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The Daily Dose/January 18, 2017
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
MR. SPANOS, U-HAUL ON LINE TWO: The big news in the San Diego Chargers becoming, again, the Los Angeles Chargers, is not that they moved. NFL owners have, for years, been giving a clinic and pulling up stakes whenever a city refuses to yield to their extortion demands. We’re used to it.
No, what we found interesting is that the Chargers would leave San Diego for Los Angeles, of all places.
In San Diego, they were beloved, the big cheese, the big man on campus. In Los Angeles, they will be an afterthought, behind the Dodgers, the Lakers, the Rams, USC football, UCLA basketball and maybe even the Kings.
Little Ralphie Has The Jammers’ Helmet: If the LA T-Birds were still skating at the Olympic Auditorium, they’d probably be an afterthought behind them, too.
Heck, the Chargers won’t even be the second most popular football team in town, they will be third behind the Rams and the Raiders.
We’ve Got A Business To Run: Dean Spanos, though, really had no other option. To stay in San Diego without a new stadium was folly. Simply by signing the letter to the NFL announcing his intention to relocate the value of his business increased from $2 billion to $3 billion.
Even if the Spanoses continued mediocre leadership continues to produce average on-field results, the Chargers will still be more profitable and valuable than they were playing in their old stadium. They might even be more profitable and valuable in LA than in a new stadium in San Diego.
FunFact: If they win they will become a license to print money because no one embraces a winner like Los Angeles does.
More Hot, NFL Relocation Action: Oakland is about to lose the Raiders again because Oakland is showing no more interest in subsidizing their NFL team than San Diego did. It is not definite the Raiders will move to Las Vegas, but Nevada said yes to the NFL’s demands, to the tune of $750 million, and Raiders owner Mark Davis has indicated he will ask his fellow NFL owners for permission to move. The Las Vegas Raiders and the Los Angeles Chargers, both in the AFC West, could be meeting two times a season as soon as this year if permission is granted and the Raiders don’t want to be a lame-duck team in Oakland.
The Bottom Line: Sure, it’s tough to see a civic institution leave, but the Dodgers left Brooklyn and other teams have ripped the hearts out of their old cities and the sun continues to rise in the east every morning. The Chargers had no choice. They have a business to run and it will be run more profitably in Los Angeles, even if their arrival there was met with a collective yawn.
THEY’RE YOUR PROBLEM NOW, MATE: The first ship in what History refers to as the First Fleet, arrives in Botany Bay, Sydney, Australia on this date in 1788, bringing 75 convicts that would form the first permanent European settlement in Australia.
The rest of the fleet, ten ships, would arrive over the next couple of days, bringing between 1,000 and 1,500 people, total.
Oh, Bloody Hell: The first European to visit Botany Bay had been British Navy Captain James Cook, who had visited the east coast of Australia in 1770. His glowing reports of area had been instrumental in leading the British to set up a penal colony there. On arrival, officials and convicts found poor soil, insufficient fresh water and trees that broke the tools they were using to cut them down with.
Great Moments In Eugene Ely: Eugene Ely becomes the first person to land an airplane on a ship on this date in 1911, landing a Curtiss Pusher on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania, which was anchored in San Francisco Bay.
WTF? The Pennsylvania had to be wondering what in thee hell was going on. Designed and built as an armored cruiser, the Pennsylvania had a deck built onto its after deck for the landing. Eventually, it was renamed the Pittsburgh, spent most of World War I patrolling Latin America and was decommissioned in 1931.
Back On Message: Though Ely is not as well-known as some early aviation pioneers, the previous November Ely had become the first person to fly an airplane off a ship. Ely would die in October, 1911, at the age of 25, breaking his neck after leaping from his crashing aircraft.
Dry, Technical Matter: Congress awarded Ely the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1933.
Great Moments In Blacks Playing Hockey: Willie O’Ree becomes the first black to play in the National Hockey League on this date in 1958. O’Ree, a winger, was playing for the Quebec Aces of the Quebec Hockey League at the time, and was called up to the Boston Bruins following an injury. O’Ree would play in two games for the Bruins that season, and 43 more in the 1960-61 season.
Warm, Personal Remembrance: We can remember watching O’Ree play with San Diego Gulls, then of the Western Hockey League, in late 1960’s.
O’Ree did not exactly open up the flood gates for blacks in the NHL. The next black wouldn’t appear in an NHL game until 1974 and today there are about two dozen playing for NHL teams.
Thought For The Day: But their lives, as he planned, would be up to them…He left his successors with the burden, and the freedom, of making their way. – Richard Brookhiser, George Washington on Leadership
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The longest running TV show on America television is NBC’s Meet The Press, which is in its 69th season.
Today’s Stumper: Which was the first National Football League team to change cities? – Answer next time!
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