Cleaning out the Inbox

   The inbox cleaning is a bit overdue and most of the links are to the Athletic, so if you aren't a subscriber this inbox might be a bit short for you!

We start with the story of the New York Islanders' "Gorton Fisherman" logo that was so reviled in its day and lasted only a few years before the Islanders returned to their original logo as quickly as they could!

The Gorton Fisherman only was used for two seasons (1995-96 and 96-97) and is remembered to this day for its "unique' look with fans jeering the Islanders at home and on the road with the chant "We Want Fishsticks" as the team finished forty games under .500 while wearing the sweaters!

The logo is making an occasional return this season for the Islanders as part of the NHL's "Reverse Retro" series.

The Athletic writes on the long-defunct World Football League with more tales of the crazy league's legendary tales off the field as well as a few from on the gridiron as well.

These articles on the defunct leagues of the seventies and eighties are always a fun read but they also sometimes tell the same stories that have been told before.

This one has a few different ones with a different twist on some of the teams that moved in the middle of their only season and just how bad the finances and debt really were.

This article deals with 1-AA football power North Dakota State, the issues with their fan base, and if they could eventually move to Division I, and if so, what conference?

Any school wishing to move to Division I from a lower level must have a conference invitation in order to make the move.

Flightline would win the Breeders Cup Classic by eight and quarter lengths in what would be his final start but for a horse with few starts in his career (a mere six) Flightline is being talked about as an all-time great in the sport of thoroughbred racing by more than only his team.

This piece by Dana O'Neil looks at what was being said about Flightline before the race and when you read the article, imagine his classic victory by the biggest margin in the history of the classic.

Flightline will stand at Lane's End Farm in Kentucky for a fee of $200,000.

Finally, the only non-Athletic link in the inbox- ESPN writes of Andrew Luck and what Luck has been doing since his surprising retirement in 2019.

Luck also mentions some of his thinking in the run-up to his announcement, why he made the decision, and why he thinks he may decide to coach eventually.

Luck also discusses his many injuries and just how difficult his rehabilitation was for his injured shoulder in 2017.

It's a very depth look into Andrew Luck and how he is far from the stereotypical athlete in some ways and yet has the same mentality in others.

Cleaning out the Inbox

   Cleaning out the inbox returns with several nuggets that hopefully will catch one's eye for a few minutes of interest!

Mike Oravec sends this ESPN article on Gary Davidson and the World Football League.

Davidson was also involved with the creation of the ABA and WHA but it was the WFL that Davidson was most involved in and served as the league's commissioner.

It's a long article with interesting portions on how and why the Memphis Southmen targeted Paul Warfield, Larry Csonka, and Jim Kiick to poach from the Miami Dolphins, the always hilarious financial stories, the only World Bowl and others...

The Athletic has been working on a series based on football programs that have struggled to reach the level of their previous success.

The Texas Tech article discusses the Red Raider's struggles since the departure of Mike Leach and the three coaches that have tried to win in Lubbock Post-Leach and how they (Tommy Tuberville, Kliff Kingsbury, and Matt Wells), how they managed to not win with Patrick Mahones, and the hopes that Joey McGuire can return to Texas Tech at least a perennial bowl team.

The article on Arkansas might have been even better as it wrote about the Razorback's steep decline from the day that Frank Broyles took the Hogs from the now-defunct Southwest Conference for the trip to the SEC.

One fact that I didn't know and always wondered about was a claim by the now-deceased Broyles that had Arkansas not headed to the SEC and waited for the eventual Big 8 to add four SWC teams (Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor) which would have seemed to be a better fit with long-time rivals than the SEC, Arkansas would not have been invited to join the new Big 12.

I didn't know that and it would have sent Arkansas to either an independent or group of five status in the AAC.

While the Razorbacks may have struggled on the field since joining the SEC, the financial coffers swelled by multiples over what they would have received had they decided to pass on the opportunity.

The article on Kansas shows just how easy it is for a program to go south with one or two wrong decisions.

It details how then-athletic director Lew Perkins was determined to fire head coach Mark Mangino, who has been the only coach in the last fifty years to get any kind of momentum going in Lawrence (Mangino actually finished 12-1 and won an Orange Bowl? I still can't believe that a decade and a half later) and hired Turner Gill over Jim Harbaugh, who actually interviewed for the job!

Kansas would later run through Gill, Charlie Weis, David Beaty, and Les Miles before their current hiring of Lance Leipold.

It's a great series and there are other schools written about as well.

The Athletic scores again as Brendan Quinn writes about what it is like for the regular everyday golfer to play at Augusta National during Masters week.

The Masters holds a media lottery each year before the tournament and allows the winner to play the course.

Quinn writes of his round, how the experience felt, and took questions from his readers.

Fred Landucci sends this from the New York Post as columnist Phil Mushnick writes of just badly the analytics crowd is damaging baseball.

I could write about the awful changes to the game that I once loved but Mushnick does a better job and hits all points as the Ivy League invaders that think that they are revolutionizing a game that they are actually slowly choking to death.

ESPN writes of the thirty-year anniversary of the basketball film "White Men Can't Jump", which I haven't seen in years but always enjoyed the many times that I have viewed the film.

The article tells the stories of the casting, filming, and the many bets that were placed during filming on the Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson led cast including the many bets placed on Harrelson's ability to actually dunk and how the bests were actually settled.

We wrap with this Washington Post article on Chiney Ogwumike, who not only plays for the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks but spent her off-season this year on ESPN's NBA studio show as an analyst and I was impressed with her performance and besides her future with the Sparks and judging by this article Ogwumike has an excellent head on her shoulders and certainly has a future outside of basketball when and if she chooses to travel that path. 

Podcasts? We've got Podcasts!!

Podcasts, you say?

Well, my podcast tenure has been up and down (running out of dollars for the TRS podcast for one) and my tenure on Fightheads- the live show.

I loved doing the live show, but Ramon and I had stated that we were still going to be around in various formats and we are.
You can find my occasional podcast, Ramon's "Mind of Malpica" and our shows together here and be sure to give an ITunes review too.
Ramon says it helps to move us up the ranking etc, so help us out if you can.
I knocked a single PC out last weekend talking about boxing and the Browns and we did one together a while back.
I plan to do one or two solo's each week and I want to bring back guests on my solo appearances very much like the old show, so thanks to Ramon for allowing me to do that and our shows together as well.

There's more than just Ramon's podcast and mine in this post though, so here's a few more of interest (pun intended) that we have listened to and enjoyed of late!

Starting with "Nerd Appropriate" and their 300th episode where they landed Amy Acker ( "Root" of Person of Interest and therefore the above pun) for their show.
If you aren't a fan of POI or Amy's current show "The Gifted" or are unfamiliar with her other work,
you might remember her as last year's face of the PPM.
As an Acker fan, I really enjoyed this and she comes off as someone totally unfazed by fame and as one of the nicest people in show business-Now that would be someone I'd love to have on the "New" TRS podcast.

Another interesting listen was posted on Twitter as one of their past podcasts with Rebecca Jarvis of ABC News and her "No Limits" with guest Erica Hill of CNN/HLN.
I've always liked Hill going back to her early days at CNN before she traveled to the networks before returning back to the "Turner" networks and I prefer her to all the CNN anchors in the afternoon when her HLN show airs.
My biggest issue with HLN, which makes sense with the name of their network as Headline News, is seeing the same items over and over again, so I don't watch it often, but Hill would be great with CNN and an afternoon slot.
Hill talks about the news game, the problems for women in the field and mistakes that she has made, which I thought was refreshingly honest.

And it wouldn't be a podcast post without a sports one and here is a two-part episode that I loved as "Good Seats" spends two and a half hours with author Mark Speck (another person I'd love to have as a guest) talking about the World Football League.
Good Seats is a podcast that you are going to see a lot here at TRS as they deal with defunct sports leagues and as they write "What used to be in professional sports", so look for more on future podcast posts or cleaning out the inbox segments.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it here (I know I did on social media), but I was given a WFL game ball recently by a friend and I play WFL games on the time on my Action Football game, so for me, I loved listening.
Speck has written two books on the WFL that I'd love to read that I haven't been able to yet, but they aren't available on Kindle and they are pretty pricey to boot.
Part one can be found here and part two in this location.

Hope you found a podcast or two to listen and maybe even Fightheads, I think this will become an
occasional fixture here, so send me a podcast that I might find interesting and it might wind up in a future post.

Cleaning Out the inbox

Time to clean out the inbox before we hit a big football and boxing weekend!

We start with an interview with Mike Grell on his 1980's run with the DC Comics character Green Arrow.
Grell revamped GA with a gritty,urban feel that took away super-powered villains and the trick arrows that were such a huge part of the character previously.
The Longbow Hunters mini-series that Grell wrote and re-introduced the "new" Arrow was received well and I quite enjoyed it,despite missing the Arrow that I grew up with...

The first computer in space on the unmanned Apollo-Saturn mission in 1966 has not only been found in a scrap auction in Houston,but a self-described "perpetual hacker" from South Africa has verified and restored the computer.
Atlas Obscura has more here with the computer now being displayed on USS Hornet and its museum ship....

Now that Ohio State's game with Bowling Green is over and the Buckeyes will have no further games against MAC opponents on the schedule,Urban Meyer can go back to rooting for the Falcons,which was his first head coaching position in 2001.
Meyer turned the Falcons from 2-9 to 8-3 as he "changed the culture" (don't we hear that phrase a lot anymore?) and not only began his road to the top,but began the run that moved Bowling Green as a consistent MAC powerhouse.
Scout.com writes of Meyer's first season at Bowling Green and his attachment to the first team that he coached...

I stumbled upon a neat site at NFLUniforms that discusses the flamboyant uniforms of the World Football League.
It's a really interesting post on the league that must have taken a lot of work to have such detail...

We wrap with two local notes-the first of which is a thanks for the nice comments on the Danny Taylor post.
I wonder sometimes how much of "me" people really want to read and when I get words on those types of posts,I feel quite gratified...

The other is this SABR article on former big leaguer and Williamsport MD native Dave Cole,who pitched parts of six seasons in the 1950's.
Dave Cole was always a name that you heard locally when baseball came up and even though I never met him,playing (and announcing) in Williamsport,it was pretty tough to avoid the name of Dave Cole.
The article by Austin Gisriel is incredibly detailed and I highly recommend giving it a read...