I can’t tell you how many times in my life that I’ve been assured by so-called experts that things were good and ten minutes later another so-called expert is screaming “doom and gloom”, it’s damn confusing. It’s amazes me how many experts or so-called experts exist especially when discussing sports. Let’s look into sports a little and listen to the real experts.
BASEBALL
“If Jesus were on the field he’d be pitching inside and breaking up double plays. He’d be giving high fives to the other guys.” Tim Burke, Montréal Expos pitcher
“They shouldn’t throw at me. I’m the father of five or six kids.” Tito Fuentes, National League infielder
“I am a four-wheel-drive pickup type of guy. So is my wife.” Mike Greenwell, Boston Red Sox outfielder
FOOTBALL
“Man, I want you just thinking of one word all season. One word and one word only: Super Bowl.” Bill Peterson, Florida State football coach
“I don’t care what the tape says. I didn’t say it.” Ray Malavasi, St. Louis Rams coach
“Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.” Joe Theismann, player/commentator
BASKETBALL
“Left-hand, right-hand, it doesn’t matter. I’m amphibious.” Charles Shackleford, North Carolina State player
“I have won at every level, except college and pro.” Shaquille O’Neal, former Los Angeles Laker player
“A lot is said about defense, but at the end of the game, the team with the most points wins- the other team loses.” Isaiah Thomas
SOCCER
“If we play like that every week, we wouldn’t be so inconsistent.” Bryan Robeson
“I’m going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes.” Unnamed senior, University of Pittsburgh
“What I said to them at halftime would be unprintable on the radio.” Gerry Francis
“He’s one of those footballers whose brains are in his head.” Derek Johnstone
It’s seems to be an appropriate time for a few truths. We get so much BS from the Media and advertisers that many times we really aren’t sure what’s true and what’s not. Let me lay some truths on you today for a change. These are listed in no particular order.
Most American car horns honk in the key of F.
Silly Putty was the result of a failed attempt by General Electric to create a synthetic rubber for use in World War II.
A bank in Vernal, Utah, was built from bricks delivered by the U.S. Postal Service in 1916. The builders discovered that it was cheaper to mail them then to ship them from Salt Lake City.
Carl Hubbard is the only person inducted into three different sports halls of fame: baseball, college football, and Pro football.
The final resting place of Dr. Eugene Shoemaker, a geologist, is the moon. He arranged to have his ashes placed on board the Lunar Prospector spacecraft that was launched on January 6, 1998.
The “Too T TrappeR” is a charcoal filter shaped like a seat cushion that’s designed to silence and deodorizing any unwanted fart’s. It comes in gray or black and makes a rather awkward Christmas gift.
In days past, the term boner referred to a person who was a textile worker who inserted stays into women’s corsets and brassieres.
The only marsupial that is native to North America is the Virginia opossum.
Americans drink 50 times more soda now than they did a century ago.
It takes about 2,893 licks to get to the center of a typical Tootsie Pop.
The longest overdue book in the United States is 145 years (in Ohio). The longest in the world is 288 years (in Germany).
Breast reduction is the fifth most popular plastic surgery procedure for men.
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
“Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans.
It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.”
I woke up at 4:45 am today and it’s still cold and miserable outside. It’s been raining for a day and a half and I hate it. I made the decision to stay in bed under my warm electric blanket and to watch one of my favorite movies, The Godfather. There’s nothing like an couple hours of senseless violence, mayhem and the occasional murder or two to get your day started. I then caught up on the days sport scores so as not to be totally uninformed. My coffee was hot but unfortunately none of my hometown teams (Pittsburgh) were. I’ve been wanting to post a few limericks this week and I’ve also got sports on my mind. What’s better than a few sporty limericks to kick off this crappy day.
I’m not a huge sports fan but many people are. I’m strictly a baseball fan and have an interest in only one or two football games a season. Surprisingly many of our most famous celebrities played sports of one kind or another in their younger days. Check these sports fans out.
Matthew Perry – Ranked teenage tennis star at age 13 in Ottawa.
Kurt Russell – Left acting for Minor League baseball in 1971.
Queen Latifah – Power forward on two state championship basketball teams.
Richard Gere – Won a gymnastic scholarship to the University of Massachusetts.
Tommy Lee Jones – Was a champion polo player.
Keanu Reeves – Voted MVP on his high school hockey team.
Billy Crystal – Attended college on a baseball scholarship.
Jack Palance – Was once a professional boxer.
Sarah Michelle Gellar – Was a highly placed competitive figure skater.
Chevy Chase – Once worked as a tennis professional.
A guess there were a few surprises on that list but it’s nice to know that under all of that Hollywood nonsense lives a bunch of regular sports loving folks.
While I’m not much of a sports fan these days, I did play a lot of sports over the years. I loved playing sports but watching them now is as much fun as watching paint dry. I’m still a lover of trivia too so it’s about time I matched them up. Here are a few sports trivia facts you may not have been aware of.
Wilt Chamberlain averaged 48.5 minutes per game in 1961–62. That means he played every minute of every game and every minute of every overtime.
Pittsburgh is the only city where every one of its professional sports teams wears the same colors.
Major league baseball uses approximately 900,000 balls every season.
Prior to the 1930s in the NBA a jump ball used to follow every made basket.
One of the greatest pitchers in MLB history was known to run off the field during games to chase firetrucks. Rube Waddell was fascinated with firetrucks and managers had a difficult time keeping him on the mound if one drove by. It didn’t stop him from being one of the greatest strikeout pitchers in the history of the game.
Wilt Chamberlain once averaged over 50 points per game for an entire season.
Before Babe Ruth, MLB’s career home run record was just 138. When the babe retired, the new record was 714.
Jackie Mitchell, one of the first (and only) female player in the major league baseball system, once struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in consecutive at-bats. The strikeouts occurred during a minor league exhibition game against the Yankees.
For 43 years, the NFL record for the longest made field goal was held by a man (Tom Dempsey) with no toes on his kicking foot.
Jackie Robinson was not the first black player in major league baseball. William Edward White, a former slave, served as a one-game replacement player in 1879. Moses Fleetwood Walker lasted slightly longer, playing nearly a full season in 1884, 63 years before Jackie Robinson made his historic debut.
I’m a huge fan of baseball primarily because I played it for so many years. It’s the best! However, I will continue to poke the baseball bear in the eye whenever possible. The game is sacred to me, but the individual players are not. So, let’s have a little fun today.
“Any pitcher who throws at a batter and deliberately tries to hit him is a Communist.” Alvin Dark, New York Giants Infielder
“Even Napoleon had his Watergate.” Danny Ozark, Philadelphia Phillies manager
“Folks, this is perfect weather for today’s game. Not a breath of air.” Curt Gowdy, sports commentator
“All I said was that the trades were stupid and dumb, and they took that and blew it all out of proportion.” Ron Davis, Minnesota Twins pitcher
“I am throwing twice as hard as I ever did. It’s just not getting there as fast.” Lefty Gomez, New York Yankee pitcher
“I prefer fast foods.” Infielder Rocky Bridges, when asked why he wouldn’t eat snails
“I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf.” Tug McGraw, National League pitcher, when asked whether he preferred grass or Astroturf
“Raise the urinals.” Darrel Chaney, Atlanta Braves infielder, on how to keep the Braves on their toes
“Sometimes they write what I say and not what I mean.” Pedro Guerrero, National League player
“I lost it in the sun.” Billy Loes, Brooklyn Dodger pitcher after fumbling a grounder
Since I was talking about Little League baseball in my last post, I thought a little more sports trivia might be interesting. Here are a few tidbits from baseball and football that you might be aware of, and you may not. Enjoy . . .
Baseball
In the early days of baseball, players were permitted to throw the ball at a runner for an out and pitching underhanded. Balls caught on one bounce were considered outs.
The team who won the first recorded game of baseball was the New York Nine. They beat the New York Knickerbockers 23 to 1 in 1846. By 1857, 16 New York area clubs were playing baseball under the auspices of the National Association of Baseball Players (NABBP), the sports first governing body.
1903 was the first year in which a World Series was played. The Boston Americans (American League) beat the Pittsburgh Pirates (National League) in a best-of-seven nine-game series. Five years later, the Boston Americans rebranded themselves as the Boston Red Sox.
It is commonly believed that Glenn Burke of the Los Angeles Dodgers, gets credited for the invention of the high-five. During the final game of the 1977 regular season, Dodger player Dusty Baker hit a home run and was greeted in the dugout with the high-five slapped by teammate Glenn Burke. The rest is history.
Football
President Theodore Roosevelt is credited with instituting the forward pass rule in football. He demanded a change to footballs rules in 1905, after 18 players were killed and 159 injured that year. The forward pass was intended to open up the game and minimize the chaotic dog piles associated with lateral passing. The rule was adopted in 1906.
The original name of the Oakland Raiders was the Oakland Senors. It was the winning entry in a 1959 test sponsored by the Oakland Tribune to name the new franchise.
The Chicago Bears are the only current NFL team playing in its original city, under its original name. They’ve been the Chicago Bears since 1921.
It is estimated that 78% of professional football players are bankrupt or in severe financial trouble after retiring from the NFL. That’s after just two years of retirement.
Deion Sanders in 1989, played in the Super Bowl for the Atlanta Falcons and in the World Series for the New York Yankees. He’s also the only person to have scored a touchdown and hit a major league home run in the same week.
Well, it looks like winter is finally fading away. What does that mean to most of us? Warm weather and lots of sports. Today I want to combine your love of sports with my love of limericks. Here are four limericks concerning golf and baseball. Enjoy!
Let’s have a little fun today. While I’m not the greatest sports fan who’s ever lived, I have a deep and abiding passion for baseball. Not listening to or watching games on television (other than the Little League World Series) but actual playing at it for many years. I find watching sports these days is as much fun as watching paint dry. They’re not the same games as they were when I was growing up. All that being said there are certain things about sports that are universal and forever and one of those is the words of wisdom spoken by Yogi Berra. He was a great ballplayer, but his little tidbits of wisdom made him more famous than baseball. I’ve picked up a few of them here and there over the years and then I discovered a gold mine of them in recent weeks. These are the ones I like the best and here they are for your enjoyment. Let’s go…
“This is like déjà vu all over again.”
“You got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
In reference to movie star Steve Queen, “He must’ve made that movie before he died.”
When asked what he would do if he found $1 million, he stated, “I’d find the fellow who lost it and if he was poor, I’d return it.”
“Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical.”
“A nickel isn’t worth a dime today.”
When asked for the time, he stated, “Do you mean now?”
“If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
“I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat, and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it wasn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?”
“It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.”
When asked about his hat size he stated, ” I don’t know. I’m not in shape yet.”
“You should always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise, they won’t come to yours.”
“I take a two-hour nap, from one o’clock to four.”
“You give 100% in the first half of the game, and if that isn’t enough, in the second half you give what’s left.”
“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
Well, there you have it folks. The sport of baseball hasn’t been the same since Yogi retired and passed away. We need more like him in all of today’s sports to keep us aware that it’s just a game for kids. That’s how it was before it became nothing but agents, money, negotiations, social media, media interviews, and a few hundred talking heads who think they have all the answers. They’ve all done their best to ruin “Americas Pastime” and it’s a damn shame.
Yesterday was an odd day. After my forty-five minute workout I completed what few chores I had scheduled, changed clothes, and was off to do some shopping. At 11:30 I received a message from my better-half who’d just left work and was headed home. I no sooner stepped from my car than it was decided we’d be spending the next few hours exploring along the seacoast and looking for a restaurant. We were hoping for a place we’d never before visited. Our travels brought us to Cape Porpoise, Maine located in a small harbor near the Whale Island lighthouse. We’ve been in this area many times before but never had occasion to visit any of the three small restaurants located there.
I saw a sign, "The Ramp", with a walkway extending behind a larger restaurant down towards the water. It was a tiny Bar & Grill tucked behind and under the other restaurant.
It had a sports theme and the walls and ceilings were covered with memorabilia from just about everywhere. Football helmets, autographed pictures, political signs, basketball hoops, and a helleva lot more. It was one of the coolest bars I’ve ever visited and I’ve been in a few.
We had a couple of drinks while we waited for our food and the place was packed with people. Fortunately for us we’d been seated just before the big Friday afternoon crowd arrived. The wait for a seat was close to forty minutes but nobody seemed to mind. You could lounge with a drink along the water waiting for your table.
I ordered a plate of Portuguese mussels that were without a doubt the best I’ve ever had. They were swimming in a broth of red chili’s, hot sausage, and herbs. My better-half had the crab cakes which she raved about for the rest of the day.
The beer was cold, the food delicious, and the help was better than expected considering how busy it was. We found ourselves making plans to return to this little bistro before we’d finished our first beers.
‘The Whale Island lighthouse.’
This little place was one of the nicest surprises we’ve had in some time. We’ll be returning very soon to try a few more local brews and delicious food. The meal was beautifully presented, delicious, and nicely priced. Our check not including the tip was $62.00 and believe me when I say it was money well spent.
‘You can’t get seafood much fresher than this. Right off the boat.’
If you’re ever in the vicinity you should stop by for a nosh. This is one of those hidden little treasures that’s mainly frequented by the locals who know a good thing when they have it.
everyuselessthing.com 