McGraw and McGillicuddy

One was pugnacious.  The other, almost regal. When John Joseph McGraw took the field, he embraced baseball games as bouts, thus earning his nicknames Mugsy and Little Napoleon. When Cornelius McGillicuddy managed the Philadelphia Athletics, he wore a suit rather than...

James Bond: Spoofs, Parodies, and Parallels

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then James Bond should be very flattered indeed. Bond’s popular culture icon status inspired spoofs, parodies, and parallels aplenty.  Roger Moore portrayed Bond in the 1970s and 1980s.  He also portrayed a Bondish...

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Wallenda

The bar for awesome just got higher. By a few hundred miles. Nik Wallenda crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope last night. ABC broadcast the event as a prime time special, a logical outlet given the network has daredevil events in its DNA. In the 1970s, Evel Knievel...