one loud and clear.”
I have to admit, I went to bed after the 11th inning of the Yankees-Angels on Saturday night. Heck, it was about 12:30 in these parts. While it’s suddenly all about A-Rod, which sickens some of us worse than H1N1, the guy you have to continue to marvel at is Mariano Rivera when all the other closers in the playoffs have been choking like the Mets of ’07 and ’08.
Poor Pedro…7 spectacular innings in Game Two of the NLCS gone to waste, but he could have secured a contract for 2010 with the effort. And was there a better acquisition in baseball this year than Philadelphia\’s Cliff Lee? 24 1/3 innings in postseason, 0.74 ERA.
Bill Madden / New York Daily News…on the state of umpiring today.
“With the postseason producing more amorphous strike zones and horrendous, potentially game-changing blown calls by the umpires, it is no surprise to be hearing renewed cries for expanded instant replay. Bud Selig remains adamantly opposed to stopping the games to review anything more than fair or foul home run calls, but the good commissioner continues to ignore the real problem, which is the deteriorating quality of umpiring.”
One of the prime issues is, “there is no incentive for anyone to go into umpiring because of the work conditions in the minor leagues and the fact that there are so few openings in the majors where no one is ever demoted and few retire until they are physically unable to work.
“Continually low-rated umpires like Bob Davidson, C.B. Bucknor, Hunter Wendelstedt and Phil Cuzzi (who blew the call on Joe Mauer’s would-be double off Melky Cabrera’s glove in left field in Game 2 of the ALDS despite being right in front of the play) remain in the big leagues while others like 33-year vet Ed Montague and 30-year vet Derryl Cousins hang on….
“Baseball needs to do a much better job of supervising, teaching and developing its umpires, and supervising jobs shouldn’t be golden parachutes. More teachers and better pay are needed at the minor league level and there ought to be a mechanism in place in which umpires, like players, can be demoted if their performance continually doesn’t measure up.
Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News made the ridiculous statement that Yankees fans are the best “in the world.”
Bull. Let me just give you an example.
In 1990, the Yankees finished 67-95, drew 2.00 million and were 9 of 14 in attendance in the A.L.
By comparison, the St. Louis Cardinals (who do have the best fans in baseball), were 70-92 in 1990, yet drew 2.57 million (with a much smaller population base to draw on), which placed them 3 of 12 in the N.L.
[Cubs fans, you say? Why they have to be the best. Wrong. Let me take you to 1974 when the team finished 66-96 and drew a whopping 1.015 million, good for 10 of 12 in the league.]
If you go back to the mid-60s, after the Yankees won their last pennant in that era, their attendance was no better than 5th out of 10 teams. [Source: Baseballreference.com]
It’s also been long known that in the New York area, with two teams each in baseball, football and basketball, and three in hockey, the best fans are without a doubt New York Giants and New York Rangers fans. It’s not even close, if you’re talking about support in both good times and bad over the past 40 years or so.
The worst, in terms of percentage attendance, would easily be Devils, Nets and Islanders fans, while the worst fans, in terms of behavior, are hands-down us Jets folk.
“I always wondered what happened to Augustus Gloop, the fat little boy in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who disappears up a suction pipe after diving greedily into Wonka’s chocolate river. Turns out Augustus – described by Roald Dahl as a boy with fat bulging from every fold, with two greedy eyes peering out of his doughball of a head – somehow ended up as head coach of the Cleveland Browns, perhaps the most [f’ed] up franchise in all of sports right now….
“Mangini’s performance…has been one of the truly thrilling sports disaster stories ever, a sort of Hurricane Andrew of football mismanagement, replete with horrific losses and incredible tales of pointless disciplinary tactics. Mangini’s signature moment came when he fined a player $1,701 for failing to pay $3 for a bottle of water at a hotel. The coach also fined players for parking in the wrong spaces and dispatched rookies on a 10-hour bus ride – a bus ride! – to visit the Eric Mangini football camp. ‘Mangini,’ Boomer Esiason said, ‘can take the fun out of a 10-year-old’s birthday party with Big Bird there.’
“Meanwhile, Mangini spent the first quarter of the season frowning on the sidelines like a man with the winner of the annual Kansas Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off up his ass, frantically changing his mind about which of his two psychologically battered quarterbacks to throw into the breach next….
“Not since the days of dimwitted Oilers coach Bill Peterson, who used to exhort players to ‘put the sideline under their left arm and stand on their helmets,’ have we witnessed this kind of coaching catastrophe unfold. Enjoy it for the very short time it is sure to last.”
Greg Bishop of the New York Times had a piece last week on the NFL “making a parody of parity.” “Last season, three teams won three games or fewer; in 2005, ’06 and ’07, only two teams won three or fewer games; and in 2004 one team was that bad.”
Well, thru\’s Sunday\’s play…St. Louis is 0-6, Kansas City 1-5, Tampa Bay 0-6, Cleveland 1-5, Detroit 1-5, and Tennessee 0-6.
Speaking of Tennessee, 13-3 to 0-6…unbelievable. On Sunday, the Titans were down to New England 45-0 at half, on the way to a 59-0 bombing (the biggest margin of victory in the NFL since 1976). Tom Brady was 24-28 with 5 TDs (all in the second quarter, another NFL record) and 345 yards in the first 30 minutes. He finished with 6 TDs and 380 yards as the Pats outgained Tennessee 619-186.
Elsewhere, an awful day for New York fans, as the Giants lost 48-27 to undefeated New Orleans, while the Jets lost to lowly Buffalo in OT, 16-13, with rookie QB Mark Sanchez throwing five interceptions. Recall, some of us did not want the Jets, now 3-3, to draft Sanchez in the first place. The next two games will be critical…and my Super Bowl prediction is looking mighty bleak. Understand, the Jets rushed for 318 yards, with Thomas Jones gaining 210, yet still lost!
Back to the undefeated teams, aside from New Orleans you still have Denver, 5-0 and playing Monday night, Minnesota, 6-0, and Indianapolis, 5-0, which had a bye.
Finally, Cleveland QB Derek Anderson is 11-for-41 through the air his last two games. If you have an arm and are under the age of 50, it might be worth getting a ticket to Cleveland. The league has a good pension plan and you\’ve got the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame right next to the stadium for those idle hours. Guys, ask the wife and kids for permission and see what happens. But tell the boss only after you\’ve received a contract, OK?
—College Football Review
OK, let me get this out of the way. Once a year Wake Forest just doesn’t show up and Saturday’s contest at Clemson was an example of this as we were emasculated 38-3. QB Riley Skinner was pitiful, the whole team was pitiful, and the coaching staff deserves an F. Aside from that, everything was great.
Early in the week, Cincinnati exposed fellow undefeated South Florida as one of those mid-season pretenders, whipping the school with the best cheerleaders 34-17. And another undefeated, No. 17 Kansas, lost to a horrible Colorado squad, 34-30.
But in the top ten, No. 7 Ohio State had a terrible loss to 2-5 Purdue, 26-18 [OSU QB Terrelle Pryor blows], while No. 19 Georgia Tech defeated No. 4 Virginia Tech, 28-23.
No. 1 Florida looked totally unimpressive in eking out a home win late vs. Arkansas, 23-20, and No. 3 Texas was equally uninspiring in defeating Oklahoma, 16-13, as OU quarterback Sam Bradford reinjured his shoulder.
Separately, bad loss for No. 15 Nebraska to Texas Tech, while Pitt’s freshman running back Dion Lewis is bringing back memories of another freshman of 35+ years ago, Tony Dorsett, as Lewis now has 915 yards in the Panthers’ first seven games.
Holy cow! Temple has won four in a row! The Owls latest victim was Army, 27-13, and the streak is the longest for the school since 1985.
Boston College running back Montel Harris had 264 yards and 5 TDs in a 52-20 win over North Carolina State.
And with USC’s 34-27 win over Notre Dame, I continue to keep my fingers crossed that the USC-Oregon game I’m attending in Eugene Oct. 31 will have national championship implications.
Finally, an awful story out of Storrs, Conn., home of UConn. Jasper Howard, a starting cornerback on the team who had 11 tackles and forced a fumble (that he recovered) in UConn’s 38-25 win over Louisville on Saturday, was stabbed to death that evening outside the school’s student union where a dance had just taken place. There was a dispute between two groups and Howard and another, who survived, were attacked, with the perpetrator still at large. What a nightmare on so many levels. Howard, who grew up in a tough section of Miami, was the first in his family to attend college.
6. Boise State 6-0
And the first BCS poll came out.
1. Florida
2. Alabama
3. Texas
4. Boise State
5. Cincinnati
6. Iowa
7. USC
8. TCU
11. Oregon
Alabama and Florida don’t square off until the SEC Championship Game…at least that’s how it’s lining up today.
Texas has a few tough games left, including Oklahoma State in two weeks.
Cincinnati’s biggest test is the last regular season game, at Pitt, which depending on the weather could also be great fun to watch.
Boise State still has a tough game against a solid Idaho squad in a few weeks; otherwise it’s in a BCS bowl for sure.
Iowa only has Ohio State, Nov. 14, to worry about. Incredibly, they could win the national title.
Suddenly, the season has really taken shape. And an undefeated Cincinnati vs. a one-loss Miami in the Orange Bowl would be a solid match-up when the ACC-Big East were supposed to supply us with a yawner.
Lastly, isn’t it amazing that the three quarterbacks who could have gone out early for the NFL draft last spring and received big money, but opted instead to come back for a shot at the national title and possible Heisman glory…Tim Tebow, Sam Bradford, and Texas’ Colt McCoy…have all had subpar and/or injury-riddled seasons? There are some underclassmen today, as well as future college stars, who will undoubtedly take note.
–NHL Hall of Famer Mark Messier is working with equipment maker Cascade Sports on a new helmet. New research shows 10% to 20% of teen hockey players suffer concussions each season. But Messier is having a tough time getting NHL players to wear his new, better helmet. “In our sport, looks come first.” [Mark Hyman / BusinessWeek]
—Top Five Men’s Soccer
5. Wake Forest
Top Five Women’s Soccer
5. Minneapolis / St. Paul…and good-looking, too
1. New Orleans…road trip!
2. Miami
3. Austin
4. New York
5. Las Vegas
*So like what is the difference between cocktail hour and singles bar scene? Doesn’t the cocktail hour bleed over into the singles bar scene? Well?
–Jimmie Johnson won the third of five Chase races for the Sprint Cup title, giving him a commanding lead heading into the final five as he guns for a NASCAR-record 4th consecutive championship. The win was also Johnson’s 46th in his sterling career, tying him with Buck Baker for 13th on the all time victory list.
–Sunderland defeated Liverpool in a Premier League Football (soccer) match, 1-0, with the lone goal scoring when a shot caromed off a beach ball sitting in the Liverpool penalty area. Under the rules, though, the beach ball is considered an outside agent, which should have resulted in a drop-ball if struck. The goal should not have stood. So it’s not just baseball that has issues with umpires and officials.
—LeBron James was treated for H1N1. Clearly he never learned how to wash his hands.
–Speaking of the NBA, did you see that the rules have been changed to allow two steps before a player has to stop, pass or shoot, instead of one? The new rule reads in part, “A player who receives the ball while he is progressing or upon completion of a dribble, may take two steps in coming to a stop, passing or shooting the ball.”
Officials said enforcement of the one-step rule was hit-or-miss at every level of basketball. But Walt “Clyde” Frazier says, “They go 20 feet to the hoop without dribbling one time. This is what they are getting away with nowadays. Some of them are so obvious. You’ll hear me on the broadcast saying ‘That’s a travel! Watch the feet!’ Wilt [Chamberlain] would have averaged 100 points a game if they had let him do that.”
—1969 Mets, part last…the World Series…Mets vs. Baltimore
Game One…Baltimore, 4-1
Game Two…Mets, 2-1
Game Three….Mets, 5-0
Game Four…Mets, 2-1
Game Five…Mets, 5-3
The Mets, out-homered 175-109 in the regular season, hit 6 to the Orioles’ 3 in the Series, including 3 by Donn Clendenon (the Series MVP, though it just as easily could have gone to Jerry Koosman, who was 2-0).
And so it was at exactly 3:17 p.m., when Davey Johnson lofted a routine fly to Cleon Jones in left, that the story was complete…the Miracle Mets. “Three months after Neil Armstrong was the first man to step on the moon, the Mets were baseball champions of the universe. The Impossible Dream had been realized.” [Jack Lang]
Outfielder, and World Series hero, Ron Swoboda said the Mets win “will give heart to every loser in America.”
“This club doesn’t make many mistakes now, you can see they believe in each other, and the coaches all live in New York and you can get them on the phone. So I’m very proud of these fellas, which did such a splendid job, and if they keep improving like this, they can keep going to Christmas. The Mets are amazing.”
From “Twenty-Five Years of Baseball Magic” by Jack Lang and Peter Simon:
“The celebration in the Mets clubhouse made Times Square on new Year’s Eve look tame indeed. Case upon case of champagne was brought in for the celebration. Several of the players were only a few years above the legal drinking age, but who was drinking? Most of the bubble, was being squirted into people’s faces or being poured over the heads of unsuspecting victims.
“ ‘I never saw anything like this,’ said Yogi Berra, who had been in more than a dozen Yankee pennant celebrations.”
Arthur Mulligan / New York Daily News
“This was the fruition, the culmination, the climax, the unbelievable triumph of the once hapless Mets after all these years of frustration. This was heaven and New Yorkers made the most of it.
“They left their offices and homes to dance in the streets and atop parked vehicles. Elderly ladies, who might be considered unlikely to have ever heard of the Mets, clutched their pocketbooks above their heads with both hands and shouted their praise.
“Pretty girls in miniskirts kissed everyone in sight. The excitement grew as the first shock of unbelievable fulfillment gave way to an ever increasing frenzy. It was a town – the Big Town – gone made.
“As the celebration grew in intensity, traffic in Times Square and on the East Side came almost to a halt. People snake-danced in the gutters and reduced vehicle traffic in some place to one moving lane in each direction.”
“The parties continued long after the World Series ended. A ticker tape parade up Broadway, the kind Charles Lindbergh received after his solo flight to Paris, was accorded the Mets the Monday following the marvelous triumph. It was the third such parade up lower Broadway that year and the biggest. In January the New York Jets had been saluted for their Super Bowl victory over the Baltimore Colts. In August, Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 astronauts were honored. But the turnout for the Mets was greater than the previous two.”
Outfielder Art Shamsky later wrote for the book “The Amazin’ Mets”:
“Other championship teams will come and go, but none will remain immortalized in so many people’s hearts. The cast of characters that made up the team, against the backdrop of the events of that year that are indelibly etched in our nation’s collective conscience, has long since made this team special in so many ways. History will show that while the 1969 Mets might not have been the greatest team to win a World Championship, we certainly and unmistakably are one of the most memorable.”
In the aftermath, manager Gil Hodges was awarded a new contract, 3 years at $70,000 per. The players pocketed $18,338 apiece as their Series share, more than some made the entire season. Seven Mets starred in comedian Phil Foster’s Las Vegas nightclub act, picking up another $10,000 for two weeks of fun.
Alas, the Mets’ fortunes began to turn a few weeks after the Series, even if they didn’t know it at the time. They traded Amos Otis to Kansas City for third baseman Joe Foy, who it was known around the league had issues. It proved to be one of the worst trades in baseball history. It was also GM Johnny Murphy’s last deal. On December 30 he suffered a heart attack and died two weeks later of a second massive attack. The Mets were stunned. The club had a chance to promote Whitey Herzog, who was director of player development, but Whitey was too opinionated for President M. Donald Grant and so he selected instead Bob Scheffing, an easygoing former catcher, manager and broadcaster. Big mistake number two.
It also became a time when Gil Hodges essentially ruled the team, and the franchise (including Grant, who was scared of him like everyone else), with an iron fist. Next chat a little story representative of this fact; one that often gets lost in the Hodges hagiography.
–Uh oh….it’s bad enough the Florida Everglades have become home to an exploding population of Burmese pythons, but now, as the London Times reports, we have the discovery of African rock pythons. If the two mate, said an expert herpetologist, “they could create genetically superior offspring more aggressive, powerful and resilient than their parents – possibility with the ability to strike down human prey.”
“Rock pythons are ‘so mean, they come out of the egg striking…this is one vicious animal,’ Kenneth Krysko told National Geographic News. ‘The arrival of the Burmese python was the biggest, most devastating problem that Florida could ever have imagined. Now we have a worse one.’
I’ve been reporting on the snake story down here, but it really is incredible to think there are “tens of thousands” prowling south Florida.
Five African pythons have been discovered and this species “have been known to kill humans.”
And this is scary. Despite hunting season having been open since mid-July, only 35 Burmese pythons have been captured.
If I lived in a development on the edge of the Everglades, I don’t know if I’d be able to fall asleep without checking under every bed, dresser and the washer-dryer, for starters. Seriously, I’ve been to Guam a lot, home of the vicious brown tree snake, and I check under my hotel room bed there before going to sleep.
Dan Joling (AP) / Anchorage Daily News [Occurred a few weeks ago but just posted on the paper’s Web site]
“Karl Wolfe had a half day to hunt for blacktail deer, but the outing ended just 15 minutes after he left his truck.
“Hiking in darkness and a steady rain up a steep Sitka slope, Wolfe was attacked Sunday morning by a brown bear, which chomped down on his arm and knocked him to the ground.
“Wolfe managed to fend the bear off by hitting it with his rifle and firing a round. He escaped relatively unscathed – just two bites that were stapled shut at the Sitka hospital.”
What the heck was Wolfe doing, climbing a hill at night on an island known to be inundated with bears, that in these parts are actually more closely related to polar bears than brown ones? And as an official investigating the attack later said, “The bear needed only about three steps to cover the 20 feet to Wolfe.” Even under the new rules of the NBA, however, the bear still would have been charged with traveling.
I can’t believe Bryant was even this old, because I have vivid memories of him when he was a star at the Univ. of Colorado. For his time, Bryant was massive at 6’1”, 234 lbs. He gained 3,264 yards in his career for the Los Angeles Rams and returned three kickoffs for touchdowns to give you an idea of his overall athletic ability.
–The following made all the papers, and was first brought to my attention by Shu.
“The body of a man slumped over patio furniture on his balcony in Marina del Rey was mistaken for Halloween décor last week and remained undisturbed for five days.
“Sheriff’s deputies were called to the complex Thursday evening and found the man, Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed, 75, dead. He had been shot through the eye.
“ ‘He looked fake,’ said Austin Raishbrook, 33, who lives nearby. ‘It looked like somebody had thrown a dummy over the back of a chair.’”
–From WEAU-TV: HAYWARD, Wis. – “Shoppers in a Wisconsin grocery store got an unexpected surprise when a 125-pound black bear wandered inside and headed straight for the beer cooler.
“The bear stopped Friday night at Marketplace Foods in Hayward, about 140 miles northeast of Minneapolis, sauntering through the automatic doors and heading straight for the liquor department.
“It calmly climbed up 12 feet onto a shelf in the beer cooler where it sat for about an hour while employees helped evacuate customers and summoned wildlife officials.”
Alas, the bear was tranquilized and removed from the scene, but store workers say the bear did not consume any alcohol, the bruin having just attended his AA session.
–One guy I got tired of over the years was Irish tenor Ronan Tynan and his over the top version of “God Bless America” (including the insufferable intro) that he would perform at Yankees games.
[If you aren’t from the area, trust me. I’m not being in the least bit unpatriotic, but we were told in the days after 9/11 to move on with our lives…and I did…traveling the world, etc. At the same time, it’s a baseball game. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is both appropriate and enough…for the pre-game. The Yankees, seeing themselves as the most important sports franchise in the world, however, have insisted on playing “God Bless America” during the 7th-inning stretch as well. Stop it! Just give me “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” or some local favorite. If you want to honor America further, go visit Arlington National Cemetery.]
Back to Tynan, he “bumped into a real estate agent (the other day) showing an apartment in his East Side building to a doctor from NYU Medical Center. The agent told Tynan, ‘Don’t worry, they are not Red Sox fans,’ according to apartment-hunter Gabrielle von Simson. ‘I don’t care about that, as long as they are not Jewish,’ was Tynan’s reply.” [New York Daily News]
Tynan apologized, telling WNBC, “I would never want to hurt anybody’s feelings. It was stupid of me to be so callous.”
Idiot. Ronan’s appearance on Friday night was canceled, as was Saturday\’s.
–Incredibly, Barbra Streisand has the Number One Billboard album, “Love Is the Answer,” the 5th straight decade she’s had a top seller. Not too shabby, Babs.
—Garth Brooks is coming out of retirement and will set up residency at the new Wynn Encore Resort in Las Vegas. “I told him (Steve Wynn) he couldn’t afford me – I was wrong,” said Brooks. Garth will do a show on Friday, two on Saturday, and one Sunday, beginning for a time in December and then continuing for 15 weeks in 2010. Heck, I’d go, though I imagine the ticket prices will be enormous. [They go on sale Oct. 24…no word on numbers as yet.]
Top 3 songs for the week 10/18/69: #1 “I Can’t Get Next To You” (The Temptations) #2 “Hot Fun In The Summertime” (Sly & The Family Stone) #3 “Sugar, Sugar” (The Archies)…and…#4 “Jean” (Oliver) #5 “Little Woman” (Bobby Sherman) #6 “Suspicious Minds” (Elvis Presley) #7 “That’s The Way Love Is” (Marvin Gaye) #8 “Wedding Bell Blues” (The 5th Dimension…Marilyn McCoo was a top ten beauty of the century) #9 “Easy To Be Hard” (Three Dog Night) #10 “Tracy” (The Cuff Links)
NFL Quiz Answers: 1) Gale Sayers was the last to score six TDs in a game, 12/65 [4-r, 1-p, 1-ret.] 2) LaDainian Tomlinson holds the record for points in a season with 186, 2006, the year he obviously also set the record for TDs, 31. 3) Don Hutson, 1940-44, and Gino Cappelletti, 1961, 1963-66, led the league in scoring five times. 4) Seasons in the NFL: George Blanda, 26, Morten Andersen, 25, Gary Anderson, 23. 5) Jackie Slater, Rams, 1976-95, and Darrell Green, Washington, 1983-2002, had 20 seasons with one club.
