To Absent Friends - Frank Gifford

Frank Gifford (#16)

1930-2015

The news of the passing of Frank Gifford one week shy of his 85th birthday arrived while I was on vacation last week, so I was unable to write about it at the time, but the impact the guy had on football and broadcasting is such that I cannot let it pass without commenting on it.  

In its story on Gifford's death Sports Illustrated said it best.  When Gifford came to the NFL and the New York Giants in 1952, baseball was the national pastime, and as far as football was concerned, the college game was far and away the most popular, with the Sunday afternoon pro games almost an afterthought.  Then Frank Gifford of USC, with his football talent and movie star good looks arrived in New York, and the Giants took off.  They won the NFL title in 1956  - Gifford was the NFL MVP that year - and played in the title game, including the 1958 overtime game with the Colts ("The Greatest Game Ever Played"), four more times during Gifford's career.  By the time he retired from football, the Giants owned New York City, pro football had surpassed the college game, and the NFL took over as the sports king pin in American culture and has never looked back.  Frank Gifford played no small part in that metamorphosis.  He was elected to the Pro football Hall of Fame in 1977.

Gifford then went on to a career in broadcasting, most notably a twenty-plus year stint as lead broadcaster on Monday Night Football.

I am sure that in my much younger days, I saw Frank Gifford play football for the Giants on television, and perhaps even in person against the Steelers at Pitt Stadium, but I have to be honest and say that I have no solid memories of him as a player.  Most people alive today and under the age of 60 or so know him only as a broadcaster, and, sadly, most people under the age of forty probably know him only as the the subject of the funny stories his wife Kathy Lee Gifford would tell about him on her morning television shows, and I am guessing that Gifford himself had no problem with that.

RIP Frank Gifford.

Pirate Chat Night 2015

Pirate Chat Night 2015, I believe, can be considered nothing less than a roaring success.

First off, fifty tickets were sold, and all time record.  As we know, life gets in the way of things sometimes, so while not all fifty folks were able to attend, we did get, by my unofficial count, 45 of the original intended attendees to show up on what turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous night.

The pre-game gathering at Dominic's was an absolute blast.  It gets better each year, and I am thinking that next year we should all just meet there for lunch and hang around all afternoon until game time.  What do you all think?

We all know what then happened.  The Pirates held an 8-3 lead over the Diamondbacks before turning the game over to the most reliable back end of the bullpen in baseball, only to see the D-backs score three in the eighth, and two in the ninth, which resulted in Mark Melancon's first blown save since April.  What then followed was six agonizing extra innings, wherein Arquemedes Caminero and Joe Blanton shutout Arizona, whose bullpen was doing the same thing to the Pirates' bats until the bottom of the 15th inning when a two out triple by the unlikeliest of all Pirates, Pedro Florimon (1-for-19 before that at bat) scored Francisco Cervelli all the way from first base.  Bedlam ensued:

The real magic of the night, though, was the fact that the game went fifteen innings.  With each extra frame, PNC Park became less and less crowed, including our own Pirate Chat group.  That, however, only increased the fun.  We were able to move around within our section and talk more freely among ourselves.  My pictures of the event weren't all that great this year, but these might give you an idea as to how we all began to look as the evening went on and on and on...

By my count, twenty of us made it through all the way to the end of the fifteen innings, and I would like to shout out and recognize those that did.  So I present to you The Fifteen Inning Honor Roll:

Cara Battistella
Craig Britcher
John Coley
Donny and Max Copper
Ryan Frankhouser
Jim Haller
Len Martin
Steve McGlynn
Bill Montrose
Mike Muro
Gary Reiche and his wife
Joe and Alex Risacher
Fred Shugars
Bob Sproule
Elena and Matt Szymanowski, and Matt's buddy, Joey

If I left anyone out, I apologize.

It was terrific night out and a fun time with a lot of great folks, and the Pirates won the game.  The team now sports a record of 3-0 on Pirate Chat Nights.

See you all next year, folks!

Another OBX Vacation in the Books!

For what the 31st consecutive summer, we vacationed on North Carolina's Outer Banks, specifically, Corolla in Currituck County.  What can I say?  The fact that we return again and again tells you that we find this to be a magical and special place, and the 2015 trip was no exception.

I won't bore you all with a lot of stories, but here a few thoughts, impressions, and photos from OBX 2015.

Traffic arriving on any given Saturday is never easy or fun, but for whatever reason, we encountered Traffic Armageddon this year.  I will never be able to convey the true horror of the gridlock we experienced, but suffice to say, it took us over five hours to travel the final 14 miles into Corolla on Saturday.  Never experienced anything like it, nothing even close to it.  It was not one of our finest hours over the years, that's for sure.  However, everything was great once we finally got there!

This is what flew over the beaches on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday:

You never want to see the beach red-flagged, but if you saw the nature of the rip tides those days, you didn't want to go in much over your knees anyway.  All was well for the remainder of the week, though.  Calm and temperate waters, nice waves.  No sharks.  None that we saw, anyway.

As you may know, on our night to make dinner, Marilyn and I always make it a theme night.  This year it was "Beach Party".

Saw some interesting cloud formations one afternoon:

Enjoyed some pool time after coming up from the beach each day:

And continue to be amazed as the "third generation" continues to grow up:

When we first started making these trips, these kids' parents were younger than they are now, and, come to think of it, they actually represent the FOURTH generation of the Moellenbrock family who have made these annual treks.

And in keeping with another tradition, Nathan, Marilyn and I walked up to the beach on our last night to say good-bye for another year.

See you next year, Outer Banks, but, really, we have to figure out something to mitigate that incoming traffic next time around.

New Experience at PNC Park

I have been attending Pirates games at PNC Park for the entire fifteen years of the Park's existence, and I thought that I had pretty much experienced everything that the place had to offer.  Last night, though, I found out that I was wrong, because last night was our first experience here:

Yep, we sat in the "All You Can Eat" seats, a first for us.  I will explain about how that came about in a bit, but first, a word or two on the experience.  The All You Can Eat seats are in sections 201-205 down the right field line.  Very good seats, and, as the picture shows and the name implies, you get a wrist band and access to a concession area that pretty much allows one to go hog wild when it comes to stuffing yourself.  Between the two of us last night, Marilyn and I consumed (and I am not necessarily proud of this) 3 cheeseburgers, 1 hot dog, 1 order of nachos, 2 orders of peanuts, 2 boxes of popcorn, 2 ice cream sandwiches, and 6 soft drinks (beer is NOT available as an All You Can Eat item, although you don't need to go far to buy some).  We figured that if we were to make equivalent purchases and regular concession stands at PNC Park, which we would not do, we would have spent over a hundred bucks on food and drink alone.

The tickets cost $45, and I am guessing that an equivalent ticket for those sections would cost in the $20-$25 range.  So you pay a premium for all the "free" food, and I am sure that the Pirates are not losing money on this promotion, but, C'Mon Man, you should have seen what some of the OTHER people in our section were packing away.

No wonder we have an obesity problem in this country.

As to how we came about those tickets, our nephew George, his wife Claire, and their children, Lizzie and Andrew, were on a trip from their home in Socorro, New Mexico that covered State College, PA,  London, England, and Pittsburgh before returning to Socorro.  They wanted to see a Pirates game and wanted seats in the first row of the upper level, so George ordered the tickets, including the two for Marilyn and I, not knowing that he was getting in on the All You Can Eat bonanza.

So the real bonus was not all the grub, but being able to spend some time with these two and their parents at a major league baseball game.

Of course, unless you are a Cubs fan, that game last night (a 5-0 Cubs win) was an absolute bomb of a game.  Long, drawn out, boring, and an awful showing by the Buccos.  Andrew and Lizzie learned an important lesson early in life about sports: When you buy a ticket to a professional sporting event, you are probably going to be entertained, but there is no guarantee of it.

Ridin' the Rails

A few weeks ago, an article appeared in the Travel section of the Sunday Post-Gazette about the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad which makes a round trip run between Cumberland, MD and Frostburg, MD every day.  Neither one of us, believe it or not, had ever ridden on a train (the NYC subway and The T don't count), so we decided to make an overnight getaway.

We chose a Friday to make the trip because on Fridays the train is pulled by an authentic steam locomotive, so we thought that we just had to go for that.  Alas and alack, when the train pulled into the stain in Cumberland, this is what was leading the way.

Unfortunately, the steam locomotive had broken down early that morning, so we would be pulled by a diesel engine.  Disappointing, but what are you gonna do?  It was still a very fun trip to take as these pictures will attest, and it included a conductor on the train straight out of Central Casting.

 No, that's not Wilfred Brimley.  I asked.

Cumberland, Md, of course, played a key role in the history of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, and I got a picture of me with a part of that history.

And we even enjoyed some live music in downtown Cumberland after dinner on Friday night, and yes, I was surprised to see that Mama Cass is still performing.  They were quite good.

I nice little overnight adventure for us.  A very fun trip.

Book Review - "Disclaimer" by Renee Knight

My thanks to old pal, Fred Egler, for the recommendation of "Disclaimer", a thriller in the same vein as Gone Girl, Girl on the Train, and The Kind Worth Killing, all of which I have read and written about on this blog.

Catherine Ravenscroft is a successful documentary film maker who has just moved into a new home with her husband after their only son has moved out into his own apartment.  One night , Catherine starts reading a novel, she's not sure where the book actually came from, when she notices that the standard boilerplate of "any resemblance between the characters herein and any actual persons living or dead is strictly a coincidence" has been crossed out.  Then she gets a VERY uncomfortable feeling when she starts reading, because the book seems to be about her, and it is most unpleasant to her.

The story then proceeds to be told from the point of view of several different characters in addition to Catherine, and there are number of flashbacks to events that took place about twenty years prior to the present day.

I found the novel to be a bit confusing at first until I got the hang of who was telling the story at any given point in the book, and I got the timeline straight in my mind.   However, once I got over that hump, it was a pretty fast and exciting read.  As they literary snobs might put it, this is an "entertainment", and a darn good one.  Perfect for vacation time.

I was especially pleased with how it ended, in that I felt that each of the main characters got exactly what they deserved in this one.

On a scale of five stars, I give this one 3 and 1/2 stars.  Thanks, Fred!

An Invitation

I am asking all of my friends here in the Greater Pittsburgh area, at least, to please consider patronizing an art exhibit that will run from August 22 through September 18 at the Sweetwater Center for the Arts in Sewickley, PA.  The exhibit is entitled "A Journey Through Grief" and will consist of art work done by the Children and Teens who have attended sessions at the Highmark Caring Place in Warrendale.

I have seen many of the pieces that will be on display at this exhibit, and all I can tell you is that you will be amazed.  Marilyn and I will be there at the Opening Reception on August 22, and we hope that we will see many of you there as well.  If you can't make the opening, please try to find some time during the four weeks that the exhibit will be in place.

Full details are contained on the invitation below.  Thank you.