Leftridge: KC Takes “No Room for Improvement!” Approach at Winter Meetings, Apparently

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Brandon Leftridge

morales_kendrysHot off of their first World Series appearance in almost three decades (when I stop and think about that, it still freaks me out and doesn’t feel quite “real”), the Kansas City Royals headed into Major League Baseball’s winter meetings with three holes to fill: a starting pitcher capable of replacing the departing James Shields, a right fielder better than Nori Aoki, and a designated hitter with more oomph than Billy Butler.

Here’s what they did:

  • Signed relief pitcher Jason Frasor to a one-year deal worth $1.25MM.
  • Signed woodsman/failed starter/good reliever Luke Hochevar to a two-year deal worth $10MM.
  • Signed recently-terrible DH Kendrys Morales to a two-year deal worth $17MM.
  • Probably had some delicious food.
  • Probably enjoyed being in San Diego in early December.

Continue reading →

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Donnelly: Sporting KC Overhauling Roster After Disappointing Season Finish

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Matthew Donnelly

Sporting Kansas City spent the second half of the 2014 season on an epic slide that finally and mercifully ended with a first round playoff loss to the New York Red Bulls.

There’s a lot of blame to go around, to be sure.  Injuries, for one.  National team call-ups.  Fatigue from playing in so many different competitions. Poor goalkeeping.  Lack of continuity from constantly juggling the lineup.

So it’s no surprise that Sporting has been cleaning house over the last few weeks, addressing their failings from 2014 and rebuilding the roster.

Let’s do a recap: Continue reading →

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Glazer: The Indisputable, Awful Truth About The Kansas City Chiefs

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Craig Glazer

JonBaldwinUpsideDownWhy do our Kansas City Chiefs fall short of the mark every year?

Simple, we’re one of the NFL’s worst drafting teams of all time. We’ve not had a franchise quality quarterback since Len Dawson in the 1960’s and early 1970’s.

That’s the simple answer.

But yes, you can add in a poor front office, poor coaching and bad moves of every sort over the past 30 years. All of which have led to zero Super Bowls the past half century.

This year is coming to an end and once again Kansas City fans have been hoodwinked by the long term contract for Alex Smith, and soon another one for Justin Houston and “Boy, Andy sure is a Dandy.”

Hey, even I got suckered earlier this season.

Why? Because like most of you I wanted to believe we had something (even though deep down, I knew we really didn’t).

Football is a modern game based on passing and we don’t have that. Continue reading →

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Star beams: P&L Red Light Zone, Bill Cosby, NASA & Making Whoopi

Posted on December 11, 2014 by admin

amsterdam05The historic Power and Light Building will be renovated with some apartments going for as much as $3,500 a month.  If you’re a woman you can make that money back quickly via that giant flashing red light.

                                                           *******

A NASA spacecraft just awoke from hibernation and will begin to photograph Pluto.  The craft fell asleep in the 1970s after a date with Bill Cosby. Continue reading →

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Jack Goes Confidential: Chris Rock Hits With ‘Top Five’

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Jack Poessiger

Top-Five-1-Chris-RockYou’ve gotta give Chris Rock a lot of credit… 

After a period of involving himself with—shall we say—less than stellar movie parts, all of the sudden he’s turned edgy again.

Rock wrote, directed and stars in his own motion picture which Paramount picked up for distribution following its triumphant debut at this year’s Toronto Film Festival.

TOP FIVE is a star-studded adult comedy romp, complete with an irresistible romance while digging deep under the surface of the television and movie business and the media in general. Oh, and let’s not forget politics—all while being black and famous in America.

TOP FIVE tells the story of New York City comedian-turned movie star Andre Allen (Rock) whose screen fame consists of starring in the Hammy The Bear action-comedy trilogy—of which he is damn tired.

So he’s made a new beginning in his film career with a dramatic telling of the 1791 Haitian revolution called UPRIZE. And he’s making the media rounds, talk shows and junket sessions in the Big Apple to promote his new movie.

Trouble is, his audience isn’t buying it – they want more Hammy the Bear!

That’s when Rosario Dawson falls into Rock’s life. She’s a reporter for the New York Times assigned to do a feature story on him and—-well, let’s just say things go into some weird directions. Continue reading →

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Lefsetz: What Goes Around Comes Around — The 1960s

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Bob Lefsetz

Screen Shot 2014-12-10 at 1.32.46 PMThis is how the sixties started…

We’ve been told to trust Big Brother, that the government and the corporations know more. That the rich are smart. That we should be thankful we’ve got flat screens.

Hogwash.

They’ve scared you. Frightened you into believing your life is at risk from external forces only they can protect you from. If the government doesn’t scan your phone calls and your e-mails, doesn’t break every law in the Constitution, our whole nation will go under and you with it.

The truth is it has. We’ve lost our country and we’ve got to take it back.

There’s a fiction that musicians will lead the way. But they’re usually last. It’s the abused, those unjustly affected by the system, who revolt first.

That’s right, the sixties began with civil rights demonstrations. Which is why high-paid NFL players protest the chokehold but no musician with millions of Twitter followers has written a song about it… That’s what’s wrong with this nation, all the individuality, we’re only powerful when we come together. Continue reading →

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New Jack City: Holiday Air Travel Tips—Read ‘Em & Don’t Weep!

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Jack Poessiger

c-travel-dog-airplane_49625_600x450A few holiday angst travel avoidance reminders…

With the legacy carriers all booked to the brim during the upcoming holiday peak travel period, here are a few last minute tips that may keep you from experiencing a ruined Christmas trip.

First off, bear in mind that the carriers have reduced their capacity on practically all routes—yet are experiencing more demand than ever.

What that means for you?

Many prime time flights are overbooked, so if you arrive to the check-in counter late there’s an even greater chance of being bumped—whether you’re holding a confirmation or not!

And since the next flights to that same destination are probably fully booked as well, good luck getting a seat even later that same day.

RULE NO. 1: GET TO THE AIRPORT EARLY! Continue reading →

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Glazer: Life in the Bermuda Triangle of Football

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Craig Glazer

why-we-suckThe Chiefs season ended in Arizona…

And Missouri’s football team didn’t belong in the same city as Alabama’s, but somehow they got there. Kansas State kinda showed up, but Baylor had no trouble beating them.

All three teams – as always – just can’t win the big one.

To be fair Missouri has become a really good program. They went to back to back SEC title games, losing both. K-State on the other hand has never really beaten anyone who mattered at the end of the year, so they’re not really on a par with MU.

K-State is just a nice little team and Mizzou is trying to be a big boy.

Missouri at least seems to have a shot – but K State doesn’t.

Because when coach Bill Snyder leaves, say goodnight.

Which brings us to the Chiefs… Continue reading →

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Lowe: Bermuda, History Triangle Claims Local Navy Man

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Chuck Lowe

bermudatriangleIt went down 70 years ago, on December 5, 1945…

Three months after the signature end of World War II, five TBF Avengers Torpedo Bombers thundered down the runway of the Naval Air Station in Ft. Lauderdale and lifted into the air for a training flight into what is known as the Bermuda Triangle.

One of the pilots – a fresh young face needing hours to maintain his Navy Pilot status – was Navy Ensign Joseph Tipton Bossi. Bossi was to turn 21 on Christmas Day later that month. However there would be no celebration.

Because what was about to happen would become the genesis for the Bermuda Triangle mysteries that continues to this day. Replete with monsters, time travel, aliens and endless conspiracies from which movies, books and careers have been made and lost.

Bossi’s niece, Susan Lyons, lives here in Kansas City and spoke with me about Flight 19, the family’s loss and the legend that grew up around the tragedy. Continue reading →

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Glazer: The End is Near (And It Ain’t Looking Pretty)

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Chuck Lowe

459076630Seems like just a few weeks ago the Chiefs, MU and K-State football was just starting…

Now it’s all coming to an end and – unfortunately – the Chiefs are becoming the team we all thought they were, as in not too great.

For whatever reason, the Chiefs played over their heads mid season. However now they’ve gone from 7-3 to 7-5 and are just a loss or two away from bye-bye post season land.

In fact, the Chiefs need three wins just to get to the post season.

Not likely.

They could beat Arizona this Sunday. That team is banged up worse than KC. However we need to find an offense and even a consistent D. Quarterback Alex Smith needs to start running again and find someone to catch a few passes.

Because right now, Jamaal Charles is our only weapon.

And even if we make it to post season, he isn’t enough to win with. As we saw in past years. We are just an O.K. team. And Andy the dandy is just 3-7 against our division in two years…not good. Continue reading →

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Leftridge: I Need a Christmas Tree

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Brandon Leftridge

christmastreecoverLike the headlines suggests, I need a Christmas tree.

Okay, well let me be clear: I need a new Christmas tree. See, I already have one. As I type this, there is a plastic trash bag in my basement that is filled with a disassembled, plastic Christmas tree. The bag is also probably filled with those weird-ass cricket/spider hybrids that some people call camel crickets, and one person I know calls “sprickets.” I could rid myself of these monstershitbugs I suppose, but I’m not sure it’s worth it for this crummy tree. It’s only about 4-feet tall and ragged. It moved with me from Kansas City to Chicago and then back to KC again, but it was only ever meant to be a placeholder, something to stand in the corner until I became a real adult who had an adult tree. At some point, though, it just became my regular-ass Christmas tree.

But I need a new one. Continue reading →

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Hearne: The Pitch Nails American Royal for Failed Tradition, Bogus Bad Deal

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Hearne Christopher Jr.

feature1Stop me if you’ve heard this one…

A picture is worth 60 million words (and bucks). I say that because the photo Pitch photographer Chris Mullins took of the 50 or fewer folks in the stands at Kemper Arena for the American Royal‘s big deal UPHA Championship horse show is a mind blower.

Because out of the 19,500 seats in Kemper – maybe “800 souls” including horses, as Pitch writer David Hudnall characterized the attendance – barely a fraction of that number could be seen taking in the action in the wide angle photo.

Seriously people, more moms show up at those totally lame kiddie soccer games in South Johnson County than were at Kemper for one of the American Royal’s premier events. And they want $60 million taxpayer dollars to tear down Kemper and put up a venue that holds 5,000 people or maybe they’ll move somewhere else?

Why don’t they just hold it at Cerner head Neal Patterson‘s ranch out south and be done with it?

The truly amazing thing is that highly respected businessmen like Patterson and UMB main man Mariner Kemper are trying are actually trying to con the KC Council into dropping 30 large on a new, smaller home for these horse shows.

With straight faces, no less. Continue reading →

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Hearne: 610 Sports Knocks One Out of the Park in Fall Ratings

Posted on December 5, 2014 by admin

810610-235x300We’ll get to the latest radio ratings shortly, but for now the big news is 610 Sports…

Because not only did Entercom’s KCSP AM rocket into fourth place in the overall ratings released in November, its cume rose to just shy of a half million listeners.

Anybody out there think the Kansas City Royals might have had anything to do with that?

No?

Well, just last March – prior to the start of Major League Baseball – 610 Sports was languishing in 12th place with a 2.7 share and a cume of 187,200 listeners.

Now flash forward to the present… Continue reading →

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Star beams: Turkey Pardons, Foil Cars, Flashing Lights & Bill Cosby

Posted on December 5, 2014 by admin

9b032658a023eb8dc569ee636ac33e8fThat’s the last time I attend the mayor’s Turkey Pardoning Ceremony wearing a slutty skirt.

                                                                     *******

The Ford Claycomo plant will begin production of the aluminum-body F-150 early next year.  That’s great news for Kansas City.  Now we can tailgate and roll our extra ribs up in our truck when we’re finished.

                                                                       *******

The ACLU is coming to the aid of a man who flashed his lights in Grain Valley to alert traffic to police radar.  The “hands up don’t shoot radar” protest received very little attention from the press.

Continue reading →

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Star Search: Dysfunctional Local News Coverage Abounds

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Hearne Christopher Jr.

team-hong-kong-30Haven’t knocked one of these out in a while…

You know, where I read and critique the daily newspaper of record. When the idea first came to me I thought. “Hey, why not do it every day?” It didn’t take long to realize the folly of that.

I mean, how many days in a row do people want to read that the biggest news block in the Kansas City Star was its paid obituary ads section? And frankly, there’s not always a ton of electrifying news and journalism to sort through.

That said, when you double the deal and look at both the Kansas City and Lawrence newspapers, there are some interesting observations to be made. Take yesterday’s front pages.

In Kansas City the Star is still laboring under the delusion that a big part of its mission is to report national news in a big way. Even when it doesn’t even do any of the reporting.

So the big story atop the front page was a Los Angeles Times story about the unarmed dude in New York that was wrongfully choked to death by a NYC cop. Think about it.

A California newspaper supplying day-old information about a New York news story for readers in Kansas City who in all likelihood already got their fill of the story on national television and/or online the day before.

Who’s the Star trying to tell this story to? Shut-ins with no other connection to the outside world beyond their driveways? Continue reading →

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Glazer: Fox 4’s Mark Alford Still on Top After 16 Years

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Craig Glazer

Screen Shot 2014-12-04 at 9.19.04 AMEverybody knows the names of Kansas City’s top evening news anchors…

Names like the recently retired Larry Moore, John Holt and Phil Witt. Those guys have been doing it for years.

However one name jumps out from KC’s morning news pack – a dude who’s been on local airwaves for nearly two decades – Fox 4‘s Mark Alford.

Mark’s been here longer than any other morning anchor, 16 years and counting. Long enough that unofficially, he’s become The Kansas City Morning Man. Continue reading →

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Jack Goes Confidential: ‘THE HOMESMAN’ Ratches Up Odd Western Tale

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Jack Poessiger

thehomesmanThis isn’t your father’s western!

THE HOMESMAN has no cowboys – just a few indians – and one of the strangest road trips west of the Mississippi (heading east to Iowa).

The film is definitely not for everyone and could easily qualify as an Art House Western.

The setting is the remote Nebraska territory circa 1850 where spinster/frontierswoman Hilary Swank volunteers to transport three insane young women to an Iowa town where the local preacher and his wife (Meryl Streep) have offered to take them in.

However getting these zombie-like women to their destination would have been an almost impossible task for Swank were it not for the low-life drifter she encountered along the way.

He’s Tommy Lee Jones, who Swank saves from being hanged.

With the promise of a $300 payday, Jones joins Swank in this savage transport of tortured human souls.

Can and WILL the God-fearing Swank make a good man out of Jones? And will these two eventually hook up along the frontier trail? Continue reading →

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Calvin Sense: Down with Political Correctness, Let America Laugh

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Calvin Sense

6bf5cb2fd62a9e8c88d1be28b4dcfafaSenator Harry Reid is in trouble…

Reid apologized for two jokes he made about Asians while speaking to a group of Asians. The jokes were: “I don’t think you’re smarter than anybody else, but you’ve convinced a lot of us you are” and “One problem that I’ve had today is keeping my Wongs straight.” 

What Reid obviously meant was that he’d been introduced to more than one person with the name Wong at the meeting.

America’s a richly diverse country and a world leader because of the many contributions of the different racial, religious and ethnic groups who live here. And one of the things Americans should be proud of is how – despite certain difficulties – we all basically want to get along.

This also allows Americans to joke about the different stereotypes, cultural differences, sexual orientations, languages and beliefs we all have.

Humor has been a fabric in American society since it was founded.

I’m an African American and some of my greatest pleasures have been listening to comics who poke fun at our differences.  Continue reading →

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Lefsetz: Critic Nails Rolling Stone — Calls U2, Springsteen ‘Irrelevant’

Posted on December 3, 2014 by admin

SHOWBIZ+Ban__8“As Jann Wenner and Bono mash the gas pedal towards the cliff of irrelevance…

In other words, how can Rolling Stone be so tone-deaf? This single-handedly reveals the inanity of the shenanigans behind the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this illustrates how Baby Boomers have to get out of the way to let the younger generations flourish. If you think U2‘s album whose name I can no longer remember counts, if you think albums matter, if you think by continuing to polish this turd it will gain traction, you work at Rolling Stone or are in U2 or both.

Despite a self-congratulatory phony press, the truth is credibility reigns. With every wart exposed, it’s important you show you’re in bed with your fans, not the fat cats who run this country who are evidence of everything wrong with it. Rolling Stone imitated Blender and made all their reviews short, not knowing Blender lied about its numbers and was heading for extinction, but this same magazine can’t realize its place in the spectrum, can’t understand that to be relevant you’ve got to be honest?

Why don’t they just get rid of the music. Why don’t they just call it the Matt Taibbi publication. That’s right, Rolling Stone made Taibbi a star, he’s everything the musicians are not. While Bono keeps cozying up to heads of state Taibbi keeps revealing their bad behavior, refusing to apologize all the while.”

The flip side of the Rolling Stone faux pas:
Continue reading →

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Glazer: The Awful Truth; Greg Hall’s Site Never Really Mattered

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Craig Glazer
Greg Hall

Greg Hall

I read Greg Hall when he wrote for KC Confidential – I remember him…

But I never really went to his website after he left. He’s a nice guy, but I just never was interested in what he had to say. I mean, if he’d had hard core news, like Eric Berry has cancer, I’d have read him. But why would I be interested in his opinions and the radio guy’s opinions – I have my own opinions about sports.

“I think they’re idiots. They’re all home towners even though the organizations here are horrible. But they’re jaded by their desire to please the local sports teams and fans. Continue reading →

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