Britishers with taste bought this single when it hit the charts today in 1961:
Today in 1965, the four Beatles were named Members of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth. The Beatles’ visit reportedly began when they smoked marijuana in a Buckingham Palace bathroom to calm their nerves.
The Beatles’ receiving their MBEs prompted a number of MBE recipients to return theirs. “Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war — for killing people,” said John Lennon, previewing the public relations skills he’d show a year later when he would compare the Beatles to Jesus Christ. “We received ours for entertaining other people. I’d say we deserve ours more.”
Lennon returned his MBE in 1969 as part of his peace protests.
Regular readers know I’m a fan of police TV, perhaps the largest non-sports subset of the excess of TV I’ve watched over the years.
If one is a cop TV aficionado of at least middle age, you have to know who Jack Webb is. (I know, I know, “just the facts.”) Webb was an actor and producer of three versions of the biggest police media franchise until “Law & Order” came along — “Dragnet,” first on radio …
… and then on black and white TV …
… and then in a movie …
… and then on color TV ..
… with another movie (which was filmed before the color series but released afterward):
The subject of this blog came up because of a second Webb cop series, “Adam-12” …
I’m not sure if I saw “Dragnet” or “Adam-12” first, but I know I watched “Adam-12” religiously once I was allowed to stay up to watch it. (It usually was on at 8 Eastern, 7 Central.) I just missed a chance to meet the stars of “Adam-12” because Martin Milner and Kent McCord appeared at a telethon the NBC station in Madison carried. Unfortunately, they were claimed to be in the shower when the opportunity came to meet them, so I didn’t get the chance.
Webb also produced the definitive fire and rescue TV series, “Emergency!” But this blog is about neither “Adam-12” nor “Emergency!” (Nor “Sierra” nor “Project UFO, two more Webb series.)
On said Facebook group I brought up another Webb series that came and went toward the end of “Adam-12.” The Internet Movie Database describes “Chase” as containing “Adventures of an unconventional police unit led by Capt. Chase Reddick” (hence the series name). More completely …
Captain Chase Reddick is the leader of an undercover investigative unit of the Los Angeles Police Department that uses unorthodox methods in solving crimes. Reddick’s men are specialists: MacCray trains police dogs, Sing is an expert motorcycle rider, Hamilton flies choppers and Baker is an expert behind the wheel of a car. Chase’s unit answers only to the top brass in the department.
Chase was a Jack Webb-produced series which ran from September 1973 to August of 1974. Mitchell Ryan starred as the head of a special police unit assigned to cases that no one else would touch with a ten-foot pole. Ryan‘s staff included Wayne Maunder, Reid Smith, Michael Richardson and Brian Fong; surprisingly, there was no female Chase Squad member (three of the above-mentioned actors would be replaced in mid-season; among the replacements was old reliable Jack Webb cohort Gary Crosby). In the Chase 60-minute pilot, telecast on September 11, 1973, the Chase gang goes after an auto-theft ring. They catch them…or haven’t you tumbled to that fact?
The title character was played by actor Mitchell Ryan, who had played a cop in the second “Dirty Harry” movie, “The Enforcer,” and later played Greg’s father in “Dharma and Greg.” I’m not sure how a police captain gets to have only four people answer to him while also getting all these cool toys, but given Webb’s mania about accuracy, the idea must have come from somewhere.
The second in command, Sgt. MacCray, was played by Wayne Maunder, who had apparently been reasonably popular in one Western, “Lancer,” and played Gen. George Armstrong Custer in another.
The details of Ryan and Maunder’s careers were less interesting to an eight-year-old viewer than what else was on the series — to wit, the K-9 dog (named Fuzz, of course), the motorcycle, the helicopter (a Hughes 500 similar to what Thomas Magnum’s buddy flew on “Magnum, P.I.”) and the car, a silver Plymouth Satellite (possibly a police model) with mag wheels.
The series therefore already had half of my formula for worthwhile TV watching — wheels. (And rotors, too.) The other half is, of course, the right theme music. The opening contained the Satellite, the helicopter and the motorcycle racing toward the camera out of the sun, with a jazzy theme from composer Oliver Nelson. (Webb was a huge jazz aficionado.)
I found the theme music on a TV theme website some years ago. (In fact, two versions — the version that opened the show, and a version that combined the open with the close for one piece.) So, inspired for some reason earlier this week, and being unable to find the actual open on YouTube, I put together a crude one myself:
The series was reportedly based on the Special Investigation Section of the Los Angeles Police Department. This was the during a wave of “special” police series, preceded by “Hawaii Five-O” and “The Mod Squad” and followed by “SWAT” and “Police Woman.” Forty years later, “special” police investigators are far more subdivided than they were in the 1970s.
Similar to many series of the ’70s, the series featured actors you heard from since then, such as Tom Bosley (Mr. C on “Happy Days”), Sharon Gless (half of “Cagney and Lacey”), Harold Gould (too many roles to count, but particularly the second of the three Vachons on “Hawaii Five-O”), Pat Harrington Jr. (Schneider on “One Day at a Time”), Steve Kanaly (later to go to “Dallas” — ironically, his one-episode character name was “Jock,” the name of, as “Dallas” viewers know, the patriarch of the Ewing clan, and his character’s father), Larry Manetti (later another of Magnum’s buddies), John Mitchum (Robert’s brother and Dirty Harry’s partner), Del Monroe (who fans of sci-fi know as Kowalski on “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”), Cesar Romero (Batman’s Joker, of course), Robert Reed (father and stepfather of the Brady Bunch, of course), Craig Stevens (previously “Peter Gunn”), and various members of what could be called the Jack Webb Players, a group of actors that appeared interchangeably on Webb’s shows.
I remember only snippets of the series, which was carried one summer on USA Network a decade later. I remember the start of an episode where Fuzz got shot, but survived. There was another where a truck got hijacked by “police officers” who afterward took the light bar out of their “squad car” and put it in their trunk, then peeled off the door logos. Another Facebook group member recalled an episode where MacCray went undercover to try to get someone to try to steal Fuzz. Two men did steal Fuzz, only to regret it moments later when Fuzz turned on them.
The series was on for one season, About two-thirds of the way through, Webb fired everyone but Ryan and Maunder and replaced three actors with two, Gary Crosby (who was in most Webb series in one role or another) and Craig Gardner. The latter went on to be a writer. The series ended after the one season, probably for the reasons Wikipedia details:
NBC first scheduled the show on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern, opposite CBS‘ hit series Maude and Hawaii Five-O. At about the same time as the casting change, the network moved Chase to Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. against the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Despite the declining appeal and ratings of the latter (and the couple’s forthcoming divorce), Chase did no better there and ended after a one-season run.
The career of its creator did not end, however. Webb had one of his “Adam-12” writers create “Chase.” His name was Stephen J. Cannell, and he did pretty well thereafter, as Jim Rockford and the A-Team would attest.
Somewhat to my surprise, between Facebook and a web search, I have found the 14 people who actually watched the series:
being an avid crime-drama fan in the 70s and 80s, I am STILL a diehard Chase fan. I too, liked Norm Hamilton, got interested in helicopters, collected books, built models and work at an aviation museum because of that show. I always wanted to tell Mr. Mitch Ryan that….
I remember this series when it first came on in Fall ’73. Sadly, I missed the pilot, but heard it was a flash!. When they added Wayne Maunder, the show was even hotter. This show show excellent potential had it not been for the cast chenge. I really think this was a great portrayal of a hip-snadbag team. My favorite (only slight) character was Officer Norm Hamilton-the fascination of a former combat helicopter ace. But I was also attracted at the partnership of Sgt McCray and Steve Baker (BTW what type of car was his hot rod). Those two were very much like a “Pre-Starsky & Hutch”. In fact it was because of Chase, I kept watching Starsky & Hutch. And then there was MCray’s Dog–FUZZ (a typical name for a cop-dog of the time). That dog put rin-tin-tin to shame–a very intelligent dog. This show (even if short-lived) needs to get out on DVD 5 years ago. I hope you consider this show for release!!!!!!!
The series is supposedly available on (probably homemade) DVD. Our two sons might watch it, which is amusing to contemplate since I watched it when I was younger than they are now.
This being the era of remade old TV series (“Hawaii Five-0,” the three-episode “Ironside” and a brief remake of “Dragnet”) or TV series made into movies (“Starsky and Hutch,” “Miami Vice,” “SWAT”), the logical question to ask is how “Chase” would fare as a remake. TNT had a series, “Wanted,” of (stop me if you’ve read this before) an elite police unit detailed to catch the jurisdiction’s 100 most wanted criminals. To me, it felt somewhat like “Chase,” except that the hostility level among the main characters was much more than you’d ever see on any Jack Webb production. I doubt “Chase” would work now merely because the concept of an elite police unit isn’t novel anymore, although one episode idea would be how this answerable-to-only-the-top-brass unit was able to procure a hot car, helicopter and police dog. (Likely answer today: Drug-dealer seizures.) On the other hand, TV series creators love mavericks, and my hazy memory of the series is that at least the younger officers were not wanted where they previously had been stationed for some reason.
There is only one way to end a blog that involves Jack Webb:
I think it unlikely that Packer fans expected to hear that quarterback Brett Favre was approached by the St. Louis Rams to make a comeback, three years after his career ended.
(Apparently Jamie Martin, Marc Bulger, Kurt Warner, Trent Green, Jim Everett, Dieter Brock, Vince Ferragamo, Pat Haden, James Harris and Roman Gabriel were all unavailable.)
As amusing as the twice-unretired Favre suiting up would seem, Yahoo Sports thinks it proves a point:
So this time, perhaps for once, this Brett Favre story is not about Brett Favre. This non-stop coverage isn’t his fault, unless you blame him for staying at his playing weight.
That the Rams made the call says a lot more about the state of quarterback play in the country than it does the delusion of coach Jeff Fisher or the perceived I-can-do-it-ego of Favre.
The NFL has a whole host of problems right now – and, mind you, a whole host of profits. Taking nothing from the seriousness of player health and safety, its most pressing concern just might be the dearth of capable quarterbacks.
That there aren’t 32 quality quarterbacks for the NFL’s 32 franchises has been obvious for years now. If you don’t have a good one, you don’t stand a chance at winning. That’s long been true. Now, however, if you don’t have an even OK one, you struggle to not embarrass yourself.
The problem is there may be only 15-20 good quarterbacks in the world. And after that, 20 more who are even remotely capable of handling the position. The job is just that difficult and with injuries and poor roster moves, the inch-deep pool of reserves becomes increasingly obvious.
Compounding the problem, the pro game lacks offensive diversity, so we really don’t have any grind-it-out, run-first teams anymore that could live with a lousy QB. Some focus on it more than others, yet even those clubs – say Minnesota or the New York Jets, which prefer Rex Ryan’s “ground and pound” – are still reliant on a QB of some acumen.
The Vikings have the best back in the league, Adrian Peterson, yet the team was a laughingstock Monday as it called on quarterback Josh Freeman to throw it 53 times in a 23-7 loss to the Giants. Freeman completed just 20 of those passes and many of the misses sailed wildly over receivers’ heads. This, of course, was the same Josh Freeman who winless Tampa Bay dumped due to poor play. And yet the Vikings still believed grabbing him and tossing him into the starting lineup was their best option.
They were probably correct. There is simply no one left. Here’s guessing that if Sam Bradford had been lost for the season two weeks earlier, rather than last Sunday, the Rams would’ve gladly claimed Freeman.
He’s better than Favre.
And that’s about where we are in the NFL right now.
(On a side note: If this doesn’t cement the idea that no one in the NFL believes in Tim Tebow, nothing will.)
There is no immediate solution here for the NFL, but the long-term problem needs to be addressed. Television ratings have shown that no amount of concussions will cause fans to turn away. At least not yet. The NFL just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Bad teams and bad quarterbacking play, however, might pose a greater threat. There was a train wreck aspect to watching the Vikings on Monday but how long can that last? That’s on a national level, however. Counting on actual Viking fans to tune in each week for games shown locally from here on out is another thing.
A league that is reliant on strong quarterbacking needs to find a way to develop the next generation of strong – or at least moderately strong – quarterbacks. The elite guys will always be there. Football desperately needs dozens of guys who are at the very least better than dudes three years into retirement.
The NFL already does plenty of work with youth and high school football, but perhaps it needs to do more. Quarterbacking is already better at the college level, in part because of the rise in 7-on-7 offseason football in Texas and much of the South. That isn’t a perfect development system for the pros though.
And neither are the college ranks anymore. The NFL was spoiled for decades by so many college coaches running pro-style offenses that led to fairly smooth transitions. Now the spread is the rage in the college game and while many of those elements work and NFL teams are embracing that system, it has yet to fully mesh.
Maybe the NFL can take the work getting done by the Manning Passing Academy and the Elite 11 camps and take it to the next level. Maybe it can embrace the high school talent camps run by Rivals.com, Under Armor and others by either partnering or doing its own. Maybe it should return to running a developmental league, like it used to with NFL Europe, which might identify and refine some promising talent.
Today in 1963, the Beatles played two shows in Sundstavagen, Sweden, to begin their first tour of Sweden. The local music critic was less than impressed, claiming the Beatles should have been happy for their fans’ screaming to drown out the group’s “terrible” performance, asserting that the Beatles “were of no musical importance whatsoever,” and furthermore claiming their local opening act, the Phantoms, “decidedly outshone them.”
Three thoughts: Perhaps the Beatles did have a bad night. But have you heard a Phantoms song recently? It is also unknown whether the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” was intended as revenge against the Swedes.
One year later, a demonstration of why the phrase “never say never” holds validity: Today in 1964, the Rolling Stones made their first appearance on CBS-TV’s Ed Sullivan Show.
A riot broke out in the CBS studio, which prompted Sullivan to say, “I promise you they’ll never be back on our show again.” “Never” turned out to be May 2, 1965, when the Stones made the second of their six performances on the rilly big shew.
As it turns out, this World Series, whether it goes four, five, six or seven games, will be known for one thing among sports media geeks at least.
Tim McCarver is retiring from network baseball announcing after this World Series.
For those too young to remember: McCarver was a catcher for the Cardinals (his backup: Bob Uecker), Phillies, Expos and Red Sox from 1959 to 1980. (The Cardinals brought him directly to the big leagues after signing him because of the rules for players receiving what passed for large bonuses at the time. He retired and then briefly unretired in 1980 to be a four-decade player after he had already started announcing.)
After a couple of cameo appearances for NBC, McCarver worked the 1984 National League Championship Series as ABC’s backup-team analyst. He wasn’t scheduled to work the 1985 World Series in the booth, but Howard Cosell’s book I Never Played the Game and its criticisms of Cosell’s employer got Cosell removed from the Series (and eventually fired on TV, though he worked for ABC Radio for several years afterward), and McCarver replaced him on the World Series, delighting TV critics.
McCarver worked for ABC until 1990, when ABC lost the baseball contract to CBS. CBS hired McCarver and even had him co-host the 1990 Winter Olympics (which was not really his forte).
Then CBS lost the baseball contract to Fox after the 1993 season. So, similar to John Madden moving from CBS to Fox after CBS lost the NFL, McCarver went to Fox. And there he’s been, having now announced 24 World Series, more than any other announcer — more than Curt Gowdy (1966-1975), Tony Kubek (12 between 1968 and 1982), and Mel Allen (22 between 1938 and 1963).
McCarver has gotten increasing criticism over the years, as has his partner, Joe Buck. (Whose father, Jack, worked with McCarver at CBS.) Part of the reason is probably those 24 World Series he’s worked. Gowdy got criticized toward the end because he was on every big NBC sports event — the World Series, the American Football League and then NFL (and thus playoffs and Super Bowls), and the first few NCAA men’s basketball championships NBC carried — as is Buck, who is on Fox every week from the start of the baseball season until the end of the NFL playoffs. McCarver has also been criticized for overexplaining and talking too much.
Still, though, it’s an accomplishment to be part of anything for 54 years, which totals McCarver’s career from a 17-year-old Cardinal catcher to an announcer of a World Series involving, fittingly, the Cardinals. (Though McCarver, who has done local announcing all this time, may still do that.) I’d rather have an announcer who’s too critical than a vanilla announcer who isn’t critical enough.
In addition to being one of the few announcers to work with a father and son, McCarver will work game 4 Sunday opposite his former ABC partner, Al Michaels, who at the same time will be calling the Packers-Vikings game for NBC.
Our research finds that for many states, the insurance on health exchanges will cost more than existing insurance. This study illustrates that the general experience for individuals shopping on the exchange is that of increasing premiums from what was available to them prior to implementation of the exchanges. Many families and individuals will face this reality as they apply for coverage, and the implications of experiencing sticker shock are important to consider if enough people choose not to sign up for coverage for various reasons. …
Individuals in most states will end up spending more on the exchanges. It is true that in some states, the experience could be the opposite. This is because those states had already over-regulated insurance markets that led to sharply higher premiums through adverse selection, as is the case of New York. Many states, however, double or nearly triple premiums for young adults. Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, and Vermont see some of the largest increases in premiums.
The media and liberal organizations hounded the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance last month for disclosing information saying premiums could increase as much as 124 percent under Obamacare.
Not so fast.
A more thorough accounting of insurance premiums from the federal government, tucked away at healthcare.gov, suggests OCI was right.
“We only gave a percentage; but (premiums released by Department of Health and Human Services) compares closely to what we were talking about,” said J.P. Wieske, an OCI spokesman. “The data is so similar that it’s likely they’re sourcing what we were looking at.” …
The Affordable Care Act implicitly subsidizes the indigent and sick by hiking premiums for the young and upper middle-class. It also forbids insurers from denying people with pre-existing health conditions, such as stroke or cancer patients, and it sets a baseline of benefits that all health plans must offer. A 27 year-old single man, for instance, will be covered for maternity care starting in 2014.
In Dane County, someone who is 27 in 2013 could pay $134 a month for a plan with a $2,000 deductible. A bronze plan — covering 60 percent of medical costs — with the same deductible would cost about $300 a month under Obamacare.
According to ehealthinsurance.com the lowest rates for a 27 year-old living in Madison before Obamacare was $38 a month. Post-ACA, the lowest rate listed is $123 a month.
Those who claim that preexisting conditions weren’t covered before but now will be fail to add that that could have been done simply by passing a law that required health insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions. That would increase costs for everyone else, of course, but that’s what those trying to buy ObamaCare are finding out anyway. You cannot expect to increase the cost of providing a service and not expect to increase the cost of purchasing that service.
1) a woman, 2) who is highly educated, 3) who has a business background and is literally a job creator, 4) who has deep roots in Wisconsin and 5) is not a sitting politician.
You would think a person meeting the third and fifth of those criteria would not sound like the fifth criterion. But when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interviewed Burke for the first time, they got …
The Democratic challenger to Gov. Scott Walker said she would seek to avoid raising state or local taxes but stopped short of pledging no increases if elected.
In an interview Monday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, former Trek Bicycle Corp. executive and state commerce secretary Mary Burke also said she had voted against a 2006 constitutional amendment that prohibited gay marriage and civil unions and supported allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.
Burke, a Madison school board member, also said she would oppose making Wisconsin a right-to-work state but declined to weigh in on whether she would support a unionizing effort at the Waterloo bicycle manufacturer that was founded by her father.
On big questions such as taxes, Burke remained careful with her answers and avoided big pledges, saying simply she wanted government to be accountable and live within its means.
“I’d want to look at the totality. We collect revenue in a lot of different ways. I certainly wouldn’t look at raising (taxes), but I’d also want to look at it in the context of our finances, our budgets …” Burke said.
In other answers, Burke said she opposed a law passed by Republicans requiring voters to show a photo ID at their polling place and said she was skeptical of an effort to change the state’s American Indian mascot law for schools. …
In the interview, Burke made clear she opposed a so-called right-to-work law, which would prohibit requirements that workers in private companies pay labor dues even if they don’t belong to a union.
“The laws, as they stand on the books, work for Wisconsin,” Burke said.
Walker and GOP lawmakers passed a law in March 2011 that repeals most collective bargaining for most public employees, effectively putting right to work in place for government workers.
Burke declined to weigh in on whether Trek workers should be represented by a union.
“The issues regarding whether it’s Trek or any other company, I think, those lay with those specific companies,” she said. …
She said she wanted to better Walker’s progress on the state’s economy but offered relatively few specifics. To boost lagging rates of entrepreneurship in Wisconsin, Burke said the state should look at proven strategies for encouraging and supporting new businesses such as start-up accelerators like gener8tor in Madison.
Walker’s predecessor, Gov. James Doyle, famously said, “We should not, we must not, and I will not raise taxes.” That was a pledge (if you ignore fee increases) kept until Democrats took over both houses of the Legislature after the 2008 elections and Doyle decided he wasn’t going to run for reelection, and then all tax hell broke loose. “Raising revenue” is a buzzphrase for “tax increase” unless you can show how our overtaxed voters in Wisconsin won’t have more money coming out of their pockets for Govzilla.
Burke takes a minority (position) on voter ID, apparently because the Democrats think voter fraud is OK when it benefits them. I’d like to hear her explanation for why such schools as Mukwonago (Indians), Potosi (Chieftains), Belmont (Braves), and any school with “Warriors” as its nickname should knuckle under to the professionally offended or the Self-Esteem Caucus and spend taxpayer money to rid themselves of mascots and logos those school districts chose because of their positive, not negative, qualities.
Burke will have to figure out how to explain her role in Trek Bicycles and how that can translate to improving the state’s business climate. (For that matter, she’ll have to convince people in her own party that business climate matters.) She also will have to explain what she learned from being Doyle’s secretary of commerce and how to, again, improve the state’s business climate. (Hint: “Start-up generators” are necessary but not sufficient.) I’m not even sure how seriously one should take Burke’s comment about (the nonexistent) unions at Trek, given that her party’s official position is that government workers should be required to join and pay dues to unions. (Eliminating that was what Act 10 was about, but Burke, of course, opposes Act 10.)
And Burke really needs to do better at interviews than here. Someone seems to be telling Burke that all she needs to do is fork out millions of her dollars and be Not Scott Walker, and she’ll win. That’s not sufficient either. Challengers always have to convince voters not only to not vote for the incumbent, but to vote for the challenger.
It somehow escaped my notice that the 2013 World Series begins tonight.
My life is too busy to watch, but truth be told I’ve lacked interest in baseball since the Brewers were eliminated from contention around April 15. (If you think that’s bad, the Cubs were eliminated from contention during spring training.) I was mildly interested in seeing if the great Vin Scully could get to call a World Series, but his employer, the Dodgers, failed to follow through.
This World Series features Boston and St. Louis, two iconic franchises, who met in the 1946, 1967 and 2004 World Series. Here is a perspective on the Cardinals from, of all places, New York:
The Evil Empire just doesn’t feel so daunting anymore, winning just one title since the last year of the ’90s dynasty. It feels like the mandate has mutated. We aren’t about product as much as profit. And then we lose Mo and Andy, taking with them the remnants of the glory, Torre days.
There’s a crack in Darth Vader’s mask. And the St. Louis Cardinals have slipped through it, blooming like a rose from Middle America.
While the Yankees lick their wounds and grab their wallet, the Cardinals are deep into another fall run toward the Fall Classic. If they can squeeze out four games against the talented but tormented Dodgers, St. Louis will be the hub of America’s pastime yet again.
And they do it with a fraction of our budget and our bombast.
St. Louis loses their two pillars – Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols – and didn’t drop a rung. They do it the right way, their players are spawned by perhaps the most fertile farm system in baseball. You don’t know who they are until you see them whacking clutch home runs in the playoffs. Then they sprinkle the roster with seasoned, team-first free agents.
The Cardinals, who have their mail forwarded to October, have been to the postseason 25 times. They have 11 rings, including two in six years. The Yanks won their first World Series in 1923; the Cards won their first in 1926, beating the Bronx Bombers. And they beat New York two more times, including the iconic 1964 World Series, essentially ending the Mickey Mantle era.
And they play in St. Louis, appropriately placed in the middle of the map, like the aorta of baseball. Almost every player, foreign or domestic, preaches the Cardinal Gospel. St. Louis is a special place, they say, the real Field of Dreams, a pastoral wonderland where players are beloved no matter their last plate appearance.
They don’t even boo their players. This is the land of Stan Musial, who stayed like a spiritual buoy for over 90 years. The land of Bob Gibson and Ozzie Smith. They can find victory in virtue. …
The Cardinals’ lineup reads like a roll call for Bull Durham. Pete Kozma. Matt Adams. Jon Jay. David Freese. Daniel Descalso. Matt Carpenter. Who? Chris Carpenter was their ace. They lose him, and in slides Adam Wainwright. They lose Pujols, and here comes Carlos Beltran.
A horrible irony today in 1964: A plane carrying all four members of the group Buddy and the Kings crashed, killing everyone on board. Buddy and the Kings was led by Harold Box, who replaced Buddy Holly with the Crickets after Holly died in a plane crash in 1959:
Today in 1976, Chicago had its first number one single, which some would consider the start of its downward slope to sappy ballads:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 