Maybe I'll clip and fill out my All-Star ballot this (freakin') weekend ...
Here's where we stand, MLB71wise ...
I'm still pretending that I'm either 48 or 8 and either visiting or living in Chicago, by the way, and I'm pleased to report that the Chicago Tribune reports there is finally some good news on the Cubs ...
Why, yes, that is a Patio soda (Go Heath!) that (future-A!) Ken Holtzman is enjoying after his big game ...
As always, there is plenty to do around and about Chicago ...
But, of course, I will likely spend a good bit of it hanging out at the house, catching up on Mac Divot ...
... and TV, which is mostly in reruns ...
Not totally in reruns, however--there is a fresh Bobby Sherman special on ABC tonight!
The Fifth Dimension ... man, sometimes they are just everything.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I might read Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCoo's book, Up, Up and Away. I'll bet that thing's great.
ReplyDeleteOne of the more interesting articles in the June 7, 1971, Sports Illustrated is a first-person thing from Jack Nicklaus where he proposes that 1972 offers an unusually strong opportunity for someone to win golf's grand slam.
ReplyDelete"Once In a While, Love's Been Good To Me" is such a pretty thing.
ReplyDeleteNicklaus says the difficulty of the courses--Masters/Augusta, U.S. Open/Pebble Beach, British Open/Muirfield and PGA/Oakland Hills--will reduce the number of players who could win a major. "There is much less likelihood that a long shot will finish first in a major event," he writes.
ReplyDelete"At the start of the season the odds against a Grand Slam seem incalculable, let us say one million to one. The right player winning the first tournament, usually the Masters, might bring the odds down to 1,000 to one. Then, should he win the U.S. Open, the superconfidence factor would become such a great asset I would say that the odds against his completing the Grand Slam would drop to less than 10 to one. By that time I think his confidence would be so high that he would not even consider the possibility of losing."
ReplyDeleteOn the Bobby Sherman special set, there are giant letters spelling "BOBBY" and a giant portrait of Bobby Sherman, in front of which Bobby Sherman is performing a medley.
ReplyDeleteThe special was brought to us by Dr. Pepper, "America's Most Misunderstood Soft Drink."
ReplyDeleteThere must be quite a detailed story behind that tagline.
Hey, cool ... the guy who wrote this special, Marc B. Ray, also wrote for New Zoo Revue and Mulligan Stew. I go to church with a woman in Madisonville who did children's ministry at a church in Las Vegas with some of the early New Zoo Revue crowd--I wonder if this guy was one of them.
ReplyDeleteWell, look, that television program was exactly as clever and nuanced as you might expect a half-hour Bobby Sherman variety special airing in summer rerun season at 7 p.m. Central on a 1971 Friday night to be. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you, Bobby Sherman, Fifth Dimension, Rip Taylor (who also appeared as a guest star; I would probably enjoy It Ain't All Confetti, too), Marc B. Ray, Dr. Pepper, TV, developers of internet technologies and applications and YouTube user "Goldfox."
ReplyDeleteUgh. I've already seen this Love, American Style.
ReplyDeleteBut the most interesting story in this 1971 week's Sports Illustrated for me is Jerry Kirshenbaum's report on the Soviet national basketball team's visit to Paintsville for an exhibition game.
ReplyDeleteKirshenbaum writes:
ReplyDelete"The Paintsville visit was arranged to give the "furriners" what Jim Fox, the AAU official who shepherded them around, called "something more low-keyed than usual," and it was certainly all of that. Paintsville offered no demonstrators such as those who picketed the team in Cincinnati to protest treatment of Soviet Jews nor was there anything like the awkward moment when a civic greeter in Buffalo, presenting the Russian athletes with a gift, kiddingly told them, "We're giving you this, and in return we expect you to give us back Cuba." It was with understandable relief that Priit Tomson, one of the few Soviet players to speak any English, said. "This is a small town, and because of this we have a good rest."
Decked out in cowboy hats they had picked up in Amarillo, Tomson and his countrymen marched off one evening, interpreter in tow, to Paintsville's tiny movie house to see Waterloo. The next night, benefiting from a fortuitous change in program, they returned to see It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. As if this were not enough moviegoing, a rumor breezed through Paintsville that the Russians had also found time to take in an Elvis Presley triple feature at the Sky Vue drive-in, arriving in a Cadillac, of all things.
The report was quickly shot down by Robert Rice, the drive-in's ticket taker. "If a bunch of big guys talking Russian came in here in a Cadillac, I guess I'd a noticed 'em all right," he reasoned.
The whole story is really great. Kirshenbaum noted that The New York Times "in running the Soviet team's itinerary had unaccountably referred to Paintsville as 'Hicksville.' The slur was further belied by the town's consolidated new Johnson Central High School, an ultramodern building with a gymnasium seating 5,500, which exceeds Paintsville's population by 1,400."
ReplyDeleteBy the way, this story has Hoptown/Chicago 1971 me a little worried for Team USA at Munich 72. "Nearing the end of a three-week U.S. tour, the tall pasty-faced strangers stayed around Paintsville long enough to demonstrate qualities they have in common with the Ralph Beards and Dan Issels who are held so dear in those parts," Kirshenbaum wrote. "They whipped an American team 97-86, then departed for an easy win in Albuquerque before finally losing in Salt Lake City. When they left this week for Moscow, they took along an 8-1 record against U.S. competition, all of which makes one wonder whether the game might not have been invented by Dr. James Naismithonovich after all."
ReplyDeleteHey, check out this late-night promo on Chicago TV from 1971. I'll bet that's where Joe O'Flaherty/Flaherty got his "Count Floyd" bit for SCTV.
ReplyDeleteThat's a random pickup.
DeleteJoe Flaherty--along with John Belushi, Brian Doyle-Murray and others--are among the 1971 players at Second City in Chicago.
DeleteFred Whitfield is not back with the Expos this season. OMG, the end of Rory Costello's SABR bio on him is beautiful: "“When Montreal let me go, I was ready to go,” Whitfield told Russell Schneider. “I was tired of baseball, and my wife was tired of me traveling and being away from home so much ..."
ReplyDeleteGlen Campbell and Anne Murray deliver a rousing and hearty "Don't Think Twice (It's All Right)."
ReplyDeleteBilly Graham on Jesus Christ Superstar: Thumbs down.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Billy Graham's virile, bold and beautiful altar call in Chicago. Love how he describes it as a "historic moment," which, of course, it is.
DeleteBy the way, if you missed Rev. Graham in person in Chicago, you can check him out on TV the next three 1971 nights--with telecasts of his 1971 Kentucky Crusade. In 1971, Graham hit Lexington in April and Chicago in June. He's headed home to Montreat, North Carolina, now, and then he's scheduled to be in Oakland, California, late in July.
ReplyDeleteHere's a neat Herald-Leader photo of downtown during Graham's April 1971 visit to Lexington.
ReplyDeleteWhen he’s in Oakland next 1971 month, maybe Billy Graham will check out the A’s.
ReplyDeleteOakland struggled with the visiting Yankees over the weekend, losing two of three, and now its American League West lead is the thinnest it has been in some weeks. MLB71 standings as of morning of June 14, 1971 …
A.L. West
A’s 39-21
Royals 31-23, 5 games back
Twins 28-32, 11
Angels 28-33, 11.5
White Sox 21-33, 15
Brewers 21-34, 15.5
A.L. East
Orioles 36-20
Tigers 33-26, 4.5
Red Sox 32-26, 5
Indians 28-29, 8.5
Yankees 27-32, 10.5
Senators 21-36, 15.5
N.L. East
Pirates 38-23
Mets 33-23, 2.5
Cardinals 35-27, 3.5
Cubs 29-31, 8.5
Expos 24-30, 10.5
Phillies 23-35, 13.5
N.L. West
Giants 40-23
Dodgers 33-28, 6
Astros 30-31, 9
Braves 29-34, 11
Reds 25-35, 13.5
Padres 21-40, 18
Remember Randy Hundley’s knee problems? This situation continues to receive sports-front attention in Chicago Tribune, and news has actually trended more and more dire. Last 1971 week, the Cubs’ star catcher had a new surgery on the knee, and a vein inflamed and he had a gall-bladder attack. There’s been some back and forth among doctors and various spokespeople about whether Hundley’s medical condition reached critical at one point.
ReplyDeleteDetroit manager Billy Martin is stumping for a system by which major-league managers would be polled on the performance of umpires and the low scorers at season's end would be relegated to the minors.
ReplyDeleteMark Mulvoy in Sports Illustrated: "That annual SAN FRANCISCO happening known as the June Swoon began promptly on schedule as the front-running Giants, who won 18 games and lost only nine during the month of May, lost the first five games they played in June."
ReplyDeleteAnd: "LOS ANGELES dropped one game because Rookie Third Baseman Bobby Valentine lost three ground balls in the lights. Manager Walter Alston replaced Valentine with Steve Garvey, who lost no grounders in the lights and hit a home run to boot ... CINCINNATI lost five games out of six and finally benched Johnny and his .223 batting average."
DeleteThis Johnny Bench slump is a matter of big controversy, and it seems to be at least as much of a problem for the Reds as Bobby Tolan's or Wayne Simpson's injury woes.
DeleteHere's Billy Reed in the June 7 Sports Illustrated (as "William F. Reed") in a story headlined, "Cincinnati's Big Red Clunk":
Then there is Bench, last year's Most Valuable Player. He has 14 home runs, which is not bad, but his average dropped below .235 during a recent slump. Even more disturbing, Bench is not producing with men on base. Of his 14 homers, only six came with a man on—and none with two or three men on. In last week's three-game series at Pittsburgh, Bench was 1 for 12 and he left 12 runners stranded. "I'm not happy with the way I'm swinging," says Bench. "I started trying to hit to right field and I guess I tried too hard. Also, I've seen some awful good pitching this year." ...
In Bench's case, his problems may have something to do with the special pressures involved in superstardom at the age of 23—or at least that's what Anderson was saying in Pittsburgh as he watched reporters and announcers pulling and tugging at Bench from all sides. "I wish they would just let him go out there and play ball," said Anderson.
"You know, I've been afraid of failing ever since I was 18," said Bench later. "You wonder if you can live up to the expectations not only of yourself but of others. Now when I come out on the field I know I'm the target man and it's something to have all those people yelling at you. I don't know whether it's affected my play or not. I don't think I've let down on my catching. Hitting, well, it's nothing new for me to be down there and come back."
To those who claim he may have overextended himself with a weekly TV show and other business interests, Bench says: "Look, I don't know how long I'll play up here. I want to enjoy life now and do as much as I possibly can. I want to do what I want, wear the kind of clothes I want and buy what I want."
The Reds, by the way, on June 14 brought up Wayne Simpson from his AAA assignment in Indianapolis.
DeleteThe Red Sox, suddenly struggling, have called up former Indian, Twin and (briefly) Brave Luis Tiant from Triple-A Louisville.
ReplyDeleteGene Siskel is at the Japanese movies this freakin' upcoming weekend 1971:
ReplyDeleteThe festival opens with possibly Japan's greatest film, the complete 200-minute version of Akira Kurosawa's epic, "The Seven Samurai" [1954]. Best known in the U. S. as the source for "The Magnificent Seven," this saga of bandits, farmers and samurai, at the time, was the most expensive film ever made in Japan.
Kurosawa's. stated goal in creating this tale of seven paid warriors combating more than 100 bandits in behalf of '40 farmers was to make "a real jidai-geki [a period-costume film set before 1868] as well as a film which would be entertaining enough to eat."
Kurosawa found most Japanese films made prior to 1954 to be "asset shite iru [light, plain, simple but wholesome], just like ochazuke [green tea over rice]."
Aside from its boundless energy, the film s greatest achievement is that It equates the warriors with the bandits while studying the warriors as individuals. It is a brilliant mixture of criticism and compassion set against rousing action. "Seven Samurai" explains and represents its period, and that is all any historical film can hope to achieve.