Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category

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Obit watch: November 3, 2022.

Thursday, November 3rd, 2022

George Booth, New Yorker cartoonist.

But the hands-down readers’ favorite was Mr. Booth’s mad-as-a-hatter bull terrier, who whirled in circles until dizzy, scratched himself a lot and posed glowering on a lawn beside a sign warning: “Beware! Skittish Dog.” He adorned New Yorker T-shirts and became the magazine’s unofficial mascot, nearly as notable as the top-hat-wearing Eustace Tilley, who appears on the cover once a year. As Lee Lorenz, The New Yorker’s art editor, once put it, “If you can’t recognize a Booth cartoon, you need the magazine in Braille.”

…

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, The New Yorker said it would not run cartoons that week. But Mr. Booth submitted one anyway, showing Mrs. Ritterhouse, a recurring character modeled after his mother, with head down and hands folded in prayer. Her cat covered its face with its paws. It was the only cartoon The New Yorker ran that week.

(Hattip: Lawrence.)

Erica Hoy, Australian actress. IMDB. She was 26, and died in a car crash.

Ray Guy, punter. He was a first round draft choice for the Raiders in 1973:

It was the first time a punter had ever been picked in the first round, and it’s only happened one other time since — Steve Little, in 1978 by the Cardinals, and he was also a kicker.
Guy played with the Raiders, who moved to Los Angeles in 1982, through the end of his career in 1986. He made the Pro Bowl seven times and was a first-team All-Pro in six different seasons. He played a role in three Super Bowl championships.

Posted in NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | 1 Comment »

Net loss.

Tuesday, November 1st, 2022

And the latest on the firings front: Steve Nash out as coach of the Brooklyn Nets.

94-67 over roughly two years.

But wait, it gets even better! Though this is technically not part of the firings watch: Ime Udoka is rumored to be next up as Nets coach.

That’s Ime Udoka, who was suspended for a year by the Boston Celtics for having an inappropriate relationship with a female subordinate.

Personally, I’m thinking: this is not a good look.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Tuesday, November 1st, 2022

Bryan Harsin out as Auburn football coach.

Harsin’s tenure on the Plains lasted just more than 22 months, and he finishes with a 9-12 record at Auburn that included a 4-11 mark against Power 5 opponents. He’s the first Auburn coach to finish his tenure with a losing record since Earl Brown’s three-year stint wrapped with a 3-22-4 record between 1948-50.

He was two years into a six year contract. He was also the subject of an inquiry by the university back in February:

Former players spoke out publicly about their experience with Harsin last season, while current players rallied around the embattled coach. After an eight-day investigation and uncertainty about whether Harsin would see a Year 2, Auburn announced its decision to retain the coach, with Gogue releasing a statement on the matter, explaining that it “would have been an abdication of the university’s responsibilities” to not investigate concerns raised about the football program. Gogue added that the university was committed to Harsin and providing him the support necessary to achieve his goals as head coach.

Ultimately, though, it was the on-field product:

After starting 6-2 in Year 1, Auburn spiraled to close out the 2021 season, ending the year on a five-game losing streak. That skid included blown double-digit leads against Mississippi State, South Carolina and Alabama, ultimately losing the Iron Bowl in a quadruple-overtime classic at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The year was capped with a loss to Houston in the Birmingham Bowl, which solidified the program’s first losing season since 2012 and its first five-game losing streak to end a season since 1950.

…

Two uneven performances against opponents from the FCS and Group of 5 to open the [2022 – DB] season, followed by a humiliating loss to Penn State that marked the program’s worst at home in a decade. Auburn escaped its SEC opener against Missouri in overtime before losing each of its next three. The death knell came in the form of Saturday’s double-digit loss to the Razorbacks, which dropped the Tigers to 3-10 in the last calendar year and brought an end to a coaching tenure that was uncomfortable, unfounded and ultimately didn’t work.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: October 31, 2022.

Monday, October 31st, 2022

The LA Lakers finally won a game.

There are no NBA teams that have a chance at going 0-82 this year.

Posted in Loser, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: interregnum.

Friday, October 28th, 2022

Lawrence pinged me this morning, but in truth, he was just nudging me to do something I was contemplating anyway.

Yes, there are no NFL teams that can go 0-17. Or at this point, even 0-16-1.

But: the NBA season has started. I don’t care much about basketball, but why not kick a few teams around?

NBA teams that have a shot at going 0-82 this season:

Orlando Magic
Sacramento Kings
Los Angeles Lakers

Posted in Loser, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 20, 2022.

Thursday, October 20th, 2022

Charley Trippi, football player.

Although he was a football star at a time when many players appeared on both offense and defense, Trippi was especially renowned for doing just about everything but kicking field goals and extra points and snapping the ball.
In his nine years with the Cardinals, he ran for 3,506 yards, threw for 2,547 yards and amassed 1,321 yards in pass receptions — the only player in the Pro Football Hall of Fame to have exceeded 1,000 yards in each category. He played at left halfback and quarterback, punted and returned punts and kickoffs, and finished out his career at defensive back.
Trippi took Georgia to an unbeaten 1946 season when he was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy behind Army’s Glenn Davis. He received the Maxwell Award, which also honors college football’s leading player.

He was a member of both the College Football Hall of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame. Mr. Trippi was 100 when he passed, and at the time was the oldest living member of both.

Roger Welsch, tractor guy.

Okay, that’s a little misleading. He was also a regular on CBS “Sunday Morning”, a professor of anthropology at the University of Nebraska, founder of the Liars Hall of Fame:

Politicians, he said, were ineligible for induction. “We have a rule that politicians can’t participate, only amateurs,” he told a reporter in 1988.

and a honorary member of the Pawnee, Omaha, and Oglala tribes. And a tractor guy.

His practical interest in tractors, especially antiques, became a fixation in his writing and speaking, and for years he maintained a popular website full of geeky farm-implement arcana. In 1988, The New York Times wrote that Mr. Welsch “is to tractor restoration, and the Allis-Chalmers in particular, what Thoreau was to the lakeside cabin.”
He wrote more than 40 books about love, tractors, dogs and women, including “Everything I Know About Women I Learned From My Tractor” (2002) and “Busted Tractors and Rusty Knuckles: Norwegian Torque Wrench Techniques and Other Fine Points of Tractor Restoration” (1997) — a book as funny as its title is droll.

Posted in Books, NFL, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Monday, October 17th, 2022

Executive vice president of football operations Jack Easterby out in Houston.

More from Pro Football Network by way of Lawrence.

Not much more to add to this, really: nobody seems unhappy with Easterby’s performance in the role. There’s a lot of “it was just time”.

The Texas are 1-3-1 and had a bye this past week.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

Firings watch.

Monday, October 10th, 2022

Matt Rhule deposed as head coach of the Carolina Panthers, in the first NFL coach firing this season.

Rhule posted an 11-27 record during his tenure in Carolina, winning 10 total games during his first two seasons, before getting off to a miserable 1-4 start this season.

…

As with the offensive coordinator dilemma, Rhule never identified a long-term, efficient quarterback. The team signed journeyman Teddy Bridgewater to lead the offense in 2020, but he was traded to the Denver Broncos following a 5-11 debut season under Rhule.
The Panthers traded three draft picks to the New York Jets for former first-round pick Sam Darnold last offseason. Darnold faltered as the franchise QB in Carolina, as he did in New York, and the Panthers remained on the hook for his salary through this season after picking up his fifth-year option following the trade to acquire him.
This summer, the Panthers tried to upgrade the QB spot by trading for former first overall pick Baker Mayfield. Through five games, Mayfield has struggled mightily, completing just 54.9% of his passes for 962 yards, four touchdowns and four interceptions.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Friday, October 7th, 2022

Mike Matheny out as general manager of the Kansas City Royals.

Also out: pitching coach Cal Eldred.

While they avoided a 100-loss season, the Royals (65-97) finished in last place in the AL Central and recorded the fifth-worst record of any club in the majors. They went an MLB-worst 26-55 on the road.
Matheny inherited a 103-loss team in 2019. In his first season, the Royals went 26-34 playing a pandemic-shortened 2020 schedule.
The Royals went 74-88 last season after adding veteran pitcher Mike Minor, first baseman Carlos Santana and left fielder Andrew Benintendi.

ESPN:

Matheny finished 165-219 during his time with the Royals, though the number that perhaps is more important to the future of the club is 29 — the number of players who made their major league debut during his tenure.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

On, Wisconsin!

Tuesday, October 4th, 2022

Missed this yesterday: Paul Chryst out as head coach of the Badgers.

Chryst, 56, who was born in Madison, finishes 67-26 in seven-plus seasons at Wisconsin, his alma mater. He won 10 games or more in four of his first five seasons with the Badgers, winning a Cotton Bowl, an Orange Bowl and three Big Ten West Division titles. But the program fell off beginning in 2020, going 4-3, before a slow start to the 2021 season, in which the Badgers finished 9-4.

The team is 2-3 this season.

Posted in Firings, Sports | 1 Comment »

Your loser update: week 4, 2022.

Monday, October 3rd, 2022

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:

None.

Didn’t watch any of the games, again: I’ve been feeling kind of puny and spent most of yesterday sleeping. But the Raiders won, and that ends the loser update for 2022.

We’ll see you again in 2023, assuming we’re all still here.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: October 1, 2022.

Saturday, October 1st, 2022

Joe Bussard. No, you’ve probably never heard of him (unless you read the same books I do): he was an “obsessive collector” of 78 RPM records.

From his home near the Blue Ridge Mountains, Mr. Bussard (pronounced boo-SARD) drove the country roads of the South seeking 78s that had been languishing in people’s homes. He was selective about what he brought back to his basement. He loved jazz but detested any jazz recorded after the early 1930s. He loved country music but decreed that nothing good came after 1955. Nashville? He called it “Trashville.” Rock ’n’ roll? A cancer.
“How can you listen to Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw when you’ve listened to Jelly Roll Morton?” he said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2001. “It’s like coming out of a mansion and living in a chicken coop.”

…

Mr. Bussard not only collected 78s; he also built a basement studio in his parents’ house in the 1950s to make his own. Under his Fonotone label, he recorded artists like the Possum Holler Boys, a country and rockabilly band, and the Tennessee Mess Arounders, a blues group (he was a member of both), as well as the influential fingerstyle guitarist John Fahey. (He later moved his collection and his studio to the house he shared with his wife and daughter.)

Mr. Bussard was one of the “characters” (so to speak) profiled in Amanda Petrusich’s Do Not Sell At Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78rpm Records (affiliate link), a book that I both liked and found depressing.

Lawrence emailed an obit for Drew Ford, of It’s Alive Comics.

A graphic novel publisher that specialised in bringing out-of-print indie comic books back into print, as well as continuing and concluding stories where it could, and generating brand new ones, It’s Alive Press recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to revive the eighties black-and-white comic book series, Fish Police. Drew Ford had struggled with fulfilment issues of late, but there is no doubt he was a major contributor to the American comics industry in honouring its past heroes and bringing deserved attention to projects and people that time had forgotten – or at least not thought about for some time.

Edited to add: I forgot I wanted to include this one. Antonio Inoki.

Inoki entered politics in 1989 after winning a seat in the upper house, one of Japan’s two chambers of parliament, and headed the Sports and Peace Party. He traveled to Iraq in 1990 to win the release of Japanese citizens who were held hostage there.

He was also a professional wrestler.

Inoki brought Japanese pro-wrestling to fame and pioneered mixed martial arts matches between top wrestlers and champions from other combat sports like judo, karate and boxing.

Perhaps most famously, he fought Muhammad Ali in a MMA match in 1976.

The result of the fight, a draw, has long been debated by the press and fans.

Posted in Books, Music, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

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