Category: Sports
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“We Are All Patriots”
Above: Raytheon Theater at the Patriots Hall of Fame in Foxboro MA Recently, a colleague here in Durham NC asked me if I was excited about the Super Bowl because I am from New England and the Patriots are in the big game – again. I said no. He was surprised. Being a native of […]
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100 Wins
Tonight my hometown team, the Boston Red Sox, reached 100 wins for the first time since 1946 – with 16 left to play. It brought to mind one of my favorite books about Boston, which is Howard Bryant’s Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston. One of the most interesting things in […]
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Snippets of Repeated Takes
I recently finished and highly recommend the book Repeated Takes by Michael Chanan. My main criticism of the book is that it’s large size makes you think it’s gonna have lots of cool illustrations in it. Instead, you get a conventional size text layout with blank margins so big they call to mind the immense foul grounds […]
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Corporate Welfare.5: Pigskin welfare
Some corporations, like GE and Bank of America, have to resort to creative accounting to make it look like they lost money to avoid paying federal taxes. The National Football League is not one of them. A recent Change.org petition reads as follows: “Despite the fact that it is a $9Billion/Year industry, the National Football […]
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Corporate Welfare.3: Welfare Wings
Today the Real News Network, who I encourage you to support during their current drive to win a matching gift, is reporting that “the Michigan strategic fund has decided to issue $450 million in bonds for a new stadium for the Detroit Red Wings, 44% of which will be financed publicly,” while the city is […]
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Top 40 Over 40.11: Wurst is also Best!
I cannot pretend to write an objective review of today’s entry into my Top 40 Over 40 countdown, Transcendental Youth by the Mountain Goats. You see, I compete in an annual NFL pool with John Darnielle and Peter Hughes. I’m indebted to Peter for running this pool and to John for keeping me out of […]
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Other John Davises.3: The 1946 Newark Eagles
In this third in a series of posts on notable folks who have been housed under my ubiquitous name, I hereby pay tribute to a star of the 1946 Newark Eagles, who were one of the great all time teams of the Negro Leagues that existed in the apartheid days of Major League Baseball. They […]
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We Talk About You When You Leave
A guy walks into a hotel restaurant bar in Boston’s Back Bay on an October night in 2003. The staff politely inform him that it is closing time, but that he may order from the full menu and have room service bring his order to his suite. The expensively dressed “gentleman” insists that he be […]
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The Interpretation of Dreams
I don’t usually watch the Olympics much. Not because I don’t enjoy the events, but because NBC usually feels compelled to shovel forklifts of “human interest” stories down your throat with brief breaks taken for cursory athletic performances. So I wasn’t surprised when I checked in on the Olympics briefly this summer and didn’t see […]
johnhdavis / inundation records 