Cleaning out the inbox

Time to clean the inbox and we'll start with Bruce Markusen's Card Corner that he does for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Bruce picked the 1969 Topps to discuss former Indians outfielder Ken "the Hawk" Harrelson,but I've always preferred the 1970 (shown) or his 1971 with Hawk seemingly cracking up over the duller 1969 version.
Markusen's article explains why the 1969 cards are so dull and has a comprehensive look at Hawk's career and his announcing career.
I'm a huge fan of Hawk's,but I can certainly understand why some fans cannot stand him-he certainly is a homer and loves the White Sox definitively!


The Comeback writes of the possible end of a torrid rivalry between New Mexico and New Mexico State due to the issues of conferences.
New Mexico State looks headed to 1-AA as the Sun Belt booted them and Idaho,no other conferences appear to want the Aggies (small market) and as an independent,New Mexico State appears unlikely to be able to schedule five home games a year,which is an NCAA D-1 requirement.
The question then becomes,if NMSU goes down to 1-AA,will the Lobos continue to schedule them?
It's too bad and a sad ending to a big rivalry...

Battlin' Bob sends this note from SI.com on the many people that the Rams move from St.Louis affected on game day and otherwise.
It goes to show just how leaving a town can sour a market and this market might be poisoned for good when you consider the Cardinals left as did the Rams and the passing over of St.Louis for expansion for Carolina and Jacksonville.
People never look at the stain on Paul Tagliabue's resume for insisting on Jacksonville as an expansion club.
Picking them over Baltimore likely cost Cleveland the Browns and over St.Louis,might have meant football never left Southern California.....

Joe Plum adds a page on the demise of the Shawshank Redemption tree in Ohio.
I went and saw the tree a few years back with the lovely Cherie,but had been split after being hit by lightning.
Now the tree is down as it succumbed to high winds and is on its side.
No word on the eventual home or use for the wood from the tree...

One of my all time favorite Cavaliers talks with Sam Amico of Amico Hoops as Mark Price chats about his career in Cleveland and a little about the Cavalies NBA title.
Price is currently the head coach at Charlotte,who plays in Conference USA.....

Comstock's writes about the business of minor league baseball and their major league affiliations as the article focuses on the Sacramento RiverCats and their move from the Oakland Athletics to the San Francisco Giants in 2014.
The interesting article talks about the ins and outs of Sacramento's move and how it was done along with how it worked out.

We wrap up with a ESPN short film on Peter Norman.
Norman was the Australian sprinter that was on the medal stand with Tommie Smith and John Carlos during their famous protest in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
It's a take on the incident that I haven't seen before...

Cleaning out the inbox

We start the inbox cleaning with the sad news of the passing of Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn from Salivary Gland cancer at the age of the young age of 54.

I often step on the W.J.Bryan box about how Cal Ripken was overrated and would offer this question-If fill in the blank played every day for that number of games, how many (hits or homers) would they have produced?
Every time the player that I would use for the hit comparison would be Tony Gwynn.
Gwynn didn't have the best power numbers (17 homers was his career-high), but he was the best hitter of his generation in my opinion.
Gwynn always seemed to combine the fun of the game with the business approach of the job and I always considered myself a Tony Gwynn fan.
He will be missed...

More from the baseball world as Sean Nicol was released by the Washington Nationals earlier this week.
Sean has always been a class act and did an interview with us in 2013.
I'm hoping to get him for another one looking back at his career and in the years of my going to Suns games, Sean Nicol ranks right with Erik Arnesen as my favorite Suns player.
A super person off the field and we wish Sean the best in life after the game.

We stay with even more baseball as an Indians blogger "Did the Tribe win last night" offers some thoughts on Eddie Grant, who was the only person to ever die in battle during an active baseball career.
Grant, who spent time with the Indians and Giants, was killed in the First World War and was memorialized with a plaque in centerfield at the Polo Grounds in New York.
If you play MLB the Show and play at the Polo Grounds (I do as the Giants sometimes), you can see the Grant plaque in the field of play.
The plaque was stolen when the Giants left in 1957 and wasn't heard from again until late 90's when it turned up in someone's home in Brooklyn.
The Giants turned down offers for a replacement as well as the original until putting one up in 2006.
Grant is also thought to have a connection to the film-The Natural as "Bump Bailey's" death and resulting plaque at "Knight's Field" is reported to have been loosely based on Grant...

Grantland slams one home with an article on the late Seton Hall star and NBA player Eddie Griffin, who passed away almost seven years ago.
I always find it an interesting read when we look back at players that never went to college or were one-and-done players years down the road and see how things turned out both on and off-court.
Give it a once over and see what you think.

Most of you know how much I love the Shawshank Redemption, but here is a Wall Street Journal post on the business side of Shawshank that explains why you can see it on various channels along with the cash that it still drives every day.
The article talks about the making of the film and other interesting notes that a huge fan like me should enjoy...

Finally, we wrap up with this note as the Jolly Roger amusement park in Ocean City MD celebrates its 50th year in business.
I haven't visited Ocean City for almost 30 years, but I remember through pictures and home movies, trips that my parents took me to O.C.as a pre-schooler in the early '70s, although I think the one that I remember best was the second satellite park opened there in 1974 just off the boardwalk.
Points to our favorite person to come out of Baltimore (I know, fans, it's a short list!) Mary Beth Marsden, who brought it up recently and added that she was a former employee at Jolly Roger!

Whew! That was a heavy cleaning, but I have more in the making with that Cavaliers draft preview talking about Jabari Parker or Andrew Wiggins and the autographs from the signing front just keep piling up, so we will have to do something about that soon!

More from the road

After a night with a less than strong signal from the road office, I decided to give this another shot tonight with some thoughts on my trip away that for a rare change in the summer included zero baseball!

For a three day, two-night trip, this might have been the most intensive trip that I planned, yet at the same time, I kept things loose enough to do different things.
This was originally scheduled to be the 25th anniversary trip for the lovely Cherie and me in May and was moved back to August.
Early on, it figured to be some baseball stops included mixed with some other things tossed in as well.
The trip moved from a trip to Cooperstown to a return (for me) to Tennessee and ended with Cherie saying that she would just rather go to Ohio.

We started early in the day and I had looked into the possibility of taking Cherie to the Flight 93 National Memorial.
Cherie had often commented on wanting to see the memorial when we pass by, but I had demurred due to cold weather.
That decision proved to be a smart one as the memorial was definitely a warm-weather stop with lots of walking and weather exposure.
I surprised Cherie with this stop and I was glad that I was able to do this for her as well as me.
The memorial is about 20 miles off the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the signs to find it are plentiful and well-marked, so it is not too tough to find.
It is on a two-lane road, so it can take a while to get there, but it is very poignant and well worth the trip to honor those American heroes that gave their lives to save even more on the most tragic day in the history of our country...

After a stop at the Pittsburgh icon Primanti Brothers for lunch, we continued on to the home base and eventual dinner with my cousin Missy and her family at Lyn-Way in Ashland.
Lyn-Way is one of those places that every town used to have, but few still do.
Strong comfort food and an assortment of pies that rank among the best that I have ever eaten make Lyn-Way a stop that I try to make as often as I can when in town.
I usually order the liver there as I don't get the chance to order that often in other establishments and rarely do I have the room for dessert and the terrific pies.

We finished day one with a quiet evening in the hotel to rest up for day two in the Ohio capital of Columbus.
I had given thought to catching the AAA Columbus Clippers but decided against it for two reasons.
The first was that the visitors were the Durham Bulls, which as a Tampa affiliate meant that I had little for them and had even less reason to see them play.
The other? Well, I had left the ever-present briefcase at home, so that meant I would have to buy supplies and just do a Clippers team set.
In the end, I decided it just was not worth it...

Most of the day was spent with great company (the lovely Cherie), good shopping ( a few cool buys), some unique stops (a whole foods store), and great food (TRS favorite Quaker Steak and Lube).
We would return to the hotel later and would stumble upon a flyer in the travel brochure stall that would become a must-do.

The Shawshank Redemption has become one of my favorite films, despite not being a huge fan of Stephen King's writing, since Ryan recommended it to me and it was an excellent recommendation.
Much of the film was filmed around Mansfield Ohio and I found a flyer that was a tour of the spots in the film that you can drive to yourself.
Cherie and I spent the morning taking the tour that included seeing the famous oak tree from the film that is now half the size due to a 2011 wind storm, the spots included the various spots that "Red" traveled to and the Ohio State Reformatory where much of the film was made.
It killed much of the morning before another trip to Belgrade Gardens for chicken.
Rachel got a dinner for the road placed inside a cooler and I was able to talk to the owner of Belgrade Gardens a bit.
Milos Papich is the grandson of the original owners and he told me about the European origins of the recipe after I told him that Belgrade Gardens completely ruined fried chicken for the remainder of the year.
Mr.Papich added that Belgrade has begun to overnight ship chicken around the country for a rather large fee as well......

Another stop that we wanted to make was a return to Kent State when the weather was warm.
The added bonus was that with the students out of school, parking was plentiful and we were able to enjoy the site without the wind that aided the freeze of our last visit.
We learned more about the area before our visit this time, so we were able to find more markers than in our first visit and enjoyed the trip even further.
The visitors center there has come along and looks almost finished so I am sure that we will return there in the future to explore the center upon its completion.

We decided to make one more side trip and this was another one that had been a talked-about stop for years.
I have always liked the tradition of powerhouse Mount Union and have always wanted to visit it in the town of Alliance.
Alliance was unusual as it seems that most of the trip was through woods and then the town almost smacks you in the face with its arrival out of nowhere.
We made the jaunt to the Mount Union campus and bought a Purple Raiders mini-helmet and each of us a t-shirt.
Another place that I have wanted to see for years checked off the list.

Cherie and I covered many back roads of Ohio that we had never seen and I like to think that we both enjoyed it.
A great trip, many things accomplished and believe it or not-no baseball :)

Photo Credits: Cherie Heimberger