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Just one scan today: here's a familiar face at the age of 27, from the NIT game program in March 1968, Mr. Bobby Knight:

Thus began a legend. Roy Rubin, on the other hand, is best known for being the first of two coaches who piloted the '72-'73 Sixers to the Worst Record Ever. He went 4-47. Last I heard, he was working in the Miami area with at-risk kids. Knight IS an at-risk kid.

There were very few familiar names of the future playing in the NIT that year. Jo Jo White was the biggest, the Kansas guard who went on to star with the Celtics for years. Temple had John Baum and Eddie Mast, both of whom played pro ball briefly, and Don May of Dayton made it to the NBA, too. So did Notre Dame's Bob Arnzen, in both the NBA and ABA, but only for a few years. Mostly, the tournament had guys named Zopf and Culuko.

Oh, and a guard playing for Knight at Army. Some kid named Krzyzewski. I wonder whatever happened to him.

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Do you think that when they wrote this entry in the 1969 Cleveland Indians yearbook, they realized the impact of the fact that Sudden Sam McDowell was a "gunsmith"? Knowing what we now know about McDowell's problems at the time, having guns near him may not have been wise.

A lot has changed since then- McDowell turned his life around. But while we're at it, will ya check out that 'do and that suit? And what's with standing by a jewelry case? Was it an early attempt at showing off a star athlete's bling? Who thought this was an appropriate picture for a baseball yearbook?

As a kid, of course, it all seemed perfectly normal to me. Nowadays, kids don't buy baseball yearbooks.

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Celebrated Atlanta radio personality Larry Wachs pulled his groin at Atlanta Braves fantasy camp. No, not that way, although maybe back at the Best Western... um, no, erase that thought.

I talked to Larry the other day while he was preparing for the week, and we talked about the vagaries of being in our 40s and trying to compete in sports. It's really hard to do it, because no matter how good a shape you keep yourself in, parts of you will not cooperate. I could probably pick up my running pace and try a marathon or 10K, but I know that the "sproing" you'd hear for miles around would be an Achilles tendon popping at mile 5. As it is, I do run long distances, but "run" is a misnomer. Plod is more like it. As long as I keep moving and break a sweat, I'm happy. I'm not in a race, and I don't need to win.

Part of me thinks otherwise. I see the guys playing full court pickup hoops at the Y and I think back to when I used to play, and sometimes I'll go out and shoot on an empty court and think, yeah, I could fall right back into it. And then I feel a twinge in some long-forgotten muscle and I remember I've passed my sell-by date. (And there was that incident a couple of years ago when my leg gave way on the court and I thought sure that my ambulatory days were over...)

But the fantasy's there. I'll give Larry a lot of credit for getting out there and giving it a shot- and he pitched well before the muscle quit on him. Part of me wants to play basketball again, to try the L.A. Marathon or that Rock and Roll run thing at the Coliseum. But other parts are saying no, and I know who'll win that argument. Besides, playing is fun, but sitting in the stands with a cold brew and a Dodger dog has its charms, too.

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Here's what I need: not exactly an alarm clock, more like something that, as soon as I rise, would tell me the particulars I need to know in a soft, reassuring voice, like this:

"Good morning, it's Wednesday, February 1st, 2006. You are at home near Los Angeles, it is a work day, it's 4:30, and it's time to feed the cat, then go to the other end of the house and start working. Everything before this was a dream."

Seriously, I'm getting tired of waking up and having no idea where I am, what day it is, and whether I have to work or can sleep in (considering that I work pretty much every day, I suppose this is a moot point). An invention like this that senses my initial confusion would be welcome. Someone get on this case, stat.

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OK, a few more scans because I'm tired tonight. I like this one because it's a rare glimpse of the logo of a truly demented TV station of the 70's and 80's:

WWHT, channel 68 Newark (with a translator on the World Trade Center on channel 60) and its satellite, WSNL-TV, channel 67 on Long Island, were... OK, let's see. The history you might see on Wikipedia or elsewhere is a little off, so let's correct it now. The station existed as a construction permit as WWRO Newark, but by the time it went on the air (I actually saw the very first test transmission, a painting of a big tree with the calls in the corner), it was WBTB-TV, and the early schedule included bargain basement black-and-white shows with bad prints ("Dobie Gillis" being the best of the lot), cheesy local variety shows ("The Danny Tarantino Show," featuring some lounge singer on a bare set), stock market news (with ticker on the bottom of the screen), and Uncle Floyd, who was the one redeeming feature of the channel. But you know about him, and he's still around, one of the "Wise Guys" on Sirius.

WSNL started separately- it was a local station for Long Island that also carried the WFL's New York Stars games, went dark, and eventually re-emerged as a simulcast of 68.

Later, the station was purchased by Wometco, the Miami company, which changed the calls to WTVG (their Miami station was WTVJ) but kept programming cheap (they did briefly carry WTVJ's local-legend kid's show "Skipper Chuck"); eventually, they changed the calls to WWHT and launches scrambled subscription programming as "Wometco Home Theater," The crappy daytime programming and the sublime Uncle Floyd remained, but in the evening, the picture went scrambled and required a converter box to watch HBO-style movies while nonsubscribers heard a loop of music including Stevie Wonder's "Love's In Need Of Love Today" over and over and over. A favorite pastime of the cheap- OK, that would be me- was to try and futz with the vertical hold to unscramble the picture, especially with R-rated movies, when you might get to see an occasional breast. (Hey, I was a kid at the time, gimme a break)

The station eventually went all-scrambled (except for a block of public affairs/educational shows on the weekends); when the subscription bubble burst, it became an MTV competitor, "U-68," playing a pretty cool mix of odd videos MTV wouldn't touch, programed by veteran music industry guy Steve Leeds. That failed, too, and the station went through a long Home Shopping Network period before going Spanish as the New York Telefutura affiliate, which it is today.

But back in the day, it was about the most cheesy major market TV station ever, cheesier than the 90's incarnation of Philly's channel 48, cheesier than L.A.'s KDOC, just plain cheesy. Naturally, I loved it. The ad you see above has the logos and one other feature: someone was too cheap to design a new ad for the show's second season, so they just pasted "SECOND SEASON" over the words "NEW SHOW," the top of which is still visible in the ad. Just perfect.

And while we're on ABA TV ads (or, at least, ads for TV stations featuring teams that were at one time in the ABA), here's a Kentucky Colonels/WLKY-TV ad from '74, with a cartoon of Artis Gilmore and Dan Issel. 32 was the ABC affiliate then, is CBS now. No reason for this, just because. Gotta go.

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Glenn Reynolds isn't the only person to fall for the hype of the five-blade Gillette Fusion.

Yeah, I got one.

It was on sale, my Mach III Turbo needs replacing- caked with gunk, broken tray, running out of blades anyway- so I figured, what the hell, I'll try it. And I will, tomorrow morning. It'll be Saturday, so if it slices a big chunk off my face, I'll have some time to stanch the flow, get a few stitches, and recover.

But for those of you who work in talk radio, you might be surprised that this can be a topic for on-air discussion. When I worked with this guy on a radio show a few years back, he came in one day singing the praises of the Mach III and we did a bit where he and another host spent an hour trying to convince a skeptic- that would be me- that the razor was good enough to abandon the old Sensor. And we got a ton of calls from guys who offered their own shaving critiques. Turns out guys really do care about that.

And that's what Gillette counts on. I walked into the drug store and there's the stand and an irresistible price for the new razor, and I couldn't resist, even though they keep increasing the price for blades (almost $15. for four?!?) (I go to Costco for those anyway) and it wasn't 100% necessary. I'm a guy, it's a new razor, I'm a sucker, it's a deal.

Review coming. Get the styptic pencil, Band-Aids, and tourniquets ready.

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I will watch the whole thing, although I will lose interest before halftime.

I will eat chili.

That's about it.

The game? Who the hell cares?

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At about 2:45 am this morning, I got up, staggered into the kitchen, fed the cat, and returned to bed.

And then I woke up and discovered that I'd only dreamt that I got up, staggered into the kitchen, fed the cat, and returned to bed.

As I've noted before, even my dreams are boring.

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