Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Barely legal but champion of the world...

When Rocky Marciano retired as the only undefeated heavyweight champion in 1955, the title was vacant but that would soon change and change it did on the night of November 30, 1956...

The first fight for the vacant title was held at Chicago Stadium and pitted the aging light-heavyweight champ, 42-year old Archie Moore against someone half his age, Floyd Patterson. Moore, the heavy 2-1 favorite was attempting to become the oldest heavyweight champion in history while Patterson would be the youngest. Youth prevailed that night...

Patterson knocked out Moore in the 5th round to become the youngest heavyweight champion in history at 21. He would hold the "youngest champ" title until 1986 when youth would prevail again as Mike Tyson, 6 months younger than Patterson was when he won the title, would become champ...

Right after winning the heavyweight crown, Rockville Centre's Floyd Patterson flew back to New York to see his daughter, born the night he became champion of the world...

More on Floyd Patterson in my commentary...

More November 30 Memories...

1940) Lucille Ball and Cuban band leader Ricky Ric-make that Desi Arnaz walk down the aisle (no doubt to a latin beat)...

1956) CBS replays "Douglas Edwards and the News" 3 hours after it was received on the West Coast. It was the world's 1st broadcast via videotape...

1956) Floyd Patterson becomes the youngest heavyweight champ at 21 (feature story)...

1958) Coed Records releases "16 Candles" by the Crests...

1968) Epic Records releases "Everyday People" by Sly & The Family Stone...

1969) "Songs of America", Simon & Garfunkel's 1st TV special airs...

1971) Sly & The Family Stone top the charts with "Family Affair" (Nov. 30 is a good day for Sly, see 1968 above)...

1971) ABC-TV airs "Brian's Song", the movie about the Chicago Bears' Brian Picolo and his friendship with star running back Gayle Sayers...

1979) Ted Koppel becomes anchor of "Nightly News on Iranian Hostages" which of course becomes "Nightline" (the show that Koppel recently left)...

1979) Pink Floyd releases their classic "The Wall" LP...

1993) President Bill Clinton signs into law the "Brady Bill" which requires a 5-day waiting period for purchasing guns...

1993) Richard Allen Davis is arrested after confessing the abduction and killing of 12-year old Polly Klaas...

1996) After performing on stage, Tiny Tim collapses and dies of congestive heart failure at 71...

1999) The opening of a 135-nation trade gathering in Seattle is disrupted by some 40,000 demonstrators who clash with police...

2001) For the 1st time in its history, McDonald's teams up with a retail partner on its Happy Meal promotions. Toys R Us provides plush figures from its Animal Alley (ya think they would ever team up with Tums or Rolaids) ???

Happy Birthday To...

1918) Efrem Zimbalist Jr...

1927) Robert Guillaume...

1929) My old, but still youthful, boss Dick Clark (hope you're doing well Dick)...

1930) G. Gordon Liddy...

1937) The "Paul" of Peter, Paul and Mary, Paul Stookey...

1952) Mandy Patinkin...

1955) Billy Idol...

1965) Ben Stiller...

1978) Clay Aiken...

Commentary...

After meeting Floyd Patterson some years back, my first impression of the man was that he wasn't very big or powerful looking. A nice, quiet guy who unlike today's fighters was quite shy. He almost gave the impression that he was apologizing for beating people up in the ring. Patterson was more of a light-heavyweight in size but he was a good boxer and crafty in the ring. His weakness was not possessing a knockout punch and not being able to take one from the bigger guys. Nevertheless he didn't back down against any fighter, taking on all challengers and had a good run as heavyweight champ. That championship began on this date in 1956...


Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

An unrivaled rivalry...

You might be thinking #1 USC against cross-town rival UCLA or maybe hated rivals, the Giants and Cowboys battling for 1st place in the NFC East and you would be wrong and wrong again. No sports fans, this rivalry is being referred to as "First to 50" because the team that wins Saturday's game will have a 50-49 edge in victories in a series that goes back to this date in 1890...

The first Army-Navy football game was played at West Point and was won by the midshipmen of Navy 24-0. Touchdowns were worth 4 points back then and Charles "Red" Emerich scored 4 of them that day at the Point as Navy rolled over the Cadets. It's been a long time, how about 40 years since both teams entered this contest with winning records. This year under Bobby Ross, Army is 4-6 while Navy is 6-4. Since 1899 most of the games have been played in Philadelphia, the site of this year's game on Saturday...

Throw out team records in this game, the competition and rivalry between the 2 military academies makes this a hard-hitting, closely fought contest every year with this year being no exception. Going into Saturday's game, both Army and Navy have won 49 times and tied 7 in the 105 total games played. There were 10 years when the game was not played due to wars or conflicts...

Kickoff for the "First to 50" game is 2:30pm (est) on CBS-TV...

More November 29 Memories...

1929) Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd makes the 1st airplane flight over the South Pole...

1934) The Detroit Lions begin an annual NFL Thanksgiving Day tradition, losing to the Chicago Bears 19-16 (the game was noteworthy as being the 1st NFL game on national radio on the NBC Radio Network with Graham McNamee doing play-by-play)...

1948) The children's show, "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" debuts on the NBC-TV Network (the show began locally in Chicago and after being cancelled on the network in 1957, PBS revived the series from 1969 to 1971)...

1953) American Airlines begins the 1st regular commercial NY-LA air service...

1959) Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" wins record of the year, Frank Sinatra's "Come Dance With Me" is album of the year at the Grammies...

1963) LBJ names a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of JFK...

1964) "Ringo" tops the charts, not that Ringo, "Ringo" by Lorne Greene...

1969) The Beatles' "Come Together/Something" is #1...

1972) "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone" tops the charts for the Temptations...

1975) Bill Gates names the company he and Paul Allen started as Microsoft (which was formed to write the BASIC computer language for the Altair)...

1976) Jerry Lee Lewis almost lives up to his nickname, "The Killer" when he accidentally shoots his bass player twice in the chest while aiming at a soda bottle (Lewis is charged with shooting a firearm within city limits---no comment necessary)...

1976) The player who will self-proclaim himself "the straw that stirs the drink", free agent Reggie Jackson signs a 5-year deal with the Yankees...

1980) Georgia ends the season unbeaten and untied following a 38-20 win over Georgia Tech and Herschel Walker breaks a freshman record with 1,616 rushing yards (#1 Georgia will beat #2 Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl and Walker will win the Heisman Trophy 2 years later)...

1981) Actress Natalie Wood drowns in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island at the age of 43 and the question remains, were husband RJ and Christopher Walken doing enough to save Natalie who could not swim ???

1986) Actor Cary Grant dies at 82...

1992) The Jets' Dennis Byrd is paralyzed after a neck injury in a game against Kansas City...

2001) The Beatles' George Harrison loses his battle with cancer at 58...

Happy Birthday To...

1927) The best baseball play-by-play man in the business Vin Scully...

1940) Chuck Mangione...

1941) Denny Doherty...

1944) Felix Cavaliere...

1946) Suzy ("Chapstick") Chaffee...

1949) Gary Shandling...

1955) Howie Mandel...

1968) The Mets' Pedro Martinez...

1969) The Yankees' Mariano Rivera...

Commentary...

With thoughts of Army-Navy in mind, do yourself a favor and visit both academies. Navy is located in Annapolis, Maryland and Army is at West Point, New York. Both academies are rich in tradition and history and offer tours...

I've been to both and highly recommend them...






Monday, November 28, 2005

Monday, November 28, 2005

The Grand Ole Opry turns a grand ole 80 today...

80 years ago to the day, the longest running live music show debuted on WSM in Nashville. Host George Dewey Hay would become the Dick Clark of country music when he invited an 83-year old Civil War Veteran to play fiddle for an hour and "The WSM Barn Dance" was born. The "Barn Dance" would morph into "The Grand Ole Opry" some years later and the radio show would eventually be shared by television coverage...

Most of the 'Opry' shows originated in the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, a shrine and a national treasure which you should definitely visit the next time you're in 'Music City'. In 1974 the show moved to "Opryland", a sprawling mall-like facility in suburban Nashville. A strange transition from the Ryman to Opryland but a larger venue holding 4,400, about twice the size of the Ryman...

Those who were surprised when the CMA Awards were held in New York a couple of weeks ago, shouldn't be. Opry legends Ernest Tubb and Minnie Pearl brought country music to New York when they appeared at Carnegie Hall in 1947. In 1961 a full Opry troupe featuring Patsy Cline, Grandpa Jones, Elvises Jordanaires, Bill Monroe, Jim Reeves, Marty Robbins and Faron Young made the trip to Carnegie Hall...

This humble blogger, although born and raised in Brooklyn, New York was influenced by country music at an early age, which you can read about in my commentary which follows...

More November 28 Memories...

1582) Young Will Shakespeare having already asked Anne Hathaway, "wouldst thou taketh thine hand in holy matrimony ?" and gotten a "yea merrily" walks down the aisle with Anne as Bard and Bardess tie the poetic knot...

1925) The Grand Ole Opry debuts (feature story)...

1932) Groucho Marx debuts on the radio...

1942) Fire destroys the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston killing nearly 500...

1948) The first Polaroid camera is sold...

1956) Dodger pitcher Don Newcombe, winner of 27 games, is named the 1st Cy Young Award winner (tell me this is not a great trivia question)...

1963) "I Want To Hold Your Hand" becomes the 1st million seller prior to release...

1963) President Johnson renames Cape Canaveral, Cape Kennedy (the name was changed back to Cape Canaveral in 1973 by residents)...

1964) Willie Nelson makes his "Grand Ole Opry" debut...

1970) George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" is released...

1970) Elton John's "Your Song" is released...

1974) Elton and John Lennon sing a duet of "I Saw Her Standing There" at John Lennon's last stage appearance (at Madison Square Garden)...

1974) Bowie Kuhn suspends George Steinbrenner for 2 years (Yankee fans celebrate)...

1979) Ringo Starr's home in Los Angeles burns down...

1981) Alabama's Bear Bryant passes Amos Alonzo Stagg as the winningest coach in college history with his 315th win as Joe Namath and other ex-Crimson Tiders watch (Bryant who won 6 national titles and 15 bowl games retires with 323 victories in December, 1982 and dies of a heart attack one month later)...

1986) NBCs Ahmad Rashad proposes to Phylicia Allen on live TV during halftime of the Jets-Lions game (Phylicia accepts but Ahmad had plan B ready if she didn't, proposing to Leslie Uggams)...

1990) Margaret Thatcher resigns as Britain's prime minister...

1994) Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is murdered in prison by a fellow inmate...

1994) 1960's war protester Jerry Rubin dies 2 weeks after being hit by a car. Rubin was 56...

1995) President Bill Clinton signs a bill ending the 55 mph speed limit...

1997) The final episode of "Beavis and Butt-head" airs on MTV...

2000) 9 million people watch a Madonna concert from London over the Internet...

2001) Enron Corporation collapses after would-be rescuer Dynegy Inc. backs out of an $8.4 billion deal to take it over...

Happy Birthday To...

1929) Berry Gordy Jr...

1936) Former senator and "Love Boat" captain Gary Hart...

1943) Randy ("Short People") Newman...

1949) Paul Shaffer...

1952) S. Epatha Merkerson ("Law and Order")...

1965) Jon Stewart...

1967) Anna Nicole Smith...

Commentary...

Before hearing the pop stars of the 50's and rock and roll, country music was the first format of music I remember listening to. My Mother listened to a country station in New Jersey and watched the early TV shows that featured that genre (boy do I hate using "genre" but how else can I say it without repeating "country" ?) of music. I was the only kid at PS 164 who watched the "Midwestern" and "Louisiana" "Hayride" shows and knew who Ernest Tubb and Hank Snow were but who's gonna share that bit of information in Brooklyn ???

Besides playing country music at my first radio station, one of the stops along the way in my radio career was Nashville and the station I worked for (WKDA) was right down the street from the Ryman Auditorium. Several years ago I was fortunate to be inside the historic venue when the syndicated company (Entertainment Radio) I worked for did a special from the Ryman and was impressed by what can only be described as "the cathedral of country music". Do yourself a favor and check it out should your travels take you to Nashville...

Final thought on country music. Although everyone you ever talk to in New York radio treats country music like the plague, it is a viable format. Both Sirius (where my friend Bill Rock hosts a country show) and XM Radio have country music shows even though terrestrial radio refuses to touch it. Their loss...


Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Wednesday-Sunday, November 23-27, 2005

Happy Thanksgiving...

Before you reach for that second helping tomorrow followed by a Tums chaser, here's a brief history of Thanksgiving...

The first Thanksgiving dates back to 1621. The Pilgrims and their Indian pals didn't mark the occasion in 1620 because of a devastatingly rough first winter but the following October, that's right, October of 1621 there was a traditional English harvest feast that lasted 3 days (that corn liquor must have really kicked in during the toasts). We're not quite sure if turkey was on the table but we do know that venison, wild ducks and geese were. Interestingly enough, the Pilgrims used the term "turkey" to mean any sort of wild fowl. Along with all sorts of birds and animals that either walked or flew, there were plenty of veggies along with boiled pumpkin, not exactly in pie form, straws would have been helpful but that patent was pending at the time...

Thanksgiving wouldn't become a tradition until George Washington proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789 and in 1863 Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of Thanksgiving. It wasn't until 1941 that Thanksgiving was finally sanctioned by Congress as a legal holiday...

In 1947 the National Turkey Federation presented Harry S. Truman with one live turkey and 2 dressed turkeys (no details on how those turkeys were dressed but my guess is casual). The live turkey was pardoned and lived the rest of his life on a peaceful farm, away from axes. That started a tradition still in existence...

One final note on Thanksgiving, it's only fitting given the fighting spirit and liberal nature of New Englanders that since 1970 a group of Native Americans and others have held a National Day of Mourning to protest Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock...

Some closing thoughts on Thanksgiving follow in my commentary...

November 23 Memories...

1887) Michigan beats Notre Dame 8-0 in the 1st meeting of their rivalry...

1889) The first jukebox goes into service at the Palais Royal Saloon in San Francisco (owned by developer Louis T. Glass, the jukebox contained an Edison tinfoil phonograph with 4 listening tubes. A nickel bought a few minutes of music. The jukebox took in $1,000 in 6 months)...

1903) Enrico Caruso makes his U.S. debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York appearing in "Rigoletto"...

1936) LIFE magazine debuts with a cover picture of Fort Peck Dam in Montana (part of FDRs New Deal program). On page 2, a photo of a doctor slapping a new born baby was captioned: "LIFE begins"...

1958) Ronald and Nancy Reagan appear together in the GE Theatre production of "A Turkey for the President" (hmmm)...

1960) Elvis tops the charts with his 14th #1 hit, "Are You Lonesome Tonight"...

1964) "I Feel Fine" and "She's a Woman" is released by the Beatles...

1968) Harvard scores 2 touchdowns in 42 seconds to make up a 16 point deficit and ties Yale in "The Game", 29-29. The Harvard Gazette headline: "Harvard Wins 29-29" (the 122nd edition of "The Game" was won by Harvard this past weekend in triple overtime, Harvard's 5th win in a row over Yale)...

1974) Billy Swan reached the top of the charts with "I Can Help" (I worked that record, I worked that record)...

1976) Jerry Lee Lewis is arrested outside Graceland after waving a gun and demanding to see "The King" (if he managed to get in he and Elvis could have had a duel)...

1980) A series of earthquakes devastate southern Italy killing some 4,800 people (the land my late Dad's relatives once lived on was totally destroyed and that area around Basilicata, Potenza has never been re-built)...

1984) Doug Flutie connects with roommate Gerard Phelan on a "Hail Mary" pass and Boston College beats Miami 47-45 in one of the greatest college games of all-time (Bernie Kosar was the Miami quarterback)...

1991) A day before he dies, Queen's lead singer Freddie Mercury, 45, confirms he has AIDS...

1992) Legendary Country singer Roy Acuff dies of heart failure at 89...

Happy Birthday To...

1928) Former NY Rep. from Staten Island Guy Molinari...

1930) Retired (for the moment) baseball manager Jack McKeon...

1940) Red Sox great Luis Tiant...

1955) Bruce Hornsby...

Commentary...

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, my thanks to Rich Appel for his interview of me in his very fine monthly post "Hz So Good". If you'd like to become a subscriber, contact Rich at audiot.savant@verizon.net ...It was also good to hear from Dick Summer who read the story...

Thanksgiving is a time for friends and family and from mine to you and yours, Happy Thanksgiving. Here's to a safe, healthy and happy one. There's lots to be thankful for and right up there on that list is not being a turkey...

Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 24, 2005...

November 24 Memories...

1859) British naturalist Charles Darwin publishes "On The Origin Of Species", explaining his theory of evolution...

1871) The National Rifle Association (NRA) is incorporated (Charlton Heston was not its 1st president, that honor went to Major General Ambrose E. Burnside)...

1953) New Dodger manager Walter Alston signs the 1st of 23 one-year contracts to manage the team...

1957) Cleveland running back Jim Brown, a rookie, sets a club record of 237 yards rushing in one game...

1963) Jack Ruby guns down accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV...

1963) The NBA, NHL and AFL cancel their games, the NFL does not (Pete Rozelle considered this his worst decision as NFL commissioner)...

1966) The Beatles begin recording "Sgt. Pepper"...

1969) Lt. William Calley is charged with the masacre of over 100 civilians in My Lai, Vietnam in March, 1968...

1971) Dan (D.B.) Cooper parachutes from a Northwest Airlines 727 over Washington state with $200,000 in ransom. He was never found (although he has shown up as a prisoner on "Prison Break". Actually an actor playing Cooper does)...

1985) R&B singer Big Joe Turner dies of a heart attack...

1987) The U.S. and Soviet Union agree to scrap short and medium range missiles...

1991) Freddie Mercuy of Queen dies of AIDS at 45 (also mentioned in November 23 blog)...

1993) Congress gives its final approval to the Brady handgun control bill...

1993) Two 11-year olds are convicted of murdering a 2-year old boy in Liverpool (they are sentenced to "indefinite detention"-huh ???)...

1996) Detroit's Barry Sanders sets an NFL record when he records his 8th straight 1,000-yard season...

1998) America Online confirms it was buying Netscape for $10 billion...

Happy Birthday To...

1925) William F. Buckley...

1940) NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue...

1941) The original Beatle drummer Pete Best...

1941) Memphis music great Donald "Duck" Dunn...

1950) Stanley Livingston (Chip of "My Three Sons")...

Friday, November 25, 2005...

November 25 Memories...

1783) During the Revolutionary War, the British evacuate their last military position in the U.S., New York (and don't bother to come back you Redcoats you)...

1867) How ironic is it that on this date the man we named the Nobel Peace Prize after, Alfred Nobel, patents dynamite ???

1920) The 1st play-by-play of a football game is aired in College Station, Texas (Texas-Texas A&M)...

1940) Woody Woodpecker debuts in "Knock Knock"...

1947) Movie executives blacklist the "Hollywood 10" comprised of a group jailed for contempt of Congress for failing to "name names" to the House Un-American Activities Committee...

1949) "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" is played on the radio for the first time...

1961) The Everly Brothers are inducted into the U.S. Marine Corp Reserves...

1963) JFK is buried at Arlington National Cemetery...

1966) The Jimi Hendrix Experience makes its London performance debut at the Bag O' Nails Club...

1976) The Band bows out at a farewell concert at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom...

1980) Sugar Ray Leonard defeats Roberto Duran for the welterweight crown after Duran shouts "No mas, no mas" in the 8th round, ending the fight...

1984) 36 British and American stars (including Phil Collins, Boy George, Sting, U2, Duran Duran, George Michael & James Taylor) get together as Band-Aid to record "Do They Know It's Christmas" (proceeds go to Ethiopian famine relief, conceived by Bob Geldof)...

1986) The Iran-Contra affair erupts as President Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese reveal that profits from secret arms sales to Iran had been diverted to Nicaraguan rebels...

1997) The original Zombies play on stage for the 1st time in 30 years...

1999) 6-year old Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez is rescued by a pair of sport fishermen off the coast of Florida...

2002) President George W. Bush signs legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security and appoints Tom Ridge to be its head...

Happy Birthday To...

1920) Ricardo Montalban...

1941) Percy Sledge...

1944) Ben Stein...

1960) Amy Grant...

1969) Jill Hennessy...

1971) Christina Applegate...

1981) Barbara and Jenna Bush...

Saturday, November 26, 2005...

November 26 Memories...

1789) A day of thanksgiving is set aside by George Washington to observe the adoption of the U.S. Constitution...

1832) Public streetcar service begins in New York City...

1941) FDR signs a bill establishing the 4th Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day...

1942) "Casablanca" starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman has its world premiere at the Hollywood Theater in New York...

1958) Maurice Richard scores his 600th NHL career goal for Montreal...

1962) The Beatles record "Please Please Me"...

1968) Cream does its last concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London (the show is recorded and released as "Goodbye Cream" February 20, 1969)...

1973) President Nixon's personal secretary Rose Mary Woods takes the fall for the 18 1/2 minute gap in the Watergate tape...

1975) Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, is quilty of trying to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford...

1975) Red Sox Fred Lynn becomes the 1st rookie to win the MVP Award...

1982) Miles Davis and Cicely Tyson tie the knot...

1983) $40 million is stolen from Brinks at London's Heathrow Airport (only a fraction is recovered)...

1993) James Carville and Mary Matalin walk down the aisle with Republicans on the right and Democrats on the left...

1995) Dan Marino sets an NFL record with his 343rd touchdown pass...

1995) Two men set fire to a subway token booth in Brooklyn. The clerk inside is fatally burned...

2000) Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certifies George W. Bush the winner over Al Gore in the state's presidential balloting by 537 votes...

Happy Birthday To...

1933) Robert Goulet...

1938) Tina Turner...

1938) Rich Little...

1945) Fleetwood Mac's John McVie...

Sunday, November 27, 2005...

November 27 Memories...

1779) The 1st legally recognized university in America, the College of Pennsylvania becomes the University of Pennsylvania...

1889) Curtis P. Brady is issued the 1st permit to drive an automobile through Central Park...

1910) New York's Pennsylvania Station opens...

1965) The Lovin' Spoonful release "You Didn't Have To Be So Nice"...

1967) Capitol Records releases the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" LP...

1970) George Harrison releases his solo album "All Things Must Pass"...

1973) The Senate votes (92-3) to confirm Gerald R. Ford as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew who resigns...

1978) San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist, are shot to death inside City Hall by Dan White, a former supervisor...

1998) Answering 81 questions put to him 3 weeks earlier, President Bill Clinton states that his testimony in the Monica Lewinsky affair was "not false and misleading" (that would of course depend on what the words "false" and "misleading" mean)...

2003) President George W. Bush flies to Iraq to spend Thanksgiving with U.S. troops...

Happy Birthday To...

1946) Acting NJ Governor Richard Codey...

1957) Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg...

1964) Robin Givens...

1968) "Alias" actor Michael Vartan...

1976) Jaleel White (Urkel on "Family Matters")...


Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

One of those "where were you when it happened ?" days that we'll never forget...

There are just a handful of those days when you remember exactly where you were when it happened and November 22, 1963 is right up there in the top 3, maybe even #1 for me. I was cutting a Canada Dry commercial in the phone booth of a production studio at WMID in Atlantic City when fellow disc jockey Bob McClay made like a bad mime (aren't they all ?) imitating a gun pointed to his head and mouthing something that was impossible to hear through the thick glass separating the on-air and production studios...

I mean who would have thought that I would live to see the President of the United States killed, assassinated no less, in my lifetime ? And how many other people shared that thought ? Our own charismatic, bigger than life, young and spirited president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was gone in an instant on that dreaded day in Dallas at the hands of an ex-Marine with Communist leanings, Lee Harvey Oswald...

What followed couldn't have been scripted better in Hollywood. JFK assassinated on Friday, Oswald cut down by a fatal shot fired by Jack Ruby on live television on Sunday and Kennedy's funeral on Monday with the images of Jackie and Caroline in mourning and John-John saluting his dad...

The weekend was an endless dirge with people kind of sleepwalking or trying to will the disbelieving event away but keeping an eye on additional unfolding events on television. At WMID we toned all the music down, carried some network news and stumbled through our broadcast day...

More memories of that day in Dallas and WMID in my commentary...

More November 22 Memories...

1906) The S-O-S distress signal is adopted in Berlin...

1917) The NHL is formed with 5 Canadian teams...

1950) The Fort Wayne Pistons beat the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18 in the lowest scoring game in NBA history (which makes you wonder what the leading scorer had)...

1955) RCA pays $25,000 to Sam Phillips for the rights to the music of a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi by the name of Elvis. Colonel Tom Parker tosses in a $5,000 bonus as well which Elvis would spend on a pink Cadillac for his mother...

1957) Simon & Garfunkel appear on "American Bandstand" as Tom & Jerry, their first stage name...

1961) Frank Robinson is the first player to win MVP awards in both leagues...

1963) JFK is assassinated (feature story)...

1964) The Shangri-Las are #1 with "Leader of the Pack"...

1968) The Beatles' "White Album" is released...

1971) "Theme from 'Shaft" tops the charts for Isaac Hayes (the single is the 3rd chart topper to win an Academy Award for best song)...

1980) Mae West dies at 88...

1985) 38,648 immigrants become U.S. citizens after a week of rallies around the country (Chrysler's Lee Iacocca helps to preside over the event. Hey Lee, how about a new car for everyone ?)...

1986) Mike Tyson becomes the youngest world heavyweight champion by KOing Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas (Tyson is 20 years and 4 months old which is his biological age, not his mental age)...

1986) "Human" by Human League is #1...

1997) INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence is found hanging in his hotel suite in Sydney, Australia...

1998) John Elway becomes only the second NFL quarterback to surpass 50,000 yards, joining Dan Marino (both will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame)...

1998) "60 Minutes" airs videotape of Dr. Jack Kevorkian administering lethal drugs to a terminally ill patient...

1999) "The Great One", Wayne Gretzky is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame (Gretzky retired with 61 NHL records)...

Happy Birthday To...

1932) "Man from U.N.C.L.E." actor Robert Vaughn...

1943) Tennis Hall of Famer Billie Jean King...

1950) Steve Van Zandt...

1958) Jamie Lee Curtis...

1961) Mariel Hemingway...

1967) Tennis Hall of Famer Boris Becker...

1984) Scarlett Johansson...

Commentary...

It's interesting to note that the Warren Commision report of 1964 concluded that there was no conspiracy in the JFK assassination yet the 1978 House Select Committee ruled that Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy" that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee's findings as with those of the Warren Commission continue to be widely disputed. Will we ever know ?

I remember visiting the plaza that contains the Texas School Book Depository Building, the alleged site of Lee Harvey Oswald's shooting and noting how small the area was and that it could be possible that the president was shot from that distance but then again I believe that there was another gunman on the "grassy knoll" where it looked like shots were also fired from. Can I say this with any degree of certainty ? Certainly not. Who knows what really happened and whether or not we will ever find out ???

Remembering this day in 1963 brings back memories of WMID, the breeding ground of many jocks who were either in a holding pattern (Like Humble Harve) waiting for a major market station opening or those who cut their radio teeth at the "Jersey Giant" like legendary talker Joe Pyne. There was Tom Donahue, the father of AOR radio who along with the original Bobby Mitchell and then Bob McClay were all trail-blazers at KSAN and other stations in the San Francisco bay area. There was Harvey Holliday, Bill Todd a.k.a. Johnny Williams, Bob Connell, Bruce Greenberg, Greg Mason, Jerry Blavat and on and on the list goes. Let's not forget Mike McCann who also plied his work at WMID. The list is not only legendary, it's endless. If you worked at WMID, you know who you are...

Those who've worked at WMID have a favorite memory, mine is personal, the birth of my daughter Lynn who was born in Atlantic City Hospital just a couple of months after that dark day in 1963...


Monday, November 21, 2005

Monday, November 21, 2005

Bridging the boroughs...

When I was growing up in Brooklyn, my friends and I would take the ferry to Staten Island on a hot day just to cruise the waters of New York harbor to get a cooling breeze. The trip would start with a bus ride to South Brooklyn and then the ferry ride to Richmond a.k.a. Staten Island. Once we got to Staten Island we did what most people do when they reach that wayward borough, we turned around and came back home. The ferry between the boroughs would run until the day it was no longer needed. That day was November 21, 1964 when the world's longest suspension bridge opened...

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge had its first and only blissful traffic jam when the span officially opened to traffic at 3pm after a brief statement by Mayor Robert Wagner about "a new summit of achievement, biggest, most beautiful, princely, stately, etcetera". Wagner was so happy, probably because he didn't have to pay the 50 cent toll linking the two boroughs like 22-year old George Scarpelli, a parks department employee did. The Staten Islander happily loaded his Cadillac with 6 of his buddies to become the first official passenger to use the bridge. His toll was taken by collector Larry Chrusano, who pocketed the 50 cents, replacing it with money of his own...

5,000 cars streamed across the bridge in its first hour of operation and interestingly enough, yet predictably, 70% of the traffic went from Staten Island to Brooklyn. It must have seemed to Staten Islanders like they had discovered a link to the rest of the world...

In all fairness, tons of Brooklynites would settle on the "other" side of the bridge. Prices were more reasonable and there were plenty of open spaces to call home. You might say the two boroughs got married that day and all it cost was 50 cents...

More November 21 Memories...

1620) The Mayflower reaches Provincetown, MA (the Pilgrims would settle in Plymouth on December 26th)...

1877) Thomas A. Edison announces the invention of the phonograph or as he calls it, his "talking machine"...

1922) Rebecca L. Felton of Georgia is sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate...

1959) Jack Benny (violin) and future President Richard Nixon (piano) jam on TV...

1963) JFK and Jackie arrive in San Antonio where they will begin an ill-fated 2-day tour of Texas...

1968) The Supremes and Temptations release "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me"...

1973) Nixon attorney, J. Fred (not Muggs) Buzhardt announces an 18 1/2 minute gap in one of the White House tapes related to Watergate (oops)...

1980) An estimated 83 million viewers tune in to find out "who shot J.R." on Dallas. In case you were hidden under a rock at the time, Kristin was the character that fired the gun...

1980) 87 perish in a tragic fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas...

1980) Gene Michael is named the 25th Yankee manager, replacing Dick Howser (contrary to popular belief, "The Stick" was not the 25th manager named by George Steinbrenner, it just seems like it)...

1981) Quarterback Jim McMahon caps his record-setting college career at Brigham Young by passing for 565 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 56-28 victory over Utah (McMahon set 70 NCAA passing marks at BYU, paving the way for notable successor, Steve Young)...

1982) The NFL resumes its season following a 57-day player's strike...

1982) Joni Mitchell marries her bass player, Larry Klein (after the ceremony Joni announces that she has paved paradise)...

1983) New York Ranger Ron Greschner marries model Carol Alt...

1987) Demi Moore and Bruce Willis walk down the aisle...

1995) "Toy Story", starring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen premieres (the movie will gross $300 million in one year)...

1995) The "Beatles Anthology I" sets a first-day sales record, selling 450,000 units (a new song, "Free As A Bird" is contained in the anthology)...

1995) The Dow Jones closes above 5,000 for the 1st time...

2000) The Florida Supreme Court grants Democrat Al Gore's request to keep the presidential recounts going (earth to Al, earth to Al: YOU LOST!!!)...

2003) Phil Spector is charged with the murder of Lana Clarkson at his home the previous February. Spector pleads innocent...

Happy Birthday To...

1920) Baseball Hall of Famer Stan Musial...

1937) Marlo Thomas...

1940) Dr. John...

1942) Tweety Bird...

1944) Earl ("The Pearl") Monroe...

1945) Goldie Hawn...

1950) Livingston (brother of James) Taylor...

1952) Lorna Luft (half-sister of Liza's)...

1963) Nicollette Sheridan...

1971) Giants defensive lineman Michael Strahan...


Friday, November 18, 2005

Friday-Sunday, November 18-20, 2005

Jonestown massacre...

Try as I might to come up with a more digestible (so to speak) feature story to start my weekend blog off with, this anniversary item kept smacking me in the face. I mean I try to keep things light but it's got to be a major story and there was no bigger story in the November 18th archives than the horror that occurred in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978...

Consider this: People's Temple leader Jim Jones forced his followers to commit mass suicide by drinking a cyanide-laced fruit-flavored concoction and while a dozen or so escaped, the final death toll was 913, including 276 children. That's 913, including 276 children...

Those snapshots that we have of the horrible carnage will live with us forever in our mental archives, and hopefully not recalled more than once a year or so. That would be more than enough. Why do people follow someone like Jim Jones as they did from Indianapolis in the '50s to northern California in the 60s to the South American jungles in the 70s, to their deaths on this date in 1978 ???

If we knew perhaps we could stop the next cult leader...

More November 18 Memories...

1928) The first successful sound-synchronized animated cartoon premieres in New York City. It's Walt Disney's "Steamboat Willie". Mickey Mouse is born...

1956) Fats Domino sings "Blueberry Hill" on the "Ed Sullivan Show"...

1963) Dale and Grace are #1 with "I'm Leaving It Up To You"...

1964) The Supremes and Righteous Brothers appear on "Shindig!"...

1966) U.S. Roman Catholic bishops do away with the rule against eating meat on Fridays (butchers across America rejoice)...

1966) Future Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax retires at 30 because of severe arthritis in his pitching (left) arm...

1967) 3rd ranked USC upsets #1, cross-town rivals UCLA 21-20 en route to their 1st national title since 1962 (the game featured future Heisman Trophy winners O.J. Simpson & Gary Beban)...

1969) The patriarch of the Kennedy family, Joseph P. Kennedy dies at 81 at the compound in Hyannisport...

1970) Jerry Lee Lewis and wife Myra Brown are divorced (wasn't this his cousin ?)...

1973) Ringo Starr is #1 with "Photograph" (written by Ringo and George Harrison)...

1985) Quarterback Joe Theismann, 35, who led the Redskins to the 1983 Super Bowl title suffers a career-ending compound fracture of his lower right leg when he was sacked by the Giants Lawrence Taylor in a nationally televised Monday Night Football game...

1987) Billy Idol's remake of Tommy James' "Mony, Mony" tops the charts (13 years after Tommy & the Shondells made it a hit)...

1990) Mick Jagger marries model-actress Jerry Hall in Bali (they have 2 children after a 12-year marriage that is dissolved in 1999 after allegations that Mick fathered a child by Brazilian model Luciana Morad)...

1990) Paul McCartney's birth certificate is sold for $18,000 in an auction (he doesn't have a birth certificate now ?)...

1991) Shiite Muslim kidnappers release Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite and educator Thomas Sutherland...

1994) Cab Calloway dies in a Delaware nursing home of a stroke at 86...

1995) The Rolling Stones become the first act to broadcast a concert on the internet...

1999) 12 students are killed when a bonfire under construction at Texas A&M collapses...

1999) In Jasper, Texas, Shawn Allen Berry is convicted of murder for his role in the dragging death of James Byrd Jr., but spared the death penalty...

2001) Phillips (no relation) Petroleum and Conoco announce a merger creating the third-largest U.S. oil and gas company...

2003) The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules that gay couples can marry (not that there's anything wrong with that)...

2003) Police and prosecutors raid Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch on a $3 million arrest warrant for child molestation (no comment necessary)...

Happy Birthday To...

1928) Steamboat Willie a.k.a. Mickey Mouse...

1939) Brenda Vaccaro...

1942) Linda Evans...

1953) Kevin Nealon...

1968) The Yankees Gary Sheffield...

1968) Owen Wilson...

1975) Red Sox David (Big Papi) Ortiz...

Saturday, November 19, 2005...

Everyone knows this Gettysburg Address...

Okay, here's one for the history buffs. Abraham Lincoln's most famous speech was delivered today in 1863 during the American Civil War. The location of the speech was the Soldier's National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Lincoln was dedicating the cemetery that day and his speech of only 300 words or so would resonate for a lifetime...

The president invoked the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence and redefined the Civil War as a struggle not merely for the Union but as "a new birth of freedom" for the United States and its people, in the hope that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth"...

One newspaper account of "Lincoln's few appropriate remarks" mentioned "Lincoln's high-pitched Kentucky accent". For those of you who weren't really sure, like me, the exact definition in years of "four score and seven years ago", Webster (the dictionary not Daniel) defines a "score" as "a group of 20 things". Four score and 7 years ago is 87 years from the time of Lincoln's address, the year we gained our independence in 1776...

More November 20 Memories...

1863) Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (feature story)...

1954) Two automatic toll collectors are placed on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey (ch-ching)...

1954) Sammy Davis Jr. loses an eye (he didn't wear that eye-patch on his left eye for nothing) in a serious auto accident in San Bernardino, CA...

1959) Ford announces it will end the production of their Edsel (the son or the car ?)...

1966) #1 ranked Notre Dame and second-ranked Michigan State play to a 10-10 tie when Irish coach Ara Parseghian plays it safe, playing for a tie instead of a win...

1966) Brazilian soccer great Pele scores his 1,000th goal (the soccer equivalent of Babe Ruth's 714 home runs)...

1968) The Supremes perform before Britain's Queen Elizabeth...

1969) Apollo XII astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean make man's second landing on the moon...

1978) Giant quarterback Joe Pisarcik needs only to put his knee to the ground to secure a 17-12 victory for Big Blue over hated-rivals Philadelphia. With 20 seconds left in the game Pisarcik tries a handoff instead and fumbles. Current (for now anyway) Jet coach Herman Edwards picks up the fumble and in the words of the late Howard Cosell, "he...could...go...all...the...way". Edwards races 26 yards for the winning touchdown. Eagles beat the Giants...Eagles beat the Giants...Eagles beat the Giants...

1979) Houston's Nolan Ryan signs a 4-year contract worth $4.5 million becoming the highest paid player in baseball (a utility player makes that amount today)...

1985) President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev meet for the 1st time at a summit in Geneva...

1990) The pop duo Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Awards for lip-synching...

1997) Septuplets are born to Bobbi McCaughey in Carlisle, Iowa (it's only the second known case where all 7 are born alive)...

1998) The impeachment inquiry of President Clinton begins...

Happy Birthday To...

1919) Mr. Ed's "Wilbbbburrr" Alan Young...

1933) Larry King...

1936) Dick Cavett...

1938) Ted Turner...

1939) Garrick Utley...

1942) Calvin Klein...

1956) Ann Curry...

1961) Meg Ryan...

1962) Jodie Foster...

Sunday, November 20, 2005...

The Band plays on...

One of the more bizarre finishes in college football history happened on this date in 1982, when California defeated Stanford in the closing seconds of the game, 25-20 and this is how it happened...

With Stanford up 20-19 and 4 seconds remaining in the game, California returned a kickoff for the winning touchdown. Kevin Moen started and ended the spectacular 55-yard return on 5 laterals. Moen picked up the ball at the California 45, lateraled to Richard Rodgers (the player not the composer) who ran about 10 yards before flipping the ball to Dwight Garner. Garner goes 20 yards and then tosses the ball back to Rodgers who turns and laterals to Marriet Ford (interesting hotel/car name there) who tosses the ball to Moen, who weaves his way through the stunned members of the Stanford band for the winning touchdown (just the way they planned it, right ?)...

The Stanford band, convinced that their team had won, positioned themselves in the end zone for the victory march but the 5-lateral, miracle touchdown stunned saxophonists and drummers alike...Game over...California beats Stanford 25-20...

More interesting info on this most bizarre finish follows in my commentary...

More November 20 Memories...

1928) The Boston Bruins lose to Montreal 1-0 as the Boston Garden opens...

1947) Britain's future queen, Princess Elizabeth marries Philip Montbatten, Duke of Edinburgh in Westminster Abbey...

1960) Frank Gifford gets knocked into Monday when the Eagles Chuck Bednarik hits the Giant running back from the blindside in a game that clinches the Eastern Conference title for Philadelphia (the legal hit forces Gifford to miss the '61 season and effectively ends his career. Kathie Lee Gifford is the reward)...

1962) The Four Seasons release "Big Girls Don't Cry"...

1962) Mickey Mantle wins his 3rd American League MVP Award...

1969) The use of DDT is banned...

1975) Spain's General Francisco Franco dies after nearly 4 decades of absolute rule...

1977) Walter Payton runs for 275 yards in a 10-7 win over Minnesota, breaking the single-game rushing record held by O.J. Simpson (273) in 1976 (Payton's mark will be broken in 2000)...

1982) The California-Stanford game (feature story)...

1982) Drew Barrymore at 7 becomes the youngest host of Saturday Night Live...

1983) An estimated 100 million viewers watch the controversial ABC-TV movie "The Day After" which depicts a nuclear holocaust...

1984) McDonald's makes its 50 billionth hamburger (Tums and Rolaids sell their 50th billion antacid to mark the occasion)...

1994) David Crosby gets a liver transplant (who gets the old liver ?)...

1995) Princess Diana admits being unfaithful to Prince Charles on a BBC television show (the Prince retaliates by ringing up Camilla)...

1998) Afghanistan offers safe haven to Osama bin Laden...

1998) 46 states agree to a $206 billion settlement of health claims against the tabacco industry (the other 4 states abstain ???)...

Happy Birthday To...

1919) Evelyn Keyes...

1926) Kaye Ballard...

1927) Estelle Parsons...

1932) Richard Dawson (yes he's alive as his very funny website tells us)...

1939) Dick Smothers...

1946) Judy Woodruff...

1947) Eagles' Joe Walsh...

1956) Bo Derek...

Commentary...

In addition to that wild finish in the California-Stanford game on November 20, 1982:

  • Notre Dame was knocked out of bowl consideration when they lost to Air Force...
  • Washington was denied a 3rd consecutive trip to the Rose Bowl when they lost to rival Washington State...

You may have heard of the quarterback for Stanford in that 1982 game. His name was John Elway. Even senior John Elway couldn't help his team win that game against California...


Thursday, November 17, 2005

Thursday, November 17, 2005

The greatest game ending never seen...

Okay so you're watching this hard hitting, classic shootout of a game between the Jets and those dastardly Oakland Raiders. It's a see-saw affair with the Raiders ahead at the half 14-12. In the second half both teams trade punches and scores several times and then Jim Turner connects on a 26-yard field goal putting the Jets ahead 32-29 with 1:05 ticks left on the clock. The Jets kick off to the Raiders who bring the ball up to their own 23 yard line. Oh, what's that, a commercial, okay I'll wait. It's worth waiting a couple of minutes for what promises to be a classic ending. Commercials over, okay here we go. Wait a minute who's that little girl in an apron ? Heidi ? Heidi who ? Must be some mistake. No mistake, the legend of "The Heidi Game" is born...

NBC-TV executives had instructed Broadcast Operations Supervisor, Dick Cline, to cut to "Heidi" at 7pm whether the game was over or not. Seeing what a great game this had become, the powers that be, changed their minds but couldn't get through to Cline to break the news to him and why was that ? How about thousands of complaining viewers who blew out NBC's phone line ?...

And the game, what happened in the game, you might ask. Here's what you didn't see. The Oakland Raiders scored 2 touchdowns in 9 seconds and held on to win, 43-32 in what fans have voted as one of the 10 most memorable games in football history. The final score of the game ran as a crawl across the bottom of the screen at 7:20 during, what else ? "Heidi"...

Some interesting "Heidi Game" factoids follow in my commentary...

More November 17 Memories...

1934) Future President Lyndon B. Johnson marries Claudia Alta Taylor, better known to you and I as "Lady Bird"...

1956) Jimmy Brown finishes his college career at Syracuse by running for 6 touchdowns and kicking 7 extra points in a 61-7 shellacking of Colgate...

1965) The Supremes top the charts with "I Hear A Symphony"...

1968) "The Heidi Game" (feature story)...

1973) At an Associated Press meeting in Orlando, President Nixon gives his famous "I'm not a crook" speech (full quote: "people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.")...

1975) KC & the Sunshine Band are #1 with "That's the way (I Like It)"...

1980) John Lennon's two-record set "Double Fantasy" LP is released...

1984) Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" (which I worked on) tops the charts...

1985) Howard Stern starts at K-Rock (WXRK)...

1990) David Crosby breaks his left leg, ankle and shoulder in a motorcycle accident in L.A...

1997) Mario Lemieux (who's still playing) is voted into the NHL Hall of Fame...

2001) "Toys "R" Us" opens a mammoth store in Times Square...

2003) John Allen Muhammad is convicted of two-counts of capital murder in the Washington, D.C. area sniper shootings...

2003) Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes the "governator" by being sworn in as the 38th governor of Cahl-if-forrrr-nee-uh...

Happy Birthday To...

1938) Gordon Lightfoot...

1942) Bob Gaudio (Four Seasons)...

1942) Martin Scorsese...

1943) Lauren Hutton...

1944) Danny DeVito...

1944) SNL producer Lorne Michaels...

1944) The Mets "franchise" Tom Seaver...

1960) RuPaul...

Commentary...

While NBC-TV executives frantically tried reaching Dick Cline, the thousands of protesting callers started calling the police, the telephone company and the New York Times (hmmm). At 8:30 NBC made a public apology and the next morning, just take a wild guess what the headline of the New York Times screamed ? "The Heidi Game" was treated like the major event it became...

In a poorly executed cover-up NBC bought ads in several major newspapers proclaiming rave reviews for "Heidi" along with this quote from Jets quarterback Joe Namath: "I didn't get a chance to see it, but I heard it was great." Good thing NBC never ran a political campaign is what I'm thinking...

The end result of the botched ending of the Jets-Raiders thriller was the vow by the networks never to interrupt the ending of a local game, however to this day the networks break away to the 4pm game whether or not the 1pm game is over. The only exception is for the local team, which is protected. Now we need the networks to let the 1pm game finish with a split screen of that game and the 4pm game until the first game is over...


Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Last but not least...

New England gave birth to a brand new bouncing baby on this date in 1959 when a group of local Boston businessmen led by former public relations executive William H. "Billy" Sullivan, Jr. was awarded the 8th and final franchise in the new American Football League. Now let's see, what shall we call him ? Well we're the home of the battles of Lexington and Concord, Paul Revere, minutemen and lots of other patriots, hey we may be on to something. Did someone say patriots ? Hmmm...

The first Patriot logo featured "Pat Patriot" dressed for battle in a 3-point stance, football in right hand, ready to be snapped to a waiting quarterback (not pictured, he may have been reloading his musket and preparing himself for another battle). I must confess that being a diehard Patriot fan who got used to the "Flying Elvis" logo that would be the successor to our beloved "Pat Patriot" in the 70s, I still consider Pat to be an old and cherished friend that I still miss...

Silver has been added to the original team colors of red, white and blue (you were expecting maybe purple or even worse, teal ?) in recent years and as long as black never rears its ugly head, rest easy fellow Patriot fans...

Following a rough start in 1960, the Patriots had a winning record in their second year but victories were scarce in the 60s and 70s and while the home team teased us by tying for the Eastern Division title in 1963 they would lose in the playoffs. In 1978 the Pats would win their 1st Eastern Division crown. They would appear in their 1st Super Bowl (XX) in 1986 but get crushed by the Chicago Bears, reappear in 1997 (SB XXXI) only to lose again, this time to the Green Bay Packers but the Super Bowls played in 2002, 2004 and 2005 brought victory to the red, white, blue (and okay, silver) and those 3 Super Bowl titles in the last 4 years mark the Patriots as the most successful NFL franchise in the land. Thank you Billy Sullivan...

More on the Patriots follows in my commentary...

More November 16 Memories...

1952) Lucy holds the football for Charlie Brown for the 1st time in "Peanuts"...

1957) Jim Brown sets an NFL season rushing record of 1,163 yards after only 8 games...

1957) Dick Lynch scampers around right end for a touchdown, ending Oklahoma's streak of 47 straight wins as Notre Dame beats the #1 ranked Oakies 7-0 at Norman, Oklahoma...

1959) Billy Sullivan buys the Patriots (feature story)...

1959) Rodgers & Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music" opens on Broadway...

1960) "Stay" by Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs tops the charts (the song is the shortest #1 single in the rock era at one minute and 37 seconds)...

1960) Clark Gable dies of a heart attack at 59...

1966) Dr. Sam Sheppard is acquitted in his second trial on charges he had murdered his pregnant wife, Marilyn, in 1954 (this story was the basis for the TV series, "The Fugitive")...

1970) "I Think I Love You" tops the charts for David Cassidy & The Patridge Family (the song tops the charts exactly 2 months and 4 days after the TV show debuts)...

1974) John Lennon has his 1st and only solo #1, "Whatever Gets You Through The Night" (with piano and backup vocals provided by Elton John)...

1974) Motown releases "Boogie On Reggae Woman" by Stevie Wonder...

1978) The movie version of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" opens (The Bee Gees, Peter Frampton and Billy Preston make their acting debuts)...

1979) Paul McCartney releases "Wonderful Christmas"...

1980) "Lady" by Kenny Rogers is #1 (written and produced by Lionel Richie)...

1981) Luke marries Laura on "General Hospital" in front of 16 million viewers...

1982) An agreement is announced on the 57th day of a strike by NFL players...

1987) Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet say their "I Do's" on Lisa's 20th birthday (the couple will separate in 1990 and divorce in 1993)...

2000) Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting president to visit Communist Vietnam...

2001) Congress passes an aviation security bill mandating that airport screeners be federal employees...

Happy Birthday To...

1928) Clu Gulager...

1958) Marge (Margggg, with a hard "g" or is it a soft "g" ?) Helgenberger...

1964) Dwight Gooden (hopefully he gets a leave to celebrate)...

1964) Diana Krall...

1967) Lisa Bonet...

1977) Oksana Baiul...

Commentary...

Billy Sullivan, the original owner of the Patriots was a cheerful Irishman (oh, really ?) who always had a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. He was the perfect owner and spokeman for this fledgling team. Billy wasted little time after receiving the franchise in 1959, drafting a running back, Ron Burton from Northwestern University, with his first draft pick with the not so immortal running back Gerhardt Schwedes being the team's first territorial choice...

I had a pressbox view of most of the nomadic Patriots' games in the 60s (from '66 on). After getting kicked out of Fenway Park by Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey the team was homeless, playing games wherever they could find a field. I saw them play at B.C.'s Alumni Field and even Harvard Stadium. All that changed in 1971 when the Patriots finally had a home of their own at Schaefer Stadium in Foxboro. It was exciting to be part of the press day, walk on the synthetic turf and witness the 1st exhibition game and season opener that year (both won by the Pats). 1971 was also the year that the "Boston" Patriots became the "New England" Patriots...

The Patriots have come a long way from this day in 1959 when Billy Sullivan and others brought a new baby into the world and those of us that are part of Patriot's Nation are grateful for the gift. Now let's get healthy and turn this season around and make it 4 Super Bowl wins in 5 years...


Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

(chime effect) "N (g) - B (e) - C (c)"...

No, this is not the formula for nuclear fission. If you use your imagination a little, well a lot, you would hear the NBC chimes used to identify the network. The small letters next to "NBC" are the keys on the musical scale used for the chimes. I do wish keyboards had a musical note symbol but hey, you can't have everything. Then again, how often would you be describing musical notes in a blog ? We go back to the "Roaring Twenties" for today's feature story, the era of the "Great One", Gatsby not Gretsky...

The National Broadcasting Company debuted on this date in 1926 with a radio network of 24 stations. The first network radio broadcast was a 4-hour special emanating from the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria. Nationally known bands (known only to those nationally known bands) wailed away, some at remote locations for an estimated audience numbering nearly half of the 5 million radio sets in use in 1926. It was quite the bash...

Earlier in the year, AT&T (yes, that AT&T) sold WEAF (soon to become WNBC) to RCA. RCA then had the rights to rent AT&T's phone lines for network transmission and the race was on...By the way RCA got WEAF and a Washington sister-station (WCAP) for a cool $1,000,000...

Some more interesting stuff about the NBC network will follow in my commentary...

More November 15 Memories...

1939) FDR lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C...

1939) The Social Security Administration approves the 1st unemployment check and America rejoices...

1940) The Midtown Tunnel linking Manhattan and Queens opens to traffic...

1956) Elvis Presley's 1st movie, "Love Me Tender" premieres at the New York Paramount Theater (the film will earn back its $1 million cost in just 3 days and over the next 13 years Elvis will appear in 33 movies)...

1965) The Rolling Stones make their TV debut on "Hullabaloo" doing "Get Off My Cloud"...

1966) After a scare, the flight of Gemini XII splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean with James A. Lovell and Buzz Aldrin aboard...

1967) The Red Sox' Carl Yastrzemski wins the AL MVP (in the greatest individual season for a player I ever witnessed)...

1969) A quarter of a million protesters stage a peaceful demonstration against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C...

1969) Pass the Rolaids, Wendy's opens...

1969) "I Want You Back" becomes the 1st Jackson Five record to debut on the charts (the first of 31 over the next 20 years)...

1988) The legislative body of the PLO proclaims the establishment of an idependent Palestinian state...

1990) David Bowie debuts on Broadway in the title role of "The Elephant Man"...

1990) Frank Farian, producer of Milli Vanilli publicly admits that Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus never sang a note on their records and that they did a lip-synch when they performed...

1992) Richard Petty's 35-year reign as stock-car's king ends in a fiery crash when his famous #43 gets caught in a wreck in a race (unhurt he will finish the race retiring with 7 Nascar championships and 7 Daytona 500 victories, both records)...

1993) A judge in Mineola sentences Joey Buttafuoco to 6 months in jail for the statutory rape of the "Long Island Lolita", Amy Fisher who shot Joey's wife Mary Jo (does this all sound like a Soap to you ?)...

2001) Roger Clemens of the Yankees wins a record 6th Cy Young Award, emblematic of the best pitcher in the American League (you might want to include all of baseball if you'd like)...

Happy Birthday To...

1919) Judge Joseph Wapner...

1929) Edward Asner...

1932) Petula Clark...

1934) Joanna Barnes...

1940) Sam Waterston...

1945) Frida (Lyngstad) of ABBA...

Commentary...

Anytime there's a major anniversary in radio I'm gonna go with it as the medium was the career of my choosing and for those of you likely inclined, here are some interesting tidbits on the 79th anniversary of the NBC Radio network:

  • the famous 3-note NBC chimes were lifted from WSB in Atlanta when an NBC executive heard WSB use it during the broadcast of a Georgia Tech game...
  • NBC started using the 3 notes in 1931 and it was the 1st ever audio trademark to be accepted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office...
  • a 4th chime (key of C) was used during wartime (especially in the wake of Pearl Harbor and other disasters)...
  • the NBC Radio Network ceased to exist in 1989 and would become a brand-name used by Westwood One...


Monday, November 14, 2005

Monday, November 14, 2005

The winningest coach of all-time...

One of pro football's most cherished records was erased from the NFL record books on this date in 1993 when the Miami Dolphins defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 19-14 on the road in Philadelphia...

The Dolphins win gave coach Don Shula his 325th win, moving him past the Bears' George Halas and it took him 9 years less than Papa Bear Halas to accomplish the feat. For the record, Shula's 325 wins in 31 years gives him an average of more than 10 wins for each season he coached in the NFL...

Shula would only coach 2 teams during his tenure, the Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins. He would retire after the 1995 season with a regular season mark of 328-156-6. That combined with his post-season mark of 19-17 would give the legendary coach a career mark of 347 wins, 173 losses and 6 ties...

Shula's career coaching record for wins should stand the test of time and may never be broken. More of Shula's accomplishments in my commentary...

More November 14 Memories...

1832) The first streetcar goes into service in New York City. It was horse-drawn with room for 30 (the ride cost a whopping 12 cents and ran on Manhattan's 4th Avenue between Prince and 14th Streets)...

1851) Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick" is published...

1889) New York World reporter Nellie Bly a.k.a. Elizabeth Cochrane begins an attempt to surpass the fictitious journey of Jules Verne's Phineas Fogg by traveling around the world in less than 80 days. Bly succeeds by finishing the journey in 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes in January...

1943) Leonard Bernstein makes his debut with the New York Philharmonic filling in for the ailing Bruno Walter prior to a nationally broadcast concert (Lenny was 25 years old and was an assistant conductor at the time)...

1961) Ray Charles tops the charts with "Georgia On My Mind"...

1961) Elvis Presley's "Blue Hawaii" premieres...

1968) Yale University announces it will go co-ed...

1970) Santana's "Black Magic Woman" is released...

1972) The Dow Jones closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the 1st time...

1972) Johnny Nash tops the charts with "I Can See Clearly Now"...

1973) Britain's Princess Anne marries commoner, Capt. Mark Phillips in Westminster Abbey (they will divorce in 1992 as the Princess re-marries)...

1981) It's "Australia-mania" as 4 of the top 10 singles are by artists from down under, led by Olivia Newton-John's #3 hit "Physical". The other Aussies are the Little River Band, Air Supply and Rick Springfield...

1982) Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes are #1 with "Up Where We Belong" (the single from "An Officer and a Gentleman" will win an Academy Award)...

1986) The Doubleday Publishing Company agrees to sell the Mets to Nelson Doubleday & Fred Wilpon for $80.75 million (the company had purchased the World Champions for a then-record $21.1 million in 1980)...

1986) A record $100 million penalty is imposed against Ivan F. Boesky for insider trading...

1987) Sonny and Cher reunite on the David Letterman Show and sing "I Got You Babe"...

1990) From the "more than we need to know" file: The Who's Pete Townshend confesses his bisexuality to "Newsweek"...

1993) Don Shula becomes the winningest NFL coach (feature story)...

1996) Michael Jackson "marries" Deborah Rowe (how did that work out ?). The couple will have 2 children before divorcing in 1999...

1997) Disney's "Lion King" sets a Broadway record of $2.7 million in one-day sales...

1998) From the "another marriage made in heaven" file: Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman (who wore the bridal gown ?) marry in Las Vegas (where else ?)...

Happy Birthday To...

1940) Freddie Garrity (Freddie & the Dreamers)...

1947) Buckwheat Zydeco...

1948) Britain's Prince Charles...

1951) Stephen Bishop...

1954) Yanni...

1954) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice...

1966) Curt ("bloody sock") Schilling...

Commentary...

Just some of Don Shula's career highlights as a coach:

Don Shula's 1st win as a coach: September 22, 1963. A 20-14 win over the 49ers...
Shula was the coach when Miami finished with a perfect 17-0 record in 1972...
Shula won Super Bowls VII and VIII and is the only coach in NFL history to have teams in 6 Super Bowls...
When he replaced Weeb Ewbank as coach of the Baltimore Colts in 1963, he was the youngest (at 33) head coach in the NFL's modern era...

Don Shula retired following the 1995 season and is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame...


Friday, November 11, 2005

Friday-Sunday, November 11-13, 2005

Veteran's Day through the years...

November 11th was originally known as 'Armistice Day' when World War I came to an end in 1918. Let's look back at this date and see what transpired through the years:

1885) George Patton, perhaps our greatest general was born on this date...

1918) World War I ended when the Allies and Germany signed an armistice...

1921) The Tomb of the Unknowns was dedicated at Arlington Cemetary by U.S. President Harding...

1938) Kate Smith sang Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" for the 1st time on network radio...

1940) The Jeep makes its debut...

1942) During World War II Germany completes its occupation of France...

1972) The U.S. Army turns over its base at Long Bihn to the South Vietnamese army. This event symbolized the end of direct involvement in the Vietnam War by the U.S. military...

1984) President Reagan accepts the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as a gift to the nation from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund...

1993) A bronze statue is dedicated in Washington, DC to honor more than 11,000 American women who served in the Vietnam War...

1996) The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund unveils "The Wall That Heals", a half-scale replica of the memorial that will tour communities throughout the U.S...

More November 11 Memories...

1944) The Rangers set an NHL record of 25 games without a win...

1946) The New York Knicks play their 1st home game at Madison Square Garden (they lose 78-68 to the Chicago Stags)...

1958) Hank Ballard & the Midnighters record the original version of "The Twist"...

1963) Brian Epstein and Ed Sullivan sign a 3-show contract for Beatles appearances on the Sunday night show...

1972) Berry Oakley of the Allman Brothers is killed in a motorcycle accident one year and 13 days after Duane Allman met the same fate, just 3 blocks away (Oakley was 24)...

1981) Dodger pitcher Fernando Valenzuela becomes the 1st rookie ever to win the Cy Young Award (less than a month later he wins Rookie of the Year honors)...

1984) 13-year old Gary Coleman undergoes his 2nd kidney transplant in Los Angeles (he had his 1st transplant at 5)...

1986) Sperry Rand and Burroughs merge to form "Unisys", becoming the 2nd largest computer company...

1989) Melissa Etheridge and Joe Cocker entertain Germans celebrating the newly destroyed Berlin Wall...

1990) Derrick Thomas of Kansas City sets an NFL record with 7 sacks in a 17-16 Chiefs win over Seattle (Thomas will die at 33 in February, 2000 from injuries that paralyzed him in a car crash)...

2000) A cable car crammed with skiers caught fire in an Alpine tunnel in Austria, killing 155...

2002) 38-year old Barry Bonds wins an unprecedented 5th MVP award (we're not sure whether or not he was on steroids then)...

Happy Birthday To...

1922) Author Kurt Vonnegut Jr...

1925) Jonathan Winters...

1937) Warner Wolf...

1960) Stanley Tucci...

1962) Demi Moore...

1964) Calista Flockhart...

Commentary...

Traditionally this is the holiday honoring veterans that draws the smallest crowds on 5th Avenue and it's a damn shame. Let's remember that this day of remembrance was originally dedicated to World War I veterans but was changed to honor veterans of all wars and both the living and dead deserve that tribute. Especially the living. Please do your part to remember those that died so that we may live and honor those that survived to preserve our freedom...

Saturday, November 12, 2005...

At 9:16am on November 12, 2001, flight 587, an Airbus A300-605R crashed in Belle Harbor, Queens shortly after taking off from JFK Airport on a flight to Santo Domino in the Dominican Republic. All 260 people aboard the flight and 5 on the ground were killed. There were no survivors...

This is part of an NTSB statement issued after the crash: "Because this crash occurred 2 months after 911, there was initial concern that it might have been the result of an international criminal act. The Board found no such evidence, nor did any law enforcement agencies"...

The official ruling from the NTSB was that "the pilot's excessive rudder pedal inputs led to the crash of American Flight 587". Some personal observations will follow in my commentary...

More November 12 Memories...

1920) Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis is elected baseball's 1st commisioner...

1933) The first known photo of the "Loch Ness Monster" is taken...

1941) WOV and WNEW swap call letters...

1958) "Tom Dooley" by The Kingston Trio is #1 (the song is a century old Blue Ridge Montains tune originally called "Tom Dula")...

1966) Donovan releases "Mellow Yellow"...

1970) The Doors make their last appearance with Jim Morrison in New Orleans...

1979) Barefooted Eagles kicker Tony Franklin boots a 59-yard field goal to help Philadelphia beat Dallas on Monday Night Football...

1982) Yuri Andropov is elected to succeed the late Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee...

1985) After 18 years and several name changes, the group Starship tops the charts for the 1st time with "We Built This City" (there is a misconception that this song is about New York, it is not. The song is dedicated to the city of San Francisco which is often referred to by natives as "The City")...

1993) H.R. Haldeman, former Nixon White House chief of staff dies at 67...

1996) Jonathan Schmitz is convicted of second-degree murder for shooting Scott Amedure, a gay who'd revealed that he had a crush on Schmitz on "The Jenny Jones Show"...

1997) Ramzi Yousef is found quilty of masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center...

1998) Daimler-Benz completes a merger with Chrysler to form Daimler-Chrysler...

2001) American Airlines flight 587 crashes in Belle Harbor, Queens killing 265 (feature story)...

2002) Stan Lee files a lawsuit against Marvel Entertainment Inc. claiming he was cheated out of millions after creating Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and Daredevil...

Happy Birthday To...

1939) Ruby Nash Curtis (Ruby & the Romantics)...

1943) Brian Hyland...

1944) Booker T. Jones...

1944) Al Michaels...

1945) Neil Young...

1961) Nadia Comaneci...

1966) David ("Friends") Schwimmer...

1970) Tonya Harding...

Commentary...

When that American Airlines plane went down in Belle Harbor I was working at WCBS-FM and had a direct line of sight to the tremendous amount of smoke created by the crash, being in the Viacom Building on Broadway, some several miles away from the Rockaway section of Queens. First and foremost, everyone thought this was an act of terrorism occuring so closely after 911. The weather was clear as a bell and the way the plane suddenly fell out of the sky shortly after takeoff was puzzling...

Both the FAA and NTSB had reason enough to believe the possibility existed, doing what we can only hope was a thorough investigation but coming to the conclusion that there wasn't any...

Doubts remain to this day...

Sunday, November 13, 2005...

November 13th through the years...

1805) Viennese butcher Johann George Lehner invents a recipe and calls it the "frankfurter"...

1927) The Holland Tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey beneath the Hudson River opens to the public...

1940) Walt Disney's "Fantasia" has its world premiere at New York's Broadway Theater...

1942) The minimum draft age is lowered from 21 to 18...

1956) The Supreme Court strikes down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses (thank you Rosa Parks)...

1960) Sammy Davis Jr. marries Swedish actress May Britt...

1961) The Tokens release "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"...

1965) "Fever" by the McCoys is released (lead singer is Rick Derringer)...

1968) The Beatles' animated film "Yellow Submarine" premieres...

1971) "Old Fashioned Love Song" by Three Dog Night is released...

1977) The comic strip "Li'l Abner" by Al Capp appeared in newspapers for the last time (I had the pleasure of knowing Al Capp who had a wooden leg. The cartoonist, who wrote material for the morning show at WRKO in the 60s used a thumb tack to keep the sock on his artificial leg and needed solitude when he created. A strange but very creative man)...

1979) Former California Governor Ronald Reagan announces his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination while in New York...

1979) 76er Darryl Dawkins shatters the fiberglass backboard doing a monster dunk in Kansas City and 3 weeks later shatters another one in Philadelphia. This pattern continues giving sportscasters video highlights for years...

1986) President Reagan publicly acknowledges that the U.S. sent "defensive weapons and spare parts" to Iran but denies this was payment to free U.S. hostages...

1992) Elton John performs in Mexico City for 90,000 fans...

1993) In college football's game of the year, Lou Holtz coached Notre Dame beats Bobby Bowden's #1 ranked Florida State Seminoles 31-24. Both teams had 16-game winning streaks going into the game played at South Bend...

1995) Atlanta's Greg Maddux wins his 4th straight Cy Young Award, something no other pitcher has done before or since...

1997) "The Lion King" opens at the New Amsterdam Theater on Broadway...

1998) "The Wizard of Oz" is released on the big screen by Warner Brothers 59 years after its original release...

1998) President Bill Clinton settles with Paula Jones to the tune of $850,000...

1999) Lennox Lewis becomes the 1st British heavyweight champ in 100 years with a unanimous 12 round decision over Evander Holyfield in Las Vegas...

Happy Birthday To...

1934) Garry Marshall...

1947) Joe Mantegna...

1949) Whoopi Goldberg...

1954) Chris Noth...

1963) Jets QB (again) Vinny Testaverde...

1967) Jimmy Kimmel...