maly, too: October 2015

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Valley takes a 7-2 record into Wednesday's class 4-A first round game against Ames [4-5] in the state high school football playoffs. The obnoxious Ames public address announcer won't be needed, so Valley's fans hope he stays home. Unbeaten and No. 1-ranked West Des Moines Dowling opens against the hapless Des Moines Lincoln team that was thrashed by Valley, 76-6, in Friday night's regular-season finale. Ankeny [8-1], one of the state's hottest 4-A teams, will be without quarterback Blaine Hawkins when it plays Indianola [5-4]. Hawkins' season ended in Friday night's regular-season finale [a 30-10 Ankeny victory] at Southeast Polk when he sustained a broken collarbone. Hawkins was having a tremendous junior season, and now must wait six weeks for the collarbone to heal before he can join Ankeny's basketball team. One of the most lopsided first round matchups sends Davenport North, a team with a 1-8 record, into a game against Bettendorf [9-0]. No wonder the Iowa High School Association's playoff format needs changing in 2016.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

I'll See You At a Football Game

By RON MALY

I'm going to refrain from using words like horrible and embarrassing to describe how the Chicago Cubs performed in the National League playoff series that ended tonight at Wrigley Field.

I plan to shop tomorrow for a doctor who will delete the four games the Cubs lost to the New York Mets from my memory.

Hopefully, it can be done without an IV or an injection that puts me to sleep.

I'm thinking my Medicare insurance will take care of the costs.

The 2015 baseball season is over for me.

I may spend a minute or two recalling the 97 games the Cubs won during the regular season and the 3-games-to-1 division victory they had over the Cardinals.

Call or text me sometime during the winter to let me know how many games it took for the Royals to clobber the Mets in the World Series.

Meanwhile, I'll see you at a football game.

I like Theo Epstein's spirit. Maybe the Chicago Cubs' president has been hit in the head by one foul ball too many during batting practice at Wrigley Field, but, yes, I admire the man's spirit. "We can [bleeping] do it," Epstein told at least one sportswriter [Jon Heyman of CBS Sports] after the Cubs lost to the New York Mets, 5-2, last night to plummet into a 3-0 dungeon in the best-of-7 National League playoff series. Obviously, Epstein didn't use the word bleeping in his comment. My guess is his word started with the initial "f" and was much more descriptive of his emotions. Whatever, if the Cubs win the next four games, Epstein can say, "I told you so."

Theo Epstein

This is a copy of the email I sent today to Rick Brown: "Rick, I want to tell you how much I have enjoyed reading your columns and stories in the Register over the past 37 years. It was a pleasure working with you for many of those years, and it's been a pleasure reading the columns and stories you've written since. You've had an outstanding career. The best of luck to you and your family in the future." Rick emailed me a very nice reply.

Rick Brown, courtesy of the Des Moines Register

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Goofiness

By RON MALY

I don't get many late-night phone calls from My Neighbor Al, The Health Nut.

But tonight was an exception.

Al is among the millions of frustrated fans of the Chicago Cubs, who are now on life-support in the National League playoff series after tonight's 5-2 loss to the New York Mets.

I mean, the Cubs are down, 3-0, in the best-of-7 series--so far gone that not even Lamar Odom's doctors will be able to save them.

"What do you think the Cubs' problems are?" Al asked.

"It's simple," I answered. "Offense, defense, base-running and fundamentals. You can't blame the old culprits like billy goats. black cats, Bartman and Leo Durocher.
It's obvious the Mets are a better team now than the Cubs. Sure, the Cubs beat the Mets seven straight times during the regular season, but the Cubs can't measure up to the New Yorkers now."

Then Al had something else he wanted to talk about at 10:45 p.m.

"Me and the missus were watching the channel 8 news here in town tonight after we saw the Cubs' game on TBS," Al said. "We noticed that the new guy anchoring the news is dying his hair so much now that we don't recognize him. I'm figuring a facelift is next. Anything to try to look younger. Bring back Kevin Cooney.

"That was laughable enough. Then I saw the sports segment. Channel 8's coverage of the Cubs' game was one of the goofiest things I've ever seen on TV since the old test pattern days."

"What do you mean by that, Al?" I asked.

"Well," Al said, "the 10:20 sportscast started with Tony Seeman, a guy from channel 8's sports department, talking outside of Sec Taylor Stadium here."

"Did people at the TV station think Chicago was playing the Mets in Des Moines?" I asked.

"Possibly," Al said. "But I'd have thought the reporter would've gotten a clue that the game wasn't in Des Moines because there were no fans in the stands"

"Sometimes those TV guys get fooled pretty easily," I said.

"Then they switched to Andy Garman, channel 8's sports director, who was standing in the rain outside Wrigley Field in Chicago after the Cubs lost," Al said. "Have you got any idea

Andy Garman

why he was outside of the stadium, not inside the stadium? After all, he was inside the stadium, interviewing the Cubs' Kyle Schwarber during the 6:20 sports show before the game began."

"Al, my guess is that the Cubs refused to give channel 8 a media credential to cover the game," I said. "The Cubs must have allowed Garman on the field before the game, then told him he had to stand outside after the game.

"Lousy way to treat a guy from the town where the Cubs' Triple-A farm club is," Al said.

"Well, maybe the Chicago Cubs are like a lot of people around here," I said. "They no doubt think Mike Gartner, who owns the team here, is an asshole."

"You might be right," Al said. "I'll be over for a cup of Italian Dark Roast in the morning."

The Cubs and their fans are like me. When they won the division series over St. Louis, it was like they were World Series champions. The quickest way to make a Cub fan happy is for the Chicagos to beat the Cardinals. When the Cubs won three of the four games in the division series, you'd have thought they had just won the World Series. Since then, reality has set in. The Cubs still had to play the Mets in the National League best-of-7 series. Plus the World Series after that. Or so the Cubs and their fans were hoping. The Cubs have lost the first two games to the Mets, and have looked horrible doing it. Game 3 is tonight. If the suddenly-sadsack Cubs don't win, they're officially dead for 2015. It didn't take long for the positive feelings to disappear after clobbering the Cardinals.

Courtesy of Norman Rockwell

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.