I warned you Blake, I warned you!
Good Morning!
T-Minus-248 Days until “The Mid Valley Classic”
I can see where Jim Kelly would be enamored with Tim Tebow’s size and character, but does the Buffalo Bills Hall of Famer really believe Tebow has the passing skills to make it in the NFL?
“The Mid Valley Draft” is coming sign up and represent your favorite NFL team by drafting the best in the Southeast and Mid-Valley divisions (read Fanview Lite: January 14 edition for details)…
The MVL all decade team will be up Sunday night, go easy on me. I’m providing the best alternative to basketball here.
I have to admit I never thought Star-Trib-Whittier guy Roger Murray would retire. I had very limited time around Roger, who announced he would retire this week, but he was cool to me.
I wrote this in Fanview Lite on May 20th:
Someone tell Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin now is the time to leave the country. The Sooner forward no doubt will be the first pick in the NBA Draft, no doubt will go to the Clippers who own that first pick, and no doubt will have his career shattered by exposure to the team.
Since Griffin is a good citizen and exceptional talent he won’t go the Benoit Benjamin, Michael Olowokandi route to stiffdom, but can you say “Hello ACL!”
Murray Memory Part One: At a Temple City-Blair game he showed up on the sidelines and asked me what I noticed about the teams. Which caused me to think for the first time there was something more important going on than just the score. Very helpful.
I wrote this in Fanview Lite on June 25th, the day of the NBA Draft:
Blake Griffin, who will be the first pick in today’s NBA Draft by the Clippers, needs to go play in Europe and stay the heck away…If he doesn’t have talent, we’ll find out real quick. If he does have talent fate and torn ACLs’ can’t be too far away…
Its a curse to be a Clipper…a curse…
Murray Memory Part Two: When a Monrovia shortstop decided to skip college and sign a professional baseball contract Roger was disappointed. I remember saying, I would have done the same thing. Who wouldn’t want to play professional baseball? Roger said the kid wasn’t ready. I thought ‘whatever’…The kid never got a sniff beyond the instructional league. I remember Roger saying this to me: “His mom told me he has a great arm, and I told her everybody at that level has a great arm.”
Again something I never forgot, which has been very helpful.
I wrote this in Fanview Lite on July 14th:
Blake Griffin looked great against the Lakers summer team in Las Vegas last night. Two things to remember; he was playing against the Lakers summer team featuring Adam Morrison as its best player. The second is when is the injury going to happen.
It’s a curse to be a Clipper. A curse!
Murray Memory Part Three: When Temple City’s Mike Mooney signed before his senior season to play at USC, Roger was disappointed. “He’s never going to play there,” he said. “He should have gone someplace else.” While Mooney didn’t become a Heisman winner at Troy, he did earn a Rose Bowl ring and a very special moment in Norman, Oklahoma as a senior. Things I don’t think he’d be willing to trade out for San Diego State degree.
I wrote this in Fanview Lite on September 15th:
Blake Griffin, who suffered a shoulder injury during the summer, was cleared to practice, and get hurt again, for the Clippers.
Murray Memory Part Four: This one is a negative. Many might not remember what it was like back in the day when getting a newspaper. A die-hard didn’t settle, a die-hard would have several quarters in his pocket and go to the racks to buy an L.A. Times for the straight statistical news. Box scores, transactions, and Morning Briefing. At the same time you would buy the Herald Examiner because the writers were far more interesting; Alan Malamud, Doug Krikorian, and Bob Keisser. Then depending on what side of town you were in at the time you’d buy either the Daily News (Joe Jares, Bob Hunter), the Orange County Register or the Star News, and once in a while you’d read Tim Dutton in the Tribune.
But if you were late to the racks the Times and the Examiner might be gone. This happened on a day that I was stuck doing something with my dad and all I could get my hands on was the Star News.
I remember being hungry for sports because there was no full time sports talk on the radio and ESPN in the morning was still showing monster truck racing. So I open the paper, go to the sports section, and there’s Roger’s mug…and a column about bowling. BOWLING!
I wrote this in Fanview Lite on October 27th:
The Clippers open this week and…number one draft pick Blake Griffin is out at least until December with a broken knee cap…
Note to Loyal Temple City Readers: I like cops, I’m pro law enforcement but not when they are employed as revenue earners and hide in driveways and behind bushes just to nail one person with a ticket. I see this everyday, the motorcycle cop crouching low for the opportunity to ticket someone, when instead they could be patrolling as a presence to keep hundreds of motorists in line.
So as a public service to get law enforcement (at least in Temple City) back into a protect & serve mode I’m outing them.
On the corner of Las Tunas and Baldwin, in Temple City, hiding in the parking lot of the Bank of West is a revenue bandit (Temple City Sheriff Deputy) on a motorcycle. Sometimes you can catch this guy in the school district parking lot a few blocks east on the corner of Las Tunas and Kauffman.
Again, I’m pro cop, pro law enforcement, they deserve respect and our support. However, they should not be used to generate dough for city, county, or state governments.
The Associated Press reported on January 14th:
The No. 1 pick in last year’s NBA draft (Blake Griffin) is coming to terms with the fact he won’t get his first real action with the Los Angeles Clippers until next season. The club announced Wednesday he’ll undergo surgery to heal his knee, which hasn’t recovered from a preseason stress fracture.
Stay thirsty my friends…
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Fanview Lite appears Monday thru Saturday at www.midvalleysports.com
Fanview, the HD version, appears every Tuesday at www.midvalleynewsonline.com
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