ESPN: This Week In Baseball (7-18-1978)

Source:MLB Productions- New York Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto.

Source:The Daily Post

"1978-07-18 This Week in Baseball" 

From Classic MLB

There were a lot of interesting stories about the 1978 MLB season. The World Series was a great one with the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees. The two league championship series were good as well. With the Dodgers having to beat the Philadelphia Phillies and the Yankees having to beat the Kansas City Royals just to get to the MLB World Series. 

In 1978, here were new divisional contenders, like the San Francisco Giants in the NL West, the Milwaukee Brewers in the AL East, the Anaheim Angels in the AL West. There was Pete Rose’s 44 game hitting streak, the longest streak of games with at least one hit since Joe DiMaggio in 1941. And of course the never-ending Yankees soap opera involving George Steinbrenner and whoever he saw as a rival to his absolute power in New York. In the late 1970s and 1980s that of course was manager Billy Martin. 

There was a lot going on in 1978 making TWIB a very interesting show. Especially with Mell Allen as the host.

MLB: MLB 1979- This Week in Baseball

Source:MLB- The Mystery Man.

Source:The Daily Post

"1979 08 07 This Week in Baseball"

From MLB

1979, is still one of the best seasons in Major League Baseball and another example of why MLB should’ve went with the wildcard playoff format much earlier than they did, which was 1995. You had three teams that won 90 or more games in the AL East alone. The Orioles, Red Sox and Milwaukee Brewers. The Yankees, won 89 games, but had a better record than the Anaheim Angels, that won the AL West. But because of no wildcard and that only division winners qualified for the playoffs, the Yankees didn’t qualify. The Orioles, were the only team in the AL East that made the playoffs in 79. Even though four AL East teams won 89 or more games.

In the AL West, the Angels won the division with 88 games. Their first division championship ever. And two clubs in the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers that battled them for that division. The NL East, you have a very good divisional race as well. With Pirates winning that division, who won several division championships in the 1970s and won two MLB World Series as well. The Montreal Expos, who up until the late 70s, were consistent losers, made a strong run at the NL East, but finished three games back of the Pirates. The Expos, were actually very good in the late 1970s and early 80s and even the early and mid 1990s. But only made the NL Playoffs once in this whole period, because they only won one division championship.

The NL West, only two teams with winning records, but two good teams. In the Reds and Houston Astros. The Reds winning that division with 91 wins, with the Astros finishing a couple of games back. In 1979, you had three great division races. The AL West, NL East and NL West. And even though the Orioles won the AL East by seven games, they also won 102 games that year. And were in a division with two other clubs that were good enough to be very good playoff teams, that won 90 or more games as well. And the Yankees, again if they were in the AL West, would’ve won that division. MLB, was behind the times back then and should’ve expanded their playoff format much sooner than they did.

NBC Sports: NCAA Basketball 1980- Final Four Semifinal- Louisville Cardinals vs Iowa Hawkeyes

Source:NBC Sports- with the 1980 Final Four.

Source:The Daily Post

"The Final Four game of Louisville's 1980 title run." 

From Justin Bowen

The 1980 Louisville Cardinals, had one of the best college basketball coaches of all-time in Denny Crum, who won two national championships at Louisville in the 1980s. Which is big for Louisville, but huge for the state of Kentucky outside of Lexington. Because Kentucky like North Carolina and Indiana, is a huge basketball state in terms of how popular the sport is. And the Kentucky Colonels folding in the ABA and not becoming part of the ABA, major league college basketball is what they had for big time sports in this state.

The Kentucky Wildcats, traditionally one of the top college basketball programs in the country, had a great run in the 1970s winning the national championship in 1978. But in the 1980s, Lexington fell back a little bit as Louisville stepped up and won two national championships. Starting in 1980, had three future NBA players on it in Darrell Griffith, the star of the team, Rodney McCray, who played for the 1986 Houston Rockets NBA Finals team and Derek Smith, who was a talented swingman in the NBA. Playing both off-guard and small forward, but who had several major leg injuries. And never full filled his potential.

So in 1980 the Cardinals have a great year and get to the Final Four and play a hard-working, overachieving, Iowa Hawkeyes team coached by Lute Olsen who had great success at Arizona and won a national championship with the Wildcats in 1997. But with the Hawkeyes, he had no big names there and other than Ronnie Lester, didn’t really have any great players in 1980. But had a team that played very well together and had great chemistry. That went 23-13, but not a great team that overwhelmed anyone. Playing a very talented Cardinals team and gave them a great game in the Final Four.

Modal 50 Rabu: Tall, Sexy, Blonde- Skinny Jeans: In High Heel Boots With Chains

Source:Modal 50 Rabu- sexy blond, in skinny denim jeans in boots.

Source:The Daily Post 

“Sexy Blonde in Tight Jeans in Boots With Chains.” Don’t know the original source for this quote and video.

A tall sexy curvy blonde woman. I just wish her top wasn’t so low or was tucked in her skinny jeans and we would’ve had some idea what kind of butt she has.

But tall sexy curvy blondes which twenty years ago might have seemed as common as blizzards in Miami, Florida or Muslims in Alabama, now are fairly common today. As the bone-thin look which has been proven not to be healthy because it means people male or female simply aren’t strong enough to live healthy when they are that frail, is now out of style because it is unhealthy.

And guys like women with meet on their bones and we tend to like healthy sexy looking women. And that means women who aren’t rail-thin and certainly not obese. But look like they eat properly and stay in shape so they do look healthy, but also are able to live healthy.

Martin Scorsese: Casino (1995) Film

Source:Movie Clips- Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Sharon Stone, in Casino (1995)

Source:The Daily Post 

"If the Mafia didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent it.

The same is true of Las Vegas. There is a universal need to believe in an outfit that exists outside the rules and can get things done.

There's a related need for a place where the rules are suspended, where there's no day or night, where everything has a price, where if you're lucky, you go home a millionaire. Of course, people who go to Vegas lose money, and people who deal with the mob, regret it. But hope is what we're talking about. Neither the mob nor Vegas could exist if most people weren't optimists." 

Source:Roger Ebert- Robert DeNiro as ace gambler and Las Vegas casino boss Sam Rothstein.

From Roger Ebert 

"CLIP DESCRIPTION:

Sam Rothstein (Robert De Niro) fights his old friend Nicky (Joe Pesci) and his wife Ginger (Sharon Stone) for control of his Las Vegas empire.

FILM DESCRIPTION:

The inner-workings of a corrupt Las Vegas casino are exposed in Martin Scorsese's story of crime and punishment. The film chronicles the lives and times of three characters: "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro), a bookmaking wizard; Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), a Mafia underboss and longtime best friend to Ace; and Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone, in a role she was born to play), a leggy ex-prostitute with a fondness for jewelry and a penchant for playing the field. Ace plays by the rules (albeit Vegas rules, which, as he reminds the audience in voiceover, would make him a criminal in any other state), while Nicky and Ginger lie, cheat, and steal their respective ways to the top. The film's first hour and a half details their rise to power, while the second half follows their downfall as the FBI, corrupt government officials, and angry mob bosses pick apart their Camelot piece by piece." 

Source:Movie Clips- Robert DeNiro as ace gambler and Las Vegas casino boss Sam Rothstein.

From Movie Clips

Definitely the best Las Vegas Italian mafia movie all-time if not the best Italian mafia movie of all-time. It brought you into the world of the Italian mafia as well as the Jewish mafia that worked together to bring Las Vegas to organize crime in America, as well as the general public because Jewish gangster Bugsy Siegel saw Las Vegas as a goldmine back in the 1940s. Which is how the Las Vegas casinos got started and the Casino movie brought this story up to the mid and late 1970s and how the Italian mafia was involved in Las Vegas casinos. 

This movie is based on a true story about Las Vegas gambler Frank Rosenthal (played by Robert DeNiro) and others who worked in Las Vegas during this period and had to deal with the Italian mafia while they were in Las Vegas. It showed you how big time professional gamblers like Frank Rosenthal and others were brought in by organized crime officials both Italian and Jewish-American mobsters, to run Las Vegas casinos for them. 

The Sam Rothstein character (played by the great Robert De Niro) is based off of Frank Lucky Rosenthal, a real life Las Vegas professional gambler who is originally from Chicago. 

The Nicky Santoro character (played by the great and hysterical and one of the funniest people ever in Joe Pesci, who is also a great character actor) is based off of Tony Spilotro. A real life Las Vegas Italian mobster, who is also from Chicago originally and grew up with Frank Rosenthal. 

The movie Casino is based off of the book and screenplay Casino, that was written by Nicholas Pileggi. So the movie Martin Scorsese put together in 1995 was based of a lot of good and factual information that was in the movie. 

Casino is not a true story completely. The characters are different and some of the stories are different. But it is based off a true story similar to Nixon which came out the same year as Casino and The Doors in 1991, that were both directed by Oliver Stone. 

This movie does give you a great look inside of the world of the Las Vegas mob, both Italian and Jewish and what the lives were like for those people. And how people who certainly are not Saints, like the Sam Rothstein character played by Bob De Niro, which was based off of Frank Rosenthal, get caught up in illegal activity because of their associations.