"The Game" by Peter King

 

If you are a fan of the National Football League, I highly recommend that you get hold of a copy of this newly released book, "The Game" by Peter King.

King began covering the NFL as a reporter for the   Cincinnati Enquirer assigned to covering the Bengals in 1984.  One of his first big stories involved interviewing the Bengals brand new first round draft pick Boomer Esiason.  King went on to cover the NFL for Newsday on Long Island, Sports Illustrated,  and NBC until he retired in 2023.  

"The Game" covers his take on the NFL, where it was back in the Pete Rozelle era up to today when the NFL has become a 52-weeks-a-year enterprise.  He does so by devoting each chapter  of the book to an NFL season, forty chapters in all 1884 through 2023.  You might think that a device such as this would narrow to focus of the "history" of the League during this period, but that is not the case.  King manages to touch all the bases via this method.  I especially enjoyed Chapter 22 - The Perfect Football Career (2005) that focused on the Steelers' Jerome Bettis.

One of the fun parts of the book is the appendix "The Mount Rushmore of Pro Football". This is not the traditional "Mt. Rushmore" type list of four historic people, but rather a list of "the 100 individuals with the biggest roles in making pro football an American obsession."  Thus, while people like George Halas, Tom Brady, Vince Lombardi, and Jim Brown are on his list, so are people like Roone Arledge, Steve Sabol, and Dr. Ann McKee (you'll have to read the book to learn about her).  You may squak at some omissions (no Art Rooney) and question some inclusions (Chris Berman), it's a fun exercise.  For Steelers connections Joe Greene (32), Chuck Noll (36), Terry Bradshaw (46), Dan Rooney (59), Franco Harris (75), and Tony Dungy (82) made the list and Jack Lambert gets an Honorable Mention.  Further Pittsburgh connections are Dan Marino at 56 and Mike Ditka at 63.

If I have one nit to pick about the book it is King's frequent mentions of how he always managed to get "embedded" with players, teams, personnel people, and even game officials in the course of his career, and his reverential tones when discussing the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  To hear King tell it, only the Cardinals of the Catholic Church in Conclave to elect a Pope have a more important duty than the HOF electors, and even that is a close call.

Overall, a terrific book and the perfect Christmas gift to get for that pro football fan in your life, or to buy for yourself!

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

To Absent Friends - Dick Hoak

 

Dick Hoak

1939-2026

When I heard the news yesterday that Dick Hoak had died at age 86, I had this thought:  Did anyone not named Rooney ever serve the Steelers longer than Dick Hoak?  That question was answered in the opening paragraph of Gerry Dulac's article in this morning's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette when he referred to him as "longest tenured non-owner in Steelers history".

Think about it.  Hoak came to the Steelers as a rookie from Penn State and Jeanette (PA) High School in 1961.  He retired as a player after the 1970 season, spent one year coaching high school football in Wheeling, WV and returned to the Steelers as running backs coach on Chuck Noll's staff in 1972, and there he stayed until he retired after the 2005 season.

As a player, he played under head coaches Buddy Parker, Mike Nixon, Bill Austin and Chuck Noll.  He was an assistant coach under both Noll and Bill Cowher.  He coached Hall of Fame RB's Franco Harris and Jerome Bettis.  He turned down head coaching jobs in the USFL and coordinator jobs in the NFL to stay with the Steelers.  He has five Super Bowl rings, and in 2017 he was in the inaugural class of the Steelers Hall of Honor.  No one not named Rooney bridged the gap between the sad sack "Same Old Steelers" of yesteryear and the model franchise that the Steelers have become more than Dick Hoak.

RIP Dick Hoak.

Some Thoughts On the 2026 Elections

The picture above is a depiction of the first Constitutional Convention that convened in Philadelphia in 1787.  It produced the document that the President takes an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend", an oath that the Current Occupant of the White House (COTWH) regards cavalierly at best.  I will explain in a bit why I am posting that picture, but first, a few words about the mid-term elections of 2026.

• The President spent much of the last month barnstorming the country imploring people to vote "as if I am on the ballot."  It seems that the country did exactly that, and sent a stunning rebuke to the COOTWH.
• Political ads get more repellant with each election cycle.  Last month we spent two weeks in Hilton Head, SC, so we got to see such disgusting ads from both South Carolina and Georgia in addition to what we have been watching in Pennsylvania these last two months.  To that end, I was happy to see Dr. Annie Andrews win the Senate seat in SC and Keisha Lance Bottoms win the gubernatorial race in Georgia, defeating "Slick Rick" Jackson.
• Obviously, the absolute worst ad was the one that Vivek Ramaswamy ran against Dr. Amy Acton in the Ohio gubernatorial race.  I won't detail it here, you all know what it was about, and you can Google it if you don't.  Not far behind on the Offensiveness Meter to me was the ad that Stacy Garrity (R) ran depicting an AI-generated PA Governor Josh Shapiro (D) talking shit about himself.  Both Ramaswamy and Garrity lost in landslides.
• During the primary race this spring, PA State Senator Camera Bartolotta of Washington County ran ads that always mentioned her affiliation  with the COOTWH, even showing pictures of her with the President.  "I am with D___ T___ all the way" was the theme of her ads.  (Sorry, but I can't even bring myself to type his name.)  Her ads in the general election made absolutely no mention of the President and her fealty to him.  She bucked the statewide and nationwide trend and was a Republican who won her election race.  Coincidence?

Okay, why the picture from the Constitutional Convention?

Well, one of the "bellweather election battles" being closely watched last night was the Senate race in Maine between Democratic challenger Troy Jackson and Republican incumbent Susan Collins, who was running for her SIXTH term in the US Senate.  Six terms!!  Did those founding fathers depicted above, enlightened as they were, ever visualize that someone  would actually serve for thirty years in the Senate and want to do it for another six years?  

I looked up Senator Collins and see that she is 73 years old, and will turn 74 on Monday, December 7.   That prompted my to go to the Google Machine and ask "How many US Senators are age 70 or older?"  Turns out that 33 of our Senate members have passed into their eighth decade of life, and of this thirty-three, 7 of them are over age 80, and one of them, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is 92.   I turned 75 last month and among the things that I am thinking about is "how long will it be before I have to give up my car keys?"

(It's not quite so dramatic in the House of Representatives. Eighty-six of the current 435 members, approximately 20%, and age 70 or older.)

I sincerely think that George Washington, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton ("his name is Alexander Hamilton") and all the others never intended that service in the newly formed United States Congress was to be a lifetime job.  Don't these people want to spend time with their grandchildren?

By the way, Troy Jackson (D), age 58, defeated Collins in Maine.

To The Champions

 Brewers Win World Series

I found the World Series to be especially enjoyable this year for a couple of reasons.  One, it pitted the the Milwaukee Brewers against the Tampa Bay Rays, the two teams with the best records in their respective leagues, and two, neither franchise had ever won the World Series, so you knew that whichever team won, you would be seeing something that had never been done before, and you were going to see, regardless of who won, a team and a fan base that was going to be deliriously happy.  Plus, both teams were small market teams with small payrolls.  It can be done, Bob Nutting. I hope you were watching and taking notes.

There was a time, during the Ryan Braun Era, that I did not like the Milwaukee Brewers.  That has changed ever since I saw Christian Yelich send an autographed bat and ball out to a kid in the left field foul territory at PNC Park after he, Yelich, snagged ball for an out after the kid was set to catch a foul ball.  It also changed when we met up with friend and fellow Loyal Little Steve "Oz" Ozbolt made the trip from Milwaukee to Pittsburgh to see his Brewers play the Pirates in 2023.

We have been communication with Oz throughout the season and especially during the playoffs and World Series, so we are just so happy for him and all Brewers fans.  

In the aftermath of the Brewers victory, it was so moving to see how the Brewers and the people of Milwaukee honored the memory of the late Bob Uecker, and dedicated this victory to him.  Loyal readers may recall that when Uecker died in 2025, I asked Steve Ozbolt to write the Absent Friends post for The Grandstander.  It is worth rereading once again in light of the Brewers victory.  You can find it HERE.

And how cool was it to see the Brewers hoist that World Series Trophy at Lambeau Field last Monday night at the Packers game?

Valkyries Win WNBA Championship

For the first time in it's thirty year history, the WNBA Finals went to a seventh game (the WNBA only went to a best of seven format last season).  The Golden State Valkyries, an expansion team in only its second year of existence defeated the Atlanta Dream to take the title. It was an interesting series, with both teams winning games by lopsided scores, and one game being played at 12:30 on a Thursday afternoon.  The seventh game was a close one and as thrilling as any seventh game in any sport should be.

Congratulations to the Valkyries and Finals MVP Gabby Williams, who was unstoppable in that seventh game.

Bob Wins $400

1st Place ($400): Grandstander (Bob Sproule)

Each year, my friend Fred Shugars runs confidence pools for the MLB Playoffs, the NFL Playoffs, and the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  Now it must be noted that Fred is an actuary (retired from Highmark BCBS), so the scoring in his pools is quite complex, based upon formulas involving runs/points/goals scored vs. runs/points/goals given up times the confidence values of the teams.  It is all calculated colorful Google spread sheets and when you pay your fifteen bucks to enter, you just gotta trust the process and just accept that this is how your entry is doing and enjoy the snappy banter and photos that Fred posts in his daily email updates.  There were fifty-four entrants in the pool, and this time around, I came in first place.  I have reproduced the headline from Fred's summation email above.

Two comments.  (1) I consider winning a Shugars Confidence Pool one of the highlights of my gaming career.  (2)  I am not the first person in the family to win one of these.  Linda won the Stanley Cup Confidence Pool in 2023.

Aaron Rodgers Vs. The Browns 11/1/26

If you just look at the numbers on a page, Aaron Rodgers had, at best, a pedestrian day against the CleveBrownies yesterday:

• 25 pass attempts, 13 competitions
• 172 yards passing
• 0 touchdowns
• 1 interception

Here's what else he did.

Just before halftime, the Browns kicked a field goal to cut the Steelers lead to 14-6.  Cleveland kicked off, and the Steelers got the ball on their own 31 yard line with :45 to play and one timeout remaining.  Rodgers then proceeded to drive the Steelers all of those 69 yards in six plays and produce a Pat Freiermuth tush push touchdown as the clock was ticking down to :01 seconds.  Steelers go up 20-6 and effectively ended the game right there.

THAT is what really good, really elite quarterbacks do.  It's what they get paid to do.

Kritical Kommentary: Two Movies and a Book

 Presented for you viewing and reading pleasure....

We finally got around to seeing this movie, which has been highly praised by podcasters Arch Campbell, Jason Fraley, and "Cinema Lou" Charlip. Consider "The Invite" as a sort of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe"-lite.  It played in local movie theaters for about an hour and a half earlier in the summer, so thanks to HBO Max for streaming this one.

Joe (Seth Rogan) comes home from work one night, exhausted from his crummy job teaching music at a second rate, to him, anyway, conservatory only to learn that his wife Angela (Olivia Wilde) has invited the upstairs neighbors, the ones whom Joe can't stand because they always make too much noise when they are having sex and whom Angela is trying desperately to impress, to their apartment for an evening of drinks and appetizers.  This takes Joe completely by surprise, although Angela insists that she continually has told him about this planned evening.  That creates Tense Situation Number One for the night.  Then the neighbors, Pina and Hawk (Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton) arrive and the tensions quickly elevate.  As the evening progresses, we learn all sorts of things about the four characters, especially Joe and Angela, and their marriage that has somehow become a loveless one and how thoughts of what life might be on the other side of the apartment building can come to haunt you.  The movie has its comic moments, to be sure.  There are a lot of laughs, but the ultimate serious nature of fractured relationships become the main theme of this one.

Just as interesting as the story itself is that way  it was shot.  It takes place in the single setting of Joe and Angela's apartment.  One could easily see this as a stage play, and, in fact, it is based on a play.  Wilde directed as well as co-stars in it, and she often chose to go from single shot to single shot of the characters as they were speaking.  It was really good in that regard.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

I happened to come across this documentary as I was just skimming through the Netflix menu when I found myself home alone this morning.  It concerns the 2023 killing of Akjikie Owens by her neighbor, Susan Lorincz.   Lorincz was a neighbor who continually was calling the police to complain about the kids in the neighborhood who were always playing too loudly in the street, and trespassing on her property (in fact, they were not).   In short, they were kids being kids.  It had reached the point where police knew that this was really just a case of some miserable old lady with nothing better to do that piss and moan about the neighbors.  There was a lady like this that lived on my street when I was growing up.

Anyway, one night when one of the kids' mother went to Lorincz' house to confront her (Lorincz had taken one of her kid's iPad away from him and kept and also threw a pair of roller skates at him), Lorincz shot and killed her.

It should be noted that Lorincz is white and Owens was black, as were most of the other neighbors. Lorincz defended herself on the basis of "stand your ground" laws in Florida, and the case became a cause celebre in Florida.  Lorincz was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for manslaughter. 

The documentary is fascinating to watch in that probably 95% of the footage is from police body and closed circuit television cameras.  Give you a real "you are there" feeling when watching.

My opinion:  Susan Lorincz is exactly where she belongs right now: behind bars.

Two and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

I have only recently discovered the writings of mystery/thriller author Laura Lippman.  She is a native of Baltimore, and most of her stories take place in the Baltimore area.  Her main body of work revolves around her series character, private detective Tess Monaghan.  I first wrote about her last year (see HERE) after I read her novel "Sunburn".  I have since read a couple of her other books, and I recently borrowed this book from the library to read on our recent beach vacation.  It is anthology of sixteen short stories, some of them feature Monaghan, but most of them do not.  When you come across a collection of short stories in one volume, some will be really good, some will be not so good, and most will be just okay, but not this one.  Each of these stories were captivating and quite entertaining to read, and all featured terrific main characters, most of who  were women.  I can highly recommend this collection to you if you are a fan of the genre.  

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

Book Review: "Shadow Before The Flame" by Catherine Grace Katz

"Shadow Before The Flame"

by Catherine Grace Katz

How much do you know about the 1937 explosion and crashing of the German airship Hindenburg?  If you are like me, you have no doubt seen film footage of the fiery explosion of this airship (it wasn't a "zeppelin", nor was it a "blimp", but an "airship", a distinction that you will learn about when reading this book).  You have probably heard the famous recording of broadcaster Herb Morrison's description of the disaster as it unfolded before his eyes.  You have no doubt used the phrase "Oh, the humanity" at some point in your life without even being aware of its origin.

Did you know that the Hindenburg had been in service for several years prior to the crash, and had in fact been making transatlantic passenger flights between Europe and North and South America during that time period?  I did not.

Did you realize that over sixty of the ninety or so people on board survived the crash?  I did not.  Thirty-six of the on board died as result of the crash.

Did you realize that the Hindenburg remains to this day that largest aircraft ever built?  I did not.

And do you know anything about the stories of the people who were on board that fateful flight?  I am sure that you did not.

Author Catherine Grace Katz fills in the blanks about many of the individual passengers and crew.  In her own words, the variety of people on board (a meatpacking executive, a perfume manufacturer, a vaudeville performer, a husband and wife team of authors, a single American woman, a young Yale student)  were like the cast of characters in an Agatha Christie novel.  She tells us all about the people, how they came to be on board that flight, and what happened to them afterwards.

The story is also told amidst the backdrop of what was happening in Germany during the 1930's leading you to the 1937 flight.  The rise of Hitler, the suppression of the Jews during that period, and how the Nazis were more than happy to use the success of their airship fleet to glorify Aryan supremacy, and to use its destruction to scapegoat their enemies of the state.  Interestingly enough, Hitler himself said that he "would never ride on an airship."  Sadly, reading about how the Nazis and the fascists came to power in Europe, and the passing of laws and incendiary methods that were used brings to mind much of what we are seeing in the world and in America today, but that is another matter entirely, and I won't dwell on that here.

I really liked the book.  I loved how Katz got into the lives of those on board, and her descriptions of those moments on board the ship leading up to the awful thirty-four seconds that consumed the Hindenburg in flames are almost cinematic.  While her extensive research probably gave her an idea as to what was unfolding on the ship during the moments, I am sure that no one still living really knows, but this is probably as close as we can come to it eighty-nine years later.

This is also the story of news media and how primitive it was back in 1937.  The medium of radio was less than twenty years old at the time, and it was the policy of all broadcasting networks to only air live programming.  Nothing was ever recorded.  How Herb Morrison convinced his bosses at station WLS in Chicago to send him to Lakehurst, NJ to record (on recording equipment that was new at the time, but very primitive by today's standards) is a story in itself.  The fact that Morrison was there and captured the catastrophe as it occurred was pure luck, but it preserved forever that awful scene.  You can find newsreel footage the event and recordings of Morrison's play-by-play on YouTube.  It is worth the effort.   Anyway, realizing that they had history on wax disc recordings, WLS played Morrison's broadcast repeatedly, which by doing so, led to changes in the way news was delivered to the public from that day forward.

My only criticism of the book was how deep in the weeds Katz got in describing how airships like the Hindenburg were constructed and how they operated.  If you are a pilot or an engineer, you will probably dig all of that, but I tended to skim over those passages in the book.  The same went for the details in how electrical sparks might have been generated and how that might have caused the ship to go up in flames.  

I mentioned that this was heavily researched.  The text of the book is only 360 pages, which made it a relatively easy read, but the footnotes, bibliography, and index run 105 pages long.  Katz could have made this a dry historical tome, but she did not.

If you went to any college campus today, and asked a cross section of today's students to "tell me about the Hindenburg", I wonder how many would even have a small idea of what you was talking about.  The story of the Hindenburg should not be forgotten.

Three stars from The Grandstander for this book.

The Hindenburg flies over New York City.  

Photo was taken in 1936 on one of the ship previous trips.

Note the swastikas on the tail fins.

Lakehurst, New Jersey

May 6, 1937