To Absent Scoundrels - OJ Simpson and Cyril Wecht

There are some figures in our culture who, when they leave this mortal coil, deserve commentary, but how can we ever call then Absent Friends?  So welcome to this new Grandstander category, Absent Scoundrels, and let me tell you, I am hoping that I'm still around so I can write the Entry of at least specific one one of these in the future.   Regardless, let us tell the tales of the first of these Scoundrels.

OJ Simpson

1947-2024

When Orenthal James Simpson died last month at the age of 76, a common theme of the news reporting of the death went something along the lines of "Did anyone ever fall from the heights of popularity and fame into infamy as fast and as far as OJ Simpson?"

He came upon the national scene as a Heisman Trophy winning running back at the University of Southern California.  He was the overall #1 draft choice in the NFL's 1969 Draft, and went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Buffalo Bills and, briefly, the San Francisco 49ers. (More on football later.)  He was the first running back to rush for 2,000 yards in a season in what was then a 14 game season.  He was so popular that he became the first black athlete to become commercial spokesman for corporate America.  Who OJ ran through airports for Hertz Rent-A-Car, he opened the doors that Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Serena Williams, Patrick Mahomes and others walked through in subsequent generations.  He became a sportscaster and an actor of some moderate note.  How can anyone ever forget him as Nordberg in all of those Naked Gun/Police Story movies?

Then came the fall. His ex-wife and her friend were murdered in cold blood outside of OJ's home in Los Angeles.  He was arrested - and if you saw it, you will never forget that LA freeway police chase of Simpson's white Ford Bronco.  He was tried and acquitted of the murders, but the court of public opinion never forgave him, and he became an outcast and a pariah for the rest of his life.  Years later, he was arrested again for armed robbery and served hard time for that crime until his release on parole a few years ago.

Simpson smirks with lawyer 

Johnny Cochran upon 

acquittal of his wife's murer.

But let me mention one specific OJ football memory that I have from well before The Fall.  It was September 28, 1975 and the Bills were playing the Steelers at Three Rivers Stadium, and yes, I was there to witness the Bills defeat the Steelers 30-21.  In that game, Simpson had 28 carries for 227 yards, including one TD run of 88 yards.  Yes, 227 YARDS.  Think about it.  The Steelers were the defending Super Bowl Champs and would win that game again after the '75 season.  The Steel Curtain Defense - Greene, Greenwood, Holmes, White, Ham, Lambert, Blount, Schell and the rest of them was at it's absolute peak.  Considering the team against whom he did it, some might say that this was the greatest single game a running back ever had.

That 88 yard TD run?  I've included it for you HERE.

He may well be among the top ten or fifteen football players ever, but when he died few people felt bad about it.

Dr. Cyril Wecht

1931-2024

Cyril Wecht was forensic pathologist, and may well have been one oof the smartest and most intelligent people to ever serve in his field.   In that role was consulted nationwide and served as an "expert witness" in many many famous cases, including that of President Kennedy - he was a prominent debunker of the Warren Commission Report - and Elvis Presley.  He became a "talking head" on CNN and other national news outlets whenever a mysterious or infamous death and or murder was in the news.   He served as  Coroner for Allegheny County and was an Allegheny County  Commissioner, and in those roles, he was for a time a Big Cheese in Democratic politics in Allegheny County.

No question, as a pathologist and a coroner he knew his stuff as well or better than anyone.  As a public official, however, he proved to be a mean and small man, filled with hubris and vitriol.   His many letters to the editors of Pittsburgh newspapers  excoriating the editorial staff, or of anyone else who felt crossed him were venomous and hate filled.  My newspaper columnist friend Brian O'Neill can spend entire lunch hours telling stories of the profane letters that he received for Wecht over the years.  A local Pittsburgh radio personality told the story this week of how Wecht once called his mother, who worked in County Controller's office, the "C-word" right to her face in front of the office staff.   Stories such as this were legion upon the news of his death last week at the age of 93.

My friend Dan and I were discussing Wecht over lunch yesterday, and Dan observed "What kind of life did you lead if after you die, all anyone talks about is what a prick you were when you were alive?   Is that how you want to be remembered?"

Adios OJ and Cyril.  Only your families are going to miss you. Maybe.

Catching Up On My Reading (and A Movie)

Inspired by watching the "Capote vs. The Swans" mini-series, I took it upon myself to reread Truman Capote's magnum opus, "In Cold Blood".   Published in 1965, it is the story of the 1959 killing of a family of four in the tiny town of Holcomb, Kansas, and the aftermath of the crime, including the search for, and the arrest, imprisonment, and execution of the two killers.  The subtitle of the book says it all:  A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences.

I remember reading this book when I was in high school, probably in 1967 or 1968, well over fifty years ago.   Like my recent rereading of "Charlotte's Web", I wanted to see how much more I would get and absorb out of reading a book at age 72, after a lifetime lived, as opposed to reading it as a 16 or  17 year old.  As I have learned from such experiences, seventy-plus years of living allows you to see things way differently than what you saw as a high school or college kid.

First off, I more fully appreciated Capote as a writer.  The guy sure knew how to paint a picture by putting words on a page.  For example, the first three pages of the book describes the tiny town of Holcomb and it ends with this paragraph, which portends all that is to follow in the book:

That, my friends, is WRITING.

Capote vividly paints the picture of the Clutter Family, father and mother Herb and Bonnie, daughter Nancy, and son Kenyon, and the small village in which they lived.  Everybody knew everyone, everyone respected the Clutters, no one ever locked their doors.  And then came the night that the killers, Dick Hickok and Perry Smith, came to the Clutter farm, ostensibly to rob them of the large amounts of cash that Herb Clutter always kept on hand.  In actually, Clutter never kept cash on hand in his home, and after slaughtering the family, the killers left with a portable radio, a pair of binoculars, and seventy dollars in cash.  Smith and Hickok then went on the lam and avoided capture for almost two months.   The book tells the story of the police work that had to their capture, trial, incarceration, and eventual execution.

"In Cold Blood" is often described as a "non-fiction novel", and I never quite understood the term.  Yes, the book reads like fictional thriller, but it's about real people and real events.  I suppose that it could be called a "novel" in the sense that Capote often portrays conversations that took place place between and among the different players in the story, particularly Smith and Hickock.   Supposedly, Capote took over 8,000 pages of notes while researching and writing the book, so maybe these conversations are all accurate, but my guess is that Capote took license in the creation of many of these conversations.

What struck me most in reading about the two killers, Dick Hickok and Perry Smith, is what complete losers and total bums they were.  Everybody is born equal, so we say, and have the same chances as anyone else, so we say, and Capote spends much of the book postulating on how these two guys turned out the way that they did.  It is known that Capote spent much time with the two killers, particularly Smith, in their days on the Kansas Death Row, and developed some degree of empathy for them.  Maybe you will as well if you read the book, but I am guessing that many will feel that Smith and Hickok got exactly what they deserved.  My own feeling is that these two guys are examples of how two lives can be so completely wasted.  How many more people like Dick Hickok and Perry Smith are still walking among us today?  We probably don't want to know the answer.

Anyway, reading the book, prompted me to seek out and watch the 1967 movie made from the book.

Written and directed by Richard Brooks, the movie had only two really recognizable names Robert Blake as Smith and John Forsythe as Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent Alvin Dewey.   Scott Wilson, who played Hickock, did go on to have along career (80 credits in IMBD) as a character actor until his death in 2018.  Blake's story is better known. he was a child star, and went on to a fairly long and successful career (164 credits), including the long running TV detective show, "Baretta".  He was also arrested and tried for the murder of his wife, (a case of life imitating art?), but was acquitted of the crime in 2001.  Blake hadn't acted in  anything since 1997, and his final years were spent trying to pay his legal bills.  He died in 2023 at the age of 89.

As for the movie itself, it can best be described as "gritty."  Filmed in black and white, it certainly captured the feeling of small town Kansas (the actual Clutter home was used in the on location filming).  It was a box office hit and was nominated for four Oscars, including Brooks for both Screenwriting and Directing.

Grandstander Ratings: Three and One-half Stars for the book; Three Stars for the Movie.

I also read this one:

The book tells the story of the Crew from the University of Washington that won the Gold Medal on Eight Man Crew at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, aka "The Hitler Olympics".

The book tells the stories of the depression era college students who stayed together for four years to win this ultimate prize.  As such, it is a story that is inspirational to be sure.  However, to me the most fascinating part of the book was the description of what was happening on the world stage from 1933-36, particularly in Europe and Germany, and the last hundred or so pages of the book describing those Olympics were the best part of the book.   Read about the propaganda machine of Joseph Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl and the glorification and adulation of Hitler, and tell me that you can't see parallels to what we have been seeing in America this last eight years?  Remember the the maxim that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.

On a more positive note, the Epilog of the book describes how the members of that crew kept in touch with each other for the rest of their lives, and would row their boat, the Husky Clipper, on every ten year anniversary of the 1936 Games.   That part truly was inspiring for me.

I give the this book Three Grandstander Stars.  A movie version of this book was released last year and is available on streaming currently, and I suppose that I will be getting around to seeing it one of these days.

The Pirates at the 20% Pole

Regular readers know that I usually wait until thirty games have been played in a new baseball season before making any serious commentary on how our Pittsburgh Pirates are doing.  By that time, batters have accumulated enough AB's and pitchers enough IP's to make some reasoned judgement on "how they're doin'."

As in 2023, the Bucco started off hot and after eleven games, they were at 9-2 and in first place in the NL Central Division.  Twenty-one games later, things have balanced out, to say the least, and here are your NL Central standings as of this morning:

A 5-16 record after that hot start, and ensconced in last place of a division that appeared be eminently win-able coming out of spring training.

Surprisingly, the pitching, especially the starting pitching has been quite good, and the story of the season so far has been the performance of 22 year old rooking Jared Jones.

As he has been routinely serving up pitches at 100 mph and being among the league leaders in strike outs, Jones has indeed been fun to watch, even if his last start against the Giants this week didn't go so well.  He has given fans something to excited and optimistic about.

Then there are the Pirates bats.  Simply stated, the Pirates offensive output has been truly offensive in these thirty-two games.  In their last game against the Oakland A's on Wednesday, the Pirates started guys with BA's of .162, .168, .205, .212, and .217.  Ke'Bryan Hayes, Brian Reynolds, and Oneil Cruz, the guys who were to be the offensive core of the lineup, are batting .264, .248. and.239, respectively, and Cruz has been striking out a prodigious rate.

Andrew McCutchen, who appeared as a pinch hitter yesterday, and has been used as a DH all season is hitting .188.  Cutch, easily the best and most beloved Pirates player of this century, appears at age 37 to be finished.  The team will be needing to make a hard call on his future soon, it would seem.

Over the winter, my friend Dan made the frequent comment that went along these lines:  "If the Pirates are really serious about wanting to win and compete in the National League, they will need to sign a first basement who can still play, and can hit."  The name Rhys Hoskins was frequently batted around amongst our crotchety breakfast group.  But the Pirates didn't do that.  Instead, they signed Rowdy Tellez.

In 31 games and 83 at bats, Tellez has 1 home run, 7 RBI, and is batting .205 with an OPS of .552.  In other words, he stinks, and he becomes just another name in a long line of washed up players (Jeromy Burnitz, Derek Bell, Lonnie Chisenhall, and others that have long been forgotten, with good reason) whose biggest attribute was the one that the Pirates value the most:  They all came cheap.   It's nice that Tellez appears to be a decent guy, a team player, and good guy to have in the locker room, but that ain't winning any games for the Pirates these days.

And perhaps most infuriating of all is the case of pitcher Paul Skenes, chosen by the Bucs with the first pick in the first round of last years draft. 

Despite limited use last season and in spring training this year, Skenes looked to be the Pirates best pitcher, if not the best player in the entire organization.  In 23 innings pitched at Indianopolis, Skenes has struck out 41, while allowing one earned run (0.39 ERA), and WHIP of 0.87, while frequently exceeding 100 mph with his pitches.   Yet he remains in Indy as the Bucco Brain Trust continues yammering about checking boxes and "the plan" that they have for Skenes.   Skenes has shown that he has nothing to prove or learn at the Triple-A level, and the major league team is floundering, so there is no reason that Skenes should NOT be in Pittsburgh right now if, that is, you care about winning baseball games in 2024, and not just saving dollars by putting off Skenes arbitration and free agent eligibility an extra year or two.

But, regardless of who the manager of general manager may be, it has always been thus on Bob Nutting's Pirate Ship of Fools.

As I often say, it ain't easy being a Pirates fan.

The Grandstander Returns and Absent Friends

For a period of thirty-two (32!) days, March 28 until today, April 29, The Grandstander has made exactly one (1!) post, and many of you are probably asking, "Where in the hell has The Grandstander been?"  

You HAVE been asking that, right?

Well, there has been much going on in our lives these recent weeks, including a death in the family and brief vacation that I need to share with you. There's start of the Pirates season, and the Steelers Draft, and thoughts on the Truman Capote classic "In Cold Blood" on which I want to opine, and over the next several days I will share my thoughts on all of those matters, but first, let's start with what is undoubtedly The Grandstander's most popular feature: Obituaries.  Three Absent Friends to commemorate today.

Larry O'Brien

Larry O'Brien

1942-2024

The death of long time Pittsburgh disc jockey and radio personalty Larry O'Brien comes less that six moths after the death of his on-air partner John Garry.  The team ruled the Pittsburgh morning drive time radio airways from 1975 to 1997.  There is no reason to change any of the wording that I used when I memorialized Garry's death last October:

"John Garry....and partner Larry O'Brien ruled the Pittsburgh morning drive airwaves for over twenty years from 1975 to 1997 on WTAE 1250 and on 96.1 FM.  I spent my entire working career, it seems, waking, showering, dressing, and driving to work listening to O'Brien and Garry.  To me at least, they were the team that finally filled the void in  Pittsburgh radio left when Rege Cordic and Cordic & Company left in 1965 for Los Angeles.

"I can still remember many of the bits that these guys performed over the years.  It is radio and television personalities like John Garry (and Larry O'Brien) that become such a rich part of the communities in which they worked."

Carl Erskine

Carl Erskine

1926-2024

The death of baseball player Carl Erskine at the age of 97 is notable for several reasons, but perhaps the foremost reason is that he was the mainstay member of the pitching staff of the team that was memorialized in Roger Kahn's classic book, "The Boys of Summer", the Brooklyn Dodgers circa 1949-56.

Erskine pitched twelve years in the majors, all with the Dodgers, and won 122 games.   He was a twenty game winner in 1953, and pitched two no-hitters in 1952.  In game three of the 1953 world Series, Erskine struck out 14 batters, including Mickey Mantle four times, to establish a Series record that stood for ten years.  He was the starting pitcher for the Dodgers for their first game ever in Los Angeles.

After his retirement, he returned to his native Indiana where he became a banker, working his way up to becoming president of the bank and a high official in the Indiana State Bankers Association.  He also coached a small college baseball team to four conference championships in his tenure.

One of the Erskines four children was special needs child, so he also become involved in Special Olympics and raising awareness for special needs persons.

In more recent years, the Borough of Brooklyn renamed a street Erskine Street in his honor, and that street is, of course, located in the vicinity of where Ebbets Field once stood.

Carl Erskine's life was truly a life well lived.

Roman Gabriel

Roman Gabriel

1940-2024

The thing that I remember about quarterback Roman Gabriel, who died this month at the age of 83, is that he was big.  Really big.  In the current era of guys like Josh Allen, Ben Roethlisberger, and Joe Burrow, quarterbacks who are big don't stand out, but in the late 1960's, the 6'5" Gabriel stood out against peers such as Fran Tarkenton and Bart Starr.  Gabriel was good, too.  His career lasted 16 season, eleven of them with the Rams, and he threw 201 touchdown passes against 149 interceptions.  He was the NFL MVP in 1969 and the Comeback Player of the Year a few seasons after that when he moved to the Eagles.  

He also dabbled in acting with some modest degree of success.  He has 28 credits in IMDB including a movie, "The Undefeated" with John Wayne and Rock Hudson, and spots on Rowen and Martin's Laugh-In, Perry Mason, Wonder Woman, and Gilligan's Island.

He played most of his career in the pre-Super Bowl Era, and his Rams never made it to the NFL Championship, either.  He is not a Pro Football Hall of Famer (although he is a member of the North Carolina State HOF), so he is not all that well remembered here in the 2020's, but he was quite a force in the NFL during his time.

RIP Larry O'Brien, Carl Erskine, and Roman Gabriel.

To Absent Friends - Yvonne Mulzet, aka Grandma Bonnie

 

Yvonne Puharic Mulzet

"Grandma Bonnie"

1931-2024

Family and friends said good-bye this past Monday morning to my mother-in-law, Yvonne, who died on April 11 at the grand age of 92, even though she told everyone that she was 90.  Of course, I only met Yvonne about two and a half years ago, so I have had no long history with her, and that, based on everything that we saw and heard over the last several days and during the ritual of the viewing and funeral, is my loss, for what a legacy she leaves.

She and her husband Chuck had three children, Kurt, Susan, and Linda.  She had six grandchildren and twenty (20!) great grandchildren, who all knew her as "Grandma Bonnie", but it seems that she was Grandma Bonnie to just about everyone who came into the spheres of her and her children.  The viewing was filled with friends of Kurt, Sue, and Linda who all came to say good-bye to Grandma.  A little boy who lived on her street once took her to show-and-tell when he was in first grade, and he made sure that she went with him to the premier of one of the Star Wars movies.  That same little boy, now 15 years old, did one of the readings at her funeral Mass on Monday.

My memories of Yvonne will be of nickel poker games and showing her how to play black jack on my FanDuel phone app, after which she asked Linda if she could get that "FanDuel thing" on her phone.  (That never happened, btw.)   I also loved hearing her stories about the days when she and her husband would follow the Pittsburgh Hornets at the old Duquesne Gardens.

So we begin to move on.  Losing a parent, regardless of how long that they have been with us, is never easy, but our parents never really leave us, do they? They live on in the memories that they leave to us, and the values that they have instilled in us.  That becomes a parent's greatest legacy.

RIP Grandma Bonnie.

With her kids, Sue, Kurt, and Linda

Three Generations

Sarah and Linda

Opening Day 2024

I cannot recall a time in the fifteen years (!!) that I have been writing this blog where I have spent a spring time where I have written less about baseball and, more specifically, the Pittsburgh Pirates than I have in this Year of Our Lord 2024.  So, on this Opening Day, the day in which all things remain possible, as JFK might have put it, let us begin.

Before getting into the Pirates, a word about what will be, if it isn't already, Rob Manfred's biggest nightmare, the Shohei Ohtani Affair.  Baseball's biggest star has found himself smack in the middle of some questionable affair concerning illegal bookmaking and betting on, maybe, possibly, baseball games to the tune of a measly $4.5 million.  The Dodgers and Ohtani have already fired the guy set to become the Fall Guy here, Ohtani's interpreter, but this thing is far from over, and Manfred has to be sick with the thought of having to suspend or even ban the sport's brightest and biggest star over these matters.

As the saying goes, we'll see how it all plays out.

Now, on to the Pirates.

Of the twenty-six players coming north with the team, here are the players about whom I am excited:

SP Mitch Keller

SP Jared Jones

RP David Bender

C   Henry Davis

SS Oneil Cruz (especially him!!)

3B Ke'Bryan Hayes

OF Brian Reynolds

OF Jack Suwinski

OF Michael A. Taylor

DH Andrew McCutchen

Ten out of twenty-six, and only two of them are starting pitchers, and therein lies the biggest question mark and/or weakness of the team: starting pitching and the lack of depth therein.   This is especially frustrating when one realizes that the team just might possess an outstanding starting pitcher, one who shows all the signs of becoming a legitimate Ace Number One starter, and he will be starting the season in Indianapolis.  I am speaking of course of Paul Skenes, last year's over all first pick in the draft.  He has pitched all of three innings in spring training, but according to all reports, he is Major League ready NOW, but the Bucs are not bringing him to Pittsburgh to start the season.  Gotta protect that service time...gotta put off that arbitration eligibility date....gotta put off that free agency eligibility season (by which time, there is a good chance that the team will already have traded him for prospects).  Yep, can't spend any money if you don't have to on the Bob Nutting Ship of Fools.  What a tiring story this has become.

In 2023, the Pirates improved by 14 games over 2022, and won 76 games.  A similar improvement in '24 would produce 90 wins and put the Pirates in the thick of playoff contention, but alas, I don't see it happening.  FanDuel set the Over/Under on Pirates wins for the season at 75.5.  I put $20 on the OVER, if only because I don't want to be rooting for them to lose as the season winds down in September.  I think 75-80 wins is about the outside limit for the team this year.  As always, when it comes to the Bucs, I hope that I'm wrong in this gloomy forecast.

My own goal is to see at least twelve games at PNC Park this season.

Oh, and I also know that we are all looking forward to 162 more of Derek Shelton's always riveting post game pressers.

Raise The Jolly Roger!!

On Katherine, Princess of Wales

 

I don't write a lot about the Royal Family of Great Britain because, frankly, I view the Monarchy as an anachronism of immense proportions, and, outside of watching a well done soap opera like "The Crown", who really cares about this family, which over the last century or so, has brought whole new meaning to the term "dysfunctional family"?

As such, I was vaguely aware that the Princess of Wales had recently undergone abdominal surgery, and then seemed to disappear from sight.  I did, however, like most other people, see the video that the Princess recently made announcing to the world that during the course of this rather serious surgery, cancer was discovered, and that she is now undergoing chemotherapy for treatment of the disease.

As person who lost his wife to cancer almost three years ago, after she had battled the disease for almost five years, and after she had undergone chemo and and other treatments for the disease over the course of her illness, watching this video of the Princess was almost personal to me.  It brought up lots of bad memories, and it made me feel a great deal of sympathy for Katherine.   I could almost see the feelings and emotions that had to be roiling within her.  Why did she need to make such a deeply personal announcement for all of the world to see?

I suppose that since she is the wife of the guy who will one day become King justifies it.  Also, perhaps the Princess wishes to serve as a role model others similarly afflicted.  

But if you can justify this public announcement on those bases, there is one other question that needs to be answered:

WHY WASN'T HER PRIG OF A  HUSBAND SITTING ALONG SIDE HER AS SHE MADE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT?

You can give me all of the British "stiff upper lip" bullshit you want, but this is inexcusable.  I have been that husband, and throughout the whole ordeal, the only place I ever wanted to be was by Marilyn's side.

Count me among the many who shall be rooting for Katherine to come through and survive this awful ordeal.