"MLB Network is proud to present....Ken Burns' 'Baseball!" Thus sayeth the voiceover announcer on the network. Ah, yes. The definitive documentary of our National Pastime...if you are from New York or Boston and want to see the doc pay an inordinate amount of attention to Boston blowing Game 6 or Doris Kearns Goodwin wax rhapsodic about how she chose Boston to root for after the Dodgers left Brooklyn because she couldn't root for the Yankees, or some such nonsense.

The documentary...

Thomas Richard "Tom" Ray-Left-handed star pitcher of mostly bad teams in the 1970s. Like Dan Nichols before him, grew up in the Chicago area rooting for the White Sox, attended Game 1 of the 1959 World Series with his parents. Star pitcher and quarterback in suburban high school, drafted out of H.S. by the Cincinnati Reds in 1966. Reds waited patiently for him to harness his fastball, but after two trials with the parent club in 1968-69, were convinced he couldn't develope any other pitches....

There was news this week of the layoff of 53 more newsroom people at the Tribune, adding to a thread that ruminated on the paper's fate. Another thread discussed Melissa Isaacson's last column in the Tribune. The piece dealt with the firing of Denis Savard, but could easily be read as her own valedictory as her Tribune career ends. I posted in both threads and realized that my musings are better suited to this blog space.

Dying newspapers upset me because I believe in news. "News"...

Having your day just plain ruined.

Some of the characters I created to fill the roster of the New Orleans Knights from 1892-present

Jeremiah Thomas Brennan II-team founder and first owner. A rigid segregationist whose old world ways were mourned upon his passing in 1950, just as his son was integrating the Knights.

Jeremiah Thomas Brennan III-son of the founder; World War I veteran (Army-First Cavalry); ex-minor league catcher; team GM and owner from 1950-70s. He integrated the team despite rigid, raging...