False memories #2?: Detroit Lions versus St. Louis Cardinals

What I remember: It was December 1980. Ronald Reagan had just been elected president in a landslide over Jimmy Carter.

My father took me to see the football Cardinals play the Detroit Lions. I don't remember anything about the game. The Big Red won, though, and the pep band played Another One Bites the Dust, which was popular at the time.

On the car ride home, as we pulled up to the house, the same song came on the radio, this time in the more commonly-heard original version by Queen.

What actually happened: The Cardinals beat the Lions, 24-23. Cardinals quarterback Jim Hart threw for 99 yards and two touchdowns, and Roy Green ran a punt return back in the 4th quarter for the winning score. The Big Red defense held Lions running back Billy Sims (pictured above) to only 43 yards. The Cardinals raised their record to 5-9, and the Lions fell to 7-7.

Below: Roy Green returning some sort of a kick

Below: Somewhere a high school band is playing "Another One Bites the Dust"

What I have been reading lately #12

I am close to finishing James Chace's 1912:  Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs - the Election that Changed the Country.  Of the four men, three have risen in my estimation.  Only Woodrow Wilson seems worse now that I know more about him.  Racist, anti-immigrant, cheated on his wife, betrayed friends and colleagues just to get elected, and moralizing -- that's how Wilson comes across.   Roosevelt is always amusing (who else insists on delivering a speech even though he's been shot and has a bullet in his chest?), Debs is inspiring (gotta love the Pullman Strike! - Boo, President Cleveland!), and Taft seems like a nice fat man way in over his head.

President Obama knows what's wrong with America

On the evening before the presidential election, Monday Night Football viewers were given one last chance to hear from the candidates. Chris Berman asked each candidate a number of questions, but the most important one was what one thing each would change about sports in the United States. John McCain boldly spoke out against steroid use by athletes; Barack Obama chose to take on a different issue:

Best day of the baseball season

This year it took longer than most, but, once again, the Chicago Cubs will not be winning the World Series. Let's all give thanks to those Los Angeles Dodgers! (I never thought I'd be rooting for Joe Torre again.)





The last time the Cubs won the World Series, there were no favorite television shows, because the television had not yet been invented, and the President was Theodore Roosevelt. In the election that fall, Republican William Howard Taft defeated the Democrat William Jennings Bryan.


27th President of the United States,
William Howard Taft