Tony Perez ... The Big Dog ... Turns 70!
My favorite player when I was growing up was
Tony Perez of the Big Red Machine. Well, Tony turned 70 yesterday. Here is his rookie card (I think ... he had a few with the word "rookie" in them).
He was a third baseman when he came up to the big leagues. The Reds had a first baseman, though it wasn't Lee May. The Reds first baseman in 1965 was Gordy Coleman, who helped lead Cincy to an NL Pennant in 1961.
Here's the back of The Big Dog's Topps card in 1974:
OldCleat Redrafts the Bengals Draft 2012 - Early Round One Edition
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| Nick Saban, left, talks Skyline Chili with Dre Kirkpatrick |
OldCleat redrafts the Bengals draft 2012 ... early first round edition.
First Round, 17th Overall, Traded from the Raiders for Carson Palmer, the Bengals Select
Dre Kirkpatrick, CB, Alabama. OldCleat would have taken, I think,
Dre Kirkpatrick, CB, Alabama. I think that Kirkpatrick will probably be like Leon Hall. I think he is a good player who is a step slow but will make up for that with some good play. The only other player I would have considered was Dont'a Hightower, despite the unfortunate apostrophe. But he is an inside linebacker, and the Bengals are set there. I also liked David DeCastro, guard, but not that high.
First Round, 27th Overall (Bengals traded 21st overall to New England for 27th overall and a third-round pick): Bengals select
Kevin Zeitler, G, Wisconsin. OldCleat would have taken
Cordy Glenn, G and T, Georgia. I liked that the Bengals traded down. I don't understand why New England was so hot on defensive end Chandler Jones from Syracuse to trade up to get him, but they were. Zeitler is a guard who might also play some center. Glenn is huge (6'5"-plus, 345) who can play tackle and was a guard.
I reserve my right, by the way, to take a second look at this. I am sort of LIVE BLOGGING the draft.
Labels: 2012 Draft, Cordy Glann, Dre Kirkpatrick, Kevin Zeitler, OldCleat Redrafts the Bengals Draft
Boomer Esiason - Happy Birthday
Boomer Esiason celebrates a birthday today. He was a
darned fine quarterback for the Bengals who was the pilot of a pretty impressive offensive machine. More importantly, he is the leader in the fight against Cystic Fybrosis because of his son Gunnar through the
Boomer Esiason Foundation.
Labels: Boomer Esiason, Cincinnati Bengals
Lee May ... Happy Birthday
One of my first baseball heroes, if I may use that word, was Lee May. Today is his birthday. Happy birthday, Lee.
Lee was a big-boppin' first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds in the late 1960s. I started to really follow him in 1969, when he hit .278 with 38 homers and 110 RBI. In 1970, he batted .253-34-98, and in '71, he hit .278-39-98. Then the Reds up and traded him to the Astros. On November 29, 1971, he was traded by the Cincinnati Reds with Tommy Helms and Jimmy Stewart to the Houston Astros for Ed Armbrister, Jack Billingham, Cesar Geronimo, and Denis Menke.
Oh, and Joe Morgan.
I didn't understand this. Why would they trade a young, great slugger and the steady Tommy Helms for a bunch of players that I was not too familiar with? Of course, it turned out that it was one of the greatest trades in Reds history, if not THE greatest, and I spent the rest of my days as a huge Tony Perez fan, as well as a Joe Morgan fan.
But I'll always remember big Lee.
Labels: cincinnati reds, Joe Morgan, Lee May, Tony Perez
White Sox Love Them Some QBs
Today's
Chicago Sun-Times has an interesting piece on the Chicago White Sox and GM Kenny Williams's love of quarterbacks. He signed Mitch Mustain, the former Arkansas and Southern Cal QB who hasn't played baseball in eight years. Williams went after Joe Borchard, QB at Stanford; Josh Fields, QB at OK State; and Clayton Richard, who was a quarterback at Michigan. And, of course, the Sox have Adam Dunn, who was an All-State QB as a high schooler in Texas. He went to the U of Texas, but when Chris Simms decided to ditch one U of T (Tennessee) for another, Texas, the Longhorns staff wanted Dunn to move to tight end. Dunn saw that tight ends have to block defensive ends, and he decided to take the Cincinnati Reds' millions as a second-round MLB pick.
The Sun-Times also reported that Bill Veeck signed Bobby Douglass after his football-playing days. Douglass pitched in four games in the minors, with a 0-13 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
I don't remember that Richard played at Michigan. He was a backup to Chad Henne, though I remember Matt Gutierrez being the backup.
Labels: White Sox quarterbacks
Bruce Smith, Heisman Trophy Winner 1941, Featured on ESPN
Bruce Smith, the Heisman Trophy winner in 1941, was featured by
ESPN on Outside th
e Lines. Smith's acceptance speech for the award was broadcast just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. According to reports, Smith's speech "was disrupted when a squadron of American Army planes was mistaken for German bombers causing an air raid alert to be
signaled along the East Coast as he stepped to the podium." In September,
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton has proclaimed “Bruce Smith Day” in Minnesota in honor of a one-time Heisman Trophy winner who will be celebrated at the University of Minnesota at Saturday’s home football game.
Sports Illustrated ran a great piece on Bruce Smith and what he meant to a youngster who grew up in Minnesota.
"We didn't have television in 1941, so this paragon existed visually for me only in blurry black-and-white newspaper photographs and in the wildly dramatic moving pictures that reeled through my mind on autumn Saturdays as I heard of his heroics via radio play-by-play. The Gophers wore golden helmets and golden uniforms in those days, and I visualized them vaguely as a swashbuckling crowd of shining trophy statuettes with Smith being by far the fastest, strongest, smartest—and shiniest—statuette of them all."
With Memorial Day coming up, it's best we remember Bruce Smith.
Labels: Bruce Smith, Heisman Trophy
Al Davis Bluffed His Way into Becoming a Football Coach
Al Davis was lauded and slammed after dying this week. One of my favorite things about Al was the fact that he
bluffed his way into the coaching profession.
At Syracuse University, [Al Davis] studied English and ran with varsity jocks but was cut from the football team. He played with the junior varsity, a fact he tried to edit later. His yearbook bios in his jobs as an assistant coach at The Citadel and USC said he was a three-sport letterman; he lettered in none.
Since he was cut off [from the Syracuse football team] as a player, he set out to coach. He began soaking up strategy by taking copious notes at Syracuse practices until Syracuse Coach Ben Schwartzwalder noticed him there and did what any football man--and especially the latter-day Davis--would: He had the offender removed.
At Syracuse, Davis roomed with Bernie Custis, who as the Orangeman’s quarterback was Syracuse’s MVP in 1948 but who didn’t play in the NFL because he wasn’t going to be given a shot at quarterback, because Custis is black.
Custis was a quarterback at Syracuse University and was drafted by the Cleveland Browns. The Browns, however, wanted to convert him to running back. Custis decided to go to Canada instead, where he was an all-star as a rookie QB in 1951.
Davis offered Custis a series of jobs for years, but Custis turned him down because he didn’t like to fly.
Some great quotes from the New York Times:
Don Shula, the Hall of Fame coach, once said of Mr. Davis, reporting on a conversation they’d had, “Al thought it was a compliment to be considered devious.”
“I don’t want to be the most respected team in the league,” Mr. Davis said in 1981. “I want to be the most feared.”
From the Washington Post:
When he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1992, Mr. Davis said with typical bravado, “I said many times that it should have happened a long time ago.”
Labels: AFL, Al Davis, Syracuse
