Category: OLD SPORT SHORTS (Page 14 of 68)
An old guy’s perspective on all sports
I am a hardcore sports fan, but it’s rare when I don’t write about my favorite teams. There are too many times when I’ve wished I’d picked winners to support. I shunned Notre Dame growing up because their fans were obnoxious, spoiled winners. I was fortunate that Indiana University had so many good teams in numerous sports throughout the years.
On last year’s road trip, I stopped by Tuscaloosa, Alabama to see my half-sister, and she graciously took us on a tour of the campus where she works. The University of Alabama is far enough away that I don’t have to put up with their undoubtedly ugly fans. The campus is apparently haunted as the former site of an experimental psychiatric hospital. Plus, I’m sure the ghost of Paul “Bear” Bryant still has a presence, especially on game day. As a fan, my half-sister always ends her notes to me with, “Roll Tide,” so I wrote this poem for her:
Rock, and Roll Tide
In Tuscaloosa,
They’re on a roll.
And hope to rock you,
With the winning goal.
Their mascot,
Has a trunk.
Why is that?
I’ve often “thunk.”
Does it have,
A Red Neck?
Or say Y’ALL?
With due respect.
“Big AL” roams the sidelines,
And leads some cheers.
But he’s got wrinkles,
And Elephant ears.
The campus ghosts,
Come out to play.
And join Bear Bryant,
For each game day.
The fans are pumped,
The stands are packed.
Soon Twenty titles,
Could be a fact.
But Tigers and Bulldogs,
Get in the way.
Gators and Razorbacks,
Think they can play.
They’re led by a man,
Known as Saint Nick.
He’s won seven trophies,
With a temper that’s quick.
Volunteers and Rebels,
Try to compete.
Aggies and Wildcats,
Can’t take the heat.
The red wave is coming,
That will strike them all down.
And all these imposters,
Will be run out of town.
What’s a War Eagle?
Or a Commodore?
Gamecocks extinct,
And Rebels no more.
Bryant-Denny’s,
A special place.
A hundred thousand,
Party space.
Script “A” and Circle,
The logo to wear.
“Dixie’s Football Pride,”
Where losses are rare.
When you go into battle,
Be on the right side.
‘Bama forever,
Rock, and Roll Tide!
Copyright 2023 johnstonwrites.com
I have written on many occasions about the “Rule of 60” or the “Magic of 60” in following Indiana University basketball through the years. Looking back on the beginning of last season, I thought that the Bobby Knight magic might have been reincarnated with the hiring of Coach Mike Woodson. Defense was once again a priority as I reread Post #1950 and expectations were high. They have now sunk to a new low after Penn State’s record 18 3-pointers. Two more and they would have gotten sixty-points from solely beyond the arc.
The first to 60 usually wins, was my magical formula for victory, dating back to a McDonald’s promotion when I was in college. It was a simple challenge – hold the opponent under 60 and you win free food. This was before the 3-point shot was ever a factor, but I still find that 60 rules! It remains a magical mark in college basketball, but not of late for Indiana. It worked in their only Big Ten victory so far this season against Nebraska with the score 62-41 with 9:23 remaining in the game. It also took a historical triple-double from Trayce Jackson-Davis. Only Steve Downing in 1971 and Juwan Morgan in 2018 had achieved this feat.
The Hoosiers then almost pulled out a victory against Arizona after trailing by 19 early but narrowed the gap to only 59-56 before the bottom fell out. TJD was showing signs of back problems and did not play the next two games against Elon or Kennisaw State, but the worst was yet to come. Kansas easily got to 60 first, leading 60-42 at the 11:35 mark after the porous Hoosier defense gave up 44 in the first half. Xaviar Johnson suffered a broken foot in this 23-turnover disaster. Kennisaw State hit their first 5-3’s and surprisingly matched the short-staffed Hoosiers through the first half only to fall 69-55.
After the New Year, with Jackson-Davis back in the lineup against Iowa, Race Thompson went down with a knee injury while the Hoosiers raced to an impressive 21-point road lead. The Hawkeyes battled back to make it 59-58 with 12:40 remaining and took their first lead a minute later at 61-58. IU did get to 60 first but after squandering such a big lead the “Rule of 60” did not hold up and Iowa prevailed 91-89. Northwestern then easily beat us to 60 at home with 41-points in the first half and an 84-83 upset despite 33 from Jalen Hood-Schifino. That brings us up to the 85-66 debacle at Penn State, our largest loss margin against the Nittany Lions in history.
Here we stand at 1-4 in the BIG with pre-season expectations of a championship long unrealized. Wisconsin is next to come to Bloomington with a 5-game winning streak and 9-1 record over the hapless Hoosiers in recent matchups. It gets even worse if you go back to 2010 with the Badgers dominating 20-3. It does not look promising for the hobbled Cream and Crimson, especially after already proving that they are vulnerable even at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. It will take a lot of magic to win this game and right the sinking ship.
Giving up on average nearly 70-points a game, IU defense is far from magical. #1 Houston gives up only 52.9-ppg. Keeping your opponent under 60, among other factors, is what it takes to be a top contender. Sadly, at least so far, it’s the death of 60 for this year’s Hoosiers.
I was born on August 27,1951 and was officially adopted in late October. I have some basketball genes in my DNA thanks to a birthfather who apparently played high school ball for North Vernon. However, it was the man that I called “dad” who introduced me to the game as a fan. He must have taken me to several high school games when I was a kid, but one was particularly memorable when he embarrassed me by yelling loudly, “You Hamburger” after a referee’s questionable call.
I made the Rice Elementary grade school basketball team in fourth grade but was a better dribbler than shooter. I would practice in our basement in the winter months, maneuvering around chairs. The low ceilings would only accommodate a round Quaker Oats container with the bottom removed to serve as a basket, mounted on a cardboard backstop. The “ball” was a wad of tin foil formed in a round shape that would fit in my hand. This is how I would reenact the annual Indiana High School basketball tournament, alternating between dribbling the real ball and shooting with the fake one. Remember, there were no video games to keep me entertained back then. At the same time, I would listen to the game broadcasts on WTRC, the local radio station where I would eventually work. By the time spring came along, I could dribble with the best of them, but “couldn’t hit the side of a barn.”
My mom and dad did send me to a skills camp every year, but they also moved me to Beardsley School in the sixth grade, where the kids on the team were much taller. It was the end of my basketball career, although I still loved to watch. “Junior Basketball Camp at Taylor University, the biggest, bestest, camp of all, with plenty of versatility. Bounce the ball down the floor, in the hoop for a score,” were the words of the camp song to the best of my recollection. All my Rice Krispie teammates were there, along with the bigger Beardsley Bomber bullies. In fact, every kid in Indiana that had dreams of winning a high school state championship was a fellow camper. However, four years was apparently not enough for me to ever start a game.
March was a special time in Indiana growing up, but there was always still the threat of snow. The tourney usually started in late February, and I would make a bracket to hang on the wall, filling in the teams around the state that would win their respective Sectional. As time went on, the Peter Eckrich Company would print special posters of the bracket in limited quantities, and I would scheme to get one. The unique thing about this elimination tournament was that all schools were part of a single-class system of competition regardless of size. The Elkhart High School Sectional was played in my North Side Junior High gym, one of the largest in the state seating 7,373. It opened in 1954, the year that the movie Hoosiers took place and tiny Milan High won the big prize. Adding to my love of the game, when the tourney took place at our school, the classrooms were closed. It was even better than a “Snow Day.”
I’ve always wondered how my love of this game evolved. I can only guess that it started with my parents, who as Indiana University grads, cheered on the 1953 Hoosiers who won the NCAA Championship, now known as the “Big Dance.” It was the second time that they won all the marbles and I’m seen in baby pictures wearing an Indiana t-shirt. Maybe this is where it all started. I also have the same temperament as my dad when it comes to watching the game as a fan but have never called a referee a “Hamburger.”
Despite not living in Indiana for nearly three decades, I still follow the tourney every year and continue to dream of making that last second shot to win it all. My high school has never won this state championship, even after it’s now been divided into classes by size of the school. However, it’s still the David vs. Goliath matches of the past that command all the attention. With an enrollment of only 161, the 1954 Milan Indians beat the giant, Muncie Central, to claim the coveted trophy. In their drive to the title that year, Milan nearly lost in the “Sweet Sixteen” to a school with only 14 students, seven boys and seven girls, from Montezuma High, who didn’t even have a gym. The Aztecs practiced in a basement with a low ceiling just like I did as a kid, but I doubt they used foil. Milan proved to be impossible to beat when they went into their famous cat-and-mouse stall game, long before the shot-clock became a factor.
I love this kind of history when it comes to Indiana High School Basketball and tried to pass that on to my son. He was scared of the Blue Blazer that was my high school mascot and instead rooted for our opponent’s furry Tiger. His claim to fame with the sport was two runners-up team trophies in the local Gus Macker Basketball competition. He was also the unofficial barber for his future high school’s state championship team, the Lawrence North Wildcats of 1989. My eighth-grade son volunteered our bathroom for the head shaving ceremonial ritual and left a mess of hair and blood for us to clean up. It’s Tourney Time!
My resolutions have been updated and I’m ready for the New Year. The first big change will be the golf cart in the garage. Today, we did joint errands with our one remaining car, as I dropped my wife off for a pedicure. I picked up some medication, dropped off a license plate at the BMV, got the oil changed, and tried to get a car wash. They, of course, could find no record of my visit a few weeks ago when I was promised a month of free car washes. I thought they would route me through anyway but instead they went through the trouble of removing some barricades to allow me to exit. Chances are I won’t be going back there again.
I’m looking forward to the bowl games, even though Indiana football will once again not be participating. I feel like I made the wrong choice of schools and regret not going on for a Master’s degree so I’d have another team to support. I’ve tried to adopt the hometown schools where we lived through the years like Illinois, University of Texas, Oregon, and Oregon State but it’s just not the same as rooting for the Hoosiers – good or bad. I grew up in Elkhart, Indiana, so neighboring Notre Dame would have been a likely choice, but that didn’t work out either. I also partnered with Purdue University for years when I was with WLFI-TV in Lafayette, Indiana, but the home state Boilers are still too much of an I.U. rival to always find endearing.
I’ve made a lot of bad choices picking teams through the years. I’m sure the Atlanta Braves are worried that I’ve moved nearby their Spring Training facilities. I can hear them saying, “please don’t pick us.” The Cubs, White Sox, and Bears have already suffered enough with me as a fan. The Indiana Pacers and Portland Trailblazers have also found me to be undesirable. “Adopt the team where you live,” they’ve urged me as we’ve moved from market to market. I’ve now owned homes in six different states with little to show for it. Fantasy sports have proven to also be disastrous for the players I select. “Please don’t pick me to be on your team. I beg of you!”
You would think that I could have made a fortune gambling against all these teams but that has proven to backfire, as well. Ever since I went the wrong way on the basketball court as a kid, sports have become my frenemy. I enjoy watching but don’t dare risk picking a side. Only the 2016 Cubs have proven me wrong after years of frustration. Come to think of it, I never really claimed them as my team but followed them regularly so I could engage in conversations with my dad, son, and nephew, who were avid fans. I even saw them win a World Series game! By the same twist of fate, the White Sox had one good year in 2005, after I had stuck with them as my team for 46 years. I saw them win two World Series games that year, another highlight of my unrewarding sports history.
I hope that 2023 is a good sports year for me, but I won’t hold my breath. I doubt that I will make it to Wrigley Field or Guaranteed Rate Stadium, formerly Comiskey Park, this year, although I have great memories of attending games with family. We saw Mickey Mantle play at Sox Park and watched Sammy Sosa launch two homers at Wrigley to top Babe Ruth’s historical mark. There are too many father/son/daughter moments to recall, but win or lose, from generation-to-generation, baseball is always our greatest bond.
The evolution of professional baseball is a tough road to follow and many cities throughout the United States lay claim to the origin. Ft. Wayne, Indiana is one of those many roots of the sport, dating back to just after the Civil War when the National Association of Professional Baseball Players was established. The creation of the game itself is accredited to Abner Doubleday in 1839. Elihu Phinney’s Cooperstown, New York cow pasture was ruled to be the first place it was ever played. Ft. Wayne claims to be the sight of the first ever professional baseball game in 1871 and the very first night game in 1883.
The Ft. Wayne Kekiongas hosted the Cleveland Forest Citys on May 4, 1871, resulting in a 2-0 victory for the home team. It sparked citywide excitement that led to the building of a new stadium called the “Grand Dutchess.” Two months later the Kekiongas withdrew from the league with a 7-21 record and the stadium was later destroyed by fire. The game of Trivial Pursuit credits the Kekiongas as the future Los Angeles Dodgers, but this connection is more likely a result of their league dues paid by a Brooklyn team that eventually became the Dodgers, who were officially founded in 1884.
The Kekiongas name was reclaimed in 1953 by the former GTE Voltman semi-pro team, Indiana State Champions, who lost their GTE sponsorship and joined the newly formed Ft Wayne Civic Baseball League. According to the book, Baseball in Fort Wayne by author Chad Gramling, a 1953 exhibition game against the Chicago White Sox was played. I could not find a box score from that game, but the Sox lost and Sherm Lollar most likely was the Chicago catcher, wearing #10 for the first time in his career, according to the White Sox opening day roster posted by Baseball Almanac.
In 1952, Red Wilson wore #10 while Lollar donned #45, his first year with the White Sox. He came to Chicago in a trade that sent Joe DeMaestri, Gordon Goldsberry, Dick Littlefield, Gus Niarhos and Jim Rivera to the St. Louis Browns for Lollar, Al Widmar, and Tom Upton. After a season together, Red Wilson must have let his catcher have the lower number and took #26 instead. For Lollar, it had been jersey #9 with the 1949-1951 St. Louis Browns, and #29 in 1947 and 1948 with the Yankees. Back in 1946 with the Indians, he was #12.
“Sherm Lollar was one of the top catchers in the major leagues in the early post-World War II era. Though he played with the New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Browns, Lollar spent the vast majority of his career (12 years) with the White Sox,” 11 of those years he wore #10.
“Lollar has 1,415 career hits, 155 home runs, 808 RBIs, and a lifetime .264 average. A solid defensive catcher, he maintained a .992 fielding percentage behind the plate and gunned down 47% of all runners attempting to steal, which is a very high average.”
“In total, Lollar was named to nine all-star teams, he won three gold glove awards and earned a World Series ring with the 1947 Yankees.”
The Lollar trade from St. Louis, reported above, has me confused because Manuel Joseph “Jim” Rivera was supposedly part of that deal, but like too many baseball stories there is conflicting information. Nonetheless, “Jungle Jim” was Sherm’s White Sox teammate from 1952-1961 before “Big Jim” was traded to the Kansas City Athletics and Lollar retired from the game in 1963. This next excerpt is from the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel November 17, 2017. “Jungle Jim” Rivera, an outfielder on the 1959 “Go-Go” White Sox pennant-winning team, died Monday in Fort Wayne. He was 96.“
By RICHARD BATTIN
“Did you know Babe Ruth played baseball in Fort Wayne?
His visit here 65 years ago this month is just part of the city’s rich and colorful baseball history.
It was a cloudy day in early May 1927, when Ruth and the rest of the New York Yankees arrived in Fort Wayne by train.
The Kekiongas played the Chicago White Stockings, later the White Sox, that summer. Chicago lost so badly that the fans threw rocks at the Kekiongas’ carriage, injuring many of the players.
The team was then named the Kekiongas, like the team from 1871. It was sponsored by the Capehart-Farnsworth Co., which made appliances.
In 1950, the team went to Wichita and won its fourth national title in a row. The team went on to Japan and won the world semi-pro baseball championship. It was the first world championship won by a city team.”
The game I was looking most forward to seeing was against North Carolina. From this fan’s perspective, the Tarheels were always a very satisfying victory, especially when Dean Smith was at the helm. I.U. was not involved in the first Final Four that I attended in New Orleans back in 1982. I remember how polite and proper the Tarheel fans seemed in their less than intimidating powder blue outfits, while the women wore white gloves, befitting a lady of the South. It did not seem to match the fierceness of the other three teams fighting for the NCAA crown. Yet, they did it over the Georgetown Hoyas, and I was blue with envy.
“The General” paid a visit to a practice leading up to this big home game. He was particularly successful in finding ways to beat North Carolina in critical games, even with less talented personnel. I’m sure his presence in the locker room was inspirational to these young players and Coach Woodson, despite Bob Knight’s failing health. This team is built around solid defense and undoubtedly this was part of the message.
I originated “The Magic of Sixty” theory watching Coach Knight’s teams through the years. I believe that Coach Woodson is a student of his protégé’s philosophy, even if this number is meaningless to him. I’ve tried to back it with as much history and research as possible to prove the point. The most critical part of any I.U. basketball game is the stretch between scoring fifty and sixty points. Whoever gets there first or prohibits their opponent from getting there first is usually the winner.
“The Magic” proved once again to be there in this Bloomington Battle, as I poured over the statistics. At the 8:02 mark, Trey Galloway made a jumper to make it 59-47, a step away from the threshold to victory. However, the quest stalled and it wasn’t until 5:59, over two minutes later, that Galloway’s twisting layup made it 71-52. Fortunately, the Tarheels only put 5-points on the board in that important stretch of surpassing 60.
The 77-65 final was the first time in 7-games that Hoosier scoring didn’t exceed 80, but it really only took 60 points to seal the win. All the hype leading up to this battle was over. Last year’s National Champion runner-up and this year’s pre-season favorite had just lost their third consecutive game. And the most encouraging part was that it wasn’t the result of a last-second shot, a random night of sizzling shooting, or even a standout performance from an unexpected hero. It was the total dissection of a perennial powerhouse. As a result, the Hoosiers will stay in the Top 10 for the first time since 2017. The only concern is the 7-25 three-point shooting in the first two real tests of the 2022-23 season.
Trayce Jackson Davis added what has become a consistent double-double performance, with Senior sidekick Xavier Johnson nearly matching his leadership, A freshman, Jalen Hood-Schifino, and junior, Galloway showed that I.U. has once again become a National power and will be for years to come. Next up is Rutgers and the start of the BIG 10 schedule.
