A few weeks ago, the final column item I shared was about Family Soicle, the customized Trivial Pursuit-style game that I created over 30 years ago featuring questions from family members’ lives.
One of the categories is “hodgepodge” and that’s what I’m serving up today, with a heavy dose of baseball and a smattering of randomness as per usual.
History That Doesn’t Suck
Guess which historic figure turned 21 on the day Prohibition took effect in 1920?
Al Capone.
On the turnpike heading east from Chicago yesterday, I learned that ironic piece of trivia about the notorious gangster who reigned over the Windy City a century ago. The tidbit came from an episode of History That Doesn’t Suck, a fantastic podcast hosted by Greg Jackson.
An associate professor at Utah Valley University, Jackson skillfully brings history alive. There’s so much more that Jackson explained about Capone’s rise and fall1, of course, and so much more ground that he’s covered on his podcast since its inception nearly nine years ago.
I cannot recommend it highly enough—and if you know of anyone who’s yet to show an interest in history, this could be the podcast to help hook them. I also just learned Jackson has a new book, Been There, Done That: How Our History Shows What We Can Overcome.
Simply reading the cover—doesn’t that strike you as helpful? And hopeful!
Speaking of podcasts…
I’m in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania this morning—not far from Pittsburgh. It was the stopping point from Chicago last night as I made my way to Philadelphia for my first visit ever to the City of Brotherly Love.
Fittingly, my brother Andy will join me there as we raise awareness of his podcast, “The Bird: The Spirit of '76.” Why Philly? For the next four days, it’s the center of the baseball universe with a variety of events leading up to and including Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game on Tuesday evening.
Of course, I’ll do some tourist-y things, too, since I hear Philadelphia has a wee bit of history under its belt.
By the way, Andy’s podcast has gotten a terrific reception so far, including coverage last weekend in the Boston Globe via Chad Finn’s sports media column.
A new episode in the series drops every Sunday, through mid-August. You can find it at http://tinyurl.com/TheBirdPodcast and by scanning the QR code below:
Sox vs. Sox
Baseball is very much on my mind these days; first, I snuck in a quick fly ball session with Zach on Monday2—you can read about that tradition here in my aptly, if simply, named Hitting Fly Balls column from two years ago. Then, the next night, I went to the Red Sox vs. White Sox game on the South Side with him, his twin sis Maggie Rose and our favorite Chicago nephew, Brennan.
The boys from Boston won, 8-1, as they seem to be shaking off a lousy start to the season and are starting to contend for a Wildcard playoff spot—stranger things have happened!
Whistle Stop
People don’t whistle much in public. And that’s fine by me—anyone else find it annoyingly shrill? It’s one thing to hear someone do it well musically—Billy Joel in “The Stranger,” Harry Chapin in “Dreams Go By” (check out the video below—he starts the song out with some melodious whistling).
But it’s quite another matter when Joe Q. Citizen has a go at it.
Yes, it would seem I have a form of phonophobia, or a fear of loud/specific sounds.
Speaking of Capone, his legacy of crime and corruption extended to the adjoining town of Cicero, where he also set up shop. From 2003 to 2006, I covered Cicero for the Chicago Tribune and its reputation for corruption was still very much intact.
That’s how I got to use words like “mob boss” and “racketeering” and “fraud” and “rampant corruption” in this story from July 2003:
Thanks for reading — and if any of this hodgepodge sparks thoughts you’d like to share, leave a comment! Clicking “like” and restacking this column is also appreciated.
I say “snuck in” with regard to the fly balls because we wanted to make sure we got inside to catch the start of the U.S. men’s soccer team’s game against Belgium. Such a lackluster performance by our American crew in that 4-1 loss.