To Absent Friends - Stella Stevens

Stella Stevens

1938-2023

Actress Stella Stevens died this past week at the age of 84.  She had been suffering for several years with Alzheimer's disease.  Stevens was one of those beautiful, blonde, California-girl type actresses that were so ubiquitous in the 1960's.  Her 142 acting credits in IMBD date back to 1959, and include TV series like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bonanza, Hawaiian Eye, Night Court, General Hospital, Highway to Heaven, and, naturally, spots on Love Boat and Fantasy Island.  She appeared in dozens of feature films including L'il Abner (where she plays a character named "Appassionata Von Climax"), The Silencers, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Nutty Professor, and The Poseidon Adventure.  She appeared in films with Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Jason Robards, and Elvis Presley.   She worked steadily from 1959 until up into the early 2000's.  Her last credit is for something called "Quackers" for 2023 where she presumably is doing voice only work for an animated movie.

All in all, a workmanlike career for a beautiful and talented actress who worked steadily her entire life.

Stella Stevens also appeared in the January 1960 edition of Playboy Magazine as the centerfold Playmate of the Month.  It isn't difficult to click the mouse a few times and find that centerfold of Miss Stevens, one that, presumably, helped in the launching of her career.  I have never used this forum to pursue prurient interests, but I thought that I would share with you Stella Stevens' centerfold photo as an example as to how mores have changed over the last sixty-plus years.

Send the kiddies out of the room, folks, because here it is....

Yep, that is what passed for hot stuff back in January 1960.  You see more skin in perfume ads in women' magazines these days, or while watching beach volleyball during the Olympics, not to mention Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue.

The times surely have a'changed.  Whether for better or for worse, is up for each individual to decide.

RIP Stella Stevens

 

To Absent Friends - Tim McCarver

Tim McCarver

1941-2023

Tim McCarver, a twenty-one year veteran of Major League Baseball, died this past week at the age of 82.  McCarver was one of those few players who played in four different decades, 1959-1980.  It was a career that spanned over 1,900 games and produced 1,501 hits, 97 home runs, 645 RBI, and a .271 lifetime batting average, but the mere numbers don't capture the hard-nosed all around good player, a catcher, that McCarver was.  

His career was spent primarily with the Cardinals and the Phillies.  How good a catcher was he?  Well, he was the preferred catcher to two pitchers of whom you may have heard:  Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton.  How's that for a couple of references?

He also played in three World Series, all with the Cardinals, in 1964, 1967, and 1968.  He played in all 21 of those games, had 71 at bats, 2 home runs and 11 RBI and hit .311.

Several generations of baseball fans know Tim McCarver only as the color analyst for Fox Broadcasting who did All-Star games, Playoff and World Series games with play-by-play man Joe Buck.  For some reason, social media always seemed to be filled with brickbats aimed at McCarver, which I could never quite understand.  I always thought that McCarver was quite good and insightful, and I was sorry when he retired from the Fox team.  I missed him on those broadcasts.

I also admit to having an affinity for McCarver since the 1960's when I learned that he was educated at a Catholic high school in Memphis that was staffed by the Christian Brothers.  So he and I had that in common.  Whenever McCarver's teams visited a city, he would find out of there was a Christian Brothers community in the area, and he would leave tickets for the Brothers to come see the games.  Pretty nice.

RIP Tim McCarver.

 

My Sports Betting Year

 

Before I get into this, a little background on my history as a gambler.

I never was one.  I would take note of point spreads purely academically as they might have related to This or That particular game.  I never bet with a bookie, and may have made a friendly five dollar wager with a friend on the World Series or Super Bowl over the years, but that was pretty much it.  I made my first legal sports bet in 2002 when Marilyn and I made our first visit to Las Vegas.  When the Sportsbook opened at the Rivers Casino here in town, I made sports wagers there, never for more than five or ten bucks, but I vowed that I would never get a sports betting app on my phone because I didn't want it to be "easy" to make bets.  So, I was content to make a visit to the Rivers every four or six weeks, play a little black jack and make one or two five or ten dollar sports bets.

Then in 2020, the pandemic arrived and everything closed down, and I could no longer go to the Casino.  I relented and opened a $150 account with Fan Duel, and a Sportsbook was now, literally, in the palm of my hands.

I began betting more frequently.  I made small wagers.  A five dollar bet was an extravagance.  I also began keeping track of what I made at Marilyn's urgings.  Her theory was that if I didn't keep track of wins and losses, I would never know just exactly how well I was doing, and that I would be in danger of needlessly just pissing away money.  The making of bets and the tracking of them on a spreadsheet became a hobby of sorts.  It also served as a distraction for me throughout the final two years of Marilyn's illness.  It was therapy, although I know that most licensed therapists would hardly recommend  "gambling" as a way to cure your ills.

So here I am, and how did I do this year?  First off,  a definition:  The gambling "fiscal year" for me runs from the Monday after the Super Bowl and it ends on Super Bowl Sunday. so this past Sunday served as the final day of my 2022 Gambling Year.   The Results:

• Total # of Wagers Made - 1,037
• Total Amount Wagered - $3,980.71
• Total Amount Returned - $4,512.35
• Total Profit - $531.64
• Return on Investment - 13.4%

I will save you the trouble of doing the arithmetic and tell you that my average amount bet per wager amounted to all of $3.83.  This makes me far from being a High Roller, and, I think, keeps my little venture into sports wagering well within the parameters of being a harmless hobby.   I am quite pleased that I was able to write this little summary with black rather than red ink.  It's always more fun to win than it is to lose, but I am more proud of the fact that I have been able to maintain a degree of self-discipline that has kept my wagering on a small level, where I never bet more than I was willing to lose.  I do know that the lack of such discipline, combined with other addictive behaviors, can lead to real and very dangerous problems in a person's life, and in fact, I have known such people.   A gambling addiction can be a very serious problem.

On Monday morning of this week, the first day of the 2023 Gambling Year, I opened up a brand new spreadsheet to track my wins and losses.  So far, I have made four wagers for a total of $19.60 and collected $22.60, a three dollar profit and a ROI of 15.3%.  Would love to maintain that for the year.  Of course, my average wager amount per wager was $4.90, so I am going to have to rein in on that a bit.

Let me close with this tribute to all tin horn gamblers everywhere.

To Absent Friends - Raquel Welch

Raquel Welch

1940 - 2023

The news arrives today that actress/sex symbol Raquel Welch has left us at the age of 82.  So tell me, if you were an adolescent/teenage boy, or maybe even older than that, in the 1960's and 1970's, how can you not be saddened by such news?

Welch made her first splash in mainstream show biz as the billboard girl on the old Hollywood Palace TV show, and then became famous with the bikini pinups and the B-grade movies that exploited her beauty and spectacular build.  In the end, though, she toughed it out, and eventually appeared on Broadway when're she was acclaimed for her skills as an actress.   She shows 73 acting credits in IMDB, and who can forget her in this memorable episode of "Seinfeld" ?

I can also remember the TCM host Robert Osborne commenting on the murder mystery movie "The Last of Sheila" wherein the movie's characters were thinly disguised caricatures of real Hollywood people, and he went on to give examples...The Dyan Cannon character is supposed to be so-and-so, the Richard Benjamin character is supposed to be so-and-so, and the Raquel Welch character is supposed to be Raquel Welch.

Every year on September 5, I would post a picture, either on this blog or on Facebook of Miss Welch and wish her a Happy Birthday.  It was silly and immature on my part, I suppose, but, as I said above, when you came of age in the era in which I did, Raquel Welch was and I suppose always will hold a place in your psyche.

RIP Raquel Welch.

Okay, now for the immature part.  I'll bet that you are surprised at the photo I chose to show at the top of this post.  Wanted to be mature about it, but in the end, I cannot resist posting this perhaps most famous pin up of Raquel Welch in her Sex Symbol Salad Days.

And just one more.  I think that I had this one taped on the inside of my locker door at Central.

 

Super Bowl LVII: Chiefs 38 - Eagles 35

Yes, the Super Bowl ended three days ago, and here I am just getting around to writing about the Chiefs epic 38-35 victory over the Eagles.  There is a reason for that, and here it is....

Yep, over the weekend I made the decision to trade in my eight and one-half year old iMac, which, I have learned, Apple now considers to be "vintage", and get a new one.  I made the purchase on Monday, the Apple Store did the transfer of data from my old iMac to the new one yesterday, and I picked this baby up this morning, so you are reading the first official Grandstander post typed out on my brand new green iMac!

So I am not going to hash over a lot of detail on the game itself.  That horse has now been thoroughly beaten, but here a just a few small impressions that remain with me from SB LVII.

• Major lesson learned.  Never bet against Patrick Mahomes.  It took awhile before we all learned to never bet against Tom Brady, so let's get that same lesson as it applies to Mahomes down pat (no pun intended) right now.

• Mahomes, bum ankle and all,  was truly magnificent in that second half when he led the Chiefs from a ten point deficit to victory.  He is the best quarterback, if not the best player, in the entire NFL at this point.
• Equally magnificent in defeat was Eagles QB Jalen Hurts.  Three rushing TD's and a bomb of a TD pass.  He led the Eagles on a drive in the fourth quarter to tie the game after KayCee took a 35-27 lead, by making an "octopus" (more on that later).  It was gutty performance, and perhaps the best and most heroic performance in defeat in Super Bowl history.  Hurts has proven himself beyond all doubt, and Philly is set at QB for the next decade or so.

• Of course, Hurts did commit one major faux pas, the rather odd fumble that was scooped and returned 33 yards for a Kansas City touchdown.  It put the Chiefs back in the game when they were kinda sorta back on there heels, but hey, shit happens.
• The biggest cause celebre  was holding call against the Eagles in the last two minutes of the game near the Philly goal line.  It enabled the Chiefs to secure a fresh set of downs, eat up more of the clock, and allow Harrison Butker to kick the game winning field goal with only :08 remaining in the game.  Announcer Greg Olsen made a big deal about making a call like that that late in the game and that near the goal line in a game of this magnitude.  Maybe he wants the NFL to become the NHL where the zebras swallow their whistles in the third period of Stanley Cup games.  To me, it was a holding penalty ("but let's bring in Gene Steretore to see what he sees here...."), and if it wasn't called, do you really think Butker was going to miss the FG attempt from five yards farther back?  Of course, Philly would then have had more time on the clock to try for a miracle drive with no time outs remaining, but when all is said and done, I don't believe that had that call not been made, the outcome would have been any different.
• The slippery playing surface.  When you know years in advance that you are going to be hosting a Super Bowl, the largest single sporting event in America, how can you possibly screw it up like they did?  Unbelievable.

In the end, it was a great game, a Super Bowl for the Ages, and one that makes you sad that we have to wait six months before we see another NFL game.

Odds and Ends.....

BETTING

I made a total of 27 separate wagers on the Super Bowl ranging from point spread, money line, and over/under bets, to wild parlays, to props on who would score touchdowns, throw or rush for X number of yards, and so on.  Most were for one to two dollars.  The largest ones were for $14 and $12.50 on a point spread and a money line bet.  I wagered a total of $77.28 and received a return of $74 92.  So, I ended up losing $2.36 on the Super Bowl, and it gave me way more that $2.36 worth of pleasure.

I was really saved by the aforementioned "octopus" made by Jalen Hurts.  I had never heard of this before, but what it is is a bet that a player who scores a touchdown will also score a two point conversion after that same touchdown.  Eight points = Octopus; get it?  Hurts did that in the fourth quarter and  $1 be produced a $14 return for me.   Nice.

Also, and as if you didn't already know this, parlay bets are how bookies and casinos get rich.  You'd be smart to stay away from them, but they are just so damn TEMPTING!!!

COMMERCIALS

I was going to make notes on and keep track of commercials, but early on, I decided to hell with it.  So I'll be brief....I liked Ben Affleck working at Dunkin' Donuts with JLo in the drive through lane, liked John Travolta in the Grease take-off, although I had no idea that the two guys with him were also celebs, Serena Williams seemed to show up a lot, the rabbit hole one was really creepy, and I apparently missed Jennifer Coolidge.  Aside from that, I got nothing.

HALFTIME

God bless Rhianna.  I have nothing against her and I concede that she is talented, but I just wasn't interested.  What I did see was about 500 people on the field dancing while dressed as abominable snowmen, and Rhianna rising on a platform a million feet over the Stadium floor, so she has talent AND she has a lot of guts.  Most of the time, though, I was going to the bathroom and getting myself something to eat.

To Absent Friends - Paul Martha

I began following sports seriously in 1959, the year that I attended my first Pirates game.  What quickly followed under the tutelage of my Dad, two older brothers, and my grandfather was fandom for the Steelers, Duquesne basketball, and Pitt football.  Given that era, the first real "star" Pitt football player of whom I was aware was Paul Martha, who died this past week at the age of 80.

Martha, a native of Wilkensburg who went to Shady Side Academy, was an All-American at Pitt who made the cover of Street and Smith's College Football Annual, and this was at a time when Street and Smith's had only one cover, not a half dozen or so regional covers, so this was a really, really big deal.

Paul Martha

1942-2023

Even more exciting, Martha became the first round draft selection of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1964.  

Martha had a solid seven year NFL career with the Steelers and Broncos, but while playing for pay, he also attended Duquesne University law school and earned his law degree and began a highly successful second act.  He eventually became corporate counsel for the DeBartolo Corporation whereupon he became their key executive in running Pittsburgh's Civic Arena, the Pittsburgh Penguins, San Francisco 49'ers, Pittsburgh Maulers, and Pittsburgh Spirit.   Martha's fingerprints can be found, deservedly so, on two of the Penguins' Stanley Cups and a couple for the 49'ers Lombardi Trophies.

Martha dropped from public sight in recent years, and it was reported that he was afflicted with dementia in his declining years.  His death notices indicated that he was happy in those years as a loving father and grandfather.

RIP Paul Martha.

To Absent Friends - Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach

1928-2023

Composer Burt Bacharach died this past week at the age of 94.  In addition to being extremely talented (how's that for an understatement?), Bacharach was handsome and witty, which made him a regular on the talk show circuit in the 1960's and -70's, thus, he was more familiar to the general public than contemporary composers were.  Plus, he was married to Angie Dickinson, and how's that for glamorous?  

There are a handful of songwriters and composers who one can say provided a soundtrack to an Era, the Sixties and Seventies in this case.  Lennon and McCartney, Paul Simon, Brian Wilson for sure, but Burt Bachaharch is certainly among them.  Along with his lyricist partner Hal David, the hits that Bacharach produced are too numerous to list here (many of them sung by the great Dionna Warwick), but let's just throw a few of them out there, in no particular order:

Alfie

The Look of Love

What the the World Needs Now

Do You Know The Way to San Jose

Promises, Promises

I'll Never Fall in Love Again

Walk On By

Always Something there To Remind Me

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head  (He and David won an Oscar for that one)

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.  Also, the orchestrations and arrangements of a Bacharach song are unique and totally recognizable.  A few bars in, and you know that "That is a Burt Bacharach song."

Bacharach won seven Grammys in his career and three Oscars, he was nominated for Tony Awards, and received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

In addition to the Oscar for Original Song, "Raindrops Keep Falling On  My Head" from Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Bacharach won an Oscar for Best Original Score for that same film, and I want to share some of that memorable music with you.  THIS ONE is the music that played over the opening credits.

Then there is the music to the SOUTH AMERICAN GETAWAY sequence.  This clip is a bit lenghty, over 5 minutes long, but worth hearing just to see the full range of what Bacharach did for that fabulous movie.  And like I said earlier, you hear it and just know that "that's Burt Bacharach."

We may never see - or hear - his like again.

RIP Burt Bacharach.

To Absent Friends - Sidney Thornton

 

Steelers fans were saddened with the news earlier this week of the death of running back Sidney Thornton at the age of 68.  Thornton played for six seasons with the Steelers, 1977-82, and, as such, was a member of two Super Bowl Championship teams in 1978 and 1979.  

He had a solid if unspectacular career, combining for a little over 2,000 combined yards rushing and receiving and scoring 24 touchdowns.  He is also the object of one of the greatest quotes ever from Chuck Noll.  After Sid had been suffering from a case of fumble-itis, Noll was asked about it and deadpanned. "Sidney's problems are great, and they are many."  The Emperor was a man of few words, but he did have a way with them when he did choose to speak.

No cause of death for Thornton was disclosed, but in researching this post, I stumbled upon an interview with him from the '00's that indicated that at some point after he retired, he suffered a stroke.  He recovered, and he went out of his way to stress that while the NFL didn't offer him much assistance at the time, his former teammate Rocky Bleier went out of his way to visit him and make sure that all of his expenses and medical bills got paid.  He also said in that same interview that he was "still a Steeler" and would "always consider himself a Steeler."

Thornton may never have become the major player that the Steelers might have hoped him to become, but he was a part of some legendary teams, and when someone with that lineage leaves us, it is always worth noting.

RIP Sidney Thornton.

Stephen Tobolowsky, aka, Ned Ryerson

What with today, February 2, being Groundhog Day, talk naturally centers around the terrific Harold Ramis and Bill Murray movie from 1993, "Groundhog Day."  I myself am going to see a special closed circuit showing of this film tomorrow afternoon.  And when you talk about the movie, talk always turns to the character of Ned Ryerson, the pesky insurance agent who went to high school with Murray's character.  "Now don't tell me you don't   remember me, because I sure as heckfire remember you!"

Until today, I never much thought about the actor who played Ned, a fellow named Stephen Tobolowsky, because, after all, what in the hell, or should I say, what in the heck else has he ever done.  So I took a visit to IMDB and, wow, was I surprised.  Turns out that I no doubt have seen Tobolowsky perform a lot over the years, even though I can't actually recall actually seeing him.  Turns out Stephen is the quintessential character actor.  He was born in 1951, four months before The Grandstander.  His on camera career began in 1977 in a movie called "Keep My Grave Open" and has continued right up to 2023 with an appearance on the NBC sitcom "Lopez vs. Lopez."  He has appeared in many significant feature films such as "Spaceballs", "Mississippi Burning", "Thelma and Louise", "Basic Instinct", and, of course, "Groundhog Day."  Most of his work has come on series television, and he has appeared on shows, both comedies and dramas, too numerous to list, although I will show you a single appearance that he made on "Seinfeld" playing an holistic healer.  Click HERE to see it.

In all, IMDB shows an astonishing 285 acting credits for Tobolowsky.  He's never stopped working.  Two-hundred and eight-five and counting.  Just last week I heard this definition of the term "Character actor":  Someone who was never a star or a leading man or leading lady, but someone that makes every movie or TV show that they appear in just a little bit better.

This kind of stuff just fascinates me.  

Oh, and here's one more look at Tobolowsky in his most famous role, the one role that will no doubt be in the lead paragraph of his obituary.  Click HERE to see ol' Needlenose Ned in action.

 

The Championship Games

Yeah, I know that I am at least three days late to the party on this, but I do want to put my 

worth in on this past Sunday's NFL Conference Championship games.  I will state that the doubleheader Sunday of the AFC/NFC Championship is one of my favorite sports days of the year, and in the 49ers v. Eagles and Bengals v. Chiefs, both games appeared to be attractive and exciting matchups.

Eagles 31- 49'ers 7

Well, as you have often read in this space, no sporting event ever comes with a guarantee, and never was that proven more true than in the NFC title game in Philly.

Only minutes into the game, on San Francisco's first offensive series and sixth snap, this happened:

Niners QB Brock Purdy, one of the better stories in the NFL this season, took an awkward hit on the elbow and was out of the game.  This put Josh Johnson, SF's fourth string QB into the game and, effectively, ended it.   The Eagles ended up winning 31-7 and would have probably won the game anyway, but here's something that probably wouldn't have happened. Down only 14-7 just before halftime and possessing the ball deep in there own territory, Purdy probably wouldn't haver fumbled, as Johnson did, seen the Eagles recover it, score, and take a 21-7 lead into the locker room at the half.

So, a highly anticipated game became a laugher and a blowout.  It happens, because as a wise man, or maybe a wise guy, always says, there are no guarantees when you buy a ticket to a professional sports contest.  Or watch one on television.

Chiefs 23 - Bengals 20

Unlike the NFC game, the Chiefs and Bengals delivered with a really good game in the nightcap.  Joe Burrow had a good but not a great game for him, and Patrick Mahomes, playing with a bad right ankle that severely limited his mobility and forced him to stay in the pocket, was excellent.  He proved that for all of the talk about Burrow and Trevor Lawrence and Jalen Hurts and Justin Herbert and Josh Allen, all of it justified, he, Mahomes, is the best quarterback  and might well be the best player in the entire NFL right now.

For all of that, though, the teams were tied 20-20, and it appeared that the game was headed into overtime when, with seconds remaining, Mahomes took off running and was forced out of bounds with :05 remaining when the Knuckleheaded gene that seems imbedded in the DNA of the Cincy Bungles (need I remind you of Vontaze Burfict and Pacman Jones in a similar circumstance in a playoff game with the Steelers a few years back?) kicked in in the form of linebacker Joseph Ossai that led to this:

Ossai pushed and shoved Mahomes to the ground when he was clearly, CLEARLY out of bounds.  Out came the yellow flags, and fifteen yards was tacked onto the play, and Harrison Butker kicked what was now a chip shot field goal to win the game for the Chiefs as time expired.  Ossai was devastated over his dumbshittedness, but he shouldn't feel too bad, because I'm betting that Butker would have nailed that field goal even without the fifteen yard penalty.

Thus, we had one game decided early due to a fluke injury, and another game decided, maybe, by a stupid and totally unnecessary penalty.  The Thrill of Victory and The Agony of Defeat encapsulated twice in the same day.

This now leads up to an interesting Super Bowl LVII in Glendale eleven days from now.  

These are some of the storylines that will be bandied about ad nauseam  between now and then....

• Andy Reid coaching against his old team, the one he took to a handful of NFC Championship games and one Super Bowl, that fired him.
• Two Black QB's starting in a Super Bowl for the first time.
• Two brothers, Travis and Jason Kelce, facing off against each other for the first time ever in a Super Bowl.
• Will Gronk really attempt to kick field goal in a Fan Duel commercial?
• Will Greg Olsen, now a dead man walking in the Fox booth now that Tom Brady has retired "for good", talk longer than Castro used to talk in one of his marathon speeches to the Cuban people back in the day?
• Rhianna

As I type this, the Eagles are 1.5 point favorites over Kansas City.  I think that the Eagles may be a better team than KayCee, but the Chiefs have an advantage in the most important position on the field in Patrick Mahomes at quarterback.  My inclination is that in what figures to be  close game, the team with the better QB is the one to pick, so I lean to the Chiefs at +1.5, but I'm not ready to put any cash on the line just yet.

Looks like a dandy matchup between two really good teams.  Can't wait.