The Steelers and The Draft

Have you all been anxiously awaiting to hear what The Grandstander has to say about how the Steelers "did in the draft", including instant assessments and letter grades for each of the players selected?  Well, if that's the case, you're crazy, because I know as much about that as all the others who have been offering such expert analysis, which is to say, I don't know nothin'.

I've told this story before, but way back when, my dad ran into Steelers player Ben Magee, one of the few good players that the Steelers had back in the pre-Chuck Noll days (you have to be pushing age seventy to remember him), at some lunch counter in downtown Pittsburgh.  It was right about the time of the draft and Frank asked him "Ben, whaddya think of the guys they drafted?"  Magee looks at him and says "Won't know nothin' about them 'til you get them in camp."  It's a story I've always remembered and it always causes me to temper enthusiasm over anybody that any team drafts until they actually play against real life NFL football players.

That said, I always prefer to be optimistic on Draft Day, and just looking at film clips of Notre Dame's Chase Claypool certainly makes you imagine great things for him and the Steelers in the years ahead.  He's big, 6-4, 240, and fast, and he certainly could - COULD - become a major force with which to be reckoned in the NFL.  Looking at the clips made you think of a monster wide out like Michael Irvin or Calvin Johnson.  If he turns out like that, great.  He could also be the second coming of Limas Sweed, but, like I say, on Draft Day, let's all be optimistic.

In this 2020 Draft, what Steelers Fans will forever refer to as the "Chase Claypool Draft", the Steelers took six players.  A wide receiver, a linebacker, a running back, a guard, a safety, and a defensive tackle.  All positions of need for the team.  If a couple of them become pro bowl caliber players, that would be fantastic. If three or four of them become solid starters over a six to eight year time period, I am sure that Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert will consider that the Steelers "did good in the draft", but that is a question that will take years to answer.

Future Steelers Hall of Famer?

Quarterbacks at #1 Overall - From Bradshaw to Burrow

Terry Bradshaw

#1 in 1970

In the endless discussions leading up to the NFL Draft that began last night, I heard former QB and current CBS analyst Gary Danielson mention a fact that caused me to do some research.  If Joe Burrow were to be taken at Overall #1, which he was, he would become the twenty-fifth quarterback taken in that all-important, sure-to-be-a-superstar-so-don't-screw-this-pick-up slot, since 1970.  That year essentially marked the post NFL-AFL merger, so it is a good place to begin the discussion.  

Joe Burrow

#1 in 2020

Of those 24 QB's taken, how many of them went on to be certified superstar, Hall of Fame players, asked Danielson?  

The answer to that question called for a Grandstander Spreadsheet, and it might surprise you. 

2020	Joe Burrow	Bengals	2002	David Carr	Texans
2019	Kyler Murray	Cardinals	2001	Michael Vick	Falcons
2018	Baker Mayfield	Browns	1999	Tim Couch	Browns
2016	Jared Goff	Rams	1998	Peyton Manning	Colts
2015	Jameis Winston	Bucs	1993	Drew Bledsoe	Patriots
2012	Andrew Luck	Colts	1990	Jeff George	Colts
2011	Cam Newton	Panthers	1989	Troy Aikman	Cowboys
2010	Sam Bradford	Rams	1987	Vinny Testaverde	Bucs
2009	Matthew Stafford	Lions	1983	John Elway	Colts
2007	JaMarcus Russell	Raiders	1975	Steve Bartkowski	Falcons
2005	Alex Smith	49ers	1971	Jim Plunkett	Patriots
2004	Eli Manning	Chargers	1970	Terry Bradshaw	Steelers
2003	Carson Palmer	Bengals

So far, only three of those QB's have made it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Terry Bradshaw, John Elway, and Troy Aikman.  Peyton Manning will surely be in as soon as he is eligible, and Eli Manning is borderline, but those two Super Bowl wins may push him into the HOF, although it hasn't worked that way for Jim Plunkett, and the HOF jury is still out on those guys drafted in the last ten years or so.   Many of these guys had solid careers - Palmer, Vick, Bledsoe, Testaverde - but fell short of the superstardom predicted for them. Injuries have laid low a number of these guys as well (Smith, Bradford, and you could include Palmer in that category as well). By my count at least nine of these guys have played in Super Bowls, and I believe that Testaverde earned a Super Bowl ring with Dallas as a back-up.  

The really astonishing thing about the list to me, though, is the number of guys who were flat out busts in the NFL: Jeff George, Tim Couch, David Carr, and JaMarcus Russell.  Couch and Carr were drafted by crummy expansion teams, so you can argue that they never got a fair shot, but with all of the analysis, film studies, combine performances, endless Pro Days and coaches interviews, how can teams miss so badly and blow the golden opportunity that the Overall Number One pick gives you by selecting guys who turned into Poster Boys for Bad Draft Picks like Jeff George and JaMarcus Russell?  It boggles your mind.

Last night four quarterbacks were selected in the first round of the draft, three coming within the first six selections.  I wish all of these kids well, but there is a good chance that at least one or two of them will have, at best, very ordinary careers in the NFL.

"The Good Liar" (2019)

We spent Day #37 of self-isolation by doing something that we always did in more normal time - we watched a (relatively) new movie.

"The Good Liar" was released in late 2019.  We were attracted to it from seeing its trailer many times, but it was one of those flicks that just got lost in the year-end movie crush.  Last night, we made up for that oversight (thank you, Prime), and, in addition to it being a pretty good movie, it felt good be doing something that was always such a part of our life.

Directed by Bill Condon, it stars Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen as a pair of widowed seniors who meet up via a computer dating service.  They hit it off and seem be settling into a nice relationship of comfortable companionship, despite the qualms of Mirren's grandson.  You learn early on that McKellen is really a con artist out to fleece the wealthy widow Mirren.  However, perhaps SHE isn't what she purports to be either.

There are a lot of layers to this story, and to reveal any of them would be spoiling the story, so I will just tell you to settle in and enjoy the ride, and enjoy a couple of good performances by a couple of true old pros, Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen.  Oh, and for fans of Downton Abbey, Jim Carter plays one of McKellen's associates in a role that would certainly not meet the approval of Mr. Carson!

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Book Review - "A Good American Family, The Red Scare and My Father" by David Maraniss

David Maraniss is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and has authored over a dozen non-fiction books that include highly acclaimed biographies of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Vince Lombardi, and Roberto Clemente.  Other books have focused on a particular battle in the Viet Nam War and the 1960 Rome Olympics. In his newest book, "A Good American Family", he writes a more personal story.  The story of how one of the more shameful episodes in American history, the "Red Scare" of the post-war 1940's and 1950's affected his father, newspaperman Elliott Maraniss and his entire family, including himself.

Like many students in the 1930's, Elliott was taken by progressive, liberal ideas, and flirted with the idea of communism.  He was disturbed by the racial inequities that existed in America at the time, and advocated such positions in his role as a reporter and editor of the Michigan Daily, the student newspaper at the University of Michigan, where he was a student.  He became friends with a young man named Bob Cummins, who upon graduation from Michigan, left for Spain to fight for the loyalists against fascism in the Spanish Civil War.  While at Michigan, Elliott met and eventually married Bob Cummins' younger sister, Mary.

All of these activities brought Elliott to the attention of the FBI and, later, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).  After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the US's entry into WW II, Elliott enlisted in the Army, rose to the rank of Captain, commanded one of the Army's all-black battalions and served and fought on Okinawa.  He was honorably discharged in 1946.  While serving in the war, Elliott quickly became disabused of the notion of communism as it was being practiced in the USSR, but he never lost his ideals as they applied to racial inequity and organized labor, and he never lost his pride and love for America.  He returned from the service upon discharge, began working at a Detroit newspaper, and began raising a family.

However, in 1952, when the HUAC held hearings in Detroit, an FBI informer named names, both Bob Cummins and Elliott were subpoenaed to testify, and lost their jobs.  This began a five year period of exile for the Maraniss family, certainly a "good American family", that involved him losing three newspaper jobs and moving his young family seven times. In 1957, he landed a job at a paper in Madison, WI where he stayed for over twenty-five years, rose to the rank of executive editor and even taught journalism classes at the University of Wisconsin.  It proved to be a wonderful life for the Maraniss family. He never talked of his ordeal before the HUAC and what it cost him.  David Maraniss, who was only two at the time of the 1952 hearings, knew very little of his father's past until he began the research for this book.

David not only tells the story of his father and his family on this book, but he also tells the stories of many of the other players in the drama, including John Stephens Wood (a staunch segregationist, a one time member of the KKK, and a man who had some involvement in a lynching in the state of Georgia in his youth) and Charles Potter (a certified war hero who later in life came to regret his role in the Red Scare days during his time on the Committee), two influential members of HUAC, and Frank Tavenner, the chief counsel of the committee, and Bereniece Baldwin, an unassuming Detroit area grandmother who worked undercover in the Detroit area Communist Party as a paid informant for the FBI.  It was  the unassuming Grandma who named the names that changed the lives of so many people, including Elliott Maraniss and Bob Cummins and their families.

"A Good American Family" is a terrific story - and ultimately an uplifting one - of how one man endured the unfair (to put the kindest face on it) charges against him and endured.  He was a man who had every reason to be bitter and NOT love his country, but he rose above it all and endured. It is also a story about a terrifying time in America, and the big lesson here is that there is no guarantee that such times could not come again in America.  The name most associated with his era is that of Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, and his name is even given to what this era embodied: McCarthyism.  Elliott Maraniss never encountered Joe McCarthy.  McCarthy never mentioned his name, and, in fact, McCarthy may not have even known who he was.  The witch-hunting tactics of the HUAC preceded McCarthy, and was still doing it's dirty work after McCarthy was disgraced and later died.

However, consider this description of Joe McCarthy offered by David Maraniss:

"An insecure publicity hound posing as the ultimate patriot, McCarthy began his campaign of reckless charges used on flimsy evidence with a relatively obscure but soon-to-be-notorious speech...."

And then this one.  Following what became known as the Army-McCarthy Hearings that unmasked McCarthy for the charlatan that he was, Republican Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont  "utter(ed) a line that came to define McCarthy's bullying tactics: 'He emits war whoops. He goes forth to battle and proudly returns with the scalp of a pink Army dentist.'"

Sound familiar?  

Anyway, the tale of "A Good American Family" could serve as Exhibit A for the Santayana quote that "He who ignores history is condemned to repeat it."   It is a terrific book and an important one.  It is one you should read.

It gets the full Four Stars from The Grandstander.

Oh, and as a companion piece, I can also recommend he podcast "Ink In Our Blood" with David Maraniss and his daughter, Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff, who is also a writer of some distinction.  It's good listening.

"Little Women" (1949)

Regular readers know how much I loved director Greta Gerwig's "Little Women" last year.  It was my personal #2 Favorite Movie of the Year.  I knew that Gerwig's version was one one of many film versions (more on that later) of the Louisa May Alcott classic.  Fun Fact: Since the novel was published in 1868, it has never gone out of print, and it has been published in well over fifty languages.

Anyway, the 1949 version of this movie popped up on TCM a few months ago and has been sitting on my DVR since then, and last night we got around to watching it.

Clockwise from top:

Allyson, Taylor, Astor, O'Brien, Leigh

This one starred June Allyson, Janet Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, and Margaret O'Brien as the Little Women and Mary Astor as Marmee.   I enjoyed this one very much, I must say.  Allyson as the spunky Jo Marsh was very good in the role, as was Taylor - a blond in this one! - as Amy, and how can you not just love Margaret O'Brien in just about anything?

I found it to be a delightful movie, and I give it Two and One-Half Grandstander Stars.

In doing some research for this post, I see that "Little Women" has more film versions than a cat has lives.

The first version that I could see was made in 1933 by George Cukor and starred Katherine Hepburn and Joan Bennett.

In 1948, director Mervyn Leroy made the version that I watched last night.  

There then followed a TV movie in 1978 that starred Meredith Baxter and Susan Dey, a 1994 version that starred Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder, and another feature film in 2018 that starred Lea Thompson as Marmee and no one else you've ever heard of.  There was also a short lived TV series that ran for one season in 1978. 

And of course, there was Gerwig's hit film of 2019 that starred Saoirse Ronan and Emma Watson, and I look forward to watching this one once again very soon on my recently purchased Blur-ray.

Finally, a word about Margaret O'Brien, who is still with us at the age of 83.  

She made her first film appearance at the age of four in 1941.  She won an Oscar as Outstanding child Actress in 1944. She is probably best known for her role as Tootie in "Meet Me In St. Louis" (1944), where she costarred with Judy Garland.  

Another Fun Fact: "Met Me In St. Louis" also featured Mary Astor and Leon Ames, both of whom were in 1949's "Little Women" with O'Brien.  They were her parents in both movies.  IMDB lists 77 acting credits for her, the latest one coming in 2018.  Lots of forgettable movies and, of course, the TV roles in shows like "Marcus Welby MD", "Love, American Style", and "Murder, She Wrote."  Like I have often said, all actors want to do is work, and Margaret O'Brien, God bless her, has been working at her craft for close to eighty years.  

Day #27

Cleaning out the Mental In-Box on Day 27 of self-isolation.....

Easter sure was different this year.  We did take in Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil masses and services from our parish via live streaming on our home devices.  Poor acoustics sort of lessened the impact, but it was a good feeling to take part.  

One thing we avoided was the traffic jams in the church parking lots after Easter Mass due to the presence of all of the "Easter Only" attendees.

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Thanks to the dining services of the Diamond Rub Golf Club, Marilyn and I were able to enjoy a tasty Easter Dinner - roast turkey for Marilyn, leg o' lamb for me - yesterday afternoon.

Many, many thanks to our neighbor Dede, a member of DRGC, who shared the menu with us, placed the order, and made the pick up and delivery for us.  We are very grateful for that.  And, it was delicious!!

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Marilyn and I continue with the almost daily games playing.  So far, our favorites have been Poker's Wild (a board game played with a deck of  cards where you score points by building poker hands - pairs, full houses, straights, etc), and gin rummy.  It has probably been over twenty years since we last played gin, but, hey, any port in a storm, right?  We've been playing for money, too.  A dime point in Poker's Wild, and a penny a point in gin.  It's an effort to rebuild our crumbling 401(k)'s.

We actually saw a touring production of this play in Pittsburgh many years ago that did indeed star Charles Durning and Julie Harris.

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I don't believe that I have mentioned it on these pages, but way back on March 12, we bought a new car.

After seven and a half years and 74,860 miles, we said good-bye to our Chevy Equinox, and bought a new 2020 Chevy Equinox, which you see pictured above.  Why mess with the  good thing that our first Equinox was, we reasoned.  We love the car, but the excitement that one normally feels over such a purchase sure has gotten lost during these Days of COVID-19.  A month later, there is only a little over 200 miles on the new car, and I have only had to buy gas for it once.

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The "27 Days" you see in the title dates back to March 17, which was the last time that we have had company in our home, and that is the yardstick that I am using to measure our days of Self-Isolation.  Since that date, we have ventured out only for doctors' appointments and grocery store trips.

On one of those grocery runs last week, I swung by one of our favorite entertainment places here in our part of the world.

Yep.  The Cinemark North movie theater complex, shut down and with a completely empty parking lot.  It is a desolate site that brings home what we are facing today every bit as much as empty ball parks and shut down schools.

How will the movie going experience be different on the other side of all of this?

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Then there is sports, or rather, the lack of sports.  Despite how badly the Pirates broke my spirits in 2019, what I wouldn't give to be able to head out to PNC Park one of these evenings.  I still read the sports pages, and I wonder how much longer the sports scribes and radio talk-jocks will be able to churn out copy and conversation when nothing is going on.

Well, the NFL Draft is still going to take place, albeit in a highly reduced state.  Thirty-two teams making picks remotely via Zoom.  None of the over the top hypefests of recent years, so at least THAT'S something positive to come out of all of this.  Seriously, I get it that the NFL needs to plan for a 2020 season and move forward, and it does give us something resembling real sports about which to talk, but what with the entire world shut down, am I the only person who finds it a bit unseemly to be vigorously debating the merits of whether or not the Steelers should draft a wide out or an edge rusher when their turn comes around in Round 2?

I also give credit to the Punjabs of Major League Baseball for continually throwing different scenarios against the wall in an effort to come up with some sort of a season in 2020.  If it happens, and that is one mighty big IF in my opinion, it will be a season that will be so radically different from anything that ever came before it that it should be great fun to observe, and also to listen to how the Purists and Traditionalists will drone on about how this is truly the End of Days.

I also laughed at a headline that said that the NHL would still want to finish the "regular season" before beginning Stanley Cup Playoffs when and if they are able to resume play.  Are they kidding?  "Regular seasons" in both the NHL and NBA are done and should not even be considered.  If, and again, that is a mighty big IF, hockey and hoops can resume, it has to go right into Playoff mode, and it should probably be  truncated versions of the traditional playoff structures of the sports.

One already known sports casualty of the COVID-19 shutdown is the XFL.  When they suspended their season a few weeks ago, I mentioned on a Facebook post that this could be a possible killer for the League.  Any momentum that the XFL might have been building would surely be lost as a result of suspending the season.  Last week, the XFL announced that they were done, finished, kaput.

I believe I had that.

Actually, it's easy to make jokes when a sports league fails, especially one that wants to co-exist with the 800 pound gorilla that is the NFL, but it really isn't funny.  The eight teams in the XFL provided employment and advancement opportunities for hundreds of players, coaches, and football executive types, not to mention the people that are employed and earn livings surrounding such ventures - stadium personal, hotels, bars, restaurants, etc.  I may not feel bad when a shyster like Vince McMahon flops.  He'll bounce back and be fine, but all those other people? Not so much.

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So that's it for now.  Stay well, everyone.

To Absent Friends - Mort Drucker

Mort Drucker

1929 - 2020

Like many people my age, especially males, I spent much of my teenaged years pouring over MAD Magazine every time a new issue was released, and the highlights of these issues were always the TV Shows and Movies Parodies, and over the years 1956 through 2008, 238 of those parodies were illustrated by Mort Drucker, who died earlier this week at the age of 91.  If you have ever read an issue of MAD and enjoyed those fantastic stories, you know just what I am talking about.  

A Confession: To this day I still refer to the great Fred Astaire as "Fred Upstairs" and actor Roddy McDowell as "Roddy McTowell" because for whatever bizarre reasons, those two MAD-isms have stuck with me over all of these years.

A great story from Drucker's obit in the New York Times. 

When MAD did a parody of George Lucas' "The Empire Strikes Back" called "The Empire Strikes Out", Lucasfilms served MAD with a Cease and Desist Order and demanded that all issues of the magazine be recalled.  In its defense, MAD presented the courts with a letter complimenting the story and asking if the writer could be able to purchase Drucker's original artwork from the parody.  The letter writer? None other than George Lucas himself.  Case dismissed.

Lucas also commissioned Drucker to draw the artwork that was used as the poster for his earlier film, "American Graffiti."

Another Drucker illustration called "The Battle for the Senate" appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in 1970 and today hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

You can go on Google Images and see many, many of Drucker's pieces for MAD.  I chose to include this one as it depicts the opening panel to MAD's satire of one of my favorite movies, Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters."  Drucker slipped a drawing of Louise Lasser, Allen's first wife who was not in the film, into the artwork here.

RIP Mort Drucker, a guy who delivered many, many hours of entertainment pleasure.

By the way, a printed out version of this Grandstander post is suitable for framing or wrapping fish.  (Not everybody will get this, but many of you will, I'm sure.)

To Three Absent Friends

Absent Friends galore today.  Two from the world of sports, and one from show biz.

Baseball Hall of Fame member Al Kaline has died at the age of 85.  Kaline played all 22 years (1953-74) of his career with the Detrioit Tigers, and because he played in a time before interleague play and ubiquitous nationally televised games, my only experience of actually seeing Kaline play would be the All-Star Game and an occasional Game of the Week.  His career numbers when prorated over 162 games produced a stat line of .299, 23 HR and 90 RBI.  In his only world Series in 1968, Kaline hit .333 with 2 HR and 8 RBI.

I can only imagine the feelings of long time baseball fans in Detroit today.

Tom Dempsey had an eleven year NFL career with five different teams, but he will forever be remembered for his record setting field goal of 63 yards that he made for the New Orleans Saints in 1970.  It was record that stood for forty-three years.

THE Kick

Born without fingers or toes on his right hand and foot, Dempsey's story is well known, or at least it is among older football fans.  Suffering from dementia these last several years, Dempsy died this weekend, a victim of the Corona Virus.  To my knowledge, he is the first significant America sports figure to succumb to COVID-19.  I fear that he will not be the last.

Finally, British actress Honor Blackman died today at the age of 94.  

Honor Blackman

1925-2015

Miss Blackman had a long and distinguished career in British film, television, and stage, but she will forever be remembered as Pussy Galore, the wondrously named villainess in the 1964 James Bond movie, "Goldfinger."

Did you know that she was the first female star on the British TV show, "The Avengers" before that show crossed the Atlantic to the America with Dianna Rigg?  She played that role for two years on the British telly before she abruptly quit to take on the role for which she is most known in "Goldfinger."  Her acting career consisted of 115 acting credits and spanned the years from 1947 to 2015.

RIP Al Kaline, Tom Dempsey, and Honor Blackman.

Old Movie Time - "The Lady Vanishes" (1979)

Back on March 7, you may recall, I wrote about how I was prompted to watch Alfred Hitchcock's 1938 spy thriller "The Lady Vanishes."  If you don't remember, then allow me to refresh your memory:

https://grandstander.blogspot.com/2020/03/old-movie-time-lady-vanishes-1938.html

Anyway, when searching out information to write about the movie, I learned that "The Lady Vanishes" has been remade a couple of times. In 2013, it was done as a made for TV movie in Great Britain, but the version that interested me was another British version that was made in 1979.  I was able to find it on Amazon Prime, and last night I watched it.

This version was made by a British director named Anthony Page and it starred Cybill Shepherd, Elliott Gould, and Angela Lansbury as the three leads.  I have confessed on these pages that I had a major crush on Cybill Shepherd since my college days.  I still do have that crush, although it is not a "major" as it was back in those days (and yes, my wife is well aware of this).  So I was predisposed to like this one, and I did.  In this version, Shepherd is a "madcap American heiress" and Gould is an American photographer for LIFE Magazine, and Lansbury is the Lady that Vanishes, but other than that, this story pretty much follows the Hitchcock original almost scene for scene.  It included the straight from central casting Brit characters of Caldicott and Charters, and in an a "who-is-that-guy?" moment, the character of Dr. Hartz was played by Herbert Lom, the guy who played Chief Inspector Dreyfuss in all of the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies.  I won't restate the plot here; you can check that out in the linked article above.

Miss Shepherd certainly not disappoint.  She played the entire movie on a full length, backless gown that was at times breathtaking.   

She was 29 years old at the time this was made, and she was indeed beautiful.  And she did an excellent job playing "madcap."   Miss Shepherd will never be confused with Meryl Streep, but she pulled off this role with some comic timing that was pretty damn good.

Of course, a movie like this brings up the always controversial topic of Remakes of Movies, especially a remake of a "Classic Alfred Hitchcock" film, no less.  Just yesterday, I wrote of how a 2009 remake of the 1974 thriller "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" was an abomination.  1979's "The Lady Vanishes" is certainly not that.  It is a bit frothier than the original, and it is in color, not black and white (which my friend Dan will appreciate), but it is fast paced and entertaining, and it might serve another important purpose: It might prompt the viewer to seek out and watch the Hitchcock original, and that is never a bad thing.

So, all in all, I rate this at Two and One-half Stars on The Grandstander's always reliable scale.