IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Brown Out

What is the purpose of all this football and why does it have to always extend into the time when 60 Minutes is supposed to start? a non-sports-viewing friend wondered recently.

“Football,” I replied, “is simply the surrogate to man’s primal need to defend his turf or to acquire someone else’s, which all goes back to being able to eat and then find a suitable mate so as to sustain the species. It’s truly a small sacrifice on your part if 60 Minutes begins 11 minutes late.”

When we talk about football, or all sports, what we are doing is using it as a prism to discuss human behavior or values. Mary Cain’s editorial last week about being trained by Alberto Salazar was not primarily about her Olympic aspirations; Colin Kaepernick’s workout this Saturday is not primarily about which team he will sign with. And last night’s Steelers-Browns game is hardly about who won or lost.

“This is something that will follow him the rest of his career,” former NFL offensive lineman Damien Woody told Scott Van Pelt on the midnight SportsCenter last night. “It’s criminal.”

What Woody was referring to, if you had already gone to sleep, was the play above in the final seconds of the Browns-Steelers contest in Cleveland. Myles Garrett of Cleveland went from trying to take down Pittsburgh’s Mason Rudolph as he released a screen pass to trying to take off his head.

What exactly was going on there? Garrett will likely be suspended the remainder of the season. His teammate, Larry Ogunjobi, along with Pittsburgh’s Maurkice Pouncey, will also be suspended, albeit for a shorter period of time.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Marie Yo’

Pizzazzgate moves to Day 3 of the public hearings as former U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and guy-who-overheard-Gordon-Sondland’s-phone-call David Holmes are set to provide testimony. Today, as compared to yesterday, is an LSU-Bama and Penn State-Minnesota Saturday afternoon as compared to a Clemson-N.C State and Notre Dame-Duke Saturday night.

California Shootin’

Two students, one a boy and another a girl, are murdered at Saugus High School in the far northeastern reaches of San Fernando Valley yesterday in California. By a classmate on his 16th birthday. Yet another school shooting.

Three off-duty police officers had just dropped off their kids at the school and rushed back when they heard the shots and saw students fleeing. The suspect had already turned the gun on himself by the time they entered the quad, but did administer first aid.

This morning on CNBC Andrew Ross Sorkin discussed legislation being brought forth, legislation that his campaign of articles in The New York Times helped bring about, that would have banks track irregular movements of money in relation to gun purchases. Of course Joe Kernen pushed back and called this Sorkin’s—he used these words— “pet cause.”

You could see Sorkin’s hair on fire. I”ve never seen him so exasperated on TV. If the clip comes up somewhere, I’ll post it. So far, no.

T.Hanks

A piece worth reading from The New York Times on how calling Tom Hanks an “Everyman” is something of a disservice. His starring role as Fred Rogers opens this weekend.

Genius Bar (Who’s At Least A Decade Away From A Bar)

This is Laurent Simons of Belgium. He’s nine years old and about to graduate Eindhoven University of Technology with a degree in electrical engineering. He also has a cool haircut. But he couldn’t make the basketball team.

We always notice that these prepubescent academic prodigies never major in liberal studies. Just an observation.

Five Films: 1956

The closing shot to end all closing shots, an elegy to the Wild West
  1. The Searchers If this isn’t the best Western (it is), it’s certainly the best John Wayne Western. It’s also the most scenically arresting one. The scene that always gets me: the terror on the women’s faces inside the cabin when they realized they’re surrounded by Indians and there’s no escape 2. The Ten Commandments Jesus may be the more important biblical figure (unless you’re Jewish), but Moses is definitely the biblical behemoth of cinema thanks to Charlton Heston’s portrayal (and who looked more Jewish than Charlton Heston?). That’s Edward G. Robinson as the devious slave trader and Anne Baxter—the same woman who played Eve in All About Eve—as the seductive Egyptian princess. 3. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers One of the smartest allegories ever made; again, it’s set in the midst of the McCarthy era. It’s just as timely today, if not more so (I thought I knew those people) 4. Giant Before there was There Will Be Blood, there was this grandiose epic starring a beguiling Elizabeth Taylor, a stoic Rock Hudson and an unharnessed James Dean (the film was released after his death). It doesn’t quite measure up to its Gone With The Wind-y aspirations, but still a must-see. 5. High Society Have you heard/It’s in the stars/Next July we collide with Mars. For the party scene alone and this duet between Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, this makes the list. Grace Kelly in her latest “I’m in love with my father” role (he’s 56, she’s 27) as we’re supposed to believe she’s already divorced from the Crusty Crooner and is now about to be won over by him again (this is The Philadelphia Story re-set as a musical in Newport, Rhode Island).

Just missed: Forbidden Planet Leslie Nielsen as the commander of a ship that lands on a planet with a lone survivor from a previous mission. It’s the forerunner for Star Trek, basically, and it’s fun to see Lt. Frank Drebin in his serious leading man days.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Forget that David Bowie may be the coolest person who’s ever lived. That he simply looks like the coolest person who ever lived. Here’s more evidence of what an absolute genius he was. How insightful and progressive. And yet, even he smoked cigarettes.

Starting Five

Unprecedented To Unpresidented

There have been three impeachment proceedings in my life. Let’s begin with the second first. A sitting president turned Oval Office into his own libertine Oral Office and he got caught. That was the crux of it. A bad husband, sure, and not at all professional in no matter the office, but as a citizen, I’d rather not have a sexually repressed president. So, yeah, shame shame shame, however…

Richard Nixon oversaw a break-in of the Democratic headquarters before the 1972 election. Before the 1968 election, he persuaded the Vietnamese not to make peace so that he’d have a better chance of winning. That latter maneuver probably cost 1,000s of young American men their lives. And even in 1972, with Watergate, it was a failed attempt at dirty dealings and there was a whistleblower, of sorts (Deep Throat), who was never identified. At least not for another quarter century.

BOOM! Roasted!

Which brings us to Wednesday’s live impeachment hearings. The Republicans tried their damnedest to kill the messenger, first demanding to know who that messenger is. Then they tried to describe all the testimony as hearsay, never mind that if the top officials in the White House would actually testify on the record that problem would be eliminated.

We thought it was illuminating to hear Bill Taylor and George Kent speak. Taylor graduated fifth in his class at West Point (of 800) and of all the postings he might’ve been able to take, he chose infantry. And saw combat in Vietnam. Kent is a second-generation foreign service whose father graduated from the Naval Academy.

This family has one more person of integrity than the Trump family (two if you count George Michael)

These are, sorry Mr. President, “the best people.” And with the revelation of the overheard phone call between Trump and Gordon Sondland, who was at a restaurant in Ukraine at the time, it becomes more and more evident that the Trumps are simply the Bluths from Arrested Development.

For weeks Trump and his cronies demanded transparency from the impeachment inquiry. Yesterday they got it and then claimed they didn’t even watch. Richard Nixon resigned under pressure because a few Republican leaders in the Senate, such as Barry Goldwater, told him that the evidence regarding his failed crime was unimpeachable. And thus he was. And so it was time to give up the gig.

The Trump strategy has been to say, We’re not covering it up. Here’s exactly what we did and though you say it fits the textbook definition of a crime, we’re going to sit here and say it isn’t. And our cronies are going to back us. Black is white and up is down. Try and stop us.

That’s where we are.

Kap Space

So this is weird. Out of nowhere, after two-plus years of pretending that Colin Kaepernick does not exist while signing carpet salesman such as Matt McGloin, Wes Lunt and Cooper Rush (here’s a nearly complete list), the NFL called Kaep (or “Kap”) on Monday and told him to be at a workout in Atlanta this Saturday.

Not a team. The NFL. What teams will be there to watch Kap work out? The NFL will not say.

If this were a crime film, you’d see this as the set-up where the good guy is lured to the bad guys’ hideout knowing it’s an ambush, but what choice does he have if he wants to rescue Virginia Mayo?

It’s hard to imagine anything more disingenuous, but maybe someone at the league offices decided they wanted to clear the deck of the lingering “blackball” tag, so here’s your tryout, kid. Now don’t say we never gave you a second chance.

I used to work out at Chelsea Piers, where Kap works out (or was working out a year ago). I’d see him in the locker room in the morning. Never spoke to him, kept a respectful distance. And he kept to himself, but was always respectful to any of us geezers who did want to say hi or wish him luck.

For us, the most hypocritical aspect of all of this is how the NFL (and other pro sports leagues, and even major college institutions) drape themselves in the flag and have a boner for the military. For us, at least, patriotism is religion. Practice it with modesty. Most of us like someone who lives to Christian ideals but who wants a Bible-thumper on their doorstep.

Same, with me, for patriotism. Fourth of July? Great. Veterans Day and Memorial Day? Great. A flag the size of a football field? Why? A military flyover that literally crosses right above a 13-story mosaic of Jesus Christ, the “Prince of Peace?” That’s garbage.

There’s one, only one person, in the NFL who is qualified to pass judgment on the Colin Kaepernick issue. It’s a fellow northern California native named Pat Tillman. But he no longer can. My guess, from what I’ve read and seen of Tillman’s life, is that no one would be more in his camp than PT 42.

Defenseless Player


This is targeting with intent to execute. Wow. This defensive player from Toledo may not only have to sit out the next game but also submit to an interview from the duo from Mindhunter. Wow.

Ol’ Man Rivers, Young Man Rivers

Context doesn’t really matter here. All that matters is that Austin Rivers is prompting the referees to T up his father, Doc, and that eventually the zebras do. And then Austin claps in salute of their decision.

It’s still only mid-November.

Five Films: 1955

Nobody played bad as good as Robert Mitchum, who was in real life completely unlike his screen persona

Before we delve into what a ridiculously and gloriously deep year this is, a few words about my old friend Mark Beech. When almost all of us at SI were single and in our thirties, Mark and I were close friends. We used to worry that Mark would never get married because, although he’s 6’2″ and bears a striking resemblance to Christian Bale, he happily spent many free hours in his apartment watching TCM (a fastidiously clean apartment, I might add; Mark’s a West Point grad whose home still could pass a surprise inspection 15 years after leaving the post).

It was Beech, more than any other person, who stoked my interest in classic films in general and TCM in particular. We soon launched an annual winter film festival, called “Johndance,” that Mark put more time and effort into (as in deciding which films to bring) than possibly any story he was working on at the time.

In Year 1 or 2 of Johndance, Beech brought one of the films on today’s list (it stars Robert Mitchum). The good news is that Beech was too solid a guy to remain single forever, and he married a lovely woman who worked in SI’s PR department and they now have two children. We want to thank him for being the spiritual inspiration behind this daily list.

  1. To Catch A Thief: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly and Monte Carlo in a wonderful suspense drama with a little romance thrown in. Two people this beautiful sharing the same scenes should almost be illegal. Night Of The Hunter: A movie well before its time, almost too dark for the “Happy Days” era. Mitchum is chilling and fantastic, and it plays out like a grim fairy tale in black-and-white (“Children…child-reeeen“) 3. Marty The top film on this list is romantic fantasy, sublimely gorgeous people cavorting in a surreal paradise. This Best Picture winner is at the other end of the spectrum, as a burly Bronx bachelor named Ernest Borgnine and a homely lass from another outer borough find each other with not a touch of glamour. 4. Mister Roberts Henry Fonda, Jimmy Cagney and Jack Lemmon in a war film that’s part comedy and part not at all. With no combat scenes. “Captain, it is I, Ensign Pulver, and I just threw your stinkin’ palm tree overboard. Now what’s all this about no movie tonight?” Lemmon would win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. 5. Oklahoma! (Susie B. gonna put me on BLAST for not picking Guys and Dolls. If I’d picked Guys and Dolls she’d have me on BLAST for not picking this one) A young Shirley Jones with Rod Steiger and Eddie Albert and arguably the greatest title song in musical history.

This year is TOO deep. We’ve never seen the two iconic James Dean films from this year, Rebel Without A Cause and East of Eden, so we did not include them. We’ve seen and LOVE The Seven Year Itch (Marilyn Monroe at her most comedic and curvy) but wouldn’t supplant any other film on this list. Films we want to see: The Man From Laramie, Bad Day At Black Rock and Rififi. We also almost put Lady And The Tramp in our top five. The spaghetti scene alone makes it worthy.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 3 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

https://twitter.com/iAintAsianTho/status/1194399959241629696?s=20

This is the best thing to appear on ESPN before 7 p.m. on a weekday, perhaps ever.

Starting Five

Impeach Tree City

The impeachment hearings go public today and I really don’t know what that means. I do know that one of Trump’s three junior bulldogs in the House, Jim Jordan (the other two being Matt Gaetz and Devin Nunes), has been added to the impeachment inquiry in order to sow seeds of chaos and disruption. Don’t be surprised if Jordan breaks out a chant of “Attica! Attica! Attica!”

Anyway, it’s the first impeachment hearings of this century and today’s witnesses on live TV will be Bill Taylor and George Kent. On Friday we get Marie Yovanovitch.

Bars in the nation’s capitol are opening early today so that patrons can watch the hearings on live TV. You gotta imagine one or more establishments will be serving Supboena Coladas.

On Full Blastros

1919: Black Sox Scandal

2019: Houston Astros

Some things never change.

Former Houston Astros pitcher Mike Fiers is one of four people who tells The Athletic that in 2017, when he was with the club, the Astros used a sophisticated process to steal signs. A camera positioned in the outfield, coupled with a banging noise to tell hitters if a changeup or fastball was coming, tipped pitches for Astro hitters.

You may recall that the Astros won the World Series in 2017. They also had MLB’s best home record last season, 60-21.

“That’s not playing the game the right way,” says Fiers, 35, who warned subsequent pitching staffs on which he played, Oakland and Detroit, that the Astros were doing the game dirty.

This isn’t the NCAA, of course. Major League Baseball won’t force Houston to vacate its World Series victory. What I’d do if I were Rob Manfred is this: 1. a major fine, in the area of $5 million 2. forfeited draft picks and 3. start the Astros 8 games back in the A.L. West next season. No matter how many games they win, they must finish 9 games ahead of the second-place A.L. West team in order to win the division.

If I’m the Astros, I blame it all on Brandon Taubman.

Aces High

It’s almost impossible to get hyped about college hoops before even Thanksgiving week, but let’s note that the unranked Evansville Purple Aces walked into Rupp Arena last night and took down No. 1 Kentucky, 67-64. Better, Evansville is coached by Walter McCarty, a former star player for the Wildcats in their mid-Nineties Rick Pitino glory years.

McCarty, a starter on the 1996 national championship team for Kentucky, is in his second season in Evansville (southern Indiana). Last year the Aces went 11-21 and they were picked to finish eighth in the Missouri Valley Conference this season.

What the Aces’ win really means is that now every coach of a decided underdog can point to them as his team prepares to play a prohibitive favorite and say that 1. it’s possible and 2. look how much fun it is if you are able to pull it off.

Extra points for doing it on the favorite’s home floor.

Ohio Player

The Bobcats lost to Western Michigan on ESPN (or ESPN2, don’t quote me) on TV last night, but did they? Really? That’s Hagen Meservy, a 6’3″, 300-pound offensive lineman doing a distractionary cartwheel on a pass play. That got completed.

Five Films: 1954

It was the Fifties, which meant you could be a middle-aged dude in a one-bedroom apartment hanging out in your pajamas and Grace Kelly would find you divine. Not complaining, just observing.

Another episode of “It was a very good year.”

  1. Rear Window Once you get past the part about 25 year-old Grace Kelly pining for 46 year-old Jimmy Stewart to settle down, this is Hitchcock’s first (but not last) great film about voyeurism. 2. On The Waterfront “I coulda been somebody. I coulda been a contender. Instead of a bum. Which is what I am.” Future Hitchcock favorite Eva Marie-Saint in a breakout role, for which she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar; Marlon Brando at his finest. Lots of modern-day parallels in the struggle. Best Picture winner. The irony here is that this is a film about doing what’s right made in the midst of the McCarthy era and yet directed by Elia Kazan, who named names and put people on blacklists (and he won Best Director) 3. Sabrina So light, so airy, but so much fun. Audrey Hepburn is the chauffeur’s daughter on a north shore of Long Island estate where two adult brothers, played by Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, vie for her hand. Bogey is 54 and she’s 25 (in real life, making Rear Window positively modest by comparison) 4. Dial M For Murder Suspenseful, classic Hitchcock, once again with Grace Kelly aboard. Both of these Hitchcock films take place almost entirely in one room. And yet still extremely compelling. 5. A Star Is Born This is the best version in our eyes, as Judy Garland is even better than she was in The Wizard Of Oz. She was robbed of the Oscar by Grace Kelly (in Grace’s third-best film of the year, The Country Girl, that no one ever talks about now) and she may have never gotten over it. Can’t blame her.

We came very close to adding Godzilla, the original. It spawned not just the Godzilla franchise but one can argue the mega-blockbuster film franchise. Also worth noting this year: The Creature From the Black Lagoon, a classic B-movie horror film as well as The Seven Samurai, another Akira Kurosawa classic. We’ve never seen it, but its American remake is basically The Magnificent Seven.

Reserves

Don Cherry, fired yesterday or Monday by SportsNet, appears on the most racist white nationalist network he can find to mansplain his actions. Bold move, Cotton.

At least he got what I’d tried to advise, post hoc. Don’t begin a rant with “You people.” But of course his logic was flawed. Cherry says he should have said “Everybody” instead of “You people.” You know why he didn’t? Because he doesn’t see it as an “everybody” problem. He sees it as a “you people” problem. And that’s sort of why he’s out of a job today.

****

A couple things on the latest CFB Playoff rankings: 1. First time all 25 schools appeared in a different slot than previous week’s rankings (“Row the boat Ski-U-Mah Go Gophers!”), 2. First time a No. 1 won and still dropped (and that No. 1 won 73-14, by the way). 3. Georgia is No. 4 and Alabama is No. 5; if Georgia loses in the SEC title game and Bama wins out, are we looking at an LSU-Alabama rematch, shades of 2011? Or would a 12-1 Oregon or a 13-0 Baylor (just play along, please) have enough juice to unseat them?

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Nobody’s Perfect

Despite the play above the Seahawks beat the 49ers in overtime, 27-24, in San Francisco Santa Clara. With the loss, the Niners drop to 8-1. There are no unbeatens left in the NFL, which I think means that Alabama has renewed hope to make the college football playoff.

Bubble Screen-Worthy

Too bad I did not see this until Monday. A small moment that will go viral because it’s so genuine. I’ve never met Marty Smith but he didn’t have to do this. And it obviously made a world of difference to this young reporter. After a long, long day in Tuscaloosa Smith still had time to make someone else’s. Fantastic.

Another Dominant Russell In S.F.

Remember when the Lakers selected D’Angelo Russell with the 2nd overall pick in the draft and he never seemed to blossom and then they traded him to the Nets. Remember when the Warriors picked up Russell last summer as sort of a salve for the losses of Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson this season and figured he’d at least help Stephen Curry carry the load for what looked to be around a .500 season?

In Russell’s first four games with the Dubs, all of which he shared the backcourt with Curry, the 6’4″ guard from Ohio State averaged 16.3 ppg. Then Curry broke his left hand and Steve Kerr handed the keys to Russell.

In the four games since Russell has averaged 36.3 points including a 52-point effort in last Friday night’s overtime loss at Minnesota. Last night he put up 33 in a loss to Utah. The Dubs have lost all four of these games and they’re going to lose many, many more. But Russell may wind up leading the league in scoring and becoming the West Coast James Harden, circa 2015.

He’s the most dominant Russell to play in San Francisco since Bill.

Billionaires (Cont.)

Bill Gates deserves everything he’s earned. He started from scratch and changed the world.


“Are you a socialist?” he was asked.

“No,” he replied. “I just think that if you have 100 people and 100 potatoes that it’s somewhat unconscionable for one person in the community to have 99 of them and leave the other potato to be split among the other 99 people.”

“But what if,” asked the interrogator, “if that one person has worked HARDER than the other 99 people combined?”

Ah, and here is the fallacy with the very, very, very wealthy (and worse, with the wealthy who aspire to put a few “very’s” in front of their wealth): being wealthy has a lot to do with working hard, but it also has a little something to do with what career you chose. The hardest-working teachers and cops and firemen and soldiers, all of whom are indispensable to a functioning society (bloggers and sportswriters, not so much), will never be very wealthy. It’s not happening.

And so you say, “Well, if they’d worked harder maybe they could have been in private equity or become a doctor or lawyer, etc.” Maybe. Maybe that’s not the career they (or yes, I) wanted.

But the question here isn’t whether someone in a middle- or lower-class career deserves to have someone in a better career, making five to ten times their salary, having the latter carry their load (answer: of course not). And that’s what I consistently find incredible about people I encounter who do much better than the average American (than I) being so vociferous in their defense of BILLIONAIRES.

(You may recall that last week I seemed to defend billionaires here; my argument is that I don’t believe there should be a cap on income; on the other hand, well, let me explain below…).

Having someone who earns $500,000 to $1 million per year defend billionaires to the average American (like me) is like having a squirrel tell a mouse why they shouldn’t have a problem with an elephant. Or a blue whale. In terms of size.

Look. It’s not about wealth; it’s about scale. And I think that so many Americans have a very difficult time truly appreciating that scale. So allow me to provide this analogy. If you’ve ever run a 10-K, that’s 10,000 meters. One meter is roughly the distance of one stride when you’re running. So, if you are someone who earns $100,000 per year, which is a pretty decent salary in the United States, you have taken one step in this 10-K race whereas the billionaire has already arrived at the finish line. Your one step in the 10-K is equivalent to the entire 10-K, in relation to income disparity.

Now, couple that with the fact that last year for the very first time billionaires paid a lower percentage of income tax (23%) than did average Americans (28%) for the first time in U.S. history, and the lowest percentage since income tax was created here, and well, you’ve got the seeds of a populist uprising.

We know what Jesus said about being rich, but I don’t think even Jesus was talking about the relative wealth of billionaires. Again, if you earn $1 million per year, bully for you. You earn 10x as much as someone with a decent job making $100,000. You also earn 1/1,000th of a billionaire. So why do you think of yourself as being more like a billionaire than that $100,000 per year earner?

Finally, there are roughly 750 Major League Baseball players when you consider 30 teams and 25-man rosters. There are just over 600 billionaires in the U.S.A. That’s how rare it is. So again, why do so many Americans align themselves with them? Just because you hit a home run for your Zog Sports softball team doesn’t mean you’re Juan Soto, ya’ know?

Five Films: 1953

How do you say “ingenue” in Italian?
  1. Roman Holiday Gregory Peck falls for an AWOL princess played by Audrey Hepburn in her captivating screen debut, for which she won the Oscar 2. From Here To Eternity Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed and Montgomery Clift. A steamy soap opera set amongst the days leading up to the invasion of Pearl Harbor. Ol’ Blue Eyes won a statuette in a supporting role but Clift is the heart of the film. 3. Stalag 17 William Holden had quite a career going for himself in the Fifties (Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, Bridge on The River Kwai and this) and won the Oscar for this German POW flick 4. Shane A simple Western allegory with one of the more memorable lines in filmdom (“Come back, Shane”) 5. White The Big Heat Susie B. will give me hell for not including Bandwagon or even Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but this is classic film noir starring Glenn Ford. And we’d also highly recommend another noir gem, less known, titled Pickup On South Street.

Reserves

–In The New York Times, fired Deadspin Editor-In-Chief Barry Petcheskey writes an Op-Ed titled “I Was Fired From Deadspin For Refusing To Stick To Sports.”

–In Canada, SportsNet fires Don Cherry. Never begin a patriotic rant with “You people…”

–Beloved former NBC executive (you rarely see those words strung together) Rick Ludwin passes away. He was the exec who staked his meager budget on early episodes of Seinfeld when no one else believed in the show. Go to the Twitter feeds of John Mulaney and Ken Tremendous to read wonderful vignettes about him. It’s nice to be nice.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 1 Comment

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Starting Five

Broadway Jeaux

The name Joe has a terrific bloodline among quarterbacks. There was Joe Namath, of course. And Joe Montana. Now here comes LSU’s Joe Burrow, who led the Tigers to victory at Alabama on Saturday, 46-41.

Few programs ever acquire the veneer of invincibility, particularly at home, that the Crimson Tide have this decade. Miami did in the late Eighties up to the mid-Nineties, winning 47 in a row at the Orange Bowl. The Tide had won 31 in a row at Bryant-Denny Stadium before LSU, which had lost eight straight to the Tide since 2011, came to town.

Led by Burrow, the Ohio State transfer who would throw for 393 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions, the Tigers roared to a 33-13 halftime lead. When the Tide surged, twice, in the fourth quarter to bring themselves within one score, Burrow twice answered immediately with touchdown drives.

Is Nick Saban’s reign over? Not yet. But Burrow, who is second in the nation in both passing yardage per game and touchdown passes, is now the Heisman frontrunner. And he’s got LSU first or second in the playoff selection committee rankings this week.

Super In Seattle

For many, Sunday’s biggest football game took place in Seattle (the Seahawks were idle) as the Sounders defeated Toronto FC to win the MLS Cup.

Playing in front of nearly 70,000 rabid fans at Century Link Field, the Sounders defeated Toronto 3-1 to win their second MLS Cup of the past four years. These two teams have now met in three of the past four MLS Cup finals.

“I Only Have Eyes For You”

Traitor or patriot? In her new book All Due Respect (awful title), former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley writes that fellow Trump Cabinet members Rex Tillerson (Secretary of State) and General John Kelly (Chief of Staff) worked to undermine the president: “Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country … It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing.”

Haley resisted.

https://twitter.com/InactionNever/status/1192970959571050496?s=20

In this interview with Norah O’Donnell on CBS Sunday Morning, Haley basically uses the logic that Well, yeah, the mob boss ordered the hit but it was never carried out, so what’s the problem?

O’Donnell has now famously failed to ask follow-up questions on two big interviews. Here, when Haley says, “The American people should decide this; why do we have a bunch of people in Congress making this decision?” the natural response from an interviewer should have been, “Because it’s part of the Constitution, dummy. Do you not adhere to the Constitution (never mind that no Republicans were making this argument 20 years ago)?”

A few years back, during the Ray Rice kerfuffle, O’Donnell sat Roger Goodell down, who confided that once they saw the tape of Rice hitting his girlfriend, things changed. O’Donnell never asked him why he needed to see a tape when the evidence of her beating, and Rice owning up to it, were already in play.

O’Donnell is extremely presentable and very pretty (in a but-she-looks-smart-enough-to-have-graduated-from-Columbia way). But if the average-looking person handled big interviews the way she does, that person would not be the anchor of the CBS Evening News.

Meanwhile, I had a fairly heated discussion with an old college friend a year ago about the Kelly/Mattis conundrum. I said that anyone working for the president who does not believe in his policies or values, etc., should resign (never mind that they were idiots for taking the positions in the first place). He said that they were heroic, trying to save the country from within by protecting us against Trump.

I think we were both right. Of course Kelly was trying to do exactly what my friend says, but why put a band-aid on top of a giant festering sore? Moreover, now he comes off bad on both sides. The Trumpers hate him for trying to undermine their Orange Overlord while people like myself see him as someone who was providing cover to a corrupt and venal man.

You can’t solve a problem by attempting to cover it up. Be transparent. And stand up for your values. Kelly and Tillerson did not; they thought they could push a Republican agenda while working for Trump and push back on his radical agenda at the same time. Can’t serve two masters. Nope. So now they look bad to both sides.

Never align with Trump: You’ll eventually come out looking bad in the end. With all due respect.

Five Books For Veterans Day

Thank you to all the veterans of the Armed Forces who sacrificed in all sorts of ways in defense of this country and its freedoms. Although I’m not sure if we need tanks protecting us from immigrants in Queens…

https://twitter.com/wilfredchan/status/1192794179375632384?s=20

And I’ll make the same point I always have: nothing protects Americans quite like the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. We should really have a day of remembrance for them.

Anyway, I always enjoy reading books about World War II because I believe it was America’s (and Great Britain’s) finest hour. Here are three that Phyllis and I read in 2019 and two others from the past that I’d also recommend:

—With The Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, by E.B. Sledge

Much of this book showed up in the HBO series The Pacific. Besides it being a near-miracle that Sledge survived these two campaigns, his reportage of his memoir is detailed and grisly. This is suffering.

—The Jersey Boys, by Sally Mott Freeman

A first-time author, Freeman writes about the World War II odysseys of her father and two uncles. This will surely become a series on HBO or some other streaming service. Incredible stuff.

—Operation Mincemeat, by Ben Macintyre

A truly incredible, almost comical, story about how the Allies planted a corpse with fictitious battle plans behind enemy lines and how the Germans bought it hook, line and sinker. And it’s all true.

—Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand

The book is so much more powerful than the film.

—Flags Of Our Fathers, by James Bradley

A completely unvarnished account of Iwo Jima. Once again, war is hell.

Five Films: 1952

  1. Singin’ In The Rain Inexplicably, what’s now regarded by many as the greatest movie musical ever and is ranked No. 7 on AFI’s “Greatest 100 Films” list, did not receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture (or Best Actor or Best Actress). Not only is this Gene Kelly/Donald O’Connor/Debbie Reynolds (she was only 19) flick wildly entertaining, it’s also smart and colorful and nostalgic. The first MGM talkie, The Broadway Melody, used snippets of the song in 1929 and would win Best Picture. The song would be performed onscreen by MGM legends Jimmy Durante (1932) and Judy Garland (1940), so the title itself is a tribute to Hollywood’s transition to talkies. Also, Donald O’Connor’s “Make ‘Em Laugh” is maybe the funniest dance number ever choreographed. 2. High Noon Gary Cooper is the sheriff who must stand up to the bad guys while Grace Kelly attempts to avoid going from wife to widow in record time. John Wayne hated this film and dubbed it “un-American.” A lot of people say it as an allegory for McCarthyism, which it was. Cooper was the lone guy who’d stand up to black-listings and the cowed townspeople were Americans who were afraid to stand up to McCarthyism. Wayne, as the then president of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) helped have the film’s writer, Carl Foreman, black-listed. 3. The Quiet Man John Wayne not in a western, but in Ireland, where he heroically (?) drags the lovely Maureen O’Hara across neighbor’s farms to return her to her brother 4. The Greatest Show On Earth Cecil B. DeMille directs, it wins Best Picture 5. Clash By Night Slight film noir, more like dude hooks up with his best friend’s girl. But it stars some heavyweights in Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan and Marilyn Monroe.

Reserves

The New York Times has an editorial on billionaires this morning, per our conversation last week…

The Cowboys had likely already blown this game versus the Vikings, but they ordered their return man to fair catch this punt before the play trailing 28-24 with :17 left. He probably returns it at least 20 yards if he fields it.

Et Tu, Canada?

You know, when you begin a rant with “You people…” it’s not going to go well.