Bottom of the Bird Cage 5/15
It’s Day No. 135 of the year.
On May 13, 1905 some 110 acres of land were auctioned off and thus started the community of Las Vegas, Nevada. On this day in 1940, McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California. On May 13, 1941 Joe DiMaggio began what became a 56-game hitting streak.
Today is Independence Day in Paraguay. On this day in 1969, Emmitt Smith was born in Florida.
And on May 13, 1953, George Howard Brett was born in Glen Dale, West Virginia. He would grow up to become one of the best hitters in baseball history, debuting with the Royals in August of 1973 and playing through the 1993 season.
Brett was an All-Star 13 times, led the American League in hitting three times, was the 1980 A.L. MVP and was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 with 98.2 percent of the vote on his first time on the ballot.
Brett was bigger than life during his career, although not quite as big as Morganna the Kissing Bandit who got him in this photo.
George said many things over his career, but one of his last quotes in the public eye was the best:
“I could have played another year, but I would have been playing for the money, and baseball deserves better than that.”
From San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Nick Canepa: What Don Coryell had was a great tank commander’s vision, and thus the spine and guile to attack Point B from Point A the quickest and most devastating way possible, using X’s and O’s tactics previous football minds never imagined. Except his policy wasn’t so much scorched earth, but scorched air. He not only exhausted opponents’ bodies, but their brains.
The more I think about it – and I’ve been thinking about it more and more lately – the more I’m convinced. Coryell may be the single most important football coach of the past half century. Certainly the most innovative and daring. His fingerprints remain all over the sport at every level, and it’s highly doubtful they will be smudged anytime soon.
Because no man had so profoundly brought about change – not just offensively, through his vaunted aerial scheme – but, because of it, also the defensive side of the ball. If you pay attention, it can be seen without a manual. Watch a game. Any game.
And yet Coryell, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame for his work at San Diego State (as an assistant coach he also brought the I formation to USC), has yet to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He’s 85 now. The man who remains the only coach to win at least 100 games at the collegiate and professional level is overdue. It’s time.
It should be hard to get in the Hall of Fame. That’s why it’s the Hall of Fame. There’s no question that Don Coryell is one of the greatest offensive minds in the history of the game, absolutely, positively no doubt. But that does not make him a great head coach and that’s the biggest reason the Chargers were unable to earn a Super Bowl despite Coryell’s great offenses. He used to say that his defensive philosophy was if you couldn’t stop the other team, then let them score quickly so the offense could get the ball back. I have considered Coryell for the Hall of Fame and will consider him again, because his fingerprints are so huge in the history of the game. On top of that – and this isn’t supposed to matter, but it does – he’s a good man. But as a head coach, he was one-dimensional in his thinking and that does not help his cause.
From the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat:
It’s a nice idea. But as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished. The 49ers and the York family announced Tuesday the creation of the Edward DeBartolo Sr. 49ers Hall of Fame. In a press release distributed by the 49ers, it stated the Hall of Fame was dedicated to the patriarch of one of the most storied franchises in all of professional sports.
The 49ers Hall of Fame has been established to recognize players, coaches and executives who have made exceptional contributions to the organization. “As someone who was raised alongside 49ers legends,” team president Jed York said in a statement, “I am honored to be announcing the creation of the Edward DeBartolo Sr. 49ers Hall of Fame. This exclusive group will be comprised of those who have made our franchise what it is today.”
According to the guidelines established, candidates for induction must have displayed one or more of the following qualifications: “outstanding production and performance on the field, key contributions to the team’s success, and/or the embodiment of the spirit and essence of the San Francisco 49ers.”
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This is a good idea by the 49ers ownership and long overdue. Unfortunately, they are starting their Hall of Fame by inducting some 12 people. Any player or coach in the Pro Football Hall of Fame is automatically a member of the Niners Hall. Certainly that makes sense, but it does not have to be that way because it leaves out maybe the greatest player to wear a San Francisco uniform: wide receiver Jerry Rice. He’s not yet eligible for t he Pro Football Hall of Fame, so he’s being left out of the inaugural class. That’s silly. My suggestion is don’t put everybody in at first. Spread them out over the next decade. The Niners have a rich history, but like the Chiefs they have some dry periods where they will be scrounging for nominees. That’s something the Chiefs had to deal with this year.
From the Arizona Republic:
It’s difficult for Wendell Bryant to pinpoint the moment that he finally decided to end years of drug and alcohol abuse. Maybe it was the death of his grandfather, who helped raise him, in January 2008. Or, it might have been May 2008 when his baby daughter, Devin, who couldn’t tell her dad was in a stupor, pulled Bryant close and kissed him.
Or maybe it was last June 3, when Bryant, the Cardinals’ first-round pick in 2002, was leaving his Ahwatukee home to check into the Chandler Valley Hope treatment center. I had one last piece of joint,” Bryant said, “and I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to smoke this on the way.’ ”
But his lighter wouldn’t work. Bryant pulled the car over, tried the lighter again. Still no flame. He looked at the joint. Then the lighter. Then he looked up. “I said, ‘All right, I get it,’ ” Bryant said. “I threw it out of the car window and drove my ass over to Chandler and from there I started on the path.”
The path has led him to nearly a year of sobriety and maybe back to the doorstep of the NFL. Bryant wants back in the league, although he hasn’t played since being suspended for the 2005 season after committing his third strike in the league’s substance abuse policy.
I’m not sure Wendell Bryant has a future in pro football. I only hope that what he’s accomplished in the last two years is enough to give him a future in life.
Mr. George Brett was one hell of a third baseman too! My all time favorite Baseball player.
You are THE man, Mr. Brett!
Amen on Coryell! Being a pass happy Mad Bomber, exclusively, is not my idea of a HOF Coach.
Morganna Roberts . . . she may not have been the biggest bust of the 1970s - but only because the Chiefs were in free fall…
I have many good memories of watching George Brett and the Royals back in those days…back when baseball was still just a game. He was one of the last of his kind…players that weren’t “playing for the money”. It’s really sad to see what Major League sports have become.
Do you remember 52-POP-GO? Not as much as you do 65 TOSS POWER TRAP probably, huh (Hank Stram x2).
Here’s one that’s hard to forget: 60-23-39 HUBBA-HUBBA-HUT-HUT (Morganna). Touchd-LIFTOFF!
You can find visual evidence as twere Morganna’s ‘cadence’ elsewhere the internet (not to mention a unique way she has of dotting the…um, ‘eyes’ on her signature.
Another nice quip which I can’t take credit for, but only because the writer had his pencil in hand before me:
- “Her upper deck was always full.”
Not that it really matters, but add another $970,000 to the Chiefs and the rest of the leagues salary cap. Per PFT, it doesn’t effect the floor of the cap….
LMAO!
How the F does that work?
George Brett was larger than life and so was Morganna! She gave new meaning to the phrase “7th inning stretch.” Detroit released Franklin. He couldn’t make it to training camp with the worst team in pro football. Hmm… I guess maybe some folks might have to reevaluate their certainty that haley and Pioli were stupidly blind to his talent and simply intent on bullying him and making an ill fated example out of him.
George Brett was a childhood idol of mine. I still say he had the prettiest swing of any baseball player I’ve ever seen.
His legacy off the field however, is not so stellar. He was never one to warmly greet fans who see him out in public, he often shunned them away. God forbid a kid ask him for an autograph at a restaurant. Many women have made the claim that he was an a–hole also. With today’s media focus on athletes off the field behavior, I don’t think that these stories about Brett would have remained so low key.