Category Archives: Sports

Fort Sumter

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Fort Sumter

South Carolina’s license plate says, “First to Fight,” still rebelling after all these years. North Carolina’s says, “First in Flight,” in honor of the Wright brother’s feat. Fight or flight are two instinctual defense mechanisms, but I am not going to go there, because Anne has just won the license plate game. Rhode Island was the last holdout. She restarted the game and then saw another Little Rhody plate. This means that Rhode Island will not be the last holdout. Come on Hawaii!

There was sad news this morning that my childhood hero Willie Mays had died. I came of age in the world of baseball rooting for the San Francisco Giants. My brother and I would follow their games daily on our newly acquired transistor radios, cheering on Mays and the Giants and jeering their arch rivals the LA Dodgers. For a while we lived on base, near old Candlestick Park. Once our mother took us to a game there. Our dad dropped us all off and then went to work. We were waiting in line outside of left field when a towering home run from Mays’ teammate Willie McCovey came crashing down in the parking lot near us. The game was sold out and that home run might have been all the baseball that we saw that day, except that it was a double header. After the first game, some businessmen were leaving early, and Mom scored us box seat tickets for the second game. This was my brother’s and mine first MLB game.

Today’s itinerary was nautically themed, we first visited the aquarium and then Fort Sumter. The aquarium had lots of silent fish and screaming children. Sumter is on an island, so we took a ferry there, another three-hour tour. There were no working bathrooms at the fort. This message was repeatedly drilled into us. I surmise that the real reason during the Civil War that this fort fell was not that it could not holdout any longer, but the defenders couldn’t hold it any longer. 😉 

Super Bowls, Past and Present

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Sioux Headdress

Last night’s Super Bowl is now one for the record books. Overall, it was a good game. The Chiefs won. The first half was a bit of a sleeper and could have been skipped. I guess that is why they tacked on a third half at the end. The commercials were rather meh. Taylor did not get engaged. Beyoncé broke the internet, again. Did I miss anything? I guess that I was still keyed up over the close game, because afterwards, I watched a movie about football. American Underdog is the story of Kurt Warner and the role that he played in winning the Super Bowl here in Saint Louis. This biopic stars Zachary Levi as Warner. Levi is more famous for his more recent Shazam superhero movies. Costarring is Anna Paquin as Brenda Warner. The movie dwells on Warner’s football beginnings, with emphasis on his stint playing arena football. Eventually, he was noticed by the Rams. After a tryout, he was signed. When the Rams’ starting quarterback was injured, he stepped in and stepped up to lead the team to victory, as part of the so called “Greatest Show on Turf.”

Super Bowl LVIII (Taylor’s Version)

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Sioux Bear Claw Necklace

Way back in the year 1849, at the height of the California Gold Rush, plains Indians mainly allowed the white prospectors to peacefully pass over their land. There were a lot of them going by, but they were just passing through. Later the Sioux decided to put a halt to this trespassing, and we had that whole Custer thing. Fast-forward to today when the namesake descendants of these two parties meet to do battle in this year’s Super Bowl, with the San Francisco 49ers versus the Kansas City Chiefs.

Let that not particularly politically correct preamble serve as a launching point for the flights of fancy served up here. Let’s face it folks, this game is all about the hype. This year the NFL has settled upon the traditional two full weeks of pregame hype. So, without much further ado, let the games begin. 

She knew he was a killa, first time that she saw him. And we knew… this Super Bowl would be our end game. You love the players, and you love the game, but whether you are cheer captain for your team or just butt planted on the back bench (read couch), let the games begin. Are you ready for it? Baby, let the games begin. We’ve got you covered for a new way to bejewel your Super Bowl experience. Wait for it… bingo. Super Bowl bingo, Taylor’s version of course.

This year’s game is being played in Las Vegas, Sin City. Holding the game there is like a coming out party for the NFL. There are all sorts of predictions, also-known-as bets surrounding this big game. Besides the glaringly obvious one, like who is going to win, but I’ll leave that one to the experts. What’s the over-under on the number of Taylor Swift VIP box shots? 

Photo by Omid Armin on Unsplash

The true highlight for this game, at least for me, is the food. As soon as I am done writing this post, I am headed to the grocery store. Tempting goodies have been on display there for weeks now. It should be mobbed. I sure hope so, because I am looking for some of that pregame energy flooding through the shopping aisles. I have a bit of a problem this year though, because I am also looking for both low-sodium and low-fat snacks. Please pass the celery.

No recount of this game can be complete without discussing its commercials. Usually, I spend the weeks prior to the game hunting out previews of these mini dramas. Willing to endure repetitive YouTube ads, again and again, just to watch them once. This year I have been pretty good though. I was weak only once, when I caved to see the new E*Trade babies play pickle ball. Maybe next year Declan will be old enough to play pickle ball too? What do you think?

In a post all about Super Bowl LVIII (and Taylor Swift) I really should talk about football some. Let’s see here, I have already covered the two teams that are playing, and I really should give a shoutout to Taylor’s boyfriend. But I am already over 500+ words and I really should give it a break now. So, let’s break for commercials. We will be right back tomorrow, with the post-game show.

Rookie Babe Ruth

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Luke Urban was my great-uncle. He was my mother’s father’s brother. As his biography relates, he was quite the sports hero. He seemingly played every sport available, football, basketball, hockey and baseball. After making All American at Boston, he went on to play professional sports, playing both football and baseball. He played Major League Baseball for the Boston Braves, during two seasons in the late 1920s. In later years he returned to his (and eventually my) hometown of Fall River, MA and coached the high school boys’ teams successfully until retirement. There is a sports arena in Fall River, named for him still in operation to this day.

Family legend has it that Uncle Lukey had once roomed with Babe Ruth. The story goes that Lukey, the low man on the pole, got stuck rooming with the Babe, because none of the other players wanted to room with him. Supposedly the Babe would go out partying at night and then come back to the room late, waking up his sleeping roommate. The other anecdote from this liaison, has Lukey recounting that the Babe was always borrowing money. He always closed the story with, “But he would always pay you back.” I had always assumed that they met while playing for the Boston Braves. I imagined Lukey, as the young kid coming up for his chance at The Show. I imagined the Babe, past his prime, just traded from the Yankees, back to Boston. The problem with this story is that while both Lukey and the Babe did both played for the Braves, they did so in different decades. Another problem with this view is that Lukey was only three years younger than the Babe. I did find this reference to Lukey in the book, Fall River Dreams, that somewhat substantiates the family’s story.

It adds the news that they roomed together while playing for a minor league team and not in the major’s as I had assumed. According to Wiki, while the Babe was on his way up, he was once sent back down from the Boston Red Sox’s to the minors to play for the Providence Grays. The year would have been 1914. Lukey would have been in high school and only sixteen. The Babe would have been nineteen. The Babe got his nickname because he was so young looking when he started playing. Providence is not that far from Fall River and in high school Lukey was already playing ball. Maybe they did room for one summer. Lukey was a catcher and at the time the Babe was a pitcher, both young, they would have made a natural pairing. In 1948, the year of the Babe’s death, Lukey was managing the minor league team, the Fall River Indians. The Indians regularly played the Grays as part of the New England League. I believe the family’s stories. Lukey’s career was substantial enough that it did not require whole cloth embellishments. It would be nice to have more conclusive historical evidence, but just think of the promise of this story, a sixteen-year-old boy rooming one summer with the King of Swat. Who wouldn’t want to be that boy?

Let the Games Begin!

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The War Bonnet, Joseph Henry Sharp, 1904

Well, it was not to be. I was hoping for a Lions versus Chiefs Superbowl matchup, but Detroit let me down. They blew a seventeen-point first half lead and ended up losing to San Francisco by a mere field goal. Meanwhile, Kansas City plucked the Ravens clean, earning themselves yet another Superbowl berth. But play on the field will have to take second or maybe third billing. Perennially, all of those big sweaty guys have to take the backseat to the parade of new ads that are the main attraction for many in the audience.

This year, even Madison Avenue will play second fiddle to the newest show in town, the Taylor and Travis extravaganza. In case you have been living under a rock, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are an item. Last night’s penultimate Chiefs game was punctuated with repeated coverage of Travis making great plays, followed by a quick cut to Taylor, who was shown cheering him on. CBS repeated this combo so often that she eventually mouthed her disapproval.

The straw that seems to have broken her back, was when CBS took the opportunity to promote their coverage of this Sunday’s Grammy awards. Taylor is nominated for six. The two-week lull between the last weekend of real football and the Superbowl is normally saturated with hype that begins to wear thin after fourteen days, but this year it looks like the hype well is overflowing.

I’ve covered the sports and entertainment aspects of this trifecta but have yet to mention the political ramifications of the Taylor-Travis relationship. Swift has campaigned for the Democrats and Kelce has promoted Pfizer’s Covid vaccinations. Positions that are guaranteed to garner scorn from Republicans and their ilk. The internet incels have already worked themselves into a frothy rage. One can only imagine where they will be by game time. 

Hail to the Victors Valient!

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Center of the Diag

The weather forecast for Houston, Hail! Michigan came through and won the national championship. Harry even stayed up to watch the game in its entirety. We watched the game on some weird ESPN channel. It showed no commercials, and when the normal broadcast went to commercial break, it stayed on the field. On a positive note, it showed the halftime show. In lieu of commercials, we saw various on field award presentations. One of these awards were for teachers. Watching this caused Anne to remember a dream that she had had while she was still teaching.

In her dream she was subbing at the high school. A kid acted up in class and she called him out for it. This boy was on the football team and when coach heard about his behavior, he benched him for that night’s game. Our high school was small and fielding a football team was difficult. I remember going to see a game and at halftime, one of the players, still in his football uniform, joined the marching band as the tuba player. So, in this dream, when Anne heard that the student that she had called out had been benched, she felt compelled to take his place on the field, as a substitute sort of speak. Dressing for the game, she began to feel some trepidation. Especially, when she donned her shoulder pads. She remembered wondering, if she should take one or two Advil before the game.