This is Jeopardy: Potential Invitees To Future JIT Tournaments

Part 3: Battle of the Decades — The 1980s

Now that we’re at the beginning of Jeopardy in so many ways we now confront the reality of the passage of time in a way we can’t in the previous two articles. Two of the participants in the 1980s Tom Nosek and India Cooper have passed away in the last few years. How many of the others may still be capable of performing at peak level is an open question but given what we saw of Sam Buttrey perhaps I’m overstating it. That said, I’m going to try and play relatively fairly.

Chuck Forrest, who goes back to 1986, was in the first Invitational Tournament. Four of the participants — Leslie Frates, Frank Spangenberg, Jerome Vered and Bob Verini — will appear in different articles down the road.

One who I consider a question mark was Richard Cordry. Richard was a five day champion in and a semi-finalist in the 1987 Tournament of Champions. His track record in both was average but he was invited to participate in the Battle of The Decades, perhaps because of his celebrity. At the time he was head of the CFPB and he may have been invited back for political reasons. Because of that he didn’t receive any money though he paid his own way. Besides that his play was not particularly inspiring for a former Jeopardy champion; he was actually in the negative late in Double Jeopardy. He wasn’t a good choice then and I’m not sure he’s a good one now.

That leaves us with seven very reasonable possibilities and with only one exception I don’t think age would be a contributing factor. Furthermore given their performances in their original appearance and in the postseason all of them would be more than good choices to come back for perhaps one last hurrah.

As with the 1990s, the same rules apply when it comes to consideration.

TOM CUBBAGE

Tom is a historic player in many ways. He won the first ever College Championship in 1989. Less than six months later he won the Tournament of Champions still the only player in Jeopardy history to win both. At 22 he’s still the youngest player in history to win a Tournament of Champions (Brad Rutter was 23 when he won) and he is one of only two players in the history of Jeopardy to win a special Tournament and then go on to win the Tournament of Champions. Colby Burnett was the other one and he has been invited back multiple times since then.

His track record in Super Tournaments is solid as well. He participated In Super Jeopardy, the first experiment at prime time Jeopardy in 1990. He played well and was in second when time ran out in Double Jeopardy but that wasn’t good enough for him to move on. He still won $5000. He had a chance to be picked for the 10th Anniversary Tournament in 1993 but lost due to random chance.

When he was invited back to the UTC he led throughout the Jeopardy and much of Double Jeopardy before Bob Harris went ahead of him in the final moments. All three players responded correctly to Final Jeopardy and as a result Bob advanced and Tom went home with $5000.

His best performance was in the Battle of the Decades. He came from behind to defeat Bob Verini in his first round appearance. Then he had the misfortune of having to face both Ken Jennings in the quarterfinal appearance and Brad Rutter in the semi-final. Needless to say both thrashed him. Against Ken he managed to get in due to the wild card spot. With Brad, there was nothing he could do. He left with $25,000 and a moral victory: he responded correctly on all three Final Jeopardy clues, more than Ken or Brad did in the 5 Final Jeopardys they played in.

I’d like to see Tom return for many reasons, if for no other reason than to point out that he has a better track record in Final Jeopardy then Ken did before he retired. (No I’m not making that up; on the thirteen Final Jeopardys that Tom has participated in, he has only gotten one incorrect. )

PHOEBE JUEL

I’ve written about Phoebe a couple of times before in this space but to refresh your memory she was one of the first winners of a College Championship I’ve ever seen in my years of watching the show. She was a junior representing Grinnell when she won the 1993 Tournament of Champions which at that point consisted of $28,000, a trophy and a Dodge convertible.

The reason I think highly of her is she was the first College Champion I’d seen do well in the Tournament of Champions. (I had no idea who Tom Cubbage was at that point.)In her quarterfinal match she went head to head with Ed Schiffer and Linda Sheppard and at the time I remember thinking that Ed, who’d win $65,903 just a few months earlier, would make mincemeat of her. Instead from the beginning to the end of the game she played just as well as he did, finding all three Daily Doubles and responding correctly on all of them. Ed only took the lead back on the penultimate clue of Double Jeopardy and an aggressive wager put him in the finals. Phoebe got in with a wild card.

She played just as well in the Jeopardy round of her quarterfinal match and it was only because of the great play of Tom Nosek and a stumble by one of her opponents that Tom managed to lock up the game before Final Jeopardy. That turned out to be a landmark moment in Jeopardy history.

The category was MONEY. “On July 27, 1971 Richard Nixon gave her the first of the new U.S. dollar coins.” Phoebe was the only one with the correct response: “Who is Mamie Eisenhower?” (For a time Dwight Eisenhower was on a dollar coin.) Tom thought it was Susan B. Anthony. Because of that Tom advanced to the finals — and won the Tournament of Champions. Furthermore he ended up earning an advance to the 10th Anniversary Tournament that followed and ended up coming in second. The show’s history might have been changed forever had Phoebe made one fewer incorrect responses. Instead she left with $5000.

I doubt Phoebe spent much time in the immediate aftermath of her elimination dwelling on her loss: she was no doubt concentrating on graduating college and eventually becoming an attorney. But she has returned almost like clockwork every ten years since, for the UTC in 2005 and the Battle of the Decades in 2014. The former she was dispatched auspiciously by Stever Berman and left with $5000. The second time, against Mark Lowenthal and Frank Spangenberg was a different story and a little more heartbreaking.

Starting in Double Jeopardy Phoebe put on a phenomenal performance taking the lead from Mark early in the round and building from that point on. She found both Daily Doubles and responded correctly on each and though she didn’t give a single correct response after the last one she still finished the round in the lead with $17,100.

Then came Final Jeopardy. The category was a very broad one: COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD. The clue was even tougher: “Once a poor British protectorate, in 2012 this peninsular country ranked as the world’s richest per capita. Not one player could come up with a correct response. Phoebe’s was: “What is Singapore?” The correct response was Qatar. (For the record I thought it was Brunei which while very rich isn’t even a country.) Phoebe wagered the most of all three players and as a result ended up losing to Mark, for reasons I’ll list below. She left with $5000.

I also wouldn’t object to another Teen or College Reunion that brought these players back, this time going back further than just four years.

MARK LOWENTHAL

Mark Lowenthal is the only player on this list I’m not sure would be able to qualify. He was in his early 40s when he first appeared on Jeopardy and won the 1988 Tournament of Champions. Like many Jeopardy fans I knew who he was more because of the book he wrote with Chuck Forest Secrets of the Jeopardy Champions which still has a prominent place on my bookshelf.

My first look at him came during the 2005 Ultimate Tournament of Champions and it was both quick and unflattering. Playing against Erik Larsen and Michael Rooney he was only able to ring in with 5 correct answers and just one of them was in all of Double Jeopardy. He also could find no redemption in Final Jeopardy and went home very quickly. Of all the living TOC winners I saw in that Tournament his performance was by far the worst and when he returned for the Battle of the Decades I expected even less against Frank Spangenberg and Phoebe Juel.

But Mark surprised me, getting off to a fast start in the Jeopardy round and maintaining his lead throughout. He tapered off in Double Jeopardy but he still finished a respectable third with $10,400. Then came Final Jeopardy which I listed above. Mark risked the least of the three players and as a result ended up as a quarterfinalist.

He would face off against Brad Rutter and Dan Pawson in the quarterfinals and during the Jeopardy round he held his own even though he was in third by the end of it. Then in Double Jeopardy Brad caught fire and Mark and Dan were left in the dust. Brad ran away with the game as was his want and Mark left with $10,000.

Considering that Brad and Dan have both come back as well as his co-author Chuck Forrest there’s an argument for Mark to come back as well. He might have the capacity to be as good as Sam Buttrey was.

LESZEK PAWLOWICZ

Leszek will always have a special place in my heart as a viewer. The 1992 Tournament of Champions was the first one I ever watched so I will always have a fondness for him that I don’t necessarily feel for some of the other Tournament of Champions winners that came after, exceptional though many of them were. My admiration for him as a player grew significantly during research for a book I was once doing on Jeopardy that is likely never to see print. The roster of talent of the 1992 Tournament of Champions was arguably the greatest prior to the elimination of the five-game limit in 2003 and the doubling of the dollar figures in 2001. Leszek was one of four players in that tournament who won more than $72,800, Chuck Forrest’s original five day record and two of the competitors John Kelly and Jerome Vered would rank among the five highest money winners in Jeopardy history before the dollar figures were doubled in 2001. India Cooper would go on to be a semi-finalist in the Million Dollar Masters and play brilliantly in both the UTC and the first round of the Battle of the Decades. For reasons I’ll reveal later three more of these players would have an impressive record in the UTC. The fact that Leszek ended up winning against them is an argument for him being one of the all-time greats prior to the arrival of Ken Jennings.

I didn’t see Leszek’s original appearance on Jeopardy in October of 1991 and if I’m being honest when I was watching what would be my first ever Tournament of Champions in 1992 (yes, I’m ancient) I’m pretty sure he wasn’t one of the players I was rooting for the most. My first out-and-out favorite (who I will discuss in the next article in this series) was Jerome Vered and I was rooting for him that whole tournament. Even when Leszek made it to the finals I still thought Jerome was going to pull if off. Leszek had a small lead going into Game 2 (I’ll get to that) but he spent most of Game 2 trailing. In fact he actually finished in second behind Bruce Simmons at the end of Double Jeopardy.

It came down to Final Jeopardy which was PRESIDENT’S HOMES. “The exterior of the governor’s mansion in Florida is modeled after the home of this President.” Leszek was the only player who knew the correct response: “Who is Andrew Jackson?” (In 1821 Jackson was a provisional governor of Florida.) Leszek won the Tournament of Champions and $100,000.

Leszek didn’t reappear on Jeopardy until 2005, during which he was apparently on so many game shows that he was once called ‘The Michael Jordan of Game Shows’. When he appeared in Round 1 of the Ultimate Tournament of Champions against Tad Carithers and Al Lin I was relatively sure he’d advance. He only gave one incorrect response the whole game — but that was the one that cost him.

He was ahead with $17,200 when he gave an incorrect response in SONGS FROM MUSICALS that cost him $1600 and put him into second. Tad got the last clue correct and he went into the lead with $17,200 to Leszek’s $15,600. That was critical going into Final Jeopardy.

The category was one that has become notorious in Jeopardy history: WOOD. The clue was an interesting one: “The remarkable elasticity of yew led to this new weapon that made history at a 1346 battle.” Leszek knew the correct weapon: the longbow. (As Alex said: “The English longbow at the battle of Crecy.” So did Tad and he won, sending Leszek home with $5000.

Nine years Leszek returned for the Battle of the Decades and things went much better for him. In Round 1 he led throughout the game against Leslie Frates and Andrew Westney. At the end of the round he had $26,000 to Andrew’s $13,600 and Leslie’s $13,800.

The Final Jeopardy category was 20TH CENTURY WOMEN AUTHORS. It ranks as one of the creepiest clues of all time. “Readers’ letters to this author about her 1948 short story asked where the title event was held & if they could go and watch.” Leszek knew it was Shirley Jackson and advanced to the quarterfinals.

His opponents in the first game were two other landmark Tournament of Champions winners: Robin Carroll and Roger Craig, both of whom we’ve seen this past year (and in Roger’s case will see again very soon.) Leszek got off to a fast start in the Jeopardy round and held the lead until the end of it. Then Roger as is his want got cooking in Double Jeopardy moved into the lead by the end. Leszek couldn’t come up with a response in Final Jeopardy but didn’t wager anything and got in via a wild card spot.

Unfortunately he ran into Brad Rutter in the semi-finals and as I mentioned in Tom Cubbage’s entry we all know how that tends to go. He finished in a distant third and was actually in the red for much of Double Jeopardy. He left with $25,000.

Leszek has since appeared on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and collectively may have won more money on other game shows by this point than he did in all his years on Jeopardy. He hasn’t shown up on the Chase or met Ken Jennings, so that’s another reason to bring him back.

JIM SCOTT

I missed both Jim Scott’s original run on Jeopardy and his appearance on the November 1991 Tournament of Champions by roughly a month. (I didn’t start watching the show proper until early 1992.) But in a sense we’ve all been watching Jim Scott on Jeopardy even if we haven’t seen it.

Remember that moment in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray is getting every answer on Jeopardy correctly? Well as Alex Trebek reminded Jim when he came back in the Battle of the Decades that’s a game in the 1991 Tournament of Champions that Jim Scott was playing in. (Which means Bill must have absolutely had no correct responses the first time around.) Jim’s original run was in September of 1990 when he won $49,300. Winning the 1991 TOC was far from a picnic. He only got to the semi-finals on a wild card berth and in that game you’ve seen again…and again…and again, Jim only managed to win because everyone responded incorrectly on Final Jeopardy and he ended up with just enough to win. In the first game of the final, he got off to an enormous lead and in Game 2 he was in a distant third at the end of Double Jeopardy. No one responded correctly on Final Jeopardy but because he wagered the least his big lead was enough to keep him ahead.

Jim’s luck in his two returns to Jeopardy has not been great. When he came back in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions he ran into the force of nature that was Jerome Vered, who ended up facing Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings in the final. (We’ll get to him, trust me.) Jim left with $5000. In the Battle of the Decades, he faced off against Chuck Forrest and India Cooper and at the end of Double Jeopardy was in a distant third. Chuck went on to win and he left with another $5000.

Jim, like Tom Cubbage, is one of the youngest winners of a Tournament of Champions from the first decade of Jeopardy. Honestly I would have preferred that he’d been invited back instead of a few people from the last Invitational Tournament, among them Doug Molitor. He certainly had a bigger claim to pop culture fame than some of the others and I think it’s well past time we see him. (And then, we can see him again…and again…and again.)

LESLIE SHANNON

Leslie Shannon is one of the earliest Jeopardy champions I have a memory of in my viewing experience. I remember her run in October of 1992 mainly because she was one of the first female champions I ever saw win five games. (At the time she was known as Leslie Miller.) Her total of $64,300 was a more than solid total in the 1990s and was basically the highwater mark for any participant in the 1993 Tournament of Champions, give or take a thousand dollars in either direction. She ended up becoming a semi-finalist in the Tournament of Champions via wildcard and ended up losing a close semi-final to Marilyn Kneeland that year’s Seniors Tournament winner.

She was extended an invitation to the Million Dollar Masters in 2002 and while she was blown out of the water by Bob Verini, she managed to qualify for the semi-finals via wildcard. Unfortunately she happened to run across Eric Newhouse on what would be his greatest day of play in his Jeopardy career and went home with $25,000.

Her absence from the Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005 was the most striking of those who didn’t return. Perhaps to atone for it she was extended an invite to the Battle of The Decades where she ended up playing against Tom Nosek and Richard Cordry in what was the most poorly played game of the entire tournament. Leslie managed to give sixteen correct response but also six incorrect responses. Perhaps most embarrassing, in a category called ’80s BABIES she twice responded with “Who is Baby Jessica?” and both times she was incorrect. (In fairness no one else could respond to them either.) She was also the only player to respond incorrectly to Final Jeopardy though it wasn’t an easy one.

The category was THE PERIODIC TABLE. “Of the element symbols that don’t match the element’s English name, this element’s symbol is alphabetically first.” She seemed to be mock sobbing and Alex said he hoped she hadn’t written down Jessica. She’d written down: “What is iron?” Both Richard and Tom knew the correct response: “What is silver (AG) Leslie went home with $5000.

Leslie is also one of Jeopardy’s biggest success stories. Due to her appearance on Jeopardy she received a dozen job offers and she took one. From that point she has been a world traveler, residing in Sydney in the Million Dollar Masters in 2002 and Finland in 2014. Considering her bubbly personality whenever she plays the game I think its time Leslie was invited back.

ANDREW WESTNEY

I have a complicated relationship with Andrew more than any other player on this list in regard to the Battle of the Decades.

When the Battle of the Decades was created fourteen players were invited back to participate in it and a fan favorite was selected to be voted on out of five previous Jeopardy greats. Of those five I had only seen one of them — Diane Siegel — in her original appearance in 1993. However I remembered all five from their appearance in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions and I ranked them based on their performance in the UTC. I may end up dealing with the other three choices in later entries; all you need to know is that of the five listed Andrew would have been the fifth I would have picked — and yet Andrew was voted on by the fans.

Going by the name Andy Westney in February of 1991 he won that year’s Teen Tournament. He was trounced by Mark Pestronk in the quarter-finals and went home with $1000. Back then he’d won a total of $26,000.

His first round appearance in the UTC was in the exact middle game of the first round. He did play well against Steve Newman and David Siegel in a thrilling game. But he lost and went home with $5000.

To be clear he wasn’t a bad Jeopardy player he just wasn’t my first choice to come back. That being said going up against Leslie Frates and Leszek Pawlowicz he played quite magnificently. He trailed Leszek by only a hair at the end of Jeopardy and his third place total of $13,600 was impressive. And since we are now at the stage of inviting former Teen Tournament winners from the fairly recently past I think it’s time we did so from the distant past as well. I’ll be emphasizing that very strongly in my next series.

In conclusion all of these players have a special place in the hearts of long-time Jeopardy fans of which as we all know I am prominent among them. I hope that they will someday return to the Alex Trebek stage — in large part to share their memories of him as well.

The next article about invitees will be significant for more reasons than one. Look for it soon.