Spittin' Sports and History

A few games back, Tom Brady's team was losing. How could Tom Terrific have a bad game? But at the very end with one minute left, he got the football. The announcers could hardly keep from being excited. "He's come back with a minute left on something like 45 games! Maybe he can do it again." So we all held our breath(well, maybe not that) and watched him go to work. First there was a running play that got just a few yards. Then there was a pass that was dropped. Then there was another running play that went nowhere. Finally, there was the 4th down and a sloppy pass. That was it. Tom Terrific didn't come back this time. But we all watched as he turned to the referee and held up 4 fingers, pleading the case that it was 4th down. No,Tom, you forgot what the down was. You, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time-- you lost track and somehow thought there was going to be another chance. But we all forget sometimes. In high school I played the tympani(kettle drums)...

Baseball came to Texas about 1870 and was wildly popular. Every small town could gather up enough guys to have a team and play a neighboring town. Fans loved to congregate around a baseball diamond somewhere and root for their favorite players. Sometimes, an owner of a team would think his plan for winning was better than the manager's, and the results were seldom good. In 1903 Corsicana was to play Texarkana when the Texarkana owner sent his grandson to the manager with the instructions that the manager was to start the grandson  as pitcher. Of course the manager was upset, but he knew he had no choice and put the young, untried pitcher in. It was awful: 53 hits, 21 home runs, and a final score of 51-3. After the first inning another player asked the manager if he was going to take out the terrible pitcher, and he replied that the owner wanted to run the game, so the game would just continue. The Corsicana catcher had 8 times at bat and hit 8 home runs, a record never matched in b...

Image by  skeeze  from  Pixabay   Michael Jordan just announced he is going to have a   NASCAR car and will have Bubba Wallace as the driver. It  costs a truckload of money to start a team with all the things that go with it, but Michael doesn't have to think twice. He is w orth a bout 2 billion(that's b) and is the richest former pro athlete on the planet. Of course he got a great salary when he  was playing basketball, but he h as proved to be a marvelous businessman who asks questions, listens to people, and puts his money to work for him. That's a big difference in many former athletes who declare bankruptcy within 3 years of leaving the sport that was theirs. He took what he had and made something of it. I   Put that with this experience. My neighbor and fellow Wilson teacher, Patty Hamilton, had a big apple tree in her back yard that she didn't like. It had kind of small green apples for its crop every year, and if she didn't get out in...