Steelers 34 - Jets 32

The Steelers opened their 2025 season yesterday with a 34-32 win over the New York Jets.  It was exciting and action packed, but it sure wasn't easy.

What I liked about the game....

• Aaron Rodgers.  In his first game as a Steeler, the future Hall of Famer went 22 for 30 for 244 yards, 4 TD's, and 0 interceptions.  HIs four TD passes went to four different receivers.  

Ben Skowronek scores first TD of the season for the Steelers.

• Receptions by DK Metcalf, Calvin Austin, and Ben Skowronek all had significant Yards After Catch numbers, something we haven't seen a lot of in recent years.
• Something else we haven't seen a lot of but saw yesterday were passes downfield and over the middle.
• That hit Jalen Ramsey put on Jets WR Garrett Willson that ended the Jets last possession and sealed the deal for the Steelers.
• And, of course, Chris Boswell drilling a 60 yard game winning FG (a Steelers record) with 1:05 remaining.  This on top of a 56 yarder in the first half.

What I didn't like about the game....

• The Steelers defense being shredded by the Jets for 394 net yards and 32 points.
• The Jets ran the ball 39 times for 182 yards.  
• Justin Fields went 16 for 22 for 244 yards, 3 TD's and 0 interceptions. 
• The Steelers inability to run the ball: 20 attempts for only 53 yards.
• Rodgers getting sacked three times.  Third year man Broderick Jones at LT is starting to look like a first round bust.

And let's face it, the Jets aren't a very good team.  That Steelers defense, the highest paid defense in the NFL, has to improve of the team is going to go anywhere this season.  Let us hope that rookie Derrick Harmon recovers from his injury and makes a difference on the defensive line.

Still a win to start the season is great.  Now bring on the Seahawks for the Home Opener next week.

Oh, and did any of you out there have Ben Skowronek if the "Who Will Score the First Steelers Touchdown of the Season Pool?"  

Didn't think so.

Busy Finish To August

The final week of August was busy one, so this will be a Catch-All Grandstander, covering several topics.

The highlight of the weekend was the Saturday marriage of my great-niece Bridget Pike and Eric Cooper.  It was lovely affair, and Bridget was a most beautiful bride, as were her sisters Monica and Frances as co-maids of honor.  Mother of the Bride Karen Pike, my niece and godchild looked pretty stunning herself, I might add.  As is my custom, it is not my place to post photos of the bride and groom in this forum.  I will leave it up to Bridget and Eric if they choose to do so.  If you see me in person. I'll be glad to show you, though.

One picture I will share is one of Linda and me all gussied up for the wedding.  We clean up well if I say so myself.

The wedding took place at St. Paul's Cathedral, or as Catholic Pittsburghers simply put it, "the Cathedral", and it was beautiful.  It had been many years since I was at a Mass at the Cathedral, and you just can't get used to the beauty of the place.

The reception followed at the Renaissance Hotel in dahntahn Pittsburgh, and while it was a wonderful party in a beautiful place, events taking place simultaneously in the Burgh made for some challenges.  A noon football game between Pitt and Duquesne at Acrisure Stadium (50,000 plus attendance), the annual weekend long Ribfest, also at Acrisure, some sort of festival in town that shut down Liberty Avenue and Stanwix Streets by Gateway Center, and, most of all, a sold out PNC Park hosting the traveling Savannah Bananas baseball game (38,000+), all made for a gridlocked city as we made our way from the church to the reception.  It's a long story, and I will spare you the details, except to say that the Renaissance, where Linda and I stayed that night, knocked seventy-five bucks off of our bill for the valet parking that they were unable to provide to us, even though we paid for it.

It was frustrating, but all frustrations disappeared as we finally got to the reception and had a great time celebrating Bridget and Eric.  And just for shits and giggles, I took this photo from the second floor ballroom where the reception took place.  It shows the mass of humanity leaving PNC Park and headed back into town to their cars that took up all of the parking spaces in the lower part of the City that night.

*********

This past Friday night I did something that I had not done since I was in high school: I went to a high school football game.  Linda and I took ourselves out to Gesling Stadium on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland (yep, two straight days in Oakland for us) to see the Central Catholic Vikings, my alma mater and a small (enrollment of about 800) private school, play the massive public school, the Pine-Richland Rams.  The reason we went to the game was to see our niece Cameron perform as a Flag Girl as a part of the Pine-Richland Marching Band.

Somewhere among those thirty or so girls wielding 

the yellow flags is Cameron.  She was terrific!

The difference in the relative size of the two schools is evident when you see the bands.  Pine-Richland's band is massive, probably as large as many collegiate marching bands, whereas Central's band consisted of 28 kids, some of whom were girls  from the neighboring all girls school, Oakland Catholic.  The band was never that small when I was a student there, but then again, enrollment then was about twice as much as it is now.  God bless those kids in the band, but I wonder what they think when they have to share a field with competing bands from the big public schools.

As for the game, it started out in a fashion that I had never before seen. A Central player returned the opening kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown.  On the subsequent kickoff, the Pine-Richland player returned it 96 yards for a TD.  The game was twenty-seconds old and it was 7-7.  Have you ever seen something like that?

Central ended up winning the game 34-20.  The tiny private school will, as they usually are, be one of the best teams in Western PA this season.  Central says that they do not "recruit" their football players.  This alumnus is not so sure about that.

We ended up leaving at halftime after the bands performed so as to avoid what would have been an enormous traffic nightmare leaving the CMU parking garage.

********

And on Thursday night, the night before the football game, we took in this movie on Netflix:

This, of course, is based on the best selling novel by Richard Osman, which begat three - and counting - subsequent novels about four colorful crime solving retirees living in the upscale retirement community of Coopers Chase.  This movie is perfectly cast with Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie as the amateur sleuths, and throw in Jonathan Pryce and Mirren's husband to add to the mix.  Having read all of the books and gotten to know all of the characters, I really enjoyed this one.  Trust me though, even if you haven't read the books, but enjoy this type of entertainment, I think that you will like this movie.  

Oh, and there is a great little "easter egg" in this one where Pryce comments on Mirren "looking like the Queen".  It's perfect.

The movie won't win any awards or appear on any top Ten Lists, but it's worth seeing.  The Grandstander gives it Three Stars.

********

So, I've gone on this long, and I haven't even mentioned the delightful trip that we took to Centre County two weeks ago to visit Marilyn's brother George and his wife Ann.  That one deserves its own write up so watch for it later this week.

Catching Up On Some Absent Friends

Some notable people have left us over the last few weeks.  Time to catch up....

James Lovell

Astronaut James Lovell died at the age of 92 earlier this month.  Lovell was a veteran of two Gemini space flights when he, Frank Norman, and Bill Anders were tapped for the Apollo 8 mission and became the first human beings to visit the moon when their Apollo craft orbited the moon in December 1968.  If you were around then, how could you ever forget the trio reading from the Book of Genesis while they orbited the moon on Christmas Eve.

Lovell will be most remembered, however, as the Commander of the Apollo 13 mission, the one that went wrong.  When power and oxygen was lost in the command module, the lunar landing mission had to be aborted and Lovell and his crew of Fred Haise and Rusty Swigert, with the assistance of the NASA engineers and scientists on the ground somehow managed, while the world watched with bated breath, to get the craft in working order and back to earth safely with all three crew members surviving.  I can recall my mother saying at the time that "if they get them back to earth safely it will be a bigger miracle than if they had landed on the moon itself."

Of course, the whole sage of that mission was immortalized back in 1995 with the Ron Howard directed movie, "Apollo 13" that starred Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell.  If you've never seen the movie, you should.  It is great movie about an amazing event in our history.  Lovell himself even has a cameo as one of the ship's naval officers who welcomes the crew on board after they splash down in the ocean.

Ron Turcotte

Hall of Fame Jockey Ron Turcotte died last week at the age of 82.  Turcotte won over 3,000 races in his career including two wins apiece in each of the Triple Crown races, and he is most famous for being in the irons on the great Secretariat when that horse won the Triple Crown of racing, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes in 1973.  Secretariat won each of those races in record times, and those speed records still stand in all three of those races fifty-two years later.  For some reason, 21 year old me was all alone in our Saline Street house on that June afternoon, and I will never forget what I saw on television as Secretariat while "moving like a tremendous machine" won that Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths.  It remains one of the most astonishing events that I have ever witnessed as a sports fan.  (Treat yourself and watch that race HERE).

Five years after that Triple Crown year, Turcotte fell off of a horse during a race and became a paraplegic.  He spent the rest of his life in and around the racing industry, helped raise awareness and funds for injured and retired jockeys, and by all accounts was a positive and terrific person.

The picture above is the famous one of Turcotte looking back at the field in the backstretch of that incredible race at Belmont park in 1973.

Joan Anderson

Joan Anderson

1923-2025

People like Joan Anderson are why I read the news obituaries and write Absent Friends posts.  Anderson died last month at the age of 92, and this was the first paragraph in her obit in the Washington Post:

"On a trip to Sydney in 1956, Joan Anderson was amazed to discover a trend sweeping Australia's beaches and streets. People were 'doing the hoop' - twirling a sturdy circular ring of bamboo around their hips for exercise or just for fun."

Anderson was a native Australian who in 1945 married an American soldier and moved to the United States after WW II.  After her return to the States from that 1956 vacation, she had her mother send her one of those hoops.  Long story short, Anderson met with a guy from the Wham-O toy company, and made a handshake agreement to allow Wham-O to manufacture and market the hoops, now called Hula Hoops, and give the Andersons a penny for each hoop sold.  Well, if your my age, you no doubt had a hula hoop when you were a kid, and all of your neighborhood friends did too.  Four months after the Hula Hoop hit the market in 1958, over 25 million of them were sold, which would have meant 250 thousand 1958 dollars for the Andersons, but guess what?  Wham-O reneged on that handshake deal. The Andersons had to go to court and ended up settling for $6,000 and "tried to cast the hula hoop from their minds" according to the Post obituary. 

In 2018, a documentary film called "Hula Girl" was made about Joan Anderson and this story.  I have tried to find it on several streaming platforms but have not been able to find it as yet.  In it, Joan was quoted as saying, "The world isn't fair, but life goes on" and according to her family, she and her husband did just that.

So now you know about that goofy toy you had back there in the 1958-61 era.  My late sister, Patty, by the way, was a whiz at the hula hoop.

RIP Jim Lovell, Ron Turcotte, and Joan Anderson

In Praise of Etsy

Take  one authentic but now outdated Steelers replica jersey.

Find an expert craftsperson on Etsy, in this case, someone who goes by the name "Patch Planet".

Iron on the new name plate over the old one.

Now, I am ready for some football!!

FYI, the "Rodgers" patch from Patch Planet will cost you twenty-four bucks, plus shipping.  A whole lot less than what a new A-A-Ron jersey would set you back.

Billy Joel - And So It Goes

 

If you are a fan of the music of Billy Joel, and honestly, who isn't, I cannot recommend to you highly enough the documentary film about the singer now showing on HBO Max.  It is presented in two parts, each about two and a half hours long, and it tells everything about Billy Joel, and it tells the story in many different layers, from his growing up in Hicksville, Long Island, NY, and complicated family life, his not graduating from high school, how he kicked it around in various bands as a teenager, his career as a solo performer singer/songwriter, how he got ripped off by his management, his four marriages, his problems with alcohol.  Nothing is left out or  glossed over, but what always comes through is the absolutely amazing talent of the man.

Joel's grandparents escaped Europe as Hitler's genocidal programs were sweeping through Germany and central Europe. His father was a classical pianist who left the family when Billy was 7 years old, an act with which Joel was never quite able to come to terms.  It was only as he was older and successful that he was able to track his father down in Vienna and discover that he had a half-brother.  I am skimming over this spect of the film, but it is remarkable.  (That half-brother is a classical symphony conductor in Austria.  Talk about music being in the genes.)

Joel speaks on camera throughout the movie, and is frank and honest about all aspects of his life.  This is great, of course, but the cast of characters who pop up throughout the movie talking about Joel and his talent and influence is positively eye-popping.  Jackson Brown, Don Henley, Garth Brooks, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and even Itzhak Perlman, for God's sake.  Their testimonies to Billy Joel just makes your jaw drop.  Example:  McCartney tells us this - "People often ask me Is there a song out there that you wish that you would have written, and I tell them 'Just The Way You Are'."

I am constantly amazed at the genius of musical superstars.  Time and again throughout the movie, Joel will tell the story about how an idea came to him while he was driving somewhere, and that by the time he reaches his destination, he can sit at a piano and produce a song that becomes a classic.  How these people can do that  is so far beyond my grasp as to be positively unimaginable.

Best of all, though, beyond everything else the film contains clips of Billy Joel singing and performing all of those songs that have become the music of our lives.  I consider myself fortunate to have seen Billy Joel live twice in my life.  The first time was at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena in 1986 or -87.  The second time was in August 2022 at PNC Park (read The Piano Man In Concert) in what was truly one of the greatest concert experiences that I have ever had.

As I reread what I have just written about this movie, I can tell you that this write up is hardly doing "And So It Goes" justice.  If you don't have HBO Max available to you, find a friend who does and see this documentary film.  You will not be disappointed.

A full Four Stars from The Grandstander.

Pirates vs. Brewers

The Pirates just completed a three game series in Milwaukee where they were swept by the Brewers.  The scores of those three games:

• 7-1
• 14-0
• 12-5

And here's the thing:  None of those games were as close as the scores indicated.  The differences between the two teams were so obvious, and so glaring as to be positively embarrassing for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but, of course we all know by now that Bob Nutting is incapable of being embarrassed.  Milwaukee is so much better, and so far ahead of the Pirates, it's like having the Alabama football team going up against a good WPIAL high school team.

Take a look at the Pirate box score from that 14-0 loss on Tuesday night:

Look  at those 6-7-8 slots - Suwinski/Triolo/Davis - in the line-up.  And Jared Triolo and Jack Suwinski are, it is being reported, guys that the Pirates "want to take a look at" as they prepare for 2026.  Like we don't already know who they are.   As my friend Dan asked me after golf on Monday, "Is there another team in all of MLB who would have Jack Suwinski on there roster?"  Don't think so.

On the bright side, in that 14-0 loss last night, the Bucs played true Sheltie-ball by having a position player, Triolo, pitch in the ninth inning, and tough guy skipper Don "Donnie" Kelly was ejected for the fifth time since he became manager in May.  Yep, Kelly takes no shit!

On another related matter, this screen shot from Pirates Announcer Greg Brown's Twitter feed was posted on Facebook yesterday on a Pirates fans group page:

Presumably, Brownie had a straight face when he posted that. Oh, and for those of you who didn't know the meaning of the word "shill", well, now you know.

They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot

 Behold this photo of the White House Rose Garden as it has been since the Kennedy Administration:

This wasn't to the liking of the current occupants, so that beautiful garden and green space has been replaced with this:

Beautiful, isn't it?

Joni Mitchell had it right.

Critical Commentary - Four Movies

In the past five days,  I have busied myself with watching four separate movies, two new, two old.  Here we go, in order of viewing.

Yes, a long term aversion to Adam Sandler didn't stop me from being among the millions of people who set Netflix records by streaming this one.

I think, but cannot absolutely swear to it, that I saw the original "Happy Gilmore", and if I did, I put much of it out of my mind, except for Sandler punching out Bob Barker. Still, we were in the mood for some mindless entertainment, and this one sure qualified as that.

It did have its comedic moments, and I did enjoy all of the cameos that were done by various professional golfers.  Like Jack Nicklaus ordering a half iced tea, half lemonade.  "Arnold Palmer?" the waiter asks.  "No" he replies "I'm Jack Nicklaus, but I get that a lot."  And of the current golfers featured, Xander Schauffele, in my opinion, steals the show in his bit while at the tournament banquet.

You don't grade a movie like this using the same curve that you would say, "Citizen Kane" or the latest Scorsese masterpiece, but considering what it is, The Grandstander gives it Two Stars.

Listening to Ben Mankiewicz on the latest season of The Plot Thickens podcast prompted me to watch this one from 1949.  Ben's uncle Joe Mankiewicz won Oscars for this one for Screenplay and Directing, so it is a classic of sorts.  Three ladies, Jeanne Crain, Ann Southern, and Linda Darnell, are about to embark on a river cruise to a day camp for underprivileged kids when they receive a note from a mutual friend of theirs, Addie Ross, telling them that that evening, she will be running off with one of their husbands.  Unable to communicate with anyone - there were no cell phones in 1949 - they spend the rest of the day wondering if their husband is the one who will be leaving with the hussy Addie.  We then see flashback scenes from each of them that would make them think that they are the one about to be abandoned.

Lots of dated ideas in this one, like "Only the husband should be the breadwinner in a family", but still a pretty good movie, and some of the notions, like marrying for money instead of love, can still prompt debate here in good ol' 2025.

Oh, and Thelma Ritter is in this one.  It is only her second credited movie appearance, and in it she displays the persona that she did in just about every movie she ever made thereafter, and did you know that she was nominated for SIX Academy Awards over the course other career?  I didn't.

The only quibble that Linda and I had with it was that we thought the wrap up to the story seemed rushed and also confusing.  Still, we liked it, and I give it Three Grandstander Stars.

I have written many times on this blog of my fondness for this classic movie from 1950 that was written and directed by Billy Wilder, and starred Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich Von Stroheim, and Nancy Olsen.  Just last month I pulled out my DVD copy of this movie and introduced it to Linda who had never seen it. As fate and good fortune would have it, just this weekend, theaters across the country were honoring the 75th anniversary of this movie by showing it on a big screen. 

I am not going to recount the plot line of the movie here, but it is a terrific story of Hollywood, past glories, and cynicism, and seeing it on the big screen for the first time with all those other "wonderful people out there in the dark" made for a whole new and terrific experience.

As always, "Sunset Boulevard" rates a full Four Stars from The Grandstander.

And then there is "The Naked Gun", and I will tell you right off the bat that I just loved this one.  It is a retelling of all of those Naked Gun/Police Squad movies that Leslie Nielsen and George Kennedy made back in the eighties and nineties.  In this one, Liam Neeson abandons his action hero persona, or maybe he just embraces it, as Frank Drebin Jr., Nielsen's son, and he is terrific.  He's great as he deadpans through all of his bits in this one, even as he and the producers make fun of his own reputed physical gifts, if you get my drift.  It's hard to think that this is the same guy who was nominated for an Oscar for "Schindlers List".

I went to a 10:00 AM showing of this one this morning and I was the only person in the theater, which was good, because then I didn't have to stifle myself during all of the time I laughed out loud at throughout this one.  There are some great running gags in this one and one that I liked was Drebin and his partner constantly being handed cardboard cups of coffee.  Sophisticated it's not, like what the bad guy thinks he is seeing through the curtains of Frank's apartment while using infrared binoculars, and the body cam sequences of Drebin in his squad car after eating several chili dogs, but let's face it, going to see a Naked Gun movie isn't like going to a Noel Coward play.

I also give great props to Pamela Anderson in this one.  She plays it for all of its slapstick worth, but there is one scene of her doing some scat singing in a jazz club where she is just terrific.  Oh, and stay for the credits.  All of the credits.  There is a funny scene at the very end, and the movie makers drop some pretty funny fake credits throughout that will make you laugh, and I probably missed a bunch of them.

Like I said earlier, you don't judge a movie like this the same way you would a Spielberg of Scorsese movie, but for what it is, this one is terrific.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

What The Pirates Did At The Deadline

What, me worry?

Here you go, a summary of the moves all in one convenient spreadsheet that Bucco GM Ben Cherrington made to improve our Pittsburgh Pirates at the 2025 MLB Trade Deadline.

GONE	ACQUIRED
Adam Frazier to Royals	Cam Devanney, 28, INF
Ke’Bryan Hayes to Reds	Taylor Rodgers, 34, P
	Sammy Stafura, 20, INF
	Jeter Martinez, 19, P
Taylor Rodgers to Mariners	Ivan Brethowr, 22, OF
Bailey Falter to Royals	Evan Sisk, 27, P
	Callan Moss, 21, 1B
David Bednar to Yankees	Rafael Flores, 24, C
	Edgleen Perez, 19, C
	Brian Sanchez, 21, OF

My comments:

Taylor Rodgers gets traded the day after they acquire him.  I wonder if he will one day show up and play in the Pirates Alumni Golf Outing?

Perhaps Devanney, who was immediately sent to Indianapolis, will be called up to be a spare infielder now that Hayes is gone, and maybe Sisk will be on the team this year to replace Falter and/or Bednar.  Other than those two nondescript players, not  a single person acquired will help the Pirates this season, but since they are going nowhere anyway, so what?

None of the other players acquired figure to help the Pirates in 2025 (see above comment), and given the ages of guys like Stafura, Martinez, Perez, and Sanchez, they probably won't be in Pittsburgh until 2027 or 2028.  In other words, GMBC has brought in what the Pirates value the most: PROSPECTS, none of whom ever seem to pan out once they get into the Pirates system.

While I realize that there is no hope for 2025, to trade Bednar, perhaps their most effective player and certainly one of their most popular ones, and not get somebody, anybody who can contribute to the major league team now, today is irresponsible and ridiculous.  I mean, throw the fans a goddam bone once in awhile, willya?

But, hey, maybe Jeter Martinez will turn out to pitch like Pedro Martinez, maybe Callan Moss will play first and hit home runs like Jim Thome, and maybe Edgleen Perez will be the next Johnny Bench, well, then those 2030 Pirates will be a force with which to be reckoned in major league baseball.  Of course, if that happens, those guys will soon be plucked away by the Dodgers, Yankees, or Mets anyway.

Oh, and great quote from Mark Madden yesterday (and I can't believe that I am quoting Mark Madden).  People are talking about how the Pirates have "freed up money" in dumping Hayes and his contract to the Reds.  In a league with no salary cap, Double M stated, there is no "freeing up" of money.  The money that would have gone to Hayes goes right back into Bob Nutting's pockets.  He, Nutting, has given us no reason to believe otherwise based upon his track record. 

PIRATES FEVER. CATCH IT!!

Greg Brown, John Wehner, and the Infield Fly Rule

Were you watching the Pirates-Giants game last night when the Pirates made use of this baseball intricacy to their advantage?

Here was the situation:

In the first inning the Giants had runners on first and second with no outs.  The third batter, Willy Adames hit a high pop-up that had  third baseman Ke'Bryan Hayes drift towards the pitchers' mound to field.  The second base umpire immediately signaled for the "infield fly rule, batter automatically out, runners advance at their own risk." Hayes let the ball drop to the ground and then saw that the runner on second base, Heliot Ramos, was drifting just a bit too far off of second base.  Hayes quickly picked up the ball, threw to second baseman Nick Gonzales and picked off Ramos.  Double play.

That was a numbskull bit of base running by Ramos, to be sure, and Pirates Chief Propaganda Minister Greg Brown immediately jumped all over it.  "That was an unbelievable base running mistake" screamed Brownie.  "How can you be in the big leagues and do something like that" chimed in John Wehner.  "What a smart play by Hayes, and, again, an INCREDIBLE, mistake by Ramos."  Both announcers went on, well into the next inning with words to the effect that a major league player just can't let something like that happen!!!

Considering the base running acumen demonstrated by the Pirates this season (we are looking at you, Oneil Cruz) and, in fact, over the last several seasons (remember the halcyon days of Starling Marte and Gregory Polonco on the base paths?), this was a classic case of throwing stones from inside a glass house.  Perhaps the most INCREDIBLE and UNBELIEVABLE thing about this gaffe was that it wasn't a Pirates baserunner who did it.   

I will give Wehner credit for a good line though when he said that this is the kind of a mistake that a player will only make once in his career.

The whole incident also brought to mind a great line from my father, who had a lot of great lines in his life.  He said that whenever you are faced with some blowhard sports know-it-all, someone who is obviously full of shit, calmly say to him "Can you explain the infield fly rule to me?"  That will usually shut said blowhard up.

"Tricky Business" by Dave Barry (2002)

 

This book was one of the "$2.99 Kindle specials" that I get in my email every day.  It looked interesting, but for some reason I was too cheap to spring for the two-ninety-nine so I did something that I should do more often:  I got the book out of the library.

Take a crummy past-its-prime cruise ship, retro fitted and turned into a gambling ship that leaves the Florida coast every night and sails behind the three mile limit to suck money out of tourists and local suckers.  Throw in a lousy house band, a down on her luck cocktail waitress, two hilarious senior citizens (picture Morty Seinfeld and Jack Klompus from "Seinfeld"), and assorted mobsters, drug runners, money launderers, and other only-in-Florida characters, put them on this tub of a ship and send it out into the Gulfstream as a tropical storm is raging - and a theme throughout the book is the hilarious dead-on over the top coverage that a local television news team provides during this weather "emergency" -  and what you've got is a comic crime novel of classic proportions.

Keep in mind that this book was published in 2002, so some references may be dated.  For example, with casinos now being so ubiquitous, who needs a ship that sails into international waters every night to be able to gamble?  That's just nitpicking, though.  It took me all of two days to read this one, and there were times where I was shrieking out loud with laughter.  You probably would too!

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Shirt Pocket Notes

 Pirates

When last we wrote of the Pittsburgh Pirates, they were just completing a nine game road trip leading up to the All-Star Break, a road trip wherein they complied a scintillating record of 1-8.  Rested and refreshed from their four day vacation, they began the nominal second half of the season by losing three straight games at home to the Chicago While Sox, one of the few teams in MLB who just might be worse than they are.  Baseball being the funny game that it is, they them swept three games from the Detroit Tigers, a team that at the start of that series had the best record in all of MLB.  Go figure.  There then followed an off day and then a home game last night against the Diamondbacks where they lost 1-0 in eleven innings while amassing the grand total of one (1) hit over the course of those eleven innings.

Bucco skipper Don "Donnie" Kelly came up with the quote of the year in his post game presser:  "You're not going to win many games when you only get one hit."

Yep.

Don "Donnie" Kelly

Master of Understatement

All that awaits the Buccos now is to see who will be traded at the July 31 trade deadline, where the Pirates will definitely be sellers.  Adam Frazier has already been traded to the Royals for, are you ready for this?, a 28 year old middle infielder who was immediately assigned to Indianapolis.  I can't remember his name and can't be bothered to look it up, because, really, is it ever going to really matter?

My predictions as to who will NOT be on the team after July 31:  Mitch Keller and David Bednar for sure.  Dennis Santana probably be a 75% chance of getting traded., and 50% chance that Brian Reynolds and Ke'Bryan Hayes will also be gone.  Spare parts like Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Tommy Pham, and Andrew Heaney also most likely will be dealt.

The question is, will GMBC be likely to get good or even decent value for quality guys like Keller, Bednar, and Reynolds?  His track record for the last six years on this front has been.....not good.

Steelers

In what is close to a High Holy Day in The Burgh, the Steelers opened training camp at St. Vincent College in Latrobe this week. The big news of the week, though was signing T.J.Watt to a contract extension that will make him the highest paid non-quarterback in League history (a mark that will probably stand until Jerry Jones signs Micah Parsons to a new contract sometime before the season opens).  So, Aaron Rodgers has signed on to be the QB, Watt is under contract, and the media has now turned to their next favorite topic:  How hot should the seat upon which Mike Tomlin's ass rests be?  Seems the guys with the microphones and keyboards just can't wait to see Tomlin get fired.

The Rodgers signing got all of the press over the off-season but moves acquiring DK Metcalf, Jalen Ramsey, and Jonnu Smith combined with the rookies that were drafted in April would make it seem that this will be an interesting season for the Steelers.  My expectations were not high for the 2025 season for Rooney U, but they have ramped up a bit after the Rodgers signing and the Fitzpatrick-for-Ramsey-and-Smith trade.  It all hinges on what Rodgers has left in the tank.  If he can play at a level of, say, 75% of his prime, I'll sign up for that today.

In other Steelers news, the team announced today the 2025 Inductees into their Hall of Honor: Ben Roethlisberger, Maurice Pouncey, and Joey Porter.

Certainly can't argue with any of those choices.

Jeopardy

It has been a fun three weeks or so watching Scott Riccardi steamroll his way through 16 consecutive wins on Jeopardy and earnings of over $455,000 during his 16 game streak, the tenth longest in Jeopardy history.  All of this made it all the more confounding when Riccardi lost last night by answering a relatively easy Final Jeopardy question incorrectly.  "Who was William Randolph Hearst?" was the correct response, and Riccardi guessed "Howard Hughes".  Unbelievable.

I am thinking that we have not seen the last of Scott Riccardi as Jeopardy rolls out their various "tournaments" involving past champs.

The Absent Friends Quartet

There has been a preponderance of celebrity deaths in recent weeks, and probably none of these deaths on their own would merit the Absent Friends treatment from The Grandstander.  However, when they are stacked right on top of each other like so much cordwood, well, as Willie Loman's wife said in Death of a Salesman, "attention must be paid."   So, here you go, four shorter the usual Absent Friends tributes.

Was I a fan of former teenie-bopper idol, Tiger Beat cover boy, actor, and bubblegum rocker Bobby Sherman?  No, I was not.   Inexplicably, my friend Dan was and remains a huge Bobby Sherman fan, so I know that he will be happy with this post.  

Sherman died last month at the age of 81, and his obituaries told the story of what happened when the Show Biz lights went out for him.  Sherman devoted himself to a career in public safety.  I will let this entry from his Wikipedia page tell the story:

In 1974, Sherman guest-starred on an episode of the Jack Webb television series Emergency! ("Fools", season 3, episode 17, aired January 19, 1974), and found a new calling. Eventually, he left the public spotlight and became a paramedic. He volunteered with the Los Angeles Police Department, working with paramedics and giving CPR and first aid classes. He became a technical Reserve Police Officer with the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1990s, a position he still held as of 2017.^[8] For more than a decade he served as a medical training officer at the Los Angeles Police Academy, instructing thousands of police officers in first aid and CPR. He was named LAPD's Reserve Officer of the Year in 1999.

Sherman also became a reserve deputy sheriff in 1999 with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, continuing his CPR and emergency training of new deputy hires. He retired from the sheriff's department in 2010.^[8]

Sherman and his wife co-founded the Brigitte & Bobby Sherman Children's (BBSC) Foundation.^[17] The foundation's mission is to provide motivated students in Ghana with a high-quality education and music program, and to provide tools to pursue higher education.

Sherman's singing and acting career made him famous and wealthy, but what he did after all of that made him a pretty neat guy.

Connie Francis died at the age of 87 last week.  A teenaged singer from New Jersey, Francis, like so many others of her era, was discovered by Dick Clark and his American Bandstand show when it was based in Philadelphia in the late nineteen fifties and sixties.  She had hit records with such songs as "Who's Sorry Now", "Stupid Cupid", "Lipstick On Your Collar", and "Where The Boys Are", the title tune of a movie in which Francis co-starred.  Like so many others of her era, her career as a mainstream pop star pretty much ended when The Beatles arrived in America.

Interesting item from her obituaries.  The complete and total love of her life was singer Bobby Darin,  However, Connie's father showed up one day with gun and threatened to shoot Darin unless he got out of his daughter's life.  Bobby took the hint and scrammed, although the torch for him still burned within her.  Connie Francis was married four time and, according to her, only hubby number three as any good at all.

Ozzy Osbourne

1948-2025

Like I said at the beginning, this is a death I would not have noted but for the fact that it was bunched together with all the others.  Back Sabbath and Ozzy the solo artist were not my bag, music-wise, nor did I ever watch that reality show that he did with his family.  I did like him on that commercial where he and others admonish business people for proclaiming themselves "rock stars."  That's a pretty good bit.

Oh, and he once bit the head off of a live bat on stage.

Hulk Hogan

1953-2025

When I worked at Equitable Life back in the 1980's, one of my co-workers was a huge fan of professional wrestling, and so it came to pass that for a period of four or five years, I too, became a follower of the pro wrestlers that populated the World Wrestling Federation. now the WWE, and I admit to attending many of the monty Wrestling cards that were held at the Civic Arena back in the day.  So, yes, I can say that I have seen Hulk Hogan perform live and in person on more that one occasion, and, yes, I did see him lift up and bodyslam Andre the Giant inside the squared circle at the Arena.  Hogan died yesterday at the age of 71.   Pro Rasslin' made him famous and wealthy,  but not without some bumps along the path.  I won't recount this incidents here; you can read all about them in his obits.  He also turned into a MAGA-head. (Holds nose while typing those words.)

RIP Bobby Sherman, Connie Francis, Ozzy Osbourne, and Hulk Hogan.

Let me leave you with THIS PERFORMANCE Of "Where The Boys Are" by Connie Francis on the Ed Sullivan show in 1961, her salad days.  She was pretty good!