Browsing: Sports

A Brief History As the NFL completes week 5 of the 2016 football season, Forbes informs us that the sit down, kneel down protest mania sparked by San Francisco Forty Niners quarterback Colin Kaepernick is hitting the NFL where it counts, costing the venerable football league as many as a third of its valued television viewers. Digging Deeper Kaepernick and other NFL players are protesting against their perceived racism by the police in the United States, and are claiming police are gunning down African-American men and boys for no apparent reason. Although a sizable minority of Americans seem to agree…

A Brief History On September 6, 1995, Cal Ripken, Jr., infielder for the Baltimore Orioles, set a new major league baseball record by playing in his 2131st consecutive baseball game, breaking the record held by Lou Gehrig for 56 years. Digging Deeper Ripken played another 6 years, stretching his incredible record to 2632 games, finally retiring in 2001 after a stellar 20 year career.  He had hit safely 3184 times and knocked in 1695 runs, earned 2 Gold Gloves and 2 MVP trophys.  Named to the All Century Team, Ripken was a 19 time All Star, and was elected to…

A Brief History On July 20, 1968, the first International Special Olympics for intellectually challenged people was held in Chicago’s Soldier Field.  About a thousand athletes competed that day, and today over 4 million participate every year in 170 countries! Digging Deeper Started by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the sister of President John F. Kennedy, in 1962, the Special Olympics were particularly personal to the Kennedy family as John and Eunice had a sister that suffered from mental deficiency for which she was given a lobotomy in hopes of correcting her problem, but it only gave her more brain damage. At…

A Brief History On July 16, 1862 and July 16, 1882, we commemorate the birthdays of 2 significant African-American women, Ida B. Wells (who first developed statistics on lynching in the US) and Violette Neatley Anderson (the first African-American woman to practice law before the United States Supreme Court).  In honor of these historic Black American Women, today we choose to highlight the accomplishments of Seven Great Black American Men, people that young Americans can look up to, especially African-American youths.  The order listed has no significance. Digging Deeper 7.  Booker T. Washington.  A multi-faceted man as an educator, author,…

A Brief History On July 11, 1914, the major league career of George Herman Ruth began, with Ruth pitching for the victory of the Red Sox over the Cleveland Naps.  On that same day, it is said Ruth met his first wife, a 16 year old waitress.  Of course Ruth is better known as “Babe” Ruth, but he was also often referred to as “The Sultan of Swat” or “The Bambino.”  What you might not know is that his Yankee teammates usually called him “Jidge.” Digging Deeper Great athletes and minor ones alike often have colorful nicknames, and baseball is…