This past Wednesday was June 6. Most remember this date as the anniversary of D-Day (1944). It is also the date of my marriage to Rita (1981), and we were set to go out to dinner for our 37th anniversary.
Ken Hill and “The Ordinance Project”
Author: Lonnie Shalton
Ken Hill – From Pendergast to Carnahan
Hot Stove #76 – The Triple Crown – Baseball and Horse Racing
I am taking my Hot Stove editor to dinner on Wednesday night. It will be our 37th Wedding Anniversary. To further celebrate, Rita has arranged a baseball stadium tour (June 18-24) that will take us to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Nashville and Atlanta.
Hot Stove #75 – Bill Shapiro and Cyprus Avenue – 40 Years of Rock ‘n’ Roll
My thanks to those Hot Stove readers who got through my three (long) installments on baseball collusion. Despite the best efforts of my editor/wife Rita, I still often drift to posts that fit the dreaded TLDR designation. I had not heard of that term until last week when Hollis Hanover filled me in. It is internet shorthand for “Too Long. Didn’t Read.”
So I’m going to make a change. This long post will be about rock ‘n’ roll.
Hot Stove #74 – Collusion (Baseball not Russia) – Part Three
I thought my collusion topic would be good for one post. But I kept getting intrigued by side stories. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Curt Flood. Catfish Hunter. Kirk Gibson. Andre Dawson. All those commissioners. Marvin Miller. The Brothers Fehr. Others who you will see below. So it has taken three posts. I don’t know what the next post will be about, but it won’t be this. Perhaps the Royals will surge.
Hot Stove #73 – Collusion (Baseball not Russia) – Part Two
As we left Part One, the players had won free agency status in the Messersmith case, leading to the owners and players entering into a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). One of the key CBA provisions required that free agency be an individual right so that players could not band together for leverage (as Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax had done in their joint holdout in 1966). The owners were likewise to act independently – that is, they were prohibited from colluding to hold down salaries.
Hot Stove #72 – Collusion (Baseball not Russia) – Part One
The sports pages and news pages are filled with “collusion” talk. But the Russians are not coming to Hot Stove. Just baseball.
Fifty Years Ago Today – I’ve Been to the Mountaintop
I felt the need today to take a break from my Hot Stove baseball posts.
Fifty years ago today, Martin Luther King delivered his last speech: “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.” The following day, he was assassinated.
Hot Stove #71 – Opening Day, Ed Charles and Sidd Finch
OPENING DAY!
“There is no sports event like Opening Day of baseball, the sense of beating back the forces of darkness and the National Football League.” George Vecsey, New York Times.
Hot Stove #70 – Baseball and Korea
Themes for Hot Stove posts often come quite by accident. This one was sparked by the Winter Olympics, a Ted Williams story and the death last week of David Ogden Stiers. The common denominator: Korea.