JANUARY 20 2007 UPDATE
COMMITMENTS
Katie Dennis, Arizona Hotshots Gold - Gatti, '07 P/1B, Committed to Bradley University
Amy McLuskie, 2007, Wa Absolute Blast Gold (2B/OF), committed to Dartmouth.
THE REAL USS NEW YORK
Vigilant readers alerted SPY that the photo in wide circulation of the ship is actually the USS San Antonio. As Snopes notes, the artist’s rendering above is the actual USS New York and indeed it was built with scrap steel from the Twin Towers.
PS: another reader informs that Boeing denies planning the 797 – another photo in wide circulation. SPY checks most but can’t keep up with all the email. Please check for authenticity before sending to SPY.
RISING STARS CORRECTION
SPY thought the Thunder vs Eliminators game was over when the Eliminators broke the 1-1 tie. Should have stayed. The RI Thunder came back to win 5-4. The scorekeeper:
In the opening game on Friday night for Rhode Island Thunder at the Rising Star Tournament, Thunder defeats the Florida Eliminators, 5-4. In the 1st, Meg Silvestri singled and moved over to third by a sac bunt from Lauren Corriea. Kayleigh Mediros singled allowing Meg to score. Pitcher for Rhode Island Thunder, Christina Beradi, was cruising along until the top of the 4th when Florida Eliminator, Jordan hit a double and scored on a throwing error from cathcher Diana Lamb to tie the game. In the top of the 5th and 6th the Florida Eliminators managed to get 3 more unearned runs, to take a 4-1 lead. Beradi only giving up 3 hits and 2 walks to the Eliminators. In the bottom of the 6th lead off batter Silvestri walks, starting a rally for Rhode Island Thunder. L Corriea singles to move Meg to second. J Futardo singles in Silvestri, and Jen Tartaglia triples to the gap to plate in Corriea and Futardo. Tartaglia steals home on the throw to 1st from C Beradi's hit to 3rd. Thunder takes the lead 5-4. Top of the 7th the Eliminator's batted only two batters, resulting in two outs. Before the third batter could take the plate the umpires called the game due to the time limit.
POTPOURRI
Secret of the Saints Success? New Orleans is famous for bananas Foster, crepes, Oyster Rockefeller, eggs Hussarde, Creole cooking, not to mention the sazerac Collins, jazz and the French Quarter. Now comes the Fujita – named after Saints linebacker Scott Fujita -- the six-inch high concoction piles crawfish on top of tuna rolls, smothered under avocado sauce. Pass the Rolaids.
David Beckham has been variously described as over-the-hill, past his prime, and widely seen as never having been the best soccer player. But, the élan he brings to the game, not to mention a knockout wife, both with star power, serves to remind that sports, like the movies, TV, etc., is basically entertainment. The 250 mil is not a mathematical projection of goals scored but seats filled and advertising purchased.
Family feud. The Sporting News makes no pretense of impartiality in the contretemps between Dale Earnhardt Jr and Dale Sr’s widow, Theresa, whom SN refers to as the “monster-in-law.”
Oklahoma vs Boise State. The consensus best bowl game. But, some sports writers continue to comment wryly on the hook-and-lateral, Statue of Liberty, and pass by a wideout as trickery. Folks, it’s not like OU never lost to trick plays. Many Sooner fans got their first gray hairs suffering Tom Osborne’s Cornhusker trickery; remember “fumblerooskie?” A team like Boise State wouldn’t match up well head-to-head playing conventional football against powers like Oklahoma, Michigan, etc., so they use speed and innovation – just like the hook-and-lateral OU used to dethrone #1 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl title game, or the split-end formation Bud Wilkinson sprang on Texas in 1952 to run up 45 points, or the wishbone reverses Switzer used to humiliate Notre dame by 55 points. Florida is #1 but Boise State is #1 in offensive versatility. Great game!
Private school headmasters are earning a national average of $167,000, and some in the Washington area are in the $200-300K range. Tuition at St Albans, Al Gores alma mater, is up to $26,500 for a day student. Can’t afford my dentist; who pays $22K per child – and that’s just high school. Of course, several of us at a recent Georgetown bash noted that we could not afford the Hilltop at $35,000 a year. I wonder what the quality of education is like in the small villages of Appalachia?
La Gioconda, aka Mona Lisa. Associated Press - ROME (Jan. 19) - The world's most famously enigmatic woman may have shed some of her mystery. A death certificate shows that Lisa Gherardini - the Renaissance woman some believe was the model for the "Mona Lisa" - died on July 15, 1542, in Florence and is buried in a convent in central Florence, amateur historian Giuseppe Pallanti said. It's not certain Gherardini, who was born in 1479 and married a rich silk merchant called Francesco del Giocondo, is the woman in the painting whose smile has inspired speculation for centuries. Was she smiling to "tempt a lover" or "to hide a broken heart?" Nat King Cole wondered in a song written in the 1950s. Tradition links Gherardini to "La Gioconda," as the painting is known in Italian, because Giorgio Vasari, a 16th-century artist and biographer of Leonardo and other artists, wrote that da Vinci painted a portrait of del Giocondo's wife. SPY note: AOL/AP conducted a poll: 59% of 83,000 respondents believe Gheradini is the Mona Lisa. SPY note: Incredible: there are 83,000 people who recognize the name Lisa Gheradini and know enough about her to form an opinion?
THIS WEEK IN POP CULTURE
Popeye made his debut on January 17, 1929
The Supremes, the real dream girls, gave their final performance in 1970
Happy Days premiered in 1970
Dolly Parton was born January 19, 1946; Sevierville has never been the same
Elizabeth Short, infamous as LA’s Black Dahlia, found dead in Leimert Park 1947
Prohibition began January 16, 1920, and made the Mafia rich and famous
DeForest Kelly, John Cardinal O’Connor and Federico Fellini were born January 20, 1920
The Beatles released their first album in the US on January 20 1964
Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a live bat in a 1982 Des Moines concert
Sweet Death. January 19, 1919, a tank burst, spilling 2 million gallons of molasses down the streets of Boston, the 35 mph tidal wave killed 21 (no movie?)
Winnie the Pooh day was January 18
Frenchman George Claude patents the neon tube 1915, lighting urban landscapes
IN MEMORIAM
The Mamas and Papas topped the charts in 1966 with “California Dreamin” but they were past tense by 1968. John Phillips and “Mama” Cass Elliott were joined on that big bandstand in the sky this week by Denny Doherty. Michelle Phillips survives. The 60’s had some great groups; few stars burned as bright musically or crashed so spectacularly on personal issues. To this day, “Monday, Monday”, “Dream” and other of their hits are considered among the best of their genre.
Goodnight, Pookie. “Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight” was written by Calvin Carter and James "Pookie" Hudson in 1953, and it was originally recorded by their rhythm and blues group, The Spaniels, in 1954. The best-selling version of the song was recorded by The McGuire Sisters in 1954. Hudson, who died this week, fought for decades to gain some of the royalties from the hit he sold for $800 and finally got the recognition.
Art Buchwald celebrated death in columns and a book just as he celebrated life as a columnist non-pareil. He turned a thrice weekly gossip column in the Paris Herald Tribune into international acclaim, and friendships with political powerhouses, royalty, movie and sports stars. His observations on life in Paris were followed, on his return to the States, with inimical political satire. I had one brief conversation with Buchwald. In the Sixties and Seventies, a certain cachet attached to people who had their own tables at San Souci, which at that time was Washington’s premiere watering hole. Especially prized were the banquettes along the north wall. People like Katherine Graham and Ben Bradlee of the Post, mega lawyer Edward Bennett Williams, and of course Buchwald had regular tables. Through a quirk, so did I – at noon every Wednesday. A Texan palavered with the maitre d and convinced him my role in the national drug abuse campaign (which got me into the Oval Office) was of major importance; we had a $50 bet he couldn’t get a regular table at San Souci. After a few Wednesdays in Buchwald’s proximity, he leaned over my table, with a big grin, and, letting me know he knew every Secretary of State, national security adviser, etc., asked in a friendly fashion, “Who in the hell are you?” My answer carried no weight; he never spoke to me again. But my friends/colleagues were impressed to be seated near the good and great of Washington. Finally, my bank account exhausted, I told Pierre that I was transferring out of Washington and would not need the table. Years later, Pierre had another restaurant with wife Madeline and we joked about the table at San Souci.