Weekend Daily Dirt: Steve loves Leroy Jethro Gibbs

Daily Dirt for Sept. 25-26, 2021

My three favorite times of the year are the opening of baseball season, the start of the new television season and anytime the pizza guy arrives at the front door. Vol. 78 of the Daily Dirt begins with the TV part of that statement. Welcome to today’s three thoughts: 

1. We’re always hear to help, and in this case it’s to provide a few tips on which TV shows you might want to make sure your DVR is set to record. Here’s our three best bets:

Monday: “NCIS Hawai’i” (CBS). Why: This should be another ratings giant. There simply isn’t a bad member of the “NCIS” family. Vanessa Lachey is a good bet to be one of this season’s breakout stars.

Wednesday: “Home Economics” (ABC) Why: It seems worth a look, based on its premise of taking a look at the “heartwarming, yet super-uncomfortable and sometimes frustrating relationships among three adult siblings.” OK, I’ll bite.

Thursday: “Law and Order: Organized Crime” (NBC). Why: This should be guaranteed gold. “Organized Crime” should bookend nicely with “Law and Order: SVU,” especially with the popular Christopher Meloni back in the “Law and Order” fold.

2. A recent report on theathletic.com website provided the top college football coaching positions, based on a wide variety of prerequisites, including region, history, pay, job security, conference affiliation, past glory, facilities, budgets, present-day dominance, etc. These were the top 10:

1. Alabama: “The program gets what it needs and what it wants. If Nick Saban wants to add five analysts whose only job is to dissect every time an opposing coach has punted in the past 20 years, then he’s not going to have to fight anyone to get those jobs created.”

2. Ohio State: “Ohio State (is a) national brand (that) makes it relevant in every high school hallway from coast to coast.”

3.Georgia: “Georgia wasn’t always the kind of place where the coach would get what he asked for every time. It basically is now.”

4. Texas

5. LSU

6. USC

7. Clemson

8. Oklahoma

9. Notre Dame

10. Florida

While we’re talking collage football, here are sportsnaut.com’s rankings for the sport’s top sites:

1. Ohio Stadium (Ohio State Buckeyes): “The Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio, is an absolutely unmistakable piece of architecture, and the Ohio State Buckeyes rarely disappoint the fans who pack Ohio Stadium to the brim. With such relentless fans, constant buzz ad a consistently great program to back it all up, we’re ranking the Buckeyes’ Ohio Stadium at the top of this list.”

2. Beaver Stadium (Penn State Nittany Lions): “Beaver Stadium is even a better place when Penn State is a top-25 team (which it is again).”

3. Tiger Stadium (LSU Tigers): “Baton Rouge is always going to be a brutal road trip for anyone in the SEC — and especially an out-of-conference opponent who isn’t ready for that type of intensity.”

4. Michigan Stadium (Michigan Wolverines)

5. Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (Florida Gators)

6. Rose Bowl (UCLA Bruins)

7. Autzen Stadium (Oregon Ducks)

8. Neyland Stadium (Tennessee Volunbteers)

9. Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium (Texas Longhorns)

10. Notre Dame Stadium (Notre Dame Fighting Irish)In case you missed it, three of the top four stadiums on the campuses of Big Ten schools.

3. Found on Facebook: Some more gems from our favorite social media platform:

• “What do you get when you cross a bear an a mountain lion? Killed. You get killed.”
• “What’s the worst candy of all time?” (I’ll go first! Candy corn!
• “It’s been six months I joined the gym and no progress. I’m going there in person tomorrow, to find out what’s really going on.”
• “Be grateful that no matter how much chocolate you eat your earrings will still fit.”
• “I got called pretty today. Actually, I was called pretty annoying, but I prefer to think positive.”

There’s nothing like a vintage television series to make the day of Stevie Mud, and “Mannix” was/is one of those programs. Welcome to Vol. 79 of the Daily Dirt and three thoughts guaranteed to make the world a better place:

1. I just noticed FeTV is now showing back-to-back episodes of “Mannix” Monday through Saturday. “Mannix,” which starred Mike Connors as a Los Angeles-based private investigator, was a Saturday night CBS staple from 1967 to 1975. FeTV recently began airing the program at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. Connors’ character is Joe Mannix, whose background is somewhat sketchy, is never adverse to a good fight. I was a regular viewer of “Mannix” back in the day, feeling it was slightly ahead of its time at a point in our viewing history when TV detectives were a dime a dozen. “Mannix” rose in popularity during a period when dime-store sleuths were replacing cowboys and westerns as our most popular source of TV entertainment.The storylines always seemed surprisingly intriguing and challenging, and were accented by the cool cars — an Oldsmobile Toronado, Dodge Challenger, Plymouth Barracuda or Chevrolet Camaro — that Mannix regularly had at his disposal. The camerawork was also an added plus and well ahead of its time.  
In addition, “Mannix” was known for its groundbreaking casting. Gail Fisher was Joe Mannix’s girl Friday, Peggy Fair, one of the first Black actresses to have a regular role in a major series. One other note about Mike Connors, who died at age 91 in January 2017. He was known earlier in his career as Touch Connors. He appeared in dozens of films and TV shows, the last being a 2007 episode of “Two and a Half Men.” All in all, it’s good see an old friend like “Mannix” back on my TV set. FeTV can be found on Ch. 323 on DirecTV and Ch. 82 on DISH. 

2. Here’s the third edition of the best MLB players who have worn certain numbers, thanks to sportingnews.com. We resume today with No. 21:

21. Roberto Clemente. Honorable mention: Warren Spahn, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa. (Wow, this is one of the strongest numbers of them all.) PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Curt Flood. JRG

22. Jim Palmer. Honorable mention: Roger Clemens, Will Clark, Clayton Kershaw. (Obviously, the Rocket wore more than one number during his career.)

23. Ryne Sandberg. Honorable mention: Ted Simmons, Luis Tiant, Don Mattingly.

24. Willie Mays. Honorable mention: Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Rickey Henderson, Manny Ramirez, Miguel Cabrera. 

25. Barry Bonds. Honorable mention: Jim Thome, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire. (Bonds wore 24 during his seven years with Pittsburgh as a tribute to Willie Mays, his godfather. But when he joined the Giants, that number had obviously been retired in honor of Mays, so Bonds chose the number 25 his father — Bobby Bonds — wore while Mays’ teammate. Bonds won five of his seven NL MVPs with the Giants and broke pretty much every home run and walks record while wearing No. 25.) PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Barry Bonds cheated. JRG

26. Wade Boggs. Honorable mention: Billy Williams, Chase Utley, Amos Otis.

27. Juan Marichal. Honorable mention: Vladimir Guerrero Sr., Scott Rolen, Kevin Brown.

28. Bert Blyleven. Honorable mention: Vada Pinson, Cesar Cedeno, Pedro Guerrero.

29. Rod Carew. Honorable mention: John Smoltz, Adrian Beltre, Mickey Lolich.

30. Tim Raines. Honorable mention: Nolan Ryan, Orlando Cepeda, Willie Randolph. (Whoa-a-a-a-a … Rock Raines over Nolan Ryan???) PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Ryan wore 34 for the second half of his career. JRG

3. When AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead” began back in 2015 it was — for lack of a better word — boring, but I stayed with it and am glad I did. Arguably, it is now the flagship franchise of the Dead universe. Show controllers effectively killed off a bevy of nondescript (shall we say boring — again?) characters to get where we are today, while simultaneously introducing new and far more interesting personalities. I’m super excited for the Oct. 17 premier of season seven. Two words: Nuclear wasteland.

Steve Fact O’ The Day
I have seen every episode, every minute and every second of all “Walking Dead” programming since Oct. 31, 2010.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. He was once referred to as the Paul McCartney of the accordion.