Category: Sports

RIP – Meadow George Lemon III aka “Meadowlark” Lemon

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Meadow George Lemon III better known as “Meadowlark” Lemon of Harlem Globetrotters fame passed away today at the age of 83.

Meadowlark played “before Kings, Queens, Presidents, Popes,” and millions of fans in over 100 countries of the world during his career with the Globetrotters which ran from 1954 – 1979 and over 16,000 games.  Dubbed the “Clown Prince of Basketball” Lemon became the face of the Globetrotters and one of the most recognized athletes in the world.

Lemon’s popularity led to commercials, tv and movie roles and two Harlem Globetrotter animated series.  In 1993, fourteen years after retiring, Lemon returned to the Globetrotters for a 50 game come-back tour.  In 2003, Lemon was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame which was just one of the many honor and awards Lemon earned throughout his life.

Lemon was a born-again Christian and in 1986 became an ordained minister.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Meadow George Lemon III’s family, friends and fans.

15 Punchy Facts About “Raging Bull”

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Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 15 Punchy Facts About Raging Bull.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. IT PARTIALLY OWES ITS EXISTENCE TO ROCKY.
Comparisons to that other Oscar-winning boxing movie from four years earlier were inevitable, but the two were actually connected. Rocky was produced by Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, and released by United Artists. When those same producers approached that same studio about doing another boxing movie, the studio said, “A sequel to Rocky? Sure!” That wasn’t what they had in mind (though they did soon enough), but in the meantime, Rocky’s huge success was enough to sell UA on another boxing movie.

5. PAUL SCHRADER FIXED THE SCREENPLAY BY ADDING JAKE LAMOTTA’S BROTHER, JOEY.
It’s strange to imagine Raging Bull without the Joe Pesci character, but that’s how Mardik Martin’s first drafts had it. He was adapting LaMotta’s 1970 memoir, Raging Bull: My Story, co-authored by LaMotta’s lifelong friend Peter Savage (born Peter Petrella). The book didn’t feature Joey as a prominent character, and it had Savage doing most of the things that Joey would eventually do in the movie. When Schrader was hired to build on the work Martin had done and take another stab at the screenplay, he decided the story would be more compelling if it involved brothers rather than friends (blood ties and all that), so he introduced the Joey character and excised poor old Pete. This creative license proved problematic later, when Joey LaMotta sued for defamation because the movie had attributed to him a number of unwholesome deeds (like beating the crap out of a neighborhood mobster) that had actually been perpetrated by Savage.

9. JOE PESCI WAS RUNNING AN ITALIAN RESTAURANT WHEN DE NIRO AND SCORSESE APPROACHED HIM ABOUT BEING IN THE MOVIE.
Pesci had been a professional actor and musician (he sang and played guitar) off and on since childhood, but he called it quits in the 1970s. His 1975 Broadway show with comedy partner Frank Vincent (whom he would later recruit to play Salvy in Raging Bull) had closed after a week, and his first movie, 1976’s The Death Collector (also featuring Vincent), was a flop. But Robert De Niro happened to see that film in 1978, and was so impressed by Pesci’s performance that he pitched him to Scorsese. The two tracked Pesci down and called him at his restaurant to coax him out of showbiz retirement.

Oral History of Pro Wrestling’s 1995 Historic Excursion into North Korea

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In 1995, Muhammad Ali joined Ric Flair, Eric Bishoff and other WCW superstars to journey to North Korea to take part in the “International Sports and Cultural Festival for Peace.”

The trip had highs (wrestling before the largest crowds in professional wrestling history – a record that still stands, traveling with Muhammad Ali) and lows (tapped phones, terrible food and US pro wrestlers getting into a real fight) but remains largely unknown to fans who haven’t read… Dan Greene and Sports Illustrated’s an Oral History of Pro Wrestling’s 1995 Historic Excursion into North Korea.

Mayweather vs. Pacquiao: The Fight of the Century?

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Mayweather vs. Pacquiao: The Fight of the Century?

Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquio are finally meeting in the squared circle tonight to settle who is the best.  Many (including Manny) are calling this the Fight of the Century.

I grew up in the era of Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Robert Duran, Sugar Ray Lenard, Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hearns and others.  So many great champions and so many great challengers.  So would I call Mayweather vs Pacquiao the Fight of the Century?

Maybe, if you’re talking about the 21st Century.

SB Nation presents a solid case that Mayweather vs Pacquiao is the Fight of the Century in a well made video that is worth a few minutes of you’re time even if you’re not a fight fan.