…I should document, for the hysterical record, that Lawrence and I renewed our $5 bet on Gonzaga. (I take Gonzaga, he takes the field.)
After all, it is the Year of the Dog.
Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category
Before it gets away from me…
Monday, March 19th, 2018Obit watch: March 15, 2018.
Thursday, March 15th, 2018For the historical record: Augie Garrido, former UT baseball coach.
Now he’ll have time to go to Graceland.
Wednesday, March 14th, 2018Tubby Smith out as head basketball coach of the University of Memphis.
He was 40-26 over two seasons. It doesn’t look like this is related to any sort of scandal, unlike some other recent firings. But this is interesting:
…Smith’s dismissal is more related to off-court factors than the on-court product.
Attendance at home games fell to a 48-year low this year. As a result, the athletic department could miss out on an $800,000 payment from the Memphis Grizzlies as part of the school’s lease at FedExForum.
Donations to the athletic department also fell by $1.1 million during the 2016-17 fiscal year thanks in large part to a drop in men’s basketball season ticket sales.
Ollie Ollie Ollie get your pink slip here…
Saturday, March 10th, 2018Kevin Ollie out as men’s basketball coach at the University of Connecticut.
Even better: the university is claiming “just cause” for the firing. Apparently, it’s not just that the team had a non-so-great season, but there’s also a possible recruting scandal simmering.
Possibly more later on.
Random.
Thursday, March 8th, 2018He died doing what he loved: drinking whiskey and complaining about the Oscars.
“Ironically, he was giving his opinion of what someone was wearing that he thought was ugly, then asked (his wife) Patti to refill his whiskey,” Michael Solomon, former chief executive of Tower, said.
He died by the time his wife came back with his drink.
I’m not clear on what was “ironic” about that, and the obit is useless: who was wearing the “ugly” clothes?
Kevin Stallings out as basketball coach of the Pittsburgh Panthers after two seasons.
Obit watch: March 5, 2018.
Monday, March 5th, 2018Sir Roger Bannister, the first man to run a mile under four minutes.
One of the things I always wondered: how does a medical student find time to become a record setting runner? Sort of an answer:
And I rather like this quote:
David Ogden Stiers. It is perhaps worth calling out that he was more than Major Charles Emerson Winchester III: he was the announcer in “THX-1138”, Cogsworth the clock in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” (and he had other roles in a lot of Disney films), and acted in four of Woody Allen’s movies.
I’m throwing this in so I have an excuse to mention: over the weekend, I caught an episode of “Match Game” with Ms. Swit. She was wearing a very unfortunate yellow and black striped outfit: it made her look like a giant bumblebee.
Sometimes, I miss the 70s. Then I’m reminded of why I shouldn’t.
TMQ Watch: January 6, 2018.
Wednesday, February 7th, 2018So, it has come to this: the ultimate Tuesday Morning Quarterback of the season.
And just in the nick of time, too, as we are entering one of the busy periods of our year, in which we are booked with meetings (with people!) three out of five days of the working week through May.
But enough about that. After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
TMQ Watch: January 30, 2018.
Tuesday, January 30th, 2018Ah, the week between the end of the playoffs and the Superb Owl: or, as we like to call it, “the most boring week in sports”.
What does TMQ cover this week? Would you believe there’s almost nothing about television shows?
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
History repeats itself…
Thursday, January 25th, 2018TMQ Watch: January 23, 2018.
Wednesday, January 24th, 2018After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
No kidding.
Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018Jason Kidd was fired yesterday as head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks.
In case you were wondering, this is a NBA team.
ESPN says this is the third NBA firing this year. (Memphis and Phoenix were the other two.)
He was 139-152 overall.
TMQ Watch: January 16, 2018.
Thursday, January 18th, 2018Yes, we know, we’re way late. It doesn’t have anything to do with something we’ll get to in a moment. It’s just been a matter of it being relatively cold here in the greater Austin metroplex. And like a giant lizard or some other cold-blooded animal, we’ve been curling up and conserving body heat. (We also fell into a time sink Tuesday night reading the archives of Damn Interesting. But that’s another story.)
But the cold spell is starting to break. After the jump, this week’s TMQ. Plus: viewer mail!
Obit watch: January 18, 2018.
Thursday, January 18th, 2018Dan Gurney, one of the all-time great racing drivers.
…
…alternating with his fellow American driver A. J. Foyt, he won the 24 Hours of LeMans in France in a Ford prototype. It was the first time in that race’s 45-year history that it had been won by an American driver in an American car.
A week after that, Gurney won the Grand Prix of Belgium in a 416-horsepower American Eagle, a car he had designed and built himself. He was the first American in 46 years to win a world championship race in an American car.
Remember the Titans?
Monday, January 15th, 2018They lost to New England on Saturday.
And head coach Mike Mularkey was fired today.
He was 21-22 overall.
Obit watch: January 14, 2018.
Sunday, January 14th, 2018Some more from the past couple of days:
Keith Jackson, legendary announcer.
Edgar Ray Killen is burning in Hell.
David Toschi passed away a week ago Saturday. FotB RoadRich mentioned this to me in the middle of the week – he saw it on a low-rent cable channel – but I had a lot of trouble finding a good obit. I couldn’t find the actual obit on SFGate: I was only able to get at an arthive.org version.
Anyway, “David who”? He was a famous San Francisco PD detective. He was one of the lead investigators on the Zodiac killings.
He was removed from the case after revelations that in 1976 he had sent several letters praising his own work to a San Francisco newspaper writer under fake names.
“It was a foolish thing to do,” he acknowledged at the time.
I don’t remember where I picked up this detail (maybe in the archive.org version), but that “newspaper writer” the NYT doesn’t name? Armistead Maupin, who was working as a reporter for the SF Chron at the time.
But that wasn’t the only reason he was semi-famous, at least among us common sewers connoisseurs:
Mr. Toschi was a personality in the police department even before his involvement with the Zodiac case, so much so that Steve McQueen had borrowed from him for the fictional police officer he played in the 1968 movie “Bullitt.”
“They literally were filming in my dad’s office,” Ms. Toschi-Chambers said. “My dad took off his jacket, and Steve McQueen said, ‘What is that?’ And my dad said, ‘That’s my holster.’ And Steve McQueen told the director, ‘I want one of those.’ ”
(I wonder what that holster was: and if it’s out of production, how much do vintage ones go for? There’s a discussion on defensivecarry.com, but I can’t judge how accurate it is.)
(Damn shame. He missed out. And I still haven’t seen “Zodiac”.)
Edited to add: this might lead to a longer post later, but: there are certainly worse hobbies in the world than engaging in Steve McQueen cosplay. Though I will concede that could get expensive quick, especially if you go full “Bullitt” and start looking for a Mustang.