(Stan Isaacs)

This is what Stan Isaacs gets for having been a terrific mentor—my lame attempt to revive his grand contributions to polling.

Isaacs, a premier Newsday sportswriter and columnist from 1954 to 1992 and among my more inspirational colleagues during his last 22 years there, died in 2013, at 83. He died on April 2, the day after his annual April Fool’s parody, the Isaacs Ratings of Esoteric Distinction, would have appeared. It’s high time those carefully judged rankings of apparent triviality be reinstated.

The IRED was pure Isaacs, goofy and worldly and creative. It was originally conceived, he explained to readers, “as a loving spoof of the Ring Magazine boxing ratings, a rush to respond to the unrecognized need for evaluations of quantities like The Bridges Across the River Seine.” He declared that “no category is too arcane” and that “the IRED never glittered more than when it evaluated People Who Were Neither On the Way Up or Down.”

He once ranked towns along the route of the Boston Marathon. And Bowling pins. And his Least Favorite States (he had Nevada No. 1). And Fred Astaire’s Dancing Partners. And Things That Aren’t As Good as They Used to Be.

He once ranked TV remote buttons: 1, Off. 2, Mute. 3, Return. 4, Exit. 5, Power. 6, Volume. 7, Channels. 8, Closed Caption. 9, Menu. 10, Pause.

He once ranked Lewis & Clark: 1, Clark. 2, Lewis.

On a couple of occasions, Isaacs gave me the extraordinary honor of serving as a guest contributor to the IRED, rating high school nicknames (The Polo Marcos of Illinois and Custer Indians of Milwaukee led my list) and United States Football League silver helmets (since nine of the 12 original teams in that short-lived league all wore silver helmets).

The idea of compiling such standings, Isaacs said, was to offer an “appraisal in areas that are generally ignored by raters.” A daunting task, given the high bar he set. But here goes:

Potatoes: 1, Mashed. 2, Baked. 3, French Fried. 4, Couch.

Obsolete golf clubs: 1, Niblick. 2, Spoon. 3, Brassie. 4, Cleek. 5, Mashie.

Most distinctive state flags: 1, New Mexico. 2, Louisiana. 3, Arizona. 4, California. 5, Colorado. 6, Texas.

English pairs: 1, Lennon and McCartney. 2, Fish and Chips. 3, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. 4, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. 5, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. 6, Henry VIII and Jane Seymour. 7, Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. 8, Henry VIII and Catherine Howard. 9, Henry VIII and Catherine Parr.

Mail: 1, e-. 2, Amazon. 3, Fed Ex. 4, UPS. 5. U.S. Postal Service.

Muppets: 1, Fozzie the Bear. 2, Statler & Waldorf. 3, Kermit. 4, Bert & Ernie. 5, Miss Piggy. 6, Beeker. 7, Animal. 8, Janice. 9, The Swedish Chef.

Twins: 1, Astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly. 2, NFL players Ronde and Tiki Barber. 3, BeeGees Robin and Maurice Gibb. 4, Advice columnist authors Dear Abby and Ann Landers. 5, Romulus and Remus. 6, Rod Carew.

Sports Scandals: 1. Chicago Black Sox throwing the 1919 World Series. 2 (tie) Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis Tour de France doping. 3, Rosie Ruiz Boston Marathon “victory” by running only the last half-mile. 4. Tonya and Nancy. 5, 1950s point-shaving in college basketball involving CCNY, NYU, LIU, Manhattan College, Bradley University, the University of Kentucky and the University of Toledo. 6, Ben Johnson’s steroid-powered 1988 Olympic sprint victory. 7, The 1983 George Brett Pine Tar Incident (ask a Yankee fan). 8, This month’s Australian cricket ball-scuffing incident.

Tigers: 1, Bengal. 2, Caspian. 3, Siberian. 4, Malayan. 5, University of Missouri.

Clouds: 1, Cirrus. 2, Stratus. 3, Cumulus. 4, Cumulonimbus.

Characters from TV’s Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle: 1, Moose. 2, Squirrel. 3, Boris. 4, Natasha. 5, Sherman. 6, Mr. Peabody. 7, Dudley Do-right. 8, Nell. 9, Snidely Whiplash.

Landscape implements: 1, Mower. 2, Trimmer. 3, Rake. 4, Hired Help.

Favorite currencies made obsolete by the adoption of the Euro: 1, Lira (Italy). 2, Forint (Hungary). 3, Peseta (Spain). 4, Deutsche Mark (Germany).

Favorite pollsters (in reverse order): 6, Nielsen. 5, Pew Research. 4, Gallup. 3, AP college football. 2, Quinnipiac. 1. Stan Isaacs.