Tom McMahon

If Lou Gehrig Had Chosen The So-Called Death With Dignity

"People all say that I've had a bad break. But today ... today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Now will you please hand me the pills, Doc? Enough's enough ...."

Bears Fan Dies While Watching The Bears-Packers Game on TV

That Bears Fan was my cousin Mark Ryan, with whom I shared a birthday. The Facebook message from his brother Mike:

Mark said was not feeling well and was in bed. He had told his son he would watch the Bears game with him so he came downstairs. He fell on the way down the stairs. They helped him up and Mark then lied down on the couch for the game. He had something to drink and said he was feeling better. A few minutes later he stopped breathing. The ambulance got him to the hospital quickly but they were not able to revive him. They do not know what the cause was as of yet. It was his 48th birthday this past Friday. I miss you Mark.

Life is indeed One Mixed Bag, eh?

Soul of a Yankee: The Iron Horse, the Babe and the Battle for Joe Pepitone

Soul of a Yankee: The Iron Horse, the Babe and the Battle for Joe Pepitone

A quote from the book:

“Don’t you see, Joe Pepitone, Yankee Great? There’s a battle going on right now—a battle for your soul. A strange battle, possibly a pointless battle, but a battle nonetheless. Lou Gehrig versus Babe Ruth, the Iron Horse and the Bambino. Lou’s a good man. Strong, virtuous. Always doing what’s right. Babe — he doesn’t care about repercussions and lives every day like it’s his last. Up to you which way you go. But keep in mind, a man traveling the wrong way down a one-way street — he’s bound to end up like a butterfly in an eighteen wheeler’s path. Flat and colorful.”

And the summary:

Joe Pepitone had it all. God given ability, leading man charisma, and an ego the size of Brooklyn. Yet throughout the course of his lifetime he threw away a potential Hall of Fame career, two marriages, and countless opportunities. Then one night, rock bottom hit him like a one hundred mile an hour fastball....the wrong place, the wrong car, and perhaps the last wrong turn of his life. Alone in a cold prison cell, the roar of Yankee Stadium a distant memory, Joe is visited by an apparition...a vision of a man who claims to know the path to redemption. They will embark on a wild ride through the peaks and valleys of Joe's life, in a last ditch attempt to right the wrongs. Along the way they will encounter the most serious threat to Joe's eternal existence...the greatest icon in the history of the game. A rivalry dating back sixty years has come full circle, and now each man has something to lose...in the battle for Joe Pepitone's soul.

If Joe Pepitone had been a Green Bay Packer, then the Battle would have been between Bart Starr and Paul Hornung, eh?

MLB.com, the Official Site of Major League Baseball, Is Seeking Stats Stringers In Some Markets For The 2011 Season

For these markets:

• Cincinnati
• Cleveland
• Houston
• San Diego
• St. Louis
• Texas (Rangers)

Stats stringers are responsible for digitally scoring games from one of the 30 MLB ballparks, which provides the data used in the live content applications on MLB.com, including Gameday and MLB.TV, real-time highlights and text alerts, and by our business partners. This is a perfect part-time job for a diligent, responsible employee who happens to be a big baseball fan.

Responsibilities include:
• Arrive at the ballpark no later than one hour prior to the scheduled start time;
• Double-check and verify all pre-game information: rosters, umpires, weather conditions, etc.;
• During the game, enter the results of every pitch and game event (plays, substitutions, etc.) using our proprietary software and coding language;
• Work closely with our game-night support staff (via AOL Instant Messenger) to ensure proper scoring of all game events and accuracy of data;
• After the game, enter all post-game information: winning and losing pitcher, saves, holds, time and attendance
• Validate all stats in software box score against the official box score provided by the Official Scorer, and print out a final box score and game text for the club PR staff

More here

Non-Slingshot Classic Offset NFL Football Goalposts

Circa 1945

Circa 1961

Arnold DesJardins stands in the knee-deep hay under the goal posts in the south end zone in early December 1961. The hay was put on the field to preserve it for a month before the NFL championship game, which was played on Dec. 31.

Circa 1966

According to Kickology:The Study Of All Things Kicker Related, The NFL standardized on the classic H-Style offset goalpost in 1966, but then went to the current slingshot goalposts in 1967. In 1974 they moved them from the goal line to the end line.

Since they were only standard for the 1966 season, it was difficult to find even these three photos. If you come across another, I'd appreciate it if you'd list it in the comments.

Rowing On Ice

Rowing On Ice

Click for the YouTube video.

Green Bay Packer Throwback Jerseys

Green Bay Packer Throwback Jerseys

They'll be wearing these against the 49ers this Sunday. Fan reaction varies:

These uniforms are fantastic! They’re better than the usual ones the team wears, which are nice. People need to get educated about these jerseys: they’re the Pack’s Notre Dame jerseys. Curly Lambeau played at Notre Dame under Knute Rockne and alongside George Gipp. He founded the Packers after leaving Notre Dame and chose Notre Dame’s blue and gold for the Packers original uniform colors. Green was added and blue quietly dropped many years later. Its great the Pack is bringing the blue back. Go Pack. ...

Time to throw out the throw-backs. They make me throw up! They changed from these for a reason. They’re ugly. If I had a ticket to this game I would want my money back. Show me the Packers, not some slick designer’s history project. If we really want a throw-back game, why don’t we also broadcast it in black and white. No thanks.

The Late Gil McDougald, Whose Line Drive Hit Herb Score in the Eye in 1957, Was Himself Hit In The Left Ear By A Line Drive During Batting Practice And Ended Up Losing His Hearing

But a 1996 Sports Illustrated article provides a happy ending:

It's not baseball that the two thirty-something mothers of toddler daughters wanted to discuss with former New York Yankee Gil McDougald one morning last May at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. Chances were the women had not even been born when McDougald was a five-time All-Star infielder on the powerhouse Yankees teams of the 1950s. What drew them together was a remarkable device called a cochlear implant (a 1-inch disc of titanium, silicone and platinum attached by a thin wire to a microcomputer small enough to be worn in a pocket) that had brought sound into the lives of the little girls and returned McDougald to the hearing world.

For almost 25 years McDougald was profoundly deaf, the result of being hit in the head by a batted ball when he was with the Yankees, and the implant, which he received in 1994, has ended the social isolation that came with his hearing loss. It has helped him reconnect with old friends, and, more poignant, carve out a new career as an advocate for the hearing impaired.

Since receiving the implant, McDougald has become a sought-after speaker on the subject of deafness. Last October, for example, he made seven appearances at events for hearing organizations. He also joined Heather Whitestone, Miss America 1995, who is deaf, before a U.S. Senate subcommittee that was taking testimony on funding cuts for the disabled.

Are They Brothers?

An excerpt from Don Herbert:

There was an outfielder on that team named Hank Thompson. Bobby Thomson was white and Hank Thompson was black. I asked my father if they were brothers. He laughed and said: “No. You know how you can tell they’re not brothers?”

I said I didn’t. He said, “Hank Thompson spells his last name t-h-o-m-p-s-o-n. Bobby Thomson doesn’t have a ‘p’ in his last name. If they were brothers they would spell their names the same.”

It was years before I realized what a terrific thing that was to say to a kid.

Rickey and Robinson

That's Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson, of course. From the WSJ:

In his own life, Rickey generally justified his decision as sound business strategy. "The Negroes will make us winners for years to come," he said, "and for that I will happily bear being called a bleeding heart and a do-gooder and all that humanitarian rot."

That's not the whole story, of course. But Rickey was right about untapped talent. With the black athletes Rickey signed, Brooklyn went on to win a string of National League pennants. Other teams copied his business model by signing their own black players. And thus was Jim Crow dealt a crippling blow—at a time when lunch counters were still segregated and the Civil Rights Act was two decades off.

See also my previous posts Hardly A Secret Among The White Players and How The St. Louis Cardinals Became Integrated