The Super Bowler
I spent the summer of 1994 in St. Louis. One night, driving my ice cream truck back to the garage along a different route, I passed a bowling alley with a giant blue neon sign out front. 'Dick Weber Lanes,' it read. The alley was- and still is- located in the suburb of Florissant in North St. Louis County."Dick Weber!" I yelled with no one to hear me, "I know him."
Dick had been a regular on Letterman. Many-a-night (like Jose Canseco, I can't decide if it was two times or several,) Dave would ask him to roll the ball at various objects, example: a punch bowl filled with eggnog. He never failed to hit his target.
Weber died in his sleep Sunday at his home in Florissant at the age of 75. He had been one of the biggest sports stars in the city that boasts the International Bowling Hall of Fame. A St. Louis sports columnist today called him "the Gordie Howe of bowling." He was the biggest name and the greatest ambassador in the history of the sport.
Weber was born in Indianapolis, but moved to St. Louis in 1955 to join the famous Budweiser Bowling Team, which dominated the sport at the time. (Cardinals Hall-of-Famer Red Schoendienst also bowled on the team.) The team's record of 3,858 pins in one match stood for more than three decades.
He was a 26-time champion of the Professional Bowlers Association Tour, despite the fact that the tour didn't exist until he was 29. While Bob Gibson was inspiring fear in the hearts of hitters in the 1960s, another powerful St. Louis righthander was making his mark. Weber matched the Cardinals' three pennants in the 1960s with three Bowler of the Year awards (1961, '63, and '65), and he won the PBA Player of the Year award in 1965. These were the peak years of popularity for the tour and Weber was its first television star.
"Everyone who knows him loves him," said Jim Bultz, curator of the Hall of Fame, "In competition, he's been amazingly successful. I don't think his contribution to the sport can be underestimated."
Dick's son, Pete, whose fiery reputation is the direct opposite of his father's, is also a top bowler and number two on the all-time PBA money list.
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Another St. Louis sports idol of the '60s, the Cardinals' Nellie Briles, died on Sunday as well. Briles won 14 games for the '67 World Champs, and then 19 more for the '68 pennant winners. He pitched a complete game victory against the Red Sox in Game 3 of the '67 World Series. (We could have used an outing like that in Game 3 this year.) He later pitched a two-hit shutout for the Pirates in the '71 Series against Baltimore. In that game, he faced only 29 batters in what many at that time believed was the finest pitched game in World Series history behind Don Larsen's perfect game. Briles was employed by the Pirates in various capacities over the years, and died of an apparent heart attack after being stricken during a Pirates alumni golf tournament in Orlando. He was 61.
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I no longer believe, as I did, that Jose Canseco is preparing himself for an adult education class in creative writing. I now believe he should be locked in an insane asylum. In the introduction of his book-- and I FORBID you to buy it!-- he writes, "Steroids are the future. Believe it or not. That's good news. I would have never been a major league caliber player without the steroids." We're touching on clinical insanity here. He doesn't elaborate on how steroids gave him an advantage, given that, as he once estimated, 80 percent of his colleagues were also using them.
Since Canseco has no evidence to back up any of his claims, lawyers at numerous publishing houses persuaded their employers to pass on the book. The publisher that didn't pass-- Regan Books-- works under the motto "Not Just The Same Old Story." Its recent best-sellers include the autobiography of Amber Frey, Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men" (which argues that OJ Simpson was innocent,) and the last book by FOX News' Sean Hannity, which is titled-- and I'm not making this up-- "Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism."
posted by CM @ 8:42 PM
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