NBC Sports: MLB 1986-5-03-GOW-Anaheim Angels @ Milwaukee Brewers: Full Game

Source:NBC Sports- MLB Game of The Week.

Source:The Daily Journal

“1986 05 03 NBC GOW California Angels At Milwaukee Brewers”

From NBC Sports

The 1986 Angels were a very good, if not great all around team: hitting, pitching, and defense that should’ve at least gotten to the World Series. But of course lost three straight games in the ALCS after having a 3-1 lead in that series.

The Angels, who contended both in 84 and 85 in the AL West, which was back before the wildcard came into both leagues, looked like the team to beat in the AL West both seasons. 1986, they weren’t expected to win the AL West, especially the way that they did by being in first place most of the season. But in 86, they put it together for the whole season, both with their offense and pitching. And managed to avoid fading in August and September like they did in 84 and 85.

The 1986 Brewers, were somewhat in transition. Especially with their pitching and weren’t contenders at all and about a 500 ball club.

NBC Sports: MLB 1985-GOW-6/22-New York Yankees @ Detroit Tigers: Full Game

Source:NBC Sports- Phil Neikro and the New York Yankees, vs the Detroit Tigers, at Yankee Stadium in 1985.

Source:The Daily Journal

"1985 06 15 NBC GOW Tigers at Yankees"

From NBC Sports

1985 is the perfect example of why MLB should’ve went to the three division format in both the American and National League with the playoff wildcards well before 1994. Because you had four ninety win teams in 1985 and each division champion would’ve had at least ninety wins. The Toronto Blue Jays in the AL East, Kansas City Royals in the AL Central, and the Anaheim Angels in the AL West.

The New York Yankees as a wildcard team in 85 would’ve have more wins than every division winner except for the Blue Jays. If you go with two wild cards in each league, the Detroit Tigers would’ve just barely misses the AL Playoffs in 85 with 84 wins, a game behind the Chicago White Sox.

1985 was a great year for MLB and the Yankees and Tigers were both in the playoff race that year. And played each other on NBC which is this game.

ABC Sports: MLB 1981- ALDS Game 3- Kansas City Royals @ Oakland Athletics: Full Game

Source:ABC Sports- Kansas City Royals 3B George Brett.

Source:The Daily Journal

"1981 ALDS Game 3 - Royals at Athletics" 

From F1 Nut

The expanded MLB Playoffs is not the problem I have with the MLB Playoffs in 1981 in the American League and National League. It's how they did it which is the problem with the teams having the best records in first and second halves of the season in each division qualifying for the playoffs in each league. Which meant four teams making the playoffs in both leagues, which is how MLB did it from 1995-2011. Which again I don’t have a problem with, but how they did it.

Instead of having the teams that had the best records in their divisions for the entire season and have the two second place teams in each league qualifying as wildcards in each league, they had the best teams in the first halves of the season, play the teams with the best record of the second half of the season. Which meant teams like the Cincinnati Reds who had the best overall record in the NL West in 1981, missed the NL Playoffs because they didn’t have the best record in their division in either the first or second half of 1981.

The Young Turks: 'Worst NBA Players of All Time to Win Championship'

Source:The Young Turks- don't ask me who the crazy man trying to dance is.

Source:The Daily Journal 

"The list is filled with plenty of NBA players that are simply undeserving of holding up the Larry O'Brien trophy. To name a few: Dexter Pittman, Eddy Curry, Luke Walton and Adam Morrisson. Hear who is on our list and let us know who you think is the WORST basketball player to win an NBA championship... 

From The Young Turks 

For me, it would be former Boston Celtics center Greg Kite from the mid and late 1980s. Who was a solid backup center as far as rebounding and post defense. But this isn’t the list of worst players to ever play in the NBA, but to win the NBA Championship. And for me at least off the top of my head Greg Kite was the Celtics third-string center at this point. Because he was basically no offensive threat at all who had no outside shot. And even had trouble making shots close to the basket when he was open and got a pass from Larry Bird or someone else. Greg Kite even had trouble putting offensive rebounds back in the basket as well. Who was a third-string center, so that alone says a lot.

The list of the players that the people on this show listed, are perhaps the worst players to win an NBA championship in the last fourteen years, or since 2000. And perhaps that is because their knowledge of NBA basketball only goes back that far. But the NBA Finals has been around since 1948 or so. So their list isn’t very deep. 

When you put lists together that are about the history of the NBA or any other sports league, it's good to have people around who are familiar with the 20th Century, or at least 20th Century sports, when most of the history in these leagues were made. Otherwise just call your list: "The Worst 10 Players in The Last 10 Years" and then see whose actually interested in that.

CBC: Retro Bites- Hunter Thompson: On Jimmy Carter (1977)

Source:CBC- Writer Hunter Thompson, talking to CBC about President Jimmy Carter, in 1977.

Source:The Daily Journal

“In this clip from 1977, legendary gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson shares a candid, blunt assessment of U.S. President Jimmy Carter – calling him one of the “three meanest men I’ve ever met”. Thompson says Carter “would have cut my head off” to win power but that he admires how he played the political game.”

From CBC

Hunter Thompson calling Jimmy Carter a tough operator and someone who knows how to work the system. Which I actually respect as well in someone who knows what they want to do, knows the obstacles in front of them and knows the odds against them, but essentially decides: “the hell with it! This is what I want to do and I’m going to give it my best shot.” Basically saying: “what the hell do I have to lose anyway.”

A lot of specially big city Northern Progressive Democrats saw Jimmy Carter as a peanut brain and perhaps peanut farmer as well. Ted Kennedy, who looked at running for president in 1976 as well, was probably one of them. But Hunter Thompson saying that Carter was anything but a peanut brain.

The truth is without Watergate and debacle of the Nixon Administration in their second term in how President Nixon handled Watergate, and with President Nixon’s Vice President becoming President after Nixon resigned in 1974, pardoning him with Richard Nixon perhaps being as unpopular as gun control is in South Carolina, Jimmy Carter probably never becomes President of the United States, at least not in 1976.

The Washington outsider ( also known as Jimmy Carter ) was really the only issue that the Carter Campaign had going for them in 1976. As well as Carter coming off as a regular guy who connected with ordinary people. Someone who middle class Americans saw as one of them. Because he was one of them.

How does a peanut farmer from rural Georgia become President of the United States? You’re a Democrat going against a Republican Party that essentially shoots off all ten of their toes with Watergate. And then having the new President pardon the former President who was essentially a criminal, even though he was also Commander-In-Chief. I could also say a criminal who is also Chief Law Enforcement Officer, but that title is better suited for the Attorney General, or even the Secretary of Homeland Security.

And then you’re an outsider who has a clean record whose intelligent, who can speak to average Americans. Who doesn’t represent the system and wants to change the system. And Jimmy Carter was essentially had the perfect environment to run for president in 1975-76 and took full-advantage of it.