Anyone know of the basis behind fines in professional sports? (Such as Shaq being fined $35,000 for criticizing officials and Favre $50,000 for not cooperating with an investigation.)
I can’t think of any other profession that fines its miscreants. Why sports?
I understand that fines are the alternative to benching a player — then the fans and owners would complain. And I understand something in the leagues’ player agreements must enable it. But it still seems odd and authoritarian.
On this date 53 years ago Tobin Rote threw for four touchdowns and ran for another as the Detroit Lions defeated the Cleveland Browns, 59-14, in the NFL championship game. (That was it. There was no Super Bowl then.) It was the Lions’ third title in six years, all over the Browns. Since then the Lions have missed 44 out of 53 post seasons (counting this year) and are 1-9 in games when they did make it. For nearly all of that time the Lions have been owned by William Clay Ford, grandson of Henry and son of Edsel. The Lions aren’t exactly built Ford tough.
They were tough then though, when I was a kid and lived near Detroit (and went to a few games).
The week before the championship game . . .
In the divisional playoff, the Lions trailed the 49ers 24-7 at halftime. Through the dressing room walls at San Francisco’s old Kezar Stadium, they could hear the 49ers already beginning their celebration.
“We could hear them laughing,” Rote said in ’91. “The walls were paper thin. They were going on about how they were going to spend their championship game money. It made us angry.”
In the second half, the Lions scored three touchdowns in four minutes, 29 seconds and went on to win 31-27.
Pro Football Weekly (June 29, 2000)
Mary Tyler Moore was born in Brooklyn, 74 years ago today.
On The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moore played Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman “making it on her own” in 1970s Minneapolis. MTM first pitched her character to CBS as a young divorcee, but CBS executives believed her role as Laura Petrie was so firmly etched in the public mind that viewers would think she had divorced Dick Van Dyke (and that the American public would not find a divorced woman likable), so Richards was rewritten as a woman who had moved to the big city after ending a long affair. Richards landed a job working in the news department of fictional WJM-TV, where Moore’s all-American spunk played off against the gruff boss Lou Grant (Ed Asner), world-weary writer Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod) and pompous anchorman Ted Baxter (Ted Knight). In early seasons, her all-male work environment was counterbalanced by a primarily female home life, where again her character contrasted with her ditzy landlady Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman) and her New York-born neighbor and best friend, Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper).
Angelina Jolie’s dad is 72. That would be four-time Oscar nominee, one-time winner, Jon Voight. Voight won his Oscar for Coming Home, as did co-star Jane Fonda. The film had eight nominations, three wins.
Marianne Faithfull is 64. Faithfull is a descendant of Count Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the 19th century author and source of the term “masochism.” Her signature song, As Tears Go By, was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Mayday Malone is 63. That’s Sam, Ted Danson.
Paula Poundstone is 51 today.
Two-time Oscar nominee Jude Law is 38.
The 17th president, Andrew Johnson, was born on this date in 1808. From the obituary in The New York Times in 1875:
The history this man leaves is a rare one. His career was remarkable, even in this country; it would have been quite impossible in any other. It presents the spectacle of a man who never went to school cession of posts of civil responsibility to the highest office in the land, and evincing his continued hold upon the popular heart by a subsequent election to the Senate in the teeth of a bitter personal and political opposition.
Charles Goodyear was born 210 years ago today. He is not related to Goodyear the company, despite being the first inventor/industrialist to make rubber suitable for modern use — before him rubber was more like what we call rubber cement.
The great discovery came in the winter of 1839. Goodyear was using sulphur in his experiments now. Although Goodyear himself has left the details in doubt, the most persistent story is that one February day he wandered into Woburn’s general store to show off his latest gum-and-sulphur formula. Snickers rose from the cracker-barrel forum, and the usually mild-mannered little inventor got excited, waved his sticky fistful of gum in the air. It flew from his fingers and landed on the sizzling-hot potbellied stove.
When he bent to scrape it off, he found that instead of melting like molasses, it had charred like leather. And around the charred area was a dry, springy brown rim — “gum elastic” still, but so remarkably altered that it was virtually a new substance. He had made weatherproof rubber.
This discovery is often cited as one of history’s most celebrated “accidents.” Goodyear stoutly denied that. Like Newton’s falling apple, he maintained, the hot stove incident held meaning only for the man “whose mind was prepared to draw an inference.” That meant, he added simply, the one who had “applied himself most perseveringly to the subject.”
And today is the birthday of Donna, great friend, doting mother and grandmother and aunt, highly regarded federal executive and American Indian leader. And this year she made posole. Like I said a year ago, she aces that and she’ll be perfect. She did and she is. Happy Birthday, Donna!
I don’t know about you all, but this year I’ve traveled 584 million miles and I’m just about back where I started.
Same as last year. And the year before.
Albuquerque Isotope and NewMexiKen favorite Chin-lung Hu was traded from the Dodgers to the Mets yesterday. No more “Hu’s on first.”
Joe Posnanski is writing about the Baseball Hall of Fame this week — ballots are due Friday.
His first installment is here.
I thought this excerpt from today’s essay was thought-provoking. We forget I think how good you have to be to make “the show.”
For instance, last year Todd Zeile was on the Hall of Fame ballot. Todd Zeile? He did not receive a vote, to no one’s surprise.
But you know what? Todd Zeile was a good player. He got 2,000 hits in the Major Leagues. He drove in 90-plus runs five times. He played five positions, and even pitched a couple of innings.
He was not a Hall of Famer, not close to a Hall of Famer, but that’s precisely the point, isn’t it? To play 10 years of Major League Baseball — a qualification just to get on the ballot — means you must be one of the very best baseball players on earth .
You are better and more determined than all those players whose baseball lives stopped in little league, all those good enough to make their high school teams but no more, all those who went on to play college at some small school, all those good enough to go to a Division I school but were not drafted, all those promising and resolved young players drafted or signed outside of North America who stalled in the low end of the minor leagues, all those who topped out low Class A, in high Class A, in Class AA, in Class AAA, all those who made it through it all to get to a cup of coffee in the big leagues, all those who worked their way up to a small and temporary role in the big leagues, all those who endured and became regulars in the big leagues for two or three or four years before being retired.
To achieve so much … to reach the very height of your profession … it is an extraordinary thing to be a baseball player with 10 years of big league experience, an even more extraordinary thing to achieve enough to get on the Hall of Fame ballot. And then, you get there and it is STILL still miles and miles and miles to go before you get to the Hall of Famers. It is still the gap between Todd Zeile and Cooperstown.
Tanya’s Christmas tale at Dinner without Crayons completed my day Saturday.
Stan Lee (Stanley Martin Lieber), the creator of “Spider-Man” and “The Incredible Hulk” is 88.
Martin Milner, the senior police officer on “Adam-12” is 79.
Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant (ultimately Commander) Uhura of “Star Trek” is 78. Nichols sang with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before acting.
Six-time Oscar nominee Maggie Smith is 76. She’s won twice — leading for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and supporting for California Suite. No Oscars for her most famous role though, Professor Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter.
Five-time Oscar nominee Denzel Washington is 56 today. He’s won twice — leading for Training Day and supporting for Glory.
Earl Kenneth Hines was born on December 28, 1903.
A brilliant keyboard virtuoso, Earl “Fatha” Hines was one of the first great piano soloists in jazz, and one of the very few musicians who could hold his own with Louis Armstrong. His so-called ‘trumpet’ style used doubled octaves in the right hand to produce a clear melodic line that stood out over the sound of a whole band, but he also had a magnificent technical command of the entire range of the keyboard.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, on this date in 1856. After graduating from Princeton in 1879, Wilson studied law at the University of Virginia for one year. He received a Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1886. Wilson remains the only American president to have earned a doctoral degree.
Wilson served on the faculties of Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan University before joining the Princeton faculty as professor of jurisprudence and political economy in 1890. He became President of Princeton in 1902. His commentary on contemporary political matters led to his election as Governor of New Jersey in 1910 and as President in 1912. Wilson was the second of three sitting American Presidents to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. (Theodore Roosevelt was the first, Barack Obama the third.)
“Young people have no idea that there was an original True Grit. And don’t even mention Glen Campbell unless you want to feel like a village elder explaining the motivation behind your cave drawing.”
Shoebox » Tiny Little Movie Review: True Grit
I loved the whole last paragraph of the review — click and read it.
“VIRGINIA BEACH … – Rev. Pat Robertson sparked controversy in today’s broadcast of his 700 Club program when he claimed that God created the blizzard currently battering the Northeast ‘to punish Americans who were planning to drive to do something gay.’ ”
“In recent years, according to Disney research, the average Magic Kingdom visitor has had time for only nine rides — out of more than 40 — because of lengthy waits and crowded walkways and restaurants. In the last few months, however, the operations center has managed to make enough nips and tucks to lift that average to 10.”
Above from an article in The New York Times about what Disney is doing to keep the lines moving.
Some people get more done. I shared the article with Jill who wrote back with a list (as she remembered it) of our recent Sunday in the Magic Kingdom, a day it rained:
Dumbo
Peter Pan (twice)
Winnie the Pooh
Tom Sawyer Island
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (twice)
Pirates of the Caribbean
Aladdin’s Magic Carpets
Jungle Cruise
Pirates training academy show
It’s a Small World
Dumbo
Philharmagic
Haunted Mansion
Hall of Presidents
Splash Mountain
Afternoon parade
Buzz Lightyear
Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor
Carousel of Progress
People Mover
Autopia
Winnie the Pooh
Lighting up the castle show
Buzz Lightyear
Space Mountain (twice) for three of us and Snow White’s Scary Adventure and Carousel for two others
That’s 28.
(Grandpa has to confess, however, that I surrendered after Autopia. I did ride Space Mountain, Snow White and the Carousel later in the week.)
“The Boxing Day Blizzard of 2010 has stranded travelers across the country, knocked out transit service in much of the Northeast, and extended the holiday weekend for many workers in the New York area. With the hope of alleviating cabin fever and departure-delay anxiety, here is a selection of snowy cartoons from our archive.”
Last Saturday was Christmas Day, the day set aside by Christian faithful to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago. Christianity remains the largest religion in the world, with over 2 billion adherents across the globe. Christmas is celebrated in many ways by those followers, and even more ways by those who enjoy the larger, more secular traditions surrounding the modern holiday. Collected here are some glimpses of this year’s Christmas observations and celebrations around the world. … (35 photos total)
“Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolately caffe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World.
“From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle’s Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top.”
Sarah Vowell, 41 today
Two more (although I could go on forever):
“Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot.”
Assassination Vacation
“Buffy’s high school was built on top of a vortex of evil, the Hellmouth. And whose wasn’t?”
The Partly Cloudy Patriot
Today is the birthday
… of Scotty Moore. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is 79.
Scotty Moore served as Elvis Presley’s guitarist from 1954 to 1958, widely regarded as Presley’s golden years. Moore was a participant in the historic early sessions at Sun Recording Studio that mark the birth of rock and roll. It was on Monday, July 5th, 1954, that Presley, Moore and bassist Bill Black broke into bluesman Arthur Cruddup’s “That’s All Right” in a freewheeling style that brought together country and blues. They took a similarly approach to bluegrass legend Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” With these spontaneous breakthroughs, conceived in the most innocent and intuitive way, both sides of Elvis Presley’s legendary first single—and the first new strains of rock and roll—were in the can. Notably, the single (Sun 209) was credited to “Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill.”
… of John Amos. Adm. Percy Fitzwallace (West Wing), Toby (Kunta Kinte as adult) and J.J.’s father (Good Times) is 71.
… of Cokie Roberts. The daughter of Hale and Lindy Boggs is 67.
… of Gerard Depardieu. The actor who has played more famous characters than even Charlton Heston (Cyrano De Bergerac, Jean de Florette, Christopher Columbus, Honoré de Balzac, Le Comte de Monte Cristo, Porthos, Auguste Rodin, Franco, Danton) is 62.
… of rhythm guitarist David Knopfler. The other Knopfler is 58. With his brother Mark (lead guitar), John Illsley (bass) and drummer Pick Withers, they formed Dire Straits in 1977. And 120 million albums later . . .
Sarah Vowell, an Okie from Muskogee, is 41 today.
Her essay collection Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World (2000) starts with a piece called “Shooting Dad,” which begins: “If you were passing by the house where I grew up during my teenage years and it happened to be before Election Day, you wouldn’t have needed to come inside to see that it was a house divided. You could have looked at the Democratic campaign poster in the upstairs window and the Republican one in the downstairs window and seen our home for the Civil War battleground it was. I’m not saying who was the Democrat or who was the Republican — my father or I — but I will tell you that I have never subscribed to Guns & Ammo, that I did not plaster the family vehicle with National Rifle Association stickers, and that hunter’s orange was never my color.”
Marlene Dietrich was born on this date in 1901. Miss Dietrich was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for the 1930 film Morocco.
It’s more efficient to shut off your engine and restart it any time you stop for more than a few seconds. Even Ford has finally figured that out:
In a move to boost fuel economy, Ford Motor Co. said Monday it will add an Auto Start-Stop system that shuts off the engine when a vehicle comes to a stop. The automaker said the feature will be added to its conventional cars, crossovers and SUVs in North America.
Ford’s statement said that the feature is expected to boost fuel economy by between 4% and 10%, and eliminate tailpipe emissions while the vehicle is stationary.
“84 year old Hugh Hefner is engaged to a 24 year old woman who understands that even though Hugh is 84, he is still a multi-millionaire.”
“Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know.”
Sarah Vowell, 41 today and quoted by The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor last year.
A discussion of the top 12 Civil War books ever written — “here are a dozen books that, for me, tell the story of the Civil War with literary elegance, intellectual gusto and enormous flair.”
I own and have read half of the 12. Professor LaFantasie’s choices seem sound, if subjective. I like his suggestion to read one a month in 2011, the 150th anniversary of the first year of the war. I intend to try that, even re-reading the six.
I also recommend The Killer Angels as the best Civil War novel.
Glenn LaFantasie was a colleague of mine at the U.S. Department of State.
Today is the birthday of Carroll Spinney; he’s 77. For more than 40 years, Spinney has been one of the most recognized performers on television. He’s won five Emmys and a National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award.
Carroll Spinney is the puppeteer who plays Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.
Abdul “Duke” Fakir is 75 today. He is the only surviving member of the Four Tops. The quartet performed together for 43 years (1954-1997) without a change in personnel. (Lawrence Payton died in 1997.)
“The Four Tops deserve to be recognized both for their achievements and their longevity. On the latter count, the group performed for over four decades together without a single change in personnel – a record of constancy that is mind-boggling in the notoriously changeable world of popular music. As for their accomplishments, the Four Tops cut some of Motown’s most memorable singles during the label’s creative zenith, including “Baby I Need Your Loving,” “I Can’t Help Myself,” “It’s the Same Old Song,” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love” and “Bernadette.” The Four Tops’ greatest records were recorded at Motown with the in-house songwriting and production team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland between 1964 and 1967.
The foursome arrived at Motown in 1963 as seasoned veterans, having already logged nearly a decade in show business. The Detroit-based vocal group – consisting of lead vocalist Levi Stubbs, first tenor Abdul “Duke” Fakir, second tenor Lawrence Payton and baritone Renaldo “Obie” Benson – began singing together as the Four Aims soon after graduating high school in 1954. …
Phil Spector is 74. He’s doing 19-to-life for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. In 2008 I reported that Spector was 68. He’s gotten six years older in just two years. I’m guessing he had to give his real age in prison.
Phil Spector is among the greatest producers of rock and roll, and some would passionately argue that he is the greatest ever. His ambitious approach to the art of record production helped redefine and revitalize rock and roll during its early-Sixties slump. On a string of classic records released between 1961 and 1966 on his Philles label, he elevated the monaural 45 rpm single to an art form. “Little symphonies for the kiddies,” he called them, and they were indeed dramatic pop records possessed of a grandeur and intimacy theretofore uncommon in rock and roll.
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling (Righteous Brothers)
River Deep – Mountain High (Ike and Tina Turner)
Be My Baby (Ronettes)
Da Doo Ron Ron (Crystals)
Spanish Harlem (Ben E. King)
He’s a Rebel (Crystals)
Carlton Fisk is 63.
Baseball’s most durable catcher with 24 years behind the plate, Carlton Pudge Fisk caught more games (2,226) than any player in history. The 11-time All-Star hit 376 career home runs, including a record-setting 351 as a catcher, since bested by Mike Piazza. His most memorable home run came in Game Six of the 1975 World Series – a 12th inning blast off the left field foul pole at Fenway Park – giving his Red Sox a 7-6 win over Cincinnati. His tremendous pride and work ethic were respected by both teammates as well as the opposition.
Ozzie Smith is 56.
Known as “The Wizard of Oz,” Ozzie Smith combined athletic ability with acrobatic skill to become one of the game’s great defensive shortstops. In 19 seasons with the Padres and Cardinals, the 13-time Gold Glove Award winner set major league shortstop records for assists, double plays and total chances. He would develop into an offensive weapon, finishing with over 2,400 hits and 500 stolen bases. His ninth-inning home run won the fifth game of the 1985 National League Championship Series.
David Sedaris is 54 today. The Writer’s Almanac tells of Sedaris’s debut on NPR’S Morning Edition 18 years ago:
The eight-minute monologue made him famous. Suddenly his phone started to ring. He said: “I was very, very surprised. … I’ve always thought that the definition of a good life was being asleep when Morning Edition was on. I never listened to the show, so I never had a concept of anyone else listening to it, I suppose.”
IF YOU’VE NEVER HEARD THIS, IT IS AN ABSOLUTE MUST!
Mao Tse-tung was born on December 26th in 1893.
Today is Boxing Day and St. Stephen’s Day in England, Canada, and several other countries. The origins of this national holiday are not certain, but the holiday might have started from an old custom of wealthy estate-owners giving small gifts or money, wrapped in boxes, to their servants and those who worked for them. Servants were needed on Christmas to help with their masters’ holiday events, so they often were given a rest the next day. St. Stephen is honored today for being the first Christian martyr, having been stoned to death for blasphemy.
| Washington crossed the Delaware River Christmas night and attacked the British garrison at Trenton, New Jersey, early on the morning of December 26, 1776. | |
Emanuel Leutze (1851) |
Leutze’s painting is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, though there are many copies including one in the White House.
There are several inaccuracies in the depiction. Wrong flag; too much light (it was night); it would appear they are crossing in the wrong direction; horses were carried by ferries with the artillery, not in boats; probably everyone stood (the gunwales were higher than pictured). That’s future president James Monroe holding the flag. Click for larger version. |
In July 1956, the five-member Barstow family of Wethersfield, Connecticut, won a free trip to newly-opened Disneyland in Anaheim, California, in a nationwide contest. This 30-minute amateur documentary film tells the fabulous story of their fun-filled, dream-come-true, family travel adventure, filmed on the scene at Walt Disney’s “Magic Kingdom” by Robbins Barstow.
In December 2008, “Disneyland Dream” was named to the National Film Registry by the Librarian of Congress.