The 2012 Off Topic Celebrity Dead Pool

[Uncle Sparky]

That's why I sent him my bank account numbers and passwords. Don't worry - he's Canadian.

[Ming]

Don Carter, bowling superstar, dies at 85

Published: January 7

Don Carter, the bowling great with the unorthodox style who flourished as a genuine sports celebrity during the game’s golden age on TV, died Jan. 5 at his home in Miami. He was 85.

The Professional Bowlers Association issued a statement saying he had recently been hospitalized with pneumonia and emphysema.

Mr. Carter, known as “Mr. Bowling,” was the game’s original superstar. He became his sport’s most recognizable name at a time when alleys were thriving across the country and bowling was starting to assert itself as a fixture on television.

Mr. Carter was a leading force in the formation of the PBA and became a charter member of the PBA Hall of Fame in 1975. He had a style all his own as he took his steps to the line. With his stooped shoulders and cocked elbow, he made a deep knee bend as he unleashed the ball toward the pins.

Mr. Carter helped transform a sport that had been a blue-collar recreational activity. He ruled the lanes with the likes of Dick Weber, Ray Bluth, Pat Patterson, Carmen Salvino and Billy Welu. But Mr. Carter was clearly at another level.

“Don was the greatest bowler of his era,” Bluth said. “There was no one like him.”

He also did something that no one in baseball, football or golf ever did. He became the first athlete in American sports history to sign a $1 million marketing endorsement contract, with bowling ball manufacturer Ebonite in 1964.

“It is impossible to put into words what Don Carter meant to the PBA and the sport of bowling,” PBA Commissioner Tom Clark said. “He was a pioneer, a champion, and will never be forgotten.”

The 6-foot, 200-pound Mr. Carter bowled five 800 series, 13 perfect games and six games of 299 — one pin short of a perfect game — in sanctioned play. He was voted Bowler of the Year six times (1953, 1954, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1962).

He served as the PBA’s first president and was inducted into the American Bowling Congress Hall of Fame in 1970. He ranked second to Earl Anthony in Bowling Magazine’s poll in 2000 of the 20 greatest bowlers of the 20th century.

Donald James Carter was born July 29, 1926, in St. Louis and was introduced to bowling when his mother treated him to a game on his 13th birthday.

“That was the biggest birthday present of my life,” Mr. Carter once wrote in an article. “I enjoyed that one game so much that when one of my teachers started a bowling club after school, I signed up. Then I started setting pins so I could bowl and practice for free.”

Mr. Carter also excelled at baseball, playing American Legion baseball with Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola in St. Louis. After serving in the Navy during World War II in the Pacific, he signed a minor league contract with the Philadelphia Athletics as a pitcher-infielder. But after a year, he returned to St. Louis and to bowling.

His profile grew on television shows including Jackpot Bowling, Make That Spare and Championship Bowling that were watched by millions.

Mr. Carter wanted to create a bowling tour that was similar to the one in golf. The PBA was launched in 1959 with three tournaments. Three years later, it had a schedule of 32 events. Mr. Carter eventually won seven PBA titles including five major championships. Because of ailing knees, he retired from competitive bowling in 1972.

Mr. Carter married LaVerne Haverly in 1953. They divorced, and he married Paula Sperber in the 1970s. Both of his wives are in the Women’s International Bowling Congress Hall of Fame.

After retiring from bowling, Mr. Carter moved to Miami, his second wife’s home town. He occasionally competed in pro-am tournaments in the 1990s, and he owned a chain of alleys and a line of bowling apparel. His hobbies included golf and painting, and he was involved in charity work for abused children.

Mr. Carter rarely ventured far from home in retirement, not caring for public speaking or air travel.

But in the 1980s he appeared in Miller Lite commercials featuring retired sports stars.

“I really don’t think anybody under the age of 65 remembers me,” Mr. Carter said about those ads. “I’m really big with senior citizens. I’m famous because I’m the only guy to have two wives in the Hall of Fame.”

Survivors include his second wife; three children; three grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.


RIP

[-Jrabbit]

Wow. didn't know he was still around...

RIP.

[Wezil]

We seem to have 14 in favour of letting them in and 0 against.

Should we vote on the mechanics, or leave it to Wezil?

I move that we should let Wezil decide the penalty, if we have one.

I think we have a consensus to allow the stragglers a second chance.

I'll post the specifics later (penalty is still under consideration) but to get things rolling....

Ozzy - I have your old team list. Send me a few names to fill any holes and I'll process the entry.

I'll send the embalmer an email to let him know of the second chance.

[Ming]

[Wezil]

I'm going with this:

4. This list is to be sent by Private Message to Wezil for eligibility verification. DO NOT post your list in the thread. I will post the lists of all players at the start of the game in January. This prevents others from “poaching” your good picks. Only "late submissions" (see below) will be accepted after 31st December 2011.
a) Late submissions will be accepted until January 15, 2012 under the following conditions:
i) New players must submit a list of 20 unique (not picked in 2012) celebrities. Consult the 2012 game thread opening posts for a complete list of picked celebrities.
ii) Returning players may submit their old team with unique picks filling any openings created by 2011 deaths. New picks are added to the bottom of the player's Rank List. In the alternative - Returning players may create a new team as per clause 4 (a)(i).
iii) Any and all "unique" picks on a late submission team are ineligible for the Unique Pick Award (the "penalty" for a late submission).
iv) All picks must be eligible (i.e. Still alive) as of team submission. Any returning player picks that may die prior to submission are removed from the team list and may be filled by a new "unique" pick.

----------------------------------------

I think that should do it. A couple points -

Someone asked earlier if late submission unique picks had to be unique from each other as well? No, I will hold all late lists until the 15th and post them together (assuming we have more than one). The picks aren't eligible for the reward points anyway so this will mainly be to prevent poaching and keep the task of finding 20 unique names as painless as possible.

As to the 15th - I agree it is too long and will shorten it to the 7th in the future (same day as the official closing of the prior year).

Thoughts?

[ColdWizard]

Looks good

[Ming]

[Wezil]

I'm about to lose one of my unique picks when Ozzy resubmits but since I stole him from Ozzy's 2011 list I can live with it.

[-Jrabbit]

Looks fine to me. Well done.

[Hauldren Collider]

Wezil, you are the man

[OzzyKP]

[OzzyKP]

Ok, new list sent.

[Thorn]

Maybe i'm late to the game but does every Celebrity dead at the end of 2012, count? Or do i need to list them all?

[Wezil]

You pick 20. Those that die count.

[Thorn]

What if I want to pick 200,000? instead?

[Wezil]

Go ahead but I'll only record the first 20.

[Wezil]

Ok, new list sent.

I got it and it's fine except the two new guys go at the bottom.

[Uncle Sparky]

calvin dancing.gif Well done, Wezil!

[Thorn]

Ok what if all 200,000 die, do I get bonus points? And are there any exclusions in the rules for insider information or insider trading?

[Wezil]

I'd suggest you have a look at the rules in the sign up thread.

All the answers with half the spam.

[Thorn]

Yes but those rules don't cover insider information, seems you need an amendment.

[OzzyKP]

I got it and it's fine except the two new guys go at the bottom.

Ok, three new ones actually.

[SlowwHand]

I'd suggest you have a look at the rules in the sign up thread.

All the answers with half the spam.

Low-cal spam? What's next?

[Thorn]

What if the celebrity is pregnant, does that count as 1, 1 & 1/2, or 2?

[Elok]

The rules clearly say no children, Thorn. In utero is definitely under the age line.

[Thorn]

What about neanderthals, or is it restricted to homo sapian sapians?

Or for that matter people that are counted as 1/10th person in the USA constitution are they counted less or the same here. (note not hate speech historical fact), which brings me to my point, this thread is less tasteful then my posts here.

[-Jrabbit]

...which brings me to my point, this thread is less tasteful then my posts here.

We're OK with that.

[SlowwHand]

We might as well live with it.

[Uncle Sparky]

Czech-Canadian writer Josef Skvorecky dies

Won Governor General's Literary Award for The Engineer of Human Souls (Reuters)

Josef Skvorecky, a Czech dissident writer who spent most of his life in exile in Canada, has died. He was 87.

He died Tuesday (January 2) in a Toronto hospital after battling cancer.

Skvorecky won the Governor General’s Literary Award in 1984 for The Engineer of Human Souls, a comic novel about the plight of a Czech dissident writer who is trying to make a new life in Canada. His other works, all translated into English, include The Republic of Whores, The Bride of Texas, Dvorak in Love and The Swell Season.

Skvorecky was an influential publisher of banned books through his company 68 Publishers, which he formed in Toronto in 1971 after fleeing the Soviet invasion that crushed the 1968 reform movement dubbed the Prague Spring.

In Canada, he published the works of Czech and Slovak writers, including Vaclav Havel — the writer-turned-political leader who died in December — and Milan Kundera, considered one of the former Czechoslovakia’s most important writers.

Studied medicine, philosophy

Born Sept. 27, 1924 in Nachod, Czechoslovakia, Skvorecky was forced to work in a German aircraft factory during the Second World War. He went to university in Prague after the war, initially studying medicine, but switching to liberal arts, earning a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1951.

Skvorecky translated works by William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and Dashiell Hammett into Czech in the 1950s. His early novels, The End of the Nylon Age and The Cowards, were banned by the Communist regime. The Cowards, a 1958 book that took an unorthodox look at the events of May 1945 when Czechoslovakia was liberated from the Nazis, circulated underground and was influential in dissident circles.

His essays and short stories advanced democratic ideals, and Skvorecky was forced to flee his homeland in 1968 after Soviet tanks moved into Prague to stifle the pro-democracy movement.

Many of his novels and stories dealt with totalitarianism and repression, but he also wrote about the immigrant experience, often with humour.

He also wrote four detective novels: The Mournful Demeanor of Lieutenant Boruvka, Sins for Father Knox, The End of Lieutenant Boruvka and The Return of Lieutenant Boruvka. He adapted some of his works for TV, including Sins for Father Knox, The Swell Season and Murders for Luck.

From 1973-1990, he hosted a monthly radio series on writing and literature on Voice of America. He also served as an English professor at the University of Toronto from 1971 until his retirement in 1990.

Skvorecky was honoured with the Order of the White Lion by Czech president Havel in 1990 and with the Order of Canada in 1992.

Skvorecky is survived by his wife, Zdena Salivarova, a writer, actress and co-founder of 68 Publishers.

R.I.P.