Monday Morning Video Laugh - September 21, 2026

The super under-appreciated David Hyde Pierce.

Dinner last night:  Chicken tenders and roasted tomatoes.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - When Football Was Important To Me

 

Well, that's one long title.

The NFL football season started last Sunday and, frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn.  I started losing interest in pro football about two decades ago.  The players seemed to become more intense and increasingly cartoonish with their histrionics in the end zone and the manner in a tackle has to completely demolish the other guy.  Admittedly, American society has gotten much darker and sinister, which explains why football is now so revered in this country.

But my ambivalence wasn't always like this.  Back when I was a kid, I wandered from baseball to football as soon as the leaves started to become a crispy gold and brown.  I think this pleased my father who was a big fan. 

Now, in those days, pro football wasn't much of a sport you could watch on television.  Well, the road games of your favorite team were televised.  But blackout rules prevailed and any home games were not shown.  You had to listen to them on...gasp...the radio.  Or, if you lived in New York, you drove up to Connecticut and, provided you were close enough to the Hartford-New Haven TV market, you watched games there.  Some pulled up bar stools.  Others actually rented motel rooms to see their beloved Jets and Giants.  Hopefully, the sheets cooled off after a robust Saturday night.

As for my house, my first foray into football fandom was for the Jets as I was again adopting the allegiance of the new kids in town.  I remember my dad always listening to the New York Giant games on WNEW AM Radio, but, just as he with baseball, he gravitated to my team as well.  Fathers make those kinds of sacrifices.  Plus I previously have written about the year I spent going to Jet games at Shea Stadium with my mom's boss and her boyfriend, who were season ticket holders.   So, I suppose that I was a major part of the Jet faithful.

But, almost as soon as I became a Jet fan, they won the Super Bowl and they got a little boring as a result.  Of course, at the time, nobody knew that they wouldn't get another shot at it for the next two centuries.  So, my love for a football team wasn't as deep as it was for the New York Mets.  I could be easily pulled away.

Back in the day, it was virtually impossible to get tickets to New York Giant football games.  Most of the patrons were season ticket holders since the 1800s and seat plans were often included in last wills and testaments.  There were 60,000 privileged people every Sunday who got to enter their then-home of Yankee Stadium.

The prospect of going to a New York Giant game was about as alien to me as a trip to the Moon.  And, hell, there were people going there back then.  So, you can imagine my surprise when, on one September Saturday, I got a call from my best friend at school, Danny.

"A guy my dad knows is offering us his two season tickets for tomorrow's Giant game."

Huh?

I never turned down any invitations to any sporting event at that age.  And, since my friends and I were already well versed in traveling to Shea and Yankee Stadium by ourselves, I didn't foresee any parental opposition.

Surprise.  My dad, who probably had never been to a Giant football game himself, was a bit defensive.  And probably a little bit envious.

"What do you want to go down there for?   A lot of nuts in that place."

Well, yeah.  So? 

"It's too damn crowded.  You'll get lost."

Well, maybe.  So?

"Lots of traffic down there.  The two of you will get clipped."

I doubt it.  So?

But, as most fathers always do, my dad caved in.  As long as he could orchestrate the whole day.  He'd drive me and Danny to the Jerome Avenue subway train which would let us off right in from of the stadium.   He'd listen to the game and then time our return home and wait for us at the train station. 

And so he did. 

Meanwhile, Danny and I walked into that stadium like kings on that Sunday.  We felt like we belonged to the most elite group in the world.  The seats sucked.  Actually, the view at the top of this blog was pretty much our POV.  But, we didn't care.  And we rooted for the home team because, heck, everybody around us had owned their season tickets the turn of the century.

Yes, we became Giant fans.  And, you can imagine our euphoria when Danny got the call one Saturday later about tickets to the very next game.  

As it turns out, because the season ticket owner was having some business issues, we got to go to four of the seven home games that year.  He let us know on Saturday and, when the call came, we were delirious.  It was great.   We started to be on a first-name basis with the folks around us.   And my father's transport service and our Sunday schedule became almost robotic.

These days, football teams can make the playoffs if they score more than three touchdowns all season.  But, back then, it was a more prestigious group that moved forward.  And the Giants had to win on the last home Sunday to go into the playoffs.   This was the game everybody in town was talking about.

Danny and I waited eagerly for the Saturday call.  That never came.

Now, I was desperate to see this damn game.  So, I really pushed the envelope with my father.   

I suggested we drive to Connecticut and find a motel or bar that was airing the game.

"What are you, some kind of nut??"

I listened on the radio.  The Giants lost.   They didn't make the playoffs.  

And, since there were never any tickets in any subsequent year, my Giant fan days were done.

Dinner last night:  Orange chicken from Panda Express.

Classic TV Theme of the Month - September 2026

 Wow!  This premiered sixty years ago this week.

Dinner last night:  The buffet at the Dodger Stadium season ticket holder party.

The School Photographer is Back!

 

Barack Obama, Second Grade.

Mad Magazine had to start some place.

Nancy Guthrie could be in there.

Yes, the guy behind the camera is a pedophile.

Future bimbo runway model.

Sally Struthers, Age 8.

Hey, kid, that smell just might be you.

If Howard Stern got a nose job.

Dinner last night:  Salisbury steak.

One Last 9/11 Story

 

And it's one I can't believe.  Or stomach.  

It's not a remembrance from 2001.   It was last week as related by a work colleague who has a kid in college.   I don't know if the class involved was history or journalism.  But the reference comes from whatever dumbbell stands in front of this class to lecture.

You see, this higher educator numbskull went on a soap box to talk about how the planes going into the WTC was an early form of AI.

I heard this and shook my head.   

Yeah, the buildings never crumbled to the ground.

Almost 3,000 lives didn't end on that day.

People who worked in Ground Zero didn't get life-ending cancer years later.

I can only hope this teacher was making a sick joke.  It would be hard to fathom that somebody actually believes this.  And shares it with a bunch of kids who weren't even born in 2001.

As I always say, academia rhymes with macadamia.   Fitting because they're both nuts.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.

This Date in History - September 16

 

Happy birthday to Ed Begley Jr., who co-starred in one of my favorite TV shows of all time, "St. Elsewhere."

307:  EMPEROR SEVERUS II IS CAPTURED AND IMPRISONED AT TRES TABERNAE.  HE IS LATER EXECUTED.

That's a little severus, don't you think?

1400:  OWAIN GLYNDWR IS DECLARED PRINCE OF WALES BY HIS FOLLOWERS.

Give that last name a vowel, please.

1620:  PILGRIMS SET SAIL FROM ENGLAND ON THE MAYFLOWER.

Trying to beat the Thanksgiving traffic.

1776:  THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION - THE BATTLE OF HARLEM HEIGHTS IS FOUGHT.

I hope they don't damage the Apollo Theater.

1810:  WITH THE GRITO DE DOLORES, FATHER MIGUEL HIDALGO BEGINS MEXICO'S FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE FROM SPAIN.

Grito de Dolores?   Does that come with guacamole?

1880:  THE CORNELL DAILY SUN PRINTS ITS FIRST ISSUE IN ITHACA, NEW YORK.  THE SUN IS THE NATION'S OLDEST, CONTINUOUSLY-INDEPENDENT COLLEGE DAILY.

As if college students are truly independent.

1908:  THE GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION IS FOUNDED.

Recall.

1914:  TV DIRECTOR ALLEN FUNT IS BORN.

Smile.

1919:  THE AMERICAN LEGION IS INCORPORATED.

Just what do they do besides march in your local Memorial Day parade?

1920:  A BOMB IN A HORSE WAGON EXPLODES IN FRONT OF THE JP MORGAN BUILDING IN NEW YORK CITY AND KILLS 38 WHILE INJURING 400.

Not exactly an improvement - years later, terrorists use children instead of horses.

1924:  ACTRESS LAUREN BACALL IS BORN.

You just know she was a bitch.

1927:  ACTOR PETER FALK IS BORN.

Just one more question...

1934:  ACTOR GEORGE CHAKIRIS IS BORN.

Take the Sharks over the Jets with the points.

1943:  WORLD WAR II - THE ALLIED INVASION OF ITALY CONCLUDES WHEN HEINRICH VON VIETINGHOFF, COMMANDER OF THE GERMAN TENTH ARMY, ORDERS HIS TROOPS TO WITHDRAW FROM SALERNO.

Mr. Vietinghoff to you.

1945:  WORLD WAR II - THE SURRENDER OF THE JAPANESE TROOPS IN HONG KONG IS ACCEPTED.

Who knows a notary public, please?

1949:  ACTOR ED BEGLEY JR. IS BORN.

In his honor, take the bus today.

1955:  THE MILITARY COUP TO UNSEAT PRESIDENT JUAN PERON OF ARGENTINA IS LAUNCHED AT MIDNIGHT.

Don't cry for me, yada yada yada.

1956: MAGICIAN DAVID COPPERFIELD IS BORN.

Presto.

1958:  BASEBALL STAR OREL HERSHISER IS BORN.

Great baseball announcer, but, boy, did I hate him back in 1988.

1959:  THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL PHOTOCOPIER, THE XEROX 914, IS INTRODUCED IN A LIVE TV DEMONSTRATION.

Somebody forgot to add paper.

1965:  ANIMATOR FRED QUIMBY DIES.

I created Gumby, damn it.

1966:  THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE OPENS AT LINCOLN CENTER IN NYC WITH THE WORLD PREMIERE OF SAMUEL BARBER'S "ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA."

What's the over/under that Tony Randall was in the audience that night?

1970:  KING HUSSEIN OF JORDAN DECLARES MILITARY RULE FOLLOWING THE HIJACKING OF FOUR CIVILIAN AIRLINES BY THE POPULAR FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE.

Just in case you thought those dirtbags in 2001 were all that original.

1980:  SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES JOIN THE UNITED NATIONS.

I think I saw them perform in Greenwich Village.

1992:  THE TRIAL OF THE DEPOSED PANAMANIAN DICTATOR MANUEL NORIEGA ENDS IN THE US WITH A 40-YEAR SENTENCE FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING AND MONEY LAUNDERING.

Forty years too short.

2009:  SINGER MARY TRAVERS DIES.

Peter, Paul, and Nobody.

2013:  A GUNMAN KILLS TWELVE PEOPLE AT THE NAVY YARD IN WASHINGTON, DC.

Just so you realize that this kind of workplace violence will always exist.

2016:  PLAYWRIGHT EDWARD ALBEE DIES.

Who's afraid now?

2021:  ACTRESS JANE POWELL DIES.    

Seven Corpses for Seven Brothers.

2025:  ACTOR ROBERT REDFORD DIES.

Remembering the way he was.

Dinner last night:   Salad. 

One More 9/11 Documentary

 

With the 25th anniversary just past, there were a variety of new documentaries on the subject.  And replays of some old ones.   For me, the newest one might just be the best.   I was crying throughout, largely because "When America Took the Field" connected that horrific tragedy with a love of my life...baseball fandom.

Now there have been other films that covered how Major League Baseball helped our country heal in those first weeks after 9/11.  HBO did one that was very good about 15 years ago.  Indeed, some of the same children who were spotlighted by HBO have their lives updated in this new movie on the MLB Network.   But, indeed. the tone set by this new doc, executive produced by former baseball star Todd Zeile, would move emotionally impact the most casual of fans.

The usual tales are covered.   The kids who lost their dads and moms who are baseball fans.  The first game in NY after 9/11 when Mike Piazza hits a game winning homerun that just be the greatest moment of the sports ever.  Fan connections with the likes of Ken Griffey Jr. and Derek Jeter.  Community outreach by managers Joe Torre and Bobby Valentine who secretly arranged to have one dad's ashes scattered at Shea Stadium's home plate.

Believe me, this movie pulls at your heart strings as if it was a symphony violin. And, as I watched, memories washed over me.   It made me miss Shea Stadium.  It made me recall how strong my love was for the NY Mets during my childhood.  And it made me realize how baseball was the basis of so many of my longtime friends.  

And I thought about my own parents, gone due to illness and not because a building fell on them.  My dad introduced me to the game.  I myself introduced the game to my mother in her later years, largely because she loved both Dwight Gooden and Met announcer Tim McCarver.

This film has it all.   Memories of a grateful nation.  And mine.

LEN'S RATING:  Four stars.

Dinner last night:  Hamburger.