Sunday Morning Coffee — February 15, 2026 — Sunday Morning Scramble

By Roy Berger, Las Vegas, NV

Good morning. I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day and gentlemen you treated your s/o with all the trimmings. You will need all that equity next year when Valentine’s Day is also Super Bowl Sunday.

The Chinook in the Pike Place Fish Market are joyfully jumping. What a sports fall/winter it’s been for the city of Seattle. The Mariners came within a run of making the World Series losing the American League Championship Series to Toronto four games to three; the Seahawks just hoisted the Super Bowl trophy for all the 12’s; the hockey Kraken are knocking on the Stanley Cup Playoffs’ door while the SuperSonics have not lost a basketball game in over 18 years while their successor, the OKC Thunder, are the defending NBA champs and odds-on to win again in June. Not too shabby.

Okay, I’ll turn myself in. Sitting with a nice wager on Seattle last Sunday, come midway through the first quarter I had little reason to worry. However, I am guilty of actually enjoying the halftime festivities. So much so that I went and watched it again on Monday to make sure I really did like it. The production, set and pageantry were incredible for a stage wheeled out to the middle of a football field for a 13-minute performance. I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it as much in English but the upbeat Spanish feel to me wasn’t political, just fun for a few minutes. Sixty years ago, for Super Bowl I, we got the University of Arizona Symphonic Marching Band and the Grambling University Marching Band. In 1967 Puerto Rico’s Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio was still 27 years away from being born.

This is interesting: average viewership for the Super Bowl was 125 million; for halftime it jumped to 128 million.

Speaking of Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, when he was six years old, he was forced to wear a bunny costume to school for Easter. He was angry about it. The expression on his face was not a happy one. Thereafter, he was dubbed by schoolmates as a bad bunny. When he started his music career about a decade ago, he wanted a stage name that people would remember. It worked.

Over $133 million was wagered in Nevada sportsbooks on the Super Bowl. Almost $10 million of that was lost by the public for a 7.4% hold for the bookmakers. And if you can’t wait to get rid of your money for next year’s VDay game BetMGM, prior to free agency and the draft, has already opened with Seattle at 8-1; the Rams at 9-1 and Buffalo and Baltimore at 12-1 to win the Super Bowl. Don’t sleep on the Jets next season—they are only 25,000-1.

Las Vegas visitation fell by 7.5% in 2025 largely impacted by exorbitant hotel and resort fees and the Canadian tourism market turning dry. One of the busiest times of the year for Vegas has always been Super Bowl weekend. Last weekend, almost like the bigwigs are starting to understand, you could find rooms on the Strip for less than $100 a night. That’s a good start for a comeback.

This kid gets around.

Who needs Fodor’s or Frommer’s for a travel guide when you have a granddaughter like Harley? When Mom and Dad take her to Belgium in a couple of weeks, it will be the seventh country she’s visited in only six months on the planet. Harley lives in England and has already been to Scotland, France, Czech Republic, United States and Mexico. She liked the US so much, the family is moving back to the States this spring.

A casualty of the cell phone era has been the elimination of those pesky cruise ship photographers.

Speaking of which, before booking your next cruise make sure your child support payments are up to date. Potential passport revocations for those in arrears of $2,500 or more for support payments have been on the federal books since 1996 but rarely enforced. Under the present administration the State Department soon plans to begin revoking passports at its own initiative for deadbeats.

Chew on this for a minute: in 1992 Bill Clinton was elected president of the United States. He was born in 1946. Thirty-two years later in 2024, Donald Trump was elected president for the second time. He too was born in 1946.

Ms. Louise through the years.

Happy birthday to the only one left from the island. Tina Louise, the luscious Ginger Grant from Gilligan’s Island, celebrated her 92nd last Wednesday. Ms. Louise played Ginger from 1964 till 1967. In January 1958 she was featured in a Playboy photo spread.

Dave Barry, formerly of the Miami Herald, was my favorite humor columnist back in the day. He has resurfaced right here on Substack and is just as funny as he ever was.

As Olympic hockey moves into the medal round this week, if you have an hour and a half free take a peek at Miracle: The Boys of ‘80 on Netflix. Some remarkable story lines and footage of how the 1980 US men’s team overcame the Russians and their own head coach Herb Brooks to rock the world in Lake Placid, NY, and win gold. It’s a feel-good story, not just for sports fans but for the entire country back when we lived through the Iran Hostage Crisis, a gasoline shortage, the Cold War resuming and something economists called ‘Stagflation’ when both inflation and unemployment were at all-time highs. At the end of the Boys of ‘80 documentary team captain Mike Eruzione said about the distraction from world events the Olympic hockey team gave us 46 years ago, “We can use a 1980 now.” He scores with that one.

The Beach Boys spanned 24 years between their first and last number one Billboard hits: I Get Around in 1964 to Kokomo in 1988. As impressive as that longevity might be, it isn’t an all-time mark. That belongs to Cher whose first solo single Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves hit number one in 1971; 28 years later in 1999 she topped the list again with Believe. Throw in her I Got You Babe duo with Sonny in 1965 and the number jumps to 35 years between first and last.

We lost a good one when Chuck Negron died on February 2 at 83. The founding member and lead singer of Three Dog Night gave us so much fun music that still resonates and always will. The group, originally called Redwood, had 21 top 40 hits and three number ones: Mama Told Me (1970); Joy to the World (1971) and a year later Black and White. Original members joining Negron were Danny Hutton and the late Cory Wells. The interesting footnote is none of their music was original. Three Dog Night recorded songs written by the likes of Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Hoyt Axton, Laura Nyro and a host of others. Or they just covered songs that became hits. Written by Axton, we still don’t know why Jeremiah was a bullfrog.

With the passing last week of former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Roy Face there are now only six living players from the classic 1960 World Series between the Pirates and Yankees. Face died Thursday at age 97, eight days shy of his 98th birthday. For those of you too young, Mr. Face was the bullpen ace for Pittsburgh back in the late 50s and 60s. Two things about Face mesmerized me as a young eight-year-old kid who couldn’t get enough baseball: he pitched for my team, the Pirates, and his name was Roy. The only other Roy in my life then was Rogers, so this made Roy Face very special. His given name was Elroy, fortunately mine wasn’t, but later in his career and on his baseball cards he was just Roy. Other than being a Pirate and a fellow Roy, he was also a damn good pitcher. Face was a relief pitcher extraordinaire for the Pirates over 15 seasons. He stood a diminutive 5’7” and weighed 150 pounds. Clearly, he didn’t get batters out by physical intimidation. Instead, he perfected a forkball, the old-time equivalent of today’s split-finger fastball. In 1959 Face posted an 18-1 record, all out of the bullpen. Yep, 18 wins which meant he either entered tie games or the Pirates rallied for come from behind wins or he gave up leads and the team bailed him out. No matter it was 18 wins which is still an all-time record for a reliever and probably always will be. In those days saves weren’t an official stat for a pitcher. In 1969 baseball statisticians went back and credited that stat to those who pitched prior. Thus in 1960, the Pirates World Championship year, Face had 24 regular season saves to go with his ten wins. In the World Series he pitched 10 innings and had three crucial three saves in games one, four and five that ultimately got Pittsburgh to Game 7 and the win. I met Face about a dozen years ago at one of my Pirates camps. I shook his hand, took a picture and told him how much he meant to me as a kid, not the least of which also being a Roy. It was a thrill for me. I’m not so sure he shared my enthusiasm. With the death of Mr. Face, the surviving Pirates of 1960 are World Series hero Bill Mazeroski, 89, who hit the walk-off home run in Game 7, still the only one in baseball history; Cy Young Award winner Vernon Law, 95, and lanky left fielder Bob Skinner, 94. Remaining from the Yankees are second baseman Bobby Richardson and his double play partner shortstop Tony Kubek, both 90. Senior of the six is pitcher Bobby Shantz still going strong at the ripe age of 100.

I’ve been a devoted Southwest Airlines domestic travel customer since we moved to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1999. With Southwest dominating the market in Las Vegas that habit has continued. I said goodbye to the A, B, C boarding group numbers on its final day, January 26th. More bitter than sweet. I also got to experience the newly assigned seat scheme ten days ago. However, immediately noticeable was how much slower the new boarding process is. There’s confusion on the assigned seating and overhead bins tend to fill quicker, making people walk past their seats and squeeze back through again, depending where your seat might be and what new boarding group you are in. Southwest officials told CBS News there will be tweaking of the new system to try and expedite boarding. I’m traveling this week so I get to try it again. The jury is still out and probably will be for a while.

And finally, back to music—this suprised me. Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, which debuted in June 1969 and has undergone an incredible renaissance through the decades as a worldwide stadium and arena ballad, never ranked number one. The highest it ever reached was number four on August 16, 1969. At least it was in English.

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I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger