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Archive for 2013

Buff Biographies: Eddie Knoblauch, LF

May 10, 2013

Excerpt from “Your 1948 Houston Buffs, Dixie Champions: Brief Biographies By Morris Frank and Adie Marks (1948).

Eddie Knoblauch
1947 Houston Buffs

Lefty hitting Eddie Knoblauch was one of those Buffs that always made me wonder: How did the guy miss getting so much as a single time at bat in the big leagues? I mean, the guy knew the strike zone as well as anyone I ever saw. He could draw walks like the great Eddie Yost and run the bases and handle the outfield with the best of them. He had no power, but he was a great contact-hitting table setter for 15 years as a mostly high level club minor leaguer. (1938-1942, 1946-1955: 2,543 hits, 20 HR, and a .313 career batting average.)

Houston fans enjoyed and suffered from a love/hate relationship with Eddie Knoblauch. He was a Buff for 5 years (1942, 1946-1949), but then went over to the dark side in 1949 in deals that saw him also play for two other Texas League clubs at Dallas and then Shreveport. Eddie finished the last 7 seasons of his career (1949-1955) bedeviling the Buffs for teams at Dallas. Shreveport, Tulsa, and Beaumont several times over by becoming the guy who could beat your club in the 9th with either a 2-run bloop single or a bases loaded walk. – It was “pick your poison” time when Eddie Knoblauch came to bat in a late game pinch.

Eddie was the uncle of Chuck Knoblauch, who enjoyed both some good and some haunted seasons with both the Twins and the Yankees. He was also the brother of Ray Knoblauch, the long-time successful baseball coach at Bellaire High School in Houston.

Eddie Knoblauch died about 25 years ago, but neither I nor Baseball Reference.Com remembers the date. In fact, the outstanding Internet source even seems to think that Eddie Knoblauch is still alive, which he is not. When I am able to confirm the exact time and place of his death, I will include it here. I do remember that we was buried somewhere in the rural Austin-San Antonio area.

Oh, yes. Back to the question of why Eddie never got a shot at the big leagues, but I think we all know the most probable answers. For one thing, there were still only 16 MLB clubs back in the late 1940s and 1950s. For another, Knoblauch played the entire first half of his career, his prospective years, as either a farm hand in the talent rich Cardinals organization, or else, doing military duty in World War II. It wasn’t an easy time for all cream to find the top. The big league clubs owned all the player options through the reserve clause. Good players could either take what the clubs decided for them – or go home. Eddie Knoblauch, like a lot of other players from those spike-free negotiating days, did just that. He took what he could get and stayed in the game as a career Texas Leaguer.

Thanks for what you did, Eddie. You made the game an exciting thing to watch.

Tags:Eddie Knoblauch
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Amazing Duo: Adie Marks and Morris Frank

May 9, 2013

Excerpt from “Your 1948 Houston Buffs, Dixie Champions: Brief Biographies By Morris Frank and Adie Marks (1948).

As a result of those two columns I’ve done this week on the work of Morris Frank and Adie Marks, this very important question came to me today as a comment from Anthony “Tony” Cavender: “Bill: Who drew those great illustrations?”

Adie Marks

His name was Adie Marks, Tony. Adie Marks did the artwork and Morris Frank did the script for their 1948 Houston Buffs autograph book of player sketches and summaries. Both were involved with the Houston Buffs as friends and working supporters of club president Allen Russell and beyond Russell’s tenure to the end of the team’s existence in 1961. Frank handled the public address duties at Buff Stadium and Marks handled the team’s advertising. Both used their differing abilities to promote the welfare of Houston baseball. Marks just did his work more quietly, but perhaps, more measurable over time.

It was Adie Marks, who continued his support of Houston baseball as the advertising man for Judge Roy Hofheinz and the Houston Astros. In those times, Marks was credited with coming up with the words and phrases “Astrodomain” and “Eighth Wonder of the World” as usable descriptors for the world’s first covered athletic stadium. Those entries are what I mean by work that is “more measurable over time”.

It’s not how much you say, but what you say that gets remembered.

I was privileged to have met and lunched with Adie Marks during the very early years of the 21st century. He’s the one who gave me a copy of his 1948 Buffs autograph book. He was a nice guy, fun to spend time with, and a dynamo for ideas on how we could do a better job of promoting baseball in Houston. Unfortunately, Adie Marks died on August 31, 2006 at the age of 91. He went out as he lived – working all day as a Houston ad man.

Morris Frank

Morris Frank was an absolute force as a Houston sports figure during the 1940’s and 50’s, especially. He wrote a column for the Houston Chronicle and he did all the greeting and announcing of lineups over the PA system at Buff Stadium. If there ever was another voice that handled those duties for the Buffs, he has been long ago forgotten by people like me. Morris Frank and his East Texas twang was – the ballpark voice of the Houston Buffaloes – and the Master of Ceremonies at any sports banquet in Houston that was worthy of holding.

Like Adie Marks, Morris Frank was a close friend and strong working associate of Buffs president Allen Russell – and another person who figured strongly in Russell’s ability to put together a winning business team. Like Marks, Frank was also a charitable man who volunteered his talents to a number of local causes that called upon him for help.

Today we even have a Houston Library branch named for Morris Frank. We ought to have one ,or a school, named for Adie Marks too – and maybe even an avenue for Allen Russell. They were all part of a generational force that has helped to make Houston a better city today.

In a post-mortem column on Morris Frank, friend and fellow writer Bob Bowman closed with the following:

“On July 16, 1975, the day after Morris passed away, the Chronicle published an editorial praising him for his qualities. The editorial concluded with these words: “Will Rogers has often been quoted as saying he never met a man he didn’t like. That was the way it was with Morris Frank, but there was more. With Morris, there never was a person he didn’t love.”

Here’s are links to two Internet pieces on the lives of each man:

Adie Marks ~

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-deaths/article/Adie-Marks-creative-adman-with-knack-for-1496472.php

Morris Frank ~

http://www.texasescapes.com/AllThingsHistorical/Morris-Frank-BB705.htm

Tags:adie marks, Morris Frank
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How Some Baseball History Gets Lost

May 6, 2013

Excerpt from “Your 1948 Houston Buffs, Dixie Champions: Brief Biographies By Morris Frank and Adie Marks (1948).

Any historical artifact can get lost, but it’s also true that the chances increase when people get the idea that an item has a personal monetary value that is more important than the item’s pertinence to the preservation of a fuller and more accurate portrayal of history.

So it is with baseball items. Ever since fans fell in love with the romance of finding a 1951 Mickey Mantle rookie card, or an even rarer limited production early 19th century tobacco card of Honus Wagner, or maybe stumbling upon a baseball signed by Babe Ruth, hoarding of things has gone crazy. As a result, some items get sentenced to eons of time in attics, basements, and vaults for decades, only to be later thrown away by descendants, or else. put in garage sales or transferred mindlessly to some other storage space.

I will offer today a modest example from the Houston area.

About 2005, while I was serving as Board President of the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame, we learned through a TBHOF supporter that Mrs. Eleanor Mazar, the widow of former Houston Buffs pitcher Pete Mazar, was in possession of an item that “might” be important to us.

Important? I’ll say! According to our very reliable informer, Mrs. Jo Russell, the widow of late Houston Buffs President Allen Russell, the Mazars somehow had ended up with the only known 78 rpm record copy of the 1947 Houston Buffs Dixie Series Championship Banquet, the first in a long history of Houston winter baseball banquets.

Wow! At first it looked easy. Lead pipe cinch easy. Jo Russell and Eleanor Mazar were on good terms. All we wanted was the opportunity to record the albums with modern technology. In her contacts with Mrs. Russell, Mrs. Mazar seemed eager to help. When we tried to get it done, however, a different wind began to blow.

Appointments to meet and discuss ways of doing the recordings got cancelled by Mrs. Mazar for other reasons. She apparently had been talking with her family and they reportedly had some concern that the records might get broken while they were in our possession. We understood. And we began to explore ways of just coming into the Mazar home and doing the transcription recording on site.

Before we could get anything done, Mrs. Mazar’s poor health caused us all to back way off the idea until that situation clarified. Sadly, it clarified on the extreme downside when Mrs. Mazar passed away on January 20, 2006 at the age of 82. We never found another opportunity through any other surviving family member to pursue the issue.

And more time has passed.

Those historic records now are either one of four places: (1) trashed; (2) sold; (3) given away; or (4) family stored again elsewhere, and just waiting for the first person who comes along with a “what’s this?” attitude to find and trash them. They would not have made anyone rich, but Houston’s baseball history is all the poorer for their loss.

If there’s anyone out there from the Pete Mazar family that happens to read this column, please get in touch with me at

houston.buff37@gmail.com

… if you share our interest in making sure these items are copied for history. The Houston Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) will help you get the work done, if it is still possible, and we will make sure that your mother, Eleanor, and your father, Pete, get all the credit they so justly deserve.

Pete Mazar was another of my childhood Houston Buff heroes and I would love to see him and his family be recognized as the people who were responsible for the survival of this important item.

Thank you.

Tags:baseball artifact collecting
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SABR Celebrates @ Skeeters Game

May 5, 2013

Constellation Field
Sugar Land, Texas
Twilight Time
Saturday, May 4, 2013

On the coolest day ever registered for May 4th in the Houston area, a nice size group from our local Larry Dierker SABR chapter descended upon Constellation Field to eat, drink, and be merry on a Saturday night as the Sugar Land Skeeters rallied to take a tough 5-4 win over the Lancaster Barnstormers. It was the fourth straight win for the Skeeters over the Barnstormers and also the club’s seventh straight victory in a row.

The 5-4 win on 5/04 didn’t come easy. Trailing 4-2 n the bottom of the 6th, it took a three-run blast to left off the bat of Fernando Perez to give the Skeeters the final score edge that they would hold over the last third of the game. And all the fans went home cool and happy.

Deacon Jones of the Skeeters (center) came down to greet and chat with a couple of other Houston baseball icons, Larry Miggins and Mare "Red" Mahoney.

Deacon Jones of the Skeeters (center) came down to greet and chat with a couple of other Houston baseball icons, Larry Miggins and Marie “Red” Mahoney.

Mike Vance and his friend Ann seemed to be having a great time.

Mike Vance and his friend Ann Shelton seemed to be having a great time.

Tal Smith of the Skeeters also dropped in to say hello. Here he is with Larry Miggins.

There were more SABR members present than I could catch with the camera, but here are the ones who did not escape the digital surveillance of a fun night with some good friends and great baseball people:

Harold Jones and SABR Chapter President Bob Dorrill.

Sweet Peggy Dorrill

Chris Chestnut and his cute, cute daughter.

Mellow Marsha Franty

….. and Smilin’ Bob Stevens.

SABR stands for the “Society for American Baseball Research”.

About SABR …

Contrary to popular belief, SABR is not an organizations simply for those who love statistics or for collecting all the math nerds in the world in one place. Most of us are simply baseball people who are dedicated to the story of the game and all of its rich narrative history. We come from all walks of life and our interests in the game of baseball are as variable as there are numbers of us.

Our Houston Chapter is named for Larry Dierker, the earliest of all living and present Houston Astros icons. Larry is also a member of our chapter, as is another high-flying icon named Jimmy Wynn and former Houston Buff Larry Miggins, one of the seven surviving participants in Jackie Robinson’s first professional game for Montreal in 1946.

Membership in SABR will cost you $65 per year, or $45 per year if you are either 65 or over or 30 and younger. but you will get a whole basket of good baseball stuff for the money, including free publications on baseball history that come by mail and, in Houston, a monthly meeting with other SABR members to hear presentations by some of the top local figures in the game.

In 2014, our Houston Chapter will also be hosting the SABR National Convention and also publishing a superlative research book on Early Houston Baseball: 1861-1961.

We also sponsor and play in the local vintage base ball circles by the 1860 rules as the Houston Babies, the name once given to the city’s first professional team. Have you ever played by the old rules? With no gloves? And in a game where balls caught on one bounce are valued as outs? You would love it. It’s the closest thing to the sandlot experience of childhood that any of us could have ever hoped to reprise.

We’d loved to have you join us as a SABR member too, and you can pick from there what’s for you, and what’s not. So, if you think you may be interested in joining SABR, please call or e-mail our chapter president, Bob Dorrill, for more information. Bob’s contact info is as follows:

Phone: 281-630-7151

E-Mail: bdorrill@aol.com

Just call Bob Dorrill . Bob’s a no pressure guy.

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A Couple of Baseball Queens

May 4, 2013

While doing a little IMDB surfing research on the major actors from the ABC television series “Once Upon A Time”, I learned that Lana Parrilla, the actress who plays “The Evil Queen”, is the daughter of Sam Parrilla, a career minor league outfielder who also earned short time MLB service as a Philadelphia Phillie back in 1970.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/parrisa01.shtml

My thoughts jumped immediately to another daughter of baseball, former Speaker of the House Nancy (D’Alesandro) Pelosi. Her father was Thomas D’Alesandro, the Mayor of Baltimore who successfully fought to acquire the St. Louis Browns for his city so that he could bring them home in 1954 as the reincarnation of the half century-lost Baltimore Orioles.

“I AM (or was) THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE!!!”

Then I had to think deeper: What else, besides having baseball-connected fathers, does this former Speaker of the House really have in common with an actress whose major claim to minor TV fame is playing the role of “The Evil Queen” in a clever tale of story book characters now gathering in reality in a little New England town called, what else, “Storybrooke”?

We all have to decide for ourselves, but let’s see. ….

(1) The “Evil Queen” only cares about her own needs. Nancy Pelosi only has the same retirement and health care plan as the other members of Congress.

(2) The “Evil Queen” possesses the magical power to instantly travel anywhere she wishes. As Speaker, Nancy Pelosi had a private jet that we taxpayers provided for her regular and/or whimsical flights home or anywhere.

(3) The “Evil Queen” destroys whole villages when the people do not give her what she wants. Nancy Pelosi treats the same situation by apparently staring into space without blinking.

(4) The “Evil Queen” rips people’s hearts out. Nancy Pelosi has no fear of that sad fate ever happening to her.

(5) The “Evil Queen” just lies and lies and lies. – Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, just does what she does what she does.

“I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag, of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.”

Tags:Nancy Pelosi Parody
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Bill Gilbert: Astros Off to Rough Start in April

May 3, 2013

Houston Astros 2013
~ Not exactly the Cat’s Meow and All That Jazz. ~

Seasoned observer Bill Gilbert of the Rogers Hornsby Chapter of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research, is our guest columnist at The Pecan Park Eagle this morning. Today’s thoughts are Gilbert’s first monthly analysis of the Houston Astros’ first season in the American League. We shall be looking forward to his next take on the fate of our local big league baseballers about this same time in June.

Bill Gilbert

“Astros Off to Rough Start in April” by Bill Gilbert, SABR: The first month for the Astros in the American League was not a good one. There were a few bright spots such as a 9-1 win in Yankee Stadium and taking two series from the Seattle Mariners but the Astros were on the losing end in most of the other games finishing with a record of 8-19 for the month.

At the end of last season, I put together a blueprint to get the team back to respectability and then to contention. The first step, this year, was to be a slight improvement with a win total in the 60s. They will have to pick up the pace to make it. A continuation of the April performance would result in a record of 48-114.

The team has several problems but the biggest is the pitching, both starters and relievers. Three of the five starters had an ERA over 7.00 in April and the staff ERA was 5.42, by far the worst in the major leagues. Three of the starters were unable to survive the first inning in one of their starts. The only bright spot was Lucas Harrell who pitched well in 5 of his 6 starts and picked up 3 wins. Bud Norris was inconsistent and the other 3 starters compiled a record of 1-11. Starting pitchers have pitched as much as 7 innings on only 3 occasions.

The bullpen has been overworked and largely ineffective. It will probably be a revolving door all year as it was in April. The bullpen recorded only three saves, two by inconsistent closer, Jose Veras, and the other by starter Eric Bedard on opening night.

The offense has been a little better, ranking close to the league average in most categories rather than at the bottom as they were last year. The top offensive performer has been Jose Altuve with a batting average of .330 and an on-base percentage of .374. Astro management brought in Carlos Pena, Chris Carter and Rick Ankiel to provide some power in the lineup and they contributed 13 home runs but piled up 109 strikeouts. Carter fanned 46 times and will easily surpass the major league record if he continues at his current pace. Ankiel has struck out in 32 of his 54 plate appearances. The team is also on pace to break the major league record for strikeouts.

All four of the Astros full-season minor league clubs had winning records in April, which reflects favorably on the plan to build up the minor league system with a series of trades. However, the players received in the trades have not yet had a significant impact in the major leagues and there is concern that there are few players in the system with high ceilings.

Bill Gilbert

5/2/2013

billcgilbert@sbcglobal.net

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Honest Larry Miggins

May 2, 2013

To fully appreciate this brief story, you may first need to either know the man or to have heard this story which I wrote about three years ago. Others have written about it too:

https://thepecanparkeagle.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/larry-miggins-honesty-is-the-only-policy/

To have been such an honest man, it’s helpful to also see his face as he appeared in 1950 as a Columbus Redbird.

Larry Miggins, LF
1950 Columbus Redbirds

Another present Houstonian and former Houston Buff that played in the “1950 Columbus Honest Man” game is Solly Hemus, shown here also as a Redbird shortstop. To no avail, Solly was on the “index-finger-over-the-lips-keep-your-mouth-shut-Larry” side of things that day.

Solly Hemus, SS
1950 Columbus Redbirds

Larry Miggins is the most honest man ever. He told the truth, even though it wasn’t what his teammates or the home town Columbus fans wanted to hear him say that day in left field.

What a privilege it is to be the friend of Larry Miggins and a fellow member with him in SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. This coming Saturday, we are going together to the Sugar Land Skeeters game with a group of fellow SABR members.

Hope to see you there. The baseball climate and ambience at Constellation Field comes pretty close to portraying what it was like to watch baseball at old Buff Stadium (1928-1961). If only we had more organ baseball park music and less “modern” stuff, but that’s probably just my antique patina soul dimming the lights a little.

Tags:1950 Columbus Redbirds, Larry Miggins, Solly Hemus
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Sandlot Baseball Joy is Still Forever

May 1, 2013

Eagle Park
Japonica @ Myrtle
Pecan Park, Houston
(now Japonica Park)

The sandlot baseball way of life was pretty much the same for generations. As kids, we played the game of baseball for as long as we could, each summer day, from dawn to dusk, wherever the grounds were empty, or the streets were not too busy, using whatever equipment we had, or could find, or could repair back into service.

The foot wear needs were the easiest, most natural acquirement. We all played shoeless, working against the early pain of converting our shoe-bound school feet into the calloused bare ground-talons that could handle both the heat and hard banging that awaited us in everything from concrete, street tar patches, rocks, and all those slivers of discarded glass and metal trash on our field of glory, Eagle Field at Japonica and Myrtle in Pecan Park, in the Houston East End, just south of Griggs Road on the left of the Gulf Freeway as you drive toward Galveston from downtown.

We used everything we could find for home plate: concrete chunks, tee shirts, two by fours, old license plates, and once only, a pillow case that someone’s mom left hanging on a clothes line. The last option quickly proved itself a bad choice, particularly for our donor teammate. It was back to concrete and larger rocks. I personally preferred the flat concrete items. They often looked more like the real home plate and they stayed in one place. Tee shirts were too easy to kick toward third base for a closer plough into home by some people of lesser character.

We had no uniforms or caps – and real team jerseys and tee shirts just weren’t available to us teeming mass kids, if to anyone of the post World War II era. One time, a friend of mine from school came over for a visit in the summer after his family had returned from a vacation trip north that took them through St. Louis. He was wearing a Cardinals cap – a real Cardinals cap. The Pecan Park Eagles were simply green with envy. How does anybody from anywhere near our little corner of the world manage to get a real Cardinals cap? “My dad got it for me” didn’t seem to solve the mystery for any of us. How does even a dad from our place get the Cardinals to sell him one of their real caps?

Our gloves were the cheap or hand-me-down kind, although some of us worked and saved the eight dollars it took for a Rawlings Playmaker at Holt’s Sporting Goods in downtown Houston. That’s what I did. I just wish I could have saved it before my dad threw it and other things away while I was in college, but I didn’t wake up to their absence soon enough to save the items of my childhood that were important to me.

Our baseballs were the cheapo type that didn’t stay round for long. When we got hold of a real baseball, it stayed with us until the cover practically wore away. In came the black electric tape to keep the ball in play forever, if possible. We also used the tape, along with small nails and hammers, to repair broken bats that still had hits in them. Of course, we did. Every sandlotter did.

Today is May 1st. Sixty-five years ago, we would have been about a month shy of the everyday sandlot season and I still miss it. Guess I’ll just dive into the memories that make me grateful that it launched my association between baseball and joy.

The joy of baseball is forever, something to be protected against the assaults of ego and greed that crawl all over the walls of our adult world meanderings, offering nothing sweet, and everything sour.

Thank you, memories of the sandlot, for always reminding me where so many of us fell in love with the great game of baseball. May you live on forever in our hearts – in the company of those who share that same incomparable joy.

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The Baddest of the Old Western Bad Guys

April 30, 2013

James Anderson

(6) In this “Six-Star Salute to the Baddest of the Old Western Bad Guys, my sixth chamber selection is the mostly anonymous and virtually nameless James Anderson. In his later years, he once played it for comedy. As the master slave-driving warden of a Georgia Chan Gang in “Take The Money and Run”, Anderson first delivers the hopeless and threatening orientation speech to new inmate arrivals and then asks the expected impassive inquiry: “Any questions?”

Woody Allen (as armed robber Virgil Starkwell) quickly asks: “Do you think young boys and girls should kiss on the first date?” Solitary confinement at this camp, by the way, consisted of being locked all night in a hole-in-the-ground with an insurance salesman and being forced to hear his sales pitch until dawn.

Dan Duryea

(5) Dan Duryea was just plain nasty back in the 1930s through 1950s. He was a snaky kind of guy who would just as soon stab his own mother in the back as to pass on an opportunity for some quick gain of any kind. As kids, we would clap and shout our approval of his death on film.

Lee Van Cleef

(4) Think Sergio Leone. Think Spaghetti Western. Think Clint Eastwood. Then you’re close. It’s Lee Van Cleef, the guy who could outdraw any man, but the man with no name. Think close up of those eyes looking at you on screen. Think the sound of gun shots. Think those eyes closing as the body falls forward and out of screen shot. It ran into an Eastwood bullet that got to him faster.

Jack Elam

(3) Jack Elam was the craziest looking, funniest western bad guy of all time. He once came after Susan Hayward in an old western cabin, with those wild eyes and a crazy smile flashing as we see him closing in on the gun-toting actress from her point of view. “You wouldn’t hurt me, would you, girlie?”, Elam asks, as his diabolical face begins to fill the screen.

KA-BOOM goes the gun, as Elam’s eyes close and his body falls out of screenshot, ala Lee Van Cleef. Susan Hayward was taking down bad guys this way when Clint Eastwood was still a kid.

Bruce Dern

(2) Bruce Dern did it. In the movie, “The Cowboys”, that dad gum Dern shot and killed John Wayne. It was the only time in his long movie history as a hero that the Duke got taken out by a bad guy until his last film, “The Shootist”, but in that one, the real killer was cancer and our forever American hero was choosing to go out guns blazing. A bad guy can’t shoot John Wayne and stay off my list.

Jack Palance

(1) Jack Palance as Jack Wilson, the ruthless hired killer in “Shane” is forever the baddest of them all on my list. After terrorizing the homesteaders and cold-bloodedly gunning down poor little Stonewall Torrey (Elisha Cook, Jr.), Shane (Alan Ladd) meets up with Wilson late one night at Ryker’s Saloon. And the following ensues:

POV: Shane is drinking alone at the bar. Fearing action, everyone else has either left the place or peeled into the shadows. Wilson drinks alone at a table near the wall, about 30 feet behind Shane. There is dead silence, even as an old range dog wakes up from the space between the two and walks slowly out the swinging front doors.

SHANE: “So, you’re Jack Wilson!

WILSON: “That’s right!”

SHANE: “I’ve heard about you!”

WILSON: (rises to standing position, facing Shane) “What have you heard, Shane?”

SHANE: (turns around, facing Wilson) “I’ve heard you’re nothing but a low down murdering Yankee skunk!”

WILSON: “Prove it!”

BANG! BANG! Both men fire.

The blast from Shane’s gun blows Wilson dead back against the wall. Shane is also shot in the back by another bad guy from upstairs, but manages to move enough to save his life thanks to a warning shout from Joey (Brandon DeWilde) the little farmer kid who worships him. Shane, of course, then quickly dispatches the shooter from above.

His work now done, Shane then rides off to the hills, but not before leaving behind some very dead bad guys, including Walter Jack Palance, the baddest of them all.

Your own six-gun salute to the bad guys may fire some different names and memories. If so, the Pecan Park Eagle hopes you will share them with the rest of us.

Have a nice Tuesday!

Tags:my 6 favorite western bad guys
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Argo Redux: A 1979 Review

April 28, 2013

Back in 1979, there were no home computers; no cell phones; no microwaves; fewer barber shops; but plenty of disco. (And yes, in case you wonder, this is, indeed, a picture of the younger Pecan Park Eagle. during his doctoral student days. Back in the day, chess and darts kept us busy with no electronic enhancement along the way. Thank you old friends Serge and Ginette Masse, for sending it and the others to me. I’m trying to recall what happened to that chess set.

Here’s a brief look at how some things went down that year of the “Argo” movie:

January

6th – The Village People’s Y.M.C.A becomes their only UK No.1 single. At its peak it sold over 150,000 copies a day.

12th – 6th American Music Award: Barry Manilow and Linda Ronstadt are the big winners.

21st – The price of gold increases to a record $875 per troy ounce.

21st – Superbowl XIII: The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Dallas Cowboys, 35-31 in a Miami-based Superbowl. The MVP award goes to Pittsburgh QB Terry Bradshaw.

23rd – Willie Mays is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

27th – 36th Golden Globes: Midnight Express is named best picture; Jon Voight and Jane Fonda are named best actor and actress for their roles in Coming Home.

29th – The 9th Annual NFL Pro Bowl: the NFC beats the AFC, 13-7.

29th – President Carter commuted Patricia Hearst’s 7 year prison sentence to 2 years

February

1st – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Iran after 15 yrs in exile.

1st – Patricia Hearst is released from a San Francisco prison for bank robbery.

3rd – The Minnesota Twins trade Rod Carew to the California Angels for 4 players.

7th – Pink Floyd premiered their live version of “The Wall” in Los Angeles.

10th – “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” by Rod Stewart peaks as it climbs to #1 on the chart.

14th – In Kabul, Muslims kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs, who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.

15th – 21st Grammy Awards: Just the Way You Are, Taste of Honey wins.

22nd – Billy Martin is named manager of the Oakland A’s.

March

7th – Warren Giles and Hack Wilson are elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

9th – Bowie Kuhn orders baseball to give equal access to female reporters.

23rd – Larry Holmes TKOs Osvaldo Ocasio in 7 for the heavyweight boxing title.

26th – The 41st NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship: Michigan State defeats Indiana State, 75-64, in the year that pitted Magic Johnson against Larry Byrd competing at the apex of college basketball. The Spartans victory brought an end to the 33-game win streak of Byrd’s ISU Sycamores.

26th – The Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt begins.

April

1st – Iran proclaims itself an Islamic Republic following the fall of the Shah.

7th – Houston Astro pitcher Ken Forsch no-hits the Atlanta Braves, 6-0.

9th – 51st Academy Awards – The “Deer Hunter” takes the best picture award as Jon Voight and Jane Fonda get the nods as best male and female actors in leading roles for “Coming Home”.

10th – Houston Astros pitcher J.R. Richard throws a major league record 6 wild pitches in the Astrodome.

15th – The 43rd Golf Masters Championship in Augusta, Georgia: Fuzzy Zoeller wins, shooting a 280.

May

5th – 105th Kentucky Derby: Ron Franklin on Spectacular Bid wins in 2:02.4.

10th – John J. McMullen of New Jersey becomes CEO of the Houston Astros NL baseball club.

13th – The Shah of Iran and his family are sentenced to death in Teheran.

16th – The National League approves the Astros sale from Ford Motor Company to John J. McMullen for $19M.

June

18th – Billy Martin becomes Yankee manager for the second timed time, replacing Bob Lemon.

July

16th – Premier/President al-Bakr of Iraq is succeeded by Saddam Hussein.

17th – The 50th All Star Baseball Game: The NL wins 7-6 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

August

2nd – New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson dies at the Akron/Canton Regional Airport in Ohio when he crash lands his Cessna Citation I/SP Jet and is overwhelmed by the ensuing fire. Two passengers, instructor Dave Hall and friend Jerry Anderson are seriously burned, but escape certain death in the plane after finding themselves unable to free the cockpit-trapped and unconscious Munson. Munson’s last words to his companions before the crash were these, “Are you guys all right?”

5th – Willie Mays, Warren Giles, and Hack Wilson are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

8th – Iraqi president Saddam Hussein executes 22 political opponents.

12th – Iran press censors start massive book burnings.

13th – Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals becomes the 14th player in history to get 3,000 hits in his career.

September

12th – Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox becomes the 15th to get 3,000 hits in his career.

15th – Bob Watson of the Boston Red Sox is the 1st to hit for cycle in both the AL and NL (Astros).

30th – The Houston Astros finish in 2nd place in The NL West under manager Bill Virdon. Their 89-73, .549 record is their best in franchise history for most wins in a single season, even though they only equaled their best wining percentage of .549, a milestone they previously achieved in 1972 with an 84-69 mark.

October

17th – The Pittsburgh Pirates take the World Series in seven games over the Baltimore Orioles.

18th – Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini orders mass executions to stop.

23rd – Billy Martin is involved in a barroom altercation with Joseph Cooper, a Minnesota marshmallow salesman. Cooper requires 15 stitches.

29th – Billy Martin is fired as Yankee manager for the second time.

November

4th – 500 Iranian “students” seize the US embassy in Tehran, taking 90 hostages that they will hold for 444 days.

5th – Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini declares the US to be “The Great Satan”

6th – Ayatolla Khomeini takes full control of Iran.

8th – ABC broadcasts “Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage” with Frank Reynolds as the original host. It will always be remembered as the forerunner to “Nightline” and the big career bump for newsman Ted Koppel.

12th – President Carter announces the immediate halt to all imports of Iranian oil.

15th – ABC-TV announces that it will broadcast nightly specials on the Iran hostage situation.

17th – Khomeini frees most of the black and female US hostages.

18th – Ayatollah Khomeini charges the US ambassador/embassy with espionage.

19th – The Houston Astros sign Nolan Ryan to a record 4 year, $4.5 million contract.

30th – Ted Koppel becomes anchor of the nightly news on Iranian Hostages for ABC.

December

3rd – 45th Annual Heisman Trophy Award: Charles White, Southern Cal (RB).

15th – The deposed Shah of Iran leaves the US in ill health for Panama.

16th – QB Roger Staubach plays his last regular season game for the Dallas Cowboys

27th – Soviet troops invade Afghanistan; President Hafizullah Amin is overthrown.

If you care for more items from 1979, check out this site:

http://www.historyorb.com/events/date/1979/january

Tags:1979 and a few highlights
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