1982 Play-by-Play

January

January 1st, P. C. Neilson, sibling of Game legend P. Grise, became the third gamester in history to score on New Year's Day, and as in the first two instances, it was a solo, this one on TV and film actor Victor Buono for six points and the lead... Jan. 5th, D. Beach soloed for four on actor Hans Conreid... Jan. 10th, Danse Macabre and Ghostwriter shared the credit and five points each on overdosing actor Paul Lynde. Same day, Morpheus and L. Smith tallied four on Illinois Bishop Romeo Blanchette... Jan. 15th, Deathbed and OPEC (a team chaired by Game pioneer B. Rounds) scored three on supremely gifted sportswriter Red Smith... Jan. 25th, Dr. Doornail and Nonomis Morair scored three on Soviet party ideologist, the "Red Genius," Mikhail Suslov... Jan. 30th, The Flurds hit career solo #1 on actor Stanley Holloway for one point. Same day, D. Trageser and Skul played a four-point blues duet on Lightnin' Hopkins.

February '82

February 8th, the Dead Reckoners soloed for three on John Hay Whitney... Feb. 16th, the Dead Reckoners were back, in the company of Captain Cadaver, scoring eight on LSU All-American Mark Alcorn and taking the lead at 11 & 2... Feb. 17th, acting coach Lee Strassberg gave a three-point seminar to Game thespians The Coach, Danse Macabre, P. Grise, P. C. Neilson and SLY... Feb. 20tht, the Game's grande dame, M. Hamilton, soloed for two on environmentalist and author Rene Dubos ("Think globally. Act locally.")... Feb. 21st, the Dead Reckoners, the Icemen, Captain Cadaver and L. Smith scored a fab four on Murray "The K" Kauffman who introduced the Beatles to the American radio waves. The hit lifted the leading Reckoners to 15 & 3.

March '82

March 5th, The Last Roundup showed extraordinary style with their seven-point solo on overdosing actor John Belushi... Mar. 6th, The King of Pain, Nonomis Morair, the Tulsa Tigers and Winter/Stambach objectively scored three on author Ayn Rand... Mar. 8th, R. & M. Ostwald soloed for three on library great Jessie Shera... Mar. 10th, D. Trageser soloed for one on Iran's Queen Mother Pahlevi... Mar. 16th, P. & E. Hepner, Owen Cash and L. Smith scored seven on LPGA star Kathy Linney; the stroke lifted L. Smith to 15 & 3 and into a tie for the lead with the Dead Reckoners... Mar. 27th, the Merry Little Breezes (then playing as a member of Mr. Clete's All Stars) and D. Perry shared two points each on charlatan Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who went to her grave accepting credit, honorary degrees and praise for having written the Nancy Drew books, when in reality she had simply handed one-page summaries to spunky journalist Mildred Wirt Benson... Mar. 29th, M. Hamilton soloed on psychiatrist Helene Deutsch for one point.

April '82

April 1st, R. & M. Ostwald soloed for three on Vic Hanson, the only member of both the college football and basketball Halls of Fame... Apr. 15th, six gamesters including Ghostwriter and Silver Tapps accepted a last cigarette and eight points each from Lt. Khalid Islambouly, assassin of Anwar Sadat, condemned to death after Jan. 1, 1982, and executed by firing squad before the "must be famous before the crime for which they are being executed" rule was in place... Apr. 20th, Danse Macabre, Extreme Unction and M. Hamilton tallied two each on poet Archibald MacLeish... Apr. 25th, Cardinal Cody made a three-point landing in the Hereafter and drew a congregation of 29 gamesters led by L. Smith who moved to sole possession of the lead at 18 & 4. Same day, Mr. Clete's All Stars and P. Grise scored two each on Don Wilson, genial announcer for Jack Benny. For Hall of Famer P. Grise, it was a Daily Double!

May '82

May 8th, C. Stanley soloed for seven on Formula One driver Gilles Villenueve, crashing at 170 mph during a qualifying run... May 17th, P. & E. Hepner had a nice solo smash on baseball's Fred "Dixie" Walker for three runs... May 28th, OPEC went Wild with College Football Hall of Famer Henderson Van Surdam (QB, Weslyan '02-'05) for five points and a WILD CARD SOLO.

June '82

June 8th, eight gamesters including D. Beach, Dr. Doux, the great, great Morbo Chucks and Pontius scored three on baseball immortal Leroy Satchel Paige... June 12th, Dupont Fluvius soloed for one point on ballet great Dame Marie Rambert... June 13th, Saudi Arabia's King Khalid decreed a four-point bonus to 14 gamesters, including leader L. Smith, now rising to 22 & 5, and winning the Silver Bobcat... June 15th, a jazz trio of Cribdeath, Deathbed and Pontius sat in for five points with hard-living alto sax player Art Pepper... June 19th, Dr. Doux and the Ithaca Psychics scored on author John Cheever for three... June 22nd, Silver Tapps soloed for three on psychologist Hobart Mowrer... June 28th, Deathbed and D. Trageser dueted harmoniously for four points on Harry Mills of the Mills Brothers.

July '82

July 13th, The National Health soloed for four on actor Sir Kenneth More... July 21st, Phaedrus soloed for four on early "Today Show" host Dave Garroway... July 23rd, Ghostwriter soloed for seven points on Chad's Acyl Ahmat, who walked into a revving propeller while waving to an airport crowd... July 29th, Dupont Fluvius soloed for one on pioneering technician Vladimir Zworykin who put together the first working TV tube.

August '82

August 2nd, Mr. Clete's All Stars, the Icemen and the Morbo Chucks tallied an ace on actress Cathleen Nesbitt... Aug. 12th, L. Smith moved to 25 & 6 as he led an audience of 54 on actor Henry Fonda. Going Wild were Captain Cadaver, Hobgoblin and rookie Razor... Aug. 15th, Owen Cash, Morpheus, the Morbo Chucks and Phaedrus tallied three on "Nancy" cartoonist Ernie Bushmiller... Aug. 21st, Mr. Clete's All Stars, Lie Bury and Phaedrus donned their formal pelts and scored two on Swaziland's King Subhoza II... Aug. 29th, six including G. Reaper and T. & J. James scored four on actress Ingrid Bergman. The hit lifted Reaper to 14 & 4 but what a difference a war makes, as he then received credit for his National Disaster -- War/Lebanon -- and suddenly G. Reaper found himself in second place, one point behind L. Smith at 24 & 5.

September '82

September 1st, The National Health led off the month with a WILD CARD SOLO on Poland's Wladyslaw Gomulka... Sept. 5th, The National Health came roaring back, soloing for three on WW2 fighter pilot hero Sir Douglas Bader, who lost both legs in a 1931 plane crash but strapped on artificial legs and flew again to bring down 22 enemy fighters in the Battle of Britain, while dodging an outstanding arrest warrant for speeding (!)... Sept. 14th, Dr. Doornail and Ghostwriter scored seven points each on Lebanon's Bashir Gemayel, taken out by a bomb at Christian Phalangist party HQ just days before he was to take office as President. The hit elevated a stunned Ghostwriter into first place at 27 & 4, on the edge of a huge QPA. Same day, rookie Pandora's Box hit one of the Game's classiest solos ever, a five-pointer on Princess Grace in an auto accident... Sept. 15th, P. Grise, the Krypt Kickers, The Last Roundup, Pearl E. Gates and Silver Tapps guessed correctly on which way the verdict would go for Iran's former Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, executed for plotting to overthrow the government; they picked up six points each... Sept. 17th, Mullen's Revenge tallied a solo ace on David Dubinsky, former leader of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union... Sept. 26th, Pontius soloed for two points on muralist Allyn Cox.

October '82

October 9th, Montressor went Wild on Anna Freud for five but it was no Wild Card Solo as Silver Tapps sweenied him, picking up two points and moving alongside L. Smith at 25 & 6 in second place... Oct. 11th, Deathbed and Cribdeath scored two each on Clinton Duffy, former warden of San Quentin... Oct. 18th, L. Smith and Silver Tapps exploded into the lead at 30 & 7, among the 18 gamesters who Wild Carded former First Lady Bess Truman; 28 more were there for the ace... Oct. 22nd, D. Trageser scored a five-point solo on American poet Richard Hugo who wrote of the great Northwest and baseball.

November '82

November 1st, Mr. Clete's All Stars and SLY tallied two each on Hollywood director King Vidor... Nov. 10th, leaders L. Smith and Silver Tapps marched through Red Square with 57 gamesters scoring three on the U.S.S.R.'s Leonid Brezhnev, moving to 33 & 8... Nov. 11th, The National Health scored a solo two on comic actor Arthur Askey... Nov. 17th, Mr. Clete's All Stars tallied a solo two on actress Ruth Donnelly... Nov. 20th, The Dead Reckoners soloed for six on Emmy-winning ABC journalist Catherine Mackin... Nov. 27th, Extreme Unction, the great, great Morbo Chucks, Pontius and G. Reaper scored two on Mormon elder N. Eldon Tanner.

December '82

December 2nd, T. & J. James tallied one of the Game's nicest solos, a surprising six on comic actor Marty Feldman... Dec. 8th, L. Smith, garbed in close-fitting black, strode down the streets of El Paso and scored five on singer Marty Robbins, taking sole possession of the lead at 38 & 9. Also scoring five were Captain Cadaver, Dirtball and D. Perriman Jr. ... Dec. 9th, R. & M. Ostwald soloed for four on Watergate investigator Leon Jaworski... Dec. 10th, Extreme Unction and the Morbo Chucks tallied two each on the voice of Amos in "Amos & Andy," Freeman Gosden. For the great, great Morbos it was hit #10 and the lead in the Perriman Pennant race... Dec. 20th, Mr. Clete's All Stars and Extreme Unction went Wild on pianist Artur Rubenstein while 14 more settled for one note on the lowest black key... Dec. 22nd, rookie Rough Draft soloed for four on Dragnet's Jack Webb... Dec. 24th, Dupont Fluvius completed his run with a solo two on French poet Louis Aragon and rounded out the year's scoring.

And so it ended, with L. Smith the Gran Prix winner at 38 points, the Morbo Chucks winning the Perriman Pennant with 10 hits, Captain Cadaver with High QPA at 4.66, Dupont Fluvius winning Clete's Cup with a 1.71, The National Health winning Class List with four solos, including a Wild Card Solo, Faintly Macabre as Rookie of the Year and e. mcgrath winning the Buffalo Cup for the second straight year.

Let's look at the Top Ten for 1982.

Take me on to 1983.

Take me back to Play-by-Play.