Cats, guitars, baseball cards -
Hello again, and welcome to the Roarin' '20s. Those of us who were around for the original "Roarin' '20s" hope that this decade will be just as much fun as that one though perhaps not ending with a "Great Depression". Or a "Prohibition". Or a Herbert Hoover.
And welcome to the ninth year of our Tanglewood show. A note about this newsletter: Since I have almost never got the letter out in the named month, I'm going to bite the bullet and just title the letter in the month in which I write and send it. Thus there will be no "Vol. 8, number 12 - December", but we will start this month with Volume 9, number 1. I'm sure nobody cares but me. Speaking of old newsletters, for anybody who's interested, there's a collection of these things going back to March 2014 which you can view at this page: click here.
In sports news, Monday is the championship game of the NCAA big league football, featuring Clemson versus, surprisingly, not Alabama, but LSU. Last year I was surprised (pleasantly) that Clemson clobbered Alabama in the final, although I reserve the right to be just as wrong with my predictions as the highly-paid talking heads on sports TV. At any rate, this year you can't go wrong if you pick the Tigers to win. Or to lose, for that matter.
The NFL is in the midst of their playoffs, with the heartbreaking news that New England is no longer a contender. There's much talk about whether Tom "Deflated Balls" Brady is through in New England or just through altogether. At least one sports "reporter" suggests (I'm not making this up) that NE could replace Brady with Andy Dalton, if necessary. Haha! If they can't get Andy Dalton (I'm thinking they'd do better with "John Dalton" from "Roadhouse"), I believe Johnny "Footnote" Manziel is available. The "Cowboys" are also out of the playoffs - oops, they were never IN the playoffs. Haha! But Dallas hired a new coach - all of us die-hard Cowboy fans hope he can quickly turn Dallas from an 8-8 team into a 2-14 team.
Speaking of the NFL, Carolina defensive tackle Vernon Butler was ejected from a game for spearing an opponent who was already on the ground. Wanting to get his money's worth, good old Vern made an "obscene gesture" towards the crowd as he left the field. His money's worth was $10,000+ for the hit and $14,000+ for the "gesture", all totaled close to $25,000. We've never reported here that you must be smart to play football.
Also speaking of the NFL, Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz was knocked out of their playoff game by a Jadeveon Clowney spearing as Wentz lay on the ground. Gee - sounds like something I just said. But no punishment for Clowney. Wentz was praised as "heroic" by the NFL's chief medical officer for self-reporting his concussion. He was caught on video reporting to the team's mascot, saying, "Hey, Coach, I think I've got a, uh, whatchacallit" and pointing to his elbow.
In Major League Baseball, aside from the "free" agent signings and the stratospheric salaries attached thereto, the big news is cheating by stealing signs. Reportedly both champions Houston in 2017 and Boston in 2018 stole their opponents signs by various methods. MLB's suggested solutions to the problem include all kinds of "Star Wars" type technology, involving apparently satellites, double-secret passwords, and taser-equipped guards in the video room. Seems like a simpler solution would just be some suspensions and/or fines.
Here's a completely gratuitous slam of a TV commercial. (You'll remember that last month I slid in a shot at insurance commercials.) This is an old one that I never thought much about before, but the Taco Bell commercials encourage you to "Live Mas", which is an English-Spanish mashup for "Live More". You could "live more" by taking an around-the-world cruise, say, or learning to fly an airplane, or climbing Mount Everest, but - best of all - you can go to Taco Bell! Woo hoo! Now you're living more!
A 1997 Metal Universe card of Michael Jordan set an EBAY record in 2019 as the highest-priced basketball card ever
sold on that site. Interestingly, the #1/10 card, which sold for $350,000, was graded as "Altered". I don't know what
that means in this case, but I personally would be very dubious of it. Here's a picture:
For Mantle collectors, the latest issue of Sports Collectors Digest (SCD) dated 1-17-2020 has an article discussing the variations of Mickey Mantle's autograph over the years. The author includes pictures of what he claims are completely authenticated Mantle autos through the years even going back to his school days.
Somewhere along the way last year an item was sold which I bet YOU wish you had. Heritage Auctions sold boxing gloves worn by Muhammad Ali in his 1964 fight with Sonny Liston. Ali, of course, was known at that time as Cassius Clay. You may remember that his win over Liston was controversial ("was there really a punch?"), but in any case it was the beginning of a career that led to Clay/Ali being one of the best-known people world-wide both in and out of sports. The gloves sold for $836,500.
The 2000 Summer Paralympics were held in Sydney, Australia. The games were won by Spain, in large part because they won the Gold Medal in basketball. It was later found that at least ten of the twelve Spanish basketball players had no disabilities whatsoever. The team was stripped of their gold medal, and the Spanish chairman of the Federation for Mentally Handicapped Sports was kicked out of the Spanish Paralympic Committee. This definitely rates high on the all-time cheaters list. Keep it classy, Spain!
Baseball player Mike Cameron: "The sun has been there for five hundred, six hundred years".
Unnamed BBC golf commentator: "In real time his swing looks quite quick, but slow it down into slo-mo, and it looks much slower".
Baseball player Dale Berra: "The only thing my father and I have in common is that our similarities are different".
And the always memorable Charles Barkley: "These are my new shoes. They won't make you rich like me. They won't make you rebound like me, they definitely won't make you handsome like me. They'll only make you have shoes like me. That's it.".
We also celebrate the 13th as "Stephen Foster Day". He wrote many great songs including "Old Kentucky Home", "I Dream of Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair", and especially "Beautiful Dreamer". Sample here . He also wrote a lot of songs that would not be politically correct today.
Hello again, and thanks for stopping by once more. You may notice when you come to the mall for the show - you ARE coming aren't you? - that Tanglewood has removed the old mall sign, which didn't work all that well anyway, and replaced it with a new, much smaller one. This is a clear indication of something, but I can't tell you exactly what.
We have lots of actual sports news since last we reported to you. Perhaps the biggest news story of the year so far was the deaths of Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others in that helicopter crash. I can't say that Kobe was a favorite player of mine. In fact, I'm not sure I ever even saw him play, because his career generally coincided with a time when I basically did not watch the NBA, having grown tired of seeing Michael Jordan seemingly win every year (I never liked Jordan, and I always will). I don't think that Kobe's death, as tragic as it was, is any more tragic than the deaths of all the others in that crash. But seeing the heartfelt mourning of those such as Shaquille O'Neal and others brings home the sorrow that these people, famous and not famous, all feel.
In happier news, the Super Bowl (or "Soup Bowl" as many on ESPN seem to call it) was played on Groundhog Day. I actually watched more of this SB than I had in many years, as I was hoping to see if Patrick Mahomes was all he was built up to be. Turns out - he was! The person with whom I was watching the game - and, to be fair, she's always way more interested in the commercials than the game itself - said with about ten minutes left "I don't think Kansas City is going to win". Sadly, I agreed. But, happily, we were both wrong!
The Super Bowl is, of course, mainly an excuse to put on a "halftime show" and 1625 commercials. I didn't watch the "halftime show" which featured Jennifer Lopez and somebody or something called "Shakira", I believe, because I sensed that the music would not be exactly my thing. Many of the commercials confused me. For example, the Turbo Tax ad with all the "jelly-leg" stuff - what the #### is that all about? And then there was some kind of action commercial that featured, I believe, Jennifer Lopez again, and in which at one point Alex Rodriguez's ugly face popped out me! I can safely say that whatever they were advertising, if ARod is involved, I will never, ever buy it.
In even happier news, pitchers and catchers report in a day or two. That's right - baseball is about to start up. MLB had to deal with the sign-stealing scandal. You may remember that last month I suggested that fines and suspensions were called for. Boy, did they ever listen to me!
In a very unusual collectibles deal, a Tom Brady PSA10 2000 Contenders Rookie Autograph #144 (one of which recently sold at auction for $168,000) was traded for a 1990 Nintendo World Championship gray video game cartridge which was graded 8 of 10. For more on this story, click here.
It's not too late to get in on this one: A jersey worn by Zion Williamson in his first regular season NBA game is up for auction at NBAAuctions.com. As I write this, bidding, which ends in three days, was at $41,000.
As happens with all famous people who die, especially unexpectedly, Kobe Bryant's memorabilia is rapidly rising in value. If you were a fan, here's one you want to jump at. Goldin Auctions is offering an autographed official NBA scorer's sheet from his 81-point game in 2006. The bidding ends on February 23 and is at $15,000 as I write this.
Analyst Jamie Redknapp: "Will Chelsea qualify with ease? I think they will, but it won't be easy."
Soccer ("futbol") person Graham Taylor: "Very few of us have any idea whatsoever what life is like living in a goldfish bowl, except, of course, for those of us who are goldfish."
Soccer person Peter Jones: "Ian Rush is deadly ten times out of ten, but that wasn't one of them."
Last month's show.
Hello again. The big news in and out of sports is, of course, the coronavirus pandemic. I've delayed sending this newsletter because I was trying to keep ahead of the c-virus news. But that's proving to be impossible because it keeps changing every day. It's become very hard to find humor in the sports world like I usually do (or try to). Nevertheless, life goes on. Whether our March show will go on is still somewhat up in the air. You will be informed via this mailing list and our Facebook page as soon as we are sure. As of today it WILL go on as scheduled.
Other than c-virus discussions, let me summarize for you this month's sports talk shows: Tom Brady, Tom Brady, Tom Brady, NFL CBA, Tom Brady, Dak Prescott, and did I mention Tom Brady? And in the what-difference-does-it-make-now category, a little bit about Lebron vs Giannis for MVP. At least it's mostly driven the MLB sign-stealing scandal pretty much out of sight.
Last month in discussing the Super Bowl halftime show, I remarked that I didn't who or what "Shakira" is. Now I know. Shakira is a singer and is the "longtime partner" of someone called "Gerard Pique", if I've got that right. Now I need to find out who this Pique person is.
The baseball season will be starting up at least a few weeks late. Some analysts are saying that the Nits will NOT repeat as champions and will once again not win the NL East division. The experts say that the East is just generally overall too strong for the boys wearing the "Girlie W".
On February 22nd, a zamboni driver entered a Carolina-Toronto NHL game as the "emergency goalie" and played well enough to help whichever team he played for to win. Now Upper Deck is producing cards of this celebrated substitute. Yippee.
Panini is bringing the "Select" brand to baseball. The set is due to be released April 15th.
As of yesterday, the April show at Chantilly is still planned to go on as scheduled. If you're planning to go, you'd better stay in touch with them.
Click here
Another well-known favorite of mine is Tim Tebow. Tim is trying to work his way back as a professional baseball player. In that pursuit he batted a scintillating .495 OPS in 77 games last year in AAA (major league average was .768). Reportedly Mike Trout was studying Tim's batting for tips to improve his own skills. We've always known Tim could hit, but what about his fielding?
Click here
Not all of the great athletes are also famous. Here's a guy and his dog doing a remarkable trampoline dismount.
Click here
Former NBA guard Sherman Douglas: "I don't want to shoot my mouth in my foot, but those are games we can win."
Former soccer player Terry Venables: "If history is going to repeat itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again."
Golfer Greg Norman: "I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father."
I'll mention that March 30th is "Pencil Day". For you young people who don't know what a "pencil" is, it's a piece of wood with graphite (a form of carbon) in it with which we used to "write". This was in the olden days in a prior century when there were no computers or cell phones. Yes, there was such a time.
And March 14th is "International Day of Mathematics", a day I could celebrate every day. To celebrate it yourself, take the following project: State the definition of the derivative of a function, and use the definition to calculate the derivative of f(x) =x2. For a suggested solution, click here .
