As I've mentioned before, it's been a bit difficult to blog lately as I've been so busy. Since the beginning of the year, I seem to have had a very busy social calendar, and work has been as hectic as ever. And when I haven't been busy, I have not been apt to reflection during my recovery periods.
Until now...
A big highlight for me has been the Sydney Festival in January. With years past, I've often either hesitated or left it late when buying tickets to Sydney Festival events. When I do get to the odd event in January I'm often regretful I didn't get to more. Not this year.
V and I decided to to book a bunch of events, putting blind faith into the typically dependable taste and quality control of the festival curators. We were not disappointed.
A summary of our attendance...
Lipsynch: An auspicious start -- we were absolutely blown away. The play went for a whopping 9 hours (including several intermissions), but we barely noticed! The story begins with an opera singer on a flight to Montreal noticing that another passenger is slumped in a seat, dead, with a baby in her arms. From here, a handful of characters are interlinked over many decades -- the story told in a zig-zagging non-linear fashion. An incredibly ambitious story spanning several countries and languages (English/French/German/Spanish), meanwhile interweaving amazing visuals and musical themes. Fast paced, complex and ultimately satisfying.
Fanfare Ciocarlia: A wonderfully colourful collection of gypsy musicians and dancers from the breadth of Europe -- many Romanians, along with Spanish, Serbian, Bosnian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Macedonian (I hope I've got that right). Many different styles, beginning with flamenco style guitar, and graduating through different singers, dancers and brass/string instruments. Several audience members were dancing in the aisles of the State Theatre as the musicians played. After the show finished, the core of the Romanian gypsies re-emerged and then jumped off the stage and marched up through to the antechamber where they basically busked with their brass instruments for what seemed like an hour. Quite an amazing show.
Faith Healer: A challenging play made up of four monologues telling the story of Frank Hardy the Faith Healer. It begins with Frank setting the scene of his story, moving from town to town with his wife Grace and his manager Teddy. Grace, then succeeded by Teddy, follow Frank in telling their perspectives of their shared history -- Grace's story being quite depressing, and Teddy being quite entertaining in his cockney slang (despite the very dark subject matter). Part of the appeal of the play is that throughout, it is not clear whether Frank is merely a very talented showman or the genuine article. I thought it was a powerful performance, but the dark and stuffy conditions in the theatre made it difficult to maintain concentration all the way through (which is absolutely vital).
All Tomorrow's Parties: This might have been the most enjoyable music festival I've ever been to. The venue was Cockatoo Island, which necessitated a ferry ride to get to and from. Watching Rowland S Howard playing in sandstone ruins against a brilliant blue sky was a real highlight for me, as was seeing The Saints reunited for a very impressive set (despite some clear tension between Ed Kuepper and Chris Bailey). Sadly, it's also the last time I'll see Mick Harvey play with the Bad Seeds now that he's left the band. The crowd was noticeably more mature (averaging mid to late 20's) compared to the typical music festival, and was definitely better for it.
Reggie Watts: What a dude. Amazing vocal range (10 octaves?) and mad skillz with a synthesizer, interspersed with with some interesting (absurd!) comedy between and within songs... Kept breaking into different accents and personalities. The set was only about an hour long, and left the audience wanting more. Not sure if he was a standup comic or musician, but either way I've heard he's returning to Australia for the Comedy Festival -- if I'm in country at the same time I'll definitely see him again.
Masters of Tradition: Each year, a 5 day music festival is held in the Irish coastal town of Bantry, where those considered masters of their craft play traditional Irish music in it's purest form.
A taste of this celebrated festival was played in a captivating set at the Sydney Opera House. A fairly amazing troupe of musicians (fiddlers, vocalists, guitarists, accordion and pipes) including the artistic director and MC (Martin Hayes) who also happens to be one of their most skillful performers on the fiddle. It is difficult to pick a highlight from such a quality line up, but my memories are drawn to one of the most melancholy sounds I've ever heard -- a reconstructed instrumental piece of (otherwise "lost") music played on the Uilleann Pipes (Irish version of the bagpipes). I believe the music was about a woman surveying and lamenting the remains of a battlefield. My gut stirred and my eyes were transfixed as this beautiful, powerful piece filled the concert hall.
I'm really looking forward to next January...
Sunday, 22 March 2009
BSG Finale
At first I wasn't sure, but after a little while to digest I have decided: a very fitting end to the show. Would have preferred they kept the 3 episodes of the "Daybreak" story line in a single sitting rather than 1 hour followed by 2 hours.
Some (albeit minor) plot details of the wrap up seemed a little goofy, but in the end, quite satisfying.
Not quite as edgy or daring as the Sopranos finale (BSG, by comparison, a little self indulgent), but I loved the fact that they chose not to answer some of the outstanding questions.
Boy I'll miss Battlestar Galactica. Some of the best writing I've seen in any TV show, and consistently -- for 4 seasons -- excellent.
Some (albeit minor) plot details of the wrap up seemed a little goofy, but in the end, quite satisfying.
Not quite as edgy or daring as the Sopranos finale (BSG, by comparison, a little self indulgent), but I loved the fact that they chose not to answer some of the outstanding questions.
Boy I'll miss Battlestar Galactica. Some of the best writing I've seen in any TV show, and consistently -- for 4 seasons -- excellent.
Systemic Failure
It's rare for me to say this, but: man I'm glad I didn't go to the rugby (Tahs vs Crusaders) last night. Just watching it on TV (glorious HD!) was frustrating enough, without having to travel back from Homebush.
Kurtley Beale has been getting his fair share of criticism from the various snipers out there -- some of it is deserved, but the problems for the Tahs are more far-reaching than just the inexperience/confidence of the player at pivot.
The most frustrating flaws I saw last night were the lack of kick chase and the the isolation of a ball runner at the breakdown after they'd made a big break. And then our efforts vs the Crusaders at rucking and counter-rucking. These are all basics, and the Crusaders did them very well while we constantly did this poorly. It makes me ponder whether there is a lack of match fitness on our part -- it certainly looked to me like there was a bit of fatigue setting in soon after the second half started.
Where the Waratahs have at least shown discipline in the past in lieu of being opportunistic in contesting at the rucks or kick chase, last night they were neither. (In fact, for all the times the Crusaders were setting us for overlap, I was surprised we were stung so little...) I was also astounded at our lineout losses; the throws did not seem poor -- it looked to me that the communication and efforts of the jumper were more the issue.
None of this should be put on Kurtley.
What I didn't like from Kurtley was the quality of his passing; if you are going to play at first receiver you cannot be hurling hospital passes -- occasionally when Norton Knight came up he was doing the same thing.
If I was head coach Chris Hickey, as much as I love Tom Carter's solid game, I'd be tempted to make a change to play Halangahu at 10 and Tahu at 12. Halangahu seems to be a better decision maker, and Tahu is too good to be only playing what seems like half an hour a game. I'd try and stick to this combination for a couple of games.
But those changes won't really matter if the Tahs don't making broader improvements with the fundamentals.
Kurtley Beale has been getting his fair share of criticism from the various snipers out there -- some of it is deserved, but the problems for the Tahs are more far-reaching than just the inexperience/confidence of the player at pivot.
The most frustrating flaws I saw last night were the lack of kick chase and the the isolation of a ball runner at the breakdown after they'd made a big break. And then our efforts vs the Crusaders at rucking and counter-rucking. These are all basics, and the Crusaders did them very well while we constantly did this poorly. It makes me ponder whether there is a lack of match fitness on our part -- it certainly looked to me like there was a bit of fatigue setting in soon after the second half started.
Where the Waratahs have at least shown discipline in the past in lieu of being opportunistic in contesting at the rucks or kick chase, last night they were neither. (In fact, for all the times the Crusaders were setting us for overlap, I was surprised we were stung so little...) I was also astounded at our lineout losses; the throws did not seem poor -- it looked to me that the communication and efforts of the jumper were more the issue.
None of this should be put on Kurtley.
What I didn't like from Kurtley was the quality of his passing; if you are going to play at first receiver you cannot be hurling hospital passes -- occasionally when Norton Knight came up he was doing the same thing.
If I was head coach Chris Hickey, as much as I love Tom Carter's solid game, I'd be tempted to make a change to play Halangahu at 10 and Tahu at 12. Halangahu seems to be a better decision maker, and Tahu is too good to be only playing what seems like half an hour a game. I'd try and stick to this combination for a couple of games.
But those changes won't really matter if the Tahs don't making broader improvements with the fundamentals.
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Saturday, 31 January 2009
Home Theatre
Ever since my last trip to the US (almost a year ago now), it's been at the back of my mind that I would like to upgrade my Home Theatre setup to support HD. While I look forward to the idea of BD movies high def, the real driver has been sports (if you haven't noticed, I'm a junkie).
So when Adam blogged about his TV being on the blink back in December, I made an offer to sell my SD plasma (mates rates) which would provide me the necessary impetus to go and get a new telly!
This led to a spate of rationalisation of unused components and purchasing/upgrades of new bits and pieces.
A quick summary of my journey over the last month:
TV: Even though LCD has made huge strides over recent years, when it comes down to brass tacks it still does not stack up to plasma in terms of contrast and motion -- and when you factor in my debilitating sports addiction I really had no choice but to go with a plasma. So I decided to get a 50" Pioneer Kuro - the Kuro is for plasmas what the Bravia is for LCD's (kings of their respective markets). After some calibration and tuning, I'm quite pleased with the results.
Amp: I had my heart set on a Denon. I've owned two, and they've been beautiful performers. And after seeing Bernard's AVR-3808ci in the flesh, I had visualised my destiny. But it was not to be! The problem is that Denon components in Australia are at a ridiculously distorted price. In the US, if you look around, it's not hard to find the 3808 for ~US$1200. In Australia it rrp's for A$3200, and the best price I could find was ~A$2500. After looking around, even the mid range Denon's were above A$2000! Noting this horrendous mark-up, I felt compelled to at least test the market.
Beyond the usual suspects in terms of specs, the key criteria for me was to avoid any amp that did not address HDMI clipping, as my intention was to route all video through the receiver (as is typical modern practice). While Harman Kardon and Onkyo do some nice receivers, the only brand that I think holds up consistently across the range as Denon is Yamaha, so I started with them. A bit of research revealed that all of the current mid range (663, 883 etc.) and the previous generation "bottom of the high end" RX-V1800 (i.e. what the AVR-3808ci is for Denon) were all victims of HDMI clipping - and worse yet, Yamaha had no intention of correcting the issue! However, the RX-V1900 (recently refreshed version of the RX-V1800) had addressed any HDMI clipping issues.
After doing a bit of wheeling and dealing over the phone, I managed to get this model for $1600. (Say what?!) Sold! Very easy to setup, although it's missing Denon's pretty GUI (instead it uses blocky fonts you'd expect to see on an Atari 2600's 4k address space). Beyond this, I only have a minor nitpick when it comes to this amp, which is - even compared to my 10 year old Denon - the Yamaha doesn't have a Recording Source Selector (i.e. you are forced to be on the source you wish to record from). Such a basic feature not even in the Yamaha high end! Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the amp.
MCE: With an upgrade in tv and amp, I switched from my DVI output to the HDMI option on my ATI card. 1080p is so luxurious after 848x480! After buying the Kuro and the RX-V1900, I had begun a trend of black components in my entertainment center. Ignoring my Foxtel IQ for a second, my Media Center in it's silver case was sticking out like dogs balls. Given that I wanted to install a blu-ray drive in my media center, I decided that while I was doing any mods that I would replace the case with a nice black Zalman HTPC case. Nowhere near as painful as I was expecting -- literally! Thankfully Zalman have paid some attention in the newer generation case with rounded, finished edges internally so that I managed to avoid any cuts which are typical when you are playing with nasty PC cases and other bits. A nice looking case, but I've noticed the iMon software is a little buggy (much better than the previous VFD though).
HD+: I was an early Foxtel IQ adopter, and I've always thought it was one of the best investments I've ever made. It's very intuitively designed, and just a wonderful appliance. However, after almost 4 years of use, it was starting to get a few bad blocks on the internal drive which meant the system would crash very hard whenever it tripped over one. It also only supports standard definition. Enter the Foxtel IQ2. Native HDMI out, supporting 720p on the sports channels and 1080i on the other HD channels. (You can set it to automatically scale based on your display).
Watching sports on this setup is a dream -- in fact, I've found myself sitting staring at sports I don't even follow (such as soccer and hockey) because it is so visually glorious! I've also been watching a heck of a lot more Discovery and National Geographic!
On a more technical note, a pleasant surprise with this box is that it can output to another device (eg. a VCR or an MCE) via svideo and RCA while the primary signal is sent over HDMI. A negative surprise (but easily worked around) is that for some reason the only way you can get a 5.1 signal is to use the optical SPDIF interface (only stereo over HDMI, which is a joke!).
Speakers: I've kept my Bose AM15 MkII. Bose is quite a controversial brand when it comes to sound (you either love 'em or hate 'em) because it's so reliant on the subwoofer to make up the low and bottom of the mid range. So a poorly tuned setup sounds absolutely dreadful. Really, these speakers are scientifically designed for home theatre -- which is fine for me, because if I've got my amp on, 85% of the time it involves watching the big screen.
I have to say, I was starting to go nuts when I moved these speakers on to the Yamaha - the sub and LFE seemed to be constantly over compensating, and as I was doing my tweaking, with all the earthquake-like vibrating going on I was expecting my neighbours to charge down my door in a rage. No matter how much manual tuning I would do I just could not get the setup to play nicely when the volume was up. So I finally caved in and used the Advanced YPAO/microphone feature (equivalent to Audyssey on the modern Denon's) to tune the speakers -- voila! I now have a wonderful sounding setup. (Thankyou Yamaha!)
Epilogue: Really the only untouched component in this picture is my VCR -- I'm trying to decide whether I might archive a few of my old tapes to my media center or not...
I've held off on buying a console because everytime I buy one I hopelessly under-utilise it after the first month of ownership. Seeing GTA IV on the 360 tempted me for a short while, but not enough to finally buy one. We will see what happens...
I would love an excuse to buy some B&W front speakers for more complete capabilities when it comes to music listening (and relegate the Bose to supporting components in a 7.1 setup), but as I do most of my music listening elsewhere, it is very hard to justify... (Who knows, heheh...)
Anyway, in short, I'm a pretty happy camper.
Bring on HD Superbowl Sunday (on Monday)!
So when Adam blogged about his TV being on the blink back in December, I made an offer to sell my SD plasma (mates rates) which would provide me the necessary impetus to go and get a new telly!
This led to a spate of rationalisation of unused components and purchasing/upgrades of new bits and pieces.
A quick summary of my journey over the last month:
TV: Even though LCD has made huge strides over recent years, when it comes down to brass tacks it still does not stack up to plasma in terms of contrast and motion -- and when you factor in my debilitating sports addiction I really had no choice but to go with a plasma. So I decided to get a 50" Pioneer Kuro - the Kuro is for plasmas what the Bravia is for LCD's (kings of their respective markets). After some calibration and tuning, I'm quite pleased with the results.
Amp: I had my heart set on a Denon. I've owned two, and they've been beautiful performers. And after seeing Bernard's AVR-3808ci in the flesh, I had visualised my destiny. But it was not to be! The problem is that Denon components in Australia are at a ridiculously distorted price. In the US, if you look around, it's not hard to find the 3808 for ~US$1200. In Australia it rrp's for A$3200, and the best price I could find was ~A$2500. After looking around, even the mid range Denon's were above A$2000! Noting this horrendous mark-up, I felt compelled to at least test the market.
Beyond the usual suspects in terms of specs, the key criteria for me was to avoid any amp that did not address HDMI clipping, as my intention was to route all video through the receiver (as is typical modern practice). While Harman Kardon and Onkyo do some nice receivers, the only brand that I think holds up consistently across the range as Denon is Yamaha, so I started with them. A bit of research revealed that all of the current mid range (663, 883 etc.) and the previous generation "bottom of the high end" RX-V1800 (i.e. what the AVR-3808ci is for Denon) were all victims of HDMI clipping - and worse yet, Yamaha had no intention of correcting the issue! However, the RX-V1900 (recently refreshed version of the RX-V1800) had addressed any HDMI clipping issues.
After doing a bit of wheeling and dealing over the phone, I managed to get this model for $1600. (Say what?!) Sold! Very easy to setup, although it's missing Denon's pretty GUI (instead it uses blocky fonts you'd expect to see on an Atari 2600's 4k address space). Beyond this, I only have a minor nitpick when it comes to this amp, which is - even compared to my 10 year old Denon - the Yamaha doesn't have a Recording Source Selector (i.e. you are forced to be on the source you wish to record from). Such a basic feature not even in the Yamaha high end! Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the amp.
MCE: With an upgrade in tv and amp, I switched from my DVI output to the HDMI option on my ATI card. 1080p is so luxurious after 848x480! After buying the Kuro and the RX-V1900, I had begun a trend of black components in my entertainment center. Ignoring my Foxtel IQ for a second, my Media Center in it's silver case was sticking out like dogs balls. Given that I wanted to install a blu-ray drive in my media center, I decided that while I was doing any mods that I would replace the case with a nice black Zalman HTPC case. Nowhere near as painful as I was expecting -- literally! Thankfully Zalman have paid some attention in the newer generation case with rounded, finished edges internally so that I managed to avoid any cuts which are typical when you are playing with nasty PC cases and other bits. A nice looking case, but I've noticed the iMon software is a little buggy (much better than the previous VFD though).
HD+: I was an early Foxtel IQ adopter, and I've always thought it was one of the best investments I've ever made. It's very intuitively designed, and just a wonderful appliance. However, after almost 4 years of use, it was starting to get a few bad blocks on the internal drive which meant the system would crash very hard whenever it tripped over one. It also only supports standard definition. Enter the Foxtel IQ2. Native HDMI out, supporting 720p on the sports channels and 1080i on the other HD channels. (You can set it to automatically scale based on your display).
Watching sports on this setup is a dream -- in fact, I've found myself sitting staring at sports I don't even follow (such as soccer and hockey) because it is so visually glorious! I've also been watching a heck of a lot more Discovery and National Geographic!
On a more technical note, a pleasant surprise with this box is that it can output to another device (eg. a VCR or an MCE) via svideo and RCA while the primary signal is sent over HDMI. A negative surprise (but easily worked around) is that for some reason the only way you can get a 5.1 signal is to use the optical SPDIF interface (only stereo over HDMI, which is a joke!).
Speakers: I've kept my Bose AM15 MkII. Bose is quite a controversial brand when it comes to sound (you either love 'em or hate 'em) because it's so reliant on the subwoofer to make up the low and bottom of the mid range. So a poorly tuned setup sounds absolutely dreadful. Really, these speakers are scientifically designed for home theatre -- which is fine for me, because if I've got my amp on, 85% of the time it involves watching the big screen.
I have to say, I was starting to go nuts when I moved these speakers on to the Yamaha - the sub and LFE seemed to be constantly over compensating, and as I was doing my tweaking, with all the earthquake-like vibrating going on I was expecting my neighbours to charge down my door in a rage. No matter how much manual tuning I would do I just could not get the setup to play nicely when the volume was up. So I finally caved in and used the Advanced YPAO/microphone feature (equivalent to Audyssey on the modern Denon's) to tune the speakers -- voila! I now have a wonderful sounding setup. (Thankyou Yamaha!)
Epilogue: Really the only untouched component in this picture is my VCR -- I'm trying to decide whether I might archive a few of my old tapes to my media center or not...
I've held off on buying a console because everytime I buy one I hopelessly under-utilise it after the first month of ownership. Seeing GTA IV on the 360 tempted me for a short while, but not enough to finally buy one. We will see what happens...
I would love an excuse to buy some B&W front speakers for more complete capabilities when it comes to music listening (and relegate the Bose to supporting components in a 7.1 setup), but as I do most of my music listening elsewhere, it is very hard to justify... (Who knows, heheh...)
Anyway, in short, I'm a pretty happy camper.
Bring on HD Superbowl Sunday (on Monday)!
Irony
When life is interesting/enjoyable I've struggled to find the time to blog. As with many people, I originally started my blog during some travel with the intention of detailing some of my journeys, but with the numerous trips I've done in the last 18 months, really I've been hard pressed to record any detail.
January has been a busy, busy month for me. I've rebuilt my home theatre setup (a subject for another blog entry), I've been attending quite a few Sydney Festival events (also another entry), the cricket and NFL playoffs have been tremendously enjoyable, I've been on a little bit of a health kick (which has been very good for me), and the days where I've been back at work it's been... well... interesting and challenging in a good way!
Anyway, so far, a good start to the year...
January has been a busy, busy month for me. I've rebuilt my home theatre setup (a subject for another blog entry), I've been attending quite a few Sydney Festival events (also another entry), the cricket and NFL playoffs have been tremendously enjoyable, I've been on a little bit of a health kick (which has been very good for me), and the days where I've been back at work it's been... well... interesting and challenging in a good way!
Anyway, so far, a good start to the year...
Friday, 16 January 2009
Monday, 29 December 2008
Lame
I've just finished watching the Doctor Who Christmas Special (The Next Doctor).
I don't want to give away spoilers, but as per many of Russell T Davies efforts, all style and no substance. Some good ideas (and always great production values) let down by below average writing.
Not quite the worst of his "fan fiction", but certainly containing a few of the hallmarks.
As the old saying goes, you can't polish a turd.
I don't want to give away spoilers, but as per many of Russell T Davies efforts, all style and no substance. Some good ideas (and always great production values) let down by below average writing.
Not quite the worst of his "fan fiction", but certainly containing a few of the hallmarks.
As the old saying goes, you can't polish a turd.
Playoffs
Unfortunately my Redskins (after a very exciting and inspiring 6-2 start) were eliminated from playoff contention last week, and today finished the season with a mediocre 8-8 record. A 2-6 collapse down the stretch? They just could not maintain the physical tone that their impressive running game set in the first 8 games -- and their receivers were way too inconsistent. I'd expect the Skins will go very hard in the offseason on getting some younger athletic linemen on offense.
What I am pleased to see is that the Dallas Cowboys had an even more disappointing collapse to miss the playoffs, having started the season as favoured to make a Superbowl appearance by many media outlets. And I think many teams in the AFC must be breathing a sigh of relief with the Pats somehow managing to miss the playoffs with an 11-5 record!
With regards to the Pats, this will generate some controversy and suggestions for a seeded playoff system, considering undeserving teams like the 8-8 Chargers and 9-7 Cardinals getting a home ground wildcard berths for winning their mediocre divisions. I love tradition, but I think a seeded system would be fairer and make more sense.
As for next weekends Wildcard Round, I'm expecting the visiting teams to dominate:
- Atlanta at Arizona (4.30pm Saturday)
- Indianapolis at San Diego (8pm Saturday)
- Baltimore at Miami (1pm Sunday)
- Philly at Minnesota (4.30pm Sunday)
Now that the Skins are eliminated, it will be nice to just enjoy football as a fan without too many vested interests.
(Except for rooting against Philly! But I think I will have to wait until the Divisional round for them to be eliminated. At least they took care of the Cowboys today...)
What I am pleased to see is that the Dallas Cowboys had an even more disappointing collapse to miss the playoffs, having started the season as favoured to make a Superbowl appearance by many media outlets. And I think many teams in the AFC must be breathing a sigh of relief with the Pats somehow managing to miss the playoffs with an 11-5 record!
With regards to the Pats, this will generate some controversy and suggestions for a seeded playoff system, considering undeserving teams like the 8-8 Chargers and 9-7 Cardinals getting a home ground wildcard berths for winning their mediocre divisions. I love tradition, but I think a seeded system would be fairer and make more sense.
As for next weekends Wildcard Round, I'm expecting the visiting teams to dominate:
- Atlanta at Arizona (4.30pm Saturday)
- Indianapolis at San Diego (8pm Saturday)
- Baltimore at Miami (1pm Sunday)
- Philly at Minnesota (4.30pm Sunday)
Now that the Skins are eliminated, it will be nice to just enjoy football as a fan without too many vested interests.
(Except for rooting against Philly! But I think I will have to wait until the Divisional round for them to be eliminated. At least they took care of the Cowboys today...)
Monday, 22 December 2008
Slingin' Sammy
A truly amazing athlete died this week -- Slingin' Sammy Baugh. Sammy was the Quarterback of the Redskins from 1937 to 1952, and turned the forward pass into the centerpiece of NFL that it is today.
When I heard that he passed, I cracked open some Jamesons and started reminiscing through my history books.
My favourite columnist from the Washington Post, Thomas Boswell, wrote:
And what is really amazing is that he was posting these numbers a modern QB would be proud of with a ball shaped like a Rugby ball rather than the modern streamlined pigskin we know today. But the guy was also a legend on Special Teams as a Punter (technically, they didn't have Special Teams back then) and on Defense as a DB.
More Boswell:
Sammy won championships for the Skins in 1937 and 1942, but one of the biggest surprises came about 10 years ago when a journalist interviewing Sammy at his ranch (in Rotan, Texas) discussed the infamous 1940 championship where the Skins went down to the Bears 73-0. Sammy went on to tell the story that the Skins purposely took a dive to send a message to owner George Preston Marshall regarding his meddling. Needless to say, this was a controversial revelation!
I loved what John Madden said on Sunday Night Football this week -- that Sammy actually loved the modern game, and admired how skillful the modern players had become. How refreshing compared to the stereotypical old school Hall-of-Famer who never gives the modern sport it's due.
There will never, ever be another Sammy Baugh.
When I heard that he passed, I cracked open some Jamesons and started reminiscing through my history books.
My favourite columnist from the Washington Post, Thomas Boswell, wrote:
In 1936, the season before Baugh arrived, the average NFL team scored 11.9 points a game and completed 5.6 passes. The NFL completion percentage: 36.5. The entire sport threw only 67 scoring passes to 216 interceptions. A team passed out of third-down necessity or for trickery.
Then came Baugh.
Into this thudding world, where someone named Arnie Herber held such passing records as there were, the 6-foot-2 Texan, who could throw from all angles and drolly asked "which eye" he should hit his receivers in, was a revelation.
As a rookie, starting only five games, he broke the NFL completion record with 81. By 1940, he was accomplishing the inconceivable, completing 62.7 percent of his passes.
And what is really amazing is that he was posting these numbers a modern QB would be proud of with a ball shaped like a Rugby ball rather than the modern streamlined pigskin we know today. But the guy was also a legend on Special Teams as a Punter (technically, they didn't have Special Teams back then) and on Defense as a DB.
More Boswell:
The range of Baugh's skill is almost incomprehensible now. His career punting average was more than 45 yards, but from 1940 through 1942 it was almost 50 yards (49.5). Yes, they liked to quick kick then. But 50 yards is still 50 yards.
In 1940, he intercepted 11 passes in just 10 games. How good is that? No NFL player has intercepted 11 passes since 1981 and the last man to have more than an interception per game was Night Train Lane in 1952.
Sammy won championships for the Skins in 1937 and 1942, but one of the biggest surprises came about 10 years ago when a journalist interviewing Sammy at his ranch (in Rotan, Texas) discussed the infamous 1940 championship where the Skins went down to the Bears 73-0. Sammy went on to tell the story that the Skins purposely took a dive to send a message to owner George Preston Marshall regarding his meddling. Needless to say, this was a controversial revelation!
I loved what John Madden said on Sunday Night Football this week -- that Sammy actually loved the modern game, and admired how skillful the modern players had become. How refreshing compared to the stereotypical old school Hall-of-Famer who never gives the modern sport it's due.
There will never, ever be another Sammy Baugh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)