And this concludes my coverage of the satisfying, 1975-76 NCAA men's basketball season. Congratulations to Coach Hall and the NIT-champion University of Kentucky Wildcats!
And this concludes my coverage of the satisfying, 1975-76 NCAA men's basketball season. Congratulations to Coach Hall and the NIT-champion University of Kentucky Wildcats!
Michael Reagan says his dad's upset win in yesterday 1976's North Carolina Republican primary was crucial in there ever being a President Reagan.
ReplyDeleteYou could argue, and I probably would argue, that the two most important primaries in history were the 1968 New Hampshire Democratic Primary, and the 1976 North Carolina Republican Primary. Jesse Helms and the North Carolina Republicans saved Reagan's career.
Delete1/19: IA (Ford 45.3, Reagan 42.5)
ReplyDelete2/24: NH (Ford 50.1, Reagan 48.3)
3/2: MA (Ford 59.7, Reagan 32.9)
3/2: VT (Ford 84.0, Reagan 15.20)
3/9: FL (Ford 52.9, Reagan 47.1)
3/16: IL (Ford 58.9, Reagan 39.9)
Now we can look at these states today, and we can see that four of the first six primaries were in what we would regard as "blue" states, and that Reagan had come very close in IA, NH, and FL. Thus, we would expect Reagan to do well once they got to the "red" states. But in 1976, people didn't know about "blue" states and "red" states. It looked like Reagan had lost in the Midwest, New England, and the South, and it looked like he was getting weaker as the campaign went on.
The next three states were North Carolina on March 23, Wisconsin on April 6, and Pennsylvania on April 27. Obviously Reagan isn't going to beat Ford in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. But Texas votes on May 1, and Indiana and Georgia vote on May 4. If Reagan can survive until May, he can generate some momentum. But to do that, he must win North Carolina. Then, as now, NC was bitterly divided between conservatives and moderates. So it could have gone either way.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, due in large part to Jesse Helms -- and to his own decision to start attacking Ford's foreign policy -- Reagan won NC by 52.4 to 45.9. That kept him alive until May, and the victories he won in May allowed him to go to the convention. The rest is history.
ReplyDeleteIt's still important to realize that in 1976, the country was not ready for Reagan. If he had gotten the nomination, he would have lost badly to Carter. A lot will have to happen over the next four years before the GOP is ready for Reagan, much less the country.
ReplyDeleteOld, short motocross videos are hypnotic.
ReplyDeleteI always loved it how much Johnny Carson, himself a drummer, enjoyed drumming, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone better at their craft than was Buddy Rich at his.
ReplyDeleteChick-O-Stick is not good candy; it's great candy.
Delete"Chick-O-Stick's original wrapper design featured a stylized cartoon of a chicken wearing a cowboy hat and a badge in the shape of the Atkinson logo. The chicken is absent from the more recent wrapper; some commentators have indicated that it contributed to confusion over whether the Chick-O-Stick was candy or a chicken-flavored cracker."
DeleteUnderstandable.
The Candy Wrapper Museum has a picture of the original packaging, which I think I remember.
DeleteOh, duh ... just go back to the Match Game nod that prompted this whole Chick-O-Stick thread, dumbdumb ... no, I don't see the chicken there.
DeleteI'm still listening to yesterday 1976 Wrigley Field home opener for the Cubs, against the Mets ...
ReplyDeleteI spent last week 2003 in and around Chicago, and I listened to a good bit of the now Cubs. The MLB23 A's were red hot until yesterday, on a one-game winning streak, but now they're 3-10, and I have turned my attention to my second-favorite MLB team, the Cubs. So it was exciting to get to drive around Chicagoland and listen to my Cubs on my own car radio.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter and I especially love going to Chicago on vacation, and you might recall that, on a previous recent trip, I decided to embrace the Cubs, Bulls, Blackhawks and Bears as my second-favorite teams. To that point, I'm ready to go ham over my Bulls in the NBA23 playoffs tonight, against the Heat, given that my Wizards didn't make it to the postseason. On the other hand, neither my Capitals nor my Blackhawks made the NHL playoffs, I'm going to have to re-embrace my previous second-favorite hockey team and go back to being a Carolina Hurricane "Cane-iac."
DeleteAnyway, back to the Cubs on radio. Now me is back in Madisonville, but 1976 me is listening to the MLB76 Cubs on WGN Radio (thanks to YouTube user "Classic Baseball on the Radio").
ReplyDeleteChicago has a 2-0 lead in this Tuesday-afternoon, April 13 game (thanks to Jerry Morales homering home him and Bill Madlock), but the big news on WGN is that Randy "The Rebel" Hundley is coming back to the Cubs.
ReplyDeleteAs previously reported, the bios at the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) are the bomb:
ReplyDeleteDespite having a lifetime .236 batting average, Randy Hundley is one of the most beloved Chicago Cubs of all time.
The Virginia native played 10 seasons with the Cubs in the 1960s and 1970s and was considered a leader on the field for the team that endured a historic collapse in 1969. Hundley also introduced the one-handed catching style, a technique that Hall of Famer Johnny Bench and other catchers soon copied. Upon retiring after the 1977 season and managing 3 1/2 years in the minor leagues, he established baseball fantasy camps for adults. To this day, he operates the Randy Hundley Fantasy Camp in January at the Cubs spring training complex in Mesa, Ariz. ...
Per the terrific SABR bio by Steve Dunn, Hundley was voted "Most Athletic Boy" at John D. Bassett High School in Bassett, Virginia, where he caught for the baseball team, played guard in basketball and quarterbacked the football team. Not long after attending the Class of 1960 Bassett High prom, he signed a $110,000 bonus with the San Francisco Giants--and then married his prom date the following year.
ReplyDeleteThe Giants, however, eventually soured on the one-handed catching style Hundley's dad had taught him. They traded him to the Cubs, and, for first-year manager Leo Durocher in 1966, "Randy had a banner rookie season, catching 149 games to set a National League record for most games caught by a rookie, leading NL catchers in assists and finishing third among catchers in homers."
ReplyDeleteAlthough he missed the first three games in ’67 due to injuries to his left knee and left ankle– both ailments suffered during the same play in spring training–he had caught every inning of every Cubs game since the fourth game of the season through June. In fact, when the Cubs were tied for the National League lead on July 2, 1967, Randy had played in 74 straight games and caught both ends of all nine doubleheaders up to that point. ... As the first half of the ’67 season ended, sports writer Jerome Holtzman said Randy should get the club’s MVP honor. Holtzman cited the catcher’s .300-plus batting average and noted that Randy had caught every inning of 78 straight games.
ReplyDelete“He is probably the finest defensive catcher in the league,” Holtzman wrote. “Moreover, he is now learning how to take charge of a game and is handling the Cub staff with the poise of an established veteran.”
The Cubs finished third.
ReplyDeleteIn 1968, Hundley caught caught a major-league-record 160 games. And again the Cubs finished third.
Those third-place finishes were in the National League overall, of course.
DeleteFor Randy and other Cub mainstays such as Ernie Banks, (Ron) Santo and (Billy) Williams, the 1969 season was the highlight and lowlight of their time in Chicago. On August 14, the Cubs enjoyed a nine-game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals and a 10-game cushion over the New York Mets after being in first place for 155 straight days.
ReplyDeleteBut the lead had shrunk to a half-game in early September when the Mets beat the Cubs twice in New York. Randy was in the middle of a game-deciding play in the 3-2 loss in the first game. With the Mets’ Tommie Agee on second base in the sixth inning, Wayne Garrett lined a single to Cubs’ right fielder Jim Hickman, whose throw to home appeared to beat Agee. But rookie umpire Dave Davidson called Agee safe for the third and deciding run. With that, Randy exploded and jumped into the air several times.
“I was there, and I know how hard I tagged Tommie Agee on the play,” Randy said years later. “The ball went from the pocket of my glove up into the webbing. I knew I couldn’t bump an umpire or I’d get suspended, so that’s why I tried to go straight up and down.”
It only got worse for the Cubs when they lost twice to the Philadelphia Phillies, while the Mets rolled over the Montreal Expos four times, putting the upstart New Yorkers in first place for good.
Like most of the other Cub regulars, Randy’s performance at the plate declined greatly in September. On June 1, he was hitting .307 with eight homers, but he hit only .151 in the last month of the season.
Nevertheless, the ironman catcher was named to the National League All-Star team for the first time and led the league’s catchers in fewest errors and double plays turned by a catcher and tied for most games and assists.
Over four seasons, Hundley had caught 612 of Chicago's 647 games. And then here came the injuries. In 1970, the Cubs won 61.2 percent of the games in which Hundley caught--but he missed 89, and 84-78 Chicago again finished second in the N.L. East.
ReplyDeleteHundley played only nine games in 1971, and the 83-79 Cubs finished third in the division.
ReplyDeleteHe came back to be Chicago's primary starting catcher in both 1972 and '73, but Dunn writes that Hundley's ability to throw-out base runners was in decline. The Cubs finished second and fifth in those two seasons, and then they traded him to Minnesota in December 1973.
ReplyDeleteHe played some for the Twins in 1974 and the Padres in 1975. "A year later, the Padres released the veteran catcher and offered him a job as a player-coach with Hawaii in the Pacific Coast League, but he declined."
ReplyDeleteHundley's turning up at Cubs practice was the primary story in the Chicago Tribune sports section on April 13, and, when Hundley's signing off waivers breaks during the third inning of the home opener, he's in the booth to go on the air with the WGN Radio broadcasters.
ReplyDeleteWGN's Vince Lloyd: "Randy, come on down here. Congratulations, buddy. We're awfully happy for you and the Cubs."
ReplyDeleteHundley: "Thanks, Vinnie. It sure is good to be back."
Lloyd: "You feel good. I know that."
Hundley: "Well, I do. I may not look good, but I feel good."
In addition to doubles, triples and stolen-base attempts, double plays are exciting baseball plays.
ReplyDeleteWe have a record opening-day.crowd for Wrigley Field on April 13, 1976. It's the bottom of the eighth, and the Cubs and Mets are tied at 4. Two Jerry Morales two-run home runs had Chicago ahead until a solo home run by John Milner--one of the all-time-overrated-in-my-neighborhood baseball players--tied things in the last half inning. Morales is due up ...
ReplyDeleteMorales strikes out, and we're headed to the ninth.
ReplyDeleteNothing in the top of the ninth for the Mets ...
ReplyDeleteDave Kingman--one-of-the-time-underrated-in-my-neighborhood baseball players--misplays Manny Trillo's hit to right field, and it turns out to be a one-out triple ...
ReplyDeleteNew Mets manager Jim Marshall intentionally walks the bases full, and now we will have Cubs pinch-hitter Tim Hosley to face New York reliever Skip Lockwood. WGN Radio's Lou Boudreau notes that Hosley, a reserve catcher, is one of the Cubs most likely to lose his spot on the roster with the arrival of Hundley ...
ReplyDeleteHosley pops out.
ReplyDeleteWith two out, Rick Monday sends Lockwood's first pitch on a lazy fly to the gap between shortstop Bud Harrelson and center-fielder Bruce Boisclair. That's it! My Cubs win, 5-4!
ReplyDelete