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Your loser update: week 1, 2020.

Tuesday, September 15th, 2020

Apparently, the NFL started their regular season this weekend.

I just barely noticed.

It isn’t so much the politics, although McThag has a good post up on that. I’m just finding it really difficult to care.

Still, one of the motivations for starting this blog was the NFL loser update, and as a wise man once said…

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

San Francisco
Carolina
Tampa Bay
Atlanta
Dallas
Philadelphia
New York Football Giants
Minnesota
Detroit
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Denver
Indianapolis
Houston
New York Jets
Miami

In other semi-related football news, I have been reading as much of Gregg Easterbrook’s Twitter as I can stomach, and there has been no mention of “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” at all. Not just a lack of pointers to the current column, but also a lack of “if you liked it, write our sponsor” messages. I have to assume that he’s not doing it this year, though his silence on the subject is a little strange.

Posted in Loser, Music, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | 4 Comments »

Obit watch: June 22, 2020.

Monday, June 22nd, 2020

Joel Schumacher, director. Variety. THR.

Batman & Robin, however, was a critical disaster, and Schumacher admitted years later that he had made a mistake by listening to studio marketing executives, who wanted to target the film to kids.
“I want to apologize to every fan that was disappointed because I think I owe them that,” he said in a 2017 interview with Vice.
“A lot of it was my choice. No one is responsible for my mistakes but me. I think one curveball we got was at the eleventh hour; Val Kilmer quit due to a role he got in The Island of Dr. Moreau. There had been talks about it, but none of us were involved, not with Warner Bros. and certainly not with me. I talked to Val, and all he kept saying was, ‘But man, it’s Marlon Brando.’ It’s not like he was on a hook and chain here, so Val went. So it was [then Warners co-CEO] Bob Daly’s idea to acquire George Clooney. He was an obvious choice because he was a rising star on ER. I had a talk with him and he was like, ‘All right, if you do it, I’ll do it.’

Wait, wait: Kilmer skipped out on Batman because he wanted to do “The Island of Dr. Moreau“? I haven’t laughed this hard since the hogs ate my kid brother.

Jim Kiick, Miami Dolphins running back in the early 1970s.

Running behind a fearsome offensive line, Kiick, fullback Larry Csonka and halfback Mercury Morris propelled the Dolphins to three Super Bowls and back-to-back titles in the 1972 and 1973 seasons.
Kiick scored six touchdowns during those playoff runs, including one in Super Bowl VII, a 14-7 win over the Washington Redskins, that helped the team complete the N.F.L.’s only perfect season. Kiick scored another touchdown and Csonka added two more in Super Bowl VIII, a 24-7 victory over the Minnesota Vikings.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I had not heard of him, either, but he wrote The Shadow of the Wind, which is “…the second-most-successful Spanish novel after Miguel de Cervantes’s masterpiece “Don Quixote,” according to Planeta.”

A visit to a book warehouse in Los Angeles, where he moved in the 1990s, inspired Mr. Ruiz Zafón to write “The Shadow of the Wind,” but he set the action in his birthplace, Barcelona. Written as a story within a story, the novel crisscrosses the tumultuous decades before, during and after the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.
It starts in 1945, when a boy named Daniel Sempere is taken by his father to a mysterious place known as the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where Daniel selects a book called “The Shadow of the Wind.” Fascinated by its obscure author, Julián Carax, Daniel enlists the help of friends to investigate the writer’s past, which also brings up the disturbing story of a character who has been burning all the copies of the book he can find.

That sounds like something that’s in my wheelhouse.

Posted in Boats, Movies, NFL, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 18, 2020.

Monday, May 18th, 2020

Phyllis George, former Miss America and former co-host of “The NFL Today”.

Hired as a co-host of CBS Sports’s weekly pregame football show — which featured the high-profile hosts Brent Musburger and Irv Cross and the gambling commentator Jimmy Snyder, or Jimmy the Greek, as he was known — Ms. George immediately became the most prominent woman in sportscasting.
But with her beauty-queen background and her modest television résumé, she was criticized for lacking the traditional sportscaster credentials. She was not a former sportswriter, like Mr. Musburger, and she was obviously not a retired football player, like Mr. Cross.
She responded to her critics by saying that she knew enough about sports, especially football, to get by.
“I’m from Texas,” she told People magazine in 1976, “and down there you follow the Texas Longhorns and the Dallas Cowboys or you don’t belong.”

Excuse me?

She was married twice: to John Y. Brown Jr., former Governor of Kentucky, and Robert Evans.

Captain Jenn Casey, Royal Canadian Air Force. She was a public affairs officer with the Snowbirds demonstration team: the plane she was in crashed during a demo in Kamloops yesterday. The pilot, Captain Richard MacDougall, ejected but suffered serious injuries.

McThag has some thoughts on the subject.

Posted in 1970s, NFL, Obits, Planes, Sports, TV | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: May 4, 2020.

Monday, May 4th, 2020

Maj Sjöwall, co-author (with Per Wahlöö) of the Martin Beck series of Swedish police procedurals.

With their first novel, “Roseanna” (1965), about the strangling death of a young tourist, Ms. Sjowall and Per Wahloo, her writing and domestic partner, introduced Martin Beck, an indefatigable, taciturn homicide detective in Stockholm.
“He is not a heroic person,” Ms. Sjowall (pronounced SHO-vall) told the British newspaper The Telegraph in 2015. “He is like James Stewart in some American films, just a nice guy trying to do his job.”
In terse, fast-moving prose, the couple wrote nine more Beck books, including “The Laughing Policeman,” which won the Edgar Award in 1971 for best mystery novel and was made into a film in 1973 starring Walter Matthau, with its setting moved from Stockholm to San Francisco. Several Swedish movies and a TV series, “Beck,” have been made based on the novels.

Don Shula. NYT. ESPN.

Shula won an NFL-record 347 games, including including playoff games. He coached the Dolphins to the league’s only undefeated season (17-0) in 1972, culminating in a 14-7 victory over the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII.
The Dolphins repeated as champions the next season, beating the Minnesota Vikings 24-7 in Super Bowl VIII, the third straight title game Miami had played in; the Dolphins lost 24-3 to the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl VI.
In all, Shula guided the Dolphins to five Super Bowls, including losses to the Redskins (27-17 in Super Bowl XVII) and San Francisco 49ers (38-16 in Super Bowl XIX).

Posted in Books, NFL, Obits, Sports | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: April 16, 2020.

Thursday, April 16th, 2020

I received a report from a usually reliable source that Brian Dennehy has passed, but I don’t have any independent or linkable confirmation of that at the moment.

Edited to add: THR has an obit up now. Variety does as well.

NYT obit for John Horton Conway.

“Conway’s LIFE changed mine,” the musician Brian Eno said in an email. “I think Conway himself thought it rather trivial, but for a nonmathematician like me, it was a shock to the intuition, a shattering revelation — to watch glorious complexity emerging from staid simplicity.”

…

At Princeton he was almost invariably recruited to give the first-year course intended to persuade students to become math majors. And he offered extracurricular content, like a campus tour titled “How to Stare at a Brick Wall.”

…

Math, Dr. Conway believed, should be fun. “He often thought that the math we were teaching was too serious,” said Mira Bernstein, a mathematician and a former executive director of Canada/USA Mathcamp, an international summer program for high-school students. “And he didn’t mean that we should be teaching them silly math — to him, fun was deep. But he wanted to make sure that the playfulness was always, always there.”

Willie Davis, one of the Green Bay Packers greats.

Davis’s Packer teams captured N.F.L. championships following the 1961, ’62 and ’65 seasons and won the first two Super Bowls, defeating the Kansas City Chiefs in 1967 and the Oakland Raiders in 1968.
Davis was an all-N.F.L. player five times and chosen for the Pro Bowl five times as well. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1981 and named to its all-N.F.L. team for the 1960s.
His Packers defeated the Giants in the 1961 and 1962 championship games, and he impressed New York’s star quarterback, Y.A. Tittle. “Davis is a great pass rusher,” Tittle was quoted as saying. “He’s strong and aggressive. He’s always towering over you, coming, coming, all the time.”

Posted in Movies, NFL, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 7, 2020.

Tuesday, April 7th, 2020

Wow. Yesterday was a day.

In no particular order of importance (and I may be a day or three behind on some of these):

Julie Bennett. She was primarily known as a voice actress: she did a lot of animated stuff, including voicing “Cindy Bear” in the “Yogi Bear Show”. (And “Aunt May” in “Spider-Man: The Animated Series”.) She also did guest shots on a few of my favorite shows: “Adam-12”, “Dragnet 1967”, “The Bold Ones: The New Doctors”, and “Get Smart”.

James Drury. He was famous as the lead in “The Virginian”, but he had a solid body of work outside of that. (Lawrence pointed out that one of his early roles was “Crewman Strong” in “Forbidden Planet”.)

Bobby Mitchell. He played with the Cleveland Browns and the Washington Redskins, and was a Hall of Fame player:

Fast, elusive and versatile, he scored 91 touchdowns, amassed more than 14,000 net yards, was named to the Pro Bowl four times and was voted to the N.F.L.’s all-decade team for the 1960s.
…
“Bobby Mitchell was one of the greatest all-around ballplayers,” Lenny Moore of the Baltimore Colts, a contemporary and fellow Hall of Famer, was quoted as saying on the Redskins’ website. “Anybody who can transition himself and be one of the best in the business at both positions, that’s saying something.”

Forrest Compton. Another knock-around guy: he was most famous for playing “Mike Karr” on “The Edge of Night” soap, but he also was a semi-regular on “Gomer Pyle: USMC”, appeared multiple times in “Hogan’s’ Heros” and “The F.B.I”…

…and, yes, he did do a “Mannix”. (“One for the Lady”, season 4, episode 2. He was “Elgin Bonning”.)

Ed Biles, former coach of the Houston Oilers. He started out as a defensive coordinator:

When [Bum] Phillips was fired after a loss at Oakland in the first round of the playoffs in 1980, Biles was promoted to replace him. His first team finished 7-9. The Oilers were 1-9 during the strike-abbreviated 1982 season. When they started 0-6 in 1983, he was forced out and replaced by defensive coordinator Chuck Studley.

…

Among the players Biles coached were defensive end Elvin Bethea, nose tackle Curley Culp and outside linebacker Robert Brazile, each of whom is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Shirley Douglas, who seems to be consistently described as a “Canadian actor and activist”. Among other roles, she was in the original “Lolita”, the pilot of “The Hat Squad” TV series, the “Flash Gordon” TV series, and “Dead Ringers”.

She was also married to Donald Sutherland: Kiefer Sutherland is her son by Donald. (She also had a daughter, Rachel, with Donald, and another child with her second husband Timothy Emil Sicks.)

Al Kaline, All-Star outfielder for the Detroit Tigers.

He became the youngest batting champion in major league history in 1955 when he hit .340 at age 20. He had 3,007 career hits, the 12th player to reach the No. 3,000 milestone, and he hit 399 home runs, a Tiger record.
Renowned for his powerful arm, Kaline won 10 Gold Glove awards for his play in right field and sometimes in center. He set an American League record for outfielders by playing in 242 consecutive games without an error. He played in 2,834 games from 1953 to 1974, the most of any Tiger, and only Ty Cobb equaled his 22 years with the team.

…

Billy Martin, his manager late in his career, referred to Kaline as Mr. Perfection, but his achievements came in the face of twin obstacles. He encountered the pressure of comparisons with Cobb, one of baseball’s greatest players, and he had been hampered since childhood by the bone disease osteomyelitis.

…

Kaline had a .297 career batting average, with 1,583 runs batted in and 1,622 runs scored.

Posted in 1970s, Mannix, NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 5, 2020.

Sunday, April 5th, 2020

Tom Dempsey, legendary placekicker for the New Orleans Saints.

Nicknamed “Stumpy’’ by teammates, Dempsey seemed an unlikely football hero. He was born without fingers on his right hand or toes on his right foot. He wore a small, flat shoe on his kicking foot that is now on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

On November 8, 1970, Mr. Dempsey kicked a 63 yard field goal on the last play of the game to beat the Detroit Lions 19-17. It was one of two wins for the Saints that year. It was also a NFL record which stood for 43 years: several other players tied it in that time, but it wasn’t until 2013 that Matt Prater of the Broncos kicked a 64 yard field goal in Denver.

The broadcast of the play, along with the play call from CBS commentator Don Criqui, still makes Saints fans misty-eyed.
“I don’t believe this …,” Criqui said as the ball sailed nearly two-thirds of the field, then added as the ball cleared the bar by a yard, “It’s GOOD! I don’t believe it!”
The miraculous moment so moved powerful Louisiana Congressman F. Edward Hebert that he had an account of “The Kick” by Dempsey inserted into the Congressional Record.

According to the statement from his family, Mr. Dempsey died of corona virus complications. He was 73 years old and in a nursing home after being diagnosed with dementia in 2012.

Edited to add 4/6: as Lawrence points out, while YouTube will let you embed the videos, you can’t play them here because the NFL is a bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. I’ve left the embeds in place because you can click through and watch them on YouTube directly. Sorry about that: I should not have underestimated the stupidity of professional sports leagues.

Also: NYT obit for Mr. Dempsey, which (of course) went up after I posted yesterday.

Posted in NFL, Obits, Sports | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: February 4, 2020.

Tuesday, February 4th, 2020

Mike “Mad Mike” Hoare, legendary mercenary.

“Legendary”? Yes. At least, if you were reading SOF in the early 1980s like some people…

Mr. Hoare crossed seas on a sailboat and Africa (south to north) on a motorcycle. He searched for the fabled lost city of the Kalahari and retraced the steps of Victorian explorers to the sources of the Nile. He fought the Japanese in Burma in World War II, rescued hostages from rebel forces in Congo, found nuns and priests hacked to death in the bush and was imprisoned in South Africa for hijacking an airliner.
The exploits of Mr. Hoare, who was called “Mad Mike” for his recklessness under fire, were recounted in books by him and others, in a film starring Richard Burton, and in sheaves of foreign correspondents’ dispatches, now faded yellow in old newspaper morgues with datelines from far-off places.

The film in question was “The Wild Geese“. Burton’s character was based on “Mad Mike”.

Tiring of life as an explorer and safari guide, Mr. Hoare first hired out as a mercenary in 1960-61, leading a European force fighting for Moise Tshombe, whose Katanga province was trying to break away from the newly independent Republic of Congo.
His mercenaries, while paid to fight, were largely motivated by anti-communism and lust for adventure, crushing larger, less well-armed Congolese forces and sometimes saving civilians from massacres.
But news correspondents covering the mercenaries said some were racists who killed with gusto. Indeed, these soldiers of fortune were largely undisciplined, sometimes looting towns and killing indiscriminately — clearly war crimes, the correspondents said.
By his account, Mr. Hoare did not condone such atrocities but, vastly outnumbered by his out-of-control forces, he had been powerless to stop the carnage, though he claimed to have once shot off the big toes of a man as he was assaulting a woman.

…

Katanga’s secession failed. But in the chaos of killings and regional revolts that followed independence from Belgium, Congo faced a new crisis in 1964 when rebels — warrior-soldiers called “Simbas,” Swahili for “Lions,” backed by Cuban and Chinese Communist advisers — rebelled against the central government in Léopoldville, which by then was led by Mr. Tshombe, and seized half the country. The Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara joined his countrymen fighting in Congo in 1965.
Mr. Tshombe again hired Mr. Hoare, who recruited and trained 500 German, Italian, Greek, Belgian, Rhodesian and South African mercenaries, each paid $364 to $1,100 a month, to lead Congolese forces against the rebels. Emerging on the world stage in news reports for the first time, Mr. Hoare — or Colonel Hoare, as he called himself, replete in his black beret, military khakis and a cravat at his throat — drove the Simbas back to Stanleyville, their capital.
As the mercenaries closed in, fears mounted for thousands of Europeans trapped in the city. Belgian paratroopers were flown in, and most of the Europeans were rescued by the Belgians and Mr. Hoare’s forces. But the troops also found scores of hostages massacred, including nuns hacked to death and priests with throats cut.

You know, this is getting long. How about a musical interlude?

In 1981, when he was 62, Mr. Hoare again made headlines, leading a gaggle of over-the-hill mercenaries from South Africa, Zimbabwe and several European nations in a bizarre attempt to overthrow the Socialist government of the Seychelles, an Indian Ocean island republic.
Apparently with Pretoria’s connivance, they flew to the Seychelles posing as rugby players and members of a beer-drinking club, the Ancient Order of Foam Blowers, carrying equipment bags with false bottoms hiding weapons and walkie-talkies. But a customs agent spotted a gun muzzle and a firefight erupted.
After hours of combat, 44 mercenaries escaped by hijacking an Air India jet on the tarmac. They flew to South Africa, where most, including Mr. Hoare, were tried and convicted of air piracy. The affair had none of the glamour of his earlier exploits. A judge called it “a farce,” and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. He was released three years later under an amnesty for aging inmates.

Mr. Hoare passed away at the age of 100 in a nursing home in South Africa. As Borepatch said when I sent him this clipping, “Damn, who would have seen THAT coming?”

Willie Wood, Hall of Fame defensive back for the Green Bay Packers during the Lombardi era.

Playing for the Packers from 1960 to 1971, Wood did not have much speed and he was only 5 feet 10 inches and 180 pounds at best. But he was an outstanding tackler, often hitting opponents around the ankles when he was not intercepting passes or batting them down. Roaming the secondary at free safety, he was quick to dissect plays and get to the ball. He was also a league-leading punt returner.
A key figure in the Packers’ dynasty built by Coach Vince Lombardi, Wood was a first-team All-Pro five times and was selected for eight Pro Bowl games. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1989 and selected to its all-decade team of the 1960s.

Daniel arap Moi, former ruler of Kenya.

But after suppressing opposition and consolidating power in a single-party state, he began a 24-year dictatorial reign. Mr. Moi — with his nimbus of silver hair, buttonhole rose and ivory baton — dominated life in Kenya. He put his face on bank notes, ordered his portrait hung in offices and shops, enriched his family and tribal cronies and, as investigations showed, stashed billions in overseas banks. For much of his tenure, it was illegal even to speak ill of him.
Kenya remained an island of political stability in East Africa, but a democracy in name only, and a land of stark contrasts: dire poverty and fabulous wealth, natural beauty and decaying infrastructures, luxury safaris for foreigners and vast slums for Kenyans, who faced unemployment, crime, epidemic AIDS and one of the world’s highest infant mortality rates.

…

Investigations after Mr. Moi stepped down found that his government had lined the pockets of his family and its allies with as much as $4 billion. The biggest fraud in Kenya’s history, the Goldenberg affair, in which the central bank paid incentives to a company for exporting gold, diamonds and jewelry that did not exist, cost taxpayers billions and sent Kenya’s economy into a tailspin in the early 1990s.

…

As Mr. Moi retired, his successors found even more corruption and human rights abuses than had been suspected. A 2003 inquiry exposed torture cells at Nyayo House in Nairobi, a government building where dungeons yielded evidence supporting the accounts of victims.
Mr. Moi was never prosecuted, though corruption inquiries implicated him and his family. Kenya in 2003 found $1 billion in stolen funds in overseas accounts. Others in his administration were pursued, but Mr. Moi was treated as an elder statesman.

Posted in History, NFL, Obits, Sports | 3 Comments »

Oh, those Texans…

Monday, January 20th, 2020

Even though Houston teams will always break your heart, I thought the Texans did pretty well this year: they went to the playoffs, they beat the worthless Buffalo Bills, and while they lost in the divisional round, it was to Kansas City (who seems unstoppable).

But that wasn’t well enough for some people. Lawrence tipped me off that Chris Olsen (senior vice president of football administration) and John Pagano, outside linebackers coach, were shown the door.

In addition, defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel got replaced by defensive line coach Anthony Weaver.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Tuesday, January 7th, 2020

Peter Laviolette fired as coach of the Nashville Predators, who are a hockey team in the NHL. (Also out: “associate coach” Kevin McCarthy.) He was 248-143-60 over a little more than five seasons.

In the “questionable firings” bucket: Wade Phillips contract as defensive coordinator with the Rams has not been renewed. (Also out: Skip Peete, running backs coach.)

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

And more firings…

Sunday, January 5th, 2020

Technically, I’m not sure this is an actual firing.

But the word has come down form the mountain top for real: Jason Garrett’s contract with the Cowboys is not being renewed.

And what better time to announce it than on Sunday during the playoffs?

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 4, 2020.

Saturday, January 4th, 2020

Sam Wyche, former coach of the Bengals and Buccaneers. He was 61-66 (3-2 in playoffs) in Cincinnati and 23-41 in Tampa.

After winning the A.F.C. Championship for only the second time in their history, the Bengals lost, 20-16, to Walsh’s 49ers in Super Bowl XXIII. The 49ers sealed the victory when Montana tossed a 10-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor with 34 seconds remaining. (The Bengals have never returned to the Super Bowl.)

For the historical record: NYT obits for Jack Sheldon and Syd Mead.

Posted in NFL, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Tuesday, December 31st, 2019

On the road, but wanted to get this in.

John Dorsey out as the Browns general manager.

Cleveland.com is spinning this as the owners wanted him to take a reduced non-GM role, and he said no.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Blood in the streets!

Monday, December 30th, 2019

Your Monday morning firings watch. I’ll try to keep this updated through the day.

Bruce Allen out as Redskins president. The team already fired head coach Jay Gruden earlier this year.

Update 1: the New York Football Giants have fired head coach Pat Shurmur. Two seasons, a 9-23 record, and the worst record in the NFL since 2017.

Update 2: Miami fired their offensive coordinator (Chad O’Shea) and two other guys.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

You didn’t even wait to get him in the house watch…

Sunday, December 29th, 2019

…also known as “the NFL firings that couldn’t even wait until Monday”.

So far: Freddie Kitchens out after one season in Cleveland, during which the team went 6-10 (and lost to the Bengals today).

Rarely has a head coach in the NFL done so little with so much talent, and the Browns had no choice but to cut their losses after an abysmal performance in what was supposed to be a playoff season.

His tenure was characterized by a lack of discipline on the part of his players, a woeful passing game, horrible playcalling and an ugly brawl between Myles Garrett and Pittsburgh’s Mason Rudolph that cost the Browns their best defensive player of the final six games of the season.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

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