Game Day

After exercising the dog we swung into Packer football.

Whew!

Now it’s LAX v. MKE @ NLCS

And with plenty of venison taco meat, the last of the frijoles and all the remaining toppings... 

 ...we’re fortifying ourselves with Custom Nachos…

                                                

Reflections

This year the NFL is expanding its international series to a record eight regular-season games across five countries: Spain (Madrid), Germany (Munich), Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), the UK (three games in London), France (Paris), and Australia (Melbourne). These games will feature match-ups in new cities, including the first-ever game in France and Australia.​ 

It is no secret the NFL wants to make their product a global brand.  People from other countries who might not even use English as a primary language are going to figure significantly in NFL marketing.  Old white guys like me need to get over it because we're not a target market. 

The NFL brand is a business and I don't think they care what the current occupant of the White House thinks about their business model. 

Why?   

The NFL wants to expand their brand beyond our borders. The NFL wants to grow profits.  The NFL is bigger than Trump. The NFL will be around long after Trump is gone.

​If I were a fly on the wall of the NFL's boardroom I'd likely learn they're tickled-silly that everyone's jabbering this week about record viewership of a halftime performance interrupted by a thoroughly forgettable game.

Halftime

It is Super Bowl Sunday and naturally, halftime fare around here is highly likely to feature venison brats. 

Pan-seared much like they’re done on a flattop in the Fatherland.  Slowly finished in white wine and imported, barrel-cured kraut. 

Kaiser roll and chips.

Pretty good chow if you can get it….

Game Day

The Missus and a very tired Red Rocket chilling-out for Packer Game Day....

 

Winner, Winner, Weiner Dinner

What with all the baseball lately it should come as no surprise I've developed a hankering for hot dogs.

That’s a Meisfelds venison wiener from Sheboygan.  Tasty too.

Pretty good chow; if you can get it.

Go Brewers..... 

The Big O

From the Davenport Sports Network there is this.

On April 21, 1970 the Cincinnati Royals stunned the basketball world by trading superstar Oscar Robertson to the Milwaukee Bucks for Flynn Robinson and Charlie Paulo. No reasons were officially given to why the Royals made the trade, but many pundits suspected head coach Bob Cousy wanted to trade “The Big-O.” Robertson himself said, “I think he was wrong and I will never forget it." 

The relationship between Oscar and the Royals had soured to the point that Cincinnati had also approached the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks about deals involving their star player (the Knicks players who were discussed in those scenarios are unknown, but Los Angeles stated publicly that the Royals asked about Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain, with the Lakers saying they would not consider trading either star). 

The trade to the Bucks proved highly beneficial for Robertson and, after being stuck with an under-performing team the last 6 years, he now was paired with the young Lew Alcindor. With Alcindor in the low post and Robertson (pictured below being given a physical by Dr. Robert Parks LeTellier with Alcindor waiting in the background) running the backcourt, the Bucks charged to a league-best 66–16 record, including a then-record 20-game win streak, a dominating 12–2 record in the playoffs, and crowned their season with the NBA title by sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. 

From a historical perspective; however, Robertson's most important contribution was made not on a basketball court, but rather in a court of law. It was the year of the landmark Robertson v. National Basketball Association, an antitrust suit filed by the NBA's Players Association against the league. 

As Robertson was the president of the Players Association, the case bore his name. In this suit, the proposed merger between the NBA and ABA was delayed until 1976, and the college draft as well as the free agency clauses were reformed. Robertson himself stated that the main reason was that clubs basically owned their players: players were forbidden to talk to other clubs once their contract was up, because free agency did not exist until 1988. 

Six years after the suit was filed, the NBA finally reached a settlement, the ABA–NBA merger took place, and the Oscar Robertson suit encouraged signing of more free agents and eventually led to higher salaries for all players.

Mr. Baseball

 Bob Uecker passed away yesterday at the age of 90.  

He was one of the game's most beloved figures throughout his 70-year career in baseball.  In his six years in his hometown of Milwaukee as well as St. Louis, Philadelphia and Atlanta Bob made many friends among the  baseball stars of the 1960s.  He was a member of the 1964 World Series Champion Cardinals.

Uecker spent 53 years doing what he loved most, calling Brewers games on the radio.  So popularly successful the Baseball Hall of Fame honored him in 2003 with the Ford C. Frick Award; a testament to his ability to elicit smiles and laughter.

Uecker's six seasons as a backup catcher began in 1962 with the Milwaukee Braves and his .200 lifetime batting average supplied plenty of material for decades of his shtick. Nevertheless, of Uecker's 14 career home runs, three were off future Hall of Famers: Sandy Koufax, Fergie Jenkins and Gaylord Perry.

God Speed Mr. Baseball...

Cardinals management fined both Bob Gibson and Bob Uecker for holding hands with big goofy smiles on their faces.  The Team Photo had to be retaken.

 

Post Season

What a season for Jordan Love and the Packers in what was potentially a rebuilding year.

Started the season 3-6, finished 7-3

6.3% chance of making the playoffs after Week 8

Jordan Love - Best QBR since Week 11 

Beat the Number 2 seed Dallas Cowboys in the Super Wild Card Round

Not bad for the youngest team in the league

Bright future for Love and the franchise....

Go Pack

There is a NFL Wild Card game tomorrow that you might not want to miss.

Sure, the Cowboys are seven-point favorites, while the over/under, or total points Vegas thinks will be scored is 50.5 in the latest Packers v. Cowboys odds from SportsLine consensus.

Of course, there's no denying these numbers.....

 

Seen At The Hockey Game

And the Jersey of the Year Award goes to....

 

Tower From Power

Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.  (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).

He led his Power Memorial Academy high school team to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71–game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. This earned him "The Tower from Power" nickname.

Photographed in New York City by Richard Avedon, 1963

 

When I was a waiter at Farrell's I served him.

 

Got an autograph somewhere.....

 

Boost Your Performance

 

With spare inner tubes wrapped around their bodies these cyclists from a 1920s Tour de France light up along the way. 

In the early 1900s, a smoke was thought to provide a jump-start to a race. 

The Tour has a long and illustrious history of doping - This was legal.

Who knew?

Irish Packer Backer

 

Traveling around the world you're never far from the cultural influence of professional sports - especially the Green Bay Packers.

October of 2019 found us traveling in western Ireland and there was this in the city of Galway.

The backstory of the street performance artist was that he snared the Packer hat on a visit to Milwaukee to perform at Irish Fest.  

The reach of the Pack is global......

A Taste of Home

 

There is a saying that no matter where you are on the planet you're never far from a Packer bar where you can wet your whistle with a refreshing adult beverage and watch the game with like-minded individuals - even if you don't speak the local language.

From our first trip to France in 2012 we made a point to visit this joint...

Located at 184 Rue Saint-Jacques in the Latin Quarter of Paris - is the WOS (Wide Open Spaces) Bar.  

We've paid a call with each of the next two following trips and even made plans to watch the Super Bowl there if the Pack made it that far on our last trip in 2017.

Alas, like many other watering holes across all over the world they closed in October.  Another victim of the pandemic.  Regrettably, their Facebook page remains up but informs the visitor that the establishment is permanently closed. 

Battle of the Bays

The staff here at The Platz is going to take-on a decidedly Green and Gold Packer theme in the run-up to game time next weekend.

I was hopeful that it would be the Saints going-up against The Pack as it is more appropriate to have 'saints' involved in a righteous football game instead of a low-life, cheater like Tom Brady and his collection of penalty-prone cheaters from Tampa Bay.

But I digress.

From the photo archives here at The Platz there is this gem featuring a rookie back-up quarterback taken at a practice on August, 2, 2007 - thirteen and a half years ago.

Who knew?

Green and Gold

Saturday brought the return of the green and gold lighting for the duration of the Green Bay Packer playoff season.

Go Pack!

Harley Ben-Hur

I have always considered myself well-versed in the world of sports. While not an enthusiast of all sporting pastimes I’ve lived under the impression that I was generally aware of all of them. 

Until this came to my attention. 

In the world of extreme sports this has absolutely got to take the award for the most dangerously bizarre. 

Sure, I know you’re having your doubts – but this was a thing for a couple of decades straddling the 1920s and 1930s. 

Motorcycle chariot racing. 

Popularized in Australia, yet making an appearance in the states and Europe, this was chariot racing using motorcycles in place of horses. 

At its inception a rider of a motorcycle pulled a charioteer behind. 

With time the race became more more challenging with the charioteer pulled by tandem motorcycles controlling both throttle and steering with a pair of leather reins. 

Yikes! 

The sport in our more modern time doesn’t seem to have a broad universal following – at least that I can tell. Nevertheless, if somebody organized a match race of motorcycle chariots at the Door County fairgrounds dirt track I’m all-in. 

Crazy nuts.

Packer Nation

Jill found this display of various holiday cookie decorations at a grocery in Green Bay recently.

Only in Green Bay will you find Green and Gold colored sugar sprinkles.

Packers Rules.  Vikings Drool....

Public Shakedown

$24 billion 

Yup, billion with a letter B.  

That is the amount of money spent on stadiums — professional, amateur and college — by state and local governments since 1990.  It is a staggering figure for sure and does the expenditure pay-off in the end?   

Some have suggested that the economics are thin soup.   Employment opportunities are mostly part-time, seasonal or temporary work.  Moreover, local spending—which might otherwise find its way into local pubs, restaurants, bowling alleys, and cinemas—ends-up in the pockets of millionaire athletes and billionaire owners. 

Read the Atlantic’s startlingly cerebral analysis here.

Live Strong

Random actuarial factoid of the day. 

According to Metropolitan Life Major League Baseball players lived an average of four years longer than then the average male – especially if you are a third baseman.