Tim Tebow’s first professional baseball game, of sorts, yielded an immediate highlight as the telegenic Heisman Trophy winner and two-time national champion quarterback hit a home run on the first pitch he saw in a game against a team of St. Louis Cardinals farmhands.
Tebow,
29, is likely the oldest player populating instructional league games
in Florida, and the 255-pound outfielder did not waste time showing he’d
like to advance with some dispatch through the New York Mets system, hammering a pitch just to the left of dead center field in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
The home run came on the first pitch off a fellow former Southeastern
Conference athlete - John Kilichowski, 22, who was selected in the 11th
round of June's draft out of Vanderbilt. Kilichowski posted a 3.38 ERA
in 11 games - nine starts - at rookie level State College (Pa.) and
low-A Peoria (Ill.).
“It was fun. I just wanted to have the
approach that I was going to be aggressive,” Tebow said.
“That’s
something that we’ve been talking about here every day and practicing
it.”
Kilichowski was 12 years old when Tebow helped the University of Florida to the first of two national championships in 2006.
Tebow ended up 1-for-6 on the day with no strikeouts and played left field for five innings.
“I
liked a lot of my at-bats today,” Tebow said. “I hit the ball really
hard four out of the six times. … Four of the at-bats I felt really,
really good about. Didn’t swing at any breaking balls, didn’t feel like I
got fooled seeing it out of the (pitcher's) hand.”
Tebow received a $100,000 bonus to sign with the Mets, an arrangement
that this fall enables him to keep his commitments as an analyst for
the ESPN-owned SEC Network. He had not played organized baseball since
his junior year of high school in 2005, in Florida.
“It feels good to hit a home run,” Tebow said. “First game you’re competing you wanna win. You’re with all your teammates.
"Honestly, the reception was fun, too.”
Contributing: Luis Torres of The Treasure Coast Palm, part of the USA TODAY Network
One day in February, Paul Tollett, the promoter of the Coachella music festival, was summoned to Mick Jagger’s dressing room in Buenos Aires.
The Rolling Stones
were on tour there, and Mr. Tollett had traveled from California. The
band’s involvement was vital to Mr. Tollett’s idea for a new event: a
once-in-a-lifetime festival of rock giants, including Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, the Who and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd,
all performing over three days at the same spot in the Southern
California desert where Mr. Tollett had built Coachella into the concert
world’s most successful franchise.
Mr.
Jagger listened to the pitch, and then shot back, as he later recalled
in an interview on SiriusXM radio, “You mean it’s like Coachella for old
people?”
Mr. Jagger was intrigued, though, and thus was born Desert Trip,
along with its stereotype as a boomer-ready version of a 21st-century
pop festival, with a telegram-from-1969 lineup and an elaborate
complement of on-site luxuries. The average age of the headlining
performers is 72, leading to the mocking nickname “Oldchella.”
Snark
aside, however, Desert Trip — which begins the first of its two
weekends on Oct. 7, at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif. — has
already taken its place as one of the most ambitious, and potentially
most lucrative, music festivals in history. In part that is thanks to
the buying power of older fans, a demographic that has often been
overlooked in the concert industry’s festival boom.
Its
two weekends, which will each feature two acts a night, will draw a
total of about 150,000 concertgoers. Sales of tickets and amenities like
camping and food passes will reach an estimated $160 million — far more
than any other festival around the world, and nearly double the $84
million take from last year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival,
according to Pollstar, a trade publication that tracks concert industry
data.
Concert
executives estimate that Desert Trip, which is put on by Mr. Tollett’s
company, Goldenvoice, a division of the global entertainment company AEG
Live, could cost $100 million to stage, including what representatives
of several of the acts said were extraordinary paydays for the
performers.
Mr.
Tollett declined to comment on the specific finances of the festival,
but said in an interview that he was deliberately paying the performers a
premium given the historic nature of the lineup. “The bands are getting
what they deserve,” he saidThe
financial scale of Desert Trip has raised eyebrows throughout the
industry. Tickets range from $199 for general admission on a single day
to $1,599, the highest tier for weekend passes to one of 35,000 assigned
seats. On average, attendees will spend more than $1,000 each — a
remarkable sum given that the average ticket price to the top 100 tours
in North America is about $75, according to Pollstar.
“Whatever
ceiling there was in the concert business in terms of economics just
got blown out of the water,” said Marc Geiger, the head of music at the
William Morris Endeavor agency.
Satisfying
an affluent crowd that skews toward middle age has become one of the
promoters’ main concerns. There is an extensive menu of high-end food,
including a $225 four-course meal by chefs like Dominique Ansel and Marcus Samuelsson,
and an afternoon-long, all-you-can-eat “culinary experience” for $179.
Mr. Tollett said that he and his team had been laboring over logistics
to minimize patrons’ time waiting in line, and spent months scouring the
region for more than 1,000 flushable toilets.
“We
pretty much wiped out everything into Texas,” Mr. Tollett said of the
hunt for rentable restroom trailers, which will supplement the more than
300 toilets already on the site.
When
asked about the demographics for the show, Mr. Tollett said that all
ages were expected, but acknowledged that the crowd would lean heavily
toward the baby boomer generation. The festival’s own marketing videos illustrate this, with gray-haired revelers feasting on gourmet food and dancing in the pastel light of the desert dusk.
Older
fans represent a steady portion of the concert audience, but have been
an afterthought for festivals, which have become the concert industry’s
fastest-growing area since Coachella’s arrival in 1999. That matches a
wider blind spot in entertainment media about older consumers, said
Robert Love, editor in chief of AARP The Magazine and a former editor at
Rolling Stone.
“The
truth is that there is a lot of advertising and media in general that
tends not to focus on people over 45,” Mr. Love said, “even though the
people who spend the most money on computers, cars, CDs and movies are
older.”
AARP The Magazine, which last year drew headlines around the world for publishing a rare interview with Mr. Dylan,
will be sending three reporters to Desert Trip, Mr. Love said. Other
media coverage will include a station on SiriusXM devoted to music from
the acts on the festival.
Mr.
Tollett said that his work on Desert Trip began in May 2015, when he
started checking in with the acts and their business representatives — a
delicate dance, that, given the stature of the performers, took months.
“None
of these artists are easy,” said Marsha Vlasic, Neil Young’s longtime
booking agent. “Getting answers from Bob Dylan, getting answers from
Neil Young, getting answers from the Rolling Stones — that’s all a
workout.”
To
win over the Who, Mr. Tollett met with Pete Townshend backstage at
Madison Square Garden. “I was like, ‘I want to put a show on, maybe the
best of all time,’” Mr. Tollett recalled. “‘Can you help?’”
The
participation of the Rolling Stones was crucial, and once Mr. Jagger
signaled his interest in February, the lineup came together quickly. Mr.
Tollett said that the event was mostly confirmed by March, and news of
it began to leak in April, just as Coachella was starting its first week.
At
that point the event had no official name; the idea, Mr. Tollett said,
was that the names of the artists were branding enough. But a website
was needed, and Desert Trip eventually went from simply the web address
to the name of the festival itself.
In March, Goldenvoice began selling tickets for a new festival in New York called Panorama,
and demand was soft. Spooked by that experience, the company decided to
go big in marketing Desert Trip, buying newspaper ads in 17 countries
and a festival trailer that played in movie theaters.
Initially
advertised for one weekend only, demand was such that a second weekend
was quickly added, and most of the tickets to both weekends sold out
within a few hours. (A small number of additional tickets, released
after seating configurations were completed, were released two weeks
ago.)
The
festival’s extraordinary lineup — and the ever-present sense that many
of the acts may be nearing the end of their touring days — has been the
biggest driver of sales. But Mr. Tollett said, as a promoter, that it
was also simply about putting on a good show.
“To me,” he said, “the main story is just that it’s three days of great rock ’n’ roll.”
If you summon an Uber in 10 years’ time, you will probably get a car that drives itself. But then again, you may not be travelling in a car at all. The taxi-hailing app is working on technology that would
allow airborne passenger drones to fly its users short distances around
cities, it has emerged, raising the prospect of a future in which
skylines are dotted with Uber aircraft shuttling commuters back and
forth. Jeff Holden, Uber’s head of product, told technology website Recode
that the company is researching “vertical take off and landing” (VTOL)
technology. Instead of the helicopter-style rotor blade drones, VTOL
aircraft have fixed wings like planes, enabling them to fly silently,
while taking off and landing vertically.
Holden said Uber wanted
to “offer our customers as many options as possible to move around” and
that the technology could be available within a decade.
“It could change cities and how we work and live,” Holden
said, pointing out that moving traffic from the road to the air could
dramatically cut down on congestion and the time it takes to cross
cities. He said he envisages aircraft taking off from and landing on the
roofs of buildings.
Uber is already testing driverless carsCredit:
AFP
While the idea may seem
far-fetched, Uber is not the only one researching passenger drones.
Earlier this year Ehang, a Chinese company, unveiled the 184,
an autonomous quadcopter drone designed to carry a single passenger,
with a battery life of 23 minutes. The 184, which has been slated for
release as early as this year, is expected to cost up to $300,000
(£232,000).
Google founder Larry Page is one of the major believers in flying cars, putting $100m of his own money into startups developing the technology.
However, filling our
skies with passenger drones within 10 years is an ambitious undertaking,
and would require hundreds of pages of new regulations, not to mention
consumers who would be willing to put their life in the hands of a small
self-flying aircraft. It would also, presumably, be incredibly costly
to develop. But Uber is already at the forefront of developing self-driving technology. Earlier this month it began testing a driverless car service in Pittsburgh.
Miami Marlins ace pitcher Jose Fernandez was killed Sunday morning after a boat crash in Miami Beach, the team announced.
Jose Fernandez smiles after becoming a U.S. citizen during a naturalization ceremony in Miami on April 24, 2015.
(AP)
The 24-year-old Fernandez was one of three people killed in the early morning accident. "The Miami Marlins organization is devastated by the
tragic loss of Jose Fernandez," a team statement said. "Our thoughts and
prayers are with his family at this very difficult time." Fernandez posted a photo of his girlfriend sporting a
"baby bump" on his Instagram page last week, announcing that the couple
were expecting their first child. "I'm so glad you came into my life," Fernandez wrote in that post. "I'm ready for where this journey is gonna take us together."
Jose Fernandez was among three people that died when a boat hit a jetty early Sunday morning.
(AP)
Marlins manager Don Mattingly was in tears and visibly shaken during a Sunday afternoon news conference. "I see such a little boy," Mattingly said. "The way he played, there was just joy with him when he played." When leaving the news conference, leftfielder Christian
Yellich and second baseman Dee Gordon wrapped their arms around each
other and walked out somberly with other team members. Earlier, Gordon
had walked out to the mound at Marlins Park, where the grounds crew had
painted a "16" -- Fernandez's number -- and placed a Marlins cap. Gordon
stood looking at the tribute before kneeling down in a moment of silent
reflection.
"Sadly, the brightest lights are often the ones that extinguish the fastest," Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria said in a statement.
Sunday's game between the Marlins and the Atlanta Braves in Miami was
cancelled after the death of the star right hander. MLB announced a
moment of silence would be held for Fernandez before each game on
Sunday.
"All of baseball is shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of
Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez," MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said
in a statement. "He was one of our game's great young stars who made a
dramatic impact on and off the field since his debut in 2013. Our
thoughts and prayers are with his family, the Miami Marlins organization
and all of the people he touched in his life." Chief Petty Officer Nyxolyno Cangemi told The Associated
Press that a Coast Guard patrol boat spotted an overturned boat at 3:30
a.m. on a jetty near Government Cut. The bodies were discovered a short
time later. Officials said no one was wearing a life vest. Because the boat was on a jetty, the Coast Guard notified
Miami-Dade police, which turned the investigation over to the Florida
Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Fernandez was on a 32-foot vessel that had a "severe impact" with the jetty, said Lorenzo Veloz of the Fish Commission. Veloz said the boat was found upside down. Two bodies
were found under the vessel and one was found in the water by
divers. The boat was traveling full speed and was demolished. There was no evidence of alcohol or illegal substances being a factor in the crash. The names of the other two individuals are being withheld pending notification of relatives, the Coast Guard said. "It does appear that speed was involved due to the impact
and the severity of it," Veloz said. "It does appear to be that they
were coming at full speed when they encountered the jetty, and the
accident happened." The boat was owned by a friend of Fernandez's, Veloz said. "It does pertain to a friend of Jose who is very well
connected with several Marlins players and I have stopped that boat
before for safety inspections with other Marlins players on board,"
Veloz said. "We know that this boat knows the area. We just can't answer
why this happened." City of Miami Fire-Rescue workers were seen carrying
bodies, draped and on stretchers, at the Coast Guard station after
sunrise Sunday. Fernandez was born in Cuba and he attempted to defect three times before finally reaching the U.S. in 2007 with his mother. Marlins Team President David Samson recalled a common
refrain Fernandez would utter to those who were born in the U.S.: "You
were born into freedom, you don't understand freedom." During his journey at sea, Fernandez's mom, Maritza, fell off the boat. Fernandez dove into the ocean to save her. “I dove to help a person not thinking who that person was,” Fernandez told The Miami Herald
in 2013. “Imagine when I realized it was my own mother. If that does
not leave a mark on you for the rest of your life, I don’t know what
will.” He played in just 27 games in the minor leagues, reaching
the Single-A level in 2012 before he was selected to the Marlins'
Opening Day roster in 2013 at the age of 20.
In 76 career games, Fernandez was 38-17 with a 2.43 ERA and 589 strikeouts in 471 1/3 innings. A two-time All-Star, Fernandez won the National League
Rookie of the Year award in 2013. He appeared headed for another stellar
season in 2014, but after eight starts his year was derailed when it
was revealed Fernandez would need Tommy John surgery. He returned from
the procedure to make 11 starts in 2015. Fernandez was 16-8 with a 2.86 ERA and an MLB-best 12.6
strikeouts per nine innings in 2016. He was considered a strong
contender for the NL Cy Young Award.
Fernandez's final game was Sept. 20 in Miami against the
NL East division champion Washington Nationals. He pitched eight shutout
innings, allowing just three hits and striking out 12. It was his ninth
game of the season with at least 11 strikeouts. He was due to pitch
Monday against the New York Mets. Fernandez's death was not the first time an MLB pitcher
died during a boating mishap. In 1993, two Cleveland Indians pitchers –
Steve Olin, 27, and Tim Crews, 31 – were killed in a boating accident on
Little Lake Nellie in Clermont, Fla., The Plain Dealer reported. Bobby Ojeda, a third Indians pitcher, suffered serious scalp injuries, but lived. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
he plane lands at Los
Angeles International Airport, the shuttle stops at your car, the long
trip is over, but everything feels a little strange until you turn on
the radio and hear the voice that wraps you in a welcome.
“Hi everybody, and a very pleasant good evening to you, wherever you may be.’’ Now that Vin Scully is leaving, how will we know we are home?
The easy chair creaks, the TV is turned up, the Dodgers are playing,
and you are bobbing to the rhythm of a man describing a baseball play as
if it’s set to music, whole notes followed by quarter notes, punchy
lyrics flowing into a grand finish.“High drive into left-center field and deep … back goes Pederson … a-way back … it’s gone!’’
Now that Vin Scully is leaving, who will sing to us? The batter and third baseman each have extraordinary beards. In the
middle of an ordinary game, the two are looking at each other and
everything slows and you’re about to change the channel when a voice
starts telling a story between pitches, a story that will only last as
long as the batter stays alive, a wondrous story about those beards. “One ball and one strike the count … then, of course, you come to
Abraham Lincoln, who was clean-shaven, and a little 11-year-old girl
named Grace Bedell, she said to Mr. Lincoln: ‘If you would grow a beard,
my daddy has a beard and my mother will tease him to vote for you.’ So
Abraham Lincoln grew a beard.’’ Now that Vin Scully is leaving, we’ll never again cheer so hard for foul balls. Scully, who is retiring after 67 years as the radio and television
voice of the Dodgers, is the greatest announcer in the history of
broadcasting. But he doesn’t belong to the Dodgers or to broadcasting. What makes this farewell so poignant is that Scully, 88, is that rare Los Angeles sports monument who actually belongs to us.
The players don’t hear him on the field, the big shots rarely hear
him from their box seats, and the rest the country only hears him
through their wireless. Since the Dodgers arrived here 58 years ago,
Scully has spoken almost strictly to us, Angelenos in our cars and
in our homes, millions who grew up with his voice in their kitchens and
have grown old with it at their bedsides. He is the teacher of our
children, the bleacher buddy of our teens, the wise neighbor on our
cul-de-sac, and the dear companion of our aging and infirm. For the people of Los Angeles, he is not merely the announcer of
baseball games, he is the soundtrack of our lives, the dignified and
graceful accompaniment of endless sandy summers, a daily harmonic
reminder of the Southern California dream. “It’s tiiiime for Dodger baseball!’’ Now that Vin Scully is leaving, will that ever feel so true again?
It is our last interview before he retires. It takes place in the
middle of a week when the Dodgers are on the road, when Scully can relax
at his San Fernando Valley home without being swarmed by the multitudes
of fans who crowd outside the press box each night in this final
season, hoping for a glimpse of his red hair and ruddy smile, straining
to hear a smattering of his farewell words. Scully and I have spoken for 30 years in dugouts and press box dining
rooms and golf course restaurants, and there is seemingly little he can
say that I haven’t heard, but I just want to be around him a little
while longer. I can’t help it. For this final chat, I ask for 15 minutes. He gives me nearly an hour. “I don’t have any doubts, I know this is the time to retire,’’ he
says. “I’m going to be 89 in November and I thought, ‘Gee whiz, how can I
be doing the games next year, looking forward to my 90th birthday?’ Something just doesn’t sound right there.’’ We wouldn’t care. We wouldn’t notice. But Scully, who missed last
year’s postseason with an illness, is weary of tempting time and fate.
He wants to spend as many moments as possible with a family that
includes wife Sandi, five children, 16 grandchildren and three
great-grandchildren.
“God has been so generous to allow me all this time, when I look back
and I think, ‘I’ve had so many yesterdays, but I’m not sure how many
tomorrows,’” he says. “I feel it’s best to see if I can enjoy whatever
tomorrows are left.’’ He is still so sharp that this week he was describing the pendant on
the chain around the neck of San Francisco reliever Will Smith. He’s
still so engaged that his description of the shouting match between
Yasiel Puig and Madison Bumgarner went viral. He’s not leaving because
he’s lost anything.
He’s leaving because he knows there are greater joys
remaining in his life, and he wants to find them while he still can. “I’ll miss it, I’ll miss it a great deal,’’ he says. “But they’re precious, whatever tomorrows are left.” Everyone has a favorite Vin Scully
story, but they are rarely about baseball. More often, they are about
us, how he’s comforted, or enlightened, or entertained, or simply been
part of the connective fabric of our lives. My Scully stories began when I was a young reporter covering the
Dodgers for this newspaper in the late 1980s. I would sneak a radio to
my place in the Dodger Stadium press box and stick headphones into my
ears and listen to him broadcast the final three innings. I was typing
so furiously under deadline pressure I couldn’t really watch the games,
so Scully watched them for me, and taught me baseball in the process.
Another of my Scully stories involves the time I met him at a
restaurant for a magazine interview. I pulled up to the valet parking
space and pulled out my wallet when the valet stopped me.
“Mr. Scully has already paid,’’ the man said.
I met him at the table and enjoyed a long lunch filled with typical
Scully tales of love and laughter, and then waited for a bill which I
could put on my expense account.
Only when Scully had excused himself did a waiter come up and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Mr. Scully has already paid,’’ he said.
Scully later told me the lunch was his ‘‘honor,’’ which says a lot more about Scully than it does about me.
While I was reporting that same article, Scully asked me not to call
his children because he didn’t want them to be bothered, and I obliged. I
was in the middle of writing the piece when my phone rang. It was his
daughter Catherine.
“I don’t care what my father said, I cannot let you write a story without telling you how great he is,’’ she said.
Catherine told of her dad standing in the shallow end of the family
swimming pool every afternoon as he made his first sports call of the
day, announcing her jumping into the pool.
“Ladies and gentleman, now presenting the infamous Catherine Anne Whale!’’ he would intone as she leaped giggling into his arms.
I wrote down the story, thanked Catherine, hung up, and the phone
rang again. It was another one of his children with another story. Then
another one called. And another one called.
There was the story of Vin giving wife Sandi a cassette tape for
Christmas. It wasn’t from one of his Broadway heroes. It was of
him singing “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Sandi wept when she received it,
and it remains a prized possession.
There was the story of Scully, who used to smoke, taking a pack of
cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and replacing it with a family photo,
which he would touch and examine and cherish for eight months, until he
finally kicked the habit.
“He is not some myth,’’ Catherine told me that day. “He is real.’’
It was Vin Scully Bobblehead Night at
Dodger Stadium earlier this week, with a rare midweek sellout crowd of
53,621 crowding Chavez Ravine for a chance to acquire the collectible.
Yet when Scully announced the unusual attendance, he never mentioned the bobblehead.
“Even a little rhubarb like last night involving Bumgarner and Puig,
I’m sure that brought a lot of people here, absolutely,’’ he said.
No, not even close. The fans were there for Scully, who is the most
important Dodger in Los Angeles history and second only behind Jackie
Robinson in Dodgers history. But Scully’s humility is as deep as it is
real. His work is for us, not him. When he makes a memorable call, he
never purposely listens to it again.
“I’m not much for looking back, I treasure the experiences and don’t
look at them again,’’ he says. “I have it all on DVDs, and they’re
filed away, and when I go in a puff of smoke, the grandkids have record
of granddad doing this and that.’’
When he is needed to announce a special pregame event, the Dodgers
must coax him down to the field. Once there, instead of waving to the
crowd, he claps for the crowd. In a hey-look-at-me era, Scully is always
only looking out for us.
“I’m just another grain of sand on the beach,’’ he says. “Years ago I
said to people, ‘I need you more than you need me,’ and I meant that
from the bottom of my heart.’’
Scully will never admit that he has fans. In that context, he doesn’t even use the word.
“I don’t use the word ‘fans’ ever, because it’s short for fanatic,’’
he says. “I always use ‘friends’ because I think of them as friends,
and people seem to think of me as friend, for that I’m humbled by the
thousands.’’
He’s so humble that, because he refused to stand under much of a
spotlight in this final season, his farewell tour came to him. It has
long been a tradition that umpires, before the first game of every
series at Dodger Stadium, look up at the booth and uniformly salute
Scully. But this season, both players and umpires, sometimes in uniform,
have taken elevator rides to the fifth floor to visit his booth to
simply say thank you.
Most of them were Southland-born kids who listened to Scully while
growing up. But some of them had never even heard Scully call a single
pitch.
“The Dodgers are extremely popular, whoever would have sat in my
chair and had been blessed to have worked all these years would be in
the same position,’’ Scully says. “I would use the word ‘overwhelmed.’
I’m an ordinary man who can’t believe it.’’ Scully not only sings his play-by-play,
he actually sings. Driving around town, he punches up old showtunes like
“The Music Man’’ and belts them out, songs fueled by gratitude and
hope.
“I honestly feel that through the grace of God, I have gotten what I
dreamed to do as as child. It was given to me at a very young age, and I
was allowed to practice it all these years,’’ he says.
“I’ve known
every minute, every day of every year, that I could lose everything in
the blink of an eye. People having strokes, people dropping dead. I have
lived with that thought all my life, how blessed I’ve been, and how I
could lose it all in a second.’’
He knows about pain. He understands loss.
His first wife, Joan, died in 1972 of an accidental overdose of cold
and bronchitis medicine. His son Michael died in 1994, at 33, in a
helicopter crash.
Is it any wonder he so often peppers his broadcasts with sweet comments about families in the stands, particularly children?
“My main thing, I want people to remember me as a good man, a good
husband, a good father, a good grandfather, that’s the most important
thing of all,” he says. “Broadcasting is part of my life, but not a part
that should be overblown in any way, shape or form.”
It is those between-innings comments about kids that cast Scully not
only as Los Angeles’ soundtrack, but also the city’s grandpa. He’ll coo
at babies, giggle with toddlers, hoot with little boys, and, yes, even
gently remind everyone to mind their manners.
This week during a game against the Giants, the camera caught a young
girl standing and smiling with her father before suddenly sticking her
finger in her nose. Scully remained honest as always.
“Ah yes, shine on my dear,’’ he said, pausing. “And no nose picking, not on camera, oh no!”
“It’s just different, it’s just me’’ he says. “Being around 16
grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, I’m instinctively pulled in
that direction. It touches my heart. I see a little girl dancing in an
aisle, children eating, it elicits a response from me, I just can’t look
at that and let it go.” Vin Scully is our most trusted public figure, no surveys required.
For years, folks attending Dodger Stadium would listen to Scully on
their transistor radios and react to his voice. Fans didn’t believe what
they saw as much as they believed what Scully said. Long fly balls were
never cheered like home runs until Scully’s voice rose into home-run
tenor because he was always fair and usually right.
He has never tried to homer a homer. He has never openly rooted for
anybody. He has never shown bias toward anybody. During a time when
announcers everywhere are scolded by their team’s ownership for not
being positive, Scully has connected with fans by being impartial.
“The No. 1 thing I’ve tried is to be accurate,’’ he says. “The man in
the stands, if he wants a home run in the bottom of the ninth, and a
Dodger hits a fly ball, he’ll look at that fly ball with his heart even
though it’s only a fly ball. I cannot afford to do that. I look with my
eyes or I lose my accuracy.’’
For 67 years, Scully has remained objective through all sorts of
Dodgers outrageousness, both good and bad, even when it affected him
directly.
During the last three years, a greedy stalemate has kept the Dodgers
off television in more than half of Los Angeles-area homes, costing fans
a chance to say good-bye to Scully until a deal was struck that KTLA
would broadcast the team’s final six regular-season games. Through it
all, Scully has openly acknowledged sadness but refused to show anger or
place blame, and fans have not complained about his lack of
intervention. They want him to be neutral. They love him for who he is.
It only makes sense that the most compelling sounds in his three favorite calls have been silence.
When he announced Brooklyn’s first world championship in 1955
— “Ladies and gentleman, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the
world’’ — he immediately went quiet.
“I could not have said another word or I would have broke down and cried,’’ he recalls.
Also on the list of his most memorable calls was Hank Aaron’s 715th
home run in 1974, during which he announced the homer and then remained
silent for one minute and 44 seconds while fans cheered and fireworks
boomed. When he finally spoke again, his words were poetry. “What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for
Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the
country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the
Deep South for breaking the record of an all-time baseball idol, and it
is a great moment for all of us,’’ he said. That silence reappeared on what Scully said was his most theatrical
call, of Kirk Gibson’s game-winning homer in the opener of the 1988
World Series. After calling the homer, Scully was quiet for one minute
and eight seconds while Gibson rounded the bases and the crowd roared
and the organ played. Only after that long pause did he recite the memorable, “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.’’ Twenty-eight years later, in a year that has been so improbable, the impossible is once again about to happen. Vin Scully is leaving, and the silence will be deafening. Contact the reporter | Twitter: @BillPlaschke
Arnold
Palmer points to his name on the press ten scoreboard showing his four
under par total for 72 holes for the National Open tournament in Denver,
Colo., June 19, 1960. Palmer won the tournament with a score of 280.
(AP Photo) (AP Photo)
Arnold Palmer, a seven-time major winner who brought golf to the
masses and became the most beloved figure in the game, died Sunday, a
source close to the family confirmed to Golfweek. He was 87. Reaction poured in from “Arnie’s Army” of admirers in the world of golf. “We loved him with a mythic American joy,” said Palmer biographer
James Dodson. “He represented everything that is great about golf. The
friendship, the fellowship, the laughter, the impossibility of golf, the
sudden rapture moment that brings you back, a moment that you never
forget, that’s Arnold Palmer in spades. He’s the defining figure in
golf.” No one did more to popularize the sport than Palmer. His dashing
presence singlehandedly took golf out of the country clubs and into the
mainstream. Quite simply, he made golf cool. “I used to hear cheers go up from the crowd around Palmer,” Lee
Trevino said. “And I never knew whether he’d made a birdie or just
hitched up his pants.” Golfweek subscriber Bob Conn of Guilford, Conn., in a letter
to the editor, captured the loyalty and devotion that the public felt
for Palmer. “If Arnold Palmer sent me a personal letter asking me to join the
cleanup crew at Bay Hill, I would buy a green jumpsuit, stick a nail in a
broom handle, grab some Hefty garbage bags and shake his hand when I
arrived.” It wasn’t just the fans. His fellow competitors revered him, and the
next generation and the generation after that worshiped him. When
reporters at the 1954 U.S. Amateur asked Gene Littler to identify the
golfer as slender as wire and as strong as cable cracking balls on the
practice tee, Littler said: “That’s Arnold Palmer. He’s going to be a
great player some day. When he hits the ball, the earth shakes.” Palmer, of Latrobe, Pa., attended Wake Forest University on a golf
scholarship. At age 24, he was selling paint and living in Cleveland,
just seven months removed from a three-year stint in the Coast Guard
when he entered the national sporting consciousness by winning the 1954
U.S. Amateur at the Country Club of Detroit. “That victory was the turning point in my life,” he said. “It gave me
confidence I could compete at the highest level of the game.” Palmer’s victory set in motion a chain of events. Instead of
returning to selling paint, Palmer played the next week in the Waite
Memorial in Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pa., where he met Winifred Walzer, who
would become his wife of 45 years until her death in 1999. On Nov. 17,
1954, Palmer announced his intentions to turn pro, and golf would never
be the same. In his heyday, Palmer famously swung like he was coming out of his shoes. “What other people find in poetry, I find in the flight of a good drive,” Palmer said. He unleashed his corkscrew swing motion, which produced a piercing
draw, with the ferocity of a summer squall. In his inimitable
swashbuckling style, Palmer succeeded with both power and putter.
In a
career that spanned more than six decades, he won 62 PGA Tour titles
between 1955 and 1973, placing him fifth on the Tour’s all-time victory
list, and collected seven majors in a seven-year explosion between the
1958 and 1964 Masters. Palmer didn’t lay up or leave putts short. His go-for-broke style
meant he played out of the woods and ditches with equal abandon, and
resulted in a string of memorable charges. At the 1960 U.S. Open at
Cherry Hills near Denver, Palmer drove the first green and with his
trademark knock-kneed, pigeon-toed putting stance went out and birdied
six of the first seven holes en route to shooting 65 and winning the
title in a furious comeback. “Palmer on a golf course was Jack Dempsey with his man on the ropes,
Henry Aaron with a three-and-two fastball, Rod Laver at set point, Joe
Montana with a minute to play, A.J. Foyt with a lap to go and a car to
catch,” wrote Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray. Even Palmer’s setbacks were epic. He double-bogeyed the 18th hole
at Augusta in the 1961 Masters after accepting congratulations from a
spectator he knew in the gallery. Palmer lost playoffs in three U.S.
Opens, the first to Jack Nicklaus in 1962; the second to Julius Boros in
1963; and the third to Billy Casper in 1966 in heart-breaking fashion.
Palmer blew a seven-stroke lead with nine holes to go in regulation at
the Olympic Club and lost to Casper in an 18-hole playoff the next day. Arnold Daniel Palmer, born Sept. 10, 1929, grew up in the
working-class mill town of Latrobe, in a two-story frame house off the
sixth tee of Latrobe Country Club, where his father, Milfred “Deacon”
Palmer, was the greenskeeper and professional. Though for decades Palmer has made his winter home in Orlando, Fla.,
he never lost touch with his western Pennsylvania roots in the foothills
of the Allegheny Mountains. “Of all the places I’ve been, there isn’t any place that I’m more
comfortable than I am right here,” he told Golfweek in 2009 in Latrobe
ahead of his 80th birthday. Palmer was 3 years old when his father wrapped his hands around a
cut-down women’s golf club in the classic overlapping Vardon grip, and
instructed him to, “Hit it hard, boy. Go find it and hit it hard again.” Palmer’s combination of matinee-idol looks, charisma and blue-collar
background made him a superstar just as golf ushered in the television
era. He became Madison Avenue’s favorite pitchman, accepting an array of
endorsement deals that generated millions of dollars in income on
everything from licensed sportswear to tractors to motor oil and even
Japanese tearooms. Credit goes to agent Mark McCormack, who sold the
Palmer personality and the values he represented rather than his status
as a tournament winner. Palmer’s business empire grew to include a
course-design company, a chain of dry cleaners, car dealerships, as well
as ownership of Bay Hill Resort & Lodge in Orlando.
He even bought
Latrobe Country Club, which his father helped build with his own hands
and where as a youth Palmer was permitted only before the members
arrived in the morning or after they had gone home in the evening.
Palmer designed more than 300 golf courses in 37 states, 25 countries
and five continents (all except Africa and Antarctica), including the
first modern course built in China, in 1988. Palmer led the PGA Tour money list four times, and was the first
player to win more than $100,000 in a season. He played on six Ryder Cup
teams, and was the winning captain twice. He is credited with
conceiving the modern Grand Slam of the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open
and PGA Championship during a conversation with golf writer Bob Drum on
a flight to Ireland for the 1960 Canada Cup.
Palmer won the Masters
four times, the British Open twice and the U.S. Open once. It was Palmer
who convinced his colleagues they could never consider themselves
champions unless they had won the Claret Jug. Nick Faldo, during
Palmer’s farewell at St. Andrews in 1995 may have put it best when he
said, “If Arnold hadn’t come here in 1960, we’d probably all be in a
shed on the beach.” Mark O’Meara went a step further. “He made it
possible for all of us to make a living in this game,” he said. In 1974, Palmer was one of the original inductees into the World Golf
Hall of Fame. As he grew older, a shaky putter let Palmer down, but his
popularity never waned. The nascent Senior PGA Tour hitched its star to
golf’s first telegenic personality when Palmer turned 50. He relished
winning again and became a regular on the senior circuit, remaining
active until 2006. Palmer maintained a high profile in the game, presiding over the
Arnold Palmer Invitational every March, the only living player with his
name attached to a PGA Tour event. He also served as the longtime
national spokesperson for the USGA’s member program, and was an original
investor and frequent guest on Golf Channel. To countless others, he
became known for his eponymous drink consisting of equal parts iced tea
and lemonade. On Sept. 12, 2012, Palmer was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
He became just the sixth athlete to receive the honor. Coupled with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom that he was awarded in 2004, gave him both
of the highest honors that the U.S. can give to a civilian. Palmer, who gave up his pilot’s license in 2011, had been in
deteriorating health since late 2015. A ceremonial tee shot at the 2015
British Open was his last public golf shot. Palmer looked increasingly
frail in public appearances at the API in March and as an onlooker
instead of an active participant during the opening tee shot at the 2016
Masters in April. “Winnie once said to me, ‘When Arnold Palmer gives up flying his
airplane and his ability to hit a golf ball, he won’t be with us long,’ ”
said Dodson, the biographer. Palmer is survived by his second wife, Kit, daughters Amy Saunders
and Peggy Wears, six grandchildren, including Sam Saunders, who plays on
the PGA Tour. As a measure of his popularity, Palmer, like Elvis Presley before
him, was known simply as “The King.” But in a life bursting from the
seams with success, Palmer never lost his common touch. He was a man of
the people, willing to sign every autograph, shake every hand, and tried
to look every person in his gallery in the eye.
TMZ Legendary NFL coach Mike Ditka says Colin Kaepernickshould stop disrespecting the U.S. ... and just "get the hell out" of America if he doesn't like it here. Ditka appeared on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas Friday morning when he was asked about Kaep's protest ... and he didn't hold back ... at all. “Anybody who disrespects this country and the flag,” Ditka says, “If
they don’t like the country, they don’t like our flag, get the hell
out." Not only does Ditka have no respect for the way Kaepernick is protesting ... he doesn't believe there's a reason to protest at all. "I don't see all the atrocities going on in this country that people say are going on." Check out the clip ... it's clear Ditka's fed up.
by Oscar Contreras HUDSON, Colo. -- They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks,
but a young dog in Hudson may have accidentally learned something new
after stabbing her owner with a knife on Wednesday.
No, you're not reading that wrong.
Celinda Haynes, the owner of a one-and-a-half-year-old Chesapeake Bay
retriever dog named "Mia," was rushed to the hospital Wednesday morning
after Mia reached over her and stabbed her left forearm with a paring
knife.
"[Mia] likes to grab whatever she can to get people to play with her," explained Haynes' daughter, Chanda Stroup to Denver7.
As
it turns out, Mia is rather large for her age and was able to climb to
the kitchen counter, where she found her new sharp toy.
Trying to
get Mia to let go of the knife, Haynes reportedly put treats on the
ground and in her excitement, Mia reached over her arm and stabbed the
owner when she went for the treats.
"I need to go to the hospital," Haynes told her daughter. "Mia just cut my arm with a knife!"
The
wound -- a gash approximately 4-to-5-inches long and a
quarter-of-an-inch-wide -- surprised medical staff at Platte Valley
Medical Center, who did not believe the story at first. But they were
not the only ones.
"I had to make sure I heard that right," said Brent Flot, the town Marshal.
Deputies
were dispatched to the hospital as well as Haynes' home to investigate a
case of possible domestic violence. At the hospital, officials did not
believe the story. Back at the family's home, Flot found blood
everywhere, which prompted suspicion.
Deputies contacted Haynes'
husband to flesh out any suspicions of domestic violence, but he had
been at the DMV renewing his license when the stabbing unfolded.
By the end of the day, Haynes had several stitches on her arm and the family was laughing about the situation.
Unfortunately, Ryan Lochte's Dancing With the Stars debut was overshadowed by a scary event.
The Olympic swimmer, who was recently in the news for a robbery scandal in Rio during the Olympic Games, and dance partner Cheryl Burke were waiting to hear the response from judges tonight when chaos broke loose and protestors rushed the stage.
Carrie Ann Inaba
was attempting to start the judging but became distracted by the
commotion, which was never shown on-camera, however an eyewitness tells
E! News that men wearing white anti-Lochte T-shirts rushed the stage in
what looked to be an attempt to attack the Olympian, but the show's
security team made sure nothing happened.
Host Tom Bergeron
cut to commercial break, but upon return, a noticeably shaken Lochte
said, "I'm doing good. So many feelings are going through my head right
now. A little hurt. I came out here and I wanted to do something I was
completely uncomfortable with, and I did."
ABC
E!
News learns that there was a whole row of people with the anti-Lochte
shirts on (plain white T-shirts with his name and a no symbol on top)
that stood up when this happened. They were immediately kicked out from
the show to the sound of the crowd booing the protestors. "Everyone was
freaked out, especially Ryan and Cheryl. They were just frozen the
entire time in utter shock," the insider tells us.
Once security
cleared the area, the audience cheered, "We love you, Lochte," but the
swimmer looked "very choked up" after the incident."I'm hurt for
Ryan," Cheryl told Tom after the commercial break.
"He's sweet, he's
kind. He's working his butt off. I hope people give him a chance."
