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Archive for the ‘Feature Stories’ Category

Baseball’s “Tools of Ignorance”

15 Jun

 

I’m very proud of my grandson Josh who is the regular catcher on his youth baseball team this year and doing a fantastic job. I have to admit though, that he is poking a hole in my theory of how a coach picks his catcher on a little league team. I always enjoyed coaching my son’s Babe Ruth league teams when he was growing up, and one of the enjoyable things was taking a group of 12-15 kids who show up at the first practice and organizing them into something that resembles a real baseball team. There’s always the short, agile, quick kid who can hit, field and throw (usually because he had 3 older brothers who had him out in the field playing with them at the age of 2). He is automatically the pitcher / shortstop. Then there’s always a tall, gangly kid who doesn’t throw very well but catches the ball and for some reason always seems to be lefthanded. He is your first baseman. But I always joked that I had a method for picking out a catcher each year and Josh doesn’t fit the mold. The first practice session was usually held in early spring and up here in Buffalo that means the players are all decked out in winter jackets, winter gloves under their baseball mitts and winter wool hats instead of baseball caps. Then there was always one kid who would show up late, flying in on his BMX bike, hair messed up, decked out in shorts and a camouflage t-shirt, with snot hanging out of his nose. His idea of parking his bike would be to jump off it and let it crash into the backstop to stop it. You just waited for this kid to show up, pointed at him and said “Get the gear on, you’re the catcher!”  I always assumed this was pretty close to the same method hockey coaches used to choose their goaltender, and football coaches  their nose tackle, since all these positions require a “special breed” of person. There’s a reason baseball has always referred to the catcher’s equipment as the “tools of ignorance”. The poor guys who play the position take a beating and work harder than anybody else on the field. Actually I think it was a catcher who made up that term, and I always hear Fox broadcaster Tim McCarver, a former catcher, use it.

 
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Posted in Baseball, Feature Stories

 

NFL – Y.A. Tittle and Why I Love Football

09 Jun

This photo of Y.A. Tittle, battered and bleeding after a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the early 1960s, was voted The Sporting News sports photo of the century, and in my opinion is the greatest sports photograph of all time. It was during the era that Tittle played that I became completely addicted to NFL football. I’m not sure today’s players realize or appreciate it, but it was the players in that golden era of the 1960s who built the game into what it is today. Tittle played in the San Francisco 49ers “All-alphabet” backfield along with J.D. Smith, C.R. Roberts and R.C. Owens in the wild and wooly 1950s, then was traded to the New York Giants, a perennial title contender. I was a Cleveland Browns fan back then, and at that time the Giants were the Browns’ biggest rival, with the two teams regularly fighting for the Eastern Division crown. This means I enjoyed seeing Tittle get beaten and battered every week, but as time passed I grew to have a great appreciation for Tittle the warrior, whose career was a Don Quixote-like quest for an NFL title, which he never achieved. There were no rules protecting the quarterbacks back then – if anything they were bigger targets for large, mean defensive players than any other players on the field. After being traded to New York, Tittle’s career flourished, as he was twice named NFL MVP and led the Giants to 3 consecutive championship games. They lost all three, the first 2 to Vince Lombardi’s emerging dynasty in Green Bay, and the last to George “Papa Bear” Halas’s Chicago Bears in 1963. Tittle took a particularly brutal beating in that game, and retired at age 38 not long after. He is now remembered as a guy who fought hard and played hurt his whole career, and his story is told in his autobiography “Nothing Comes Easy”. Also, his daughter Diane Tittle de Laet wrote a poignant book “Giants and Heroes: A Daughter’s Memories of Y.A. Tittle”  in which she shares her memories of her father’s quest for a title. In my mind Tittle is Exhibit A in the argument that winning Super Bowls should not be the only measuring stick for players to be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and thankfully he was inducted in 1971.

 
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Posted in Feature Stories, Football

 

John Wooden Remembered

07 Jun

What struck me the most when reading the many articles this weekend on the passing of basketball coaching legend John Wooden were the words being used, by the people who knew him best, to describe him – kind, selfless, humble, honest, wise, loyal, gentleman, teacher, grounded in faith,  loving, fair, patient. One article noted that one of his team rules was no cursing. Can you imagine that rule on a Bob Knight-coached team? When U.C.L.A. decided to honor Wooden and his wife by naming the court at Pauley Pavilion after them, Wooden insisted that his wife’s name be put first, so it became officially the Nell and John Wooden Court.  His career numbers as a coach are staggering – 10 national championships (the next highest total for one individual coach is 4), a record 88 game winning streak, total domination of the college game and similar to Wayne Gretzky’s numbers as an NHL player. Some critics might argue that he was blessed with some of the greatest players of all time, including legends Kareem Abdul Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) and Bill Walton. I would agree with the comments of Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post  Dispatch, who noted that Wooden’s accomplishments are even more amazing because they came in a time of turmoil, when young people were striving to be individuals and protesting against the Vietnam War, for Civil Rights and against the “establishment”. Yet he managed, year after year, to pull his team together  and convince them to put their individualism aside to strive for the team goal.  His story is the ultimate statement that nice guys CAN finish first.

 
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Posted in Basketball, Feature Stories

 

Best NHL Goalie Ever

07 May

Whenever you hear any discussion of who is the best NHL goaltender of all time, the same names are always in the mix. It’s usually an argument between 2 more modern-day players, Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur. There are 3 old-timers who deserve consideration in my opinion – Jacques Plante, Glenn Hall and most of all Terry Sawchuk. Sawchuk is the greatest of all time as far as I’m concerned. He spent most of his career with the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs, winning 4 Vezina Trophies and playing on 4 Stanley Cup winners. When he retired he held the NHL record for wins and shutouts. His statistics carry the argument on their own, but what makes him the best is the fact that he played most of his career in the days prior to the introduction of goalie masks, and this picture is what seals the deal. It shows the cumulative effects of his 21 years in the NHL. What a warrior!

 
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Posted in Feature Stories, Hockey

 
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