[solvegas]

Oh man. Just heard that baseball great Pete Rose has died at age 83. He was a helluva ball player and definitely had his issues in later years.

To this day, Pete Rose still has the most hits at 4256 and the most games played at 3562 in Major League Baseball history. He retired 40 years ago. 

[MaxBigfoot]

Been a sad few days.   

[rtpoe]

SERGIO MENDES (1941-2024)

Mendes was born in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro’s sister city, and studied classical music at a conservatory before joining jazz groups. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began playing Bossa Nova as the genre was heating up in Rio’s nightclub scene with Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto and others.

In 1962, they traveled to New York for a Bossa Nova festival at Carnegie Hall. During the trip, Cannonball Adderley invited Mendes to collaborate on the album “Cannonball Adderley and The Bossa Rio Sextet,” leading to his first American record, “The Swinger from Rio,” after signing with Atlantic Records.

Two years later, Mendes moved to California and formed Brazil ’64, which evolved into Brazil ’66 after he added two female vocalists. The group’s debut album, produced by Herb Alpert, featured “Mas Que Nada.” Sung entirely in Portuguese, “Mas Que Nada” was a mid-tempo Samba number originally released in 1963 by composer Jorge Ben Sor, and updated three years later by Mendes, who had been playing the song in clubs and gave it a jazzier, more hard-hitting feel. It was the first Portuguese-language song to become a global hit; and propelled Brasil '66's self-titled debut album into the top 10 of the US charts.

Eartha Kitt introduces "Mas Que Nada":


“I put a band together called Brasil ’66,” he told The Guardian in 2019. “I’d always had instrumental groups, but when I added the two female singers – Lani Hall and Bibi Vogel – it made a different kind of sound. We recorded the song in Los Angeles, with me, the drums, bass and guitar all performing live.”

Mendes’ version was a worldwide hit that helped perpetuate the Brazilian music boom of the 1960s. In 2006, a modern version of the song topped U.S. charts, as performed by Black Eyed Peas. It was included in his album “Timeless,” produced by will.i.am and also featuring Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake and John Legend, among others. He recorded more than 35 albums, many of which went gold or platinum in the US; and received an Oscar nomination in 2012 for co-writing the song "Real in Rio" from the animated film Rio.

In 1992, he won a Grammy for his album "Brasileiro", which featured several tracks with the young percussionist and singer Carlinhos Brown - now one of Brazil's most prominent musicians.

"Magalenha":


Mendes held his last performances last year, staging sold-out concerts in Paris, London and Barcelona. In a statement, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva praised Mendes’ career achievements, which include landing the most songs in the US Top 100 of any Brazilian artist — 14 in total. Wrote Lula, “Sérgio Mendes was one of the greatest exponents and promoters of our music and culture in the world.”

"When I think about Brazilian music the first words that would come to my mind would be joy, celebration, party... I think it is in the spirit of the people in general." - Sergio Mendes

[solvegas]

SERGIO MENDES (1941-2024)

Mendes was born in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro’s sister city, and studied classical music at a conservatory before joining jazz groups. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began playing Bossa Nova as the genre was heating up in Rio’s nightclub scene with Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto and others.

In 1962, they traveled to New York for a Bossa Nova festival at Carnegie Hall. During the trip, Cannonball Adderley invited Mendes to collaborate on the album “Cannonball Adderley and The Bossa Rio Sextet,” leading to his first American record, “The Swinger from Rio,” after signing with Atlantic Records.

Two years later, Mendes moved to California and formed Brazil ’64, which evolved into Brazil ’66 after he added two female vocalists. The group’s debut album, produced by Herb Alpert, featured “Mas Que Nada.” Sung entirely in Portuguese, “Mas Que Nada” was a mid-tempo Samba number originally released in 1963 by composer Jorge Ben Sor, and updated three years later by Mendes, who had been playing the song in clubs and gave it a jazzier, more hard-hitting feel. It was the first Portuguese-language song to become a global hit; and propelled Brasil '66's self-titled debut album into the top 10 of the US charts.

Eartha Kitt introduces "Mas Que Nada":


“I put a band together called Brasil ’66,” he told The Guardian in 2019. “I’d always had instrumental groups, but when I added the two female singers – Lani Hall and Bibi Vogel – it made a different kind of sound. We recorded the song in Los Angeles, with me, the drums, bass and guitar all performing live.”

Mendes’ version was a worldwide hit that helped perpetuate the Brazilian music boom of the 1960s. In 2006, a modern version of the song topped U.S. charts, as performed by Black Eyed Peas. It was included in his album “Timeless,” produced by will.i.am and also featuring Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake and John Legend, among others. He recorded more than 35 albums, many of which went gold or platinum in the US; and received an Oscar nomination in 2012 for co-writing the song "Real in Rio" from the animated film Rio.

In 1992, he won a Grammy for his album "Brasileiro", which featured several tracks with the young percussionist and singer Carlinhos Brown - now one of Brazil's most prominent musicians.

"Magalenha":


Mendes held his last performances last year, staging sold-out concerts in Paris, London and Barcelona. In a statement, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva praised Mendes’ career achievements, which include landing the most songs in the US Top 100 of any Brazilian artist — 14 in total. Wrote Lula, “Sérgio Mendes was one of the greatest exponents and promoters of our music and culture in the world.”

"When I think about Brazilian music the first words that would come to my mind would be joy, celebration, party... I think it is in the spirit of the people in general." - Sergio Mendes

Another legend from my youth has died ...

[rtpoe]

LUIS TIANT JR. (1940-2024)

Born Luis Clemente Tiant y Vega in Mariano, Cuba to a father who was a star pitcher for 20 years in both the Cuban and Negro Leagues.

Luis followed his father's footsteps, starring in various youth leauges and signing with the Mexico City Tigers in 1958. His first year was rough, but over the next two seasons he settled in. The Cleveland Indians took notice, and bought out his contract after the 1961 season. On the advice of his father, he did not return home to Cuba after the Castro revolution.

Working his way up through the minor leagues, he made his MLB debut in July 1964, shutting out the Yankees on four hits. He became an ace in 1968, when he went 21-9 leading the league with a 1.60 ERA. The next year, he dropped back down to "average", and was traded to the Twins at the end of the season. Injuries cut short his 1970 season, and another injury in Spring Training in 1971 led to the Twins releasing him. After a short stint with the Atlanta Braves AAA team, he signed with the AAA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. He pitched well enough there to get called up to Boston in June.

He stayed with the team in 1972, doing whatever was needed - spot starting, short relief, long relief. When the Red Sox found themselves in the middle of a pennant race in August, Tiant had done well enough to get a permanent spot in the rotation. He spent the last two months of the season going 9-1 with six shutouts, ending the year with a 15-6 record and a best-in-league 1.91 ERA - good enough to get him the Comeback Player of the Year award.

He'd win 20 games in 1973 and 1974, but began to struggle in 1975. He had a reason: he hadn't seen his father in 14 years. In December 1974 he told Boston Herald reporter Joe Fitzgerald: “My father is going to be 70 years old soon, and I don’t know how many years he has left. He’s working down there at a garage, serving gas, and I can’t even send him a dime for a cup of coffee on Christmas.” With or without his knowledge, the diplomatic wheels were set in motion - the Tiants arrived in Boston on August 21. On August 26 the Red Sox arranged for Luis’s parents to be introduced to the crowd and for his father to throw out a ceremonial first pitch. After a prolonged ovation, the 69-year-old Tiant, standing on the Fenway Park mound adorned in a brown suit and Red Sox cap, took off his coat and handed it to his son. He went into his full windup and fired a fastball to catcher Tim Blackwell – alas, low and away. Looking vaguely annoyed, he asked for the ball back. Once more he used his full windup, and floated a knuckleball across the heart of the plate. The fans roared as he left the field. His son later commented, “He told me he was ready to go four or five innings anytime.”

After that game, Luis took some time off to rest a sore back - and returned as his old star self. Boston was pushing for the pennant, and Tiant gave them three key wins. He was picked to start the League Championship Series against the World Champion A's - and won. In the World Series, he shut out the Reds in Game 1, and beat them again in Game 4.

!976 saw him win 21 games for the struggling Red Sox, but would manage only 12 and 13 wins the next two years - although three of those wins in 1978 came in the final eight games of the season, pushing the Sox into that one game playoff against the Yankees.

After 1978, the Red Sox would only offer the 38-year-old Tiant a one year contract, so he signed with the Yankees who offered him a two year one. After that, he was clearly done. He spent some time with the Pirates and Angels, but hung it up at the end of the 1982 season.

Largely on the basis of his combined record of 31-12 in games in Septemer and Ocotber, he was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 1997. “If a man put a gun to my head and said, ‘I’m going to pull the trigger if you lose this game,’” his Red Sox manager Darrell Johnson said, “I’d want Luis Tiant to pitch that game.”

He was best known for his weird windups. Roger Angell, writing in The New Yorker, once tried to put a name to each of his motions, including “Call the Osteopath,” “Out of the Woodshed,” and “The Runaway Taxi.” It was said that over the course of the game Luis’s deliveries allowed him to look each patron in the eye at least once.

Tiant in the 1975 playoffs and World Series:

[rtpoe]

MITZI GAYNOR (1931-2024)

She was born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago on Sept. 4, 1931. Her mother was a dancer and her father a cellist, and she took her first dance class at age 8. An only **09**, she and her parents moved to Elgin, Illinois, then to Detroit and finally to L.A. when she was 11, to follow her dance teacher.

At age 13, then known as Mitzi Gerber, she convinced Edwin Lester, the impresario of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, that she was 16 and landed a role as a dancer in the musical Song Without Words. More dance roles followed, and she'd start getting speaking parts.

It was in 1949’s The Great Waltz where she was spotted by a Fox producer, signed to a contract by studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck and had her last name changed to Gaynor. Fox studio groomed her to be the next Betty Grable, and she'd be featured in films all throughout the 1950s.

Anything Goes (1956):


 “I was filming The Joker Is Wild with Frank Sinatra and got the call that I’d be auditioning for Oscar Hammerstein at the Beverly Hills Hotel ballroom for South Pacific,” she told Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune in 2013. “I did ‘Honey Bun,’ I did ‘A Cockeyed Optimist.’ I did everything but strip.

“Oscar’s way, way at the other side of the ballroom. Why? I don’t know. But he walked over afterward. … You know when you do good? You feel like, ‘Well, at least I didn’t make a fool of myself.’ Oscar took my hand and said: ‘Thank you very much, Miss Gaynor. You’ve been a wonderful sport.”

South Pacific (1958)


But by the end of the decade, the movie musical had fallen out of favor. Her last film was in 1963. She started performing in Las Vegas, and appearing on TV - her popularity never waning. She actually received top billing on the Ed Sullivan Show the night The Beatles were on.

The Ed Sullivan Show, February 16, 1964:


Gaynor said she regularly was approached to star in a weekly network variety show but refused. “Gene Kelly once told me, ‘Only do event television,'” she said. So she did, with several TV specials and regular appearances on the Academy Awards shows.

This performance at the 1967 Academy Awards literally stopped the show - they couldn't get the audience to stop applauding (the whole performance doesn't seem to be out there):


A 2019 retrospective on her TV specials:


After all her years working on TV, she finally won an Emmy in 2008, for her PBS special Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle! The Special Years

[solvegas]

First time I remember seeing her was on TV when the movie "South Pacific", a musical based on a World War 2 novel, was played on a CBS special show and also a 1954 movie "There's no business like show business" that back in the 70's the major networks, CBS, NBC and ABC used to put on before cable TV came around in the late 70's.

[solvegas]

Another movie I enjoyed was one she made in the year I was born in 1956 called "The Birds and the Bees" which is a good musical. 

[Scarface]

Ex-Los Angeles Dodgers Star Pitcher Fernando Valenzuela Dies at 63

[rtpoe]

Ex-Los Angeles Dodgers Star Pitcher Fernando Valenzuela Dies at 63

“People from Mexico, people from other Latin American countries like Ecuador, where I’m from, we didn’t have many baseball idols.… He opened up the sport for us. People who had spent all their lives thinking only about fútbol, Fernando gave them a reason to care about the greatest game, to care about baseball.” - Jamie Jarrin, Dodgers broadcaster

"Fernando died on Monday. He was 63. He was too young. But any age would have been too young. He was the people’s pitcher, a long-haired, pudgy lefty from Etchohuaquila who became a star and brought baseball fans more Joy Above Replacement than anyone. He made us all believe that if we, too, could just find a screwball, maybe, just maybe, we could strike out the world." - Joe Posnanski

[rtpoe]

JIM DONOVAN (1956-2024):

Baseball announcers seem to get all the glory. Red Barber. Vin Scully. Mel Allen. Harry Caray. Ernie Harwell.
But football announcers can have just as much of a passionate fan base and following as any of them.

A graduate of Boston University, Donovan got to Cleveland in 1985. Along with doing local reporting of the city's three professional sports franchises, Donovan also had several national network assignments and was part of NBC's coverage team at the 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics. When the Browns were "reborn" in the city in 1999, WKYC tapped him to be the lead announcer for their coverage.

"He kept it real, but he kept a positive tone to it," said former Browns kicker Phil Dawson, who inducted Donovan into the team's Legends Club. "He just always could find that balance — authentic, real, accurate, but he was still supportive, even when there wasn't a whole lot to support. And I know the players appreciated that. I know I certainly appreciated that. He was always quick to try to provide context rather than letting people just focus on an individual moment. He just really had a knack for seeing the big picture. It was always 'Go Browns,' yet he kept it real and accurate so that everybody understood what was going on."

“I'm watching the greatest show on Earth — Jimmy. He's got the hand gestures. He's waving. You'd think he had a chipmunk in his shorts. I mean, he was all over the place. He had moves for everything that was going on down on the field. His gestures were telling the same story that he was reciting.” - Doug Deiken, Donovan's partner in the booth for 23 years

Jim died of leukemia on Saturday. After the Browns beat the Ravens on Sunday, coach Kevin Stefanski and general manager Andrew Berry gave the game ball to his wife, Cheryl, and daughter Meghan.

[solvegas]

Teri Garr, born on December 11, 1944, died yesterday on October 28, 2024, at age 79. She was in a great Mel Brooks classic movie 50 years ago in Young Frankenstein starring with Gene Wilder and here is a photo when she was young.

[rtpoe]

“Gene told me about this Teri Garr person, and we had some film on Teri,” Brooks, who was coming off his huge hit Blazing Saddles, recalled in 2014. “And I said, ‘She’s absolutely beautiful — can she act?’ And Gene said, ‘Who gives a shit?’ … Teri came in, read about half a page and we both said, ‘Yay!’

“There was a line she had when Cloris [Leachman] was undoing the monster’s straps and setting him free, and Teri was on the stairs looking down and she said, ‘No, no — You muzn’t!’ Muzn’t? You’re hired!”

Said Garr, who had sought the Madeline Kahn role in the movie: “At first I didn’t know there was an accent, and [when she found out] I was doing Sonny & Cher. Cher’s hairdresser was German, and I just copied everything she said.”

She went to her audition wearing a bra stuffed with socks. “People pay over $5,000 for a boob job today. Mine cost under $5 at Woolworths and got me the part, my biggest to date,” she wrote in the 2005 memoir, Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/teri-garr-dead-tootsie-young-frankenstein-1236047759/

[rtpoe]

QUINCY JONES (1933-2024)

Chaka Khan & Simply Red - "Everything Must Change" (live performance):


Tamia - "You Put a Move on My Heart"


"Soul Bossa Nova" (aka the Austin Powers theme)

[solvegas]

From a while back, two legends together, Ray Charles and Quincy Jones. Well, we all eventually pass away.