The Freakin' Weekend (1971)

Two things ...

One, Game 7 of the World Series is today (Sunday, Oct. 17) 1971:

And, two, the 1971-72 seasons of professional basketball are underway:

Comments flow ...

The Freakin' Weekend (1971)

What's on TV tonight (Friday, Aug. 20, 1971)?

The Aldridge lineup ...

The Partridge Family S01E21 Partridge Up A Pair... by burak-akpli

OK, here's the deal ... it's time to catch up on what's been going on TVwise ...

And now's the time to catch up on any music I might've missed so far in 1971 ...

Or if there's a movie out there I want to see, this is the weekend to see it ...

Or if there's some baseball teams or players I want to take a look at, other than the likely playoff participants, I better get on it ...

Or if I want to give a whirl to some new boutique parlor activity ... or check out what the hipsters are going crazy about ... or deep dive on one of those long, one-off, oddball SI takeouts ... whatever freak-flag curiosity that's catching my fancy ... the time is now ...

Because do you know what's drawing near?

The Freakin' Weekend (1971)

Football is fun ...

Baseball is fun ...

Golf is fun ...

Even when you're not very good at it, golf is fun ...

Smoking is fun ...

Drinking is fun ...

All kinds of things--even curiosity, niche-y things like fancy music, home electronics and tinkering on old cars--are fun ...

Why, even work has its moments of fun ...

I'm so thankful that--presumably thanks in part to HP Nation's activism--Sports Illustrated restored its Vault. Flipping through these astoundingly great old magazines is just so, so, so much fun. And while having access to just the pictures or just the stories would be a wonderful gift in its own right, browsing through the page layouts is simply (and, I hope, literally) heavenly. With keyword-searchable access to text or images only, I would've never discovered, for example, this ...

This was no small undertaking. It's more than 7,000 words ...

Two teammates step out of the shower, glistening wet, towels wrapped around their waists. They move to center and stand slightly behind the big man, one to each side. Player on right reaches over and slaps the big man on the back)
FIRST PLAYER—Atta boy, Boog!
SECOND PLAYER—Ycu done it again, Boog! (He turns to the men in the showers) Didn't he do it again, you guys?
SHOWER CHORUS—Great, Boog! Yeah! Way to go!

What happens is that human Boog Powell is knocked out and replaced by a robot Boog Powell by a mad technologist and some rogue teammates ...

SCIENTIST—EXACTLY! I'LL CREATE A NEW RACE OF MY OWN/AND RULE THE WIDE WORLD ALONE./I CAN COPY THE MUSCLES/AND BUILD SIXTY BILL RUSSELLS/OR A NAMATH OR, IF YOU'RE NOT CHOOSY,/A BIGGER BOB COUSY!

The plot is pretty involved, and I'm not going to totally spoil the whole thing. But you could probably guess that Robot Boog has an epiphany ...

BOOG—But, wait! I wonder if...well, I wonder if I couldn't rebel. What the hell! I know it's fantastic for a man made of plastic. But a robot can take only so much. What made America great? Science? None such. What made America fine and clean and pure and strong? Electronics? Wrong! What made America great, all you people out there? It was...
(Drums. Switch to "Battle Hymn of the Republic")
BOOG—...baseball! That sharp, clean crack of the bat against horsehide! The throaty roar of that crowd. Out loud! The sandlot! The homer! Striking them out! Belting them in! Sliding home! Running for first! The double, the triple—Tinkers to Evers to Frankens...uh, Chance! Baseball! Your game, out there! You hear? Why, it's Dad and Son and it's the Seventh Inning Stretch; it's beer in a waxed-paper cup. The slanting sunshine across the bleachers, etching stark patterns in the infield. The pitcher tugging at the bill of his cap, waiting for the signal. The crowd tensing as he winds up! He delivers! It's a morality play! Why, it's life! It's love! It's America...

And then Human Boog comes on to save the day ...

SPORTSWRITER—And then the other two homers right after that went even farther. One landed in the upstairs bathroom of a house in Pittsburgh! And another one went all the way to....
BRAMPSON—(Slyly nudging the sportswriter in the ribs) I'll say! And the lady of the house was taking a bath at the time! Sploosh! Boy, talk about outfield!
SPORTSWRITER—His last three home-run balls have never been found, right? They could be in orbit!
COSELL—(Sidling up with a microphone) And tell our ABC audience out there, Mister Brampson. It is the opinion of this reporter that....
BRAMPSON—(Jerking his thumb in a familiar gesture) Somebody throw this bum oudda here.

It really goes to show you just how big a deal Boog Powell was in 1971. I imagine the writers imagined they had a sort of Babe Ruth on their hands. Not that they imagined he was ever going to be that good, but Boog Powell was more than good enough to merit attention ...

The main thing, though, was that Boog Powell was fun ...

But's that all old news. All of that was from the July 19, 1971, Sports Illustrated, and this #freakinweekend, we're up to the Aug. 2, 1971, Sports Illustrated ...

I can't begin to explain just how much fun I'm having with this MLB71 season, even if--another spoiler alert--the divisions are settled as of Sunday, July 30. As previously reported, I'm betting it's Boog and the Orioles repeating as World Series champions against the Giants. My pennant doubts about the A's were confirmed by a visit to Baltimore this week. In sweeping a rain-shortened, three-game series, the Os seemed to be toying with my A's--playing a bunch of backups, taking giant early leads, twice winning in the bottom of the ninth, etc.

Meanwhile, look what's on TV tonight 1971 ...

This game has been a huge deal, of course, in the sports pages of the Chicago Tribune for the last couple of months ...

Well, it's all very exciting--it's getting to be that time of year again ...

I better start reviewing what happened last season and get myself ready for the fun ahead this fall.

Baseball Update (1971)

So here's my ballot (with bonus pitching suggestions for the managers) (*-indicates that Phil Roof is from Paducah!) ...

And here are the actual teams (National League manager Sparky Anderson and American League coach Billy Hunter not pictured) ...

Comments flow!

The Freakin' Weekend (1971)

Back in Hoptown ...

Since I left for Chicago, the Kentucky New Era has gone to a more straightforward, text-based TV listing. I think I like it.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, we still haven't learned what happened to Lafe Coker after his U.S. Open collapse. Some of Mac Divot's golf-pro colleagues have been talking all week about how the size of the putting cup came to be ...

There are a couple of movies out in Chicago that I'm interested in ...

But neither is playing this weekend in Hoptown ...

So, back in Kentucky, I'll have to content my Evel Knievel craving this Independence Day weekend with this Robert F. Jones takeout from the July 5, 1971, Sports Illustrated. The whole thing is a lively, brisk read, and I do recommend reading it. But here's F. Jones's money sentence: "To the extent that America is a composite of dreams and desperation, Robert Craig Knievel fills the bill." And you can pretty much game out the whole tone of the article from that, and you would be correct.

Somebody smarter than Hoptown 1971 me, Chicago 1971 me and U.S.A. 2017 me all put together could take this collage of artifacts and assemble a pretty compelling post for the HP about how we got from that freakin' weekend to this one in America.