Late this morning I sat down to check the availability and time of the golf tourney I want to take a look at on television before the weekend is over. This activity led me to a time-honored tradition…a little channel surfing.
I found the info on the golf tourney. I found and sat and watched a great deal of the Memorial Service for former Chicago Cub player, Ernie Banks, on the Major League Baseball network. Ernie died late last week. Folks spoke about him with gracious hearts and kind words. Mr. Cub was a great ambassador for the game of baseball and the city he loved to play it in.
I sat in awe, as I watched former players I thought the world of as a youngster deliver small speeches. Lou Brock spoke for a few minutes. I had not seen him in years. Fergie Jenkins had his speaks. Banks’ twin sons spoke.
Having been to Wrigley Field in Chicago a few times myself, I had some sense of the appreciation that town and that place has for Ernie Banks. Notice I say has…it will always be “has”. He will never go away. He was a true hero. He is a true “Hall of Famer”…if there really is such a thing.
I changed the channel.
On the NFL Network…by the way…for those you giving a rip…the Super Bowl is tomorrow. I am interested in this game primarily because I am a contestant in a radio contest and if the Seahawks win and the score is a reasonable facsimile of mine…I will win some nice prizes. Anyway, on the NFL Network this morning, there was a panel of talking heads discussing the possible new inductees into the “Pro Football Hall of Fame”.
Having a Pro Football Hall of Fame is a good thing, I think. Though of all the places I have been, I have never been to Canto, Ohio to see this facility. Why do I like the idea of a Pro Football Hall of Fame? I like that there is a place for young fans to get a glimpse of how the game has evolved and some insight into some of the players that played this game professionally for very little pay and more acclaim than the bass-ackwards theme I see today where many players receive a great deal of pay for very little acclaim. A sign of the times, I suppose.
I suppose my biggest beef with the likes of “Halls of Fame” is how they decide whom is inducted. Players in large part, as I understand it, are voted on by sportswriters. The possibility looms that a football player’s chance of getting into a hallowed hall might hinge on a vote by a guy who couldn’t block or tackle his sister if his life depended on it. Good luck with that. So.. what do we get?
We get players deserving…obviously…like first-balloter Walter Payton. And we get guys who get in twenty-eight years after they have hung up their cleats…see Ray Guy. In between we get a great deal of maybe they do and maybe they don’t (deserve to get “enshrined” into this club). For a football purist, it is just too much to rely on. There are a number of guys that deserve to be called Hall of Famers. They never will be.
Players I think should be in the Hall of Fame off the top of my head?
Jerry Kramer…Ken Stabler…Roger Craig…Drew Pearson…L.C. Greenwood…Ken Riley…Lemar Parrish. None of these players were my favorites. When they played, however, you knew they were on the field. They made themselves known with their play…not their mouths.
My sentimental favorite? Easy…Ken Anderson, former quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals. He led the league in passing 4 times. Set multiple records for passing accuracy that stood for years. He was a force to be reckoned with even though he played on many lousy teams. He was running Bill Walsh’s “west coast offense” in Riverfront Stadium along the Ohio River long before Joe Montana threw a pass for Niners head coach and former Bengals’ offensive coordinator…Bill Walsh. Over 32,000 passing yards and 197 touchdowns in a league that is much different than the one we see today, as he was trying to throw behind some bad line play, Anderson is a Hall of Famer to me.
Baseball’s Hall of Fame? Don’t get me started. The sportswriters have to watch 162 games a season yielding them more constipation than expected. They are the biggest hallowed hall mongers of all. That alone is a reason to despise the baseball hall of fame. That and two other easy words: Pete Rose.
What is worse than sport halls of fame?
Answer: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Or as I like to put it…the Cleveland Museum of Musical Criticism as told by Journalistic Neurotics claiming to understand Rock and Roll.
There should at least be this criteria for being inducted into a the Rock and Roll Hall: Most of us have heard of something you sang or played on!
I don’t have a personal beef with The 5 Royales…or The Paul Butterfield Blues Band…or Lou Reed (so I have heard of him)…or…believe me I could go on. I do wonder how they can be in a hall of fame.
Answer: Music Critics. They are worse than sportswriters. They know it all. They try to be creative because they don’t play an instrument themselves. You can throw a laptop across the room and it won’t make a good sound. You can blow on a pen and piece of paper and no one will care. So…they care little about what most of us like and use their own agenda to try to sway us to their liking. In the meantime…they waste their time. I gloss over music reviews in my newspaper.
You who know me probably guessed it. The Moody Blues are not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I hope they never get their. They deserve better.
Reasons The Moody Blues have not been inducted into the AMERICAN hall?
Could be:
None of The Moody Blues ever wore an earring. Playing sell out tours in 2014 isn’t cool. Selling 70 million records just doesn’t cut it. No members dead of drug-overdose. Lead singer married to same lady since 1969. Too many all over the world know the song Nights in White Satin word for word.
Who knows? And really, who cares? The Moodies just keep on rocking like the “Singers in a Rock and Roll Band” they are. Where is there a better hall than that? Maybe in the kitchen.
By the way…this morning I had breakfast with four of the finest gentlemen I will ever know. Time has yet to play bad tricks on these guys. Now and again…time stands still. You’ll know it when it does. This morning I was 7 and 47 at the same time. To Steve, Jim, Harv, and Jerry…I thank you.
Go Seahawks…if someone must.
Speaking the rights.
Danny Johnson