To The Absent Friends of 2023 - One Final Tribute

The time has come when The Grandstander pays one final tribute to those Absent Friends of 2023.  When I began writing this blog fourteen (!!) years ago, who would have thought that one of the more prominent features of it would be obituaries for those that I called "Absent Friends", a term used by the great sportswriter Red Smith when he would eulogize those who had passed to the great beyond.   To me, an Absent Friend could be somebody famous in the world of entertainment, politics, sports, or pop culture.  It could be someone who may be known to very few people outside of a given local area.  Or, it could be someone that I had never heard of but whose news  obituary caught my eye and I found his or her story to be worthy of recognition.  It can also be a family member or a personal friend.

In 2023, I recognized forty such Absent Friends, which brings to 484 such departures recognized since I have been doing this.  As I review the list, some of them stand out to me:  Pirates hero Dick Groat, Hall of Famers like Jim Brown, Dick Butkus, and Brooks Robinson,  show biz luminaries like Raquel Welch, Burt Bacharach, David Crosby, and Tony Bennett, Pittsburgh sports broadcasting superstar Stan Savran, and personal pal Rich Morgan.

Here is the complete list.  If you want to see what I wrote about them at the time, just type their names in the Search Box at the top of this page and read on.

Lisa Marie Presley

Gina Lollobridgida

Frank Thomas

David Crosby

Billy Packer

Cindy Williams

Bobby Hull

Sidney Thornton

Burt Bacharach

Paul Martha

Raquel Welch

Tim McCarver

Stella Stevens

Bob Richards

Bud Grant

Willis Reed

Mark Russell

Al Jaffee

Dick Groat

Jim Brown

Tina Turner

Joe Kapp

Stan Savran

Cynthia Weil

Tony Bennett

Sheldon Harnick

Peter Nero

William Friedkin

Rich Morgan

Jimmy Buffett

Brooks Robinson

Dick Butkus

Tim Wakefield

Joe Christopher

Tom Walker

Richard Roundtree

Rosalynn Carter

Henry Kissinger

Tommy Smothers

RIP One and All.

To Absent Friends - Tommy Smothers

Tom Smothers

1937-2023

Tom Smothers, who with his brother Dick, formed one-half of the folk singing comedy act, The Smothers Brothers, died earlier this week at the age of 86.

The Smothers Brothers were a hit act on the folk singing and college tour circuit in the early 1960's who rocketed to popularity on the television talk shows and variety shows later in the decade.  They were given their own variety show on CBS in 1968, and the network got more that they cared to bargain for.  The show took on topics such as civil rights and anti-Viet Nam war stances, which led to the shows abrupt cancelation in 1971.   When one thinks of what you can see on television these days, the Brothers' "offenses", if that is what they indeed were, seem mild and somewhat easy going.  Still, they were a seminal act of their time, and their place in the Popular Culture cannot be denied.

I wasn't sure that I was inclined to do one of these write-ups on Tom Smothers, but a reading of the various news obits for him have changed my mind.  That, and the fact that I didn't want to year to close with my last Absent Friend write up being on Henry Kissinger.  Still, when you think about it, both Smothers and Kissinger can be kind of sort of linked together in the zietgiest of their era.

I could go on, but I think that you would be better served by looking at Tom and Dick Smothers doing one of their classic pieces, "My Old Man."

RIP Tommy Smothers

Week 16 GPR - Quoth The Ravens, "We're Number One!"

Going into last night's possible Super Bowl preview game, I was prepared to leave San Francisco in the Number One spot even if the Ravens managed to squeak out a narrow victory over the Niners.  However, the total decisiveness of Baltimore's 33-19 victory last night, left me with no choice other than to move them into the top spot after NFL Week 16.

That game also shifted the calculus in a big way for the League MVP Award away from Brock Purdy and towards Lamar Jackson.

1. Ravens 11-4 (Last Week: 2)
2. 49'ers 11-4 (1)
3. Lions 11-4 (3)
4. Dolphins 11-4 (5)
5. Eagles 11-4 (4)
6. Bills 9-6 (7)
7. Browns 10-5 (9)
8. Chiefs 9-6 (6)
9. Cowboys 10-5 (8)
10. Rams 8-7 (Unranked)

As you can see, the Dolphins, Bills, and Browns moved up in the standings, while the Eagles, Chiefs, and Cowboys each dropped.  The Bengals dropped out of the Top Ten and the Rams moved into it as they now become "the team you don't want to have to play in the first round of the Playoffs."

Speaking of the Bengals, how about that can of Whoop-ass opened upon them by the Steelers on Christmas Eve.  The Steelers are barely breathing when it comes to the possibility of making the Playoffs, but they are in fact still breathing because the Bengals reverted into being the Cincy Bungles, something that it seems you can always count on.

So in what has been a disappointing season, let's shine a little light on Sunday's hero, third string quarterback Mason Rudolph, who turned in the best performance by a Steelers QB this season.

And, of course, we also got to enjoy yet another visit from our old friend, The Crying Bengals Lady.

Steelers now 4-1 in the AFC North with the Baltimore game in Week 18 remaining.  Baltimore may well be the best team in the AFC, if not the entire NFL, at the moment, but anything can happen when the Steelers and Ravens match up.  We may not see a Steelers playoff game this year, but there would be some level of satisfaction in a 5-1 division record if it happens.
  

In The Area of Critical Commentary......

Today we shall reflect upon a really old movie and a relatively new book.....

"Prehistoric Women" (1950)

This movie came to my attention when some classic movie guy posted about it on Facebook, and my buddy and Classic Movie Maven Lou Sabini posted a trailer for it in the thread.  As soon as I saw that trailer, I knew that this was one that I just HAD to see.  Well, thanks to the world of streaming, I was able to snag this on Amazon Prime for a mere $3.99.  I figured that it would be campy (it was), and bad in an  "it's-so-bad-it's-good" sort of way.  

It wasn't.  It was just bad.  

As for the plot, such as it was, let me turn it over to Wikipedia for a summary of it:

Tigri and her Stone Age friends, all of which are women, hate all men. However, she and her Amazon tribe see men as a "necessary evil" and capture them as potential husbands. Engor, who is smarter than the rest of the men, is able to escape them. He discovers fire and battles enormous beasts. After he is recaptured by the women, he uses fire to drive off a dragon-like creature. The women are impressed with him, including their prehistoric queen. Engor marries Tigri and they begin a new, more civilized, tribe.

Yes, folks, we see the discovery of fire in this movie!  It was directed by the great Gregg G. Tallas (no, I had never heard of him either), and the only member of the cast of whom I had ever heard was Joan Shawlee, who went on to pay Pickles Sorrell, Morey Amsterdam's wife on the Dick Van Dyke Show.  She also played Sweet Sue, the bandleader in "Some Like It Hot", so this movie wasn't a career killer for her.

There was one thing that I did learn from this movie though, and that is that prehistoric women somehow managed to maintain clean shaven legs and armpits.

It is quite possible that "Prehistoric Women" has some kind of cult following somewhere out there in the dark, but for The Grandstander. it gets ZERO Stars.

"Too Many Bullets" (2023) by Max Allan Collins

If you are a regular reader of this blog, then the name of author Max Allan Collins and his series of detective novels featuring private eye Nate Heller are familiar to you.  Just type in either Collins' of Heller's name in the search box and you will see many posts singing the praises of the series.  Because I have enjoyed this series so much, I feel bad to report that I just didn't enjoy this one quite so much.

The Heller novels are written as "memoirs" of the fictional Nate Heller in his retirement years.  All of Nate's cases involved famous historical figures and crimes in which, somehow or another, Nate found himself tangled up.  This one concerned the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, a guy that Nate had previously done some work for in other cases.  You guessed it, Nate was in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel on the night that RFK was killed, and now, one year after the killing, he finds himself investigating the crime.  Was there a conspiracy to kill the Senator with Sirhan Sirhan being merely a patsy and a fall guy?  We spend 300 pages watching Nate puzzle this all out.

Somehow, this was the first time in reading the Heller chronicles that I felt that Collins was reaching just a bit too far to come up with a story.  Maybe it was because unlike Nate's cases involving folks like Charles Lindbergh and Al Capone, this killing of Robert Kennedy was something that I lived through, watched on television, and read a lot about at the time.  I have always accepted the fact that the Collins/Heller stories are fiction, but with twist that could have, possibly actually happened that way.  I didn't feel that way with this one.

Still an interesting read, and I will look forward to the next Heller memoir, if there is to be one, but, sadly, The Grandstander can only give this one Two Stars.

Current GPR.....49'ers Reign Supreme

It is time to reveal the latest Grandstander Power Rankings through NFL Week 15: 

1. 49'ers 11-3 (last week: 1)
2. Ravens 10-4 (3)
3. Lions 10-4 (6)
4. Eagles 10-4 (4)
5. Dolphins 10-4 (5)
6. Chiefs 9-5 (7)
7. Bills 8-6 (unranked)
8. Cowboys 10-4 (2)
9. Browns 9-5 (8)
10. Bengals 8-6 (10)

Comments:

• The Bills move from unranked to #7 because of their play in recent weeks and their absolute crushing of the Cowboys  on Sunday.  They currently sit outside of playoff qualification, and I don't believe that they control their own destiny even if they win out, but tell me, would you want YOUR favorite team facing Josh Allen and his Bills in the opening round of the Playoffs?
• The Cowboys drop from #2 to #8 because of, well, see the bullet point just above.  Do you trust the Cowboys at this point?
• Eagles remain in the Top Four, but thy are hanging on by their finger tips after last night's loss to Seattle.  They are still probably a better team than the #3 Lions, but not over these last three weeks they aren't.
• My nomination for Comeback Player of the Year:  Joe Flacco.  In just a few weeks, he has become the Browns greatest QB since they came back into the league in 1999, and he's only a few years younger than me.
• The Niners and the Ravens appear, at this point, to be the clear favorites to meet in the Super Bowl, and as it so happens, they play against each other at 8:15 on Monday night.  Make sure that all of your Christmas Day company is out of the house by kickoff time.
• Two 7-7 teams most likely to crack the Top Ten next week: the Rams and the Buccaneers.  For reasons that I can't explain, I find myself feeling pleased with the success that Baker Mayfield is finding for himself in Tampa Bay.

The Steelers Debacle

I'll be brief.

I go back to 1959 in watching the Steelers, so I have seen a lot of bad Steelers teams.  I mean, Leonard Pinth Garnell bad.

However, given the expectations for this season, and, yes, the STANDARDS that have been established by the franchise over the last fifty years, I have a hard time recalling any three game stretch that has been as just plain awful as these last three weeks against the 2-10 Cardinals, the 2-10 Patriots, and the middle of the road Colts team led by Gardiner Minshew.

Art Rooney II has a lot to think about between now and the middle of January,

Bill Cowher...and The Grandstander Power Rankings

I have just finished reading this 2021 autobiography of former Steelers coach and current CBS Talking Head Bill Cowher.  It is your basic sports bio, nothing totally new or earthshaking revealed in it, but Steelers fans will eat it up, and it brought back lots of good memories of the Coach's playoff years with the Steelers, and those two trips to the Super Bowl.

It takes us from little Billy Cowher's days on the pee wee fields of Crafton, PA to Carlynton High School, North Carolina State, his special teams career with the Browns and Eagles and his rise as an NFL coach under the mentorship of Marty Schottenheimer.

Bill pitches mostly softballs in this one.  He has wonderful things to say about folks like Hines Ward, Jerome Bettis, Dermonti Dawson, Ben Rothlisberger and other Steelers heroes.  When he talks about players that had issues or whom he had to sit down and have serious heart-to-heart talks with, those guys go unnamed.  If I had a criticism of the book, that would be it.

The hardest part of the book to read was also the best part, and that was his detailed telling of his wife Kaye's battles with cancer and early onset Alzheimer's, which led to her death in 2010 at the age of 54.  Sadly, it was something to which I could closely relate.   The rich, powerful, and famous are not immune to what cancer and an early death can visit upon a family.

Cowher's story of finding love and a new chapter in life with his current wife was also an uplifting story.  How he had to introduce this new person into the lives of his three daughters was also an interesting tale.  It wasn't without some bumps in the road, but they are now one big happy family today, a family that now includes four grandchildren.

The book ends with Cowher's election into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

The Grandstander Power Rankings

There was no change at the top of the GPR, but in a week where seven of then teams lost, there was plenty of change two through ten.

1. 49ers 10-3 (Last week: 1)
2. Cowboys 10-3 (7)
3. Ravens 10-3 (3)
4. Eagles 10-3 (2)
5. Dolphins 9-4 (4)
6. Lions 9-4 (5)
7. Chiefs 8-5 (6)
8. Browns 8-5 (unranked)
9. Jaguars 8-5 (8)
10. Bengals 7-6 (unranked)

Knocking on the door....Bills, Broncos, Colts, Packers, Texans, Titans

As for the Steelers, what can you say about a team that has lost twice in a row to teams with 2-10 records?  Amazingly, they still sit in playoff position, but they have placed themselves in a position where there is little, if any, margin for error, and if this team has shown us anything in 2023, it is a large capacity for error.

Football News.....and the GPR

It is Wednesday, so I acknowledge that what I am writing now can be considered Old News, but I know you all have been waiting on the edge of your seats, so here goes.....

"The College Football Playoff"

Does any topic generate more hot air than the selection of the four teams that will comprise the College Football Playoff field, both in the weeks leading up to and in the days following the selection?  All of this intense debate and, it logically follows, intense interest will go away next year when the CFP expands to twelve teams.  Sadly, I guess that the bloviations of Mike Greenberg, Stephen A. Smith and their ilk will still be a part of the discussions over the fact that scrappy 11-2 East Overshoe University got overlooked for spot Number Twelve in favor Enormous State University, who went 10-3, but finished third in a much stronger conference.

Be that it as it may, I am delighted that Alabama got selected as one of the four teams.  They beat the team that had been undefeated and rated Number One all season, and well, THEY ARE ALABAMA!  You may get tired of them year after year, but they are always good - at least in the Nick Saban Era - and they are always  fun to watch.   Yeah, I feel bad for the Florida State players, but tough shit, kids.  Now is as good a time as any to learn that life ain't always fair.

By the way, I plunked down ten bucks on Alabama to win the whole thing at +200.

"Embarrassment at Acrisure, or Cardinals 24 - Steelers 10"

The less said about that enormous stink bomb that Steelers set off this past Sunday, the better.  At the time for the first weather delay, I made the comment that the refs should have ruled a TKO in favor of the Cardinals and sent everybody home. It was that bad. However, I will make two observations.

One, if anyone was going to take part in dismantling the Steelers that day, I'm glad that it was James Connor.

Two, how about Dionte Johnson "celebrating" his fourth quarter touchdown, you know, the one that cut the Arizona lead from 24-3 to 24-10.  This following the week when he quit on a play against Cincy and was forced him to make a locker room apology to his coaches and teammates.  Hope that Steelers part ways with this goof at the end of the season.  As friend of mine stated, "he's not even that good."

"The Grandstander Power Rankings - We Have A New Leader"

A convincing win over the Eagles have vaulted the San Francisco 49ers to Number one in the GPR.

1. 49ers 9-3 (Last week - 4)
2. Eagles 10-2 (10)
3. Ravens 9-3 (2)
4. Dolphins 9-3 (5)
5. Lions 9-3 (6)
6. Chiefs 8-4 (3)
7. Cowboys 9-3 (8)
8. Jaguars 8-4 (7)
9. Texans 7-5 (unranked)
10. Packers 6-6 (unranked)

Others receiving consideration: Bills, Browns, Colts.

Interesting games this week in terms of how it might affect the GPR.....Rams-Ravens,  Lions-Bears, Seahawks-49ers, Bills-Chiefs, and Eagles-Cowboys.