Thomas Nast, “Santa Claus in Camp” (1863)
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Final Score: Santa 1, Grinch 0
in a division game with post-season implications. Inclement weather, short rest, and a long flight to Whoville had led odds makers to tab St. Nick’s North Pole squad as a two point underdog. At first it seemed the bookmakers had called it correctly as the Grinch had strong showing in the first half and seemed poised to claim the division title with either a win or a tie in front of a joyous hometown crowd. However, late in the second half, Santa Claus team captain Kris Kringle slipped around a distracted defender and laid a gift for Cindy Lou under the Who family tree.
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The Heater from Van Meter
old as I feel some days, I’m still young enough to have been Bob Feller’s grandson, and of course I never saw him pitch during his eighteen year career with Cleveland. But he’s always been there, part of baseball lore, a living legend whose tales of mighty prowess preceded television and must be cobbled together from scraps of footage and tall tales. He signed a Major League Baseball contract when he was only 16 years old. His signing bonus was $1 and an autographed baseball. He is estimated to have thrown a 104 mile per hour fastball. He was such a sensation that his high school graduation was broadcast on national radio.
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The Dandy One
quote machine, spinning folksy yarns by the dozen. A Jewish New Yorker, Cossell countered Meredith by being unapologetically urbane and sophisticated, introducing middle America to snarkiness before hipsters were born or gays had been allowed into the popular culture (insert three finger snaps and a sigh here, please). And the two of them played off of each other masterfully. As they dissected the night’s game, the Country Mouse and the City Mouse joked and sparred with each other, and in the process they made MNF an absolute sensation and one of the nation’s highest rated shows throughout the decade.
A Living Memoriam: Charles Rangel
Charles Rangel used to be my Congressman. I was born and raised in the Bronx and attended John F. Kennedy High School, which is located in the borough’s southwestern corner, a neighborhood called Marble Hill. Once 1970. Powell himself was a living monument, a larger than life character who had outmaneuvered Tammany Hall to become the first African American to represent New York State in Congress, and only the second in America since the end of Reconstruction (1877). When Rangel bested him, it was in the shadow of a corruption scandal. Once an important trailblazer, Powell had devolved into a slacker who spent most of his time in the Caribbean, and an embezzler who, among other things, funneled Congressional money to his third wife through a no-show job while she was living in Puerto Rico. In light of such scandals, the House voted not to seat Powell in 1969. He sued and eventually won in the United States Supreme Court; Powell might be a crook, the Court ruled in Powell v. McCormack, but Congress had no right to refuse seating a duly elected official.
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Money Trumps Punks
I’m not counting the would be copycat attack the following year, also at Comiskey, when some pathetic sad sack tried to pull the same number on MLB umpire Laz Diaz. The guy was a loser, Diaz threw him to the ground, and no one was seriously hurt. So as far as I can remember, there’s just one instance in as long as I can remember. Of course, over the same time period there have been numerous instances of professional players and stadium personnel getting exceptionally violent with fans. How many times have hockey players gone into the stands? And of course who could forget the Pacers-Pistons on-court brawl that ended with Ron Artest bravely leading his teammates into the stands, past women and children, to pick fights with random fans because someone threw a cup of Coke at him?
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