The Baltimore Orioles played like Supermen from 1969-1971 winning 109, 108 and 101 games respectively. They won the American League Eastern division crown five times from 1969-1974. Continue reading
Times Square featuring The Times Tower 1908 – click to vastly enlarge (six megabytes!)
Times Square is burgeoning with activity in 1908 and there is so much to see in this picture.
This photograph of Times Square was part of The Detroit Publishing Company collection, now housed at The Library of Congress. The company made picture postcards from these original photographs at the turn of the century.
The area formerly known as Longacre Square became Times Square after the New York Times opened their iconic flagship office building in 1905 at what would become known as “the crossroads of the world,” the southern end of Times Square, the triangular intersection of 42nd and 43rd streets where Broadway and Seventh Avenue diverge.
Flatiron Building in 1903
The Times Tower Building design is reminiscent of the Fuller Building, which became popularly known as the “Flatiron Building” soon after it opened in 1902 between 22nd and 23rd Streets where Broadway and Fifth Avenue intersect. The two buildings don’t look alike at all. But because they were each built on irregular plots of land, the triangular buildings both resemble flatirons.
The original Times Tower Building was a Gothic structure of beautiful light limestone and featured intricate terra-cotta and granite on the facade. More about the building later in the article. Continue reading
From the New York City Guide And Almanac 1957 – 1958
This vintage book is a great snapshot of New York City in the late 1950’s. I wish they would have printed this annually, but it was published for only one year by New York University Press in conjunction with The Daily News. It is 378 pages chock-full of fascinating facts and figures. The paperback version was originally 85 cents, while the hardcover version would set you back $2.75. There are a few copies of this out of print gem for sale on abebooks.com ranging from$8.00 – $14.00. A veritable bargain.
Here is a snippet on crime from pages 197 – 198:
Traps for the Unwary
New York City is full of traps for the unwary visitor. It is doubtful if there are proportionately more crooks and criminals in New York than any other large city, but the metropolis is so large that the total is impressive. The bait generally used is greed, and the victims are most often people who regard themselves as sophisticated. Most effective traps for the unwary:
Auctioneers: Dishonest “auction stores” especially in the mid-town sections, where salesmen pretend to auction off “amazing” bargains, which often are samples of “flash goods” turned out for the carnival trade. Articles of genuine value are knocked down to stooges in the crowd, who later return them to be used again. The stranger who obtains a “bargain” is likely to find that a cheap duplicate was substituted during the process of wrapping up his purchase. He usually discovers that he has actually bought a garish gold-washed watch that will not run or an impressive pipe set made of celluloid. These shops should not be confused with operations of reputable auctioneers who preside over genuine sales which are usually advertised in honest fashion.
Confidence Men: Most of these offer money-making machines or counterfeit currency. They also offer to share rewards for well-filled pocketbooks lying on the pavement and “found” by the con man and the victim simultaneously. Continue reading
Lou Sleater turns 86 on September 8, 2012. The St. Louis native pitched for some very bad teams such as the Browns, Senators and Athletics during a major league career which stretched intermittently from 1950 until 1958. His career record was 12-18.
In this photograph, Sleater is warming up before a game at a virtually empty Tiger Stadium in May of 1957 when he was with Detroit.
One personal highlight in his career came on May 30, 1957. Sleater pitched an inning of Continue reading
Miss Czechoslovakia – Kristina Hanzalova
News photographs used to get sent over the newswires to subscribing newspapers with captions. Some papers would use the “slug” – the suggested title that was written by the service providing the photo, other papers didn’t. In 1970, I cannot imagine that many newspapers used the title suggested by UPI (United Press International.) The slug and full caption are below.
Chesty Czech
Miami Beach, Florida:- Kristina Hanzalova, 21-year-old Miss Czechoslovakia, literally threw newsmen for a loop when she replied “94-58-90” when asked about her vital statistics. She was referring to centimeters, of course, not inches to which the boys are accustomed. Kristina is one of the competitors in the Miss Universe contest being held in Miami Beach.
Credit (UPI Photo) 7/7/70
It was obvious that Kristina could fill out a bathing suit, so I don’t think any editor would have used the “Chesty Czech” headline, but maybe some harried or unimaginative editors couldn’t come up with anything better. Kristina was featured in other bathing suit photos before the contest took place, like this one which ran in the Miami Herald.
The 1970 Miss Universe contest was held on July 11, and Kristina ended up being a semi-finalist, but lost the title to Puerto Rico’s Marisol Malaret.
Kristina then made exactly one motion picture in Czechoslovakia entitled Nudity (1970).
And yes, she has a nude scene in it.
After that, she seems to have vanished from the public eye.
Before Robert Morse became known to a generation of television viewers as Mad Men agency head Bertram Cooper, he had a distinguished stage and movie career. The Loved One (1965) a disturbing black comedy about the funeral industry has Morse at his best. Continue reading
Something Even Babe Ruth Couldn’t Do
I stopped collecting baseball cards in 1981 after it became speculative and was more about card values rather than flipping, trading and completing sets.
This was one of my favorite baseball cards simply because of the obviousness of the mistake and the fact that it was never corrected.
The Dave Bennett – Rick Wise rookie card from the 1964 Topps set is nothing extraordinary on the front. But on the back of Dave Bennett’s very short biography is this astounding piece of information:
Now that is some feat!
Great Metal Albums from the 1980’s That Have Been Forgotten
Continuing our article from Part 1 of twelve metal albums from the 1980’s you should check out:
1986 – Metal Church – The Dark (Elektra) 
Metal Church put out great albums during the 1980’s and 1990’s and even opened for Metallica during their 1991 tour and this should have lead to more exposure for the band. But Metal Church never caught on with the music video generation and that may have had an big impact on sales. Continue reading
Great Metal Albums from the 1980’s That Have Been Forgotten
Still one of the most exciting things for me is to be introduced to great music that I have never heard before. It doesn’t matter if it was made this year or thirty years ago. If you haven’t heard it before, it’s new to you, isn’t it?
I started thinking about bands casual heavy metal fans may be familiar with by name, but not their work with the exception of possibly a song or two. That lead to the creation of this list. Rather than focus on great albums from well known bands such as Judas Priest, Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax, Iron Maiden, Dio, Van Halen, Testament, Overkill, Exodus or any of the well known bands, these are bands and albums that may have had a brief moment in the spotlight or are known for the wrong reasons, like an MTV video.
So in chronological order, here is part one of twelve albums that you should check out.
1980 – Angel Witch – Angel Witch (Bronze Records) 
What a debut album should be: songs with one amazing hook after another. Angel Witch emerged from The New Wave of British Heavy Metal looking like they would rise to the top. This trio lead by Kevin Heybourne lead singer and guitarist should have conquered the world. For whatever reason it never happened. Almost every song on here is a classic in songwriting 101. Continue reading
Photo © Louis Requena
It looks as though Mets third baseman Wayne Garrett was going to apply the tag and get Astros shortstop Roger Metzger out, before he gets to third. Continue reading