The Thunder Rolls

Let us salute the Oklahoma City Thunder on their 103-91 Game 7 victory over the Indiana Pacers last night to secure the 2025 NBA Championship.  We also salute the League and Finals MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who led the team to this championship.

It was a most entertaining Finals series, but the outcome will always carry a nagging "What if?' question for Pacers fans due to the first quarter injury to their star and best player, Tyrese Haliburton.  Haliburton started out on fire hitting three three point field goals before he popped his achilles midway through the first quarter and was lost for the rest of the game.

It was both sad and painful to watch as Haliburton lay on the floor for several minutes before he was able to get to the locker room.  I once heard the great Bill Russell, when he was working a TV commentator, say that "injuries are as much a part of this game as free throws", and that is certainly true.  The Thunder's title does not come with an asterisk because of Taliburton's injury.  As I stated on Facebook yesterday, I think that the Thunder is a better team, and that they probably would have won Game 7 regardless.  Still, the Pacers and their fans will have to always wonder "what if.....?'

I don't want to end this contemplation of the Finals without mentioning the Pacers' TJ McConnell.

McConnell is a local kid out of Chartiers Valley High School.  His father was and is a legendary high school coach at Char Valley. His aunt is Suzie McConnell-Serio, one of the great athletes to ever come out of western PA, and his sister was a star player at Duquesne and is now a rookie in the WNBA.  He started his college career at Duquesne before transferring to Arizona.  He was undrafted but has fashioned a nice little career as bench player and sixth man. In this series, he came off the bench and was effective in every game he played.  Coming into the game last night in place of Haliburton, he kept the Pacers in the game through the first half, before the Thunder just wore them out.  He is one of those types of players that are common in sport:  one that you love when he plays for YOU team, but one who drives you nuts when he plays for the other guys.

One more uplifting moment.  As the dejected Pacers came off the floor at the end of the game, Tyrese Haliburton, dressed and on crutches, was there to greet and console them in defeat.  It was an almost noble moment.

Again, all hail the OKC Thunder, worthy Champions!  And thanks to BOTH teams for a most entertaining and enjoyable Finals series.

 

To Absent Friends - Chuck Spatafore

In the course of your lifetime, if you are lucky enough, you will meet a small handful of people about whom you will say "I've never met anyone quite like him."  If you are really lucky, as I was, one of those persons that you will have encountered would have been Chuck Spatafore, who passed way peacefully this past Friday.  Chuck was never one to give his age, but he was somewhere in his early nineties.  If anyone can be said to have lived a full and rich life, it was Chuck.

I first met him in 1988 when I began working at Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania.  Chuck and I were fellow Account Executives working in the area that sold to and serviced Taft Hartley Health and Welfare Trust Funds.  It didn't take me long to realize that this guy was one of the most engaging, and certainly one of the funniest, guys that I had ever met.   Chuck was a jazz drummer of renown in the greater Pittsburgh area, and he had worked as a professional musician throughout the country.  This "show biz" background allowed Chuck to accumulate a wealth of stories about many famous persons, both locally and nationally.  He also knew a million jokes, and could tell them in such a way that provoked great fits of laughter.  I can honestly say that Chuck was the funniest guy that I have ever known.

Here's just two stories that I loved hearing Chuck tell.  And I had him tell them to me many times.

In the mid-1960's, Chuck was the drummer in the house band at KDKA-TV Channel 2 in Pittsburgh,  Yes, local TV stations actually had such things as "house bands" back then.  One day, an up and coming rock and roll band from England came through town and needed to generate some publicity for their Pittsburgh gig, so they appeared on a local show down at Channel 2.  That group was the Rolling Stones.  (This was a long time ago.)  Anyway, the gist of the story was Chuck telling everyone how he got into it with "that skinny bastard Charlie Watts" as he, Watts, kept tinkering with Chuck's drum kit.  "I wanted to kill him and that would have been the end of the g.d. Rolling Stones."

Another time, Chuck was playing in the band at the old Holiday House night club when Milton Berle was the main act.  After one of Berle's jokes, Chuck gave a rim shot on his drums, whereupon Berle glared at him and said "I work alone, drummer."  Needless to say, Uncle Miltie was not one of Chuck's favorites.

Like I said, Chuck knew everybody.  He went to North Catholic with Dan Rooney, and played football at Dayton University with Chuck Noll.  So Chuck was connected to the Steelers.  He coached football at North Catholic High School with Tom Foerster.  Foerster went onto become an Allegheny Counter Commissioner and a major force in local Democratic politics, so this meant that Chuck was connected with just about any politico that mattered in the Pittsburgh area.  Among all of his connections  - show biz, sports, politics - Chuck knew just about everyone, and he usually had great story to tell about all of them.

Chuck retired from the Blues in 1996, and I am glad to say that he and I kept in touch, and every time we talked, the old stories would be told and I would be in tears with laughter.  Later this week, I will visit the funeral home to pay my respects to Chuck and his family, and I am certain that there will be more laughter than tears as everyone celebrates a full life that was certainly well lived.

I don't know who in his family composed the death notice for Chuck that appeared in the paper, but I want to quote from it here:

He inspired everyone who knew him to keep moving, keep smiling and keep going. Chuck was an extrovert in the best sense of the word. His joy for life was infectious, his storytelling legendary and his humor unmatched. No one could leave a conversation with him without a laugh, a grin or a new favorite anecdote. He had a deep love for his friends and family always bringing his signature warmth. Chuck Spatafore was a true original: a drummer, a teammate, a jokester, a gym rat, a sports fanatic, a dear friend, and a loving family man. He leaves behind a legacy of rhythm, resilience and joy. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you honor Chuck by doing what he did best: tell a good story, listen to some great music and make someone laugh. 

A perfect description.

RIP Spats.

This picture was taken at a mini-reunion of the Blue Cross "Foster Plaza Gang" in 2014.  That's Chuck, front row, right.  Me on the left with Michelle Hickey Cerminara, who organizes these reunions, in the middle.  Ken Cikovic, Bill Hepfinger, and Judy Jones standing behind us.

Speaking of Sports.....

Idle sports thoughts from an idle mind..... 

A sixty foot putt in the rain to win the Open!

The United States Open Golf Championship was contested at the venerable Oakmont Country Club last week and was won by J.J. Spaun with a score of one (1!) under par. The mostly unheralded Spaun was at or near the top of the leaderbaord for the first three rounds.  Playing in the next to last group on Sunday, Spaun bogeyed five of the first six holes and shot 40 on the front nine, and it looked like he was about to fall back into the unheralded oblivion from whence he came.   However, through a rain delay, Spaun soldiered on and got back into contention as those around him kept falling back, and it was along about the time he played his 12th or 13th hole that I decided, "this is the guy I'm rooting for!".  He shot 32 on the back nine and had a birdie-birdie finish when he sank a 60 foot putt on the eighteenth hole to win the Open.  It was an epic performance for J.J. Spaun., and full credit and cheers for him.

(As an aside, Sam Burns, leader after three rounds, was royally screwed by not one, but two, officious USGA rules officials when he wasn't allowed a drop from casual water late in the round.  It probably wouldn't have made a diffidence in the final result, but we'll never really know that, will we?  If you were watching, you know that I am talking about.)

Okay, those are the facts of the matter, now for an opinion.  Spaun's win, especially his last two holes "saved" the US Open for this golf fan/viewer, because up until then, The Open was a slog of an event where we watched the best golfers in the world hack it around the golf course in much the same manner that I and my colleagues in the Tuesday Retiree Golf Group kick it around various public golf courses throughout southwestern Pennsylvania every summer.  That is not what I want to see when I watch golf being played at its highest level.  Of course, we get the standard "We don't seek to embarrass the best golfers, we seek to identify them" line of bullshit from the USGA, and the arrogant Oakmont members can continue to boast about how "they have to cut down the rough and slow the greens speeds for the pros when the Open comes here".  More bullshit.

I realize that my opinion is probably a minority one, and I agree that watching the pros go thirty-one under over four days at a routine Tour stop may not be the all that much fun either, but in the words of Bill Cowher, the 2025 US Open "wasn't a Mozart."

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Tomorrow night we will be treated to one of the best events in all of sports - a Seventh  Game of a Playoff Series, and it is in the Championship Round, no less.

I have greatly enjoyed following the NBA Playoffs this spring, and the Finals series between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder has been particularly enjoyable.  Both teams are likable and are filled with very good players, one of whom, the Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander , or "SGA", could become one of the great players in the League over the next decade or so.  The second and sixth games of the series were one-sided affairs that the two teams split, but the other four games were hotly contested and Game One was an absolute classic.. In that game, the Thunder led convincingly throughout the game, but Indy mounted a comeback in the fourth quarter and won the game on this shot

by Tyrese Halliburton with :00.3 left on the clock.  It was the only time in the game that the Pacers led, and it gave them a 111-110 win. It was one of those games and moments that make you say "THIS is why I follow sports."  Had that game been a Game Seven, Haliburton would have become Bobby Thomson or Bill Mazeroski.

At this point I have absolutely no clue as to which team will win tomorrow night., but I can say that a win by either team would be a satisfactory conclusion to the series and mean it.  The game is at OKC, and the Thunder have had double digit leads in five of the first six games.  Put a gun to my head and tell me to make a choice, I'll pick the Thunder, mainly because they are the home team and in SGA, they have the best player on the floor.  They are 7.5 point favorites, but if the Pacers won this one, I would not be the least bit surprised.  (How's that for waffling?)

As  I watch NBA games with some degree of regularity as I have over these last few months, I am inclined to shake my head whenever someone tells me that college basketball is a superior product.   I understand loyalty to the old Alma Mater, and the sport is a good one, but please don't tell me that the NBA play is inferior.  I mean....

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The National Hockey League season ended on Thursday night when for the second straight year, the Florida Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers  to win the Stanley Cup.  The championship series ended in six games.  In this household we were rooting for the Oilers because we wanted to see the best player in the game today, Connor McDavid, get to hoist the Cup.  Alas, it was not to be.

Admittedly, my hockey acumen and knowledge cannot hold a candle to that of my wife's, but it was apparent to me that while the Oilers had the best player on the ice, the Panthers were the better team, so their victory was deserved, despite the fact that the detestable Brad Marchand was/is one of their stars.  It is also notable, that the Panthers were able to hold McDavid to only one goal over the six games, and that one came in garbage time of a 5-2 Edmonton loss in Game Five.

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And on the local front, THIS GUY showed up and participated in teh Steelers mandatory mini-camp last week.

In the words of Jerry Ford, "Our long national nightmare is over."

Or at least it is until the Steelers experience their first loss of the season.

Thoughts on Oneil Cruz and "Three True Outcomes" From A Special Guest Blogger

Dave Jones is a long time friend of mine of going on forty years now.  He is a frequent golf partner, fellow degenerate sports better, and has served for God only knows how long as the commissioner of the North Park League (NPL) fantasy baseball league, of which I am a retired member and two time champion (ahem!).   As a member emeritus of the NPL, Dave keeps me on the mailing list, and today he sent out a most interesting email about baseball's "Three True Outcomes" and how they relate to Pirates outfielder Oneil Cruz.  I thought it was pretty interesting, and I asked Dave if I could reproduce it here for your reading pleasure while giving him full credit as a Special Guest Blogger here in The Grandstand.

He said OK, so take it away, Dave.....

I mentioned this baseball term in the Monday morning NPL e-mail.  It was brought to the attention of the baseball stat geek world by Christina Kahri of BaseballProspectus.  But here is what piqued my curiosity to take a look at it.  Or should I say I say who?   Answer: Oneil Cruz.

 

When watching the Pirates on TV lately (and they are hard to watch) I found myself thinking that geez - Cruz seems like he strikes out an awful lot.   Currently he's 3rd in MLB striking out with 89 K's, behind Riley Greene of Detroit with 93 and Austin Riley of Atlanta with 90.  HOWEVER, Cruz has only 275 Plate Appearances while Austin Riley and Riley Greene have more PA's - 310 and 296 for their K total. 

 

But the Three True Outcomes (TTO) then factors in strikeouts along with Walks and Home Runs.  In other words, a type of player that in a high percentage of plate appearances will have one of those three outcomes.  Just think Adam Dunn.

 

Dunn had 8,329 plate appearances and had the TTO in 49.9 percent of the time he came to the plate, basically half of every time up one of those three things were the result in a 14-year career.  So just for fun I looked up on Baseball Reference some random guys that I recalled being this type of player.  Such as Ryan Howard, Rob Deer, Miguel Sano.  They all had percentages in the 40's, but the King of TTO at least of the dozen or so guys I checked was Joey Gallo.  Joey Had 3,403 Plate Appearances, 208 HR, 497 BB, 1,292 K's for a TTO percentage of 58.6 of the time he did one of the three.  Guys like Bonds (38.5) and McGwire (45.6) were looked at and I thought Bonds would be higher, but he actually did not have a high K total.  Current players in this mold are Schwarber (48.7) and Judge (51.0) for their careers.  

 

Of course, this doesn't make them bad players or bad fantasy picks. On the contrary some of the best.  But okay, what's the story with Oneil Cruz?   It seems he's turning into at TTO guy.   Prior to this 2025 season and granted he's only in year 5 of his career, his TTO percentage was 44.1.   But in this 2025 season Oneil is cruising at a 52.0 TTO percent.  The King of Exit Velocity is Striking out in 38.8% of every time he bats, which inflates his TTO number.

But hey, not trying to knock the guy (at least too much!), he's still a good fantasy asset.  In our fantasy points scoring format he has 241 points in official at bats of 229 (and 275 plate appearances) as the LOCKHORNS 2nd leading batter behind Corbin Carroll and drafted by Harv in round 5 (#48 overall).  He's a better player for our points format over Rotisserie, as in Roto the .227 batting average would probably hurt that category.

 

It's just frustrating watching him wave at a ball in the dirt or look at one right down the middle for strike 3 when watching them on TV.

 

So, maybe I should stop watching if I'm so annoyed.   And another thing that annoys me in these TV broadcasts..... How many times can Greg Brown keep saying the Pirates are playing "Donnie Ball."   Yep, grabbing the remote.....CLICK!

Thanks, Dave, and thanks also for the shot taken at Pirates Chief Propaganda Minister Greg Brown and his frequent references to "Donnie Ball", or any reference to the Pirates skipper as Donnie.  The only people who should be calling a 45 year old man "Donnie" are his mother and his old classmates from whatever Mt. Lebanon Middle School he attended.

Here is a photo of our Guest Blogger and me taken last year when it was "Hawaiian Shirt Day" for our Tuesday Retiree Golf Group.  Obviously, neither Dave nor I owned a Hawaiian shirt so we both scurried to Amazon to buy one.  Thank God we didn't pick the same color!

POST SCRIPT:  One guy who popped into my head as possible prime TTO guy was retired Cubs and Mets outfielder Dave Kingman, so I looked it up.  In a sixteen year career, Kingman a .236 lifetime hitter, accumulated 6.677 at bats, hit 442 home runs, struck out 1,816 times and drew 608 bases on balls.  Pro-rated on a "per 162 game" basis, that would give you 37 HR, 51 BB, and a whopping 152 K's.  His career TTO percentage was 38.4%, lower than I would have expected.  He remains, however, the worst defensive outfielder that I have ever seen.

 

To Absent Friends - Martha Shanley

I don't often make Absent Friends posts that involve personal acquaintances, and I did make this post on Facebook on Saturday evening, but I just decided that I wanted this one to become a permanent part of The Grandstander archives.

My Facebook post of June 14, 2025:

I was saddened to learn of the death today of my Godmother, Martha Cordic Shanley at the grand age of 94. The Cordic family lived across the street from the Sproule family on Saline Street in Squirrel Hill. Martha was a frequent babysitter for my older sister and brothers, and when I came along my parents asked Martha and her brother Rege (yes, THE Rege Cordic of Pittsburgh radio fame) to be my godparents. My own mother would often refer to Martha as her "sixth kid". Martha more than lived up to her role of godmother. Always wanted to know what my grade was in Religion when report cards came out, and I was well into my fifties and still getting a "Godson" birthday card from her. Martha lived a long and wonderful life. She volunteered at a soup kitchen well into her eighties. We should celebrate her life more than we should mourn her passing. My deepest sympathies go out to her kids, John. Mike, Claire, Pete, and Tom.

Rest in peace indeed.

Martha's son Mike posted this picture of hs Mom on facebook when he announced her death because "This photo kind of captures the enthusiasm she often displayed, which if you knew her from Girl Scouts/Cub Scouts, or as a teacher or a music fan, you knew."

How true, Mike. How true.

To Absent Friends - Frederick Forsyth

INFORMATION  FOR LIFE DEPARTMENT

How To Secure a Passport Under a New Identity

• Go to a remote cemetery, preferably in a small out of the way village churchyard cemetery
• Find a headstone for a child who died within two years of his/her birth
• Said deceased child should have been born within a year or two of you own year of birth
• Go to local county/village registry and request a copy of the birth certificate of the deceased child; such things are public record and are available upon request
• Using "your" newly acquired birth certificate, go to the appropriate  government registry office and request a passport using your photo and the name of the long ago deceased child
• Vwah-LAH!  You now have a new and legitimate passport and a new identity, something like "Paul Oliver Duggan", born in the Village of Sambourn-Fishley, somewhere in England

How do I know this, you may ask?  I learned it from reading the terrific 1971 Edgar Award winning and best selling novel, "The Day of The Jackal" by Frederick Forsyth.  The novel was also made into a terrific Fred Zinnemann directed movie in 1973. 

Frederick Forsyth

1938-2025

Forsyth died this past week at the age of 82.   In addition to "The Day of the Jackal", Forsyth wrote a number of other novels of the political thriller genre, the best of which was his second one, "The Odessa File" about a journalist hunting down Nazis who are attempting to restore the Third Reich (it was set in 1963).  None, though, ever topped "The Day of the Jackal" for sheer can't-put-it-down thrills and readability.

The English born Forsyth was an international journalist by trade, and his obituaries describe a guy who just may have lived the life of, or at least been exposed to, many of the types of people about whom he wrote in his career as a thriller novelist.

Do yourself a favor. Find a copy of "The Day of the Jackal" and read it.  You won't regret it.  Then watch the movie.  You won't regret that, either  Oh, and "The Odessa File" is pretty damn good read as well.

RIP Frederick Forsyth.

Post Script.  In the 21st Century world of terrorism in which we now live, I'm not sure if the method of obtaining a new passport under a new identity can still be pulled off as it was in the 1960's world of Forsyth's masterpiece.  If there is now a more difficult way to go about the process, I am sure that Frederick Forsyth would have been able to describe it for us.

To Absent Friends - Brian Wilson

 

If there is a Mount Rushmore of American Popular Music and Rick & Roll, then Brian Wilson, who died two days ago at age 82 surely sits prominently upon it.  Wilson, the California Boy who founded the Beach Boys, was and will always remain an authentic musical genius.  Tributes to him from a Who's Who of musical greats have abounded across the news (his death was a featured story on the national network news programs) and social media.  What could I possibly add to what people like Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and others have already said?  Therefore, my own tribute to this Absent Friend will be a reprinting of what I wrote on August 26, 2016 when I saw Brian Wilson perform, live and in person (and has it really been nine years ago already?).

Here you go, and RIP Brian Wilson.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Brian Wilson and "Pet Sounds"

This much anticipated concert date finally rolled around last night and what a night it was.  An authentic musical genius, Brian Wilson, founder of The Beach Boys, performing in it's entirety, one of the greatest rock and roll albums of all time, "Pet Sounds", to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of it's release.  Throw in the accompaniment of fellow Beach Boy Al Jardine, and a terrific ten piece band, and what you got was an evening that far exceeded every expectation that I had when I walked into the Benedum last night.

Brian Wilson's story is well known.  A founder and the musical master behind The Beach Boys, Wilson withdrew from touring with the band when he had an anxiety attack when traveling on an airplane.  He then went into the studio to create the masterpiece, Pet Sounds.  No one knew it at the time that it was masterpiece.  It was only a modest, if that, commercial success when it was released, but as the years went by, it became elevated in the pantheon of rock and roll albums.  (No less than Paul McCartney has called it perhaps the greatest album of all time.)  Wilson continued to withdraw, had artistic disagreements with his band mates, became drug dependent and paranoid, fell under the influence of a Svengali-like doctor, and became pretty much of a mess.  His story did have a happy ending and was well told in the 2015 movie, "Love and Mercy", which I highly recommend.

Anyway, the concert last night was tremendous.  Can Wilson sing like he did in his Beach Boys hey-day?  No, of course he can't, what seventy-four year old singer can?  Yet his singing of the entire Pet Sounds album last night was mesmerizing.  He would sing the songs, and when it came time for the trademark Beach Boys high notes and falsettos, those portions of the song were sung by vocalist  Matt Jardine, Al's son.  These trade offs were done seamlessly, and they contributed to the magic of the performance.  It was beautiful.

The night began with a one hour set that mixed some Beach Boys standards as well as some of the "Smile" songs, and featured a number of the individual band members.  Highlights included Matt Jardine singing "Don't Worry Baby", and Wilson singing "God Only Knows", which led to a mid-set standing ovation.  

The second set was the Pet Sounds performance, which, as I have stated, was simply amazing.

(Photo courtesy of Dan Bonk)

It was the encore, featuring Wilson and Jardine, that shook the rafters of the Benedum and had the crowd on its feet the entire time.  "Good Vibrations", "Help Me, Rhonda", "Surfin' USA", "Barbara Ann", and "Fun, Fun, Fun".  I mean, how could it get much better than that?

At the risk of sounding like a total fanboy, I don't think that I can overstate what it felt like to actually see and hear Brian Wilson perform live and person.  The term "genius" is passed around too easily and too often, but I think that it is totally appropriate to use it when speaking of Brian Wilson.  He has led a tortured life, and much of that is evident in his somewhat wooden stage presence.  He shuffles when he walks, and he talks very little between songs, but when the music plays and he begins to sing, even at the age of 74, the magic is there.  I feel very fortunate that I am now able to say that "Yeah, I saw Brian Wilson."