I was on my way to completing Part 3 of the series on My Family, when I instead thought I would rather today tell the story of Tony Bennett. About that title, he actually passed away in 2023, but if he lived, he would have turned 100 last month. Was born Anthony Dominick Benedetto in New York City in 1926.  Father ailed, so the family grew up in poverty. Began singing at the age of 10, the year his father passed away. At 13 was a singing waiter in Italian restaurants in New York City. Drafted into the army near end of World War II, and spent some time in the European front line he would later described as a front-row seat in hell.  Several times escaped death.  Left the military as a Private First Class. Pearl Bailey and Bob Hope helped Tony get started in 1949, with Hope suggesting a shortened name, Tony Bennett. At the age of 24, signed to Columbia Records in 1950, with Mitch Miller producing and Percy Faith providing the orchestral arrangement, released in 1951 was Bec...

For soccer fans, the USA plays Vietnam at 9PM EDT ( 3PM Hawaii ) on your Fox channel.  So far, there have been four games, and both New Zealand and Australia won their initial matches. Lionel Messi makes his American debut tonight at 8PM EDT ( 2PM Hawaii ) with the Miami FC against Cruz Azul in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  You need to have access to Apple TV and have an MLS season pass, plus will be in Spanish on Univision.  Team is appropriately dressed in Barbie Pink. The Open at the Royal Liverpool Golf Course has completed day 2, and Brian Harmon of the USA leads by 5 strokes over Tommy Fleetwood of Scotland.  The cut was +3, 8 strokes behind Harmon, and includes the following players:  Adam Scott, Scottie Scheffler, Brooks Koepka, Padraig Harrington, Rickie Fowler and Patrick Cantlay. At +2 was Cameron Smith, who won this tournament last year. Missing the cut were Keegan Bradley, Collin Morikawa ( 2021 winner ), Tony Finau, Billy Horschel, Justin Rose, Shane ...

Well, the Tokyo Olympics will end today   (already Sunday Tokyo time ).  The Final Ceremonies air at 7AM EDT ( 1AM Hawaii time tonight ) tomorrow.   Left are the men's marathon in Sapporo and Japan vs USA in women's basketball.  Sure we won in men's basketball, and women's golf and water polo, but we lost to Japan in both the softball and baseball championship games.  Japan was strong, winning thirteen gold medals in judo and wrestling, the women especially, for they dominated in four of the six wrestling events.   So who won the most medals?  If it's only gold, then China.  Total?  USA.  On the other hand, using medals per million people, the leaders are: #1  San Marino:  88.4 #2  Bermuda:  16 #3  Grenada:  8.9 What about medals/million for the larger countries? New Zealand:  3.9 Australia:  1.7 Great Britain:  0.9 USA:  0.3 China:  0.06 Wasn't that surprising? What was th...