After another week of computer problems, calls to software companies, and idiot non-English speaking customer service representatives, I finally have an 75% operational computer system. I’ve always loved working with computers but I came close this week to taking a sledge hammer to the whole damn setup. After I did that I would put a truly evil curse on every software company that has turned their customer service over to AI’s. I count my blessings that I can even complete this blog today but I will try. How about some meaningless sports trivia?
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MISSPELLED CUP
The Stanley Cup has two typos engraved on it. “BQSTON BRUINS, TORONTO MAPLE LEAES” and a number of misspelled players names as well.
The Olympics have been hosted by multiple countries that no longer exist: West Germany, Yugoslavia, and the USSR.
There is a minor league baseball team called the Montgomery Biscuits with a logo of a biscuit with bulging eyes and butter for a tongue.
A wok isn’t just a cooking implement but can also be a sled. So says the Wok World Championship group. Teams of players in modified woks race down bobsled tracks.
During the 1903 MLB season, pitcher Ed Doheny won 16 games and was then committed to an asylum for the “criminally Insane” where he remained for the rest of his life.
CAL RIPKEN
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Pete Rose was banned from baseball by MLB Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti.
Between 1982 and 1998 (16 years) Cal Ripken Jr. never missed a single Baltimore Orioles game.
Legend has it that Hall of Fame baseball player Wade Boggs once drank 107 beers in one day while traveling with the team.
NFL safety, Ronnie Lott, broke his pinky finger during a game. To avoid leaving the game he directed the team doctor to cut it off.
MLB Manager Alvin Dark once said, “There’ll be a man on the moon before pitcher, Gaylord Perry, ever hits a home run. Perry hit his first home run less than an hour after Neil Armstrong said his famous words.
I sat for a while this morning (Sunday) trying to decide what to post. With the NFL season “kicking off” I’m being constantly distracted by my football insane better-half. She’s wearing a different jersey for each of the games she intends to watch on three TV’s in three different rooms of the house. All the while giving me a steady stream of narrative on teams that I could care less about. So my solution is to calm down, put on my noise cancelling headset, and read some poems written by some young upcoming poets. Enjoy them and then you can return to all of the football insanity.
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By Jackson O’Donnell, Age 8
The clouds float by with eaglets watching by and by Really watching. They must think that they are kings Those funny little bald things.
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By Mona Thomas, Age 11
A little white mouse Playing upon a sun beam Then sliding back down.
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By Philip McIntyre Junior, Age 12
I see a rabbit drinking at a stream, I know it wants to run from me, tense as it may seem, But some unknown force makes it stay right there and sit, The same curiosity that makes me keep watching it.
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By Maura Copeland, Age 10
The heat of yesterday transformed the city into A kingdom of clouds. The skyscraper pierced the fog looking like temples of an ancient land.
While I’m not a complete sports fanatic, I remain an ardent NFL Fan. I was born and raised in the Pittsburgh area and my father created a rabid Steeler fan (me) at a very young age. I’ve celebrated in the 70″s when the Steeler’s won four Super bowls and then I moved to Boston. How could I possibly deny the Patriots with Tom Brady at the helm? It’s been a real pleasure to live through the rise and fall of those dynasties. Todays post will test your memory when you attempt to identify these players by their nicknames. As always the answers will be listed below.
Who was known as TheAssassin?
Who was nicknamed Bronco?
Who was known as Crazy Legs?
Who was The Galloping Ghost?
Who besides Deion Sanders was once called Hollywood?
Who was The Toe?
Tom Brady #2 Fav
Who was Broadway Joe?
Who was nicknamed Night Train?
Who was Tombstone?
Who was called White Shoes?
Who was known as The Alabama Antelope?
Who was The Flying Dutchman?
Baker Mayfield #3 Fav
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GO STEELERS
GO PATRIOTS
GO BUCS
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ANSWERS
Jack Tatum, Bronislau Nagurski, Elroy Hirsch, Harold “Red” Grange, Tom Henderson, Joe Namath, Dick Lane, Rich Jackson, Billy Johnson, Don Huston, Steve Van Buren, Lou Groza.
I’m quietly sitting here trying to decide what football team I should post about. I won’t post about the Pittsburgh Steelers because they’re just too awesome for this website. But unfortunately, Fall is football time and I’m starting to get the bug in a big way. In recent weeks I watched some good games, some bad games, and some ridiculously bad games. I thought I’d do some research to see if I can find any games that weren’t all that good in past years. Here is what I found.
This is about the game between Georgia Tech and Cumberland college. Sometimes colleges schedule games that are complete mismatches where one of the teams has absolutely no chance of winning. This was the worst loss I could find. It was October 7, 1916, and Cumberland was in big trouble.
Georgia Tech was coached by the great Johnny Heisman, for whom the Heisman Trophy was named. Cumberland, a tiny school, was located at Lebanon, Tennessee, and had a total enrollment of only 178 students. The Cumberland team agreed to play only because Tech promised a cash guarantee for money that would help support future football at their school. But within a few minutes the Cumberland players regretted they had ever agreed.
The slaughter began almost immediately. After one quarter, Georgia Tech had scored nine touchdowns and led 63-0. At the end of the half the score was 126-0. Georgia Tech scored whenever and however they pleased. Once Ev Strupper, who scored six touchdowns in the game, ran the ball to the goal line, then stopped and put the ball down on the one-yard line. He wanted his teammate, Canty Alexander, to carry the ball over the goal line to get credit for the score. After scoring 126 points in the first half, Georgia Tech let up a little and scored only 96 points in the second half.
Today’s post is going to do the unimaginable and permit us to time travel back 84 years to 1940. This is going to be a rambling narrative of things that were happening at the time and will start with the top five movies of the day: Boom Town, Fantasia, His Girl Friday, Kitty Foyle, and Knute Rockne All-American. Strange as it seems I recently saw a couple of these movies being streamed and I spent an hour and a half watching His Girl Friday with Cary Grant. After all those years it was still fun to watch because Cary Grant was effing amazing.
Ginger Rogers earned the best actress at the Academy Awards. The movie Grapes of Wrath was huge, and Walt Disney’s animation began to become a force in the movie industry with Pinocchio and Fantasia. Tom and Jerry weren’t far behind with Hanna-Barbera releasing Puss Gets the Boot. The year also brought us two future celebrities: Smokey Robinson born on February 19 and Peter Fonda born February 23. With the Great Depression over, 1940 consumer food intake became more dependent on canned foods such as soup, meat and vegetables.
Air travel was on the rise and the NFL’s Green Bay Packers became the first team to travel by air. The TWA Transcontinental Airline introduced the Stratoliner to help promote more travel across the continent. The United States had yet to be drawn into the war in Europe. The 1939-1940 World’s Fair was held at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in New York and was the largest world’s fair of all time.
In the world of sports baseball rapidly was spreading in popularity across the country. The Negro National League was steadily becoming more popular with teams like the Washington Homestead Grays (league champs), the Baltimore Elite Giants, and the Newark Eagles playing to large crowds.
Knute Rockne ruled college football with the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers being named the national champs. The Heisman Trophy winner was Michigan halfback Tom Harmon. The NFL Chicago Bears defeated the Washington Redskins 73-0, in one of the most one-sided games in professional football history.
In the early 1940’s cars began to take on a lower, longer and broader look. This new look fit in well with the luxury cars that were beginning to be produced. They were the La Salle Series 52, the Lincoln Zephyr V-12, and the Packard Custom Super-8 180.The Pennsylvania Turnpike was opened on October 1, 1940, and the first Los Angeles freeway was dedicated in December.
The entertainment industry released the top hits of 1940: In the Mood-Glenn Miller, Frensi-Arte Shaw, Only Forever-Bing Crosby, and I’ll Never Smile Again-Tommy Dorsey. The talk radio shows of 1940 listed The Adventures of Ellery Queen, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and Fibber McGee and Molly. And last but not least Franklin Delano Roosevelt hit the campaign trail in an attempt for a third term.
Now for some of the important stuff. The US population was 132 million. The average salary for a full-time employee was $1200 a year with the minimum wage of $.30 an hour. A loaf of bread was $.08, a pound of bacon was $.27, a pound of butter was $.36, a dozen eggs were $.33, a gallon of milk was $.26, a pound of coffee which $.21, 5 pounds of sugar was $.26, 10 pounds of potatoes was $.24, gasoline was $.11 a gallon, movie tickets were $.24, postage stamps were $.03, and an average car cost $990.00, and a single-family home was on average $2938.00.
Wow, what is it that wonderful smell? I smell NFL football in my immediate future and my Steeler blood lust has taken over. I’m already holding high hopes for a truly successful season this year. I’ve hung my Terrible Towel collection in my man-cave and I’m praying for a gut-busting season similar to the years with Terry Bradshaw, Big Ben Rothlisberger, and the old and hopefully new Steel Curtain. With that in mind, how about some historical football trivia to whet your whistle.
As 1944 opened, the United States was deeply involved in World War II. Of the millions of Americans overseas, many thousands were in North Africa, which had been freed from Axis control during 1943. It happened that several units stationed in North Africa had formed a kind of North African Football Conference. The two top teams in this league wanted to play in an “Arab Bowl.” Other officers and men wanted a game between the Army and the Navy soldiers instead. Finally, a compromise was reached. Why not have a football doubleheader? The first game was to be played by the Casablanca Rab Chasers against the Oman Termites, for the North African Football Conference championship.
On January 1, 1944, it was a very hot day in Oran. In a rugged opening game, that Casablanca Rab Chasers defeated the Oran Termites for the title. And then another problem arose. Neither of these teams would lend their equipment to the teams for the Army-Navy game. Shoulder pads and jerseys were so hard to get at that time and were just too valuable to lend to strangers. It was decided that the second game would be played without equipment, it would be a touch football game between the Army and Navy, and blocking was permitted. Also, they announced the halftime entertainment would be camel and burro races, with members of the Women’s Army Corps and Red Cross nurses mounted on the animals. The selection of the beauty queen was declared a tie between three WAC contestants. Since no one had pads, the ground game was mostly end runs and passes. Nobody was really hurt by the blocking, but the heat caused many substitutions. The Navy scored on a blocked punt and a pass. The kick was good and made the score 7-0. Army tied the game before the half ended. The second half was scoreless until the last minute of the game when Army’s Eddie Herbert intercepted a pass and returned it to the Navy twenty-yard line. With time for one more play the kick split the uprights and Army won the game 10-7.
I’m sure that the men who played in that game remember it more fondly than any Super Bowl they’ve seen since. All that fun without an overpaid celebrity showing boobs or moonwalking during the half-time show.
Well, it’s Sunday and the Steeler game has been canceled until Monday due to weather concerns. It’s a little annoying but not all that surprising for anyone who’s ever been in Buffalo during the winter. In my previous life as a regional manager for a national chain I was assigned stores in Buffalo and Niagara Falls. I swear to God that every time I made a trip there during the winter, I ended up getting snowed in and spending an extra day or two in order to give the citizens time to clean up the snow, open the roads, and allow me to fly the hell out of there. Buffalo is a nice town (sarcasm) but not a place I’d like to spend any extra time in. I’ve been to Niagara Falls and unfortunately if you’ve seen one waterfall you’ve seen them all. With that being said and since my day has been interrupted, I thought I’d get a little silly. Everyone seems to love the limericks I post so I offer you a few odd ball limericks today. These are tongue twister limericks written by a gentleman named Lou Brooks in 2009 in a book of the same name. Enjoy . . .
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Nosy Rose got closed in a closet of clothes,
The clothes closet closed on Rose’s red rosy nose,
She tweaked on her beak,
For over a week,
Rose’s nosy red nose now hangs close to her toes.
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Walt walked and talked on his wife’s walkie-talkie,
Walt’s wife’s walkie-talkie made Walt’s talky-talk squawky.
Wide awake while Walt walked,
Was what Walt was while he talked,
While Walt’s wife walked her way to Milwaukee.
Two of these should be sufficient. Trying to get a computer program to type these as I speak is ridiculous. Here’s a description of my day in a nutshell.
The internet has become famous for anonymous facts claiming to be true as well and out-and-out fake news and scams of all kinds. Here are ten facts that are surprising and amazingly TRUE.
More tickets were sold to see the movie Gone With the Wind in theaters than people living in America at its release.
John Lennon signed the official paperwork formalizing the split of the Beatles while staying at a Disney World hotel.
Yoda from the movie Star Wars, cookie monster from Sesame Street, and Miss Piggy from the Muppet Show were all voiced by the same person.
The leading role in the movie Forrest Gump was originally offered to John Travolta.
Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t draw the sketch of Kate Winslet in Titanic, but director James Cameron did.
Gene Roddenberry originally wanted Patrick Stewart to wear a wig for his iconic Star Trek role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
Stephen Spielberg submitted Schindler’s List as his final project for film school.
Brad Pitt’s first acting gig was dressing up as a giant chicken.
The NFL, NBA, and MLB have all had one player win the championship MVP while playing for the losing team.
Violet Jessop was the one passenger who was aboard both the Titanic and its sister ship the Britannic when they were sunk.
I’m a bit of a history lover but that usually involves old history like the Romans, Egyptians, and the Greeks. Today I thought I’d go into the past back to 1940. That’s well before my time and I’m pretty sure there aren’t many people left who were born in 1940. I’m also sure you’ve heard many people say it was always better back in “the good old days.”, so let’s find out.
The top three radio shows of 1940 were The Adventures of Ellery Queen, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and Fibber McGee and Molly. I wonder if they were appreciated by their audience as much as some of the TV shows are today.
1940 was also the first and only year for the production of the Mercury 8, a new model car. Also available was the Chevrolet Special Deluxe Sport Sedan, the new Ford V-8, and the Buick Super Model 51 Four-Door Sedan.
It was the year of the World’s Fair held at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in New York and was the largest world’s fair at that time.
Because of the war there were shortages of many things but one of the first new items to return to the stores was a new product, nylon stockings. They went on sale for the first time on May 15, 1940.
The 1940 college football season ended with the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers being named the national champions and Stanford in second place. The Heisman Trophy winner was Michigan halfback Tom Harmon. In the National Football League, the Chicago Bears defeated the Washington Redskins 73-0 in one of the most one-sided games in professional football history.
Here some facts and figures of 1940. The president of the United States was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the vice president was John Nance Garner. The population of the United States was 132,122,000, and the average salary for a full-time employee was $1200. per year. The minimum wage per hour was $.30.
On May 15, 1940, the first McDonald’s restaurant is opened in San Bernardino, California by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald.
On January 31, 1940, Ida M. Fuller became the first American citizen to receive a Social Security check. Her first check was for $22.54.
On January 17, 1940, Eleanor Roosevelt publicly endorsed birth control in a statement that she was not against the “planning of children”.
Now let’s get down to the important stuff. Here are the average costs for many of their everyday foodstuffs and we can only wish to have these prices back again. A loaf of bread was $.08, a pound of bacon was $.27, a dozen eggs was $.33, a gallon of milk was $.26, 1 pound of coffee was $.21, gasoline was $.11 per gallon, postage stamps were .03, the average car cost was $990.00, and a single-family home averaged just $2938.00.
It’s unusual for me to post about sports but occasionally I do so anyway. My favorite sport by far is baseball but over the years football has wormed its way into my life. It all started back in the seventies with the “Steel Curtain” and the “Immaculate Reception” and my one and only hometown team the Steelers. Football has slowly become Americas pastime by not so gently nudging baseball aside. Today I would like to do a short history lesson about football, it’s origins, during the years 1861 – 1946 (my birth year). Read on, you may learn a few interesting things beacuse I certainly did.
1861: The first documented football game that was essentially rugby and was played at the University of Toronto..
1874: McGill University and Harvard play a hybrid version of rugby. The rule changes affect the game in the United States.
1875: The official game ball becomes an egg-shaped rugby ball. The field is now 100 yards long by 53.5 yards wide and teams are cut to 15 players per side referees are also added to the game.
1876: With the addition of the crossbar official goalposts now look like the letter “H”.
1880 – 1885: Game fundamentals are introduced such as the down system (going 5 yards in three downs equals a first down), along with a scrimmage line and yard lines. Teams are now eleven to a side. A field goal is worth five points, a touchdown and conversion, four points each, and a safety is two points. The first play calling signals and planned plays are introduced.
1894: The officiating crew is increased to three; a referee and two bodyguards, also known as the umpire and linesman.
1896: Only one backfield man may now be in motion before the snap, any can be moving forward.
1897: A touchdown now counts as five points.
1909: Now a field goal is worth three points.
1910: Seven players must now be on the line of scrimmage when the ball is snapped, establishing the basic offensive formation concept. The forward pass becomes commonplace in college football.
1912: A rules committee determines that a touchdown is now worth six points and adds a fourth down. It is now practical to punt.
1922: The American Professional Football Association becomes the National Football League.
1932: The NFL begins keeping statistics.
1933: There is a major NFL rule change: the passer can throw from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage.
1934: The modern football takes its current shape after a gradual evolution from the oddly shaped egg like rugby ball.
1939: Helmets became mandatory in college football, and the pros followed within a decade.
1941: It’s the end of the dropkick era. Ray McClean boots a conversion off the turf in the NFL championship game. In 2005, Doug Flutie created a sensation by doing it once again.
1946: The NFL’s first major rival league, the All-American Football Conference begins play. It lasts just four seasons with the Cleveland Browns winning all four titles.
It took another eight years before I realized from my father that I had been born a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. I first became a rabid baseball fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates for the next 20 years. Slowly but surely football reached out and grabbed me and when the 1970’s hit I was hooked. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much to cheer about with the Steelers in recent years. I was fortunate enough to move to New England and got to enjoy all of the years of Tom Brady and the Patriots. My allegiance wavered when Brady moved to Tampa Bay, but everything must come to an end at some point. Now I’m what would be called a fair-weather fan.
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