Chuck Pagano out as head coach of the Colts.
The team was 4-12 this year.
Edited to add: And now, Jack Del Rio out as coach of the Raiders, according to ESPN. Haven’t found a good link for this yet. Rumor for the past couple of days has been that the Raiders really want Jon Gruden and are prepared to offer him everything, including equity in the team.
Gregg Easterbrook is going to be more insufferable than usual.
Honorable readers:
As of 3:06 PM Central on December 31st, 2017, the Cleveland Browns became the third team in the modern NFL era to go an entire season without winning a game, and the second to finish an entire season 0-16.
Only the 2008 Detroit Lions match Cleveland’s record for futility: the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished their first season 0-14.
In other news, the New York Football Giants actually won their game, improving to 3-13. This may be good enough for second place in the draft: the Colts beat Houston and finished 4-12.
More later, maybe. There will be a ceremonial toast drunk tonight.
Edited to add: Yep. Looks like it’s going to be Browns-Giants for sure. I think the third and subsequent positions are still up in the air until the late games are over.
ETA2: Cleveland.com coverage.
ETA3: Per NFL.com, it’s going to be:
Browns
Giants
Colts
Browns again (traded with Houston for this pick)
I expect Bloody Monday to be interesting. If there are any “Damn, you didn’t even wait to get him in the house” firings tonight, I’ll try to update.
It looks like the NYT replaced the incomplete Sue Grafton obituary I linked to on Friday with a full obituary, without changing the link. Okay fine. LAT. WP.
I wish I had more to say about her: I’ve never read any of the books. They are sort of on my list, but I have it in my head that I want to start with “A” and read them in alphabetical order, and I’ve just never gotten around to doing that.
They missed one, and I think this is a nice tribute:
Hey, since the @nytmag didn’t do a “The Lives They Lived” for Jim Nabors, who died on Nov. 30, permit me to do one here…
— David Kamp (@MrKamp) December 31, 2017
The NYT is reporting the death of Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Millhone “alphabet” mysteries, at the age of 77.
The paper of record does not have a full obit up yet: I will try to post a follow-up when I can.
I’m too young to remember the “Dick Van Dyke Show” (and oddly, never caught it in reruns).
Yeah, that Selma Diamond. I did not know this.
This is where I remember her from. And here’s a neat piece of trivia:
We’re still unclear on why this was the case. Especially on Christmas Day: the first game started at 3:30 PM Central, and was over with enough time left to watch the good “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and promptly flip over to the second game before the bad “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” came on. (Really, whose bright idea was it to show the vastly superior animated special before the feature length movie that should never have been made?)
So. Many. Possible. Punch. Lines.
Can we return this and get something actually useful? Like socks?
Reactions to Socks as a Christmas Gift by Calendar Age:
0-3: blurb nurg (eats socks)
4-12: oh, socks
13-18: (SIGH) socks are you FUCKING serious
19-39: oh thank god, something useful, thank god
40+: Warm feet are the solitary joy remaining to me in this dark and fallen world— The Lynch who Stole Christmas (@scottlynch78) December 23, 2017
After the jump, this week’s substitute for a TMQ…
Two articles from ESPN that amused me:
“The worst teams in NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL history“. I quibble with their NBA team choice, but the rest of the picks seem sound.
“The worst NFL teams ever for all 32 franchises“. The picks for Detroit and Tampa Bay are logical. But were the 1990 Browns worse than the 2016 Browns?
However, this sounds like an excellent case for small clams court.
I’m having a hard time finding versions of this song on YouTube that I like. I might have to resort to something different next year.
But this year, you’re getting a twofer.
I like this video enough to post it. My quibble is that this is entirely instrumental, and I feel like this song needs vocals.
So I’ll throw this one in as a bone to all my prog-rock friends out there:
One more, I think, before Christmas. This is another military Christmas story, but does not involve General Mattis at all. It’s been widely retweeted by a whole bunch of folks, but if you haven’t already seen it:
I have a lot of fond holiday memories from 22-yrs in the Army and 4 combat deployments. My favorite was during Desert Shield in Saudi Arabia when I was an OH-58 Aeroscout Platoon Leader for the 24th Infantry Div's Apache Battalion as we prepared to invade Iraq. Long thread: (1)
— Fred Wellman (@FPWellman) December 22, 2017
Start there and follow the thread. Also for what it’s worth: I put this in the “funny” rather than “touching” category.
da Bears won! da Bears won!
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Cleveland
With the defeat, the Browns became the first team in NFL history to have multiple 15-loss seasons, according to ESPN Stats & Information. The Browns, who are 0-15 this season, finished 1-15 last season.
Coach Hue Jackson has been coach for both seasons and is 1-30 in his two years leading Cleveland. Browns owner Jimmy Haslam already has stated that Jackson will return in 2018.
And in other news:
Gee, where I have heard something very much like this before…? ‘Tis a mystery.
As I’ve noted a couple times before, the Browns last game of the season is in Pittsburgh. Anything can happen, of course, and depending on playoff position the Steelers may want to rest their starters, but I don’t see Cleveland coming out with a win unless things go totally off the rails.
Well, I got an early Christmas present this year. And it sits at the odd intersection of musical theater, law, politics, Christmas…and Rhode Island.
The folks at the Crimetown podcast did a partial reconstruction of “Buddy Cianci: The Musical”.
—Jonathan Van Gieson
The musical had seven performances at the New York Fringe Festival in 2003. It has not been performed since, and there was no original cast recording.
This made me tear up a little: Jacksonville Jaguars fans decided to send trash cans to Houston Texans defensive end Jadeveon Clowney after he called their quarterback “trash”.
Jadeveon Clowney’s response? Fill the trash cans and a van full of toys and give them to needy children. Like Lawrence, I’m still mostly checked out of the NFL, but this is a good story.
The iPhone X’s FaceID can be bypassed using “specially prepared printouts of photographs”! Gott in Himmel! Doesn’t this make the feature useless?
Oh, wait. Did I say “iPhone X FaceID”? I’m sorry. I meant “Windows Hello facial recognition”. My bad.
Some serious, some less so.
Former Michigan state trooper charged with second degree murder in the death of a 15-year-old boy. He was a passenger in another trooper’s vehicle: they chased after the kid, who was driving an ATV, and the trooper fired a Taser out the window.
(Hattip: Morlock Publishing on the Twitter. The Powers of the Earth is available in a Kindle edition, and would probably make a swell gift for the SF fan in your life. I already own a copy, but haven’t read it yet.)
Grandma got stopped by a state trooper,
Driving to Vermont for Christmas Eve.
People say “It’s just weed,”
But the state says “60 lbs is a felony.”
(Those lyrics probably need some work.)
Apropos of nothing in particular (no, really): the complete original Dragnet episode “The Big Little Jesus” is available on YouTube.
Legendary sportscaster Dick Enberg.
WP obit for Clifford Irving.
Jerry Yellin. Mr. Yellin and his wingman, Philip Schlamberg, flew what turned out to be the last combat mission over Japan on August 15, 1945. Mr. Schlamberg never came back.
Clifford Irving passed away on Tuesday.
Mr. Irving, for the younger set, was a somewhat prominent author and journalist in the 1960s and 1970s. Among his works is FAKE! The Story of Elmyr de Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time. I’ve actually been interested in reading that: nice to know there’s a cheap Kindle edition and I don’t have to seek out the hardcover.
But sometime in 1970, Mr. Irving came up with the idea that made him infamous: an autobiography of Howard Hughes. It didn’t make any difference that Hughes was extremely reclusive and didn’t talk to journalists.
He got $750,000 for the book, $400,000 for the paperback rights, and $250,000 for serial rights.
And he was wrong.
At the end of 1971, with McGraw-Hill and Life ready to go to press, the scheme began to unravel. Mr. Hughes went public and denied knowing Mr. Irving, first through a representative and later in a conference call with seven journalists based in Los Angeles.
Swiss banking investigators soon discovered that a Zurich bank account belonging to “H. R. Hughes” had been opened by Mr. Irving’s wife, Edith Irving, a German-born Swiss citizen, using a forged passport with the name Helga R. Hughes.
As the evidence piled up, the house of cards collapsed. In March 1972, the Irvings pleaded guilty to conspiracy in federal court. In state court, along with Mr. Irving’s research assistant, Richard Suskind, they pleaded guilty to conspiracy and grand larceny. Mr. Irving was given a prison sentence of two and a half years and served 17 months. Mr. Suskind received a sentence of six months, of which he served five.
Mr. Irving went on to write some novels and true crime books.
You can get “F for Fake” in a Criterion edition: I’ve seen it and recommend it.
You can also get The Hoax, Mr. Irving’s account of the affair, and Autobiography Of Howard Hughes: Confessions of an Unhappy Billionaire, the actual book, through Amazon as Kindle books.
I know we are inexorably drawing closer and closer to Christmas. I hope most, if not all, of you have your Christmas shopping done.
For the record, if you do not have your Christmas shopping done, and if you are, for reasons I cannot fathom, looking for a Christmas present for your humble blogger: please do not purchase this book for me. Thank you.
(If you do have someone in your life who is not cat allergic and likes spirituous liquor, Amazon does have this available with Prime shipping, so you can get it before Christmas. And there is even a Kindle edition, if you need to fill a gap on Christmas Day.)
This is one of those “wow, I’m surprised to see this in the Times” obits: Lones Wigger Jr.
Shameful confession: I was unfamiliar with Mr. Wigger until I read his obit. But he’s considered by many people to have been the greatest rifle shooter ever.
Wigger broke 29 world records and appeared in three Olympics, in 1964, 1968 and 1972. He also qualified for the 1980 Games in Moscow, which the United States boycotted in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In the 1964 Games, in Tokyo, he won the gold medal in the sport’s showcase competition: the small-bore rifle, three-position (prone, kneeling and standing). At the same Games he took the silver medal in small-bore rifle, prone, missing the gold on a tiebreaker.
He also won gold in Munich in 1972 (three position free rifle).
…
Mr. Wigger served honorably in the military:
…became an Army officer and rose to lieutenant colonel, mostly based in Fort Benning, Ga., as a riflery instructor. He had two tours of duty during the Vietnam War and taught American soldiers there marksmanship.
After three weeks of training in Vietnam, he told Sports Illustrated, his snipers were hitting their targets at 600 meters with the first shot from their M-14s.
“My best sniper was a ghetto kid from Chicago,” he said. “A Chicano we called Poppa Leech. He had all the patience in the world. He’d sit out there on a trail for three days straight, in the heat and the dark and the bugs.”
This makes me tear up a little:
As does this:
“How do you define ‘The Best Ever?’ Team USA quoted the two-time Olympic medalist Lanny Bassham as saying. “Would you add up the total medals won to see who is on top? Would you add up the total number of years he has dominated his sport? Would you take a survey of everyone who has been his competitor, to determine who received the most votes? Would you look at the number of national and world records held?
“Not only is Wigger the only name at the top of these lists; no other shooter even comes close.”
Before we jump into this week’s column, we did want to make note of the not-technically-a-firing-but resignation of ESPN president John Skipper. We think it is appropriate to note this here because this is sportsfirings.com, and for reasons we will get into shortly.
We really don’t have much to say about this: we don’t care much for ESPN, or the way Skipper’s been running it. But substance abuse of any sort sucks, and we wish the man all the luck in the world.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Because he got high, Ryan Boehle threatened to shoot cops.
Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration: “he planned to celebrate his 50th birthday by shooting police because he was upset about a drunken driving arrest in which his blood test came back negative for alcohol”.
Mr. Boehle was arrested. The police seized a total of 13 guns, “1,110 bullets” (sorry, I’m quoting the Statesman here) and 6.3 grams of marijuana.
Mr. Boehle was never actually charged for the threats. The judge in the case is quoted as calling his writings “marijuana-induced gibberish.” It sounds like this is one of those true threat/not a true threat sort of legal distinctions that Ken White keeps trying to explain to myself and other people, and I keep not understanding, but that’s getting off topic.
(Also, “Marijuana-Induced Gibberish” would be a great name for a band.)
But we have to throw him in jail for something, right?
(“Why?” Hey, that’s not the kind of question you should be asking.)
I know! We’ll get him for “making a false statement in connection with the attempted acquisition of a firearm”! Mr. Boehle has a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction from 1993 in Connecticut: he allegedly “slapped, choked and bit his girlfriend”. As a result of this, he apparently failed the background check at three Austin area gun shops (again, per the Statesman).
Oh, dear. Now what is the state going to do?
Wait: there’s that devil’s lettuce they found!
Cutting closer to the end of the story, Mr. Boehle pled out to a charge of “owning a gun as a prohibited person”. You see, pot is still federally illegal, and the law says it is illegal for a pot smoker to own guns.
This doesn’t happen a lot. The Statesman quotes one California attorney who specializes in pot law as saying he’s never seen this in 50 years of practice. On the other hand, though, the Honolulu PD famously recently sent out letters to people with medical marijuana cards: “Give up your guns, or else.” (They apparently haven’t followed through on the “or else” part yet.)
Mr. Boehle was sentenced to five years of probation, and will be drug tested as part of that. The twist at the end is: he has a form of epilepsy, and wants to use a low THC marijuana extract to treat it. But he’s going to have to get his probation terms modified to allow this treatment. Texas has only recently legalized the use of the extract to treat epilepsy (“…only after a patient has tried at least two other treatments”) so Mr. Boehle will be venturing into uncharted territory.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Cleveland
This isn’t working out too too badly. The Browns lost. The New York Football Giants lost again, and sit at 2-12. San Francisco won, and is now 4-10.
Cleveland’s next game is on the road at Chicago. da Bears are also 4-10: I’m concerned about this game, but Chicago will be playing at home, with an extra day of rest (they played Saturday) and has something to play for. Even a moral victory is still a victory.
And let us not forget the Colts, who are at 3-11, but don’t play Cleveland or New York or SF the rest of this season, so who cares? (Their last two games are Baltimore on the road and Houston at home.)
In “not exactly a firing, but…” news: Jerry Richardson is selling the Carolina Panthers.
“Why?” you may ask.
The announcement came just hours after a Sports Illustrated report outlined allegations of sexual and racial misconduct by Richardson toward former Panthers employees.
The team announced an investigation into the alleged misconduct on Friday evening. The NFL said Sunday that it would take over the investigation.
This is still a developing story. Does Richardson selling the team cut off the NFL investigation? Could the Panthers move if they were sold? If so, where? And should I ask for a Magic 8-Ball for Christmas?
Hutto is a fairly small city near Austin (about 15,000 people).
…
…
Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs and several other weapons were arranged in a “defensive posture” throughout the residence, the release says.
Hutto police also found an illegal alcohol distillery at the property. Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission agents joined the other agencies in the house search to dismantle the distillery.
So we’ve got:
Man, if they had just had untaxed cigarettes or something else equally ludicrous, we would have had the BATFE quadfecta.
One might look at the master collaborators — from Kern and Berlin to Rodgers and Hart and Loesser and Jule Styne and Jerome Robbins — and come to the conclusion that the history of the Broadway musical is the history of short Jewish men yelling at each other.
—Jack Viertel, The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built.