The Freakin' Weekend (1973)

Football is drawing near! Not only was George Allen on the cover of Sports Illustrated a couple of weeks ago (I guess I forgot that George Allen coached the Washington Redskins to the only undefeated season in NFL history and Super Bowl VII victory a few months ago), but this week's July 16, Billie Jean King-wins-Wimbledon issue features a gorgeous Vitalis ad for a season-tickets contest.

You know I'm entering that bad boy! Let's not get ahead of ourselves, however. It is still July, and 1973 me wants to cram in some summer reading before I totally turn myself over to NFL73.

You know I'm entering that bad boy! It'll be exciting to see if I hear back from Wells Fargo or Amazon or Alibaba or whoever today owns Vitalis and the Sports Illustrated Book Club.

That's three straight paragraphs opening with exclamations, so I think it's high time to gear down this #freakinweekend mix tape a notch with some slow-hand love for sleepy, just-after-the-All-Star-break baseball. When we last checked in on MLB73, Oakland had just taken over first place in the American League West. Well, the Swingin' A's now are cruisin', as shown in the Friday morning, July 13, division standings:

A's 50-39
Royals 49-43, 2.5 games back
Angels 45-41, 3.5
Twins 45-41, 3.5
White Sox 45-42, 4
Rangers 30-56, 18.5

In fact, I'm feeling comfortable enough about the defendin' champs to check in on the rest of the league:

AL East
Yankees 50-41
Red Sox 46-39, 1
Orioles 44-38, 1.5
Tigers 46-42, 2.5
Brewers 43-44, 5
Indians 31-58, 18

NL East
Cubs 50-38
Cardinals 44-42, 5
Expos 41-43, 7
Pirates 40-44, 8
Phillies 39-48, 10.5
Mets 36-47, 11.5

NL West
Dodgers 56-34
Reds 49-39, 6
Giants 50-40, 6
Astros 49-44, 8.5
Braves 41-50, 15.5
Padres 31-57, 24

Back to Billie Jean King for a moment ... I guess I had never checked, and I grew up just sort of believing that Charles Schulz had created the Marcie character amid the 1973 Bobby Riggs hysteria. Not true. It goes back a good bit before then.

A couple of years ago, 1971 me was surprised to discover Marcie in the newspaper strips, before Billie Jean King had really exploded into the culture and onto the covers of People, TIME and even Sports Illustrated.

Indeed, the character had first appeared in 1968 as a camp acquaintance of Peppermint Patty's named "Clara," who then reappeared as Marcie in July 1971. Now all of that happened amid plenty of Billie Jean King Wimbledon and U.S. Open winning, of which huge-tennis-guy Schulz was certainly aware. The character is said to have been modeled after a roommate of Schulz's cousin, on whom Peppermint Patty was based, so, maybe there's not the equivalent, direct line of sight from Martin Luther King's assassination to the appearance of Franklin. Still, it seems pretty clear to me that Marcie's look at least was influenced by King; Peppermint Patty even once talked about Marcie's "Billie Jean King glasses," and Schulz unabashedly was a fan. That's pretty neat.

Bobby Riggs is one of the stories on the July 13, 1973, 60 Minutes, incidentally.

Is all of this Marcie/Billie Jean King deal covered in that great Charles Schulz biography? I'll bet it is, and I've forgotten reading it. This is going to turn out to be another of those deals where, like, I have the same original observation about Tiger Woods's anxieties, except I have it about three Masters tournaments in a row.

Which, in conclusion, reminds me: The British Open!

The Freakin' Weekend (1970)

OK, so here's the deal. People (the people, yes!) have been going all Colin Kaepernick/civil disobedient and posting old NFL Films 1970-season-review stuff on YouTube because life is uncertain and because light shouldn't be hidden under bushels. But, of course, it's not like the light clobbers the darkness. The darkness could not overcome it; the score is always like 23-21, and we're forever committing penalties on third down or dropping passes that hit us between the numbers(!)--the very-soon deal is likely that all of this great stuff will be yanked back down from YouTube any moment. So--spoiler alerts--here it is now for us to enjoy while we can. 

NFL70 kicks off today 1970 (Friday, Sept. 18), and you might remember that the Kansas City Chiefs are the defending champions:

"Quarterback Gary Cuozzo was at the Super Bowl, and he remembers," says Pat Summerall. "His entire team remembers." The Vikings will be taking another shot at a championship with Cuozzo at the helm, not Joe Kapp:

Ebony isn't buying Minnesota's plan.

YouTube doesn't have the film on the 1970 Rams' and Lions' seasons, but it does have awesome playlists of the songs purportedly used in the Los Angeles and Detroit NFL Films productions (Dave Volsky, yes!).

It's easy to see why Ebony likes "able, young John Madden" and the Raiders.

The Bengals will be playing this season without their great, young quarterback, Greg Cook, who is still recovering from an arm injury, so it seems we'll have to wait another year for Cincinnati's "golden age of football prominence" to commence.

Frank Gifford wonders "if people will long remember the 1970 New York Giants?" Well, we'll see in this episode (with commercials!) of NFL Action (hooray!) ...

The AP had a story a few weeks ago that the coach of the Eagles, Jerry Williams, says they are hoping for a winning season, so that probably means Philadelphia isn't going to be any good.

Sports Illustrated chose Dick Butkus and the Bears for the cover of its season-preview issue, but they probably aren't going to be any good either.

Street and Smith's went with Joe Namath and the Jets. They were, of course, super just two seasons ago, but, ever since then, the story with the Jets has been whether Namath is going to play--because of possible suspension, because of injury, because of possible retirement, etc.

Tex Maule a few weeks ago in SI had an analysis of the choking Cowboys. Nonetheless, Boys' Life put Calvin Hill on its cover this month 1970.

You might think from this ad in the Boys' Life that Johnny Unitas is a man without a team, but that is not correct. He's back leading the Colts after missing most of the Super Bowl two seasons ago against New York, and we'll have to see how that turns out.

The Dolphins have come a long way since 1966, and now they're looking great!

As previously reported, the plan appears to be coming together pretty happily in Pittsburgh.

As for the rest, here's how they fared in the preseason (which is a bigger deal in NFL70 than it is now) ...

Despite the 5-1 preseason performance, the Redskins are reeling. 

Vince Lombardi's impact on in Washington was really huge. I didn't get this for a long time--until I actually lived in D.C. for a little while, it felt like this mostly inconsequential anecdote of NFL history. This was incorrect. Washington spent years and years being a joke of the league, and then it spent 20 years being one of the absolute best teams in the league, and Lombardi appears to me now to have been the primary catalyst in that change. 

In summer 1969, there was an AP story in the Kentucky New Era that Sam Huff "took a pay cut in snipping his rich business ties with a clothing firm," in order to come back from retirement and have a chance to play again for Lombardi. (I lost that link--sorry, AP.) The story said that Huff's mind was made to return when he saw Lombardi, who was a Giants assistant in Huff's rookie season, 1956, speak about winning determination in a sales movie, Second Effort:

I was in the Martin Luther King branch of the Washington public library this summer and discovered this fantastic, beautiful book (5 Stars, Highly Recommended) from 1974 ...

Here's its chapter about Lombardi's time ...

Actually, my favorite part of the book is a big section in the back with color pictures of the Redskins' facilities.

So, in conclusion, hooray for public libraries, football, TV, all media and affordable, universal access!

The Freakin' Weekend (1970)

I was ready for a long weekend.

The Kentucky New Era isn't publishing July 4, 1970, so they gave us a fantastic, expanded TV grid in the Friday, July 3, paper.

Congratulations to the Reeds.

That Saturday-afternoon tennis program on NBC is a wrap-up of the Wimbledon finals, but I'm going to be watching the Firecracker 400 on ABC's Wide World of Sports.

And, of course, I'm very excited to see what CBS shows on this Sunday afternoon's episode of NFL Action.

Did you see that Morgana, the Kissing Bandit, is from Louisville?

Happy Independence Day, all.

The Freakin' Weekend (1970)

A couple of weeks ago, I was starting to go a little overboard on the 1970 NHL season.

Anyway, that passed. But I did want to mention that the Boston Bruins ended up wining the 1970 Stanley Cup.

Other winners so far in 1970 include the Knicks in the NBA, Al Unser at the Indianapolis 500 and Tony Jacklin at the U.S. Open.

It's so great having the SI Vault back.

Here's what's on TV in Hoptown this weekend starting Friday, June 26, 1970.

It's time for me to get serious about paying attention to this baseball season.

It makes me awfully happy to see that episode of NFL Action Sunday afternoon on CBS.

Hoptown 1970 me missed Christian County Day at Beech Bend--but not the Loretta Lynn show next week at Kaintuck Territory.

With that trip over to Gilbertsville coming up early next week, I'll probably stick close to home over this weekend--other than maybe a quick run out for some takeout.