Quick Takes

By Mitchell

• As you can tell if you've seen "This Week's Endorsement" at the bottom of the sidebar, we're pretty ambivalent about this year's election. But even we couldn't imagine the horror that lies behind the headline in this week's Onion: "Obama, Clinton, McCain Join Forces To Form Nightmare Ticket." The subheading reads, "Historic political trio inspiring millions to pray for it all to be over." I'll tell you, if that ever happens, you might as well just shoot me now.



• I wish I could take credit for this, but Drew suggests I missed one in my recent piece about Barbara Walters' affair with former Senator Edward Brooke. He asks, "Do you suppose she referred to him as 'Senator Bwooke'?"



• One of GSN's recent I've Got a Secret reruns featured an appearance by major league baseball players Warren Spahn, then coming to the end of his storied pitching career with the hapless New York Mets, and Doug Camilli, playing for the equally hapless Washington Senators. Spahn's secret was that during his 20+ season career he had faced both Doug Camilli and his father, Dolph (albeit separated by about twenty years). When asked by host Steve Allen about the Mets' prospects for the coming season (they had never, to this point, finished higher than last place), Spahn replied he thought they would be "amazin.'" Camilli, asked the same question about the Senators, gave the same answer. In fact, the Senators would climb to 8th place in the American League in 1965, while the Mets were destined for yet another last-place finish in the National. But what was amazin' about this was that it was the Senators' manager in 1965, Gil Hodges, who would later become manager of the "Miracle" Mets that won the 1969 World Series. If only they had known at the time...



• Speaking of I've Got a Secret, you may remember my story a while back about the 1962 appearance by Neil Armstrong's parents, and host Garry Moore's question to them about how they would feel if their son became the first man on the moon. Well, courtesy of YouTube, here's a clip of their appearance on the show: