On Monday night past, I truly enjoyed “Broadway’s Rising Stars” at the great and historic venue, Town Hall in New York City.
Scott Siegel created, wrote, directed and hosted the truly inspiring event.
Nineteen “rising stars” performed individually and the show opened and closed with the entire cast performing.
What a great group and here are and remember these names, as they are listed in order of appearance.
Brittneyann Accetta, Makyra Alexander, Stephanie Bacastow, Will Brockman, Gigi Encarnacion, Christopher J. Essex, Melanie Gettler, Emily Janes, Dongwoo Kang, , Nick Manna, Emma Maxwell, Hannah Mount, Kyra Pemberton, Giancarlo Pinzon, Emily Royer, Ashley Ryan, Kelsey Lee Smith, William Taitel, Joseph Valle-Hoag and Maddy Waters.
Can not forget the great band.
Left to right, Jerry DeVore, Zak Eldridge, Jonathan Russell and John Fischer
Tonight, slightly over eighty five years after the first such game, the big leagues’ All-Star Game will be held in Washington D.C.
In that first All-Star tilt, the one and only Babe Ruth hit the first home run and it propelled the American League All-Stars to a (4-2) win.
The last All-Star Game played in the U.S. capital was in 1969.
In that one, the great slugger, Willie McCovey hit two home runs in a National League victory.
That game, postponed from the night before, was played in the day, the last time the All Star Game played almost exclusively before nightfall through 1966, was held during daylight hours.
In more or less, a pair of one sided final round matches won by the favorites, Novak Djokovic and France won the Wimbledon Men’s crown and World Cup Soccer title, respectively.
After both men had won long, tough 5 set “semis,” Djokovic eased to his fourth Wimbledon title, defeating Kevin Anderson in straight sets.
Then in another before noon Eastern Time start, France doubled Croatia (4-2) to win their second World Cup crown, twenty years after their first in 1998.
Novak Djokovic, pictured above.
Angelique Kerber eased to her first Wimbledon crown, defeating Serena Williams in straight sets yesterday.
Also yesterday Novak Djokovic won a tough five set, “semis” match vs Rafael Nadal.
Today Djokovic is a pretty big favorite vs Kevin Anderson in the men’s title match.
Angelique Kerber, pictured above, won her third major title yesterday.
Tomorrow both the World Cup soccer and Wimbledon men’s titles will be decided.
Both today and tomorrow are busy, sports action packed days, preceding four days in which there will be just one regular season baseball game, with just the now meaningless All Star Game to be played in Washington D.C., on Tuesday night.
Exponentially publicized, Serena Williams is favored vs Angelique Kerber in the Women’s Final today at Wimbledon.
Tomorrow in the men’s final, Kevin Anderson, who won in the “quarters,” vs the tournament “fave” Roger Federer, and then in a six and a half hour “semi” vs John Isner yesterday, will be the underdog, vs the winner of the suspended “semi” between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
Djokovic leads that match 2 sets to 1 and it will resume today at around 8 A.M. Eastern time, preceding the women’s final match.
France is a nearly 2 to 1 favorite vs Croatia in tomorrow’s World Cup Final.
Enjoy this abundance, however, then there are four days of little, or no major sports action.
Kevin Anderson, pictured above.
Today another fine episode of the iconic television show, “What’s My Line.”
On february 24, 1957 Robert Wagner was the mystery guest.
The panelists were Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf, Jeannie Carson and Arlene Francis.
Usually there were two men and two women on the panel, not on this show as there were three women panelists.
John Daly is the host. Enjoy!
Croatia advanced to the soccer World Cup title game with an extra time, (2-1) victory, vs favored England yesterday.
Mario Mandzukic scored in the extra time session to provide the margin of victory.
On Sunday, Croatia will meet France in the title game.
In the 11 A.M. Eastern Time start, France is roughly a 2 to 1 favorite to win their second title and first since 1998.
Croatia won yesterday in its first semi-final appearance.
Mario Mandzukic, pictured above.
France advanced to the futbol/soccer World Cup final game with a (1-0) victory vs Belgium.
The lone goal was scored by Samuel Umtiti.
Sunday’s title game will match France and the winner of today’s match between England and Croatia, with England a bit more than a seven to five favorite.
France and Belgium met 80 years ago in World Cup play and then 48 years later in 1986 and again 32 years (32 is two thirds of 48) yesterday in 2018.
My total at Trader Joe’s yesterday was 22.11 (you know the ring/drill).
Samuel Umtiti, pictured above.
Exactly thirty five years and one week before the ’18 Warriors completed a 4 game sweep of the Cavaliers on Friday night June 8th, the Seattle SuperSonics, winning games (2-5), claimed the NBA crown on Friday night June 1, 1979.
Today in light (hopefully we all eventually go to it, and here’s hoping we see another context of the word light, while on earth) of the passing of that title team’s fine forward, Lonnie Shelton at age 62, I recall that truly fine team.
Seattle under Lenny Wilkens, a rare tremendous player and coach, went to the NBA final in 1978, losing in 7 to the Washington Bullets and a year after their title, were denied in games (2-5) of the semis, by the eventual champion Lakers.
This year a Washington team (the NHL Capitals) won the city/district’s first crown since the 1978 Bullets, doing so 40 years later and by winning games (2-5) of a series, as the Super Sonics did in ’79 and had done to them in the ’80 semis.
Both ’79 title team Johnsons, the great player and ’79 Final Series MVP, after a horror game 7 in ’78, Dennis Johnson and the fine forward, classy John Johnson, predeceased Mr. Shelton.
What a team and hopefully the “heaven” team can wait; what nice memories even “Horse” (aka Brent Musburger, saying “D.J”, “J.J”and other nicknames incessantly during the telecasts, all live, albeit 4 of the 5 either 11:30 P.M. Eastern Time starts or played on Sunday afternoons).
The ’13 Seahawks own the only other modern Seattle major sports league title.
Now LeBron James has surpassed the fictional “George Costanza” by “triple dipping” and to me it rates just as high, on a slightly different “disgusting” meter.
James recently chose to change teams for a third time, leaving Cleveland for a second time and adding to L.A.’s history of getting other team’s great players (James is certainly one of those).
There are differences in the circumstances and bottom line player results in the L.A, and specifically the Lakers,’ history of getting the greats, starting with a transaction 50 years ago, when they acquired the great player, Wilton Norman Chamberlain.
In future posts, I will examine some of that history.
If you know why, in cryptic fashion, the above is pictured, write in and get your name and praise from andybsports.com
Certainly a hint is that today is the 50th anniversary of the 76ers dealing Wilt to the Lakers.
I did not know this was the date.
As stated above, I knew it was 50 years and thought it to be any of say 50 to 100 days after the Celtics had beaten the Lakers, yet again in the ’68 NBA final series in May.
Today, I decided to “vent” re James and knew the L.A. history, starting with Wilt 50 years ago. Why could not/has not this prescience “paid off?!!”
Another hint and editorial comment–at least when L.A. got Wilt, it was in a trade. One other thing, I always rooted for Wilt and stayed a Lakers’ fan of epic proportions for 20 years.
Andy B Sports 