GA Russell

I've been to four Grey Cup games - '78, '79, '85 and '96. The '78 game in Toronto at CNE Stadium was the coldest. I remember seeing Bryan Hall (quoted above) during the game and he was miserable! I still remember the look on his face! But the '96 game is the one that will be remembered, because that was the one with all the snow in Hamilton. It was a great game, but unfortunately was decided by a bad call right in front of me. Doug Flutie fumbled on a quarterback sneak before he reached the first down line. The refs gave the Argos both the ball and the first down. They went on to score a TD, as I recall the one that won the game. Reggie Pleasant played very briefly in that game for Edmonton. The year before he and Damon Allen came to my Grey Cup party, so I was rooting for Edmonton that game. edit for typo

Jackie Parker died yesterday. I had his bubble gum card when I was a kid. When Doug Flutie was named the Most Outstanding Player every year, people were saying that he was the greatest player in the history of the Canadian league. But the old timers said, No, that would be Jackie Parker. Here is his obituary from The Toronto Globe & Mail. It doesn't mention that when he was finished playing college ball, the Edmonton executives met with him in a motel room and laid out $25,000. on the bed, and said, "Sign the contract and it's yours." That was a huge amount of money for a pro football rookie in 1954. Jackie Parker passes away JOHN CHAPUT Canadian Press Regina — Former CFL great Jackie Parker, who starred on both offence and defence and helped bring three Grey Cups to the Edmonton Eskimos, has died at the age of 74. There is the utility that spawned the cliché "Jack of all trades, master of none." Then there is the incomparable versatility that was Parker, master of every facet of football and in many minds the greatest player in the history of the Canadian game. He was a sensational running back, pass receiver and quarterback, an excellent defensive back, a capable punter and reliable place kicker. As for intangible qualities, he made huge plays in clutch situations, had exceptional perceptivity and instinct, and combined the confidence of a natural leader with the deference of an ideal team player. As a sports idol and celebrity, he responded to the public's adulation with friendly modesty. "I had an advantage as a quarterback because I had him as a receiver," says Don Getty, former premier of Alberta and Mr. Parker's teammate on the Edmonton Eskimos for eight seasons. "Jackie was the best receiver I ever had. He had unbelievable hands and, being a quarterback himself, he knew there was only a brief time available to get open before the quarterback would go down. "Jackie joined the Eskimos [in 1954] a year before I did and at first he wasn't an accomplished passer. His throws would wobble somewhat, but he would roll out and either dump the ball off to a receiver or kill you with his running. My rookie year was a little goofy in that I was a Canadian coming from [the University of Western Ontario in] London, but [head coach] Pop Ivy told me I was the best passer he'd ever seen. Eventually Pop would send Jackie and I off by ourselves during practice and tell us, 'You two go down there and Don, you show him how to throw a spiral.' Within a year Jackie was throwing as well as anyone in the league — except that he didn't have anyone like himself to throw to." Although he would become a superlative performer in Canada over a 13-season playing career (1954-65 and 1968), nine of them with the Eskimos, the young Mr. Parker's arrival in Edmonton didn't cause much of a stir. Raised in Tennessee, he starred at Jones County Junior College in Ellisville, Miss., for two years before transferring to Mississippi State University. There he led all American college football in scoring with 120 points, including 16 touchdowns, in 1952 and was selected both All-American and Academic All-American in 1953. Mr. Parker was not drafted by any National Football League team, however, so he turned pro with the Edmonton Eskimos of the Western Interprovincial Football Union. At the time — four years before the WIFU and the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (Big Four) officially became the Canadian Football League, and seven years before interlocking play between Eastern and Western teams was initiated — Canadian teams could pay American stars virtually on a par with their NFL counterparts. In fact, Edmonton's primary quarterback in 1954 was another rookie, Bernie Faloney, who had been the first-round draft choice of the San Francisco 49ers. Mr. Parker made a tremendous impression in camp on at least one person, but not for his football prowess. "Here's this spindly-legged guy with huge hands, curly blonde hair and ears that stuck out from the side of his head," says Bryan Hall, who has covered Eskimos football since 1953 and has been their radio play-by-play man since 1968. "The first thing I thought was, 'Jeez, the guy's a dead-ringer for Bing Crosby.'" The skinny lower limbs inspired Mr. Parker's enduring nickname of "Spaghetti Legs," although surviving film of the era suggests that his speed and subtle moves made tackling him like trying to grip freshly cooked pasta. In his rookie campaign of 1954, he led the Eskimos in rushing with 925 yards on only 117 carries for a gaudy 7.9-yard average, was the team's best passer with 36 completions in 55 attempts for 558 yards, caught nine passes for 115 yards, scored 13 touchdowns (10 running, three receiving), punted 49 times for a 41-yard average, and intercepted four passes on defence. Yet that exceptional debut season would be instantly relegated to footnote status by Mr. Parker's role in the most famous single play to occur in the spectacular annals of the Grey Cup game. Montreal, prohibitive favourites for the 1954 national final in Toronto, held a 25-20 lead (when touchdowns counted for five points, not six) and threatened to seal the victory by driving inside the Edmonton 20-yard line with three minutes remaining. Then the shocking drama unfolded: Alouettes quarterback Sam Etcheverry gave the ball to halfback Chuck Hunsinger, who tried to sweep left but was quickly sandwiched between Edmonton's Ted Tully and Rollie Prather. In a moment of panic, Mr. Hunsinger pushed out an awkward two-handed toss that might have been an attempted lateral or, as he claimed after the game, a forward pass. The ball bounced into Mr. Parker's eager hands and the rookie tore up the field for a touchdown. Bob Dean kicked the convert to put the Eskimos ahead 26-25. Montreal couldn't penetrate beyond midfield on its last two possessions, and Edmonton won its first national championship. "I don't remember much about the play and the run, except that I was so damned tired and so sore," Mr. Parker would say decades later of his 90-yard gallop to glory. "I didn't think the play was anything special, that people would remember it." Many considered the Eskimos' triumph a fluke and didn't discern the powerhouse of offensive talent that was being assembled in Edmonton. Mr. Faloney was drafted into military service in the United States and would return to the CFL, but not with Edmonton. Mr. Parker became the quarterback until Mr. Getty was seasoned, then went to halfback along with Rollie Miles, a versatile offensive performer and even better defensive player. Rounding out the five-man Split-T formation backfield were two superlative fullbacks: Normie Kwong (now Alberta's Lieutenant-Governor), "The China Clipper," who was rarely thrown for a loss, and Johnny Bright, who was acquired from Calgary late in the 1954 campaign for $350 after the Stampeders overused him at linebacker and he had injured both shoulders. "He was really our leader," Mr. Getty says, "yet when I was the quarterback he would never interrupt me in the huddle or suggest a play. Nothing would undermine a team's confidence in a quarterback as much as that, yet never in our eight years together did he do it." These Eskimos had a simple game plan: run the ball into their opponents' guts, down their throats, and up their anatomies. Never was their relentless ground attack more overpowering than in their 1955 and 1956 Grey Cup rematches with the Alouettes. In 1955 at Vancouver, Mr. Etcheverry threw for a Grey Cup record 508 yards while Mr. Parker had a modest 125 yards on 8-for-16 passing, but the Eskimos set records with 62 rushing attempts and 438 yards rushing en route to a 34-19 decision. The 1956 final in Toronto was even more devastating. "After we won the West," Mr. Getty recalls, "it was so cold in Edmonton that we headed east early and practised for a few days at an old equestrian barn in London. Pop Ivy installed a "first sound" offence, where the ball was snapped on the first word out of my mouth. I'd call the play, we'd be out of the huddle and on the line within about eight seconds, and we'd go. We ran more plays per minute than anybody even before this, and this really made Montreal work hard. "Our backfield timed the moves off our guards' hands touching down and I either handed the ball or faked it to every running back on nearly every play. Then there were potential laterals and passes to deal with. You couldn't make that work except with the quality of athletes we had." Montreal hung in and had a 20-19 edge early in the third quarter before the dizzying pace had its inevitable result. Edmonton waltzed home 50-27, forfeiting its last convert attempt because the referees had run out of footballs. The year-old record of 438 yards rushing was surpassed with 456 on a mind-boggling 83 attempts. Mr. Parker contributed 131 yards on 19 carries with two touchdowns, another touchdown on a 10-yard reception, a 67-yard punt single, and an interception that snuffed an Alouettes' drive on the Eskimos' goal line. By then, Mr. Parker's reputation was established. He was named the West's most valuable player six times in a seven-season stretch (1956-62) and earned the Schenley Award as the nation's outstanding player in 1957, 1958 and 1960. He was a Western all-star in all of his first eight seasons — five times as a quarterback, thrice as a running back. When Edmonton was without a place kicker in 1958, he added that task for four years and made good on 66 per cent of his field-goal attempts in an era when those were a 50-50 proposition. "At least when Getty was playing quarterback, you knew that Parker wouldn't touch the ball on every play," says Norm Fieldgate, a 14-year defensive veteran of the B.C. Lions who, like Parker, started his pro career in 1954. "They were hard to read as it was, but when Parker was quarterback, you didn't know what they were going to do. There was one game where a guy came up to me just after we'd finished playing and asked me why I was smiling. "I touched Parker today," I told him. "Once he got outside on you, unless you had a good angle on him, you were dead meat. And he was hard as nails, really tough. He had to be to do all that and last as long as he did." That durability was all the more remarkable in light of his hobby of staging marathon card games, with spirited refreshment, usually at a hotel adjacent to the City Centre Airport, often prior to home games at Clarke Stadium. "He loved to play cards," says Mr. Hall. "He'd whip your ass at gin; that was his favourite. Jackie would get together with some teammates and cronies, sometimes for several days, and they'd drink, relax and enjoy themselves — but no broads! I never saw any women there. Jackie loved to gamble and be with the boys, but he never messed around. "On game day, after playing all night, around 9:15 in the morning he'd say, 'Last hand, boys, Pop'll get upset if we're not on time for pregame [meetings].' Jackie had an unbelievable constitution; you never saw him slurry or drunk. He never did anything to endanger himself, his team or his organization. What he did do, maybe, was cause problems for other guys who couldn't keep up with him." Mr. Parker played 209 games (including postseason) and missed only 17 because of injury in an era when schedules were compressed into four months (not six), playing two games on a long weekend was commonplace, Western finals were best-of-three (not single-game) affairs, and rosters ranged from 28 to 32 players (as opposed to the current 42). Mr. Parker played in only one more Grey Cup after 1956, losing the 1960 final 16-6 to the Ottawa Rough Riders. As stars aged and retired, the Eskimos failed to find new talent of such stature. Mr. Parker was traded in 1963 to the Toronto Argonauts and played three more years before his legs wore out and he retired, only to be lured back into action with B.C. for the last half of the 1968 campaign. After his playing days, he settled down in Edmonton and enjoyed life as an executive with Ipsco, the analyst for radio coverage of Eskimos games, with golf course management, and as Edmonton's head coach for a 3½-year stretch (1983-87) when he helped rebuild a crumbling dynasty, took the team to a first-place finish and Grey Cup berth in his last year, and set the stage for a new era of prosperity. "He came to Edmonton from Mississippi and had that drawl and never lost it," Mr. Hall says, "and he had a style about him. You never heard him yell or say a bad word about anyone. About the angriest or most emphatic he'd ever get was if, for instance, I'd tell him that what he said was a crock, he'd respond, 'Weh-yull, damn-fire, Bryan, ah'm tellin' yuh, that's whut's gonna happen. Yew mark mah words. Yew listen tuh me, 'cuz ah'm tellin' yuh.' I never heard him use the F-word, never even heard him call anyone sonofabitch." Mr. Getty echoes the memory and rounds out the portrait of what made Mr. Parker an institution and a hero. "People instantly liked him. He made friends because his intent was to be friendly and show it. And yes, he was a fast-living card player but still a superb father who found time for his children. I hope people realize what a sensational, feeling, laughing, kind, thoughtful, talented, person he was. He gave so much to football. "While we were playing, I worked full-time for Imperial Oil while he was a part-time salesman and he told me, 'Don, you work and play football. If I put the effort you do into building up my business, I know it will hurt my football. I have to make football number one.' It was tough for him to have a job and be as great as he was because he didn't want to water down his performance." If anything watered down Mr. Parker's performance, it was his unique trait of being so versatile at such a high level. He could have been, but wasn't, the CFL's greatest quarterback, greatest running back, or greatest receiver. Just maybe its greatest player. John Dickerson Parker was born on Jan. 1, 1932. in Knoxville, Tenn. He died yesterday in Edmonton. He was 74. edit for typo

My most recent Babbington recordings are Vols. 1 and 2 of Mose Allison's The Mose Chronicles. Babbington does an excellent job, although I wouldn't say that these two CDs are prime Mose.

Many thanks, my friends! Yes, I'm old but not that old! I've read a number of times that you shouldn't put your date of birth on the internet because identity thieves can get at it, so I just put down the earliest year I could. Besides, we all have a pretty good idea of how old each other is, I think. Shane, Damon Allen came to my Grey Cup party in 1995, so I'll be rooting for him and the Argos as long as they are in the hunt. But I've enjoyed listening to the Rider games on CKRM on the internet the past two months, so I wish them well too. I'm just hoping for exciting ballgames, which the Canadian league usually provides. I had a quiet birthday. I went to church with a nice reception of a large selection of homemade cakes because our new bishop came to visit. I spent the afternoon smoking a Cayman Island cigar while listening to the Toronto Argonauts play the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in a good game. (Toronto won.) In regard to presents, I did not receive any CDs as I had expected. However, I did receive two nice checks which I have spent already. My stereo system's CD player died on me about a month ago. I can't complain; I had it over ten years. Yesterday I went to BJ's Warehouse to pick up a replacement, and found that they don't sell CD players anymore - only DVD players (which also play CDs). So I picked up the least expensive model, a Toshiba. It sounds much better than the Technics which I had before. So live and learn - a new inexpensive DVD player sounds better than an old CD player. I also spent ten dollars on something I never needed before. I don't play my LPs very often. Most of them are packed away. I usually play LPs only in December when I break out my Christmas albums. Well last December I noticed that the "rubber" turntable platter mat on my old Technics turntable had warped! It was causing the part of the record above the warp to rise almost half an inch above the platter. So yesterday, in anticipation of breaking out my LPs again in a few weeks, I ordered a new turntable platter mat. And the remainder of my birthday money goes to my credit card bill covering the Concord blowout sale. I still have quite a number I haven't opened yet, including the Bill Evans Riverside box. So thanks again for your good wishes! I hope everyone's year will be as blessed as mine has been.

Happy Birthday!

Saskatchewan Roughriders 30....Calgary Stampeders 21 Shane, what happened??? The Stamps had a 21-5 lead with a minute to go in the second quarter, and they never scored again. This is the second straight year that the Stamps lost the Western semi-final at home. I can expect that the natives will be restless when discussing Burris in the offseason. edit for typo

My pick this month is Sergio Mendes - Pure Bossa Nova. It appears to be a compilation of recordings he made in Brazil before he formed Brasil '65. One of my favorite albums is Cannonball's Bossa Nova, which Cannonball recorded with Mendes's working group at the time in 1962. I'm hoping this new release contains some items from that group, which was called Bossa Rio.

Happy Birthday!

I opened up my copy yesterday and listened to it four times. I'd like to continue to hear it for about a week before I make up my mind. It's different.

Yes, I guess that's true. The buzz on this one was along the lines of...If you liked French Connection, you'll like Seven Ups. Same director (as I recall), same actor, etc. It wasn't as good, but it wasn't bad in its own right.

Anybody ever see The Seven Ups? I enjoyed it in a theatre, but haven't seen it since. As I recall, the entire publicity was built around the car chase.

I remember seeing Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers do a song a Shindig. I liked it. I was sorry that I never saw anything of theirs in the record stores. To my knowledge they never received airplay in the US. Shortly thereafter their bass player left to join The Searchers, who IMO should also be in the HOF.

We didn't regularly watch the show, but I can remember singing along once to... When you're down and out, Lift up your head and shout. There's going to be a great day! Mitch had a peculiar way of directing. He stuck his elbows out, made fists of his hands, kept his hands close to his chest, and moved them abruptly to the beat up and down six inches.

I don't see your shooting him with your .357 listed among your options.

I have been listening to my old cassettes for the past month, and in the past week or two I have listened to a couple of Gino Vanelli albums for the first time in a number of years - Gist of the Gemini and A Pauper in Paradise. I also have his first album, which as I recall was called Crazy Life, but that's an LP which is boxed away. I think they're enjoyable enough, and for my money a lot better than most of the popular music that was being made at that time.

No one has mentioned The Dave Clark Five. I enjoyed the DC5 when I was in high school because they didn't try to sound like the Beatles. My favorite of theirs was Can't You See That She's Mine.

I'm not a participant, but as I understand it the guys doing the Blindfold Tests make CD-Rs of songs they like, mail them to each other, and challenge the recipents to guess who the artists are. If that's not right, maybe I ought to open one of those BFT threads and find out!

It appears to me that all of the participants of this thread except Alexander believe that the people here who participate in the BFTs are unethical. Am I right?

Of course! How could I have forgotten! Still same choice for me, online stores, but without doubt I got more CDs from Concord and its blowout sale than anywhere else this year - 46.

Years ago he hipped me to a cartridge that made a significant but inexpensive improvement to my turntable's performance. When I am in the market for a new system, I plan to give them every consideration.

Your Music for me.

When I joined BMG ten years ago, I studied a website which was devoted solely to the record clubs from a consumer's point of view. It said that the standard recording contract signed by the artists calls for the artist to receive one-half the usual royalty for discs sold by the record clubs, except that they were to receive no royalty for discs given free by the record clubs. I take that to mean that the artists receive one-half royalty for each Your Music sale. However, when BMG offers "Buy one, get two free, then unlimited $2.99", the artist receives one-half royalty for the discs sold at $18.99 and $2.99, but the poor guys who were arbitrarily selected to be the two free CDs don't get paid anything.

Just got this. No warning. "Thank you for keeping your Music Queue updated! Unfortunately, Kurt Rosenwinkel: Deep Song is no longer available and has been removed from your Music Queue."

Adam, the Harper, Babasin/Enevoldsen and a third were available in the Concord blowout sale. I have to think that they will be made available again after the invenotry is relocated to southern California.

I suppose it wouldn't be right for me to not fill you in. There was a beer heavily advertised on television called Busch Bavarian beer. Today it is known simply as Busch beer, and it is the sponsor of the #2 auto racing circuit in the US, sort of the minor league for the #1 circuit, which is called the Nascar Nextel Cup series.