NCAA Division 1 Men's Lacrosse Championship Weekend Starts Saturday

 

With a thrilling quarter final weekend behind us, four teams will go on to semi-final games on Saturday, May 24. Cornell and Penn State play at noon ET and Syracuse and Maryland follow at 2:30. The winners meet on Memorial Day, May 26, at 1:00. The games are broadcast live on the ESPN network and streamed on ESPN+. The Division 1 Women's Semi-Final and Championship games are also available on ESPN on May 23 and 25.

Anyone who reads Old Tybee Ranger this time of year knows he has a thing for college lacrosse. This year is no exception as my Maryland Terps face some serious challenges that guarantee fast and hard hitting action. This is Maryland's centennial year playing varsity lacrosse. They've achieved great success over those years including recognition as one of the top schools in the sport. Much of the credit for Maryland's recent success goes to its head coach, John Tillman, an extraordinary recruiter with nine years of coaching experience at Ithaca, Navy, and Harvard. In his fifteen years at Maryland he brought the team to eleven NCAA Final Four appearances and six title games, including two National Championship. It's been nothing less than a brilliant blend of team management and player skill.

So what is this game called lacrosse? Lacrosse is an ancient American sport, dating from about 1000 C.E. In it's early days, the game had a religious significance. Sides could consist of as many as a few thousand players and the losing side sometimes paid with their lives. In the middle of the 19th century William George Beers, a Canadian dentist and lacrosse enthusiast, wrote rules and parameters to make the game more gentlemanly. His efforts paid dividends quickly as many clubs formed from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River Valley. The Mohawk Lacrosse Club (New York, 1868) was the first club in the United States. Intercollegiate competition followed a decade later focused on universities from New York to Maryland.

An Indian Ball Play                       George Catlin, 1846-50

Fast forward to today and you could say the game still has that religious fervor if you live from Maryland to New England. It's that part of the country where three-year-old boys (and some girls) get little lacrosse sticks for Christmas. These days the teams are a bit smaller - ten players to a side - but there's still a good likelihood of some bloodshed of the non-fatal variety. Little more than a generation ago the game at the college level was a virtually exclusive sport heavily anchored in the Ivy League and the Northeast. Today there are more than sixty Division I teams found on the East and West Coasts and at the flagship universities in the interior. Each year that number grows by two or three teams. Expansion in other college divisions and at the K-12 level is so great that the sport is recognized as the fastest growing team sport in the country. If you're interested in more information go to usalacrosse.com

Today around 900,000 players participate in some form of organized lacrosse. I'd say that's a sign of an outstanding future for the game. And speaking of the future, it looks brilliant for both Maryland and Johns Hopkins as they move from a strong season in 2024 to 2025 when both teams should return to powerhouse status. I am so looking forward to that and as always the annual Maryland-Hopkins clash spurred on by the cheers heard at around 120 games over the last 128 years.

Fear the Turtle!

Remember Babe Ruth

George Ruth wasn't much of a scholar at Baltimore's St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys but he excelled at baseball, the primary sport used by the Xavarian Brothers to bring structure and discipline to their 800 boys. He was born in Pigtown, one of Baltimore's many rough and tough neighborhoods near it's famous harbor. After seven years struggling to maintain their working-class family his parents assigned custody of their son to St. Mary's. He entered when he was seven years old and stayed there for twelve years. A few months after his nineteenth birthday in 1914 he signed a professional baseball contract to play with the Baltimore Orioles. He was the newest "babe" to join the team and would go on to become a legend during his major league career (1914-1935) with the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, and the Boston Braves.

Babe Ruth (top row, center) at St. Mary's School in 1913

Today marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of Babe Ruth, the "Bambino," the "Sultan of Swat," arguably the greatest baseball player ever.

Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum

See Ruth's Wikipedia and National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum pages for more information, including videos, photos, and a wealth of amazing statistics.

Babe Ruth, New York Yankees, 1920

This quote from the famous American sports writer, Tommy Holmes, says it all about the Babe:

Some 20 years ago, I stopped talking about the Babe for the simple reason that I realized that those who had never seen him didn't believe me.

Sources:


Babe Ruth, Wikipedia entry
Babe Ruth biography, Baseball Hall of Fame, baseballhall.org
Babe Ruth Museum

Maryland Makes Its 29th Appearance In Lacrosse Final Four This Weekend

Anyone who reads Old Tybee Ranger this time of year knows he has a thing for college lacrosse. This year is no exception although he's a bit heart broken over Johns Hopkins's double overtime loss to Virginia last weekend. That outcome prevents one more game in the storied lacrosse rivalry between Maryland and  Hopkins, a match up that began in 1895. Instead, Maryland will appear in this year's national championship weekend games facing some serious challenges that guarantee fast and hard hitting action. Next Saturday, Notre Dame and Denver face off in the first semifinal game at noon EDT followed by Maryland and Virginia at 2:30 p.m. The winners will meet in the championship game on Memorial Day at 1:00 p.m. You can watch the big game on ESPN. The semifinals will be on ESPN2.

So what is this game called lacrosse? Lacrosse is an ancient American sport, dating from about 1000 C.E. In it's early days, the game had a religious significance. Sides could consist of as many as a few thousand players and the losing side sometimes paid with their lives. In the middle of the 19th century William George Beers, a Canadian dentist and lacrosse enthusiast, wrote rules and parameters to make the game more gentlemanly. His efforts paid dividends quickly as many clubs formed from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River Valley. The Mohawk Lacrosse Club (New York, 1868) was the first club in the United States. Intercollegiate competition followed a decade later focused on universities from New York to Maryland.

An Indian Ball-Play                             orge Catlin, 1846-50

Fast forward to today and you could say the game still has that religious fervor if you live from Maryland to New England. It's that part of the country where three-year-old boys (and some girls) get little lacrosse sticks for Christmas. These days the teams are a bit smaller - ten players to a side - but there's still a good likelihood of some bloodshed of the non-fatal variety. Little more than a generation ago the game at the college level was a virtually exclusive sport heavily anchored in the Ivy League and the Northeast. Today there are more than sixty Division I teams found on the East and West Coasts and at the flagship universities in the interior. Each year that number grows by two or three teams. Expansion in other college divisions and at the K-12 level is so great that the sport is recognized as the fastest growing team sport in the country. If you're interested in more information go to usalacrosse.com

Today around 900,000 players participate in some form of organized lacrosse. I'd say that's a sign of an outstanding future for the game. And speaking of the future, it looks brilliant for both Maryland and Johns Hopkins as they move from a strong season in 2024 to 2025 when both teams should return to powerhouse status. I am so looking forward to that and as always the annual Maryland-Hopkins clash spurred on by the cheers heard at around 120 games over the last 128 years.

Fear the Turtle!

Baseball's Babe

George Ruth wasn't much of a scholar at Baltimore's St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys but he excelled at baseball, the primary sport used by the Xavarian Brothers to bring structure and discipline to their 800 boys. He was born in Pigtown, one of Baltimore's many rough and tough neighborhoods near it's famous harbor. After seven years struggling to maintain their working-class family his parents assigned custody of their son to St. Mary's. He entered when he was seven years old and stayed there for twelve years. A few months after his nineteenth birthday in 1914 he signed a professional baseball contract to play with the Baltimore Orioles. He was the newest "babe" to join the team and would go on to become a legend during his major league career (1914-1935) with the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, and the Boston Braves.

Babe Ruth (top row, center) at St. Mary's School in 1913

Today marks the 129th anniversary of the birth of Babe Ruth, the "Bambino," the "Sultan of Swat," arguably the greatest baseball player ever.

Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum

See Ruth's Wikipedia and National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum pages for more information, including videos, photos, and a wealth of amazing statistics.

Babe Ruth, New York Yankees, 1920

This quote from the famous American sports writer, Tommy Holmes, says it all about the Babe:

Some 20 years ago, I stopped talking about the Babe for the simple reason that I realized that those who had never seen him didn't believe me.

Sources:


Babe Ruth, Wikipedia entry
Babe Ruth biography, Baseball Hall of Fame, baseballhall.org
Babe Ruth Museum

Get Ready For NCAA National Lacrosse Champonship Weekend, May 27 and 29. 2023

 

Although neither of the storied lacrosse rivals - Maryland and Johns Hopkins - will appear in this year's national championship weekend games in Philadelphia the action is guaranteed to be fast and hard hitting. Next Saturday, Duke and Penn State face off in the first semifinal game at 12:30 p.m. EDT followed by Virginia and Notre Dame at 2:30 p.m. The winners will meet in the championship gane on Memorial Day at 1:00 p.m. You can watch the big game on ESPN. The semifinals will be on ESPN2.

So what is this game called lacrosse? Lacrosse is an ancient American sport, dating from about 1000 C.E. In it's early days, the game had a religious significance. Sides could consist of as many as a few thousand players and the losing side sometimes paid with their lives. In the middle of the 19th century William George Beers, a Canadian dentist and lacrosse enthusiast, wrote rules and parameters to make the game more gentlemanly. His efforts paid dividends quickly as many clubs formed from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River Valley. The Mohawk Lacrosse Club (New York, 1868) was the first club in the United States. Intercollegiate competition followed a decade later focused on universities from New York to Maryland.

An Indian Ball-Play                          George Catlin, 1846-50

Fast forward to today and you could say the game still has that religious fervor if you live from Maryland to New England, that part of the country where three-year-old boys (and some girls) get little lacrosse sticks for Christmas. These days, the teams are a bit smaller - ten players to a side - but there's still a good likelihood of some some bloodshed of the non-fatal variety. Just a generation ago the game at the college level was a virtually exclusive sport heavily anchored in the Ivy League and the Northeast. Today there are more than sixty Division I teams found on the East and West Coasts and at the flagship universities in the interior. Each year that number grows by two or three teams. Expansion in other college divisions and at the K-12 level is so great that the sport is recognized as the fastest growing team sport in the country. If you're interested in more information go to usalacrosse.com

Today around 900,000 players participate in some form of organized lacrosse. I'd say that's a sign of an outstanding future for the game. And speaking of the future, it looks brilliant for both Maryland and Johns Hopkins as they move from a building season in 2023 to 2024 when both teams should return to powerhouse status. I am so  looking forward to that and as always the annual Maryland-Hopkins clash that began in 1895.

Fear the Turtle!

Pigtown's Bambino

George Ruth wasn't much of a scholar at Baltimore's St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys but he excelled at baseball, the primary sport used by the Xavarian Brothers to bring structure and discipline to their 800 boys. He was born in Pigtown, one of Baltimore's many rough and tough neighborhoods near it's famous harbor. After seven years struggling to maintain their working-class family his parents assigned custody of their son to St. Mary's. He entered when he was seven years old and stayed there for twelve years. A few months after his nineteenth birthday in 1914 he signed a professional baseball contract to play with the Baltimore Orioles. He was the newest "babe" to join the team and would go on to become a legend during his major league career (1914-1935) with the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, and the Boston Braves.

Babe Ruth (top row, center) at St. Mary's School in 1913

Today marks the 128th anniversary of the birth of Babe Ruth, the "Bambino," the "Sultan of Swat," arguably the greatest baseball player ever.

Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum

See Ruth's Wikipedia and National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum pages for more information, including videos, photos, and a wealth of amazing statistics.

Babe Ruth, New York Yankees, 1920

This quote from the famous American sports writer, Tommy Holmes, says it all about the Babe:

Some 20 years ago, I stopped talking about the Babe for the simple reason that I realized that those who had never seen him didn't believe me.

Sources:


Babe Ruth, Wikipedia entry
Babe Ruth biography, Baseball Hall of Fame, baseballhall.org
Babe Ruth Museum

NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament Heads To Championship Weekend, May 30

 

From all indications, lacrosse continues to be the fastest growing sport in the United States, even outpacing soccer. Just forty years ago the game was a virtually exclusive sport still heavily anchored in the Ivy League and in the sport's "Golden Triangle" of Maryland, Navy, and Johns Hpkins. Today, there are more than sixty Division I teams found on the East and West Coasts and at flagship universities in the interior. Each year that number grows by one or two teams. Expansion in other college divisions and at the middle and high school levels is much greater. There is a fine future in store for lacrosse.

And speaking of a fine future, over the next two weekends eight teams will play for a chance at the national championship game on Memorial Day. Thanks to ESPN's continued support viewers from coast to coast will have an opportunity to see some outstanding competition. Here is the schedule from the NCAA website; all times ate Easter::

Quarter Finals

all games on ESPNU

Saturday, May 21

Penn vs Rutgers  at noon

Yale vs Princeton at 2:30

Sunday, May 22

Cornell vs Delaware at noon

Maryland vs Virginia at 2:30

Semifinals

all games on ESPN2

Saturday, May 28

game #1 at noon 

game #2 at 2:30

Final

game on ESPN

Monday, May 30

game at 1:00

All of this coming weekend's games will be entertaining but the Maryland-Virginia rivalry will be front and center as the one to watch. Maryland wants to redress their overtime loss to Virginia in the 2021 national champioship game. Earlier this year Maryland handily defeated Virginia, 23-12. Virginia doesn't want a second loss and elimination from a chance at a back-to-back national championship. This match will be just about as sweet as the championship itself.

Hope you enjoy the action.

GO BIG RED!

   

Football Legend Johnny Unitas Played The Real Game

When you live in the Appalachian Mountains in a deep valley at the edge of the Allegheny Front and far-removed from television broadcast towers, the straight-line signals simply fly far overhead. Viewers have to rely on reflection in order to get decent reception. Getting a clear and consistent picture is a rare event. That problem was rectified when citizens in our small town organized one of the earliest cable television systems in the United States. My dad subscribed in 1953. It was the same year the Colts reorganized in Baltimore. We watched plenty of football and baseball games over the next three years, but I don't recall watching the Colts, only the Washington Redskins, and the World Series where the Yankees always won.

In 1956. my family moved to Maryland's Eastern Shore, a region anchored to the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore, and the Colts. A new face, Johnny Unitas, joined the team that year. He was a scrawny kid from Pittsburgh who played quarterback at the University of Louisville. The Steelers selected him as a ninth-round draft pick, but ended up releasing him before the season began. The Colts coach, Weeb Ewbank, saw him as a promising walk-on. When the starting quarterback broke his leg early in the season, Unitas made a disappointing debut that he would soon overcome. In fact, late in the season he threw the first touchdown pass in his 47 game streak, a record that would stand for fifty years. Many of his other records have fallen but keep in mind that teams played fewer games per season in those days. The simple conclusion is that Unitas's passing records will be around for a long, long time.

I'll let you read more about him and his records at the links. I will say that Johnny U and the Colts gave my dad and me, and our friends and family, some exciting entertainment between 1956 and 1973. At first, the old black and white television was small but it turned to color in 1962 and got bigger. The game was always big. Of course, the highlight of those years was the 23-17 National Football League Championship win over the New York Giants in sudden death overtime in 1958. I turned twelve that year and I doubt I'll ever see anything to beat "the greatest game ever played."

Unitas retired from the field in 1974 almost crippled from years of play in the days before adequate protective gear. He remained active in the professional football family and firmly loyal to Baltimore and the fans when the Colt franchise rolled out of town in the middle of the night on its way to Indianapolis in 1984. He lived almost twenty years beyond that sad day quietly enjoying his family, friends and fame.

I don't think the kid from Pittsburgh changed much over all of his years. He became famous, but he did it the hard way, starting out when you needed an off-season job to make ends meet. Things are different these days. Now the players are instant stars often earning mega-millions before they play their first professional game. Johnny U's magic arm helped make it happen for them.

May 7 is his birthday. The year was 1933, the place was Pittsburgh. Gritty origins for a star. It didn't matter to him in the end because he got to play football when it was a game. And what a game it was.




Sources:

Wikipedia, Johnny Unitas
profootballhof.com, Johnny Unitas
johnnyunitas.com, Official Johnny Unitas website

It's A Rainy Day In Georgia

True shape of a raindrop

Flood Watch, Severe Thunderstorm Watch, Tornado Watch. Take your pick. Most of Georgia is covered in an overlay of potential weather watches issued before dawn and likely extending well after dark. Now that a few waves of torrential rains and lots of positive lightning strikes - the fire starters - have passed through the flash flood warnings are coming. 

I'd like to say this is a typical spring event but it's not. It's a damp cold, about 20 degrees below normal and time for a warm all day fire in the den. I want to look on the brighter side of this dark, wet, and cold day especially considering last night's amazing basketball tournament final - congrats, Kansas - this weekend's Masters in Augusta, and a Maryland men's lacrosse game on Saturday. Given all those pluses here's another one in the form of a song about rain and why, deep in our souls, we cherish it.

Cloudburst is sung in Spanish and based on a poem by the Mexican writer, Octavio Paz. Here is a translation:

The rain . . . 
Eyes of shadow-water
eyes of well-water
eyes of dream-water.
Blue suns, green whirlwinds,
pecks of light that open
pomegranate stars.
But tell me, burnt earth,
is there no water?
Only blood, only dust,
only naked footsteps on the thorns?

The rain awakens . . . 
We must sleep with open eyes,
We must dream with our hands
we must dream dreams of active rivers
Searching for their cause
Dreams of the sun dreaming of its worlds
we must dream aloud,
we must sing till the song
casts roots,
trunks, branches, birds, stars,
we must unearth the lost word,
and remember
what the blood, the tides,
the earth, and the body say,
and return to the point of departure

Stay warm today. Check out the Masters this weekend - the azaleas should be in full bloom. Check out the Maryland lacrosse game - Big Ten Network.

 

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

Goddard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Lacrosse Terrapin Style

After last year's painful 17-16 loss to Virginia in the NCAA National Lacrosse Championship game, the Maryland Terrapins are roaring back with big margins of victory in their first two games of 2022. They're doing it with the return of five U.S. Intercollegiate Association All-Americans, five top ranked transfers (including one each from Virginia and Johns Hopkins), and five nationally ranked freshmen. The team needs every man to meet the challenge brought on by strong Big Ten and powerhouse teams. For certain the Terps will be well-prepared for the national tournament in May.

Much of the credit for Maryland's recent success goes to its head coach, John Tillman, an extraordinary recruiter with nine years of coaching experience at Ithaca, Navy, and Harvard. In his eleven years at Maryland he brought the team to eight NCAA Final Four appearances and six title games, including the 2017 National Championship. It's been nothing less than a brilliant blend of team management and player skill. 

So what is this game called lacrosse? Lacrosse is an ancient American sport, dating from about 1000 C.E. In it's early days, the game had a religious significance. Sides could consist of as many as a few thousand players and the losing side sometimes paid with their lives. In the middle of the 19th century William George Beers, a Canadian dentist and lacrosse enthusiast, wrote rules and parameters to make the game more gentlemanly. His efforts paid dividends quickly as many clubs formed from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River Valley. The Mohawk Lacrosse Club (New York, 1868) was the first club in the United States. Intercollegiate competition followed a decade later focused on universities from New York to Maryland.  

 

An Indian Ball-Play                            George Catlin, 1846-50

Fast forward to today and you could say the game still has that religious fervor if you live from Maryland to New England, that part of the country where three-year-old boys (and some girls) get little lacrosse sticks for Christmas. These days, the teams are a bit smaller - ten players to a side - and there's almost always some bloodshed of the non-fatal variety. Just a generation ago the game at the college level was a virtually exclusive sport heavily anchored in the Ivy League and the Northeast. Today there are more than sixty Division I teams found on the East and West Coasts and at the flagship universities in the interior. Each year that number grows by two or three teams. Expansion in other college divisions and at the K-12 level is so great that the sport is recognized as the fastest growing team sport in the country. If you're interested in more information go to usalacrosse.com

Today around 900,000 players participate in some form of organized lacrosse. I'd say that's a sign of an outstanding future for the game. More specifically I hope there's also an outstanding future for Terp lacrosse through May of this year and beyond.

Go Big Red!

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Catlin painting, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington;
1955 photo, University of Maryland, The Terrapin, p. 228

Text:

Wikipedia.org

usalacrosse.com

Baseball's Babe From Baltimore

George Ruth wasn't much of a scholar at Baltimore's St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys but he excelled at baseball, the primary sport used by the Xavarian Brothers to bring structure and discipline to their 800 boys. He was born in Pigtown, one of Baltimore's many rough and tough neighborhoods near it's famous harbor. After seven years struggling to maintain their working-class family his parents assigned custody of their son to St. Mary's. He entered when he was seven years old and stayed there for twelve years. A few months after his nineteenth birthday in 1914 he signed a professional baseball contract to play with the Baltimore Orioles. He was the newest "babe" to join the team and would go on to become a legend during his major league career (1914-1935) with the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, and the Boston Braves.

Babe Ruth (top row, center) at St. Mary's School in 1913

Today marks the 127th anniversary of the birth of Babe Ruth, the "Bambino," the "Sultan of Swat," arguably the greatest baseball player ever.

Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum

See Ruth's Wikipedia and National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum pages for more information, including videos, photos, and a wealth of amazing statistics.

Babe Ruth, New York Yankees, 1920

This quote from the famous American sports writer, Tommy Holmes, says it all about the Babe:

Some 20 years ago, I stopped talking about the Babe for the simple reason that I realized that those who had never seen him didn't believe me.

Sources:


Babe Ruth, Wikipedia entry
Babe Ruth biography, Baseball Hall of Fame, baseballhall.org
Babe Ruth Museum

Casey Stengel: Number 37 And The Field Of Dreams

For a kid born in the 1940's and growing up in Lefty Grove's Georges Creek Valley in Maryland, playing baseball was supposed to be a natural. In fact it was so natural it's a strong tradition even to this day. It didn't work out that way for me.  Rotten vision and breaking any number of "Coke bottle bottom" glasses rendered me useless - and expensive - on a baseball field. In fact that's why I didn't play sports, much to my disappointment. On the other hand, I followed baseball just as fiercely as my pals, collecting hundreds of baseball cards, listening to and later watching the Washington Senators and the Baltimore Orioles, and arguing about those Yankees, love 'em or hate 'em. 

Playing outfield for the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1915

Ah, the Yankees. Love or hate for them really doesn't matter today. It's simply a great day in baseball history for a beloved man of the game who happened to do well, His name was Casey Stengel, born on July 30, 1890, in Kansas City. He began his professional career as a right fielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers, then played for several teams before moving into managing in 1925. Stengel became manager of the Yankees in 1949 and won the World Series championship. They won again in 1950. And 1951, 1952, and 1953. It's a record of consecutive wins that still stands. He went on to win two more championships with them in 1956 and 1958.

The "Old Perfesser" in 1949

You look up and down the bench and you have to say to yourself, 'Can't anybody here play this game?' There comes a time in every man's life and I've had plenty of them.

In 1960 he retired from the game only to return two years later as manager of the "Lovable Losers", the New York Mets. Fans loved them and their coach who captivated the press and broadcast media with his quips and comments delivered in his famous "Stengelese" style nurtured over his rich career.

 

The Yankees retired his number 37 in 1970. The Mets did the same five years earlier. He was the first baseball personality to be so honored by two teams based only on his management skill.

To learn more about Casey Stengel, visit his Baseball Hall of Fame page here. The page links to some good multimedia features as well. Link to Wikipedia's extensive biography here. The Baseball Almanac has a great list of memorable quotes here. 

If you want to honor the man go to a baseball game this weekend. If that can't happen gather the family, especially the grandfathers, fathers and sons, and watch Field of Dreams (1989). Chances are, Casey will enter the conversation.






Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel in a 1949 issue of Baseball Digest, public domain
Playing outfield, Library of Congress photo, public domain

Text: wikipedia.org

Johnny U: Real Football

When I was a young boy my family lived in the Appalachian Mountains in a deep valley at the edge of the Allegany Front and far-removed from television broadcast towers. Those towers in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Washington broadcast straight-line signals that simply flew far overhead by the time they reached our valley.  Viewers had to rely on reflection created by certain weather conditions in order to get even the weakest of signals. Getting a clear and consistent picture was impossible. That problem was rectified when citizens in our small town organized one of the earliest cable television systems in the United States. My dad subscribed to their service in 1953. It was the same year the Colts reorganized in Baltimore. We watched plenty of football and baseball games over the next three years, but I don't recall watching the Colts, only the Washington Redskins, and the World Series where the Yankees always won.

A few years later my family moved to Maryland's Eastern Shore, a region anchored to the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore, and the Colts. A new face, Johnny Unitas, joined the team in 1956. He was a scrawny kid from Pittsburgh who played quarterback at the University of Louisville. He was a ninth-round draft pick by the Steelers who ended up releasing him before the season began. The Colts coach, Weeb Ewbank, saw him as a promising walk-on. When the starting quarterback broke his leg early in the season, Unitas made a disappointing debut that he would soon overcome. In fact, late in the season he threw the first touchdown pass in his 47 game streak, a record that would stand for fifty years. Many of his other records have been beaten, but keep in mind that teams played fewer games per season in those days. The simple conclusion is that Unitas's passing records will be around for a long, long time.

I'll let you read more about him and his records at the links. I will say that Johnny U and the Colts gave my dad and me, and our friends and family, some exciting entertainment between 1956 and 1973. At first, the old black and white television was small, but it turned to color in 1962 and got bigger. The game was always big. Of course, the highlight of those years was the 23-17 National Football League Championship win over the New York Giants in sudden death overtime in 1958. I turned twelve that year and I doubt I'll ever see anything to beat "the greatest game ever played."

Unitas retired from the field in 1974 almost crippled from years of play in the days before adequate protective gear. He remained active in the professional football family and firmly loyal to Baltimore and the fans when the Colt franchise rolled out of town in the middle of the night on its way to Indianapolis in 1984. He lived almost twenty years beyond that sad day quietly enjoying his family, friends and fame.

I don't think the kid from Pittsburgh changed much over all of his years. He became famous, but he did it the hard way, starting out when you needed an off-season job to make ends meet. Things are different these days. Today's players are instant stars earning mega-millions before they play their first professional game. Johnny U's magic arm helped make it happen for them.

Today is his birthday. The year was 1933, the place was Pittsburgh. Gritty origins for a star. It didn't matter to him in the end because he got to play real football. And what a game it was.






Sources:
Wikipedia, Johnny Unitas
profootballhof.com, Johnny Unitas
johnnyunitas.com, Official Johnny Unitas website

Go Big Red!: Maryland Men's Lacrosse Concludes A Perfect 10-0 Regular Season

 

Maryland first played lacrosse with Johns Hopkins in 1895. It's been the biggest rivalry in the game almost from the beginning and the Terps' 14-13 victory today simply added more fuel to the fire. They now move on the "May Madness," when college lacrosse teams across the country play in a number of conference championships that will determine who plays in the NCAA Men's National Championship games over Memorial Day weekend. Go here for more schedule information and brackets as they are announced.  ESPN will provide coverage of the bracket selections and games beginning May 9.

So what is this game about? Lacrosse is an ancient American sport, dating from about 1000 C.E. In it's early days, the game had a religious significance. Sides could consist of as many as a few thousand players and the losing side sometimes paid with their lives. Fast forward to today and you could say the game still has that religious fervor if you live from Maryland to New England, that part of the country where three- year-old boys get little lacrosse sticks for Christmas. These days, the teams are a bit smaller - ten players to a side - and there's almost always some bloodshed of the non-fatal variety. For the who, how, what and why of the game, visit uslacrosse.org  the home of the game's national governing body.

An Indian Ball-Play            George Catlin, American, 1846-50

The game is furious and fast and it continues to be the fastest growing sport in the United States, even eclipsing the growth of soccer. Just a generation ago, the game at the college level was a virtually exclusive sport heavily anchored in the Ivy League and the Northeast. Today there are more than sixty Division I teams found on the East and West Coasts and at the flagship universities in the flyover country. Each year that number grows by two or three teams. Expansion in other college divisions and at the middle and high school levels is much greater. 

I'd say there is an outstanding future in store for lacrosse. That said, I hope there's also an outstanding future for Maryland lacrosse through May. And there's always next year too!

GO BIG RED!

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Catlin painting, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington;

Babe Ruth: "Every Strike Brings Me Closer To The Next Home Run."

 
George Ruth wasn't much of a scholar at Baltimore's St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys but he excelled at baseball, the primary sport used by the Xavarian Brothers to bring structure and discipline to their 800 boys. He was born in Pigtown, one of Baltimore's many rough and tough neighborhoods near it's famous harbor. After seven years struggling to maintain their working-class family his parents assigned custody of their son to St. Mary's. He entered when he was seven years old and stayed there for twelve years. A few months after his nineteenth birthday in 1914 he signed a professional baseball contract to play with the Baltimore Orioles. He was the newest "babe" to join the team and would go on to become a legend during his major league career (1914-1935) with the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, and the Boston Braves.

Babe Ruth (top row, center) at St. Mary's School in 1913

Today marks the 126th birthday of Babe Ruth, the "Bambino," the "Sultan of Swat," arguably the greatest baseball player ever.

Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum

See Ruth's Wikipedia and National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum pages for more information, including videos, photos, and a wealth of amazing statistics.

Babe Ruth, New York Yankees, 1920

This quote from the famous American sports writer, Tommy Holmes, says it all about the Babe:

Some 20 years ago, I stopped talking about the Babe for the simple reason that I realized that those who had never seen him didn't believe me. 

Sources:


Babe Ruth, Wikipedia entry
Babe Ruth biography, Baseball Hall of Fame, baseballhall.org
Babe Ruth Museum

Legendary Johnny U: He Played Football When It Was A Game

When you live in the Appalachian Mountains in a deep valley at the edge of the Allegheny Front and far-removed from television broadcast towers, the straight-line signals simply fly far overhead. Viewers have to rely on reflection in order to get decent reception. Getting a clear and consistent picture is a rare event. That problem was rectified when citizens in our small town organized one of the earliest cable television systems in the United States. My dad subscribed to their service in 1953. It was the same year the Colts reorganized in Baltimore. We watched plenty of football and baseball games over the next three years, but I don't recall watching the Colts, only the Washington Redskins, and the World Series where the Yankees always won.

In 1956. my family moved to Maryland's Eastern Shore, a region anchored to the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore, and the Colts. A new face, Johnny Unitas, joined the team that year. He was a scrawny kid from Pittsburgh who played quarterback at the University of Louisville. He was a ninth-round draft pick by the Steelers who ended up releasing him

before the season began. The Colts coach, Weeb Ewbank, saw him as a promising walk-on. When the starting quarterback broke his leg early in the season, Unitas made a disappointing debut that he would soon overcome. In fact, late in the season he threw the first touchdown pass in his 47 game streak, a record that would stand for fifty years. Many of his other records have been beaten, but keep in mind that teams played fewer games per season in those days. The simple conclusion is that Unitas's passing records will be around for a long, long time.

I'll let you read more about him and his records at the links. I will say that Johnny U and the Colts gave my dad and me, and our friends and family, some exciting entertainment between 1956 and 1973. At first, the old black and white television was small but it turned to color in 1962 and got bigger. The game was always big. Of course, the highlight of those years was the 23-17 National Football League Championship win over the New York Giants in sudden death overtime in 1958. I turned twelve that year and I doubt I'll ever see anything to beat "the greatest game ever played."

Unitas retired from the field in 1974 almost crippled from years of play in the days before adequate protective gear. He remained active in the professional football family and firmly loyal to Baltimore and the fans when the Colt franchise rolled out of town in the middle of the night on its way to Indianapolis in 1984. He lived almost twenty years beyond that sad day quietly enjoying his family, friends and fame.

I don't think the kid from Pittsburgh changed much over all of his years. He became famous, but he did it the hard way, starting out when you needed an off-season job to make ends meet. Things are different these days. Now the players are instant stars often earning mega-millions before they play their first professional game. Johnny U's magic arm helped make it happen for them.

Today is his birthday. The year was 1933, the place was Pittsburgh. Gritty origins for a star. It didn't matter to him in the end because he got to play football when it was a game. And what a game it was.




Sources:

Wikipedia, Johnny Unitas
profootballhof.com, Johnny Unitas
johnnyunitas.com, Official Johnny Unitas website

That Pigtown Boy

February 6 is a legendary day in baseball history. On this day in 1895, George Herman Ruth, Jr. was born in Pigtown, one of Baltimore's many rough and tough neighborhoods near it's famous harbor. After seven years struggling to maintain their working-class family his parents assigned custody of their son to the St Mary's Industrial School for Boys. Ruth wasn't much of a scholar there but he excelled at baseball, the primary sport used by the monks to bring structure and discipline to their 800 boys. By the age of 19, he was a professional baseball player and destined to become the greatest ever. Learn more about the Babe here at his official page or here at his extensive Wikipedia entry.

Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum

His page at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum website has even more information, including videos, photos, and a wealth of amazing statistics.

Ruth at St. Mary's

Echoes From The Old Ball Game

For a kid born in the 1940's and growing up in Lefty Grove's Georges Creek Valley in Maryland, playing baseball was supposed to be a natural. In fact it was so natural it's a strong tradition to this day. It didn't work out that way for me. Rotten vision and "Coke bottle" glasses rendered me useless on a baseball diamond, so I didn't play organized ball with my pals. On the other hand, I followed the sport just as fiercely, collecting my hundreds of baseball cards, listening to - later watching - the Washington Senators and the Baltimore Orioles, and arguing about those Yankees, love 'em or hate 'em.

Ah, the Yankees. Love or hate for them really doesn't matter today. It's simply a great day in baseball history for a beloved man of the game who happened to do well - very well - with the team. His name was Casey Stengel, born on July 30, 1890, in Kansas City. Stengel took over as manager of the Yankees 1949 and won the World Series championship. They won again in 1950. And 1951, 1952, and 1953. It's a record of consecutive wins that still stands. Stengel went on to win two more championships with them in 1956 and 1958.

The "Old Perfesser" in 1949

You look up and down the bench and you have to say to yourself, 'Can't anybody here play this game?' There comes a time in every man's life and I've had plenty of them.

In 1960 he retired from the game only to return two years later as manager of the "Lovable Losers", the New York Mets. Fans loved them and their coach who captivated the press and broadcast media with his quips and comments delivered in his famous "Stengelese" style, nurtured over his rich career.

To learn more about Casey Stengel, visit his Baseball Hall of Fame page here. The page links to some good multimedia features as well. Link to Wikipedia's extensive biography here. The Official Casey Stengel Site has a great list of quotes here.

If you want to honor the man go to a baseball game this weekend. If that can't happen gather the family, especially the grandfathers, fathers and sons, and watch Field of Dreams (1989). Chances are, Casey will enter the conversation.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
public domain photo, New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel in a 1949 issue of Baseball Digest.

Text:
wikipedia.org

Johnny Unitas: A Legend Who Played When Football Was A Game

When you live in the Appalachian Mountains in a deep valley at the edge of the Allegany Front, and far-removed from television broadcast towers, the straight-line signals simply fly far overhead. Viewers had to rely on reflection in order to get decent reception. Getting a clear and consistent picture was impossible. That problem was rectified when citizens in our small town organized one of the earliest cable television systems in the United States. My dad subscribed to their service in 1953. It was the same year the Colts reorganized in Baltimore. We watched plenty of football and baseball games over the next three years, but I don't recall watching the Colts, only the Washington Redskins, and the World Series where the Yankees always won.

In 1956. my family moved to Maryland's Eastern Shore, a region anchored to the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore, and the Colts. A new face, Johnny Unitas, joined the team that year. He was a scrawny kid from Pittsburgh who played quarterback at the University of Louisville. He was

a ninth-round draft pick by the Steelers who ended up releasing him before the season began. The Colts coach, Weeb Ewbank, saw him as a promising walk-on. When the starting quarterback broke his leg early in the season, Unitas made a disappointing debut that he would soon overcome. In fact, late in the season he threw the first touchdown pass in his 47 game streak, a record that would stand for fifty years. Many of his other records have been beaten, but keep in mind that teams played fewer games per season in those days. The simple conclusion is that Unitas's passing records will be around for a long, long time.

I'll let you read more about him and his records at the links. I will say that Johnny U and the Colts gave my dad and me, and our friends and family, some exciting entertainment between 1956 and 1973. At first, the old black and white television was small, but it turned to color in 1962 and got bigger. The game was always big. Of course, the highlight of those years was the 23-17 National Football League Championship win over the New Yorks Giants in sudden death overtime in 1958. I turned twelve that year and I doubt I'll ever see anything to beat "the greatest game ever played."

Unitas retired from the field in 1974 almost crippled from years of play in the days before adequate protective gear. He remained active in the professional football family and firmly loyal to Baltimore and the fans when the Colt franchise rolled out of town in the middle of the night on its way to Indianapolis in 1984. He lived almost twenty years beyond that sad day quietly enjoying his family, friends and fame.

I don't think the kid from Pittsburgh changed much over all of his years. He became famous, but he did it the hard way, starting out when you needed an off-season job to make ends meet. Things are different these days. Today's players are instant stars earning mega-millions before they play their first professional game. Johnny U's magic arm helped make it happen for them.

May 7 is his birthday. The year was 1933, the place was Pittsburgh. Gritty origins for a star. It didn't matter to him in the end because he got to play the game. And what a game it was.

Sources:
Wikipedia, Johnny Unitas
profootballhof.com, Johnny Unitas
johnnyunitas.com, Official Johnny Unitas website