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The Daily Dose/Meskerem 1, 2003
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around the Human Experience...
ON THIS DATE: September 11 is, of course, one of those days everyone in a nation tends to remember where they were when they heard the tragic, momentous news that hijacked airplanes were flying into buildings in New York City and Washington, D.C and there aren't too many moments like that over the course of a life.
Diesel Boats Forever: Just for funsies, remember along with us where you were when these momentous, iconic events occured: we were watching Monday Night Football with Dad when John Lennon was shot. We were at sea with the USS Blueback (SS 581 DBF) when the Challenger exploded over the Atlantic Ocean.
Play Ball: We were also on the Blueback when our Royals finally got around to winning the World Series.
Dry, Technical Matter: We don't remember where we were when we heard the news that Elvis died.
Stop The Presses: If you're one of our crack Bottom Ten pollsters you were, of course, at a bar somewhere when the 9/11 attacks occurred.
Snooze Button: We hate to admit this, but we slept through the 9/11 attacks, of all things. We woke up and, then as now, did not keep a tee vee in the house, and we found out about the attacks after checking in at a message board we post at.
This Is Doing Us A Lot Of Good Now: Official Writer's Shack policy is that the FBI and CIA had the information required to prevent the attacks, but nobody really knew what they knew. The entire disaster was probably preventable. I mean we've got Arabs in our country taking flying lessons and not worrying too much about learning how to land and nobody gets too worked up over this?
CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES: No doubt you've noticed the exciting, fresh changes to the Writer's Shack home page. There is now a news feed and the front page has been redesigned a bit and you will even find a shiny new Share/Save button that will let you share your intense love affair with The Writer's Shack with your peeps via Facebook, Twitter and dozens of other 21st century platforms.
Shameless Plug: Stand by for even more changes because coming later this fall you will be to buy my very latest book, The Regular Guys, a story about two comedians who hit it big.
Have Your Credit Card Ready: The Regular Guys will be available in traditional book form, but also available on Kindle and at the ibookstore as well. For the right price we'll even come and read it to you!
HEY, BATTER, BATTER: Pete Rose gets his 4,192nd career hit on this date in 1985, breaking the record that had been held by Ty Cobb.
FunFact: Cobb's record had stood since 1923, when he broke Cap Anson's all-time record with his 3,436th hit.
All Right, You've Made Your Point: Anson's record had stood since the National League's fourth season in 1879 when he broke Cal McVey's record with hit number 870.
DRY, FILLER MATERIAL: Today is New Year's Day in Ethiopia. Today is Meskerem 1, 2003 accordking to the Ethiopian calendar.
GET OVER IT: We should probably stop dwelling on this, but we found ourselves thinking about something we discussed this week, the USA/Soviet Union gold medal basketball game at the 1972 Munich Olympics. This was because we have some modest sports officiating experience here, although certainly nothing on an international level, unless you count doing some Pop Warner football in Mexicali, Mexico.
First, Let's Review. Under the rules of the era, coaches notified the scorers table they wanted a timeout by pressing a button alerted the scorers. Why this was the case is beyond us, because this has got to be the worst way of requesting a timeout ever devised. Probably somebody related to a FIBA executive came up with this magical technology and sold it for a lot of money to FIBA, but why this was the case can be discussed later.
Even considering the Germans working the scorers table had some zero clue what they were doing at the end (they probably screwed up a legitimate timeout request by the Soviets and could not reset the game clock to three seconds) the officials working the game - Brazil's Renato Righetto and Bulgaria's Artenik Arabadjian - passed on two instances where they could've grabbed the bull by the horns and taken charge.
The first time was when the horn went off when American Doug Collins was shooting his second free throw. The horn wasn't sounding because the Krauts had everything under control at the table. After Collins made the second free throw the officials should've stopped play, gone to the table and said "Hey".
USA! USA! USA! The Americans would've whined about this because it would've given the Soviets a timeout they weren't entitled to, but we whine about a lot of things and it we could've been told to shut up. It would've saved a lot of problems and the Americans probably would've won the game.
But for reasons we're sure they thought good they didn't. The Soviets inbound the ball and then stopped the game with one second left, which, frankly, wasn't entirely fair to them. After some meddling by people who had no business doing so, it was ordered that three seconds be put back on the clock.
My Bad: Then the officials didn't check the clock before giving the ball to the Soviets for the second throw-in. they should have, because the clock read 50 seconds and not three seconds. Doing so would've prevented the third throw-in.
Sigh: We'll be honest, we kind of miss the Soviet Union here at the Writer's Shack. Sure, we are minus one Communist regime, which we support of course. Communists do not do anybody any good, especially the people they rule. But, gee whiz, they sure gave us somebody concrete to hate, both politically and in sports.
Thought For The Day: I balanced sometimes between principle and inclination...So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. - Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The United States basketball team did not attend the medal ceremony at the Munich Olympics and to this day refuse to accept their silver medals. They remain in an IOC vault in Switzerland.
Today's Stumper: For most of the world days change at midnight. At what time of the day do Ethiopian days change? - Answer next time!
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