Warning! Sports Entertainment Post!

You were warned. Come to think of it, sports entertainment is sports of some kind of sort.

My beef (no pun intended) is not with wrestling as a whole. Seeing as how World Wrestling Entertainment alone is a multi-billion dollar a year enterprise, and how smaller, independent promotions consistently draw sellout crowds at smaller venues, the business of wrestling, or sports entertainment, is worthy of some well-earned respect.

My beef is with TNA, the closest thing the WWE has to serious competition. TNA, which stands for Total Non-Stop Action, has done some things recently that I have to wonder about.

For starters, TNA has not one, not two, but three different wrestlers who come to the ring bringing something to drink with them. I don’t mean bottled water. One of them, a woman wrestler named ODB, brings a flask with her, and she takes swigs during a match. With the other two grapplers, it’s usually beer, and one of them has used a bottle as a weapon.

Am I missing something here, or is TNA trying to promote alcoholism?

Another recent TNA storyline had one wrestler under indentured servitude (READ: slavery) to another. He had to do what the other said, no matter how distasteful. It was all legal under TNA “rules”, even though slavery itself has been illegal in this country for well over a hundred years.

There are two things in TNA that I find incredibly distasteful:

First, a current storyline involves a Hispanic tag team called LAX, or the Latin American Exchange. It’s not the team itself that I have issues with, but their non-wrestling manager, or assistant, or whatever that accompanies them to the ring. His name is Hector Guerrero, who is apparently related to the legendary Guerrero family of wrestling.

The family and the wrestling industry suffered a tragic loss by the untimely death of Eddie Guerrero, already a legend before his passing. His nephew Chavo and his widow Vickie are currently employed by the WWE. Three generations of Guerreros have entertained millions of fans worldwide. The Guerrero name is synonymous with wrestling excellence.

So why is TNA sullying the Guerrero name by having Hector made up to look EXACTLY like Eddie? How, you have to wonder, does Vickie and her kids feel when they see Hector Guerrero interfering in an LAX match looking just like their late husband and father?

The other item I find distasteful was the recent employment by TNA of one Adam (Pac Man) Jones, recently suspended by the NFL, and still not reinstated as of this writing. Jones, you may recall, was tossed from the league following a series of arrests for knucklehead behavior, topped by a shooting at a Las Vegas strip club where Jones threw money from a plastic bag at dancers, and a man was left paralyzed from the shooting. As the cherry on top, Jones had his “posse” collect the thrown money and put it back in the bag. What a guy.

The man in Jones’ group accused of doing the shooting now says that he’s taking the rap for Jones. Pac Man was recently traded to the Dallas Cowboys. Why? I thought the Cowboys liked to think of themselves as one of the NFL’s class acts. Why bring this thug in? If I was NFL Commissioner, I would never re-instate Jones. He’s an embarrassment. To the league, to the players, and to manhood in general.

Yet TNA not only gave him a job, in a non-wrestling role, but they made him a “good guy”, or a “face”, as the industry calls its’ hero performers. I can think of fewer worse people to push as a role model.

The WWE has made its’ mistakes over the years. There was the Katie Vick storyline that involved Kane, Triple HHH, and necrophilia. As soon as they saw the very negative reaction to the plot, the WWE got out of it as soon as humanly possible.

There was the botched WCW-ECW takeover plot. It should have been so much better than it actually was.

And lately, a planned incest storyline between current WWE stars Paul Burchill and Katie Lea has been scrapped. The pair, who are not real-life siblings, will also no longer be billed as brother and sister.

The WWE isn’t perfect, but when they see a potential problem, they try to get their act together.

Too bad TNA can’t say the same thing.

Inside Information

I spent over 30 years in radio, much of it in sports. Four of those years were spent at L.A.’s legendary KMPC, when it was still KMPC. I got to work with some of L.A. radio’s legends, especially in the sports department. I was mainly an assistant sports producer, and I got to work Angels baseball, Rams football (they were still in Anaheim), and UCLA football & basketball. I was lucky to be there.

I will post about KMPC in the near future. Promise.

Meantime, while it’s been nearly 20 years since I was employed by KMPC, I still get asked about my time there. One of the things I get asked about is the “Inner Sanctum” secrets, or Insider’s Knowledge. That gets to be a little tricky.

I knew plenty about KMPC people. Golden West Broadcasters had plenty of skeletons in their closets. But, I was “part of the family”, and was entrusted with that information as “one of them”. In other words, in total confidence. To me, internal information is almost as sacred as the confessional or lawyer-client privilege. Even all these years later with GWB dead & buried, to violate that trust would just not feel right.

However, I did learn lots about people from other stations and people from teams, newspapers, and television. I can’t name names, lawsuits are always a possibility, and innocent people can get hurt. But I can get a little vague and still have people get the idea. Here are a few:

There was a multi-sport announcer who was fired after it was discovered that he was having an affair with a star athlete’s wife. A very big star. Just about as big as you can get. He’s lucky the athlete, whom everyone has heard of, never got a hold of him. Today, that athlete and his wife are still married.

Another announcer was let go after getting into a fight with one of his mic-mates in an elevator. The incident was kept very hush-hush. Today, talk of the incident is very taboo at that particular organization.

A female sports personality had an affair with the General Manager of the company she worked for. Both were very much married. It had much to do with her getting a major push. Presently, she is still married to the same man, and is still in a media-related position, but is no longer doing sports.

There was a Los Angeles area pro football player who was traded away, far, far away, for the peculiar reason of getting married. Why would a player get traded for getting married? Simple. The player was white. His bride was black. They were very much in love. Who objected to this union? Management? Not exactly, even though they werent’ thrilled. They saw to it that pictures of the happy couple never ran anywhere. Coaches? Nope. They couldn’t have cared less. Teammates? A few expressed concerns to the player, but otherwise, they mostly left it alone. Some of the African American players had white wives or girlfriends, and they didn’t want to be hypocrites.

So who does that leave to object? The players’ wives, that’s who. When the team passed out seat assignments to player’s wives and families, many asked them not to assign her near them. A few of the black players’ black wives read her the riot act. There would be functions put on by the players’ wives, and someone would “forget” to send her an invitation. She would always be told that it had nothing to do with her interracial marriage, that it was nothing more than an oversight, not to take it personally, and that it won’t happen again. But it always did.

There was one full season of this internal tension, then he was traded. Such pettiness at such a high level. And somehow, the team managed to keep it all quiet.

To slightly alter an old phrase, if these media-types could talk….

My Very Own Sports Fantasies

Like anybody else, I have a lot of sports fantasies. On very rare occasions, a few have come true, such as the NY Jets beating the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Another was Pete Rose, a player I absolutely hated, getting into deep molasses late into his career.

Here is a list of more of my sports fantasies. Of course, some can’t happen because of death or the passing of many years. I still wish they could have happened anyway.

I wish that someone would have beaned George Foster. He always drove me crazy when he would step out of the batter’s box just as the pitch was being thrown. I would have loved to have seen him do that against Don Drysdale or Bob Gibson. He would have stopped that nonsense quick.

I would love to have seen someone, anybody in the media, question Bear Bryant on why it took him so long to integrate his Alabama football team. His first African American freshmen arrived in 1970, and made their Crimson Tide debut in 1971. The Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1965. The SEC’s first African American athlete, a basketball player, made his debut at Vanderbilt in 1967. As it was, Bryant was far more powerful in the state of Alabama than George Wallace could have ever hoped to be. He could do both anything he wanted and do no wrong. But the national media botched their chance. I wouldn’t have hesitated to ask. Bear Bryant owed plenty of answers on that matter. He didn’t deserve the free pass that he got.

I always dreamed of shoving Red Auerbach’s cigar straight up his keister. An L.A. radio reporter once tried to in a hotel elevator during the NBA Finals in 1985. They got into it, but it got broken up. Auerbach may have been a major reason for the Celtic’s legend, but he was one of the poorest winners ever in sports.

I wish Angel Stadium of Anaheim would be re-done the way it used to be before the Rams moved there in 1980. They’ve knocked out most of the extra seating since the Rams left, but there are still remnants, such as luxury boxes and outfield seating. I get it that the suites are now an economic necessity, but I would love to see the outfield seats taken out, and the original Big A scoreboard, now an advertising sign in the parking lot, moved back into it’s old left field position. Back then, as far as I was concerned, Anaheim Stadium, as it used to be called, was the greatest little ballpark in the majors. And the city of Anaheim sullied it.

I would have loved to have seen a World Series played in the Astrodome.

I wish Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar could have played just one game against each other. It never happened. Russell retired the season before Kareem entered the NBA.

I wish that the Baltimore Colts, Houston Oilers, and Montreal Expos were still around. I miss them.

I wish that Jackie Robinson could have played in L.A. with the Dodgers. He was from nearby Pasadena, and played four sports at UCLA. Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley knew long in advance that he was moving the team to Los Angeles. Why wouldn’t he keep Jackie Robinson?

It’s a shame that Willie Mays had to spend the bulk of his career playing in Candlestick Park in San Francisco. If he had been able to play in a decent ballpark during his prime, he might well have had over 800 home runs. Candlestick’s architect should have been flogged.

The San Diego Soap Opera

I went to my first San Diego Charger game in old Balboa Stadium in 1965. I saw a game in what was then the new stadium in 1967. I lived in San Diego for 10 years beginning in ‘67, and went to many Charger and Padre games at the Mission Valley stadium. 40 years later, it is still the Charger home. Not for much longer.

Charger ownership wants a new stadium badly. The city of SD would like to build them one, but no money is available. After looking at several suburbs, the Chargers are now looking at a bayside power plant site in Chula Vista, south of the city, and near the Mexican border. That site, due to state regulators and cleanup laws, may not be available for at least 5 years.

The Chargers can get out of their lease after this upcoming season.

The Spanos family, who own the Chargers, claim that they wish to have a new stadium privately financed. Previous attempts to get a new stadium deal done in Oceanside, National City, and at the present Mission Valley site have failed miserably. A lot of verbal sniping has taken place between the city and Charger officials. The relationship between the two seems to be beyond repair.

After reading several Charger message boards, you get the idea that the fans’ general attitude is “Just get it done, but don’t bother us with details.” Talks between the team and the city of Chula Vista are cordial, but virtually no progress has been made, other than the Chargers committing to paying for several feasibility studies.

What all of this is adding up to is the fact that talks are not going well. In fact, it’s going to take a miracle to keep the Bolts in San Diego County. Consider:

San Antonio built the 65,000 seat Alamodome for an NFL team that never came.

L.A. developer Edward Roski, who helped build the Staples Center, owns enough land in suburban City of Industry to build a new football stadium. All he needs is a guarantee of a team. The NFL has said that expansion is not on the horizon, so it will have to be a relocated team.

Las Vegas political kingpin Oscar Goodman has told the Spanos’ to just say the word, and construction of a new football stadium on the Strip can begin in a matter of days.

The Chargers have some of the NFL’s most loyal and avid fans. As loyal and avid fans in Baltimore, Cleveland, Oakland, Los Angeles, and Houston can tell San Diegans, that can be rendered totally meaningless when a city and a team can’t see eye to eye.

Seems to me that the relocation of the San Diego Chargers is a matter of where, and just a matter of time.

The Great Piss-Off: Notre Dame – Mich. St. 1966

In November of 1966, Michigan State and Notre Dame were in a virtual dead heat atop all the wire service polls for the No. 1 ranking. The Spartans were 9-0 going into their final game against the Fighting Irish, who were 8-0, and still had USC to play a week later.

No game before or since had the build up that this one had. It was labeled The Game of the Century. ABC was rubbing it’s hands in anticipation, as it was obviously going to be the highest rated program on television that week, and perhaps for the year. The first Super Bowl was a few months away.

The entire nation was talking about this game. As a high school junior in southern California, I can remember there being much talk about this game among mostly UCLA & USC fans. The pregame suspense was torture.

This game had everything on the line. Neither team was going to a bowl game. At the time, the Big 10 had an idiotic “no-repeat” rule. Michigan State had gone to the Rose Bowl the previous year, thus was ineligible for any post season play, as only the conference champion could go to a bowl, and only to Pasadena.

Notre Dame had not gone to any bowl since the 1924 Rose Bowl. The Irish had a “no-bowl” policy, period. They just played the regular season, and that was it, win, lose, or draw.

Finally, Game Day. You couldn’t beg, borrow, buy, or steal a ticket to Spartan Stadium in East Lansing that day. People outside the stadium were supposedly offering as much as $2000 to ticketholders for their ducats.

After spotting MSU a 10-0 lead, Notre Dame scratched and clawed it’s way back to even the score in the fourth quarter. With about 3 minutes left in the game, the Spartans punted, figuring they’d get the ball back.

Then it happened. Or should I say, it didn’t happen. Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian ordered QB Coley O’Brien to run the ball. No passes whatsoever. Even though deep in their own territory, the Irish ran repeated safe running plays. The crowd smelled the rodent immediatly, and the game ended in a 10-10 tie to a monsoon of boos. Even Notre Dame boosters were observed booing. The next day, Sunday sports editions nationwide were about ready to construct a cross for a coaching crucifiction.

In Notre Dame’s defense (I can’t believe I’m saying that), Parseghian made what he felt was the correct call. Starting QB Terry Hanratty had been knocked out of the game in the 2nd quarter by Bubba Smith. Backup QB O’Brien was worn out from defensive pressure, late hits, and was diabetic.

The general thinking in the era of tie games was that a tie was just as good as a win for the road team. The next week, Notre Dame, leaving it’s starters in the entire game, beat USC in Los Angeles 51-0. Notre Dame was overwhelmingly voted as the National Champions.

Things have obviously changed since then. After many years of one proposal or another, the NCAA finally got rid of tie games in college football. The new overtime rules should have been called The Ara Parseghian Rule in his honor. Parseghian himself now refuses to talk about that game. When he turned down an ABC interview request for the 40th anniversary of the game in 2006, he said that he’s done all the talking about it that he’s ever going to do. He still gets grief from people about that game.

Michigan State coach Hugh (Duffy) Daugherty went to his grave kicking himself over this game. He blamed himself for making the decision to punt. An unimaginative offensive plan, which was typical in the Big 10 in those days, didn’t help either.

This was the game that made nobody happy.