"To anybody who's a soul music fan, this is like royalty dying," ...
Admittedly, it was awfully tough to watch the deciding Game 7 of the American League Championship Series last night. A big reason was my constant flicking back to watch Mad Men on AMC, THE essential MUST watch television program in my life at the moment.
(Note to AMC) Hey, bring Don Draper back to New York already! Don't pull a Desparate Housewives and get all goofy in only your second season and lose your faithful fan base!)
The main reason, though, that many other Americans couldn't bear to watch the baseball game last night was the sickening feeling that the plucky Tampa Bay Rays were about to be gutted by the fates and the Evil Empire 2.0 -- otherwise known as the Boston Red Sox -- were about to pull yet another metaphorical rabbit out of their caps to win yet another American League pennant.
I'll touch on the Evil Empire 2.0 in a moment, but consider the karma surrounding the game for Tampa Bay and their fans last night. They'd been seven runs up and seven outs away from winning it last Thursday night and now it was down to one single game -- after a whole season of defying expectations -- of finally falling just short of the World Series.
Even though they'd won the AL East, these Rays and their fans were in danger of being just another lovable loser, just another Bartman moment, just another speedbump as the Evil Empire 2.0 skipped right past them.
Could this miracle of a baseball season be consigned to the dungeon of great postseason collapses? Could the '08 Rays go from being the '69 Mets to the '03 Cubs in 72 hours flat?
It would be like those '69 Mets blowing a 3-1 World Series lead to the Orioles. It would be like the Soviets scoring two late goals to beat the U.S. Olympic hockey team at Lake Placid in 1980. It would be like Mike Tyson getting back up to knock out Buster Douglas.
It would be a shame if this season was judged by how it ended.
Flaming wreckage is no way to end this. No way at all.
Instead, it happened and nothing will ever be the same. This was big. This was Charlie Brown finally getting to kick that football big.
Now there is a mourning Red Sox Nation that is in total denial. They don't understand that their beloved team has become the NEW New York Yankees -- the NEW best-team-money-can-buy and therefore, the team America now roots AGAINST!
So how are we going to explain why, when it looked as if the Amazin' Rays would buckle under the pressure of a seventh game, they refused to buckle? How are we going to explain exactly why, when it looked as if the Red Sox would make the Rays another notch in their remarkable postseason belt, that it was the defending world champions who would melt?
All we can tell you is that it happened. All we can tell you is the Rays, the latter-day cousins of the '69 Amazin' Mets, beat the Red Sox 3-1 before 40,473 fans and at least that many cowbells at Tropicana Field to win the seventh game of the 2008 ALCS. All we can tell you is a team that had finished in last place nine of the 10 years of its existence answered a 96-loss season with 97 wins, a division title and its first World Series appearance.
"I hate to disappoint the hard-liners, but I really can step back [and enjoy this as a fan]," Rays` manager Joe Maddon said before the start of Sunday's game. "I actually was taking my bike ride today, and you just look out over the water and you think about Game 7. When you're a kid in the playground or in the backyard playing, you're always playing Game 7. Well, here it is."
Maddon said he never lost a Game 7 in his backyard growing up in Hazleton, Pa. Well, this isn't Hazleton. This is the big leagues. To be fair, Maddon was the bench coach when the Angels beat the Giants in Game 7 of the 2002 World Series. But those were the Giants. These are the Red Sox, and they steal dreams.
Last pitch: 11:40 p.m. Tampa Bay went nuts in celebration at 11:41. Within 10 minutes, the Rays were circling the field, spraying fans with champagne, jumping up and high-fiving them. And who could blame them? The Rays may have been too young and dumb to realize they were supposed to choke this series away, but they sure are special.
"I know our guys will be down for a little while, but they have no reason to hang their heads," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said of a season filled with injuries and transition. And he's right.
If you're a Red Sox fan, you hate that your team lost. But if you're any kind of baseball fan, you can't hate the Rays for winning.
Locally, there was some baseball news of note. The Milwaukee Brewers announced that they'd signed General Manager Doug Melvin to a contract extension, would make a solid contract offer to free agent pitcher CC Sabathia and would NOT consider Dale Sveum for the field manager's job next season.
Sveum, of course, is crushed. He played for the Brewers, he pulled the team from the brink of elimination to make the playoffs and believed that he'd get a fair shot at managing on a full-time basis.
Melvin insists that he wants someone with previous managing success and the list of possibles includes many of the usual subjects. Still, this columnist's prediction -- a month ago, I might add -- is still Bob Brenly.
Brenly, the former Arizona manager now broadcasting Chicago Cubs games for WGN, certainly has seen the Brewers and other National League Central clubs many times in that role, and he fits the “previous success” qualification by leading the Diamondbacks to the 2001 World Series title.
Moreover, after watching both teams over the last few years, Brenly should have tremendous insight into what the Brewers need to do to overtake the Cubbies in the NL Central.
Curb your enthusiasm, but the Wisconsin Badgers are projected to go to the Motor City Bowl. (Yeah, baby, Detroit in December sure beats Florida on New Year's Day, ainna hey!)
Admittedly, Darst isn't sold on Wisconsin, and even said (after taking a longer look at UW): "wow, I'm looking at the schedule, not sure they can make it."
Darst is thinking UW will end up at 6-6 - but might need a three-game winning streak to close the season to get there. More of his reasoning: "But yes, out of 11 teams, 2 to the BCS, Indiana and Purdue out, Wisconsin is projected as the last team to get in -- Motor City bowl."
Still, the Badgers weren't even the biggest disappointment in the country last Saturday, not even the biggest flop in the Big Ten. That dubious honor goes to Michigan State, which laid a big fat egg on network TV in losing BIG to Ohio State.
The Detroit Free Press' Mitch Albom (yes, he still actually writes a column like the rest of us ink stained wretches) gives Sparty the big thumbs-down.
The weather was perfect, the stadium was packed and the whole town was pounding with green-and-white optimism.
And then the game started.
And Ohio State pulled the Spartans’ pants down.
Not ready. Not yet. The records suggested that Michigan State was an elite team, but records are just numbers. The field tells the tale. And on the field, there were the Big Boys and there were the Wannabes. Before this game was 15 minutes old, it told an age-old story about one team that has done it and one team that is still dreaming about it.
“What’s the one thing you did well today?” someone asked MSU defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi, after the 45-7 drubbing.
“I thought we did a good job in warm-ups,” he said.
Unfortunately, you missed those. What you saw was one team, on the road, that was more than ready for the big stage, and one team, at home, that was still in make-up.
And now the Spartans have must guard against their dreaded second-half-of-the-seasonitis. Plenty of MSU teams start out hot, and by November have cooled to mediocre. Should the Green and White lose next weekend to arch-rival Michigan, not only will the polish have come off this team, it will need a paint job.
Oh, the Badgers limp back home from their debacle at Iowa to face an Illinois team that crushed Indiana last Saturday, 55-13.
And you can expect a healthy number of Illini fans in town for Homecoming. In their Sunday Travel section, the Chicago Sun-Times obliged the Oskee Wow Wow faithful with suggestions on where to go and what to do --claiming Mad City Offers More Than Football.
No trip to Wisconsin would be complete without carting home cheese. Get your dairy fill at Fromagination, an artisan cheese shop at 12 S. Carroll St., on Capitol Square; www.fromagination. com, (608) 255-2430.
Almost as famous as Wisconsin's cheese is its bratwurst. Try State Street Brats, 603 State St., for its sports bar scene, burgers, chicken wings and of course, the brats; www.statestreetbrats.com, (608) 255-5544.
Speaking of food, the Dane County Farmers Market boasts more than 300 vendors and completely encircles the Capitol. It runs from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. All the produce and products on sale -- ranging from veggies to honey to meats -- were raised by the folks selling them; www.dcfm.org/wandw.asp.
For a special treat, make a dinner reservation at the widely acclaimed L'Etoile Restaurant, 25 N. Pinckney St. Named Sante Magazine's Culinary Hospitality Restaurant of the Year for 2008, L'Etoile's seasonal menus are based on ingredients from small Midwestern farms prepared with French flare; www.letoile-restaurant.com, (608) 251-0500.
Next door to L'Etolie is a traditional Wisconsin supper club, Old Fashioned, 23 N. Pinckney St. Dig into the beer-battered cheese curds, 16-ounce ribeye steak and rainbow trout; www.theoldfashioned.com, (608) 310-4545.
So, apparently, these cheese-seeking FIB's can't be expected to waddle any farther than State Street and Capitol Square. Hey, while you're at it, check out some Illinoise cuisine at the FIB's cart on the other end of State Street -- on the Library Mall. And by the way, it's Mad Town, NOT Mad City.
Finally, we lost somebody special this weekend. Perhaps the greatest voice in American soul music history was stilled on Friday as Levi Stubbs Jr. passed away.
That voice -- rough, raw, intense -- remains a fixture on the American music landscape, unmistakable on such evergreen Four Tops hits as "Reach Out I'll Be There," "Bernadette," "Standing in the Shadows of Love" and "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)."
Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. paid homage in a statement: "Levi was the greatest interpreter of songs I've ever heard. ... I remember when we heard their first Motown release, 'Baby I Need Your Loving.' Levi's voice exploded in the room and went straight for our hearts. We all knew it was a hit, hands down."
Unlike Marvin ####e, who used his voice to caress, or Smokey Robinson, whose silky croon sparkled, Stubbs headed straight for the guts of his notes, summoning a distinctive grit and fire. For most vocalists, the perky melody in the lines "sugar pie, honey bunch" was an invitation to go sunny and sweet. For Stubbs, it was a chance to insist -- to plead, cajole, declare, demand.
Ann Arbor's Chris Rizik, who runs the popular music site SoulTracks.com and calls Stubbs his all-time favorite vocalist, said Friday's news prompted an outpouring of tributes and reminiscing from fans around the world.
"The larger population might not even know the name. But to anybody who's a soul music fan, this is like royalty dying," said Rizik. "People are going to be talking about this for a long time. In the deep soul community, this will resonate just as much as Marvin ####e's death."
Do yourself a favor and rent the Motown 25 Anniversary special. In it, witness a recreation of one of the greatest moments and most vivid experiences in American soul music history.
Levi Stubbs' Four Tops would face often off in a mock duel with fellow Motowners, the Temptations and Stubbs would invariably steal the show. The Tops would sing a clip of one of their hits and the Temps would retaliate with one of theirs.
Watch the scene in Motown 25, when suddenly in the midst of "I Know I'm Losing You," Stubbs cuts in front of Dennis Edwards to scream...
"...it's all over your face, someone's taken your place, oooooh, baby, am I losin you..."
As for me, I've had the same verse going again and again in the back of my brain.
"...it's the same old song...but it's a different meaning since you've gone..."
It was 50 years ago today. Miles taught all the cats to sway.
What is hip? Tell me tell me, if you think you know.
What is hip? If you're really hip, the passing years will show.
Tower of Power asked that musical question -- aw jeez, can it really be 38 years ago? All of which makes me -- since I can remember buying the album in 1970 -- well, to the younger generation, this fact anong others makes me old.
What is old?
I used to define becoming old as that time in your life when you start saying that young people have nothing of value to say and their music is too loud. That could come at age 29 or age 59, I reasoned, but once it did you were old.
Is this the year I finally got old? I can't say their music's too loud -- I mean, I once saw the likes of Living Colour and Television in bars with their stadium Marshall amps making the glass windows reverberate like the speakers of a Hammond B3 organ. Still, if Tupac is considered old school and borderline old, well then what's the point?
Yes, I can remember John Kennedy being shot. I can remember my dad bringing home our first color TV and listening to WLS Friday nights for their Silver Dollar Surveys.
Yes, I can also remember the 70's, although admittedly not as much of the decade as I would like. I actually saw the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin LIVE in the Dane County Coliseum.
What started this morning's rant was my ill-fated attempts to discuss the 50th anniversary of one of the most important albums ever recorded.
(And by the way, it's STILL AN ALBUM! It is a collection of songs, like a collection of pictures or poems, so it's still an album -- whether it's produced on vinyl, cassette, 8-track, CD, DVD or nuclear-fotoschmear. Okay, I made the last one up.)
Still, can't young people consider music that's more than minutes old? I was trying to discuss the importance of Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue and was met by painful sighs and rolling eyeballs.
Kind Of Blue was an album that transcended jazz itself, easily the biggest selling album in Miles Davis' illustrious career and perhaps, the biggest selling jazz album ever. It is intrinsically and eternally hip -- it was played by uber-hip DJ Clint Eastwood in Play Misty For Me.
It was one of the last recordings of its kind -- produced almost entirely in one take with no overdubs, no sonic enhancements, no digital remixing. It was also an important historical milepost -- in a way, it was almost the last jazz record of its kind. It precedes the free form jazz of John Coltrane and the jazz-rock fusion of Miles himself in the late 60's.
Kind Of Blue is being re-issued in a 50th Anniversary package, and that's a misnomer as well since it was recorded and released in 1959. Maybe, that's because Columbia/Legacy wanted to get it out before the holiday shopping season or perhaps because 1959 is also the 50th anniversary of Miles' own Sketches of Spain and Coltrane's Giant Steps.
Disc 1 of Kind of Blue: 50th Anniversary Collectors Edition will feature the original album in its entirety with the “Flamenco Sketches" alternate take, the rare “Freddie Freeloader" false start, and a selection of in-the-studio dialog from the Kind of Blue sessions. Disc 2 is a CD of rare musical material circa the Kind of Blue recordings including the very first session by the classic Miles Davis sextet (May 26, 1958 -- Davis's 32nd birthday -- with Adderley, Coltrane, Evans, Chambers and Cobb), more than a half hour's worth of studio material -- “On Green Dolphin Street," “Fran-Dance," “Stella By Starlight," “Love For Sale" -- previously available only on the two-time Grammy award winning Miles Davis & John Coltrane boxed set ("The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-1961); and the first authorized release of two extended live performances: “So What" from the April 9, 1960 Den Haag Concert featuring Miles, Coltrane, Kelly, Chambers and Cobb. The final disc, Disc 3, is a DVD including an in-depth documentary illuminating the story behind Kind of Blue; and the historic April 2, 1959 television program “Robert Herridge Theater: The Sound of Miles Davis" starring Miles Davis and John Coltrane.
This deluxe Collector's Edition will also include a blue pressed vinyl copy of Kind of Blue, a poster, and an LP-sized 60-page hardbound book.
What's the secret of its staying power, asks Jack Garner of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle ? I doubt anyone could answer a question about something as ephemeral and mysterious and magical as a piece of music. Certain things are obvious: First, it's performed by the greatest small jazz band ever assembled. Besides trumpeter Davis, there were saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb (the sole survivor from the '59 session). Central to the album's greatness, though, was the then-young pianist Bill Evans, who plays on four of the album's five extended tracks and co-wrote two of the tunes with Davis. Considered one of the great intellectuals in jazz, and the Chopin of improvised music, Evans famously collaborated with Davis on the album's breakthrough concept of modal improvisation.
Try as I may, my limited technical understanding of music has never allowed me to understand what modal means. All I know is this music is heavenly in its grace and simplicity and sublime beauty.
The album's five tracks work together almost as a suite, with at least two of the tracks now recognized as gems in the oft-performed standard jazz repertoire — "So What" and "All Blues."
"It grabs all kinds of people," says Cobb. "To see how good those guys are, what they could do with just a little, that they could make it sound like that—you know, that's the thing. That's what it is. Just bring it down and it reaches everybody. There's something to that. It was just something that came along and clicked with everybody. It's just probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing."
"Man, I don't think Miles even thought that it would have that longevity," he says. "If he even thought that that day, he would've asked for a pile of money. You know, if he thought that he had something that was going to really be selling for 50 years, he would've asked for real money."
As for the drummer, "I was probably the soberest one in the band," says Cobb, the only member of the Blue sextet other than Adderley to fully escape a heroin addiction. "And he knew I was going to be on time. And he knew when I got there, I would give 150 percent. So like that, you know. That's the pluses I had."
Here, in a sixth-floor East Side conference room, Jimmy Cobb hums the "Round About Midnight" melody.
"I started right there. I played that with them. I was in the band—no rehearsals, no nothing. So that's the way it started, man."
The ending, however, has yet to be written. Jimmy Cobb, suitably enough, is at the forefront of the 50th-anniversary DVD. This month, the drummer will be recognized as a National Endowment for the Arts Jazzmaster. November brings appearances at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, as well as a number of dates in Germany. In January, Jimmy Cobb will turn 80 years old; in February, he'll be leading a new outfit, the So What Band, as part of Kind of Blue's continuing golden-anniversary celebration, still officially 11 months away.
But despite all the attention that comes with this territory—and having provided percussion on a work of acclaimed and enduring genius—it's the people he remembers, not the songs: "I'm proud to be here, man. I'm proud to be going on 80 years old. I never thought I'd be 80 years old. I'm here. I'm sorry that all my friends are gone, you know, but I've got them here."
80 is most certainly old to most people. John McCain is the old one in this current election and his counterpart. Barack Obama is essentially the young one. I could add that -- although, the aforementioned young whippersnappers who considered me old for bringing up Miles Davis -- Sen. Obama, That young One, is a mere three and half years younger than me.
This age thing comes up in context in the sports world these days with the success of Joe Paterno. Penn State is currently #3 in the polls and I said three weeks ago that the Nittany Lions were the best team I've seen all season.
(Every once in a while, you get it right in this business. Three weeks ago, after Wisconsin laid a big stinky egg at Michigan, I told anyone who would listen that the Ohio State game was a toss-up, but that Penn State was going to murdalize the Badgers -- something like 42-10. This, of course, led to a barstool wag to confront me, 'hey if you think so, why not give me those 32 points? You said it right?" At 48-7, I still comfortably covered.)
I would also argue that Penn State has the easiest road to the BCS Championship game as they have no conference title game to slip them up on the way. And yet people are still saying that Joe Paterno is too old to coach football.
The Canadian Press offers that the man can still coach, even if a sore hip means he does it most weekends from the press box. He still knows how to win, too, seven straight and counting this season on a familiar climb back toward the top of the college football poll.
And so two months shy of his 82nd birthday, with two national titles to his credit and a third in his sights, the last thing left for Joe Pa to prove is that he cares as much about the future of Penn State football as he does about its past and present.
With the third-ranked Nittany Lions back in the national conversation for all the right reasons, there's a rare moment of consensus in the debate that has divided Penn State people for years. Just about everyone agrees once more that Paterno has earned the right to go out, whenever that is, on his own terms. What he needs to understand is there's no time like now to let the rest of us in on just what those terms might be.
Stubbornness is admirable sometimes, but it's not always an answer. Paterno doesn't have to come up with a date - more on that later - but sitting down with school president Graham Spanier to start discussing a successor would be a good place to start. Paterno is in the last year of a contract and with Michigan headed into Happy Valley this weekend and the Nittany Lions travelling to Ohio State the next, he could lose a whole lot of bargaining power in a hurry.
During his midweek conference call, Paterno turned aside questions about his own future the same way he always does. Someone asked how long before he could move back down from the press box to the sidelines and JoePa replied, "I don't know," then added a moment later, "I don't get get-well cards. Can we talk about the football team and not me, for crying out loud?"
ESPN has revealed that 42 Penn State football players faced 163 criminal charges of varying circumstance since 2002. Twenty-seven players either were convicted or pleaded guilty to a combination of 45 charges.
There will be significant blemishes on any major football program when placed underneath such a piercing microscope. Paterno sternly rejects the notion of compromising character for better talent and more victories, but in the aftermath of that report Paterno nonetheless wielded a sterner disciplinary stick — dismissing three prominent players from the team.
This was precisely how one paves the exit road for a longtime college head coach — create the appearance that he's losing control. All of a sudden, the skeletons that consistently remained hidden behind lock and key see the light of public scrutiny.
It's not worth it any longer for Paterno.
He injured his hip demonstrating an onside kick during preseason practice. He might need hip replacement surgery after the season. Paterno's relegated to the coaches' box upstairs because he can't get around on the sidelines without the use of a cane.
JoePa's proven he's still got it, but it's time he realizes he's had enough.
If not old, perhaps the word for the day should be OOPS!
As in the Tampa Bay Rays being seven runs up and seven outs away from dispatching the Boston Red Sox and reaching the World Series for the first time before OOPS!
After losing that lead and that game, how will the Rays react? The Boston Globe's Shira Springer reveals that Tampa Bay designated hitter Cliff Floyd will stick with a steady diet of Nickelodeon. He will bypass all news and sports channels. He will toss the daily papers aside. Sitting beside his kids at home, Floyd will try to forget last night's devastating 8-7 loss to Boston with an overdose of "Dora the Explorer" and "SpongeBob SquarePants."
"That's how you eliminate all the stuff," said Floyd. "You can't turn on the news and see how we made history."
"We've got two games to see what we're made of," said Floyd, who made (and won) a World Series with Florida in 1997 but fell short with the New York Mets in 2006. "We win Saturday and we go to the World Series. We've got to go out there and play.
"We learned a valuable lesson tonight. Anything can happen at any given time. The only luxury we have is that we were up 3-1. The momentum has shifted to them, but we're in our house where we feel real comfortable."
Meanwhile, the BYU Cougars were undefeated and making noises of running the table and barging their way into the BCS discussion before OOPS!
Now his team has given voters a reason to stop wondering whether the Horned Frogs deserve to be mentioned among the nation’s best.
TCU dominated No. 9 BYU in all aspects of the game, snapping its Thursday night curse at five games and putting a damper on the Cougars’ reign atop the Mountain West Conference with a 32-7 victory before 36,180 fans at Amon G. Carter Stadium.
TCU (7-1, 4-0 in Mountain West Conference) has lost just once this season — to then-No. 2 Oklahoma — and BYU had won 16 straight games and 18 in a row against conference foes.
But Patterson knows he can’t tell voters which way to go.
"We wanted to come out and be the best TCU football team," he said. "Then we’re going to let everybody else judge it.
"This was a big win, but I’d be making a mistake for my football team if I made this the season-ending victory. We’ve got a lot of good football left. To win a championship, it takes them all."
In Green Bay, came word of the Packers finishing the paperwork for a trade with Kansas City's Tony Gonzalez and then OOPS!
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Tom Silverstein claims that the Green Bay Packers and one other NFL team had agreed on a third-round pick as compensation for Kansas City Chiefs tight end Tony Gonzalez, but according to Gonzalez, Chiefs general manager Carl Peterson pulled out at the last second.
According to an NFL source, the Packers were the team Gonzalez was focusing on and preferred them over the other contender. He had approved a trade to Green Bay. It was up to the Chiefs, however, to determine where he would be traded.
"Last night I talked to Carl and I point-blank asked him what it would take to get it done," Gonzalez said in an exclusive interview. "I wanted to know if it could happen with a fourth (-round pick). He started talking about a second and a fifth like the (Jeremy) Shockey deal. Nobody is going to trade a second for a 32-year-old tight end. All along Carl said he would do something that works for both parties. Then he talked about how he traded a third for Willie Roaf, and he made it pretty clear to me that's what was going to get it done. That was certainly fair.
"I know teams offered a third and in the end, Carl made the asking price a second. I'm very disappointed that he didn't go through with it after he told me he was going to try to make it happen. I've been around this league a long time, it's a business. There's nothing I can do about it. I was (ticked) off about it, but I'll get over it. I won't let it affect my play and my preparation."
Down in Chicago, Denis Savard was preparing his Blackhawks for their fifth game of the new NHL season, when OOPS!
The Tribune's Mike Downey (yeah, he's getting entirely too much ink here, but what can I say when he's front and center ice on the biggest stories of the day?) thinks that the team didn't give Savard much of a chance.
Canning a coach four games into a season is a pretty bloody ice-cold act on the Blackhawks' part.
Particularly when the gentleman in question is Denis Savard, a prince of a fellow who in Chicago is considered to be hockey royalty.
"Like a brother to me," said the general manager who fired him, Dale Tallon.
"All class," said the team president who fired him, John McDonough.
Two minutes for back stabbing.
Savard was given—wow—four whole games to show results.
No, check that. Three games. It is plain that the process of kicking Savvy off the Blackhawks' reservation was well under way before Wednesday night's icebreaker over Phoenix, isn't it? You don't win a game and lose your job for it. Willie Randolph can vouch for that.
Hypothetically, could Savard have saved his job if he had gone 4-0 rather than 1-2-1?
"Hypothetically, probably," Tallon said.
Well, as long as he got a fair shot.
A bombshell was dropped like a puck on a faceoff Thursday at the United Center, where the smiley-faced Blackhawks took the mask off like the Phantom of the Opera and revealed an ugly side underneath.
They cut their ties with Savard, who was given a new goaltender, a new defenseman and less than a week to go 4-0 with them or else.
Unless you accept the explanation that he also was fired for how the team looked in training camp.
"It was a flat camp," Tallon said. "Then we got out of the gate flat."
Savard's team lost unimpressively on the road against the Rangers and Capitals, then looked better in the home opener with the Predators but lost in a shootout.
I was at that game and heard people speculating Savvy's job was in jeopardy.
"But the season began Friday," I said. "This is Monday."
Meaning that it's never too early to give up on a Blackhawks' season or coach.
As previously mentioned, the college football season been a drag locally. Last Saturday, the Badgers turned in one of their ugliest performances at Camp Randall, a 48-7 shellacking at the hands of 7-0 Penn State. It was Bret Bielema’s second consecutive home loss (following a streak of 16 victories), and the worst Wisconsin football home loss since 1989, when the Don Morton-led Badgers lost to Miami 51-3.
Still, the biggest story of the week might have been the UW Police Dept. feeling the need to Tazer a 54-year old woman during a scuffle at the stadium. The Capitol Times reports Margaret Hiebing, 54, of Madison was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest while her husband, Roman Hiebing Jr., 65, same address, was charged with disorderly conduct, according to UW-Madison police.
The brawl between the Hiebings and the cops started when too many people were trying to sit in Row 69 of Section U on the stadium's east side, said UW police Sgt. Jason Whitney.
"We asked her to go to her seat because she was sitting in the aisle," Whitney said. "We made attempts to contact guest services to help her to her seat, but that didn't happen, so our policy is if you're not in your seat, you get ejected."
This episode brings to mind the bad old days of Badger football in the late 1990's when the combination of lousy football and frisking any and everyone for liqour bottles resulted in acres of empty seats in Camp Randall.
Way to go, Wisconsin cops! What a great marketing campaign -- Come for the lousy football, stay for the Tazering!
A quick peek to the Badger Beat website reveals some other information from a friend of the Hiebings, conveniently left out of the UWPD report.
The victim has had 2 total knee replacements & a bad back from previous injury. She explained this to the female officer and that is why she could not occupy the empty seat in the next row 8 seats in from the isle, but the officer was unimpressed. Once the people in her isle finally moved down, she was able to get in her seat. By the time all the other police officers had shown up, they were pulling her hair & dragging her down the stairs and she kicked them because they were twisting her knees sideways and she was terrified they would damage the artaficial joints and she would need additional surgury.
All in all, do you really feel the police had to take things this far? To taser her? She was not threatening to anybody, just mouthy and standing up to what she believed were her rights, and yes, she shouldn't have done that. But once she was in her seat, which was her's which she paid for, the officer should just dropped it because the crowd was at that point getting very upset, but the officer just wouldn't let it go. And the additional police officers got into the frey and made it much worse. The police are getting too comfortable with using a taser and not using diplomacy and crowd control measures they supposedly were taught. All this because of someone sitting in the isle at a Badger game???
Another observer, three rows from the fracus claims the "rent a campus cop" blew this one. She did ask her to move out of the aisle and the lady kept telling her she has a ticket for this seat but no one would move down. The big bad rent-a-cop said well it looks like you need to go and tried to pull her arm to move her. The lady pulled her arm back and then that's when the rent-a-cop started yelling at her and pulled the mace out and stuck it in her face. When that did not work she called for back-up. The lady was able to get in her seat when a couple moved down into are row. The real cops arrived but by this time the lady was in tears and was curled up in her husbands arms. I think she was in shock and was not going to go anywhere with the cops. Then the 8 to 10 cops said it was show time and attacked the lady.
Having had my own up-close-and-personal such chats with the UWPD, I now stay miles away from the stadium on game day.
The question begs, though: If the UW cops are going to Tazer handicapped middle aged women during abysmal losing football, how many fans do they expect will show up for that November game versus Cal Poly?
Welcome back to the bad old days, which are already in progress.
Finally, another anniversary this week in sports. Forty years ago yesterday, track and field athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their famous, silent gesture at the Mexico City Olympic Games.
They raised two black-gloved fists in a black power salute from the victory stand, during an Olympic gold medal ceremony.
With that in mind, the pair returned to Mexico City, scene of that controversial stance, and Smith recalled that historic moment with Helen William of the UK's Morning Star Online.
"Athletes have a responsibility to speak because they are in a position to make a difference and they have a responsibility to make that difference. That is a truth which remains to this day," he said.
On October 16 1968, Smith clocked a world record 19.83 seconds to take the 200 metres crown ahead of Australia's Peter Norman and his US team-mate Carlos, who won bronze.
With the eyes of the world watching, the US athletes took their moment on the medal podium to make a stand against US racial discrimination.
Smith and Carlos, both shoeless, bowed their heads and raised a gloved fist as The Star Spangled Banner played.
Payback was swift and enduring. They were kicked out of the Games, ostracised, ridiculed, threatened and left struggling to find work.
"1968 was not a protest of anger. It was a cry for freedom through the only avenue that I had open to me," Smith said. "It was the only secular route available to me. It was the only stand that I could take.
"There is no such thing as perfection, but it did make a difference then and now because young people can associate with it."
With this in mind, Smith, who has a Masters degree in sociology, visited London last week to talk to youngsters about how sport and education can counter gang culture in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.
The countdown to 2012 has made his visit, backed by the British Library and London's Camden Council, all the more timely.
Sport, with its health, discipline and safety benefits, has now been pushed up the political agenda, but there is also a violent knife and gun crime culture.
Smith said: "Young people today in Britain do not have the international platform that Tommie Smith had, but they have a community. They have places where they can start to learn.
"It starts from the inside, in families, and it is up to us to help those who do not have families to help them grow." The 1968 Olympics arrived amid a tense mood of unrest in the US after the assassinations of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy earlier that year.
But to make a political stand at an international event came at a huge price.
Smith was fired from jobs and scholarships for his family were taken away.
Carlos remembers chopping furniture up for firewood and putting his children to sleep in front of the fire when he could not pay his electricity bills. The pressure of it all saw relatives of both men become very ill.
So, does Smith regret his actions or feel it made a difference?
One possible legacy, he accepts, is that the US is now prepared to consider electing its first black president.
Smith said: "Yes, that is true. I was on that trail, but I was one of many humans who were on that trail, through from Dr Martin Luther King Jr and back to slavery. There was a lot of others on the same path as me, especially in the human rights campaign."
Now, 40 years on, Smith is trying to carve out a new legacy for the impact that sport and education can create. He said: "I am a sort of in-your-face person.
"I will look right at the kid and let them know they have a responsibility to get to class, to be responsible to their parents and to treat others how they want to be treated.
"A child's brain is like a computer chip and you have to programme it and that can be done in the home or in the classroom or potentially in the street.
"You cannot grow roses in a rock. Children have to have people around them who will give them a chance to broaden themselves. It is called cultivating our youth."
Yes, I'm old enough to remember that day. You have to consider the life and times of 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot. resulting in riots across the ghettos of America. Bobby Kennedy had also been shot and protesters had been billy-clubbed with the whole world watching in Chicago. In that context, Carlos and Smith decided to say something about all that to the Olympic audience.
They were among my biggest childhood heroes. And the fact that both men are still alive and giving of themselves to young people is one of those sparkling moments that -- Sarah Palin notwithstanding -- truly make me proud to be an American.
Letters, we get letters...loyal longtime reader CJ from the Netherlands (HOLLAND?! Yeah, we global, booooeeey!) asks what impact the financial meltdown will have on the sports world. Well, we're seeing it already on a micro and macro level.
Locally, the sad economic news has forced both the Madison Mallards and Green Bay Packers to scale back proposed stadium improvements. (Full disclosure moment: This columnist is employed by the Northwoods League baseball club.)
The Mallards have had put the kibosh on big plans for a brand spanking new park. The original plan would have remodeled the Duck Pond at Warner Park, rotated the baseball field 180 degrees to help block the sun and gave the ballpark a $5.5-million facelift.
Now, the plans have changed, however, and the project has been scaled back to halve the price, WISC-TV reported.
Instead of building new facilities, the plans will now renovate existing buildings.
The city will still authorize $800,000 for new bleachers, but will not provide the $1.2 million for other renovations.
Mallards General Manager Vern Stenman said the ballpark will still get its needed improvements.
"A couple weeks ago, we came to the second option and said, 'Man, we can do a little bit scaled back project and accomplish 90-95 percent of what we were hoping to do and spend less than half the amount of money,'" said Stenman. "It just made a lot of sense."
Meanwhile, improvements to Lambeau Field have also been torpedoed by the economy. The Green Bay Press-Gazette reports that even the Packers are pinching pennies these days.
In light of the uncertain economic landscape, the team decided to put off a $25 million expansion of the Lambeau Field Atrium. The plan calls for a plaza that would wrap around the atrium from the Oneida Nation gate on the east to the Miller Brewing Company gate on the north to allow for better movement for fans. It also called for underground parking for players.
Packers President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Murphy attributed the delay to the weakened economy, as well as the team’s desire to incorporate the idea into longer-term development plans.
“Given the size of the investment, we want to make sure it fits into our long-term master plan,” he said. “It made sense to put it on hold for a while. We don’t want to say in a year or two, ‘if only we’d known’ … so we decided the best thing to do is hold off.”
The Packers recently bought a number of properties west of Ridge Road along Lombardi Avenue with an eye on future development.
Plans for the atrium expansion are drawn, but no supplies or contracts were ordered or signed. It was expected to begin after the football season, and Murphy still expects it will go forward at some point. “It would have solved a lot of problems,” he acknowledged. “It’s a timing issue.”
“We’d like to see the project completed,” said Patrick Webb, executive director of the Green Bay-Brown County Professional Football Stadium District. “We think there are safety issues, both for people going to the game and for the players and parking. We’ve been suggesting it for several years.
“But we understand and support the team’s decision. One has to only look at the current financial situation to understand why the team doesn’t want to liquidate investments at this time for the project.”
Until the economy stabilizes, the Packers will remain cautious, Murphy said.
As Manchester United, possibly the world's most valuable sports franchise and arguably the most famous one worldwide, took to its hallowed pitch, its home red shirts (an appropriate color, as it turns out) were emblazoned across the chests with the logo of American International Group, previously the largest insurance company in the U.S. and now a ward of the state.
At the time of its collapse and public rescue, AIG was just midway through a four-year sponsorship deal with Man U that will pay the club upward of $100 million. Not that U.S. taxpayers' money is really going offshore, mind you, since Man U's owner is Malcolm Glazer, a Rochester-born businessman who also happens to own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Hmm, so does that mean that -- as an American taxpayer -- I now own part of Man U?
And what about all those stadium and arena names that are also up for grabs?
Right now, for example, they're trying to figure out what to do with the name of the 76ers' and Flyers' crib, the Arena Formerly Known As Wachovia Center. Do the naming rights Wachovia purchased go to Wells Fargo, which stepped in to try to take over the failing bank late this week, or to Citigroup, which thought it had a deal earlier in the week and so is contesting the Wells Fargo transaction? The same goes for Wachovia's piece of the Charlotte Bobcats. For now, presumably, nothing has changed. And if you committed to memory every last sentimental moment you witnessed at the last game at Yankee Stadium a couple of weeks back, you might recall a straight-faced sign beyond the outfield that reads in retrospect like some fan's idea of a topical joke written on a bedsheet:
AIG: THE STRENGTH TO BE THERE
That's just stuff in plain sight. Never mind the loans out to leagues, franchises and owners, or the books that aren't opened to the media but might contain records the FBI could stumble upon in its search for evidence of criminal activity in New York's financial district.
Whether the House of Representatives signed off on the bailout of Wall Street (it did, early Friday afternoon), whether the Dow Jones Index stabilizes or crashes right down to the Mendoza line, whether the $1.2 trillion in investors' losses in Monday's trading at the NYSE are recovered in whole or in part or will only be compounded, something will change, almost certainly many things.
It won't be business as usual anywhere, sports included.
There is a glimmer of good news among the bad tidings as Tiger Stadium preservationists raised the needed funds by last Friday's deadline to prevent immediate demolition of the rest of the stadium.
The Detroit Free Press' Zachary Gorchow reports that stadium advocates turned over $69,000 to the city for security and maintenance at the stadium and put $150,000 into an escrow account to defray the costs of delaying demolition.
"It's an exciting day," said Thomas Linn, vice president of the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy. "It's only a small step, and there's a lot more to do."
There sure is.
Friday's success is merely the first in a long series of deadlines preservationists must meet to prevent the ballpark -- which the Tigers called home from 1912 to 1999 -- from complete demolition.
The Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy promised the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. that by Dec. 1 it would supply conceptual design plans and cost estimates, preliminary 5-year operational and construction budgets, a fund-raising proposal and an economic feasibility evaluation, among other requirements.
If the city approves, then the conservancy will pay an additional $150,000 into an escrow account on Dec. 11.
The current concept for the iconic stadium is to convert the lower deck into a restaurant and bar, banquet facilities, a welcome center for the Corktown neighborhood and an exhibition area for yet-to-be-determined sports memorabilia.
The Detroit City Council was poised to vote Tuesday to authorize the razing of the rest of the stadium if preservationists failed to raise the money. The outfield stands already have been leveled.
Preservationists have until March 1 to raise $15 million for the project itself and would have to begin construction by July 1 with completion of the work in 18 months.
Still, another longtime reader CP in Florida suggests that beer might make the best investment in the long and short term. He writes that if you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today.
But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you will have received $214.00 back on your investment.
Based on the above, CP suggests that the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. He calls his strategy, the 401-Keg.
Speaking of saving, did the Packers save their season with a win in Seattle on Sunday? The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's roundtable of Packers "experts" debates the issue along with providing some post-game quotes. If you asked any Packer in particular, it was HUGE!
Greg Jennings says. It's huge. I think we came out and started fast. The enthusiasm was there. We played four quarters, finally. Obviously you're not going to have success all the time, every play, but we had success more than we had negative plays. I think that's the key to winning ball games. We were able to move the ball. Obviously we kept the ball away from their offense, kept our defense fresh and gave ourselves a chance to win.
Nick Barnett says, It was huge. Not being able to play we wanted to play for the last couple of weeks, we finally got back to playing Packer defense. We had some energy out there. The front seven did good, the DBs played good, we had some good turnovers. We've just got to continue to keep this train moving.
Aaron Kampman found another word to describe it, adding, It's tremendous. It really is. We'll enjoy this one for a little bit. Hopefully we'll get on a roll now.
To paraphrase Yogi Berra, is the Badger football season over before it's over? It's a valid question after Wisconsin was pasted by Penn State, 48-7 Saturday night. Also from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's sports blog page, Dave Heller asks aloud, can we just say this one was ugly?
You can listen to some of the explanations and other emotions in our post-game interviews. Bielema talks about the short field, missed assignments (Jay Valai is called out for one play), the reason he switched free safeties, why he didn't pull Allan Evridge at the start of the second half and much more.
Bielema didn't name a starting quarterback, but it sure sounded like Dustin Sherer would start. Both Evridge and Sherer talk about the game as well in our interviews.
DeAndre Levy said Wisconsin got "stomped" while Jonathan Casillas said the Badgers deserved to be booed. If you're looking for something uplifting, then listen to Mike Newkirk's comments. He might have been trying to just say the right things, but man did he put a positive spin on things (at least from his vantagepoint).
Heller also adds that Camp Randall had its 36th consecutive sellout, although most of those fans were gone by the end of the game. It was the least-crowded walk to the post-game interview session ever.
Moreover, what teams left on the Badgers' schedule can be considered probable wins? You'd like to think that lowly Cal Poly -- the late season cupcake found after breaking the contract with Virginia Tech -- is a definite do-able.
Still, what about road trips to Iowa and Michigan State along with home tilts against improving Illinois and Minnesota? Even the Indiana game looks iffy, so how does Wisconsin garner three more wins to make themselves bowl-eligible?
In any event, it seems likely that their fans won't have to gripe about yet another New Year's Day game in Florida.
While visiting the Sunshine State, Sarah Silverman asks, if you could change the world by visiting your grandparents, wouldn't you? The Great Schlep aims to have Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favor.
And like that famous 60's commercial for rye bread, you don't have to Jewish to take part. You can still become a schlepper and make change happen in 2008, simply by talking to your relatives about Obama.
Finally, speaking of family, there are some in the sports world who have a problem with Philadelphia Phillies' manager Charlie Manuel's way of grieving.
Manuel broke his silence Sunday, two days after his mother passed away at 87. Most of the questions revolved around his loss coming at a high-profile time and the balancing of work with personal tragedy.
"We've got some work to do, and I know my mother would definitely want me in the dugout, because she used to manage a lot for me anyway," Manuel told MLB.com's Ken Mandel. "I feel very comfortable. My mom and I were very close. I know that she would definitely want me to finish the season, if possible."
Manuel will manage the Phillies through Game 5 on Wednesday, then return to Buena Vista, the small Virginia town where he grew up and where June Manuel lived in the same house for the past 43 years. He'll attend a viewing and funeral and return to Philadelphia for a possible Game 6 on Friday.
Still, many are complaining about Manuel's choice as a poor choice of priorities, and why sports' impact is so perverted, yadda yadda yadda. Even ESPN's Mike and Mike In The Morning discussed the topic, though they didn't appear to judge the man or his reasoning.
And yet, neither Mr. Greenberg nor Mr. Golic -- along with millions of people who have chimed in -- have much in the way of credentials to talk as they still have yet to lose a parent themselves.
In 1991, I was in college -- winning my first Roto baseball championship and cheering on the "worst to first" Atlanta Braves in the World Series -- when I lost my mother and I left classes to attend her funeral. After My father joined her in 1997, I wrote a column that day on how he probably was a deciding factor in my becoming a sportswriter.
What's my point here? If you haven't lost a parent, shut up about Charlie Manuel. You have no critical leg to stand on.
And we all have the right to grieve in our special way.
Locally, besides the election that is, the big story is whether Wisconsin will show up for their night home game against Penn State. Coach Joe Pa gave the New York Times a blunt assessment of the Wisconsin Badgers' woes.
"They let Michigan off the hook, and I think they let Ohio State off the hook," Penn State's Hall of Fame coach said.
Penn State fans hope the Lions offense went conservative in last week's unstylish win at Purdue and will open things up again against Wisconsin. Galen Hall and Jay Paterno likely will expand the playbook, particularly with top wideout Jordan Norwood back, but quarterback Daryll Clark must continue to play smart on the road. Wisconsin reserve running back John Clay has provided a lift in each of the team's last two losses. Clay has to touch the ball more for the Badgers to have a chance at an upset.
Well, another wheel may have fallen off the Straight Talk Express last night when Sen. McCain actually found the common (or maybe, not common) decency to defend Sen. Obama during one of his fakey psuedo-town-hall-meetings last night in Minnesota. The GOP Presidential nominee was actually booed when he said, "I have to tell you he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States,"
My question is, where did they find so many angry people in Minnesota, yah dere hey? Aren't they all warm and fuzzy like Garrison Keillor? Another sportswriting colleague Steve Rushin once said that if it was up to Minnesotans, they'd be called the Prettty Darn Good Lakes, as in, "they're not so great, but..."
Nobody here is bitter or angry. As far as I can tell, nobody in Minnesota ever gets riled up about anything. Minnesotans really are, as the expression goes, "Minnesota nice." They are beyond nice. They make Mister Rogers look like ####.
If you drove your car at 85 miles per hour into a Minnesota family's house, their reaction, once they pulled you out of the wreckage and gave you some hot cocoa, would be to apologize for building their house in a location that you would eventually want to drive through.
Which may be why no Minnesotan has ever been elected president.
The hometown Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports, Coleman told reporters that after a day of fasting and prayer for Yom Kippur, a "time of fasting, soul-searching and refocusing on your life," he had decided to change the tone of his campaign.
"We're in a place that I don't think any of us of this generation, this time, have ever seen before," Coleman said. "At times like this, politics should not add to the negativity. It should lift people up with hope and a confident vision for the future."
Almost wryly, Coleman added that he also "decided I was not all that interested in returning to Washington for another six years based on the judgment of the voters that I was not as bad as the other guys. I want voters to vote for me and not against the other folks."
Security is expected to be somewhat tighter than usual for Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Pailn, who Dave Barry once observed combines "the fresh-faced feisty toughness of a small-town Alaska hockey-mom snowmobiling mayor governor who can kill and field-butcher a mature grizzly bear using only a nail file and her teeth."
As reported here previously, the governor of Alaska and the nation's “most popular hockey mom,'' will join the winner of the Flyers' regional search for the “Ultimate Hockey Mom” contest and drop the puck at center ice.
Writing to the board last summer, San Francisco resident Paul J. Miller expressed a view that many others had raised: "Attention should be given to mental health assistance," he wrote, "not paying tens of millions of dollars to contractors who are just trying to milk money from citizens."
On the other hand, the Psychiatric Foundation of Northern California has supported the idea, contending that the effectiveness of barriers has been "dramatic" at such landmarks as the Empire State Building and Eiffel Tower.
The group also cites a study of 515 people who were stopped from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. It concluded that 94% of them were alive or had died naturally long after their thwarted attempts.
In its 14-1 vote Friday, the agency's directors determined that a net would be the least visible of five alternatives.
The others included extending the height of the bridge's railing from four to 12 feet -- an option widely criticized as too obtrusive.
All of the possibilities -- except doing nothing -- would cost $40 million to $50 million.
Still, most of the players on these teams for these photo-ops are Republicans -- call it a Charles Barkley anti-populism. When the Atlanta Braves were summoned to the White House for their photo-op moment with then-President Bill Clinton, relief pitcher Mark Wohlers leaned over to say, "Sir, I think I'm the only one up here who actually voted for you."
If that wasn't funny enough, the Mark Wohlers Obsession page reveals that when the Braves' pitcher met Public Enemy rapper Chuck D, he told his child, "Austyn, dear, don't use any of the words that Chuck D uses. Only Daddycan use those words..."
John Shivers is in his 25th season as a journalist -- for the least two years producing and hosting a funk music show -- Back In The Day w/ Johnny Rasta -- on WSUM 91.7FM Madison, WI. Started in radio as a Morning Sports Reporter and Late Night DJ with WMAD 92FM. Served a quarter-centu ry as a sportswriter most recently, for the Milwaukee Shepherd Express, including stints as a beat reporter covering Major League Baseball (Milwaukee Brewers) and college football and basketball (Wisconsin, Marquette & UW-Milwaukee) . Born on January 5, 1957, John is the great-grandso n of slaves who first homesteaded in Wisconsin in the 1840's. He holds a BA in Broadcast Journalism (2001) from UW-Milwaukee with a Minor in Africology. John, now single, resides in Madison, WI with his beloved kittie: Black Jack (McDowell)
