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Stop by at 11 a.m. today and ask Berry a few questions in today’s Power Lunch.
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Losing a true legend
Jim Shoulders and Walt Garrison came by The Oklahoman offices last February. I chatted with Shoulders, then interviewed Garrison. Call it a solid day.
Do they make cowboys like they used to? Do they still make cowboys who talk straight and ride hard and have real dirt on their boots? Cowboys who retire from the sport but not the way of life?
I don’t know, but they once did. I had Garrison on my show, and it’s a shame I didn’t have Shoulders on, too. They sound good in print. They sound even better on radio.
Shoulders was a cowboy for the ages, a five-time all-around world champion on the rodeo circuit, and almost 50 years later remained a legend.
An unequalled story-teller. A man of natural charm, as the makers of the famous Miller beer commercials discovered. A true Oklahoma legend.
Shoulders died Wednesday at the age of 79 on his ranch in Henryetta.
Famed bull rider Ty Murray said Shoulders lived a good long life the way he wanted to live it. Murray said he saw Shoulders not long ago and “he was as funny, irascible and tough as always.”
I saw him not long ago myself, and consider myself the better for it.
Hicks indicts Gonzalez
Rangers owner Tom Hicks has fingered former slugger Juan Gonzalez for using steroids, and the only thing I can say is, us fans should have done the same.
Never has anyone been a bigger suspect than Gonzalez, who always was one of my favorite Rangers.
Hicks said Gonzalez’s injuries and early retirement makes him suspicious. “We paid him $24 million for very few games … probably we just gave that money away.”
Gonzalez was the grandest Ranger hitter ever, with 340 homers from 1989 through 1999. Then Juan Gone went into free agency, steroids became an issue, and Gonzalez’s career dried up like Blackwater Gulch.
Gonzalez hit just 94 homers over his last six seasons; he played just 186 games his final four seasons. He went back to Texas and was a shell of his former self.
The evidence seems so clear now. We didn’t think about it in those salad days of the late ‘90s, when biceps bulged and balls flew over the fence like never before.
Juan Gonzalez seems nothing more than a footnote in the steroid scandals, but to those of us who follow Texas baseball, we now know what we were seeing.
USC recruiting eighth-graders
Just when you thought college sports couldn’t get any seedier, along comes Southern Cal basketball coach Tim Floyd, who for the second straight year has offered a scholarship to an EIGHTH-grader.
Ryan Boatwright, described as a speedy, 5-10 point guard from Illinois, hasn’t even decided where he’s going to high school this fall. Aurora West or Aurora East. Let’s hope he’s taken official visits.
But Boatwright attended Floyd’s camp this summer and now says he’ll become a Trojan in 2011.
“They were the first one to show interest in Ryan,” said Boatwright’s father.
Well, I should hope so.
The father wasn’t through. “A lot of people have said Ryan isn’t that good, but he went to USC’s camp and played well.”
Huh? Who is saying an eighth-grader isn’t that good? A middle-school coach? The kid across the street? A cousin visiting from Joliet?
There’s no way this can end good. Bobby Knight offered eighth-grader Damon Bailey a scholarship years ago, but give Knight credit: he can keep a kid’s head on straight. No way Tim Floyd is Bobby Knight. No way can this help Ryan Boatwright.
“I’m tremendously concerned,” said the kid’s father. “It could get ugly as far as kids getting jealous. I also don’t want it to get to his head. I want him to stay humble.”
Sorry, pops. That ship has sailed.
Stoops’ pyramid adventure
I caught a “King of Queens” episode on late-night television Monday. Doug got hooked up in some goofy pyramid scheme that left him feeling embarrassed.
Welcome to the club, Bob Stoops.
Stoops admitted Monday that he was involved, apparently to a tiny degree, in a pyramid scheme that now is under investigation by federal regulators.
BurnLounge Inc., some kind of online digital music business, touted the participation of Justin Timberlake and Shaquille O’Neal in its operation. Guess that answers the question of who’s bigger in America, Stoops or Justin Timberlake.
The end result of all this is nothing more than embarrassment. Stoops said he invested less than $500, and how he uses or loses his money is none of our business, unless it involves illegal or immoral activities. But still, you’d hope Stoops’ business advisers would be astute enough to keep him away from pyramid schemes.
Steve Spurrier Jr. certainly wishes so. Spurrier said Stoops convinced him to go in on the deal. Hopefully, no one in Oklahoma fell for it, too.
Stoops always has said he has no Internet acumen, doesn’t even read email, which is a good thing. All those goofy financial offers we all get, which are nothing more than trying to get in our pocketbook, are just forms of pyramid schemes, which have been around forever. Heck, a pyramid scheme was the subject of a “Dragnet” episode 40 years ago.
Where’s Joe Friday when you need him?
