The Nostalgiaganza

Okay . . . let's try this again.

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bapo!
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

Post by bapo! »

sancarloskid wrote:One of the names in the hockey draft is notable to me. Craig Wolanin is buddies with a friend of mine who is in the Swamp fantasy hockey league (Morristown Express) and used to be a Swamper (user-named Spinner, after legendary player Brian Spencer).
For a time, MaxWebster's fantasy-hockey league was named The Spinner Memorial League. And, to tie this together with another thread, my avatar the year I won the championship was a picture of Andrew WK.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

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bapo! wrote: For a time, MaxWebster's fantasy-hockey league was named The Spinner Memorial League. And, to tie this together with another thread, my avatar the year I won the championship was a picture of Andrew WK.
Is that still going? He bailed on the AL only baseball league once I was finally bringing the crap team inherited into the top half of the table.
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

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Toronto in the 70s.

"beautiful, with an exotic-yet-familiar facial structure and an arresting gaze."
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bapo!
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

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rush wrote:Is that still going?
No, it's now truly a memorial league. I keep the bookmark near my Grantland bookmarks. (I could probably post Grantland links in this thread, huh? Hey, remember that great article from 2012 from that defunct web site? I'm still not over it.)

Pruitt, I think you've just added 'Let's boogie' to my lexicon.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

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My wife still has a Cleveland Force pennant in her office. And if you go to some sports memorabilia places here in Cleveland, you'll still find some Force or Cleveland Crunch stuff lying around. I'm holding out for finding a Hector Marinaro or Otto Orf jersey.

When we were dating, we would occasionally go watch the Cincinnati Silverbacks, an indoor soccer team that played in the Cincinnati Gardens in the mid-90s. A couple of times we managed a Gardens' two-fer, as we'd watch the Silverbacks play in the early afternoon and then come back to watch the Cincinnati Cyclones (an ECHL hockey team) in the evening. Good times.
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bapo!
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

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Sabo wrote:I'm holding out for finding a Hector Marinaro or Otto Orf jersey.
I had an image in my head of what an Otto Orf might look like. This isn't too far removed from that.

Image
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

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I met Jim Hart and hung out a bit (grabbed lunch) with him at super bowl xviii. Incredibly nice guy.
bapo! wrote:Pruitt, I think you've just added 'Let's boogie' to my lexicon.
I had friends, white friends, who used that expression, unironically, in the 70s. I wanted to slap them then. I don't let them forget it now.
Who knows? Maybe, you were kidnapped, tied up, taken away and held for ransom.

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Over a long time ago
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

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bapo! wrote:
rush wrote:Is that still going?
No, it's now truly a memorial league. I keep the bookmark near my Grantland bookmarks. (I could probably post Grantland links in this thread, huh? Hey, remember that great article from 2012 from that defunct web site? I'm still not over it.)

Pruitt, I think you've just added 'Let's boogie' to my lexicon.
He's probably to busy dressing up in sequined suits (that's still a thing in electronic music right?)
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

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More from the Toronto retro vault.

Don't know what's more amazing- how young Martin Short is in this ad for a local photography chain, or the fact that you could wait two days to pick up your pictures and get a 30% discount. Now THAT'S old...

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How much would they charge not to develop everything in portrait mode?
he’s a fixbking cyborg or some shit. The

holy fuckbAllZ, what a ducking nightmare. Holy shot. Just, fuck. The
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

Post by Shirley »

bapo! wrote:I don't want to get bottom-paged, so here's a picture of Jim Hart.

Image

My wife may or may not have dated Jim Hart's son when she was in high school.
Totally Kafkaesque
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

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bapo! wrote:I don't want to get bottom-paged, so here's a picture of Jim Hart.

Image
The single bar facemask is awesome. Was Joe Theismann the last guy to wear one of those?
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

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DaveInSeattle wrote: The single bar facemask is awesome. Was Joe Theismann the last guy to wear one of those?
Nope.

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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

Post by Ryan »

Turdstalgiganza interlude:

I'm watching an episode of the Match Game revival from 1990. You know that thing where "Mike Trout played with Charlie Hough who played with Cap Anson"? Well Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly are still on this version, and one of the questions was about something Homer Simpson might say.

Other celebs include Sally Struthers, Fred Travalena (who Zipper probably knows), and Shannon Tweed.

he’s a fixbking cyborg or some shit. The

holy fuckbAllZ, what a ducking nightmare. Holy shot. Just, fuck. The
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Turdstalgiganza interludes are always welcome.

Re: the single-bar facemask: It was officially banned in 2004, but some players were grandfathered in and allowed to keep wearing them. Scott Player, a punter for the Browns, wore one as recently as 2007.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

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Ah, Shannon Tweed. Most famous for???

A) Playboy Playmate of the Year
B) Star of many softcore CineMax features
C) Married Gene Simmons
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The first tennis match I remember watching start-to-finish was the 1985 Wimbledon Final, Boris Becker vs. Kevin Curren. I had watched parts of a few matches that fortnight (yes, fortnight), had seen enough of the 17-year-old Becker to be intrigued, and decided that I wanted to enjoy that 'Breakfast at Wimbledon' thing. I slept outside the night before (this was before the bears migrated to Armstrong County), woke up early, then hit tennis balls against the neighbor's barn with an old racquet. I was settled in and excited by 9 am. Becker won his first Grand Slam, as you probably guessed, since almost none of you have ever heard of Kevin Curren.

I liked Becker, but somehow, Ivan Lendl became my first favorite tennis player. In retrospect, I kind of wish that I had fallen for Becker or John McEnroe or Stefan Edberg, or even Michael Stich, somebody with a great net game, somebody who could have inspired me to get away from the baseline and expand my game a little bit.

The 2016 Australian Open begins in a few days, and I'll be watching a lot of it, but tennis has changed so goddamned much since that Sunday morning in 1985. Racquet technology (and weight training/fitness/nutrition) makes the sport of 30 or 40 years ago seem almost quaint by today's standards. Tennis in the mid-to-late-'80s was starting to transition to a power game, but the best players of that era, playing with those racquets, wouldn't have a prayer against Novak Djokovic. There was still room in the sport for the finesse guys.

I miss the days of serve-and-volley tennis, even tho I could never do it very well myself. Some of those guys were artists.

1987 US Open Quarterfinal
#1 Ivan Lendl vs. #8 John McEnroe
Louis Armstrong Stadium, Flushing, New York
USA Network
Broadcasters: Ted Robinson, Barry MacKay, and Mary Carillo

Image

It's a late-summer night with a lot of buzz and anticipation. McEnroe leads the all-time series, 14-12. The afternoon session ran long, so this match has a late start, and the crowd takes a long time to settle in. There are several delays thru-out the first set as fans try to find seats in the 18,000-capacity stadium.

Lendl is at the top of his game in 1987. McEnroe is on the wane, before he hits a late-career resurgence a few years later. I didn't really start to appreciate McEnroe until his great US Open run in 1990, when he lost to a young Pete Sampras in the semis. So, if I watched this match, I would have been rooting for Lendl.

McEnroe and Lendl trade service games for a while, with a little bit of brilliance here and there. In the fourth game, McEnroe hits a sharp-angled volley that Lendl runs down and puts deep in the court, but McEnroe's response is even better. But Lendl hit three aces that game, so it didn't matter much. In the next game, Lendl hits a brilliant topspin lob, and McEnroe double-faults three times to lose serve. Then Lendl hits another topspin lob for a winner, and he holds at love.

And that's pretty much it. Lendl wins four straight service games at love, and McEnroe never looks like he has a chance. He bickers with the umpire a little bit, which reminds me why I wasn't a fan of his until late in his career. But mostly he just looks resigned. He knows that Lendl is just too good for him. Whenever Mac serve-and-volleys, Lendl rips a return winner right past him. If he chips Lendl's serve and tries to follow it into the net, Lendl hits a topspin lob over him. Carillo sadly notes that McEnroe had switched to a slightly bigger and more powerful racquet the week before the tournament started so that he could keep up with the pace of players like Lendl.

So, the players, styles, atmosphere, etc., were promising, but this turned into a dud of a match. Lendl won easily, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4.

Still, there was a lot to take out of this. Most importantly for me, I just love watching McEnroe's serve. That might be one of my favorite sights in sports, right up there with Griffey's swing. Feet parallel with the baseline, spread far apart. Long, deliberate backswing. High toss. Deep back arch. That thing is just beautiful, even tho Carillo mentioned that in 1987 he had shortened his service motion a little bit, probably due to back problems. I can't believe that he had such a long career with that serve. It's amazing that he wasn't injured more often. My back hurts just watching it.

Lendl had a big looping forehand. My forehand actually looked very similar to his. The difference was that Lendl was a world-class athlete with amazing reflexes, whereas I could get jammed if you hit a hard, flat serve right at my body.

All of Lendl's little quirks were on display here. He kept sawdust in his pocket, which he used to rub onto his grip before serving. There were dozens of varieties of grip tape available by then, but he stuck with the leather grip/sawdust routine. Fucking weirdo.

Lendl was the first guy I remember hearing about who replicated match conditions/string tension in practice. I.e., he would practice with new balls and new strings for a set amount of time, then switch to a different racquet with new strings at the next ball change, just as he would in a match. This seems to be more common now, but it just sounds so wasteful. (If I had my racquets restrung every three or four months, I thought that that was a luxury.)

Also, his practice court at his Greenwich, CT, home had the same surface as the Louis Armstrong court. Whenever Armstrong was resurfaced, he had the same company resurface his court exactly the same way.

And here's the kicker. At one point, he mildly disagreed with a call, shrugged, plucked out a couple of eyelashes, and then looked completely composed again. Carillo went on about his eyelash-plucking. This has always been an unconscious nervous tic of mine, and I never heard of anybody else doing it. I certainly didn't know that Lendl did it, but apparently it was a thing. If you're going to mimic a great athlete, there are surely more attractive things that you can do.

Mac wore a diamond ear ring in his left ear. 1987! And I had forgotten about how he dried his hair, by stiffly holding out both arms and tilting his head into his short sleeves. This was in the days before players had to dry off with a towel between every. single. fucking. point. It made for much faster matches.

Okay, now I'm going to watch Stefan Edberg, the prettiest of them all.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

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ESPN Classic alert, Battle of the Network Stars is now airing.

I don't actually get the channel so I can't give anymore detail than that.
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Sometimes the feels are too much.

Image

The ABC After School Special aired from 1972-1997, periodically pre-empting 'Match Game,' Phil Donahue, and 'MASH' reruns on ABC affiliates. They dealt with issues affecting teens and tweens, like sex/dating, child abuse, drugs/alcohol, divorce, suicide, etc. Some pretty heavy stuff, especially if you're a 13-year-old.

The early '80s seemed to be the peak of the War on Parents, judging by the episode titles: 'She Drinks a Little,' 'Sometimes I Don't Love My Mother,' 'Please Don't Hit Me, Mom,' and 'Have You Ever Been Ashamed of Your Parents?' Yikes. (My favorite title is from a 1973 episode: 'My Dad Lives In a Downtown Hotel.')

ABC After School Special
'Have You Ever Been Ashamed of Your Parents?'
Original air date: March 16, 1983

It's the last day of school. Two girls are talking about their summer plans. One intends to work on her tan. The other, Fran, is going to visit her cousin Brenda in Seaview to attend a party where 'every cool guy this side of 10th grade' will be in attendance. We quickly learn that Fran is very money-conscious and hates wealthy people.

When she gets home, we meet her parents -- some guy with a mustache and Marion Fucking Ross! This middle-class family has fallen on hard financial times, so the father is going to take temporary work as a pool director. But Fran and Mrs. Cunningham will be spending a month in Seaview. Not to stay with Cousin Brenda, mind you, but to stay with the Fairchilds. The Fairchilds are Seaview's resident rich-as-fuck family, and Mom is going to serve as their cook. Fran is put off by the idea of working for rich people.

Some Greyhound product placement takes us to Seaview and Cousin Brenda, who tells us that the Fairchilds' teenage daughter is 'the worst.' And then we meet Andrea Fairchild -- a morose-looking Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Weeks pass. Andrea is usually framed alone, looking sad and desperate for friendship. Fran is shown to be uptight due to her money-consciousness and almost entirely unlikable. The two share several things in common (carousel horses are a recurring trope), but Fran keeps resisting their budding friendship. Then, once Fran has driven away the few friends she did have in Seaview due to her being a horrible person, she finally relents.

At the end of the summer, Fran realizes that she's awful in almost every way and seems determined to change. Andrea seems quietly hopeful that she might one day have a friend. But fittingly, the final shot frames her standing alone, watching as Fran and her family drive back home.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

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ABC didn't have a monopoly on afternoon movies starring Jennifer Jason Leigh looking sad and lonely.

Image

The CBS Schoolbreak Special (originally The CBS Afternoon Playhouse) aired from 1980-1996, tackling a lot of the same issues as its ABC counterpart. In fact, many of the same actors appeared in both series.

The CBS Afternoon Playhouse
'I Think I'm Having a Baby'
original air date: March 3, 1981.

Laurie, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, is a shy, quiet 15-year-old who envies her older cousin Phoebe (Helen Hunt!) and her relationship with Peter, the football star. She's in love with him, you see.

There's a party out in the woods. Laurie is invited because Phoebe wants her to bake a cake for Peter's birthday, or something. But she doesn't have any friends there, so she spends her time looking sad as everybody around her is making out while leaning against trees. Then Peter and Helen Hunt have a fight. Peter goes off to sulk, and Laurie consoles him. Peter then takes out his frustration on Laurie's gullible 15-year-old vagina.

Laurie thinks that this means that they're 'going together,' but the following Monday at school, he ignores her and gets right back together with Helen Hunt. Laurie gets sick and misses three weeks of school. When she returns, she tells her best friend that she might be pregnant.

Friend: Are you sure?

Laurie: Yeah, I think. I mean, it's not just...you know. I've been getting these cravings for these strange foods.

Friend: What strange foods?

Laurie: Like banana sandwiches.

Friend: C'mon, we've been eating banana sandwiches all our li--

Laurie: With mayonnaise?!

[stunned, sad silence]

Along with the scenes of Laurie fretting about everything, we're shown scenes of a sex-ed class that she's taking in high school. It features some real talk. And her younger sister (an adorably pigtailed Tracey Gold) is obsessed with the family's rabbits and the new-to-her concept of mating, taught to her by neighbor-kid Steve.

It turns out that Laurie isn't pregnant, and a kind woman at the clinic turns this into a teachable moment. Now, confident, she tells off Peter the Football Star, who then tries to bully her. Age-appropriate Steve steps in and threatens to use his karate knowledge to defend her honor.

Tracey Gold went on to appear in two episodes of ABC's After School Special: 'The Hand-me-down Kid' (1983) and 'A Question About Sex' (1990).

Just yesterday, I was thinking about that one year when everybody took Helen Hunt seriously. I think it was 1999. Strange to see her show up in this today. I thought that she, too, appeared in an ABC After School Special, but it turns out that 'Desperate Lives' was a made-for-tv movie. It features her getting high on crank, jumping out of a second-story window, then getting up and trying to run away. This was supposed to be an anti-drug movie.
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Post by govmentchedda »

These write-ups are glorious.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by rass »

Twister was '96, As Good As It Gets was '97. Looks like she peaked in 2000 (Castaway (small but important part) and What Women Want).

On a similar note, whatever happened to Leelee Sobieski?
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by howard »

Since I tried to talk to her in the elevator of BTTG's building and she heismanned me, the hex has been effective.
Who knows? Maybe, you were kidnapped, tied up, taken away and held for ransom.

Those days are gone forever
Over a long time ago
Oh yeah…
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bapo!
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rass wrote:Twister was '96, As Good As It Gets was '97. Looks like she peaked in 2000 (Castaway (small but important part) and What Women Want).

On a similar note, whatever happened to Leelee Sobieski?
It was 1997, the year of 'As Good As It Gets.' She got very good reviews in that, and 'Mad About You' was still going strong. Everybody thought that she was going to make The Leap.

There is quite a strong Hunt/Sobieski resemblance, isn't there? When I read that Sobieski appeared in an Uwe Boll film in 2007, I pretty much figured that her career was over. Laura Linney (love her) and Laura Dern are still working a lot, tho.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiganza

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bapo! wrote:Okay, one more, and then I'm done, I promise.

Mike Lange's is another voice of my childhood. But, unlike John Sanders, Lange is still working in Pittsburgh and is an effing legend here. I've looked for Penguins games from the early-Lemieux years but haven't found much. I did, however, find this:

WPGH's coverage of the 1985 NHL Draft.

DGB recapped the same draft video last week (at the end of the article).
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Hey, it's Throwback Thursday. That's a thing, right? I think I've turned into the Swamp's Tom Brokaw: that insufferable old man you thought you were done with, but he keeps coming back to engage in masturbatory self-promotion and talk about how much better things used to be. And, you know, to chat with a few Swampers about hockey or whatever. I've missed (some of) you guys!

Anyway, it's time for a deep dive on The XFL. You remember The XFL. This was the league that flew a blimp over Oakland to promote the launch of its league while the football world was watching the Raiders/Ravens AFC Championship Game. And then this happened...

Image

Personal history: I was a wrestling fan in the '80s, during the Hulkamania years. In 2001, wrestling was at the tail end of another boom period, but I wasn't watching. I still followed the industry, tho, because it's an amazingly weird subculture, and the backstage gossip is irresistible. In February 2001, the WWF was big enough that I could name a half-dozen of its stars without watching a minute of its product, and it had enough hubris that it thought that it could start a professional football league. I was fully aware of what a reprehensible human being Vince McMahon was, and I couldn't wait to see what McMahonified football might look like. Today, I follow the wrestling industry religiously, so going back and rewatching The XFL is going be even weirder than it would be for a non-mark.

February 15, 2001, NY/NJ Hitmen at Las Vegas Outlaws

Some ground rules need to be addressed. This is real football, not like the 'pantywaist' NFL. There's no such thing as a fair catch. (I mean, we're all going to die, so it may as well be in the service of fielding a punt.) Quarterbacks are not allowed to slide to avoid contact. There will be more cameras, more sideline interaction, more access. Players won't be paid for attending training camp, but they can use nicknames on their nameplates. Perhaps most importantly, cheerleaders are going to be an integral part of the broadcasts. Fraternization with players is not only allowed, but encouraged.

The broadcast opens with Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson reciting a very Rock-like promo. He is psyched, pumped, geeked, and cranked about The XFL. So am I! He asks me, as a fan, to 'just bring it.' I promise to do my best. Several hours later, Mr. The Rock will be hosting 'Saturday Night Live.'

Then, live at the stadium, Vince struts out to pump up the crowd. He's in full-on Mr. McMahon-mode here. The teams are introduced, and the crowd responds to the faces (Las Vegas) and heels (NY/NJ) predictably. A little too predictably, actually. Pretty sure the sound was sweetened in the truck. Your announcers are Matt Vasgersian and Jesse Ventura. Yes, Ventura was the Governor of Minnesota at the time. I'm still not sure how that happened.

Time for the coin toss. Oops, did I say coin toss? That's not manly enough. Instead, let's line up a couple of players and have them run to a football 20 yards away to decide who kicks off. (One of the players involved in this scramble separated his shoulder and missed the entire season.)

8 minutes into the broadcast, we get our first close-up of wiggling cheerleader asses.

After the kickoff, the Las Vegas offensive starters introduce themselves. It seems to take about 20 minutes. The game finally resumes, and QB Matt Clement runs a few yards before getting tackled. Governor Ventura reminds us that there's no sliding in the XFL. Man stuff!

We hear the offensive coordinator's radio/helmet instructions to Clement. It sounds like Nigel's guitar when Spinal Tap played at the Air Force base. We also watch a prerecorded segment with Clement and a cheerleader. It starts out sexually suggestive, but then it turns into football wonkery. In a suggestive sort of way.

And then it happens. Our first close-up of Rod Smart's jersey. This will be the one lasting legacy of this league.

Image

Las Vegas marches down the field, but has to settle for a very unmanly field goal.

Sideline reporter Mike Adamle asks Rod Smart about his nameplate. Why 'He hate me'? 'Because they hate me, man. Look how they're looking at me.'

And that seems like a good place to stop. One offensive series into the season, and the league will only go downhill from here. I watched this game with a couple of friends as it happened, and what I remember from the remaining 3.5 quarters is mostly boredom. I want to move ahead. Arriba!
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February 22, 2001, Chicago Enforcers at Los Angeles Xtreme

The broadcast opens with the players running onto the field, accompanied by LOUD rock music. I read that this song was later used for Brock Lesnar's entrance music. Of course it was.

Jim Ross (!) and Jesse Ventura are your announcers. They mention that LA's back-up quarterback's wife is pregnant and several days overdue. We go to sideline reporter Stephanie McMahon (!!!), who is standing outside with a helicopter hovering in the air in the background. That helicopter will usher the QB to the hospital if his wife goes into labor. 'We're incredibly excited for Scott and Jaime!' The kayfabe is strong here.

So, we've got a wrestling announcer as your play-by-play man, a former wrestler/wrestling announcer (and current Governor of Minnesota) as the color man, and Vince McMahon's daughter and future on-screen heel authority figure as a bubbly, smiling reporter. This is all so weird. I love it.

Time for the opening scramble, because fuck coin tosses. Mike Adamle sets the ground rules and introduces the players. LA recovers. Video of the coaches' pregame speeches. Ron Meyer advises his team to 'fly around and hit the man in front of you in the mouth.' Now I'm psyched, pumped, geeked, and cranked for this game, but technical difficulties force us to watch the opening of the Orlando/San Francisco game instead. Your broadcasters: Matt Vasgersian and Jerry Lawler (!!!!!).

Jeff Brohm and Mike Pawlawski are your starting quarterbacks. Things happen. Players you never heard of or don't remember do Xtreme football things. The player self-introductions have been scrapped, and there's not as heavy a reliance on cheerleaders in this game. When we do see cheerleaders, tho, Lawler reminds us that he's a creepy old man. The rest of the time, he hypes the game and makes dad jokes.

A sadness is settling in. These are fringe players risking their health for not much money, hoping that one day they might catch on with an NFL team. Meanwhile, the game is being turned into a wrestling show. As I'm thinking this, I see Jonathan Coachman working as a sideline reporter. (Coachman worked for WWF/WWE for years before moving to ESPN.)

Okay, we join the Los Angeles game in progress. Tommy Maddox is LA's starting quarterback, so I have some interest here. I'll always be grateful to Maddox because he helped usher out the xtremely frustrating Kordell Stewart Era in Pittsburgh.

LA's kicker, 'a professional roofer,' shanks a field-goal attempt and misses by about 25 feet. This is followed immediately by a pretaped vignette of a cheerleader in a bikini. Sadness intensifying.

A receiver is hit going across the middle. The voyeuristic onfield camera lets us in on the conversation between him and the trainers. He's in a lot of pain and is mostly just grunting. This is starting to feel gross. Now all I'm interested in is the QB's pregnant wife. The QB, Scott Milanovich, is interviewed on the sideline. His mindset is all football. Just wants to score some points. From the sideline.

The roofer misses another field-goal attempt. Tommy Maddox is less than pleased about it. He's been surprisingly fiery, yelling at coaches, teammates, officials, and Mike Adamle. It's announced that The Rock 'The Rock' Johnson is going to be interviewed at half-time, but the recording that I'm watching edits it out. Boo!

Another injury, another invasive camera. Players from the other team push the cameraman away. It turns out that the player broke his leg, and there's a very long delay. Please, just show me the baby.

The end of the game is actually pretty entertaining, as Maddox leads a mad comeback. LA scores the tying touchdown, but they miss the conversion. (Conversions are plays from scrimmage, not kicks, because Xtreme.) So, we go to overtime. I won't bother explaining the overtime rules because nothing matters anymore. Los Angeles wins, 39-32.

Tommy Maddox would go on to have an MVP season and lead Los Angeles to victory in The Million Dollar Game. (That's the championship game. Original name: The Big Game at the End.)

Scott Milanovich's wife eventually gave birth. Scott became the head coach of the Toronto Argonauts. Scott, Jaime, Macall, and Maggie all live happily in Toronto. I hope so, anyway.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by P.D.X. »

Christ I remember watching that.
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Steve of phpBB
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by Steve of phpBB »

He Hate Me. What is he doing now?
And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.
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Ryan
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by Ryan »

This is still the best thread going. I'd say it's Nobelworthy but they give those out to unintelligble drifters now so...

Freaking Opie & Anthony were the studio hosts right? 15 years later, they hate each other and the 2 guys who basically have their show now are going viral for making Nancy Grace cry. What a country
he’s a fixbking cyborg or some shit. The

holy fuckbAllZ, what a ducking nightmare. Holy shot. Just, fuck. The
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by bapo! »

I had no idea that Opie and Anthony were involved in this, but here's their pre-game show. I'll be watching this later. And there's a moment from midseason that I want to get to, but my endurance reached its limit this afternoon. Maybe tomorrow. For something that was so short-lived, there's just so much.

A month or so into the season, I went out with the same two friends I watched the first game with. We were at a bar, and an XFL game was on the television. We moved to another table so that we could watch the Frozen Four on another television.

Oh, and Steve, according to Wiki, He Hate Me is now a counselor for high school students in Charlotte.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by L-Jam3 »

I love that Scramble For The Ball has been immortalized as Football Outsiders' weekly gambling, fantasy, and rag-on-coaches column.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by bfj »

My buddy,who was my boss with the AHL franchise, was the PR director for the NY/NJ
Hitmen.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by bfj »

Tommy Maddox ushered out Kordell and was replaced by Big Ben when the Ravens broke him.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by DSafetyGuy »

I have friends who had a viewing party for that first game. I have another friend who had season tickets to the LA Xtreme. As a result, I ended up attending a couple games at the Coliseum that season (the tailgating was fun at one game, the other was played in a downpour that required about three days to dry out). While not at the game bapo mentioned, I was at one where Jim Druckenmiller and Craig Whelihan were prominently involved.

My experience attending professional football while living in LA (NFL, XFL, Arena League) is just fucking bizarre. Lots of Craig Whelihan, Ryan Leaf throwing four picks, and an in-game death.

Maybe I should get the Rams to pay me to make sure I don't return to the city.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by bapo! »

DSafetyGuy wrote:My experience attending professional football while living in LA (NFL, XFL, Arena League) is just fucking bizarre. Lots of Craig Whelihan, Ryan Leaf throwing four picks, and an in-game death
I thought you meant, like, a fan died in a fight or something. And then I remembered Al Lucas. I know that his death wasn't announced until after the game, so maybe it wasn't too horrible being there. Horrible in retrospect, of course. I remember thinking that this should have been a much bigger deal at the time.

And you were at The Million Dollar Game/Big Game at the End, right? Similarly, I was at the first ever Arena Football League championship game: Denver Dynamite over the Pittsburgh Gladiators at The Civic Arena in Pittsburgh in 1987.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by mister d »

I can't decide if this or the "wow, _______ was really drunk last night" is my favorite swamp quarterly feature. Definitely one of the two.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by Ryan »

bapo! wrote:Oh, and Steve, according to Wiki, He Hate Me is now a counselor for high school students in Charlotte.
Image
he’s a fixbking cyborg or some shit. The

holy fuckbAllZ, what a ducking nightmare. Holy shot. Just, fuck. The
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by DSafetyGuy »

bapo! wrote:
DSafetyGuy wrote:My experience attending professional football while living in LA (NFL, XFL, Arena League) is just fucking bizarre. Lots of Craig Whelihan, Ryan Leaf throwing four picks, and an in-game death
I thought you meant, like, a fan died in a fight or something. And then I remembered Al Lucas. I know that his death wasn't announced until after the game, so maybe it wasn't too horrible being there. Horrible in retrospect, of course. I remember thinking that this should have been a much bigger deal at the time.

And you were at The Million Dollar Game/Big Game at the End, right? Similarly, I was at the first ever Arena Football League championship game: Denver Dynamite over the Pittsburgh Gladiators at The Civic Arena in Pittsburgh in 1987.
The weird thing about being at the Al Lucas game was that it seemed to take a lot longer to get him medical assistance because of the layout. The field at Staples Center was elevated off the floor, so there was extra time to get the stretcher up onto the field and back down to get him to the ambulance. EMT's had to lift the stretcher up, climb up on the floor, then get to him, and reverse the process with him on the stretcher (no cart, obviously).

I don't recall if the second game was the championship game.
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Re: bapo's nostalgiaganza

Post by sancarlos »

The XFL probably didn't believe in pussy things like medical staff on the field.
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