Please celebrate responsibly.See you all here in The Grandstand in 20...
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Marilyn and I celebrated our wedding anniversary on Friday by observing another tradition of ours - dinner at Station Square - but with a bit of a twist this year. Instead of dining in the opulent Grand Concourse, we opted for the adjoining Gandy Dancer Saloon. It is a more limited menu, but the food comes from the same kitchen and for a fraction of the cost. Wise...
We took in the flick "American Hustle" yesterday afternoon. It is a flick that is popping up on lots of Best Ten lists and is getting lots of Oscar buzz. It is loosely based ("Some of these events actually happened" is the on-screen prelude to the movie) on events surrounding the ABSCAM scandals of the late 1970's. Hard to classify this movie. Part...
Saturday, December 28, 2013
As the year draws to a close, it is time to look back.In 2013, The Grandstander noted the loss of 33 Absent Friends, those who left us in this year whose mark on history, society, popular culture or just on me personally was such that I felt it noteworthy to comment upon their passing. I cannot do this without giving a shout out the great sportswriter, Red Smith, who always used the term "Absent Friends" when writing about those who had...
In 2005, one of my Christmas gifts, a stocking stuffer, appropriately, was a pair of Timberland socks, very similar to the pair pictured here.How, you may ask, can I remember the specific year that I received such a relatively small gift? Well, I remember putting them on for the first time the morning that the sixth seeded Pittsburgh Steelers played the Cincinnati Bengals...
Friday, December 27, 2013
As 2013 heads into its final week, let us wish a Melancholy Happy trails to two more Absent Friends, Paul Blair and James Ecker.Paul Blair enjoyed a seventeen year Major League career. I was well aware that he played on four pennant winning teams with the Baltimore Orioles, two of which went on to win the World Series. I had forgotten, and would have been unable...
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Monday, December 23, 2013
This is not "news" at this point, but following the recent firings at 93.7 The Fan (see http://www.grandstander.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-axe-falls-at-fan.html ), the station, KDKA-FM, has announced who will be replacing whom in the new program line-up effective January 6.To me, the most interesting switch was the move of Andrew Fillliponi, aka, Andrew "Fullaboloney"...
In a wild game that was unbelievably entertaining, the Steelers beat the Packers yesterday, 38-31, and, amazingly, kept their playoff hopes alive as they head into the final weekend of the season next week.This game had just about everything:another very good game by Ben Roethlisberger, who may well be having the best season of his career,a successful fake punt by the Steelers...
Thursday, December 19, 2013
An obituary in the New York Times today notes the passing of New York pornographer Al Goldstein at the age of 77. I mention this not because I was a fan or supporter of Mr. Goldstein - far from it. In fact, you will note that I am not using my standard "Absent Friends" notation in referencing this death. It would be appalling and wrong on a thousand levels to include the likes of Goldstein with people such as Stan Musial, Annette...
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
SPOILER ALERT: If you recorded the concluding episode of Gold Channel's "Big Break NFL" and are planning on seeing it later, you may wish to delay reading this entry, as I will divulge who won. If you are so inclined, please come back and read when you have seen the show.Golf Channel's latest rendition of its Big Break series concluded last night when Team Dolman, the...
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
News arrives this morning that some major players at 93.7 The Fan have been given their walking papers, effective immediately. Merry Freakin' Christmas, as morning co-host Paul Alexander would say. Oh, and speaking of Paul Alexander, he is one of the two on air personalities to be let go! The other is mid-day co-host Vinnie Richichi.I will never (with rare exceptions) take delight in a person losing his or her job. It has...
Monday, December 16, 2013
One of the great actors of his generation, Peter O'Toole died yesterday at the age of 81. O'Toole, who will be best remembered for his role in "Lawrence of Arabia", was nominated for acting Oscars a record eight times, but never won the award, although he was given a special Lifetime Achievement Oscar. A great dramatic actor, my personal favorite O'Toole performance...
OK, be honest now, who saw THAT coming before last night's game?At the Stonebrook Village Christmas dinner party last night I said, and this is the God's honest truth, that while I didn't expect a Steelers win last night, I did hold some hope that the first place Cincinnati Bengals would still be eminently capable of playing like the Cincy Bungles that we have come to know...
Saturday, December 14, 2013
I have not said a lot about the Pirates off season maneuverings, but now that MLB's Winter Meetings have ended, it's time to take a look at things.What has happened to the Pirates since the Cardinals closed them out in the NL Division Series?A.J. Burnett sits as a free agent who said he would take a "week or two" to consider retirement.Garrett Jones and Michael McKenry have...
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Some pigskin thoughts....The Steelers season came to a practical end with that loss to the Dolphins on Sunday, although the NFL PR machine will still churn out the fact that they are still mathematically in the hunt. The Steelers of 2013 are most certainly not a very good team, but you can't say that their games have not been entertaining. You've got to give them...
This is a Cut-n-Paste from Bob Smizik's blog on post-gazette.com this morning:For the longest time, the Pitt-Duquesne basketball game was No. 1 on my Pittsburgh regular-season sports calendar -- ahead of anything the Steelers, Pirates or Penguins could offer. I cherish the memories of that bitter rivalry. But the game has lost almost everything -- except, most notably, a media buzz it doesn’t deserve. They can dress it up with a title -- The City...
Monday, December 9, 2013
The cable television airwaves is experiencing a flood of mini-series about crime from the 1930's.The first such "limited series" is TNT's "Mob City".Commercials for this flooded the TBS air during the baseball playoffs and created interest, for me at least, in watching. This story takes place in depression-era Los Angeles and features such real people as LA police legend...
It was announced today that the "Expansion Era Committee" of Baseball Hall of Fame electors has elected Tony LaRussa, Joe Torre, and Bobby Cox to the Hall of Fame. All enter as managers, although you could make a semi-reasonable argument that Torre belongs there as a player as well. LaRussa endorsed a statement released by writers George Will and Buzz Bissinger...
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Far be it from me to try to come up with the words to describe the life of one of the 20th and 21st centuries great men. I will only use the quote posted on Facebook yesterday by the Highmark Caring Place on its Children's Grief Awareness Day page:“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,...
Thursday, December 5, 2013
If you own a Kindle, iPad, Nook or some other electronic reading device, you might want to check into signing on with something called Book Bub. No, not this Bub.......the curmudgeonly grandfather in "My Three Sons" played by William "Fred Mertz" Frawley, but, rather the website www.bookbub.com.You go to the site, register with your email address and indicate what your...
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Nothing seems to have dominated the sports news as much as Mike Tomlin's inadvertent (I believe) interference on Jacoby Jones' kick return in the game with the Ravens on Thanksgiving night.Tomlin has apologized - and it was not the typical jock apology written by some PR hack - profusely and sincerely and has said he will accept without protest or appeal any discipline that...
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
How sad is it to hear of the death of Pirates minor league player and prospect Even Chambers, who passed away in his sleep on Sunday night/Monday morning at the age of 24.I can remember attending a State College Spikes game in 2009 and seeing Chambers play, shortly after he was drafted by the Pirates in the third round in that years Entry Draft. I remember that he was...
As you know from a previous post, I attended the Pitt-Duquesne basketball game this past weekend, aka, The City Game, and I found it to be a bit of a lackluster event in spite of the best efforts of the schools' respective pep bands, cheerleaders, dance teams, and, oh yeah, the basketball teams.Part of this is no doubt due to the fact that on Thanksgiving Weekend, neither...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
