1986 Play-by-Play
January
January 2nd, 16 gamesters scored three and honored Bill Veeck, baseball owner who once sent a midget to the plate... Jan. 4th, Dupont Fluvius soloed for two on author Christopher Isherwood... Jan. 10th, Pontius and D. Perriman Jr. scored two each on Czech poet and Nobel laureate Jaroslav Siefert. The hit put Ponty into the lead by two... Jan. 13th, Captain Cadaver and the Moorebids took the lead, scoring four on Cleveland Indians' pitcher Mike Garcia and rising to seven. Others tagging Garcia included Dr. Doornail, Perry Mason and Razor... Jan. 14th, 44 gamesters led by Captain Cadaver, moving to 11, and the Moorebids scored four on actress Donna Reed, and rookie J. Eby made it five by carrying Reed as his Wild Card... Jan. 15th, Captain Cadaver took sole possession of the lead at 13 as he joined the Morbo Chucks and Pontius in scoring two on Jim Crowley, the last of Notre Dame's famed "Four Horsemen"... Same day, Fire Ants, G. Reaper and D. Trageser scored one point on Herbert Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God... Jan. 19th, the Sick Puppies vaulted into second place at 11 points by soloing for four on Enrique Tierno Galvan, the Mayor of Madrid... Jan. 24th, El Chileno soloed for three on L. Ron Hubbard, who once told a sci-fi convention that the only way to truly make money in this world was to found a religion. Two years later he did, and his Scientology has since parted more sheep from their wool than all the shearers in Australia.
February '86
February 16th, the Sick Puppies soloed for two on Harry Van Arsdale, former head of the New York City Central Labor Council. (Note: In the years when an obit in the New York Times was deemed necessary for "fame," NYC residents benefited from the fact that the New York Times is not only a national paper of record, but also a local newspaper. Today, in such cases, an obit in a national publication other than the Times is required to show that a New York-based hit is truly nationally famous.) The hit tied the Pups for the lead with Captain Cadaver at 13... Feb. 17th, D. Beach soloed for two on Red Ruffing, Hall of Fame Yankee hurler... Feb. 21st, D. Perriman Jr. soloed for one on Helen Santmeyer, late blooming author of "And Ladies of the Club."
March '86
March 6th, 16 gamesters selected artist George O'Keefe; 14 scored one point, and two -- Toujours la Morte and Pluto's Retreat -- went Wild for five... Mar. 7th, 46 gamesters voted for Sen. Jacob Javits; going Wild were Dr. Doornail and Mortis the Cat. Forty-four scored two, including the leaders moving to 15... Mar. 10th, Minerva, Scorpio and Vega Ring scored three on actor Ray Milland... Next day, Aces & Eights and Cassandra Bob got down with blues legend Sonny Terry for three points... Mar. 30th, 46 scored on actor James Cagney. The Moorebids used their two points to tie Captain Cadaver and the Sick Puppies at 15. The great, great Morbo Chucks and G. Reaper went Wild for five.
April '86
April 3rd, Mortucrats soloed for two on Iran's Ayatollah Shariat-Madari... Apr. 5th, the Sick Puppies led five in scoring four on Rep. Joseph Addabo; the lifted them into first at 19 points... Apr. 12th, Razor sent in an obit to Game Central revealing that he had scored six points on tenor sax man Joe Farrell on January 10th. The points put him in the lead at 18; Ida the Goose had also scored... (Apr. 13th, G. Reaper scored seven points on movie actor Stephen Stucker, but did not produce an obit until April of 1991, at which time the points were credited to his career totals.)... Apr. 14th, e. mcgrath soloed for three on French author and intellectual Simone de Beauvoir... Apr. 18th, Dupont Fluvius and the National Health flew for two on French aviation pioneer, publisher, legislator and all-around rich guy Marcel Dassault... Apr. 23rd, four scored three on film director Otto Preminger... Apr. 23rd, Captain Cadaver and a team that couldn't agree on a name scored five on Emmy-winning newsman Roger Sharp. The hit gave the Captain the lead at 20... Apr. 24th, Captain Cadaver Wild Carded the Duchess of Windsor and raised the bar for the lead to 25 points. Seventeen more scored two... Apr. 26th, eight scored three on actor Broderick Crawford... Same day, The Portland Sisters soloed for two on movie actress Bessie Love, whose career stretched from 1916 to 1980.
May '86
May 8th, Fire Ants soloed for one on Lord Emanuel "Manny" Shinwell, who thrived in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords... May 11th, the Morbo Chucks soloed for one on football legend Fritz Pollard... May 14th, Captain Cadaver, moving to 31 points, P. Grise, the Morbo Chucks, Pontius and the Sick Puppies scored six on sports magnate John Bassett... May 21st, the Necrophiliacs soloed for one on Texas wildcatter and philanthropist William Moncrief Sr.
June '86
June 6th, the National Health soloed for seven (!) on Welsh Rugby star and national coach John Bevan... June 13th, four scored three on the King of Swing, Benny Goodman... June 14th, four scored two on author Jorge Luis Borges and 19 led by Captain Cadaver, moving to 33, scored two on "Zoo Parade" and "Wild Kingdom" star Marlin Perkins... June 17th, the Portland Sisters Wild Carded singer Kate Smith and led a chorus of 30 in "God Bless America." Among those scoring three, the Sick Puppies, moving to 30 points and within three of the leader, Captain Cadaver... June 19th, Captain Cadaver claimed five points on artificial heart recipient Murray Haydon; the points were awarded, but the Sick Puppies, showing they could play defense as well as offense, protested that Haydon had not surived two New Year's since his operation and, according to the rules of the day, that meant he was ineligible; the protest was upheld and the points were taken away... June 29th, Sen. John East passed out five points of patronage to nine gamesters led by the Sick Puppies who moved to 35 and the lead.
July '86
July 3rd, Demento Morte, Dupont Fluvius and Friable Asbestos tallied two on singer/actor Rudy Vallee... July 8th, the Morbo Chucks soloed for six on football's Spider Lockhart, a New York Giants defensive stalwart and Pro Bowl pick... Same day, 17 gamesters scored two on Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the Nuclear Navy and a tireless critic of the service's shortcomings... July 14th, rookie Penguin scored a beautiful one-point solo on industrial designer Raymond Loewy, who designed the Lucky Strike pack, the Studebaker and much more... Same day, Pontius scored one on Stephan's Odyssey, who ran second in the Derby and the Belmont... July 25th, the Moorebids and Scorpio scored three on director Vincente Minelli... July 26th, Governor, Ambassador and financier Averill Harriman shared of his wealth with one point for 23 gamesters.
August '86
Aug. 2nd, 28 gamesters led by the Sick Puppies, rising to 40, scored five points on Roy Cohn who served Sen. Joe McCarthy faithfully, denied all his life he was gay, schemed constantly and was disbarred two months before he died of AIDS... Aug. 3rd, the Sick Puppies, rising to 44, and the Moorebids tuned in William B. Williams, host of radio's "Make Believe Ballroom" (a Tiny Tim favorite) and the man who dubbed Frank Sinatra "The Chairman of the Board"... Aug. 5th, SID soloed for five on test pilot Chuck Sewell, crashing in Connecticut.. Aug. 6th, the Sick Puppies, rising to 49, led 16 gamesters in a five-point hit on William Schroeder, Jarvik heart recipient... Aug. 12th, Black Dahlia soloed for two on Howard Jarvis of Proposition 13 fame... Aug. 26th, T. & J. James and the Necrophiliacs tallied four on actor Ted Knight, the fabulous newsman "Ted Baxter" of TV's Mary Tyler Moore Show... Aug. 30th, six gamesters led by the Sick Puppies, rising to 57, scored eight on NY Giants football player John Tuggle. The hit was initially disallowed as insufficiently famous, but the new editor, Dupont Fluvius, yielded to an obit sent by Razor who claimed Tuggle was a big star at Cal, and thus boosted the Sick Puppies' lead... Aug. 31st, Dupont Fluvius and M. Hamilton scored two on sculptor Henry Moore... Same day, D. Beach, Dr. Doornail, the Morbo Chucks and Pontius scored two on Finnish President Urbo Kekkonen.. Same day, El Chileno soloed for one on Chile's President Jorge Alessandri.
September '86
September 6th, The Portland Sisters (co-chaired by eventual Merry Little Breezes) soloed for one on film actress Blanche Sweet, nicely bookending their earlier solo on Bessie Love.
October '86
October 6th, Fire Ants soloed for one on Duke U. collegiate football coaching legend Wallace Wade who once noted, "I don't want your best. Anybody can do their best. I want whatever it takes to win."... Oct. 14th, G. Reaper and Scorpio scored three on actor Keenan Wynn... Oct. 19th, Ghostwriter and Montressor scored five on Mozambique's Samora Machel, dead in a suspicious plane crash... Oct. 22nd, Fire Ants soloed for one on Chinese leader Ye Jiangying and then joined D. Beach for a one-point duet on Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel laureate in Medicine. For Fire Ants, it was one of the classiest Daily Doubles of all time... Oct. 25th, Captain Cadaver and Cassandra Bob scored four on actor Forrest Tucker... Oct. 27th, M. Hamilton soloed for two on Sherman Adams, Eisenhower's Chief of Staff who was forced to retire after a 1958 vicuna coat scandal... Oct. 28th, the National Health soloed for three on Eddie Waring, the voice of Rugby League, who once said, "I don't know if that is his head or the ball. We'll see if it stands up."
November '86
November 3rd, C. Stanley went Wild for five points on the Soviet Union's "hammer" and cocktail namesake, Vyacheslav Molotov. Scoring one on the durable diplomat were Fire Ants, M. Hamilton, the Morbo Chucks and OPEC... Nov. 14th, Fire Ants soloed for one on imprisoned Polish Nazi Erich Koch who directed the extermination of 4 million East Europeans... Nov. 21st, D. Perriman Jr., the Register and Taste of Death scored two on comic actor Jerry Colona... Nov 22nd, 12 gamesters led by Captain Cadaver scored three on singer and actor Scatman Crothers... Nov. 29th, 16 gamesters tallied three on actor Cary Grant.
December '86
December 2nd, 11 gamesters scored four on bandleader and TV star Desi Arnez... Dec. 26th, Aces & Eights, Deathwatch and Necrophiacs scored two on actress Elsa Lanchester... Dec. 27th, the Morbo Chucks soloed for one on historian Dumas Malone... Dec. 28th, the Obit Writers and Toujours la Morte tallied a fine seven points on Conservative gay-basher Terry Dolan, dying of AIDS... Dec. 29th, Fire Ants led six in an ace on former PM Harold MacMillan.
And so it ended, with The Sick Puppies winning the Gran Prix for the second year in a row (57 points), Pontius the Perriman Pennant (16 hits), a team with no name the Reaper Ribbon for High QPA (4.17), Fire Ants Clete's Cup (1.20), Obit Writers Rookie of the Year, and Toujours la Morte Doc's Diploma for Class List.
Let's look at the Top Ten for 1986.
Take me on to 1987.
Take me back to Play-by-Play.