If you have been the recipient of an organ transplant, you need to be aware that BC Transplant, as in the tweet below, “is changing brands of immediate release tacrolimus from Prograf to Sandoz . . .” Tacrolimus is an immunosuppressive drug that works to keep the body from rejecting the new organ that really is from a foreign body. . . . For more information on the change and information sessions that have been scheduled, check the link that is available through this tweet.
Mondays With Murray: Zeke From Cabin Creek
Our 2019 Great Ones Award honoree, Jerry West, had some very kind words to say about Jim and the JMMF. He also expressed that he had one particular Jim Murray column that was his favorite. We call it Zeke From Cabin Creek and it is this week’s MWM classic.
Enjoy!
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FEBRUARY 2, 1962, SPORTS
Copyright 1962/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY
JIM MURRAY
Zeke From Cabin Creek
MORGANTOWN, W.VA. — The state of West Virginia is America’s poorhouse, an area of such permanent arrested economic development that its only out is to declare war on the United States and try to lose.
Even the Confederacy didn’t want it. Its oil fields were so shallow, they played out as soon as the first Texan stopped for gas. There are sections of the state where they don’t stare if you’ve got shoes — but they do if you’ve got laces in them.
The other night, as the Lakers rolled in over ice-slick cobblestone streets, Rudy La Russo 
looked at the weathered brick buildings and shuddered. “I got to pick my wife up something from Morgantown,” he leered. “Why not Morgantown?” someone cracked.
The people look like they’re on their way to a hard times party and maybe they are. The last time fresh money came in, a couple of guys were trying to buy a pass to the White House with it.
He could be the best backcourt player in basketball history, but he looks as if he had just shinnied down a rope from the Mayo Clinic. He’s so thin you could mail him. If he didn’t enter with the rest of the basketball team, they’d make him sit in the children’s section.
He’s had so many head colds he should play in a scarf and mustard plaster. His nose has been broken so many times he gets air by a detour. You can follow him home every night by a trail of Kleenexes. He sneezes more often than a TV cold tablet commercial. When the familiar question “which one’s West?” was asked at the game the other night, the laconic answer was “wait till the third period. He’ll be the one who looks like he died five minutes ago.”
In a league largely populated by pachyderms, Jerry West frequently seems to disappear in mid floor like a small boy swallowed up in a forest. But when he comes out again, he usually has the ball — and often the basket.
He has been injured so many times and gotten off the bench to play so well, the coach is afraid of the day he shows up healthy. “The night he comes on in crutches, the scoring record will disappear,” is his prediction.
At the end of a season, Jerry is so under-weight he would have to carry lead to ride in the Kentucky Derby. But the other teams would just as soon see a live vampire in the rafters as see Jerry West go up for a jump shot.
The jump shot itself is a relatively new technique in the still-infant sport of basketball but, as practised by West, it may be generations before it can be made any more perfect. West doesn’t simply soar with the ball — he seems to hang there like a kid who has leaped to a fence, chinned himself and hung over for a long look. It is the nearest thing to a defiance of the law of gravity in sports.
In the rib-cracking game pro basketball has become, West cannot hope to crash through like an Elgin Baylor or Tom Heinsohn or other resident bull elephants. He zig-zags his way to the basket like a mosquito. It still counts two points. One night this year, they added up to 63, No other backcourt man ever racked up that many before and the chances are good only one will ever do it again — Jerry West.
Around the league, basketball buffs are stunned at the improvement in West’s play. “He’s gorgeous,” Nick Kerbawy, ex-general manager of the Pistons, exclaimed spontaneously as West single-handedly tied the score against Detroit with 10 seconds to play and then ran away from them in overtime.
In the West Virginia University field house the other night, where they consider Jerry West should have his own star in The Flag, the ancient field house almost tottered on its supports. He came off the bench, limping with a charley-horse on which half his weight in bandages had been wrapped, dumped in 46 points, brought the team from a 10-point deficit to a regulation tie and then ran Oscar Robertson ragged in the overtime to all but cinch a Laker conference championship.
The adulation afterward embarrassed him to the point of donning a beard and dark glasses. Hot Rod Hundley, who would head for the Ed Sullivan Show on the next bus if he hit 46, took West with him to a university practice that afternoon. West hid in the shadows. “I don’t want the guys to think I’m trying to hog the spotlight,” he complained.
In Morgantown where West, Hundley and other natural resources used to board with a lively, bouncy lady pharmacist, Mrs. Ann Dinardi, it was as if a small son had been found after all night in the swamp.
Even the team instinctively protects its baby-faced assassin. “Zeke,” they call him, because the southern accent that comes out of his deviated septum and mouth from which teeth have been knocked in the backboard rumbles, sounds like something that would come from an Al Capp character with a pointed black hat and beard, squirrel rifle in hand and jug at his bare feet. “That ain’t Dixie, baby,” coos Hot Rod Hundley. “That’s hill-billy. Anybody in the league can understand old Zeke gets two free throws and the game ball.”
In West Virginia, they understand Jerry West — and what he means to the game. They may not have seen many $20 bills, but they’ve seen basketball players. And Jerry West may be basketball’s basket-case in other parts of the country, but he’s basketball’s best down here. “Man and boy, I’ve seen ’em all,” boasted a state trooper as the crowd filed out still cheering the other night. “And l’il ole Jerry West’s the best there’s ever been. You watch what I say.”
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Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times
Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116
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What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation?
The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.
Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.
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A dozen years ago, Linda McCoy-Murray compiled a book of Jim Murray’s columns on female athletes (1961-1998). While the book is idle waiting for an interested publisher, the JMMF thinks this is an appropriate year to get the book on the shelves, i.e., Jim Murray’s 100th birthday, 1919-2019.
Our mission is to empower women of all ages to succeed and prosper — in and out of sports — while entertaining the reader with Jim Murray’s wit and hyperbole. An excellent teaching tool for Women’s Studies.
Proceeds from book sales will benefit the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization providing sports journalism scholarships at universities across the country.
Scattershooting on a Saturday while pulling for Cypress Roed and her new kidney . . .
A couple of weeks ago, I spent some time in this space writing about Cypress Roed, an eight-year-old from Harrison Hot Springs, B.C., who, at that time, was preparing for a kidney transplant.
Cypress had the transplant on schedule, on Oct. 24, and now is recovering at B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.
Her mother, Chantelle Deley, told me on Saturday that Cypress “is doing well.”
There have been a couple of early issues but nothing that the medical people haven’t been able to handle.
If you missed the earlier story on Cypress, it’s right here.
The Portland Winterhawks and their fans celebrated the career and retirement of Dean (Scooter) Vrooman as they beat the visiting Seattle Thunderbirds, 2-1, on Saturday night. . . . He was the voice, and the face, of the Winterhawks for a whole lot of years. . . . Allow me to offer my congratulations to an old friend, and here’s hoping retirement is as kind to you as it has been to me. . . . Paul Danzer of the Portland Tribune has more right here, including the hilarious story on how Vrooman got his nickname.
“’Tis obviously better to be a tortoise than a hare,” writes Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times. “The Washington Nationals started the season 19-31 and wound up winning the World Series. The St. Louis Blues sat in last place on Dec. 31 and wound up winning the Stanley Cup. In short, the Seattle Mariners — who opened 13-2 and wound up 68-94 — are going about this thing totally backward.”
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One more from Perry: “Somebody just carried out the best fake play of the football season. A red-faced ESPN Events ‘terminated’ its three-week-old agreement with DreamHouse to be the New Mexico Bowl’s presenting sponsor after realizing the purported film-production company doesn’t even exist.”
The other night, I spent 90 minutes watching the documentary Searching for Sugar Man. I have seen it numerous times but it continues to amaze me. If you aren’t familiar with the story of Detroit musician Sixto Rodriguez and his influence on the people of South African, check it out. You can thank me later.
Sheesh, TSN, all I want as a viewer is some respect. With the Washington Nationals on a magical run, you let us watch PTI until the day after the World Series ended. Then you cheated us out of watching Tony Kornheiser celebrate. How could you? . . . You bumped PTI for ATP Tennis, but couldn’t find room for it on one of your other four channels. Please, just a little respect and some continuity in your programming. Is that too much to ask? . . . On second thought, don’t worry about it. I have discovered PTI on YouTube, so I won’t need to check your multi-channel setup anymore.
ICYMI, the BCFC’s Langley Rams will be the host team when they meet the PFC’s Saskatoon’s Hilltops for the Canadian junior football title on Nov. 16. The Rams took out the Westshore Rebels, 35-12, in one national semifinal on Saturday. Later in the day, the Hilltops dumped the host London Beefeaters, 51-1. . . . The Hilltops will be looking for their sixth straight national championship. Yes, they qualify as a dynasty. . . . One year ago, in Saskatoon, the Hilltops whipped the Rams, 58-21, in the final. The Hilltops also beat the Rams in the 2012 and 2014 finals.
“The Christmas turkey will be served early this year,” writes Janice Hough of LeftCoastSportsBabe.com, noting that the Miami Dolphins (0-7) and Cincinnati Bengals (0-8) are to play on Dec. 22.
The Winnipeg Jets recalled F C.J. Suess from the AHL’s Manitoba Moose on Friday. His nickname had better be Cat or Horton or even Doctor. But, this being hockey, I am betting it’s something like Suessy. . . . Actually, his surname is pronounced CEASE. . . . Interestingly, he was C.J. Franklin — yes, teammates called him Frank — when he began his college career with the Minnesota State Mavericks. He has since changed it to Suess, his mother’s maiden name. . . . In a story posted in January, Jamie Thomas of WinnipegJets.com reported that new nicknames in circulation were Seeser, C-Joe and Sweets.
So . . . it was Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers against Sidney Crosby and the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Saturday. The Oilers are said to have won, 2-1 in OT. . . . If you’re a hockey fan, you know that is as good a matchup as you will see all season long — or until these teams meet again. . . . So, NHL, why would you schedule this game for a Saturday afternoon? That is a prime-time game if ever there was one. . . . BTW, the next time these teams are to meet will be on Dec. 20 in Edmonton. Yes, it will be a night game.
Hey, Andy Murray and Glen Williamson . . . your buddy has come a long, long way from Souris and the Chocolate Shop. . . . Don’t believe me? Check out the link in the tweet. . . . Yes, the big, big pizza chains will be calling soon.
A tip to junior hockey players being interviewed before or after games — if you must wear a cap, wear it with the bill to the front. Not only does it look more professional, but it also shows off your team’s logo.
JUST NOTES: Had a friend who had just seen some video from a Winnipeg Ice home game in which fans seemed to be in scarce supply suggest that the WHL should move the team to Chilliwack. . . . Another WHL fan emailed me this: “I just watched the highlights of the Lethbridge-Winnipeg game on the WHL site. Couldn’t see too much of the seats with the camera angles they had, but I bet MJHL teams get better crowds than that. Instead of putting a team in a city that already has NHL, AHL, and MJHL plus Junior B teams, the WHL should have put the team in a place where it was the biggest attraction in town. A place like . . . Cranbrook!” . . . On the subject of the Ice, does anyone know how the new arena in which the team will play is coming along? . . . Hey, Sportsnet, those virtual ads that you put on the glass during hockey games are absolutely awful. You’re welcome. . . . The New York Yankees chose not to re-sign Edwin Encarnacion and his parrot, so do the Toronto Blue Jays bring him back? . . . Do you ever wonder what Brian Burke’s hair looks like when he first wakes up in the morning?
Billboards paid off for Calgary teacher. . . . Hemodialysis patients enjoying some exercise
Ryan McLennan, a teacher in Calgary, needed a kidney. So his wife mounted a billboard campaign. . . . Tony Timmons, a FedEx driver, saw one of the billboards. . . . Timmons, originally from Gander, Nfld., answered the call. . . . Shawn Logan of Postmedia has the entire story — and it’s a good one — right here.
I have been hearing about people doing hemodialysis and getting some exercise at the same time for a year or so now. I’m thinking this is going to become more and more common in dialysis units.
From the website photosforkidneys.com: “If you’re waiting for a kidney transplant, or have had one in the past, or if you’re a kidney donor yourself, please feel free to contact us if you would like to participate in our photo project. We would love to meet you!”
Scattershooting on a Wednesday night with swans on the river and Christmas movies on the way . . .
Larry Brooks, the New York Post’s veteran hockey scribe, had a column in Sunday’s paper that carried this headline: Disgusting hockey knockout shows why fighting must go ASAP. . . . Included in the column was this paragraph: “This is not about manliness. It is about evolution. We are nearing the 2020s and fisticuffs are still sanctioned and sold as part of the pro hockey entertainment experience. Enough. Enough, already.” . . . That column is right here.
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Brooks is exactly right, and it’s long past time for the WHL to stop dragging its knuckles on the ground and get rid of fighting. . . . F Jake McGrew of the Spokane Chiefs hasn’t played since Oct. 6. A 31-goal scorer last season, he had five goals and three assists in six games when he fought D Gianni Fairbrother of the Everett Silvertips. . . . Kevin Dudley, who covers the Chiefs for the Spokane Spokesman-Review, tweeted that McGrew “was knocked out” in that fight. Later, McGrew was listed as out indefinitely with upper- and lower-body injuries. He mentioned on his Instagram page that he was to have surgery, and has since reported that it “was a success.” . . . One has to think the San Jose Sharks must be really happy with McGrew’s status, what with their having drafted and signed the 20-year-old.
Was watching Game 7 of the World Series when I flipped over to the Vancouver Canucks at Los Angeles Kings game between innings. Got there just in time to see a fight featuring Vancouver F Micheal Ferland. Flipped back to baseball immediately. . . . Ferland didn’t come out for the second period thanks to what the Canucks are calling an upper-body injury. . . . But, hey, by all means, let’s keep fighting in the game.
The headline in the Houston Chronicle after the Washington Nationals beat the Astros in Game 1 of the World Series: Nats ding Cole.
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Now that was a great World Series. Yes, MLB has a problem with the length of games, but all that is forgotten during a seven-game series as entertaining as this one. Once again live sports proves that it is the only real reality TV.
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A report from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: “Ex-outfielder Milton Bradley sold his home in L.A. for $3.7 million. And you thought Parker Brothers getting $350 for Park Place was steep?”
A couple of weeks ago, quarterback Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers finished a game with a perfect rating of 158.3. That brought this question from Jim Barach of JokesByJim.blogspot.com: “Whoever thought of a system where a perfect score is 158.3?”
Silly me. I was naive enought to think that Sportsnet would televise Sunday afternoon’s outdoor game between the Calgary Hitmen and the Pats at Mosaic Stadium in Regina. One might have thought that the Sportsnet folks could have found room for the game somewhere in their multi-channel universe. When that game doesn’t end up on TV, you really have to wonder what kind of partnership the TV people have with the CHL.
The tundra and trumpeter swans that winter in our little corner of the world arrived on the South Thompson River over the weekend. On Monday, the LGIW was scouring the television guide for Christmas movies and setting the PVR to record a whack of them. . . . Ahh, yes, the first signs of winter!
One day this week, Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle found himself without power in his home due to the blackouts in California, so he ventured outside with his laptop and ended up reporting back: “No power at home, but I found this really cool place to set up shop. It has coffee, internet and tables. It’s like a huge Starbucks, but with all kinds of books! Sign says ‘Library,’ but don’t ask me how to pronounce it. I think it’s a chain.”
Scattershooting on a Thursday night while wondering what it is about Regina drivers and their phones . . .
The New York Yankees and host Houston Astros combined to use 14 pitchers — seven apiece — in Game 6 of the ALCS. The game, won 6-4 by the Astros as they won the series, took four hours nine minutes.
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On Oct. 13, 1960, Pittsburgh’s Bill Mazeroski hit a ninth-inning home run to give the Pirates a 10-9 victory over the Yankees in Game 7 of the World Series. That game featured nine pitchers, five by the Yankees, and took two hours 36 minutes.
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Yes, Major League Baseball has a problem.
I really don’t know what was more fun — social media in the two weeks before the Canadian election or social media on Tuesday, the day after said election.
With the NBA regular season opening this week, Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, writes: “I would like to pose a rhetorical question to the players on the team that wins the NBA Championship next June. I am sure that many — if not most — of those players would choose not to accept an invitation to go to the White House as part of their championship celebration — and I have no problem at all with that. Here is my question: If President Xi Jinping of China invites the NBA champions to come to his office for an honorary visit, would you go, or would you stiff the President of the PRC? . . . Oh, while I am at it, let me ask Commissioner Silver what his position might be in this circumstance?”
Hey, Regina, this police officer wrote 1,134 distracted driving tickets all of last year. . . .
Patti Dawn Swansson, the River City Renegade, writes: “Tiger Woods has taken up the quill and will write a memoir to tell the ‘definitive story’ of his life as a golf prodigy and icon. So we’ll finally get the answer to that burning question: ‘When Elin found out about all the blonde cocktail waitresses and escorts that Tiger was shagging, did she attack him with a nine-iron or a pitching wedge?’ ” . . . There is a lot more Swansson gold right here.
“Some 310 birds crashed into the windows of the NASCAR Hall of Fame building in Charlotte, N.C.,” reports Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times. “Even more stunning, the birds were chimney swifts, not racing pigeons.”
Here’s a memory from Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Welterweight boxing champ Errol Spence spectacularly flipped his Ferrari, but he apparently got off easy with fairly minor injuries. Spence, unbelted, was ejected from his chariot. Flash back decades. A flight attendant asks then-heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali to fasten his seatbelt. Ali: ‘Superman don’t need no seat belt.’ Flight attendant: ‘Superman don’t need no airplane.’ ”
Alexander Gulyavtsev is the head coach of the KHL team Amur Khabarovsk. He is from the Russian city of Perm, as is Victor Gashilov, a referee in a game on Monday. During that game, an unhappy Gulyavtsev told Gashilov: “I’m going to set fire to your car in Perm.” . . . The KHL has fined the coach 300,000 rubles, or about US$4,700. . . . Gulyavtsev later said it was a joke. As he put it: “I just said car; it’s not as if I said apartment.” . . . The score in the game? Dynamo Moscow won, 5-1.
In all of hockey, there may be nothing more over-rated than the game-day morning skate. In an era when the importance of rest finally is being recognized, more and more teams are doing away with something that has been there seemingly forever. Here is Mike Sullivan, the head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins, explaining why he has done away with them to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jason Mackey: “It’s like, ‘Why does the whole league have morning skates?’ It reminds me of why my mother cut the side of the hams off before she cooked ‘em. I asked her, ‘Why do you cut the sides of the hams off?’ She said, ‘I don’t know. Because that’s how my mother taught me.’ So I asked my grandmother. I said, ‘Why do you cut the side of the hams off before you put ’em in the oven?’ She said, ‘That was easy. I didn’t have a pan that was big enough.’ That’s my analogy.”
Here’s Greg Cote of the Miami Herald: “Kenyan superstar runner Eliud Kipchoge broke the 2-hour marathon barrier in 1:59.40.2, a once unfathomable feat. I once covered 26.2 miles even quicker, but didn’t get credit because I was in a car.”
ICYMI . . . the WHL returned to Cranbrook on Thursday . . .
RE/MAX, WHL back with Don Cherry on organ donation promotion . . . WHL has 17 Canadian teams involved
A tip of the Taking Note chapeau to the WHL and RE/MAX of Western Canada for their decision to once again show such terrific support for the Kidney Foundation of Canada.
For a third straight season, they are backing the promotion that they call — take a deep breath — RE/MAX Presents: WHL Suits Up with Don Cherry to Promote Organ Donation.”
To date, the promotion has raised more than $460,000 for the Kidney Foundation.
From a news release:
“From January to March 2020, all 17 WHL (teams) in Canadian markets will host a theme game complete with special-edition Hockey Night in Canada-themed sweaters, crested with the fan-favourite powder-blue logo that represented Hockey Night in Canada until 1998. Representing a picture long stamped in the memories of Canadians, this (season’s) collectible bobblehead welcomes Cherry alongside his affable Hockey Night in Canada co-host Ron MacLean, wearing his signature powder-blue Hockey Night in Canada blazer. . . .
“Fans will have a chance to get their hands on the limited-edition Hockey Night in Canada-themed WHL sweaters through local auctions with (each team). The Kidney Foundation of Canada will again be the benefactor, with 100 per cent of the proceeds going towards local chapters of the foundation. In addition to game-worn uniforms, fans will have the chance to bid on a Don Cherry-autographed theme jersey in each participating WHL market.”
If you are wondering why Cherry is involved in this promotion — and has been since Day 1 — it’s because his daughter, Cindy, gave a kidney to her brother, Tim, more than 40 years ago.
Representatives of the Kidney Foundation will be on hand at each of the 17 games to answer questions and provide information regarding organ donation. If you are interested in registering as a donor, there is more info at CanadaDonates.ca.
Here is the WHL’s schedule of organ donor awareness games:
Friday, Jan. 17 — Edmonton Oil Kings
Friday, Jan. 24 — Regina Pats
Saturday, Jan. 25 — Prince Albert Raiders
Friday, Jan. — Moose Jaw Warriors, Prince George Cougars, Red Deer Rebels
Friday, Feb. 7 — Brandon Wheat Kings
Saturday, Feb. 8 — Vancouver Giants
Friday, Feb. 21 — Lethbridge Hurricanes
Saturday, Feb. 29 — Swift Current Broncos
Friday, March 6 — Kamloops Blazers, Saskatoon Blades
Saturday, March 7 — Medicine Hat Tigers, Winnipeg Ice
Friday, March 13 — Victoria Royals
Saturday, March 14 — Kelowna Rockets
Sunday, March 15 — Calgary Hitmen.
Roed family hoping this one will be merriest of Christmases . . . Cypress prepping for transplant on Thursday
Cypress Roed of Harrison Hot Springs, B.C., is preparing to spend her third straight Christmas in Vancouver.
This one, though, will be different.
While she spent the first two of those holidays in hospital because she was ill, this time she will be healing and looking forward to a bright future.
That’s because Roed, an eight-year-old Grade 3 student, entered hospital on Monday as preparations began for a kidney transplant that is scheduled for Thursday (Oct. 24).
“Cypress has focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a disease that caused a scarring of her kidneys, preventing them from filtering protein from her urine,” Grace Kennedy wrote in the Agassiz-Harrison Observer. “The disease required that Cypress’s kidneys be removed, and now she is on dialysis and is a frequent visitor at BC Children’s Hospital.”
(Kennedy’s story is right here.)
Cypress had been on the transplant list in hopes a deceased donor match would be found. Then the news came in September that a match had been found through the Living Donor Paired Exchange Program.
“I felt guilty when we were on the deceased donor list, because you’re waiting for another family member of somebody to pass away so my child can survive,” Chantelle Deley, Cypress’s mother, said earlier this month. “But when we got a call that there’s a live donor, it kind of filled that guilt with gratitude.
“Before, I kept going to pack the hospital bags, and I would stop. I just couldn’t do it. And now they’re all packed and they’re ready to go.”
There is another side to stories like these, too, one that often is if not forgotten, certainly overlooked. That is the impact on family members.
As Deley told Kennedy, a lot of people “don’t realize the ripple effects and the trickles that an illness like this . . . has on families.”
Not only is Deley dealing with having to be in Vancouver, but she also has to keep the family home in Harrison Hot Springs afloat, something that became harder after she and Cypress’s father recently separated.
Friends suggested that Deley set up a GoFundMe page, and she has done that, although it wasn’t easy.
“I have a hard time reaching out,” Deley told Kennedy. “It’s pride. You want to do it yourself, take care of your kids yourself. But at this point, I can’t. So I’m reaching out for support and help so I can focus on her.
“It was a bit emotional. Before we got this call, I was thinking about putting off transplant so I could work. It’s not an option now. It’s not something we can put off anymore . . . it’s something she needs.”
If you are able to help, the GoFundMe Page is right here.
And while you’re out and about on Thursday, take a moment and have a thought for Cypress.
Mondays With Murray: Ravages of Time
Jim Murray was born on Dec. 29, 1919, so we are preparing for what would have been his 100th birthday. Today we take you back 50 years to a column Jim wrote about turning 50.
Enjoy!
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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1969, SPORTS
Copyright 1969/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY
JIM MURRAY
Ravages of Time
I woke up Monday morning and looked in the mirror — and an imposter winked back at me.
That fellow in the mirror was 50 years old that day. Not me. I’m somewhere between 26 and 39.
“Good morning, Mr. Hyde. How does it feel to be 50?” I asked him. I’ve been needling him for years.
You see, this fella has been playing tricks on me for a long while. For instance, being young, I have a cast-iron stomach. HE gets gas on the stomach. Lately. When HE gets gas on the stomach, I belch.
I never should have taken the old fool on. You know, I can hear perfectly well. The trouble is the sounds come through HIS ears. Therefore because of HIM, I find myself saying, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
He’s insidious, implacable. My enemy was in that mirror. It’s like fighting China. He’s got all the time in the world. One of these days, I’m going to be lying on my back in bed with a sawbones looking grave above me and people crying in the corner, and I’m gonna say, “Do me a favor. Go in and take a look at that old creep in the mirror and tell him to get a new boy. That I’m going over the wall. I’ve had enough of carrying his load.”
You see, I know what he’s going to do to me. He’s already begun. You know that nice turn I used to take off a teed-up golf ball? Well, now it sounds like twigs snapping under an elephant. My backbone was as supple and gristly as a baby shark’s. Shucks, it was only three years ago, I was the best twister at the office party.
Now, he’s got me taking a 3-wood off the tee.
You remember how I used to fire those long, arching passes to the boy out in the lot? Well, he’s taken all the lube out of the bow joint. I throw underhanded like a girl now.
My eyes are just as good as they ever were — 20/200. He has clouded them over for reading fine print. My belly used to be as flat as Texas. HE has put on weight. I would try to outwit him by jogging 10 miles or so every day, but the doctor tells me dead men sell no scales.
The worst he’s done is corrupted my mind. I mean, I still have 31 of my 32 teeth (they got more gold in them than the city of Florence) and two million separate strands of hair on my head, but I’ve got HIS neck. It’s beginning to wattle.
But the worst disease he carried is nostalgia. I mean, I’ve always been a guy who wanted news, the latest thing, the newest gimmick. But, you see, this old creep I took in out of the cold 49 years 11 months and 30 days ago is now using me like a ventriloquist. Someone says an electric toothbrush is a great invention and — in my voice — my enemy says, “Anybody who doesn’t have the strength to push a brush up and down his teeth should put them in a glass, anyway.”
But, worst of all, youngsters say, “Boy, that Rod Carew is a great hitter!” and you find yourself screaming, “Rod Carew! I thought he was a coxswain! Why, with the ’27 Yankees, he’d have to take batting practice with the bullpen crew. The regulars would be afraid to pick up bad habits just watching him. Now, Babe Ruth, THERE was a hitter. Used to warm up against machine gun bullets. He could bat .360 against the Gatling gun.”
“Paul Warfield is a great end,” they say. “Paul Warfield! I thought he was a baritone! He’d be in a taxi on the 1950 Rams. Now, Hirsch and Fears, THERE were ends. They were, you might say, THE ends.”
Or, they may bring up some hot-shot young golfer. “Couldn’t shag for Hogan,” you sniff.
Well, my enemy’s gums hurt. His hands shake, his blood is tired, and he wants to go put on something by Lawrence Welk, and he’s worried about sitting in a draft and wants to go sit in a blanket with Musterole and do crossword puzzles. Me, I want to go surfing.
I suppose now I’ll go out and get hit on the head by some young punk that a young athlete like me would kick under the car if I didn’t have that coward at the control. He’s jealous is what he is. He’s been trying to turn my hair gray for 10 years, but my hair is younger than both of us. I think he’s got one week to give me rheumatism or they make him turn in his scythe. He keeps telling them I’m only Shangri-la on the outside, but inside, I look like Ptolemy. He ought to know. He’s in there. Not me.
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Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times
Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116
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What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation?
The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.
Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.
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A dozen years ago, Linda McCoy-Murray compiled a book of Jim Murray’s columns on female athletes (1961-1998). While the book is idle waiting for an interested publisher, the JMMF thinks this is an appropriate year to get the book on the shelves, i.e., Jim Murray’s 100th birthday, 1919-2019.
Our mission is to empower women of all ages to succeed and prosper — in and out of sports — while entertaining the reader with Jim Murray’s wit and hyperbole. An excellent teaching tool for Women’s Studies.
Proceeds from book sales will benefit the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization providing sports journalism scholarships at universities across the country.
Can polycystic kidney disease be reversed? Researchers make diet-based discovery
The Kamloops Kidney Support Group gathers twice a month and we almost always have someone there who has been diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease (PKD) or has a family member with it.
According to the Kidney Foundation of Canada:
PKD “is a genetic disorder that causes multiple cysts to form in the kidneys. Polycystic kidneys become very large, have a bumpy surface and contain many fluid-filled cysts. This can be associated with a number of conditions, including: High blood pressure, urinary and kidney infections, kidney stones, and kidney failure.”
Also from the foundation’s website: “PKD can strike anyone at any time. About five per cent of all people requiring dialysis or kidney transplantation have PKD.”
(That info, and more, can be found right here.)
Last week, though, there was some big news involving PKD.
In a piece headlined ‘Reversing polycystic kidney disease,’ Sonia Fernandez of the U of California Santa Barbara writes:
“Thanks to research conducted by UC Santa Barbara biochemist Thomas Weimbs, postdoctoral researcher Jacob Torres and their team, a solution may be no farther than the end of your fork. Diet, they discovered, could hold the key to treating PKD.”
Until now, PKD, as Fernandez writes, “has long been thought to be progressive and irreversible, condemning its sufferers to a long, slow and often painful decline as fluid-filled cysts develop in the kidneys, grow and eventually rob the organs of their function.”
The only options, at this point, are dialysis or a kidney transplant.
Now, though, scientists believe that they have “identified the specific metabolic process responsible for slowing the progress of the disease” in mice.
As Weimbs told Fernandez: “There’s a way of avoiding the development of the cysts through dietary interventions that lead to ketosis.”
Fernandez added: “You heard that right: Ketosis, the underlying metabolic state of popular diets such as the ketogenic diet, and, to a lesser extent, time-restricted feeding (a form of intermittent fasting), has been shown in the Weimbs group’s studies to stall and even reverse PKD.”
Fernandez’s complete story is right here.
TAKING NOTE 