Friendship 7, Plus 60

John Glenn was one of NASA’s original group of seven astronauts in Project Mercury.  On February 20, 1962, his orbit in the Friendship 7 capsule was cut short because of concerns about the heat shield.  This is an excerpt from my book 1962: Baseball and America...

Rick Monday’s Star-Spangled Play

Old Glory.  Stars and Stripes.  Star-Spangled banner. America’s flag is, for some, a sacred fabric.  Rick Monday represented those devotees during a Cubs-Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium on April 25, 1976, when he prevented a duo—father and son—from igniting the...

Tom Selleck and Baseball

A prime time powerhouse on the roster of Reagan Era television programs, Magnum, p.i. invokes images of Aloha shirts, a red Ferrari, and a Detroit Tigers baseball cap worn by the title character, played by Tom Selleck “with a shaggy charm that manages to cut...