Robert Saleh out as head coach of the Jets. ESPN.
He was 20-36 over roughly three and a half seasons with the Jets. Noted:
In other news, Josh Wolff was fired on Sunday as head coach of Austin FC, the soccer team. 45-30-60 over four seasons. Austin FC made the playoffs once in that period (2022).
It was a full rich weekend. I was out all day Saturday and all day Sunday (at separate events) and did not get home until 10 PM last night. So blogging has been kind of constrained, and will be probably until tomorrow. (I have to drop my rental car off this morning, and I have an eye doctor’s appointment this afternoon that’s going to leave my eyes messed up.)
Anyway, NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
None.
I was right about the Jacksonville -Indianapolis game, but that gives me no satisfaction.
And, in other news, I’m thinking the only reason this wasn’t a forfeit is that it was a playoff game, and that would have been a bad look for MLB.
I am also waiting on the results of the Alabama appeal. As I understand it, SEC bylaws specifically forbid any team from scoring more points in a game than Alabama, so I’m thinking the conference is going to overturn Vanderbilt’s win and award the victory to ‘Bama.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
Jacksonville
Four weeks in, one team remaining. And I don’t like Jacksonville’s chances of going 0-17. This week they play Indianapolis (2-2) at home: ESPN has Jacksonville as a slight favorite.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
Cincinnati
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Three weeks into the season, three teams left. Right now, I’m liking Jacksonville’s chances to go 0-17. They play Houston next week. Houston is a big favorite, and is coming off a pretty embarrassing loss to Minnesota, so I’m liking Jacksonville to go 0-4.
In other news, and as noted on Sunday, the White Sox are now at 36-120, for a .231 winning percentage. Looking at this another way, in order to lose only 119 games and avoid tying the 1962 Mets…they can’t do it. (I think they would have to win approximately 116% of the remaining games.)
More seriously, if the Sox go 2 and 4 (.333 winning percentage) for the remaining games, they will finish at 38-124, for a .234 winning percentage. The lowest winning percentage in the modern era is .235 by the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, who went 36-117.
I am hoping for 125 losses. Why? Someone mentioned the other day that 2025 is the 125th anniversary of the White Sox…and they’ve ordered all kinds of memorabilia with the number “125” displayed prominently. That could be…awkward.
(It seems to me to be a little fuzzy, though, when the anniversary is. I guess you could call 2025 the 125th if you count when they moved to Chicago, which is not unreasonable. But they didn’t become the modern Sox until 1901.)
Mercury Morris, one of the great NFL players. ESPN. NYT (archived).
Morris made no secret of the fact that he was filled with pride about the 1972 Dolphins being the first — and still only — undefeated and untied team in NFL history, pulling off a truly perfect season.
He also tried to make this clear: No, the Dolphins were not rooting against the teams that came close to matching their feat of perfection or had champagne on ice waiting for the moment that the last unbeaten team in a season gets defeated.
“And for the record, we DO NOT TOAST every time an unbeaten team loses,” Morris posted on social media in 2015, when the Cam Newton-led Carolina Panthers started 14-0 before losing the next-to-last game of their regular season. “There’s no champagne in my glass, only Canada Dry Ginger ale! Ha!”
Kathryn Crosby, der Bingle’s wife who had a pretty successful career of her own. NYT (archived). Other credits include “Anatomy of a Murder”, “The Phenix City Story”, and “The Night the World Exploded”.
Tongsun Park, who was at the center of the 1970s “Koreagate” scandal.
In 1978, he was indicted on charges of conspiracy, bribery and making contributions as a foreign agent, and he fled the country. He returned with a promise of criminal immunity to testify in Congress and before a grand jury.
He said that he had passed money to 31 members of Congress — up to $273,000 in one case — and while he denied acting on behalf of the South Korean government, a former Korean intelligence officer told Congress under oath that Mr. Park was working for Korean intelligence as part of an influence-buying operation code-named Ice Mountain.
But the accusations, splashily covered in the post-Watergate period, largely fizzled out. Only three of the 31 current and former congressmen Mr. Park named were indicted, and only one, Richard T. Hanna, a California Democrat, was convicted. He served a little over a year in jail.
The House, which considered disciplinary action against 11 sitting members, ended up reprimanding just three, in what critics called an example of Congress’s inability to discipline its own members.
He later got caught doing illegal lobbying for Saddam Hussein, and served five years for that.
Shortly after I posted Friday’s obit watch, the NYT posted their Nelson DeMille obit.
KMart. Sort of. The last “full-sized” store in the United States, in Bridgehampton, New York, is closing in October. There is one store left in Miami, but it is described as being the size of a CVS, not a full-sized store. There are also other stores in places like Guam and the Virgin Islands.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
Baltimore
Cincinnati
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Denver
New York Football Giants
Carolina
Los Angeles Rams
In other news, the White Sox have actually won a few more games. Mostly they won against the City Unknown A’s, though they beat the LA Angels last night.
Currenrtly, the Sox are 36-115, for a .238 winning percentage. That projects out to 123 loses this season. Put another way, in order for the Sox to lose only 119 games and avoid tying the 1962 Mets for worst MLB record, they will have to win 7 out of the final 11 games, for a .636 winning percentage down the stretch.
They play the Angels again tonight, and LA is favored by ESPN. Of course, LA was favored by ESPN in last night’s game as well, and you see what that got them…
Donald Sheppard passed away on September 7th. He was 104. BBC.
Mr. Sheppard served in the Royal Engineers during World War II.
Mr. Sheppard was one of more than 150,000 soldiers who crossed the English Channel on June 6, 1944. He landed at Juno Beach, in Normandy, under a hail of gunfire. More than 4,000 Allied troops died that day.
“When he landed on the beach, he said he was just walking over dead bodies,” his son said. “Dead boys, dead men. And they gave their life for our freedom. I think to him, personally, he never wants that to be forgotten.”
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In 1945, Mr. Sheppard helped British forces liberate Bergen-Belsen, one of the largest concentration camps in Germany; more than 50,000 people, including Anne Frank, died there. When the British arrived, corpses lay in piles; about 60,000 people, emaciated and ill, were still alive.
Mr. Sheppard struggled to talk about the experience; a granddaughter, Daisy O’Brien, said she did not learn about it until she was a teenager. Mr. Sheppard would become emotional remembering that day, his son said.“He couldn’t believe that one human could do that to another human,” Jonathan Sheppard said, and would often lament the “senselessness” of war.
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Chad McQueen. I think I’ve noted before that I don’t do obits for celebrity children just because they are celebrity children, but he did have a career beyond being Steve McQueen’s son. Other credits include “V”, “New York Cop”, and “Firepower”.
Bob Weatherwax, Hollywood dog trainer. He was most famous for succeeding his father, Rudd, in training dogs to play “Lassie”.
On a trip to Philadelphia to promote the 1994 movie “Lassie,” a successful attempt to revive the franchise, he and the film’s star stayed at the luxurious Rittenhouse Hotel, where the celebrity collie dined on boiled chicken that was prepared by a chef, delivered by room service and washed down with distilled water.
Lassie usually traveled with Mel, a Jack Russell terrier. The two dogs watched “Lassie” reruns on Nickelodeon in between promotional appearances.
“The hotels say they wish they had more guests like Lassie,” Mr. Weatherwax told The Los Angeles Times in 1994. “They don’t have to deal with cigarette holes in the carpet or spilled drinks.”
Joe Schmidt, one of the Detroit Lions greats.
Schmidt was named to 10 Pro Bowls, selected as a first-team All-Pro eight times and chosen for the N.F.L.’s all-decade team for the 1950s.
The Lions were an N.F.L. powerhouse in those years. They defeated the Cleveland Browns for the 1952 league championship; beat them again in the 1953 title matchup, when Schmidt was a rookie; and bested them once more in 1957, routing them 59-14. They also went to the championship game against the Browns in 1954, but that time they lost.
Schmidt was 6 feet 1 inches and 220 pounds, not especially big even by the standards of his era. But he anchored the defense on Lions teams that included his fellow future Hall of Famers Yale Lary, Jack Christiansen and Dick Lane (known as Night Train) in the secondary, along with an offense featuring Bobby Layne at quarterback, Doak Walker at halfback and Lou Creekmur and Dick Stanfel on the line.
He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, in 1973.
…
As foretold in the prophecy, we have returned.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
New York Jets
Baltimore
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Las Vegas
Denver
Washington
New York Football Giants
Green Bay
Carolina
Atlanta
Los Angeles Rams
Arizona
In other news, the Chicago White Sox are now 33-112, for a .228 winning percentage. This projects out to 125 losses this season.
Put another way, there are 17 games left in the season. For the Sox to have only 119 losses and miss tying the record for worst MLB team in the modern era, they will have to win 10 out of those 17, for a .588 winning percentage.
The NFL regular season started last night.
The NFL loser update will return on Tuesday (because Monday night game) unless I am hit by a bus between now and then.
I am thinking that I will probably wait until Tuesday and combine the NFL loser update with the White Sox update, so I can take care of them both in one swell foop.
Rael Enteen, VP of content for the Washington Commanders, has been suspended. Which isn’t technically a firing, but I kind of have a feeling it is going to turn into one.
What happened?
Mr. Enteen met a woman on the Hinge dating app. He went out to dinner with her twice. During those dates, he made some…unfortunate comments.
He told…that, “over 50% of our roster is white religious, and God says, ‘F— the gays.’ Their interpretation. I don’t buy any of that. Another big chunk is low-income African Americans that comes from a community that is inherently very homophobic.”
…Enteen also said some players are “dumb as hell” and said some who were smart don’t stay that way after getting hit in the head too many times. He also said those who “get their heads knocked around a few times” are more susceptible to conspiracy theories.
Enteen also said, “I don’t think the commissioner of the NFL hates gay people, hates black people. Jerry Jones, who really runs the NFL, I think he hates gay people, black people.”
Enteen, who was with the New York Jets for two years before coming to Washington, called the league’s social justice initiatives “performative.”
“It’s not done out of the goodness of their heart,” he said. “It’s done because George Floyd changed the game … It’s to make as much money as possible. The NFL cares about the bottom line, like any corporation, above all else.”
Enteen said because the league makes so much money, “they can faux prioritize DEI for the sake of good publicity.
“Enteen told…that “most of the fans are high-school-educated alcoholics” and called them “mouth breathers.”
There were just two problems with these comments:
1) His date recorded them.
2) His date was actually “…an undercover reporter for the O’Keefe Media Group.”
Kind of a big “whoops” there. But remember: these people hate you, and they want your money.
Edited to add 9/5: The suspension indeed became a firing.
Charles Cyphers, actor. NYT (archived). Other credits include “FBI: The Unheard Music The Untold Stories”, “Renegade”, “The F.B.I.”, and “Jake and the Fatman”.
Duane Thomas, one of the great Dallas Cowboys. ESPN.
Thomas spent the 1971 season without speaking with reporters and apparently his teammates.
It didn’t stop Thomas from performing on the field. He became the first player to score a touchdown in Texas Stadium in 1971. When that season ended, Thomas rushed 175 times for 793 yards and a NFL-leading 11 touchdowns.
Patti Yasutake, actress. Other credits include “Crossing Jordan” (the “Quincy, M.E.” of the ’90s except it sucked), “Murder One” (curiously, Charles Cyphers was also in “Murder One”), “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot”, and “T.J. Hooker”.
Joss Naylor, English sportsman. He specialized in “fell running”: basically, running up and down mountains for days at a time.
His feats running the fells — the term in northern England for hills and mountains — defied common sense and earned him multiple nicknames, including “Iron Man” and “King of the Fells.”
In 1971, Mr. Naylor became the sixth person to conquer the Bob Graham Round — a 24-hour challenge to finish a 66-mile trek over 42 peaks in Cumbria’s Lake District. He overachieved, topping 61 peaks in 23 hours 37 minutes.
The next year, he crossed 63 peaks in the challenge, followed by 72 in 1975 — both times in under 24 hours.
Still running at age 50 in 1986, he completed the Wainwright Round, a series of 214 summits, in just over seven days, setting a record that stood until 2014. (He would have finished faster had he not stopped to save a lamb stuck in mud.)
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Bucca di Bankrupt. (Headline hatip to Mike the Musicologist.)
Janis Page, actress. She was 101. NYT (archived).
Other credits include “The Rockford Files”, “Lanigan’s Rabbi”, “Banacek”…
…and “Mannix”. (“A Way to Dusty Death”, season 7, episode 2. She was “Georgia Durian”.)
Brother Marquis, rapper with 2 Live Crew.
Larry Allen, of the Dallas Cowboys.
Allen was a second-round pick out of Sonoma State in 1994 and quickly became one of the most dominant offensive linemen in the NFL.
He was named to the Pro Bowl 11 times and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2013. He played for the Cowboys from 1994 to 2005, winning a Super Bowl in 1995. He spent his final two seasons with the San Francisco 49ers.
He was 52.
I made it home in one piece, but I’m still catching up. Lawrence sent over a handful of obits:
Jim Otto, center for the Oakland Raiders.
…
Gloria Stroock, actress. Other credits include “Death Car on the Freeway”, “Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy”, and “The Day of the Locust”.
Barbra Fuller, actress. IMDB.
Dolores Rosedale, also known as “Roxanne”, from the original “Beat the Clock”. IMDB.
Ivan Boesky, inside trader.
An inspiration for the character Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s movie “Wall Street” and its sequel, Mr. Boesky made a fortune betting on stock tips, often passed to him illegally in exchange for suitcases of cash. His guilty plea to insider trading in November 1986 and his $100 million penalty, a record at the time, sent shock waves through Wall Street and set off a cascade of events that marked the end of a decade of frenzied takeover activity and the celebration of conspicuous wealth.
As federal investigators closed in on Mr. Boesky, he agreed to cooperate, providing information that led to the downfall of the investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert and its junk bond king, Michael Milken.
Playing catch-up from the past few days:
Terry Anderson, journalist who was kidnapped and held for six years by Shia Hezbollah militants of the Islamic Jihad Organization in Lebanon.
While he had not been tortured during his captivity, he said, he was beaten and chained. He spent a year or so, on and off, in solitary confinement, he said.
“There is nothing to hold on to, no way to anchor my mind,” he said after the ordeal. “I try praying, every day, sometimes for hours. But there’s nothing there, just a blankness. I’m talking to myself, not God.”
He found some consolation in the Bible, though, and added: “The only real defense was to remember that no one could take away my self-respect and dignity — only I could do that.”
Roman Gabriel, quarterback for the Rams and Eagles.
He was voted the N.F.L.’s Most Valuable Player when he led the league in touchdown passes, with 24, in a 14-game season with the 1969 Rams.
He was also named the comeback player of the year by pro football writers in 1973, his first season with the Eagles. Coming off knee problems and a sore arm, he led the N.F.L. in touchdown passes (23), completions (270) and passing yardage (3,219) that season.
He played in four Pro Bowl games, three with the Rams in the late 1960s and another with the Eagles in 1973. But he reached the postseason only twice, and his Rams were eliminated in the first round both times.
Terry Carter, actor. This is buried a bit in the article, but he was McCloud’s partner and played “Colonel Tigh” on the original “Battlestar Galactica”.
Other credits include “The Bold Ones: The New Doctors”, “Search”…
…and “Mannix” (“Medal For a Hero”, season 3, episode 14).
And in a wayfaring six-decade career, he was a merchant seaman, a jazz pianist, a law student, a television news anchor, a familiar character on network sitcoms, an Emmy-winning documentarian, a good will ambassador to China, a longtime expatriate in Europe — and a reported dead man; in 2015, rumors that he had been killed were mistaken. It was not him but a much younger Terry Carter who had died in a hit-and-run accident in Los Angeles by a pickup truck driven by the rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight.
Slightly misquoting Mark Twain, Mr. Carter posted on social media: “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
Frederick Celani, serial con man. He conned people into thinking he was going to build a package delivery hub in Springfield (Illinois), conned inmates into giving him money to have their convictions overturned (he wasn’t a lawyer), and ran various real estate cons.
Fred Neulander. You may recall that name, as his trial was a brief sensation back in the 1990s.
The rabbi and his wife, Carol Neulander, 52, were well-known in the community through both the shul and Classic Cakes, the popular bakery Carol co-founded, CNN reported.
The mother of 3 had just returned from the bakery when she bludgeoned to death with a lead pipe in the couple’s Cherry Hill home on the evening of Nov. 1, 1994, the outlet said.
…
Neulander was indicted for the murder in 1999, but the case did not come together until the following year, when private investigator Len Jenoff told police that the rabbi paid him and another man, Paul Daniels, $30,000 to kill his wife.
At trial in 2001, prosecutors argued that the rabbi wanted to get rid of Carol to continue his two-year affair with Philadelphia radio host Elaine Soncini.
Soncini, who was Catholic, had even supposedly converted to Judaism to be with the rabbi, whom she met when he performed funeral rites for her late husband.
…
When the first trial ended in a hung jury, the 2002 retrial was moved from Camden County to Monmouth County to downplay the local scrutiny.
Following the retrial, Neulander was convicted of Carol’s murder. He narrowly avoided the death penalty and was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.
Soncini testified against Neulander at both trials, as did two of his three children.
He was a native Hawaiian who moved to Japan and began training in sumo.
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I’m a little late on this one, but everyone was on it: Peter Higgs, of Higgs boson fame.
Lawrence sent over an obit for Bruce Kessler, TV director. Before that, he raced cars:
His credits as a director include “The Hat Squad”, “Renegade”, “Enos”, “The Misadventures Of Sheriff Lobo”, “Hardcastle and McCormick”…
…and the episode “Chopper” of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”, which is my own personal favorite episode. One of these days, I’m going to write that Top Five “Kolchak” episodes list. (“Chopper”, “Firefall”, “The Sentry”…)
Finally: O.J. Simpson. THR. LAT (archived). ESPN. (Edited to add: Lawrence.)
I don’t have a lot to say about this. Whatever he did or didn’t do, he’s facing judgement for it now, and I don’t feel like making jokes.