James Borrego out as head coach of the Charlotte Hornets. ESPN.
138-163 in four seasons.
Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category
Stung.
Friday, April 22nd, 2022Obit watch: April 22, 2022.
Friday, April 22nd, 2022Daryle Lamonica, quarterback for the Oakland Raiders.
He started out playing for the Buffalo Bills in the AFL, behind Jack Kemp. But he couldn’t replace Kemp as the starter, and the Bills traded him to Oakland, where he was pretty successful.
He led the 1967 Raiders to a 13-1 regular-season record and the A.F.L. championship, throwing for 30 touchdowns and 3,228 yards. He passed for two touchdowns in the Super Bowl, which the Raiders lost to the Packers, 33-14.
Lamonica was part of an offense that emphasized precise timing between the quarterback and a receiver running his route. It was designed to create open space in the defense’s secondary, making it especially vulnerable to deep passing plays.
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Lamonica was selected for the Pro Bowl once with the Bills and four times with the Raiders.
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Worth noting, because that’s just the kind of hairball I am:
(Previously.)
Guy Lafleur, of the Montreal Canadiens. I’m not a huge hockey fan, but even I’ve heard of Guy Lafleur.
The winger affectionately known as “The Flower” and “The Blonde Demon” played 14 seasons with Montreal (1971-85) and was a cornerstone of five Stanley Cup-winning teams, including in 1977, when he was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. Lafleur was electric on the ice, becoming the first player in league history to produce six consecutive seasons with 50-plus goals and 100-plus points (1974-80).
During the height of his career in the 1970s, Lafleur was a three-time Art Ross Trophy winner as the NHL’s points leader, a two-time Hart Trophy winner as league MVP and a three-time winner of the Lester B. Pearson Award (now known as the Ted Lindsay) as most outstanding player according to the NHL Players’ Association.
Those Glorious ’70s…
Friday, April 15th, 2022There’s a high bar that has to be cleared for me to link to something on ESPN.
Bonus: the Canadian Football Act (which isn’t really an act, as it has never been signed into law).
Obit watch: April 15, 2022.
Friday, April 15th, 2022Jack Newton, noted golfer.
Newton turned professional in 1971 on the European Tour and won his first event, the Dutch Open, the following year. A week later, he won another tournament at Fulford, England and, in 1974, the tour’s match play championship.
The Australian’s playoff loss in the 1975 British Open at Carnoustie came after Watson had a few rather fortuitous shots. A wire fence kept Watson’s ball in bounds on the eighth hole and the American chipped for eagle at the 14th to claim the Claret Jug by a shot over Newton.
Then, on July 24, 1983, he walked into an aircraft propeller.
His right arm was severed, he lost sight in his right eye and also sustained severe injuries to his abdomen. Doctors gave him only a 50-50 chance of surviving, and he spent nearly two months in intensive care and required lengthy rehabilitation from his injuries.
“Things weren’t looking too good for me. I knew that from the priest walking around my (hospital) bed,” Newton said later. He was 33 at the time of the accident.
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Mike Bossy, of the New York Islanders.
Franz Mohr, who the paper of record describes as the “piano tuner to the stars”. He was Steinway’s chief concert technician for 24 years.
For years, he went where the pianists went. When Vladimir Horowitz went to Russia in the 1980s, Mr. Mohr traveled with him, as did Horowitz’s favorite Steinway. Mr. Mohr made house calls at the White House when Van Cliburn played for President Gerald R. Ford in 1975, and again in 1987, when Mikhail S. Gorbachev was in Washington for arms-control talks with President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Gorbachev’s wife, Raisa, wanted Cliburn to play one of the pieces that had made him famous — Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 — but there was no orchestra. Instead, Cliburn played some Chopin and, as an encore, played and sang the Russian melody “Moscow Nights.”
“I was amazed that Van Cliburn, on the spur of the moment, remembered not only the music but all the words,” Mr. Mohr recalled in his memoir, “My Life with the Great Pianists,” written with Edith Schaeffer (1992). “The Russians just melted.”
He was also Glenn Gould’s New York piano tuner.
And (as noted in the obit) he wrote a book, My Life with the Great Pianists (affiliate link).
He also attended to performers’ personal pianos. The pianist Gary Graffman, whose apartment is less than a block from the old location of Steinway’s Manhattan showroom, and Mr. Mohr’s home base, on West 57th Street, recalled that Mr. Mohr would come right over when a problem presented itself.
“If he came because I broke strings, he would replace the strings,” Mr. Graffman said in an interview. But if more extensive work was needed — if Mr. Graffman’s almost constant practicing had worn down the hammers and new hammers had to be installed, for example — “he would take out the insides of the piano and carry it half a block to the Steinway basement. He would work on it and carry it back.” (The unit Mr. Mohr lifted out and took down the street is known as the key and action assembly, a bewildering combination of all 88 keys and the parts that respond to a pianist’s touch, driving the hammers to the strings.)
Mr. Mohr was 94 when he passed.
How about those Lakers?
Monday, April 11th, 2022Answer: they missed the playoffs.
And Frank Vogel is out as coach.
I saw reports this morning: apparently, everybody but Vogel knew yesterday he was going to be fired.
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The Lakers were officially eliminated from postseason contention Tuesday, when they lost in Phoenix and the San Antonio Spurs won in Denver.
The Lakers would lose eight games in a row before winning against Oklahoma City in the home finale at [I’m not going to give them free advertising – DB] Arena.
Sports obit watch.
Saturday, April 9th, 2022I was going to wait until tomorrow to blog this, but since several people have sent it to me today and it is losing timeliness: Dwayne Haskins, quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers. ESPN.
The reports I am currently seeing say he tried to cross an Interstate highway on foot, and was hit by a dump truck. He was 24.
Tomorrow is not promised to anyone…
Also: Rayfield Wright, former offensive lineman for the Dallas Cowboys. He was 76 and had been suffering from dementia since at least 2012.
Referred to as “Big Cat” by teammates, Wright made five Super Bowl appearances in his 13 seasons with the club. He was selected first- or second-team All-Pro in six consecutive seasons and earned a spot on the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 1970s.
Wright was the first offensive lineman in franchise history to earn a spot in the team’s Ring of Honor and the Hall of Fame. He was followed by Larry Allen.
They remain the only two.
Obit watch: March 17, 2022.
Thursday, March 17th, 2022Peter Bowles, British actor.
Other than “To the Manor Born”, he was “Guthrie Featherstone” on “Rumpole of the Bailey”, and did guest shots on “Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)”, “Tales of the Unexpected”, “I, Claudius”, “Space: 1999”, “The Prisoner”, and appeared four times on “The Avengers”, among other credits.
When I published yesterday’s obit watch, Tyler James was the only person confirmed dead in the Andrews County car crash. Since then, the names of the others have been published:
Mauricio Sanchez
Travis Garcia
Jackson Zinn
Karisa Raines
Laci Stone
Tiago Sousa
Henrich Siemans (driver of the pickup truck)
Hail Columbia!
Tuesday, March 15th, 2022Frank Martin out as basketball coach at the University of South Carolina.
The team was 18-13 this season.
Firings watch.
Sunday, March 13th, 2022Been a busy weekend, both for me and for sports firings.
Will Wade out as men’s baskeball coach at LSU. Five seasons, 108-54 overall. But: the NCAA has informed LSU that they are investigating a total of 11 violations, including eight “level 1” violations.
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Wade was suspended at the tail end of the 2018-19 season after Yahoo Sports detailed a wiretapped conversation between him and now-convicted middleman Christian Dawkins. The conversation recorded by the FBI included Wade openly speaking about a “strong-ass offer” he made in the recruitment of former LSU guard and Baton Rouge native Javonte Smart in 2017.
This specific allegation is outlined in the NOA as the first of the seven charges against the men’s basketball team, and was determined to be a Level I violation. In the charge, the Complex Case Unit wrote in this instance Wade “violated the principles of ethical conduct and/or offered impermissible recruiting inducements in the form of cash payments and job offers in order to secure” an unnamed recruit, who is believed to be Smart.
Nino Giarratano out as baseball coach at the University of San Francisco. This is tied to a lawsuit by three former players accusing him of “persistent psychological abuse and repeated inappropriate sexual conduct”.
Tom Crean out as basketball coach of the Georgia Bulldogs. This one seems to have actually been a performance thing: he was 47-75 over four seasons, and they finished 6-26 this year.
Obit watch: March 11, 2022.
Friday, March 11th, 2022Emilio Delgado. He was most famous as “Luis” on “Sesame Street” (for 44 years), but he also did some other work: three of the “Law and Order” shows, a regular role on “Lou Grant”, “Quincy, M.E.”, and the good “Hawaii 5-0”, among other credits.
Elsa Klensch, of “Style With Elsa Klensch”.
Odalis Perez, former pitcher for the Braves and Dodgers (also the Royals and Nationals). He was 44: according to his family, he apparently fell off a ladder at his home.
Bobbie Nelson, sister of Willie Nelson and pianist and singer in his band.
(Hattip on this to FotB RoadRich.)
I think I love soccer now.
Wednesday, March 9th, 2022Actually, no, I still can’t stand soccer.
But this is a fun story.
There was a massive fight at a soccer game between Queretaro and Atlas (who I gather are both teams in the Mexican Liga MX league) on Saturday. 26 people were injured.
Yesterday, punishments were handed down: Queretaro has to play at home with no spectators for one year, barras (supporter’s groups) are banned for three years, the owners were fined 1.5 million pesos ($70,450), and…
…the owners have to sell the team by the end of the year.
Queretaro’s ownership group (Gabriel Solares, Adolfo Ríos, Greg Taylor and Manuel Velarde) will also be banned from league-related activities for five years and the club will be returned to previous owners Grupo Caliente, which owns fellow Liga MX club Tijuana…
Grupo Caliente will be tasked with selling Queretaro by the end of this year, and if unable to do so, it will go under the ownership of Liga MX.
I’ve never heard of an owner being forced to sell a team before. I guess it may have happened in the past, but I’m not aware of it. MLB may have come close with Marge Schott, but they never actually pulled the trigger.
Edited to add: Mike the Musicologist cites Donald Sterling as a possible “forced to sell the team” owner. I’m going to give him the win on points for two reasons. First of all, I’m impressed that he remembered Donald Sterling: if there is a person who is even less of an NBA fan (or sports fan in general) than I am, it is MtM.
The thing is, it isn’t clear to me that he was actually forced to sell. There were suits and counter-suits, and his wife moved to sell the team – he claimed without his authorization – and it seems like the cases were dismissed before there was any vote or a forced sale by the NBA. All that seems clear is that Sterling’s wife managed to get the team sold off to Steve Ballmer before she was stripped of her ownership interest by league vote.
So even though it isn’t clear to me, my second reason for giving this to MtM on points is that the NBA seems to have come as close as any other sport ever has, and probably ever will (except Liga MX) to forcing an owner to sell a team. Certainly closer than baseball came with Schott.
Also:
No longer pretty Fly…
Monday, March 7th, 2022Michael Fly fired as head basketball coach of Florida Gulf Coast University.
Derrin Hansen out as basketball coach at Omaha. He’d been coach for 17 seasons, but Omaha has only been a D1 team since 2015.
He was 253-260 overall, and 92-122 in D1 play. The team won five games this season and was 10-45 in the past two seasons.
Sam Scholl out in San Diego. 50-67 in “four plus” seasons, but the team was 15-16 this season.