GA Russell

All eight teams played tonight. Montreal 37....Toronto 24 http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/Gam...9833781-cp.html Winnipeg 32....Hamilton 22 http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/Gam...9834066-cp.html

The Pre-Season starts tonight. If I have a chance over the next couple of weeks, I will try to listen to all eight teams' broadcasts to verify that the URLs for last year are the same for this year.

Thanks for stopping by and providing some input, Laurie!

I like Laurie too. I wish there were more widows in the position to promote their husband's music. JL, I don't get your reference to double entendre. I get that the releases selected by Laurie reflect her taste in Art's recordings. What other meaning are you thinking of? The phrase double entendre often refers to sexual imagery. Is there some sexual pun that I am too naive to pick up on? (Very possible, I know!)

Bobby Broom has a new album out called Plays for Monk. It is made up entirely of Monk tunes, except two (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Lulu's Back in Town) which he associates with Monk. I have Broom's last three cd's, and I like this one the best. I read an interview of Sonny Rollins in which he said that he told the young Jackie McLean that he sounded too much like Charlie Parker, and that everyone's goal should be to develop his own sound. Of course Broom is Sonny's guitarist, and I think it is fair to say that he has developed his own sound - both in his heavy-handed strum and the chords he likes to play. I wish more people would record albums of Monk songs. I enjoy very much Chick Corea's. I have heard cuts from Steve Lacy's Riverside album which I have liked. Not only are the songs good, but Monk had such a unique style of piano playing that anyone else who comes along can make an album with those songs and do his own thing, not worrying about deliberately trying to sound different from the original. In this case, you don't have to already be a Bobby Broom fan to enjoy the album. It's refreshing to hear the familiar songs played in a new way. By the way, the album photos are by our own Mark Sheldon!

Dave, I'm going to disagree. I think they took a hatless photo of everybody. Most of the cards were printed before spring training photos could be taken. Topps did not want the card to show the player wearing a cap from a different team. (I can think of a few exceptions. I think Gino Cimoli's 1960 card was one.) So if a player was traded or played for a first-year expansion team, the hatless photo was used. For example, after the 1960 season the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota. For 1961 the new Washington Senators and the Los Angeles Angels expansion teams were created. So in 1961, all of the players for those three teams were hatless until about card #500. In regard to Hal Woodeshick, the 1961 hatless card has him with the expansion Washington Senators. The 1962 hatless card has him with the expansion Houston Colts/Colt .45s. The Astro card (1965?) was the first year that the team was called the Astros, so Topps didn't want to show everyone wearing a cap with ".45s" on it. Another trick they used (I remember the 1959 Vic Wertz card) was to have the player tilt his cap back, so that you saw the green underside of his visor, which blocked the logo.

Great finds, Jim!

The Globe & Mail has a big scoop: David Braley, the owner of BC (and the former owner of Hamilton) paid half of the $2 million franchise fee for the two Toronto owners in 2003, and since then has covered half of the team's annual operating losses. He has also received half the profits from the 2007 Grey Cup game held in Toronto. All this time, it has been a secret, and the two commissioners haven't known anything about it! "Braley acknowledged reviewing the Argos’ books at the end of last season, at the invitation of Cynamon and Sokolowski. He sat with their executives and accountants to inspect financial records and make budget suggestions." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/bral...article1183318/ Surprisingly enough, the fact that these dealings have been secret did not violate the league's constitution. So they are going to amend the constitution to require transparency. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/coho...article1184150/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/stat...article1184166/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/bral...article1183315/

I agree, Jack! I think their first two albums, especially the second, were their best. I'm surprised that Big Al hasn't chimed in yet!

I remember Hal Woodeshick well as a reliever for the Senators. I had his bubble gum card in 1960. Here's his LA Times obituary. http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...0,1677663.story Hal Woodeshick All-Star pitcher led NL in saves in 1964 Hal Woodeshick, 76, who pitched for five major league teams during an 11-year career in which he was an All-Star and part of a World Series championship team, died Sunday in his hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Woodeshick has been in failing health for some time, according to an announcement from the Houston Astros. Known as a durable reliever, Woodeshick went 44-62 with 61 saves and a 3.56 ERA with Detroit, Cleveland, the Washington Senators, Houston (when the expansion team was known as the Colt .45s) and St. Louis. He was an original member of the Colt .45s and posted the second victory in Houston history. He later led the National League with 23 saves in 1964 as a member of the Colt .45s and was named to the National League All-Star team. Woodeshick had a quirk on the mound: Although he had an excellent pickoff move to first base, he had trouble throwing there after fielding comebackers. The problem became so pronounced that he eventually trotted toward the bag before making a soft toss. Woodeshick threw his final pitch in the majors for St. Louis, retiring Boston star Carl Yastrzemski on a grounder late in Game 6 of the 1967 World Series. The next day, the Cardinals won the title.

Bob Bogle, the co-leader of The Ventures along with Don Wilson, died Sunday. There were a couple of years, eighth and ninth grade, when I was the biggest Ventures fan in the world, and would buy their albums the day they came out. Walk Don't Run '64 was the second 45 I ever bought. I remember that they would put out four albums a year, although I once saw Duane Eddy say on TV that sometimes they had studio musicians cut the record while they were on tour. In those days, I listened to the radio a lot, but I spent my money on The Ventures. After a couple of years, I outgrew them and moved on to The Tijuana Brass for a year, and then on to jazz. I have two Ventures CDs that I can put my hands on, their greatest hits and their Surfing album. I'll have to put them on tonight. Here's his LA Times obituary. Bob Bogle dies at 75; co-founded rock band the Ventures The influential band's hits included 'Walk, Don't Run' and the theme from 'Hawaii Five-O.' Associated Press 10:25 AM PDT, June 16, 2009 TACOMA, Wash.-- Bob Bogle, lead guitarist and co-founder of the rock band the Ventures, known for 1960s instrumental hits including "Walk, Don't Run," has died. He was 75. Don Wilson, the band's other co-founder, told the News Tribune of Tacoma that Bogle became ill over the weekend and died Sunday. The band sold millions of albums and heavily influenced other rock guitarists. It was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. The hall's website hailed the Ventures as "the most successful instrumental combo in rock and roll history." "Walk, Don't Run" reached No. 2 on the Billboard chart in 1960, and a revised version, "Walk, Don't Run '64," reached No. 8 in 1964. Among the band's other hits were "Perfidia" and the theme from "Hawaii Five-O." The band got its start in 1958 in Tacoma. Bogle initially played lead and bass and Wilson played rhythm guitar. They were soon joined by Nokie Edwards, another guitarist, and drummer Howie Johnson, later replaced by Mel Taylor. "Our aspirations were to pick up nothing heavier than a guitar," Wilson said last year. "But it just mushroomed into something where we became internationally known." The Ventures were particularly popular in Japan, where Wilson and Bogle played as a duo during their first tour in 1962 because the promoter couldn't afford to pay the other two band members. The two Americans made such an impression, Wilson recalled last year, that when the band came back in 1964, "there were 6,000 people at the airport." He said he didn't realize at first that the Japanese fans were there to see the Ventures.

This one has Ezz-Thetic on it, which I humbly consider to be one of Prestige's most important recordings. Of course, YMMV.

paps, I have no objection at all to the obit you have posted. Perhaps the obit that was printed in my paper (The News & Observer) was altered by the paper to add their opinion of the man.

paps, the survey says that only 21% consider themselves liberal. Every major metro paper I'm aware of is liberal, except Rupert Murdoch's neocon papers. In this poll, the conservatives came in first place with 40%. I don't think it's reasonable for you to link the middle (the moderates) with the distant last place group. I don't object to there being liberal papers catering to the 21%. But I see the entire industry to cater to that group, and that group is too small. Like I said, they wonder why their sales are a disaster, while they sneer at the largest group, 40% of the market. And when I say "sneer", I'm not just referring to the editorial page. A ton of criticism has been poured on the New York Times over the years, but I have long wondered why the AP has gotten off scott free. As an example, the AP obituary of Jerry Falwell made it clear that they considered him not a respected leader but rather someone whom they were glad to be rid of.

Here's a Gallup Poll out today that says that "40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal." http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conserva...ical-Group.aspx I point this out not to debate the merits of each position, but only to support my longstanding view that newspapers are selling what people don't want to buy. The papers are liberal, while the people are conservative.

Well, for reasons unknown I have the CBS affiliate today. So all is well. As I have stated elsewhere, I'm not a television watcher, and I could have gotten along without CBS. As it is, I get along without PBS, whose station is too far way to pick up here. However, I can imagine that there might be an NFL game in the fall on CBS that I might want to watch. As it happens, today is the 24 Hours of LeMans, and I've spent the day listening to it on the internet at radiolemans.com, and in the car on Sirius. Given the choice of missing one or the other, I would rather miss the Stanley Cup finals than LeMans, so I'm happy.

Thanks Quincy. I got them all back except the CBS station, which has the best signal of them all. It is after 1:30 am here, so maybe they are off the air doing something. I'll try again tomorrow.

Thirty years later, still the City of Champions!

You won't believe this. I have had the converter box for over a year, and everything has worked fine. Tonight, the high-number ex-UHF stations and their digital sub-stations came in fine, so if I wanted to I could watch The Rockford Files, but the NBC, CBS and ABC stations were off the air, at least as far as my TV was concerned. This meant, of course, that I was unable to watch the Penguins win the Stanley Cup. It was the only hockey game all year I wanted to watch! Too bad the NHL radio broadcasts are not on the internet.

Woody Held died yesterday. I recall him as a very solid ballplayer. His obit doesn't say that he ever played in an all-star game, so I guess he didn't. Any Cleveland fans here? Here's his LA Times obituary: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...0,6531920.story Woodie Held, 14-year major league ballplayer, dies at 77 June 12, 2009 Woodie Held Ballplayer was traded for Maris Woodie Held, 77, who played 14 years in the major leagues and was traded for future home run king Roger Maris, died Thursday in Dubois, Wyo., after a long bout with cancer, the Cleveland Indians announced. Held played for seven American League teams, including the 1966 World Series champion Baltimore Orioles and the California Angels in 1967 and '68. But he spent most of his career with Cleveland after being acquired June 15, 1958, from the Kansas City Athletics in a multiplayer trade for Maris. A year later, Maris was sent in another big trade to the New York Yankees -- the team that originally signed Held and brought him to the major leagues in the early 1950s. (Maris went on to hit 61 home runs in 1961, then a record for homers in a season.) Held primarily played shortstop, but he also filled in at second base, third base and all three outfield positions. His best season was his first full year in Cleveland, 1959, when he set career highs in home runs (29), runs scored (82) and RBIs (71) while batting .251. Overall, he hit .240 with 179 homers and 559 RBIs in 1,390 games from 1954 through 1969. Woodson George Held was born March 25, 1932, in Sacramento. After retiring from baseball, he moved to Wyoming and ran various businesses.

Happy Birthday 2009 Kevin!

How could I forget Carla Bley??? I voted for her as Jazz Artist of the Year! And Maria Schneider's name came to me earlier this evening as well. Rooster, maybe you and I are hooked up with ESP!

I heard a track this morning on Sirius. I was a little surprised because they don't often play songs without hummable melodies.

Good luck, TTK!

Aggie, you're giving the rest of us some ammo, whenever we feel the need to humiliate you!