|
|
|
|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Sports |
The Prater's Creek Gazette 18th Issue Summer 2008 Page #9 |
As Compiled by Sports Editor Bubba McCalister and his brother Dorris Jim McKay
The shock of going back to school was nothing compared to the shock of the news that Arab terrorists had taken Israeli athletes hostage in the Olympic village. There was no CNN back in 1972. There were no 24 hour news outlets, but there was Jim McKay. McKay stayed on the air for 15 straight hours, keeping us informed about the hostages situation. I laid in bed that night praying for the safety of the Israeli Olympians. The next day and exhausted, and broken hearted, McKay said "They're all gone". McKay may have been the best sports announcer ever, and folks my age not only remember his stoic commentary during the Olympic hostage event, but from more cheerful sports events like "The Wide World of Sports" every Saturday afternoon. That was his voice in the show's intro that is etched in all sports fans my age: "Spanning the globe,........... the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat". McKay, who was from Baltimore, was the first person seen on Baltimore television in 1947, when less than a dozen television sets existed in that city. He also was was an owner of the Baltimore Orioles. The respect he had from other sports announcers was evident the weekend after he died, when, no matter what sport was being broadcast, the announcers paid tribute, to not only McKay the sports announcer, but to Jim McKay the man. He will missed by all of us sports fans. Baseball On The Radio Hearing a baseball game being called on the radio is like Zen to me. I don't care if it's the major leagues, the minor leagues, college, or American Legion ball, if I'm in the car driving during the summer and I find a baseball game on, I'm going to listen. I never feel more American than when I do so. My daddy told me how he became a life long Detroit Tigers fan by hanging out with another boy his age who had polio and was confined to a wheelchair. Even though he couldn't play ball with my dad and the other boys, he was still the biggest baseball fan in the neighborhood. The boy had a powerful radio and he and my dad would listen to major league games from all over. The boy was a Detroit Tigers fan and my dad started following them also. When I was a young boy, I would sometimes stay with my aunt and uncle while my parents went out to dinner and a movie, or whatever. Uncle Leon was a big Atlanta Braves fan and would listen to the game every night. He developed problems with his eyes, and went totally blind in one eye and only had 20% vision in the other. He'd sit and listen to Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson call the game. And their great play by play would give Uncle Leon the chance to SEE Hank Aaron hit a homerun, SEE Phil Niekro baffle hitters with his knuckleball, or SEE Ralph Garr ("Beep! Beep!") steal second. When I was in college, I had a job delivering pizza and my car only had an AM radio. Every night when the sun went down and the local AM station had to stop broadcasting, I could pick up a megawatt AM station out of Cincinnati, OH and would listen to Reds games. I wasn't a Reds fan, nor did I particularly care for the National League, but I thought that was unbelievably awesome, riding around and listening to the Reds broadcast and hearing the local commercials. That has been 27 years ago and I still think about how great that was. The summer of 1981 I was in Massachusetts and the major leagues were on strike. But, every business you went into had the Red Sox AAA team, the Pawtucket Red Sox, on the radio. As I type this, I'm listening to my favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles, over the internet. It connects me to a game being played, and it connects me to my uncle, and to my dad, and to the millions of Americans like writer/political historian/major crush of mine, Doris Kearns, who, when she was a little girl listened to her Brooklyn Dodgers and filled out a score sheet so she could tell her dad, play by play, what happened. You wanna be patriotic this July 4th? Then, if you can't attend a game in person, listen to baseball on the radio.
Prater's Creek To Hold It's Own Olympics
The events will be held at various locations throughout town. There will be a pigs feet eating contest at Livwright's General Store. Todd Livwright, proprietor, said he also will have a tobacco spitting and beer chugging contest at his store "since the Spitoono Festival won't have them anymore". Over at Flossie Jenkins living room there will be arm rasslin' and also a staring contest. And here at the Gazette offices there will a contest to see who can stand getting breathed on by Dorris McCalister, sports editor.
McGrady's farm will be the site of
the marathon. There will be ten eligible bachelors and ten bachelorettes.
The Widow Jenkins will chase the men, and Dorris Mcalister will chase the
women and the contestants will run until one of them is caught, or for 26
miles, whichever comes first.
Most of the events will be held at The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show's farm. There will be swim meets held in the farm's cow pond. Many track events will be held including the 54 yard dash, and a steeplechase with haystacks, barbed wire, and mud puddles. There will be a fencing competition, but not the fruity kind with rubber tipped swords and the funny suits with screened porch masks. No, here, contestants will see who can put up a fence the fastest. There will also be the barbed wire hurdle to be held at night where racers run out of a chicken coop with a tow sack full of hens and race to the finish line, jumping barbed wire fences along the way. Grandpa,of The Drovers, is most excited about the women's gymnastics that will be held. "Oh, I'm a big fan." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I had just started the 8th grade that week. The week before, the precious
last week of summer vacation, my friends and I had set up a track and field
events course in my backyard. I had taken a liking to the steeplechase event and we
had my little sister's kiddy pool set up behind a picnic table bench to
have our own steeplechase and other Olympic events. We had been watching the
Olympics from Munich, Germany. Up the street, two neighborhood girls
the same age as me, Renee Marvin and Susan Jones, had been inspired by Olga Korbut
and were doing somersaults and other gymnastic feats in Mrs. Steadings'
backyard.
While
the real Olympics are being held in China this summer, the folks here in
town are going to hold their own Olympics. Mayor Allen Jones said "this
Olympics will bring everyone in town together, and it will be a lot of fun
too!".
There
will also be an endurance contest where ten men will consume vast amounts of beer and chili during a
four hour period, and then enter a heavy canvas tent that will be set up in
the sun, no chance of shade. The last man in the tent wins.