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Bar Chat

03/25/2020

The USFL loses a lawsuit...and folds...

[Posted Tues. p.m.]

*Folks, it isn’t easy for all of us these days.  Personally, I’m stressed to the max.  Aside from the importance of this site, my primary job is to make sure my father, who bears a striking resemblance to our Dr. Bortrum, stays healthy in the home I grew up in, which is near where I live.  But I’m afraid of infecting him.  I woke up Tuesday to the local headline little Summit’s cases spiked from four to eight overnight.  Summit is a major commuter town into New York.  [If you watch CNBC, it’s the place Jim Cramer is always talking about.]  Anyone going into New York these days is bound to get it; some won’t know it, but still pass it on, others will get sick.

I was in the neighboring town this morning, where I lived for 16 years, and just driving along saw a very disturbing thing.  A jogger, man in his 40s, I guessed, was sitting on the sidewalk (it was very cold this morning), clearly out of it.  Another car had pulled up and I went on, knowing what had happened.  Seconds later, police and EMS were screaming up to him.  I later doubled back, after shopping at the grocery store for as little time as possible, and they were working on him.  This wasn’t a heart attack or a fall.

The other day a good friend told me he was looking out his window in another neighboring town and saw a body in the road!  It was his neighbor, who had collapsed of fatigue right there.  I don’t want to say anything more about this one, but there is more to this story.

The other day I also lashed out at an old friend for reasons I don’t want to get into, but there was no need to do so at that moment.  I’ve always been the “wait 24 hours” guy and I should have.  It was my first slip up with this rule in decades.  I feel bad.

If you live in a state that has no big issues with the coronavirus yet, just understand, it’s coming.  For that other column I do, I chart death tolls every day on some post-its and it’s just amazing how it went from China to Italy (with many stopovers along the way), Italy spread it to Spain, Spain spread it to France, and France spread it to the UK.

Death tolls today, Tuesday, in those four.

Italy 743
Spain 514
France 240
UK 87

All bumps from the day before…new highs in the last three (Italy disturbingly back up after two days where it went down).

Please stay safe.  If you have the chance, load up on chicken soup.  Everyone is different, but three days in the past two weeks I have suddenly gotten the chills, which isn’t normal for me, I had chicken soup and it helped almost immediately.  And you don’t have to consult your doctor on this.

I apologize if this amateur medical advice offends some of you.

USFL Quiz: Yes, this is ridiculous but grasping for straws at this point.  The league was in existence from 1983-85, three seasons.  1) Name the only five franchises to stick around all three.  [I’ll give you the New Jersey Generals.  Try and get the other cities.]  2) Who was the all-time rusher those three years?  3) Who led the USFL in passing touchdowns.  Answers below.

The Tokyo Games

After I posted last Sunday afternoon, events moved quickly.  The U.S. Olympic Committee joined Canada and Australia in saying they wouldn’t send their athletes to the Games, calling for a postponement.  Monday afternoon the World Health Organization said the pandemic was “accelerating” and asked the Games not to proceed.

Tuesday morning, Eastern time, the Olympics, slated for July 24-Aug. 9, were officially postponed until the summer of 2021 at the latest, IOC President Thomas Bach agreeing “100%” to a proposal from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to postpone the Games, not cancel them.

The cost of postponement was not discussed by IOC chief Bach and Shinzo Abe on Tuesday, Bach said, adding: “this is about protecting lives.”  The precise dates for the new Games have not yet been determined, Bach said.  “These are the reasons why we had decided we need at least four weeks to assess all these questions…these are not the only ones.”

Abe said he hoped to reschedule the Olympics as a proof of human victory over the coronavirus pandemic.  This is a devastating blow to the Japanese economy, but has been discounted for a while by the market there.

As an initial sidelight, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart told Reuters on Tuesday that the postponement could open the door for convicted drug cheats to compete for medals.

NFL

--Peyton Manning turned down ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand first reported. 

“Sources say the overriding factor was whether Manning finally wanted to enter the broadcast and commit to the weekly schedule in the fall.  The answer remains no.”

Manning has declined to be an MNF analyst on multiple occasions, turning down every network since retiring in 2016.

It’s assumed had he agreed Peyton would have been in the Tony Romo neighborhood at $18 million per year.

ESPN was dreaming of a Manning-Al Michaels broadcast booth, but NBC has balked at letting ESPN talk to Michaels, who has two years remaining on his deal with NBC.

Well, I told you there is no way Peyton Manning was taking a regular gig.  It would expose him to too much scrutiny.  He has a great life with his two shows for ESPN+ and all his commercials, though obviously the advertising business will be severely disrupted by the recession/depression we are heading into.

ESPN still hasn’t officially done anything with the existing MNF team of Joe Tessitore and Booger McFarland.

The network has discussed a team of Steve Levy, Brian Griese and Louis Riddick as a possibility.  Levy and Griese currently do college games together.

ESPN is hesitant to mess with its lead college team of Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit.

--The Patriots released longtime kicker Stephen Gostkowski, saving around $3 million in cap space in the process.  Last year was the 14th in New England for him.

He played in just four games last season, suffering a season-ending hip injury that also required surgery.

And in a move that matters little in the grand scheme of things, but it fills space, the Pats signed quarterback Brian Hoyer to a one-year deal to return to New England for a third time.  Hoyer, 34 and entering his 12th season, joins Jarrett Stidham and Cody Kessler on the depth chart.

--The Redskins traded for Panthers quarterback Kyle Allen, the NFL Network reporting Washington is sending a fifth-round pick in next month’s draft to Carolina.

The advantage for Washington is that Allen played with new coach Ron Rivera and offensive coordinator Scott Turner, with Allen starting 12 games in 2019 after Cam Newton went down in Week 2 with a season-ending foot injury.  He played well at times, winning five of his first six,  but stumbled late in the season losing his last six, ending up with 17 touchdown passes, but 16 interceptions.

He nonetheless serves as a solid safety net for second-year starter Dwayne Haskins.  While Rivera has praised Haskins, he made it clear he’s not just handing him the job.

Rivera has also held open the possibility that Alex Smith can return from a horrific leg injury he suffered in 2018.  [I would be beyond shocked if this happened.]

Donald Trump and the USFL

Phil W. a while ago passed on a story from Jeff Pearlman and the Guardian.  The following is pulled from an excerpt of Pearlman’s book: “Football for a Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL.”  During these times of shutdown, buy it.  Sounds like one of the great sports books of all time, Terry Pluto’s “Loose Balls,” about the history of the ABA.

At the end of its third season, 1985, the United States Football League filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, claiming it had a monopoly over television rights.  The USFL had been a spring/summer league and was determined to move to the fall.  Donald Trump was the owner of the New Jersey Generals and he led the suit, convinced his league would win and, as a result, force a merger with the NFL, Trump gaining a franchise in the process.

The trial lasted 42 days, one of the most important in modern sports history.  The USFL had a shot…until, as Jeff Pearlman writes, “Trump stepped up…”

“The NFL’s lead attorney, Frank Rothman, utilized an approach that was the 180-degree opposite of USFL attorney Harvey Myerson’s.   He didn’t beat people down.  He didn’t scream, rant, snarl.  A distinguished 59-year-old with broad shoulders and gray hair, Rothman was the former CEO of MGM/UA Entertainment, and he exuded a natural dignity.  He sat back, let Myerson do his dance (as the entity that led the suit, the USFL was first to call witnesses), then meticulously went about making the NFL’s case that the USFL, by moving to fall, dug its own grave.  ‘They had everything their way at the beginning,’ Rothman said.  ‘They had the jury they wanted. They hammered away at the Harvard [presentation].  Myerson was pitching the little guys versus the big guys. I would go back and tell the NFL people, ‘Listen, when we get our turn we can start turning this thing around.  We have to be patient.’  But, actually, it didn’t take that long.’

“Beginning with the trial’s opening day, Rothman asked himself a single question: Who is my bad guy? He sought someone the jury would find difficult to believe and even harder to like.  He sought someone with false bravado, with arrogance, with indifference.  He didn’t want the jury to think about a sad little league going up against a powerful machine.  No, he wanted the jury to see that the USFL, sympathy be damned, was its own Frankenstein.  ‘The more I developed the strategy,’ he said, ‘the more I wanted Donald Trump as my fall guy.  I would call it Donald versus Goliath. I would make their scheme Donald’s plan, which it was. I would show that Donald Trump is not a little lightweight; he is one of the richest men in America…he was such a lousy witness for them, and a great one for us.’….

“Early in the proceedings, the USFL called Pete Rozelle, the NFL’s commissioner, to testify as the trial’s first witness.  Over the course of five interminable days, Myerson hammered Rozelle, pounded Rozelle, grilled Rozelle.  In particular, he focused on Trump’s claim that the NFL commissioner promised him a franchise should he abandon/damage the USFL.  There was, both sides agreed, a meeting held between Trump and Rozelle at the Pierre Hotel in March 1984.  What happened, however, was of dispute.

“ ‘Didn’t you tell Mr. Trump you wish he had been able to buy the Baltimore Colts and hadn’t gone into the USFL?’ Myerson asked.

“ ‘No,’ Rozelle replied.

“ ‘Did you tell him that if he hadn’t gone to the USFL, the USFL would have died?’ Myerson asked.

“ ‘No,’ Rozelle said.  ‘Never.’

“Trump’s testimony was decidedly different.  He said the hotel rendezvous was Rozelle’s idea, and recalled the commissioner saying, ‘You will have a good chance of an NFL franchise and, in fact, you will have an NFL franchise.’ The tradeoff, according to Trump, was that the USFL remain in the spring and ‘not bring a lawsuit.’

“Trump insisted he and Rozelle were friends.  Rozelle insisted he and Trump were certainly not friends.  Trump insisted Rozelle wanted him in the NFL.  Rozelle insisted he would rather have maggot-infected fungus overtaking his cranial lobe.  ‘Rozelle told me I should be in the NFL, not the USFL,’ Trump said.  ‘At some point, he said, I would be in the NFL.  Then he would reiterate that the USFL was not going to make it.’

“Rozelle couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  He made clear that it was Trump who reserved and paid for the Pierre suite.  He told Rothman: ‘[Trump] said, ‘I want an NFL expansion team in New York.’  And he said, and I’m quoting him exactly, ‘I would get some stiff to buy the New York Generals, my team in the USFL.’ ’  Unlike Trump, Rozelle was a meticulous note-taker, and he presented his documented recollections from the meeting.

“Rothman’s cross-examination was a breathtaking ode to knowing your subject, and taking him apart, piece by piece. Wrote Richard Hofer of the Los Angeles Times: ‘Rothman characterized Trump as the worst kind of snake who was selling his colleagues down the river so he could effect a merger of a few rich teams.’  It wasn’t Trump’s words, so much as his swagger and irritability. The USFL was the little league trying to be big, but Trump didn’t seem little.  Or sympathetic.  Or, for that matter, believable.

“ ‘He did not do the USFL well,’ recalled Patricia Sibilia, a juror.  ‘Donald Trump and I actually got into a staring match. I would watch the people on the stand, trying to read them.  So he and I started looking at each other, and he tried to stare me down.  It was an obvious try at intimidation. And what’s funny, in hindsight, is that this so-called business genius ruined it for them.  He was not believable in anything he said.  He came off as arrogant and unlikeable.’

“Rozelle’s cool, controlled testimony was Kryptonite to Trump’s apparent unhinged allergies to truth.  Rothman asked, repeatedly, what motivated Trump’s actions, then showed the jury multiple documents – signed or written by the Generals’ owner – that alluded to a ‘merger’ and ‘merger strategy.’  Trump denied his motive was to have the USFL and NFL become one, but lacked credibility.  ‘It was so obvious that’s what this was all about,’ said Sibilia.  ‘No question.’

“When Rothman suggested Trump’s ultimate goal was to wind up with a valuable NFL organization, the reply was staggering.  ‘I could have gotten into the NFL a lot easier than going through this exercise,’ he said.  ‘I could have spent the extra money and bought the Colts on many occasions.’

“A historic level of eye rolling filled the courtroom.  Trump was lying.  He was never a serious candidate to purchase the Colts.  Never.  ‘Who do you believe?’ wrote Dave Goldberg of the Associated Press, ‘Donald Trump or Pete Rozelle?’

“It wasn’t a tough one.

“ ‘It was a hard thing to watch unfold,’ said Jerry Argovitz, owner of the Houston Gamblers.  ‘Donald didn’t love the USFL.  To him, it was small potatoes. Which is terrible, because we had a great league and a great idea.  But then everyone let Donald Trump take over. It was our death.’

“Though often immune to criticism, Trump seemed aware that the trial was not going as planned.  He was being used by the NFL, and it stung.  ‘All the reporters would rush to the nearby payphones at breaks to call in information,’ said Bob Ley, covering the trial for ESPN.  ‘One day I walked into one phone booth, Donald walked into an adjacent one.  And he’s absolutely motherfucking someone on the other end of the line.’”

The jury deliberated for 31 hours over five days, engaging in several heated battles.

“Although Rothman believed the case went well, he had been involved in past lawsuits that he also thought went well, only to suffer shocking defeat.  ‘It wasn’t like we all knew what was about to be announced,’ said Gary Myers, who covered the trial for the Dallas Morning News.  ‘It was real suspense.’”

Judge Peter K. Leisure received a piece of paper from the jury.  Everyone in the courtroom was standing.

“ ‘The first question,’ Leisure said, ‘is, ‘Do you find that the NFL monopolized the business of professional football, yes or no?’

“ ‘The answer is, ‘Yes.’’

“Myerson grinned like a child receiving a bag of M&Ms.  This would be outstanding…

“A series of 27 questions ensued, asking whether the different NFL clubs (excluding Al Daivs’ Raiders) were beholden to the monopoly.

“ ‘Yes’ was stated 27 times.

“Myerson could barely contain his euphoria.  Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap!  Several reporters on hand darted from the room to call the news into their offices.  This was earth-shaking.  The National Football League was found guilty of violating an antitrust law.  It had, according to the jury, monopolized professional football and willfully acquired its monopoly power.  Yes, the jury would clear the NFL on the eight other charges.  But for a brief spell, radio and television outlets reported that the United States Football League had…won!

“What followed was… ‘Shocking,’ said Argovitz.  ‘Unfathomable,’ said Myerson. ‘Emotional,’ said Rozelle….

“Rozelle hasn’t made it to the courtroom in time for the verdict.  He was stuck in traffic, listening to the trial on WCBS Radio, which was broadcasting live.  His car was on 23rd Street, and the announcer said, ‘The National Football League has been found guilty.’  A furious Rozelle ordered the driver to turn the car around and take him back to league offices.

“And yet, in less than five minutes, USFL joy was replaced by USFL horror, and NFL horror was replaced by NFL joy.  After confirming that, yes, the NFL had violated the law, the jury awarded damages of…$1.

“Yes, one dollar.

“ ‘Actually, $3,’ said David Cataneo, who covered the trial for the Boston Herald.  ‘Damages in antitrust lawsuits are tripled.’

“Rozelle had the car turn around again and speed to the courthouse.  Trump, already there, was sitting alongside John Mara, the son of New York Giants’ owner Wellington Mara.  When the words ‘one dollar’ emerged from Leisure’s lips, the younger Mara pulled out a $1 bill from his wallet and handed it to the Generals’ owner.  Trump’s sunken expression was worth the price.

“Thanks to Myerson and Trump and a strategy that made little to no sense, the USFL walked out of the courtroom with $3 to its name.  ‘I covered that trial, and you had to hate Trump,’ said Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo,’ who hosted the Renegades’ postgame show.  ‘I just never saw how anyone liked him.’  Sibilia could not get past two things: (1) that the USFL’s dysfunction was the greatest culprit in the league’s failings, and (2) Trump was awful.  ‘He was extremely arrogant and I thought that he was obviously trying to play the game.  He wanted an NFL franchise…the USFL was a cheap way in.’

“Even though the NFL was eventually forced to pay the USFL $5.5m in attorney fees, the money was far too little to keep the young entity afloat.

“Thanks to the selfishness and narcissism of Donald Trump, the United States Football League was dead.”

Vin Scully

Bill Plaschke / Los Angeles Times

“I need a sound of spring. This being the formerly opening week of the postponed baseball season, I crave the melodious tones of the ballpark, the bunting, the hope.

“So, what the heck, I call Vin Scully.

“And, wouldn’t you know, he answers on the first ring.

“ ‘Hello Bill Plaschke, how are you?’ he booms.

“ ‘I just wanted to hear your voice,’ I say.

“ ‘Well, thank God it still works,’ he says, laughing.

“Scully, 92, has been out of the Dodgers broadcast booth for three seasons, yet his wonderfully spoken words still fill Dodger Stadium and the Dodgers airwaves in various promos and videos….

“ ‘We’re like everybody else, we’re hunkered down,’ says Scully, who is sheltering with wife Sandi in their Los Angeles home.  ‘But for me, I’ve been hunkered down ever since we hung things up at the end of ’16, I’m very accustomed to being at home…it’s that old line, if it wasn’t for doctor appointments we wouldn’t have a social life at all.’….

“But emotionally, he’s hurting through his quarantine like everyone else, in ways few thought they would ever be hurting….

“Scully does not remain melancholy for long.  He is, remember, a believer in improbable years and impossible home runs.  He reminds us that this country has endured and triumphed over great troubles.  He knows from personal experience.  Born in 1927 and growing up during the Great Depression, he has been part of that journey.

“ ‘Among other things I remember my mother would feed me something that would fill me up and didn’t cost very much, I remember having pancakes for dinner and a lot of spaghetti,’ he says.  ‘We didn’t have any money anyway…meat was hard to come by…we bit the bullet.’

“But then, he says, ‘From depths of depression we fought our way through World War II, and if we can do that, we can certainly fight through this.  I remember how happy and relieved and thrilled everybody was…when they signed the treaty with Japan, and the country just danced from one way or another.  It’s the life of the world, the ups and downs, this is a down, we’re going to have to realistically accept it at what it is and we’ll get out of it, that’s all there is to it, we will definitely get out of it.’

“Scully, as usual, says he tries not to focus on the gloom, but ponder the good.

“ ‘A lot of people will look at it, it might bring them closer to their faith, they might pray a little harder, a little longer, there might be other good things to come out of it,’ he says.  ‘And certainly,  I think people are especially jumping at the opportunity to help each other, I believe that’s true, so that’s kind of heartwarming, with all of it, it brings out some goodness in people, and that’s terrific, that’s terrific.’

“There will be no Dodger Stadium roars this week, but Scully says that sort of home-team rooting has been replaced by applause of a different sort. 

“ ‘All those first responders, people putting their lives on the lines, and we’re cheering that they’ll score a touchdown or hit a home run, whatever phrase you want to use, so I’m sure there’s a lot of praying going on and I’m all for it,’ he says.

“When the crisis does begin to slow, Scully says, we’ll know by the crack of the bat.

“ ‘If baseball starts up, we’ve got this thing beat and we can go about our lives,’ Scully says.  ‘Baseball is not a bad thermometer, when baseball begins, whenever that is, that will be a sure sign that the country is slowly getting back on its feet.’….

“ ‘If I had to be stranded on a desert island and I was allowed to take one movie, it would be ‘Singin’ in the Rain,’ because, I would hope the whole world would watch that, because it’s so charming, so heartwarming, so optimistic,’ he says.  ‘You can’t watch ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ without singing along, humming along, watching Gene Kelly dance on the edge of the gutter and splash in the water…I think that’s what people should do, try to find the happiest movie they can.’

“I just wanted to hear that voice.  I ended up hearing so much more.  If Vin Scully says there’s a rainbow out there somewhere, well, I’m going to start looking.”

--Us Mets fans have been waiting for this moment.  The team just announced Noah Syndergaard is undergoing Tommy John surgery.  Just like with Chris Sale of the Red Sox, who we learned the other day is having the same, why couldn’t these guys have learned about it in, like, November?  Noah won’t be back until mid-2021 at the earliest.

Yes, at this point, it likely doesn’t matter but Noah, unlike just about every other starter these days, had not had the surgery before and thus we knew this was coming.  Doesn’t make it any easier for us.

Stuff

--Media companies are feeling the pain.

Ben Strauss / Washington Post

“Every day over the past week or so – since the novel coronavirus shut down sports around the globe – ESPN’s public relations Twitter account has announced the network’s programming for the next day.  The updates are like so much else right now: muted, ad hoc and a reminder of what we’re missing.

“Instead of live NBA games and ‘SportsCenter’ recapping a night’s worth of action, ESPN has kept a couple of studio shows going and is leaning on its stable of documentaries – ‘I Hate Christian Laettner’ was Wednesday night’s prime-time offering – as well as replaying old games.

“ESPN is trying.  Talent has used Skype from home during studio shows; one radio show was broadcast from a host’s basement; TV segments have used baby filters to spice things up; ESPN8: The Ocho returned for a day.

“The dearth of any live sports has forced everyone in sports media – from network executives to upstart companies to beat reporters – to confront how to deliver content without games.

“Fox Sports 1 aired an esports NASCAR race Sunday.  Regional sports networks have fallen back on re-airing classic games… Sports departments around the country, including at The Washington Post, have shrunk their print sections dramatically and lent reporters to the news desk.”

But in the short term, it’s about advertising revenue. 

“According to analyst firm Kantar Media, the NBA playoffs account for $600 million in advertising for Disney-owned ABC and ESPN and WarnerMedia-owned Turner.  March Madness, broadcast by Turner and CBS, brought in $910 million in ad revenue last year.

“While the NCAA basketball tournament has been canceled with little hope to recover those dollars, the French Open (NBC), Kentucky Derby (NBC) and Masters (CBS) have been moved to later in the year, and there is hope that at least some NBA games will still be played.  If the inventory is saved, in theory, so too is some of the money that comes with it….

“Beyond advertising, the existential threat of the sports stoppage is how it impacts the flow of billions of dollars among leagues, networks and cable distributors.  Networks pay the leagues for content and collect carriage fees from the cable distributors, who recoup money from the viewing public.

“ ‘If this is a three-month break, most folks get through it, but I don’t even want to think about if this goes six months or nine months,’ said George Pyne, former chief operating officer of NASCAR and current head of investment firm Bruin Sports Capital.  ‘You’re looking at insurance implications and the fine print of these contracts.’

“According to two people familiar with the NBA’s television contracts, there isn’t much latitude for a distributor such as Comcast to say to a national network such as ESPN or Turner that it is reducing carriage fees because the NBA playoffs were scrapped.  Another potential acute pressure point is how consumers will respond both to the immediate situation and to a potential economic slowdown by dropping their cable subscriptions.

“ ‘This absolutely will accelerate cord-cutting,’ said John Skipper, former ESPN president and current chairman of streaming service DAZN.

“Jeff Krolik, who oversees roughly 20 regional sports networks for Sinclair Broadcast Group, suggested there is optimism for the cable bundle as his networks flood the airwaves with classic games.”

Needless to say this is a fluid situation.

--Brooks Koepka is donating $100,000 through his foundation to a Florida Covid-19 relief fund.  He raised $450,000 for Hurricane Dorian aid last year.  Billy Horschel assisted in donating 2.8 tons of food to a charity after the cancellation of the Players Championship, and the Tiger Woods Foundation has directed resources to children forced to stay home from school.

--Speaking of golf and charity, all of these tournaments that have been canceled, and those yet to come, are such important cogs in their local communities.  The Valspar Championship at Innisbrook in Palm Harbor, Fla., raised $2.2 million for local charities last year, including Tampa General Hospital, The First Tee, and Habitat for Humanity.

So far all PGA Tour events through the PGA Championship, May 14-17, have been canceled…more to come, no doubt.  Very depressing.

--We note the passing of multi-instrumentalist Eric Weissberg, 80.  Weissberg was responsible for the 1973 hit single “Dueling Banjos.”

Bill Friskics-Warren / New York Times

“Though the theme songs to the film ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ (1967) and the CBS sitcom ‘The Beverly Hillbillies,’ both recorded by Flatt and Scruggs, preceded ‘Dueling Banjos’ in exposing wide audiences to bluegrass, neither made it to the pop Top 40.  ‘Dueling Banjos,’ which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1972 movie ‘Deliverance,’ fared far better, rising to No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart.

The soundtrack to ‘Deliverance’ sold more than 500,000 copies.

Weissberg had built a solid career long before as a member of two popular folk groups, the Greenbriar Boys and the Tarriers, and as an in-demand session musician in New York, appearing on albums for the likes of Judy Collins, while playing the banjo on John Denver’s 1971 Top 10 pop hit, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”  And his work can be heard on Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” (1974), Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” (1973) and the Talking Heads’ “Little Creatures” (1985).

“Dueling Banjos” was actually recorded in 1955 as “Feudin’ Banjos” in a version featuring the song’s composer, Arthur Smith, and Don Reno, both of them on banjo.

But when the song appeared on the “Deliverance” soundtrack, it was mistakenly copyrighted to Weissberg.  A lawsuit was settled in Smith’s favor, with Weissberg maintaining that Warner Bros. had credited him without his knowledge or consent.

Top 3 songs for the week 3/28/64: #1 “She Loves You” (The Beatles)  #2 “I Want To Hold Your Hand” (The Beatles)  #3 “Twist And Shout” (The Beatles)…and…#4 “Please Please Me” (The Beatles)  #5 “Dawn (Go Away)” (The Four Seasons)  #6 “Fun, Fun, Fun” (The Beach Boys)  #7 “Suspicion” (Terry Stafford…the guy who sounded like Elvis…)  #8 “Hello, Dolly!” (Louis Armstrong)  #9 “My Heart Belongs To Only You” (Bobby Vinton…underrated artist…)  #10 “Glad All Over” (The Dave Clark Five… ‘A’ week for sure…)

USFL Quiz Answers: 1) Five franchises to last 1983-85.  Birmingham Stallions, Denver Gold, Los Angeles Express, New Jersey Generals, Tampa Bay Bandits.  2) Leading rusher: Herschel Walker – 5,562 yards.  3) Most touchdown passes: Jim Kelly – 83.

Next Bar Chat, Monday.  Some music bits.

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