SUNDAY AUGUST 5, 1973..
WEATHER
HIGH TEMP 88
LOW TEMP 67
HUMIDITY 78
Hi Everyone:
Hope you are all staying cool. Today, was hot enough, but yesterday was worse, hot and sticky. It was so humid last night, I ended up going to see a movie just to sit in an air-conditioned movie theater. Got to take in my first R-rated movie.
More on that later, for now, we'll start off with some news, bad news at that.
TERRORISM- Airport Attack in Athens.
Two Arab terrorists tossed hand grenades and opened fire with machine guns this morning in the transit lounge of Athens Airport. Two Americans were killed and 55 total were injured in the attack.
The men were arrested and claimed to be part of Black September, the same creeps that ruined last summer's Olympics in Munich, West Germany. However the PLO denied any responsibility for the attack.
According to police reports, the terrorists actual target was a TWA flight heading to Tel Aviv, but mistakenly attacked passengers waiting to board a TWA flight to New York.
The two dead Americans were a 55 year old plumber and a 23 year old woman from New Jersey. This hits close to home.1
According to the FAA, the past 4 years have been the most prevalent time for skyjackings. Earlier this year, the FAA mandated that all airports be equipped with metal detectors and that all passengers must pass through them. It's horrible that it's come to this, but this is where we are here in 1973. Hopefully it gets better.
OK, onto less serious but also aggravating news...
BASEBALL: Mets get swept:
Losing sucks, we all know that. It's bad enough to lose a game that the other team is trying to beat you at. But when you lose a game in which the other team is practically handing it to you, that's just unacceptable.
That's what happened to the Mets this afternoon at Shea in their doubleheader against the Cardinals.
Tom Seaver was scheduled to pitch in the opener. So Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst decided to save his ace, Rick Wise for the nightcap. He started Alan Foster against Seaver.
"I'm not conceding, Foster can win" Schoendienst told the writers before the first game, before, well conceding.
"Seaver's a great pitcher. Look at what happened the last time he pitched against us." That was 10 days ago, where Seaver outpitched Wise 2-1.
Seaver as usual has been awesome, but also as usual is getting little run support.
Today he was merely very good, not great, which he is entitled to, and the Mets made Foster look like, well, Rick Wise, stranding a bunch of runners on base.
Wise went on to outpitch Jim McAndrew in the nightcap and the Mets ruined Banner Day at Shea.
They are now 48-60 and 11.5 games out of first. I know manager Yogi Berra keeps saying "It aint over till it’s over." But who the hell are we kidding here? I know the division isn't that great, but even in this crappy division, we're in last place. Sweeping or splitting against the first place Cards would have been a nice start to getting us out of the cellar. Instead here we are, in the basement. I appreciate Yogi’s optimism, too bad I don’t share it.
Put a fork in them kids. They done.2
There were two pitching performances this weekend to note: One, Yankee pitcher Lindy McDaniel pitched 13 innings of relief Saturday night in Detroit. 13 innings! Even for 1973 that's impressive. He was forced to come in when starter Fritz Peterson complained of a tightness in his thigh. This is a family bulletin, so I'll spare the "He hurt his leg fooling around with his new wife, Mike Kekich's former wife" jokes.3 Mcdaniel going 13 innings in the Yanks 3-2 win over the Tigers is the impressive story. They sit 1/2 game out of the AL East, tied with the Tigers and behind the Orioles for the division lead. Unlike my Mets, the Yanks have a good shot. Which will make their new owner happy. But even if they don't win, this new guy Steinbrenner, won't cause a ruckus, he said he's too busy building ships to get involved too much.4
And in Atlanta today, Phil Niekro knuckleballed his way to a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres, in front of 8,748 fans in steamy Fulton County Stadium. (10,000 people will claim to have been there I bet) Niekro is 34, has pitched for 11 seasons and it's safe to say he's on the back 9.5 So this was a nice cherry on the top of a good career. Seaver has come close a couple of times to pitching one. He could have pitched one today and still lost. But I digress. Congrats to Phil Niekro.
CONTROVERSY: Protest over new cop movie
A major Puerto Rican Advocacy group is filing a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures, and several other groups are organizing boycotts of movie theaters showing Badge 373, starring Robert Duvall as a character based on decorated NYPD cop Eddie Egan.
According to a review in a national magazine, the film is "rife with references to language deeming to Puerto Ricans." It goes on to say that the film makes "disgraceful portrayal of Puerto Ricans as prostitutes, thieves and bomb throwing radicals."
Several African-American and Latino groups are planning a boycott of Paramount Pictures if the film is not removed from theaters by August 15.
So it's a good thing I went a saw it last night...6
MOVIE REVIEW: Badge 373
Starring: Robert Duvall, Verna Bloom, Henry Darrow, Eddie Egan
Saw it At: Elmwood Theater, Elmhurst NY
So again I want to reiterate, we had no idea of the controversy the movie was generating, we just wanted to get out of the heat. I'll give the Elmwood this, they have a ripping air conditioner.
As for the movie itself, yeah, I can see people being offended. I mean Duvall's character,Eddie Ryan, uses the S slur for Latinos about 50 times in the first 15 minutes. He chases a guy named Chico (I know) up to the roof of a club, and Chico was either pushed or he fell off the roof to his untimely demise. What upset me about that scene was that the actor playing Chico who was pushed/fell off the roof was none other than Luis Avalos who my fellow future Generation X'ers will recall as the bald guy with the mustache from PBS' the Electric Company.
I have to admit it was hard to root for Eddie Ryan after Dr. Doolats bought it so early in the movie. Ryan gets suspended and his badge (373-see that?) is taken away. But in the meantime his partner is toutured and killed, so Ryan takes it upon himself to find out what happened.
Yeah, one of those movies.
Pete Hammil wrote the script, and he's no racist, but I'm guessing he was trying to make the movie more "realistic"? I don't know, I think the rule of them is when in doubt, add more a-holes and m'f-ckers, and stay away from the slurs.
2 Stars 7
Terrorist Attacks, Accusations of Racism in Movies, Lousy Baseball… looks like I picked a hell of a day to show up huh? Is there anything good to report?
Well, let’s see…
The Knicks are the defending NBA World Champions, that’s obviously a very good thing. 8
The Rangers have been very good the past two seasons and are considered one of the favorites to win and end their 33 year Stanley Cup drought in 1974. 9
The Jets have 3 players currently holding out, Winston Hill, Emerson Boozer and John Riggins. Hill and Boozer helped win the Jets Super Bowl III 5 years ago. Riggins led the team in rushing last year, but seems to be a bit of a head case.10 In any event Playboy’s Pigskin Preview says that if Joe Namath can stay healthy, the Jets could contend for a playoff spot. (I’m too young to look at the pictures in Playboy, so I really just read the articles) 11
If you follow the ABA, especially our New York Nets, they made a blockbuster deal just last week, sending George Carter, Kermit Washington and $$$ to the Virginia Squires for Dr. J himself, Julius Erving. If I’m the Nets, I make sure he retires in a Net uniform.12 All due respect to Clyde and Willis and the rest of my World Champion Knicks, but Dr. J is now the most exciting basketball player in New York.
There is great TV to watch too, this upcoming season. Here is your Saturday night lineup on Channel 2.13
8:00- All in the Family
8:30-M*A*S*H
9:00- The Mary Tyler Moore Show
9:30-The Bob Newhart Show
10:00 The Carol Burnett Show
I haven’t seen a rotation like that since the 1971 Orioles.14
As for music, here is this week’s top 10 songs according to Billboard Magazine, and counted down by Casey Kasem on American Top 40 (heard here in NY on 102 FM WPIX)15
1) The Morning After-Maureen McGovern
2) Bad Bad Leroy Brown-Jim Croce
3) Live and Let Die-Wings
4) Smoke on the Water-Deep Purple
5) Yesterday Once More-The Carpenters
6) Diamond Girl-Seals and Crofts
7) Touch Me in the Morning- Diana Ross
8) Brother Louie-Stories
9) Will it Go Round in Circles-Billy Preston
10) Shambala- Three Dog Night.
Wings, led by Paul McCartney has the number 3 song and also the number 40 song, former number 1 song My Love. George Harrison has the 31 song, also a former number one song Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth). John Lennon and Ringo Starr each have albums coming out in the fall. Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono split up last month. Who knows? Maybe if they all prove that they can all make magic on their own, it might inspire them to see what kind of magic they can still do together. A Beatles reunion would be awesome.16
So you see it's not all bad. Not all bad at all.
It's great to be here. Think I'll stick around.
See ya when I meet ya
Have a Great (2608.9) Week(s)
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1) 5 Americans ended up dying in the attack. One of them, who died on September 21, 1973, was a 24 year old man from Oceanside.
2)
3) Ben Affleck and Matt Damon had supposedly been working on a movie about the Fritz Peterson-Mike Keckich family swap. Not sure what became of it. If you never heard of it Google it up.
4) George actually said something to this effect at the press conference announcing his purchase of the Yankees from CBS on January 3, 1973. To say he didn’t keep that promise might be the understatement of the century.
5) Niekro pitched 14 more seasons including 1984 and 1985 with the Yankees. His last start for the Yanks, he won his 300th game.
6) My mom and dad had just bought the house in Woodside, and hadn’t gotten an air conditioner yet. To get some relief, they went to the Elmwood theatre, right across from St. John’s Hospital where I would be born the following day.
7) I had heard the story of my folks taking in a flick the night before I was born a bunch of times, but it wasn’t till I started researching for this blog that came across the stories about the protests. For a refresher I rented it off Amazon a couple of weeks ago. It’s a typical 70’s cop movie, Duvall was just looking for a paycheck between Godfather movies IMHO.
8) That’s a sentence that hasn’t been uttered in well 50 years.
9) They lost to the Flyers in the Conference Finals in 74. The drought would go another 20 years.
10) Riggins played 2 more seasons for the Jets, till they let him walk to the Redskins, where he played in 2 Super Bowls, winning the MVP in Super Bowl XVII.
11) Many years ago my friends and I came across a box that had Playboy Magazines from 1972 through 1974. That was an actual prediction from the August 1973 issue. Spoiler alert-Namath missed most of the season and the Jets went 4-10.
12) The cash strapped Nets traded Erving to the Sixers in 1977.
13) I did a book review a couple of years back called Rock Me on the Water, that made the case that 1974 was Hollwodd's most influential year. It cited this lineup as one of its cases in point.
14) The 2nd and last starting rotation in MLB history to feature four 20 game winners. Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar, Pat Dobson and Dave McNally.
15) Sirius/XM replays classic Casey Kasem AT40's every weekend. When they replayed the one originally broadcast on 8/4/1973, Casey mentioned WPIX-FM New York City as one of his featured radio stations of the week 'AT 40 is heard every week on great radio stations like....
16) Awesome but alas not to be.
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