by David Krell | Mar 24, 2017 | David Krell
Not since Shoeless Joe Jackson and seven others received lifetime banishments from baseball had White Sox fans suffered a collective depression akin to the one on October 8, 1959—Chicago’s beloved team from the South Side lost the World Series to the Los Angeles...
by David Krell | Mar 23, 2017 | David Krell
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...
by David Krell | Mar 22, 2017 | David Krell
1,517 people died when the Titanic plunged to the bottom of the North Atlantic in 1912; a valued presidential adviser was among the men, women, and children that perished—Major Archibald Butt. In a written statement dated April 19, 1912, President William Howard Taft...
by David Krell | Mar 21, 2017 | David Krell
With civic pride running as deep as the Hudson River abutting it, Hoboken boasts a singer who defined the standard for American popular music, an Italian festival dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, and a Beaux-Arts train terminal built by the once...
by David Krell | Mar 20, 2017 | David Krell
Glitz, glamour, and gambling—escalated, somewhat, by gaudiness, garishness, and greed—fuel Las Vegas. It is, after all, a desert metropolis built on a foundation of fantasy. It is also where Elvis Presley made his live performance comeback after eight years of...
by David Krell | Mar 19, 2017 | David Krell
Jim Palmer began his major league career in 1965, when the Braves played their last season in Milwaukee, the Astros unveiled the Astrodome, and Bert Campaneris became the first player to play all nine positions in a major league game. Throughout his 19 seasons—all in...
by David Krell | Mar 18, 2017 | David Krell
Once upon a decade—the one that introduced Elvis Presley, car tail fins, and McDonald’s franchises—a ballplayer blessed with speed, grace, and athleticism rivaling Orsippus’s climbed to the apex of baseball, popular culture, and media. The year was 1951....
by David Krell | Mar 17, 2017 | David Krell
Wee Willie Keeler, a diminutive Baltimore Orioles right fielder measuring 5’4″ and 140 pounds, declared of his success, “Keep your eye on the ball and hit ’em where they ain’t!” In 1897, he did it 239 times for a .424 batting...
by David Krell | Mar 16, 2017 | David Krell
When James Oglethorpe led the settling of Savannah, Georgia in 1733, he used a geometric shape for the layout—squares. Robert Johnson has the distinction of the first square being named after him; Johnson—South Carolina’s colonial governor—and Oglethorpe were...
by David Krell | Mar 15, 2017 | David Krell
When Ronald Reagan pursued the presidency, Jack Warner, his former boss, said, “No, Jimmy Stewart for President. Ronald Reagan for best friend.” This story may be apocryphal a combination of political and Hollywood lore. Reagan, the nation’s 40th...
