Irv Cross, Los Angeles Rams standout and sportscaster, 81

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Cross played with spirit evident to TV viewers on what just happens to be this then-St. Louisan's all=time fave team, the George Allen-coached Los Angeles Rams led by Roman Gabriel during 1966-68. Cross then subsequently worked well as a genuinely-genial second banana to Brent Musburger on CBS's The NFL Today, notwithstanding rather limited broadcasting and elocution skills.

The onetime Eagles draftee and member of the Indiana Sports Hall of Fame was born in Hammond--affectionately portrayed in radio raconteur Jean Sheperd's many wonderful steel-town short stories as Hohman, Indiana, thus the setting of the neoclassic "A Christmas Story"* as well as the still-sadly-unheralded "Phantom of the Open Hearth"---Cross died today at 81 in the Gopher State of Minnesota.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
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* Yes, I realize the house the family is portrayed as living in is in fact in Cleveland, but in the storyline it's Hohman...or at least SHOULD be; haven't seen it in many years. Meanwhile, "Phantom/Hearth" is a WAY better film with all the same main and subsidiary characters [played by different actors of course, two decades prior to ACS], even though it was produced for television, as part of the old PBS "Great American Dream Machine" anthology series.

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I suppose I should have specified that the sadly late Cross was a cornerback, for those of y'all who don't so vividly remember those simply glorious Rams seasons under the late George Allen [Sr., as opposed to the living politician Jr.].

Sorry, Irv.

STYBLE/Florida

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It turns out there was a minor factor error in the "Phantom of the Open Hearth" matter:

The consistently amusing and nostalgic TV film was produced in 1976 for the PBS anthology series "Visions", and portrays Ralph as a high school junior rather than a precocious youngster (as does the beloved ACS); its successor (and considerably less subtle, and thus far inferior) film "The Great American 4th of July" was the one that was part of "The Great American Dream Machine" series a couple or so years later.

"Phantom/Hearth" casts the wonderful Matthew Broderick's wonderful late father James Broderick as Ralph's father...and makes you wish Darren McGavin had toned that part down a bit (or even a lot) in "A Christmas Story".

Oh, and Irv Cross played in two NFL Pro Bowls--when that all-star game WASN'T the ultra-super-duper farce it has degenerated into under Roger Goodell, who for my money plays Satan to the late Pete Rozelle's G-d.

STYBLE/Florida