Boston kids born in the twenty-first century take it for granted that, in the words of Mick Jagger at a Rolling Stones concert at Fenway Park in 2004, “Boston is a championship city.”
Those of us who’ve been around a little longer don’t take these things for granted. So an occasional reminder just before the start of another NFL season seems appropriate.
Kentucky Derby winner, in the mud.
Photo: Michael Clevenger
By Danny Coleman for the "Old Images of Philadelphia" page on Facebook
What's in a name.... The Philadelphia Blue Jays???Hold on to your hats this is a doozy...In 1942 the "Phillies" officially changed their name to "Phils". In 1943 lumber baron William Cox bought the team and changed it back to "Phillies". He was only able to buy the team because Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis blocked Bill Veeck's attempt to buy the team and load it with players from the Negro League. That being said under Cox's ownership he devoted the resources to fund a real team with an actual farm system as the Phillies finished last perennially. They finally were "out of the basement ". But.... the owner, Cox, was caught betting on the team and subsequently was banned from baseball. The Carpenter family then bought the team and tried to clean up the image by subtlety naming it the "Blue Jays". The name did not take but the farm system did and yielded Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn and the 1950 National League Champion Whiz Kids!!! Yes it's ironic the "Phillies" lost to the "Blue Jays" in the 1993 World Series.
Early this morning, runners prepare to board busses in Boston for the trip to the Boston Marathon starting line in Hopkinton.
Stuff like this just drives me crazy. In what universe are Super Bowl championships and MVP awards equivalent? Next, we'll see Tom Brady versus the entire Manning family.
Cubs are in the World Series!
I think CNN would do well to hire the ex-Seahawks running back for occasional commentary on politics.
Pretty good so far, but please keep trying. Perhaps you might focus on the Boston Red Sox today.
The German translator's English is not so good, but Patriots fans will cut him some slack. It is rare to be able to look inside Chancellor Goodell's NFL Bunker and see what really happens there after an exciting weekend of NFL football.
I'm not the only one thrilled by the outcome of his lame Frat Boy stunt.
Even as a youngster, he was a strong swimmer.
I went to Summer camp this morning, in Foxborough MA, with about 10,000 other New England Patriots fan(atic)s.
It was very hot, and free, and absolutely wonderful to see football back for another season.
And Tom Brady was already in his teammates' faces to push harder. He even chewed out a ball boy for getting in his way.
A WBZ-TV reporter interviewed me on camera about my expectations for the team during TB12's four-game regular season suspension.
"3-1" I replied. No hesitation.
It's on...
And still, the pink hats sang along to "Sweet Caroline" after the top of the seventh inning. Kind of like the way passengers aboard the Titanic sang "Nearer My God To Thee" as it was on its way to the bottom of the sea...
Winner, and still Heavyweight Champion of the World. .
Photo: Neil Leifer
The league is conducting extensive testing of helmets prior to the start of the 2016-17 season.
After the Primary debates ceased to be fun anymore and I suspended my political campaign, I've been getting more and more excited about the upcoming NFL season.
Outside of rooting for my fellow Penn State alum Christian Hackenberg to get drafted by a decent team tonight, I care as much about the NFL Draft as I do about fantasy football. Which is zero.
With the almost-certainty of Jimmy Garoppolo playing quarterback for the New England Patriots while Tom Brady serves his four game regular season suspension, I can't wait for the new season to start.
NFL training camps will open in about ninety days, just after the Republican convention in Cleveland. TB12 will only have played his first couple of regular season games and we will have a good idea of whether or not this will be the "Fuck You" season that Patriots fans had hoped for last year, one that ends with another Super Bowl victory.
And not long after Brady returns from his suspension, we will finally know whether the next President of the United States will be Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
As it was for me during the late 1960s, I am once again blessed to live in interesting times.
Today is Opening Day of the 2016 Major League Baseball season. Go Red Sox!
When Brendan Boyd and I wrote The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading And Bubblegum Book, we needed some kind of coda at the end - something in line with the smartass tone we'd created, mixed with equal measures of snark and nostalgia. Sibby Sisti replaced Mrs Calabash in the old Jimmy Durante exit line, and just like that, we had our coda and the book rode off into the sunset.
But we never expected that line to stick in so many readers' minds, to the point where it still comes back in comments and reviews of the book, especially since it was re-issued as a facsimile edition Kindle Book in 2015.
The other thing that's come back is the question about whether/when a sequel to the original book will appear. The answer to that question is "soon, I hope". Work is in fact under way on a sequel that will apply the same blend of snark and nostalgia in the original book to cards of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, and will include a first-hand take on the ways in which the business of baseball cards has changed - for better and for worse.
Stay tuned...
So we're showing my Sister-in-Law the sights around Boston today, and who should I run into in Quincy Market, sitting on a bench, but my old friend Red Auerbach, the legendary Hall Of Fame coach of the Boston Celtics. And it's still okay to smoke cigars in public!
