KC Confidential

Whitlock on Olbermann

This could be his big break…

Word that former Kansas City Star sports scribe Jason Whitlock will be riding herd over his own ESPN sports blog with the stated mission of developing and bringing along new, younger voices (writers) poses a two huge questions.

Could this be Whitlock’s long awaited ticket to a healthy six-figure paycheck? And can he handle the role of being a mentor to up-and-coming, young, African American sportswriter wannabes?

“Pretty bizarre to set Jason up as mentor/role model, unless he’s matured some,” said one former Whitlock editor. Continue reading →

And now, the rest of the story…

Make no mistake, former Kansas City Star reporter Elizabeth Merrill scored a huge coup in tracking down Tommy Morrison‘s mom Diana and getting her on the record for ESPN that Tommy is dying of the AIDS virus. That and tracking down and talking to a number of other Tommy relatives and hangers on.

However that still left plenty of holes in the tragic take of the kid from Jay, Oklahoma who Kansas City came to embrace – the dude at the time who played Tommy Gunn in Rocky.

Enter Susan Martin of Phoenix – the mother of one of Tommy’s close friends – who befriended him in 2006 and let him live with her for six months before Morrison started to go off the deep end again while having an affair with a married woman from California. Continue reading →

Time flies when you’re on vacation and I’m writing this live in Santa Fe New Mexico…

I’m going to keep it short because, after all, it is a vacation but I’ve got some important news updates to share that I’ll be fleshing out later today and tomorrow.

For starters, the Tommy Morrison news that Brandon broke locally Friday – I checked the Star, Pitch and that Tony character and they had nada – was huge. And Brandon put it in perfect perspective. Kansas City has a huge inferiority complex which is why we put our sports heroes – however few – on such loft pedestals.

And Tommy Morrison – even though he wasn’t even close to being from KC – was right up there with Len Dawson, George Brett and Tom Watson, just like Brandon said.

Except that Tommy was a known bad boy.

Don’t get me wrong, Dawson, Brett and Watson have plenty of skeletons in their closets. Continue reading →

Speaking of Elvis aka Jesse…

At the height of the Elvis is Still Alive saga in 2002, former longtime Channel 9 news anchor Maria Antonia got caught up in the excitement.

Way caught up.

In a Christmas Day column in 2002, headlined ” Sealed with a kiss?” I wrote that while “many Cowtowners have been busy posting missives to Santa, now comes word that KMBC-TV, Channel 9, anchor Maria Antonia penned one to Elvis. Or his alter ego, Jesse, if you buy into the school of thought that the King is in hiding and using the name of his twin brother, who died at birth.”

That according to Linda Johson, the assistant to Jesse’s Parkville doc Donald Hinton. Continue reading →

About those twin bars slated to open in the former America’s Pub in Westport…

Mum’s the word on what the partners concept will be, but Westport sources say the owners have been scouting a space for the twin concepts for the past year.

“I don’t know much about it, other than what I’ve heard,” says one source. “But I’ve heard they’re going to divide one part of the space into a bunch of individual rooms – like multiple little rooms that you can rent out and have your own private party with karaoke or whatever.

“And the other part of the space is going to be like an upscale deli that you can go in and pick from a huge selection of all kinds of beer and eat deli sandwiches. And if you like one of their beers, you can buy a six pack of it to go.” Continue reading →

It should have been a no-brainer…

That there’d be a stiff price to pay for revealing to the world that King of Rock n Roll Elvis Presley was still alive. But it didn’t seem quite that evident a dozen years ago and a stiff price for telling that story has been paid.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument thatElvis is still walking the earth. That he’s 77 now and remains in hiding, albeit with the needs of many senior citizens in terms of ramped up healthcare.  After all, he was a party machine back in the day.

Let’s further assume that former Parkville MD Donald Hinton was indeed treating the king in 2001 like he said he was when he wrote in the book, “The Truth About Elvis Aron Presley In His Own Words.”

You guys okay with that for now? Continue reading →

Here we go again…

Last one out the door, turn out the lights. Kansas City Star lead political writer Steve Kraske is outward bound. As in, bailing from the rocky realm of print journalism for the far calmer seas of UMKC.

Check it:

About that celebration of the anniversary of  Elvis Presley‘s death this past weekend…

For most folks 1977 was the year Elvis checked out. Something about too many painkillers, peanut butter and banana sandwiches and falling off the King of Rock N Roll’s bathroom throne at Graceland.

So he’s gone, right? Long gone – 36 years long gone – officially speaking.

Or is he?

Followers of my column in the Star may recall that in 2001 I stumbled onto a Parkville M.D. by the name of Donald Hinton who swore up and down that Elvis was still alive but in hiding. And that Hinton was treating him under the assumed name of Jesse, Elvis’s identical twin brother who died at birth.

There were five people at the time in Hinton’s inner circle who knew the “real truth” about Elvis still being alive and hiding out as Jesse, including his cousin Jerry Presley, a local deck builder and musician who performs nationally as an Elvis tribute band.

Hinton self-published a small book outlining the story of Jesse entitled, “The Truth About Elvis Aron Presley In His Own Words.” Continue reading →