Wise Dan is Free Money

[For more on this phenomenon, read the May 6 posting For The Old Kentucky Home Far Away, below.]

Last week was hectic around these parts.  An interesting, and significant, narrative from The Sport of Kings developed this past week, with its culmination last night at Churchill Downs.  Had I the time, I would have posted this column from ESPN's Gary West regarding Wise Dan's entry into last night's (Grade II) Firecracker Handicap.

Luckily, one loyal subscriber to Heavy Artillery notified me of his plan to be in attendance at Churchill and I gave him my tip; Straight WIN bet on Wise Dan, odds (and high weight) be damned!

Today's Daily Racing Form reports on the result, and includes a video replay of the stirring finish.

Wise Dan, the reigning Horse of the Year in the United States, is the best thoroughbred in North America and probably the best thoroughbred in the galaxy.  There may be some dispute on this last point, as one body (the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities [huh?]) has Wise Dan ranked second worldwide behind another turf horse, the Australian Black Caviar.  The IFHA [huh?] being an international body, I encourage everyone to disregard their findings and rate Wise Dan as #1 worldwide.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

You may recall the recounting, a year or two ago on the ol' web page, of the life, times and untimely demise - at the age of 24 - of my grandmother's brother Andrew.  At that time, in 1925, he was a fireman working on a locomotive for the "Big Four Railroad" (or the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St Louis Railway) when, en route to Cincinnati, his appendix burst.  Having been transported to a Cincinnati hospital, as the family history tells, he refused to allow surgeons to operate on him until a relative - any relative back in Springfield, Ohio - had been notified and present.  One can imagine how long that process might have taken in 1925.  As a result, by the time the doctors proceeded it was too late and Andrew died from peritonitis.

You might also recall that Andrew was a World War I veteran and that I had previously shared with you a photo of him in uniform:

While on a routine genealogical research mission to Springfield early last year (2012), we discovered that his upright government-issued grave marker (grave markers are provided by the government for its veterans) had been broken off at its base.  Andrew is buried in one of Springfield's active cemeteries, one which has fortunately had little or no incidents of vandalism over the years.  As such, we cannot be certain as to what caused the damage but it was, of course, very old and was made of soft, weather-worn marble.  Perhaps it was only a matter of time.  This discovery initiated a protracted process by which we subsequently made several trips to the V.A. in order to have it replaced. Our service officer at the V.A., Tony Johnson, is a helluva guy.  Himself a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, he was both sensitive and enthusiastic about helping our cause in every way conceivable.  With us present, he placed phone calls to Washington D.C. and to Quantico - always on speaker-phone so that there would be no mysteries as to the process.  Immediately Tony, and we, ran headlong into bureaucratic resistance.  At all times Tony conducted himself in a professional and respectful way, but we could sense his growing frustration as events wore on.  Tony understood this was an important cause for us but also, as a veteran himself, this was an important task for him as well - time and again Tony verbalized his strong feelings about the importance of honoring our heroic dead - and he fought like a tiger to accomplish our shared goal. 

Our first bureaucratic roadblock, we were required to provide Andrew's Social Security number.  You might think the federal government would understand this was an impossibility as Andrew died 10 years before the advent of Social Security.  Nevertheless, Miss Functionary at V.A. HQ in D.C. was adamant.  

Officer Leatherneck at Quantico was, unsurprisingly, much more helpful.  When we were unable to provide Andrew's service number (our second roadblock; I'm not sure who, when Andrew was living, would have known that information, let alone his few remaining descendants 90 years later), the serviceman at Quantico volunteered an alternate route for us which, as he correctly asserted, would ultimately resolve our matter; contacting the service records archive at a top secret location in St Louis, Mizzou [?!].  Of course, this being the federal bureaucracy, there were complicating factors.  Our request for information had to be made in writing; no phone call on our behalf from a V.A. service officer would suffice, no imagined (by me) threat of a Quantico-directed military raid would sway the archives.  No, we had to submit our request in writing.  What is this, the 18th century?  Tony helped us with the request (a much more complex form than anyone might expect) and asked us to return when we received Andrew's records.

Our next roadblock, courtesy of St Louis, was conflicting D.O.B. information.  Andrew's mother died in 1911, his father early in 1917.  Upon Andrew's 17th birthday in October of 1917, four months after the United States' entry into WW1, he enlisted with the Navy telling the recruiters he was 18 years of age.  Our records request was for a sailor born in October of 1900, not October of 1899 which the federal government insists as his year of birth (after all, that's the information they have on his enlistment papers) contrary to the Clark County (Ohio) Bureau of Vital Statistics.  Thanks to the expert skill of Tony, at the V.A., he guided us through this minefield and we were, after several months of waiting and numerous visits to the V.A., able to acquire Andrew's service record.  This information in-hand, the ball got rolling on replacing Andrew's grave marker.  I am happy to report that the replacement marker was delivered late last year (2012) and was set this past Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 at - fittingly - 11 A.M.:

The bronze plaque is what each of you have graciously provided with your federal tax money and my family sincerely thanks you.  

This service is an infinitely better use of our federal tax money than the trillions we are spending on non-existent shovel-ready projects, ObamaCare and (here we go again!) Obama Phones, to name just three.  

Speaking of service, both the granite base and the labor cost of setting this new marker were provided to us at no cost by the greatest cemetery superintendent in the world, Pat Mathews.  Such is his dedication to honoring our veterans in general and my own family, in particular (Pat and his father before him have been among the superintendents that buried four generations of my Irish ancestors in Springfield).  Below are two more photos from Wednesday's marker-setting:

Above, the old marker.  Below, both markers (the original marker at upper right, near the shovel) just before the new marker was set into the hallowed ground:

Last July (2012), our genealogical pursuit revealed the burial location of a great-great grandfather as well as a great-great-great (yes, three greats) grandfather, both of whom served in the Union army during the Civil War.  The 2x great grandfather was the son-in-law of the 3x great grandfather.

The 2x great grandfather immigrated to this country as a child in, we think, the 1840s.  By the 1850s he'd migrated to Greene County, Ohio (somewhere in the vicinity of Yellow Springs).  In 1861 he enlisted in Springfield with the 44th Ohio Volunteer Infantry for a three-year hitch.  During his service, his regiment was reorganized as the Ohio 8th Volunteer Cavalry.  After the war, he and his family moved to Dayton, Ohio where he died in 1872.  Initially buried in the St Henry Cemetery in Dayton, he - along with hundreds of others - was re-interred at Dayton Calvary Cemetery when the St Henry Cemetery was closed and the county redeveloped that formerly sacred ground for the Montgomery County fairgrounds.  Until our research last summer, no member of the extended family living today knew the whereabouts of his final resting place.  We paid a visit to his grave last July:

As we were then deep in the throes of having Andrew Dunnigan's grave marker replaced, we were immediately struck by the deteriorated state of 2x's grave marker; leaning at a severe angle and weather-worn to the point of absolute illegibility.

Referencing the hurdles that confronted us with having Andrew's marker replaced, above, we learned that one problem facing those with the same purpose as we is that many of the older military records have been - at various points in time - lost due to fire, flood and, undoubtedly, Democratic Party pestilence.  The older the records are, the more likely they have gone missing.  We were fortunate that the St Louis archives maintained Andrew's WW1 service record.  Absent a Social Security number (strike one) or service number, which we have yet to discover for 2x (ergo, strike two), there is one other official document which the V.A. will accept in order to process replacement markers; a service member's discharge papers.

Altogether now;  strike three.

Maybe.

We do have in our private collection an old copy of a copy of a copy of...... what purports to be 2x's discharge.  It appears that the original, by the time it was copied (whether it was the original itself that was copied or was a copied from microfilm) had been folded and torn.  Some of the detail on our copy is illegible.  Our investigations to this point haven't turned up where the original may be archived - if it even exists at all today.  Naturally, the feds insist upon an original, not a poor, partially illegible copy.

If it weren't such a bureaucratic nightmare it might be funny to also learn that when one applies to the V.A. for a replacement marker, the form requires that the petitioner must be a next-of-kin.  And the form has six - just six - options from which to select:

Father
Mother
Husband
Wife
Son
Daughter

Good luck finding one of them to request a replacement marker for your WW1 or Civil War or War of 1812 ancestor.  The V.A. doesn't even provide an "Other" choice from which to select (that was a tough nut for our man Tony to crack in the case of Andrew Dunnigan whose parents and wife preceded him in death and he had no children, but crack it he did).  Ridiculous.

After being in Springfield to observe the setting of Andrew Dunnigan's replacement marker Wednesday, we then visited a different, older cemetery in Springfield; St Raphael's.  Our research revealed that some of our ancestors were buried there including 3x, the Civil War veteran father-in-law of 2x.

St Raphael's Catholic Church is still an active parish today; my Mom's parents were wed there in the 1920s.  The St Raphael's cemetery was closed a half century or more ago.  Then, we have been informed by sources who know, some 20-odd years ago the church had the fencing removed and sold for scrap.  One must not expend too many brainwaves to discern what that meant in terms of ensuing vandalization.  In recent years, a local Boy Scout Troop dedicated their service time to cleaning up the cemetery and making a grand effort at recording all the names and dates, as to the best of their abilities, that appear on the grave markers and monuments there.  It was through their efforts at cataloging this information that we discovered which of our ancestors were buried at St Raphael's (we contacted the parish which claimed to have no such records on file).  These days, the parish makes an effort at bush hogging the grounds once or twice a year and the acclaimed Pat Matthews (above), himself with no direct connection or obligation to St Raphael's, volunteers his own time and crew to periodically mow St Raphael's.  Even so, despite the best efforts of so many, St Raphael's has today every appearance of the closed, abandoned, neglected cemetery.

After 15 or 20 minutes of exploration, I discovered amid thick over-growth the marker for 3x (I tramped down the overgrown saplings, weeds and grass in order to get a better picture):

As you can see, 3x's small monument has been victimized by vandals.

Regrettably, because St Raphael's Cemetery has been closed and since it still experiences incidents of vandalism, 3x's monument will probably never be repaired or replaced.  Deserving though he is, why give single-braincell derelicts a fresh target?

Unfortunately, we were unable to locate some of our other ancestors  who are also buried at St Raphael's but which the Boy Scouts recorded.  The overgrowth in some areas is so thick it would take a Pacific Theater-grade flame-thrower to cut through the jungle.  Alas, I did not have one with me last week and I don't think we will ever return.

Long-range Reconnaissance

As you might imagine, there were some beautiful monuments at St Raphael's which have been - as yet - untouched by vandals.  I will share some of them with you, below.  Of course, there were numerous markers and monuments which have not been spared, or have been weathered-down to the point of illegibility, but those present too sad a picture to post here.

Perhaps the most striking monument at St Raphael's (an industrial complex of some description, in the background, neighbors the cemetery today).  This monument stands approximately 20 feet tall.

I didn't linger long enough to determine which figure stands atop the monument.  St Peter?  St Peter Edward Rose?  That's who I'm getting for my monument!

This monument (above) stands in a quiet, shady corner of St Raphael's.  The bright orange wild lilies drew me to this scene.

At first glance, this weather-worn three-foot tall column-style multi-hyphenated monument appeared to be nondescript.  Closer inspection revealed a touching, delicate detail:

A carved, single lily (sideways; the bloom is at left.  I neglected to rotate the image before uploading here).

Belmont Stakes Day

On the eve of the Belmont Stakes, 4 inches of rain from Tropical Storm Whatsit saturated Long Island generally and Elmont, New York particularly (yes, you read that correctly - Belmont Park is located in Elmont, New York).  My own busy schedule (including the Reds game the night before the Belmont Stakes) precluded any opportunity for handicapping the third jewel in the Tripe Crown in advance.  That, and the impact all that rain in New York was having wouldn't be fully realized until dawn of Belmont Stakes Day.  So, why bother trying to handicap 24 hours before?

When dawn broke over southwestern Ohio a week ago Saturday, I fired up my battalion of media devices for the latest news from "Big Sandy," as Belmont Park is often referred to (descriptive of the main track surface).  The main track was listed as MUDDY, the turf as YIELDING but the rain had let up and a partly sunny, breezy day was on tap.  I reviewed the pertinent commentary from Daily Racing Form and Blood-Horse, devoured a couple of donuts and jumped into my Jeep and headed for the rendezvous point where I was ordered to pick up The Old Master of the Turf, at his Fairfield command post.  Following our mostly profitable by unsatisfying experience on Derby Day in Turfway Park's Homestretch Room (the buffet was disappointing and The Old Master of the Turf had some ancillary gripes about the quality of help working the betting windows and the evident disregard by management for cleanliness in the restroom), we found ourselves back in familiar territory, Turfway Park's Players Row.  

Or so we thought.  

Upon arriving at the usual check-in for seating in Player's Row, we were informed that our tickets were for the "new," smoke-free, Player's Row on the opposite side of the building.  Smoke-free should appear in quotes as well, as the ground floor where both old and new Player's Rows alike are located is an open floor plan.  As one may guess, the air can get thick with smoke from Kentucky's tobacco industry patrons no matter what the No Smoking placard affixed to our reserved seats might suggest.  We were escorted to our private row of seven seats.  Illustrative of The Old Master's expectation of a Triple Crown following Orb's stirring victory in the Kentucky Derby, he brought up an entire row of (seven) seats with the expectation that he, I, Lou and four of The Old Master's cosa nostra of old-time horse playing pals would jump at the chance to have a seat to watch and wager on Orb's attempt at Triple Crown immortality. However, with Orb's fourth-place finish in the Preakness Stakes the air had deflated from that balloon and Belmont Stakes Day found The Old Master and me.... by our selves.  Lou had a mountain of work to tackle and as for the cosa nostra, well, who knows?  The siren song of exotic pari-mutuel wagering is a powerful force and eventually one veteran member in good standing in the cosa nostra, nicknamed "Buck," did join us.  Our row of seats was nearly half-filled and The Old Master must have been quietly disappointed that he'd laid out the cash for so many unoccupied seats.  We were assigned Row A in the new and improved [?] Players Row, which simply meant that immediately beyond my flatscreen (yet somehow still Low-Def) monitor, I was looking at a wall.  Here was my perspective on Belmont Day:

I rarely pass up the opportunity to acquire a copy of the DRF for my efforts at handicapping but in light of the miserable track conditions and my general unfamiliarity with that day's undercard I had no intention of intensive wagering [read: high-dollar].  As such, I satisfied myself with a simple program from which to crunch the field.  Here, below, I captured The Old Master - sporting his t-shirt from the 2004 Breeders' Cup (held that year at Lone Star Park in the former Republic of Texas; The Old Master in attendance that day) intently studying the race program, his Daily Racing Form laying unattended at the moment:

Next, the unflattering program's-eye-view of Mr Heavy Artillery:

I began near the back of the program, with the Belmont Stakes itself, and then worked backwards from there.  Veteran horseplayers will instantly discern my strategy here; I was handicapping my eventual Pick 6 wager (this is done in the event I run out of time formulating my Pick 6 wager, I still would have had a chance to look over the biggest/best races of the day).  I had no interest in the five Maiden races that began the day of racing at Belmont and so rather I focused my efforts on the Stakes races which made up the latter portions of the race day (as well as the Pick 6 and Late Pick 4).

The Old Master related a phone call he'd received from Turfway Park in the days before the Belmont, asking if he'd like to have a table in the Homestretch Room and, curiously, with the option of ordering food off a menu rather than grazing from the buffet.  The Old Master of the Turf suspects Turfway received a number of complaints about the unsatisfactory Derby Day experience and were making an attempt at rectifying the situation.  We each made a couple of reconnaissance missions throughout the afternoon to spy on the usually full Homestretch Room and, perhaps unsurprisingly, we never observed it more than one-quarter occupied.  In light of the Commonwealth of Kentucky's Republican-led legislative intransigence on the matter of casino gambling at its racetracks (an issue strongly - and wisely - supported by Kentucky's Democratic Governor Bashear; what is this?  "Opposite Day?"), a development that has been embraced, regionally, by Indiana, West Virginia and now - most recently - by Ohio, most of Kentucky's smaller racetracks are getting squeezed (excluding, of course, Churchill Downs and Keeenland) by the avalanche of so-called racinos and casinos.  Add to this mix the tangentially-related development of the Horseshoe Casino in downtown Cincinnati and the resulting steep decline of patronage of Indiana's three tri-state area Casinos compounded by progress on the revitalization of Cincinnati's River Downs (which will have casino gambling) and the construction of a new racino just up I-75 in Monroe, Ohio to replace the decrepit Lebanon Raceway and one seriously doubts the long-term viability of venerable Turfway Park.  I speculated with The Old Master that, due to these shifts in gambling opportunities and the obvious decline in the services and experiences, Turfway Park may not exist five years from now.  Neighboring CVG has, for decades, wanted the land that Turfway sits on for both expansion of runways but also as direct access from I-75.

Now, back to the action!

With Lou absent and The Old Master handicapping race-by-race I was left to my own devices crafting a Pick 6 to be funded entirely by myself.  Which necessitated a limited ticket.  That accomplished, it was time for lunch!

The Lunch of Champions; cheeseburger and french fries.  Don't laugh.  Turfway Park makes a fantastic half-pound cheeseburger and the fries are a golden crunchy delight.

Meanwhile, "Buck" let us know he was sitting on a live Early Pick 4 ticket with just one race remaining.  For the concluding leg of his Early Pick 4, he had two horses; the favorite and a longshot.  The will-pays, as they are referred to, were $9,000 if the favorite won, $36,000 if his longshot were to be victorious.  Surreptitiously, I deployed my Android's video capabilities to film "Buck" in the event he scored.  The race's favorite didn't fire and was a non-factor but turning for home "Buck's" $36,000 longshot was second and vigorously challenging the leader.  Alas, "Buck's" longshot couldn't overcome the eventual winner and finished a valiant - if unprofitable - second for "Buck."  The video I shot will never see the light of day. I know how "Buck" felt.  Back in the 1990s I was photo-finished out of a $20,000 Breeders' Cup Superfecta when, after an agonizing and interminable delay, my fourth and final horse was photo-finished into fifth.  Crushing. 

My paltry $24 Pick 6 ran aground immediately.  I loaded up the front end of my Pick 6 with three horses, the best of which - named Micromanage - finished second.  Even more maddening, I should have had both a live Pick 6 ticket AND the winning Exacta, neither of which I claimed.  In the minutes leading up to the start of the race which would begin the Pick 6, I opined to The Old Master and "Buck" my thoughts on the two best horses in the field and that, even the track condition withstanding (by this time upgraded from MUDDY to GOOD), they would finish the race 1-2.  They did, and the Exacta paid $48.80.  Upon conclusion of this race, my The Old Master and "Buck" congratulated me on my insight and asked how may times did you have it? [read: how much I wagered].  I didn't.  Here we go again.  Right horses, wrong wagers.  In fact, the horse that won, Power Broker, I had also left out of the combination of three horses which I included on the first leg of my Pick 6.

My prospects at a consolation payout on the Pick Six improved when, in the next race, I cashed the winning Exacta ($23.60) in a sprint race headed by Fast Bullet, brother to one of my favorite sprinters named Fatal Bullet.  2nd Amendment queasiness from my Liberal pals aside, those are great names for incredibly swift sprinters.  If I have any thing resembling a forte in handicapping, it's sprint races.

1-for-2 to begin my minimalist Pick 6, I was soon back on shaky ground as, for the third leg, I had singled but one horse; the 11-1 longest shot in the field on a YIELDING turf course, Better Lucky.  Better Lucky was sired by another all-time favorite of mine, the incredibly fast and now Hall of Famer Ghostzapper. Ghostzapper won the 2004 Breeders' Cup Classic wire-to-wire and I'd had a big Win bet him him that day (that '04 BC Classic was a great race, as it should be, with a strong field including a previous Derby winner [Funnycide] and Belmont Winner [Birdstone] and BC Classic winner [Pleasantly Perfect], a phenomenal filly [Azeri] and won by Ghostzapper in a blistering time).  Plus, with The Old Master of the Turf wearing his 2004 BC t-shirt, how could this pick miss?  It almost didn't.  Approaching the wire, Better Lucky and Stephanie's Kitten, the 5-2 morning line favorite, were nose-to-nose.  The last flash on the Tote Board before going dark - is as customary right before the finish - had Better Lucky in the lead.  Stephanie's Kitten won out over Better Lucky and with it sent my Pick 6 to the murky depths of destruction.

Better Lucky paid me $9.60 to Place, so that helped ease the sting.  A little.

After this race, the main track was upgraded to FAST (the turf remained YIELDING all day). I'd spent the morning and early afternoon handicapping for an "off" track at Belmont so this change required some revisionism of my early work.

My pick in the following race finished second.  If you have detected a pattern here, don't spoil it for the others just yet.

Race 10 was the 112th running of the Woodford Reserve Manhattan, Grade I on the turf.  On Derby Day, that day's featured turf race was won in no-doubt-about-it fashion by Wise Dan.  I had it, big.  You will recall that Derby Day came up wet and Wise Dan's only serious challenger - and a very serious challenger he would have been - was Point of Entry.  Point of Entry scratched due to the wet conditions at Churchill Downs.  With no sign of Wise Dan on Belmont Day, Point of Entry was not scratched, despite the YIELDING turf condition, and won in dramatic fashion, rallying from way back and repulsing two challenges deep in the homestretch.  Since Seabiscuit-War Admiral style match races are a relic of the past, hopefully we will get a Wise Dan-Point of Entry showdown later this year when the Breeders' Cup returns to sunny, dry Santa Anita.  I loaded up on Point of Entry:

Point of Entry was the odds-on favorite and only paid $3.10 to Win.  My $20 returned $31.  If only it were always this easy.  I tossed in a small straight Exacta with the #5 Optimizer on top, out of the newly energized Calumet Farm.  Optimizer finished second (a boxed Exacta would have paid five times ROI..... right horses, wrong wagers).  In employing a controversial Pick 6 strategy promoted by the likes of DRF's Steven Crist and Andy Beyer but frowned upon by The Old Master of the Turf and Lou, I left the so-called "Lock of the Day" Point of Entry out of my Pick 6 (but not my Late Pick 4) in favor of singling second-place finisher Optimizer.  

Still, I had winnings in my pocket and so it was snack time!

The Snack of Champions!

With only the Belmont Stakes to go and nearly an hour until post time, I reviewed my Belmont Day efforts.  Specifically, I wanted to see what went wrong with my Pick 6.  At this stage, 5 races into it, I was 1-for-5.  That rates as just about, no, it's probably the worst I've ever managed.  I've never gone 0-for-6 (I don't think), but there was almost certainly an 1-fer here and there way back in my formative days.  It was then I discovered what some of you may have already realized (but did not spoil it for the rest - thanks!);  In addition to the single winner on my Pick 6 I had four - count 'em, FOUR - second-place horses.  On the precipice of the Belmont Stakes, here is how my ticket looked:

For those of you (everyone) who can't read my handwriting [second row from the bottom, arrow at left]: 

2nd-1st-2nd-2nd-2nd..... [Belmont TBD]

This has to be my best worst Pick 6 of all-time, if there can be such a thing.

Above my Pick 6, the top row in the image above shows you my Late Pick 4 (scavenged from my swing-for-the-fences Pick 6; $288, that's why I didn't play it):

2nd-2nd-1st..... [Belmont TBD]

It was a bad omen, at the time unrealized, when "Buck's" $36,000 Early Pick 4 went down in flames with a second-place finish.  That is also the kind of Belmont Day I had; second-place finishes derailing my shot at a big payout.

The image above also gives you a sneak peak at my Belmont Stakes result (below):

My pick to win the Belmont Stakes, the #9 Revolutionary, finished 5th.  At the time I noted the final results on my Pick 6, I wasn't certain where precisely Revolutionary finished, hence the "?"  I just knew he was out of the money.  I included my Trifecta Box [#6-#9-#13] as the final leg of the Late Pick 4 wager, and my #6 Incognito (also one-half of my Exacta Box with Revolutionary) finished 4th.

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In other news from The Sport of Kings, 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom makes his bid, tomorrow at Royal Ascot, to become the first-ever horse to have won a Grade I (or Group I, in Europe and elsewhere) race on three different racing surfaces.  Read all about it here.

Also, read about the inspirational story of 2012 Belmont Stakes runner-up Paynter, and the Hollywood-type resolution.  Plus, the Beyer Speed Figure epilogue.

Long-range Reconnaissance

Sticking with the Empire State, here's a look at NYC from the distant past:

The photo above purports to be 11th Avenue in NYC circa way back when.  There's so much to investigate; the horse-drawn carriages and wagons, the street car, the steam-powered... umm... locomotive (complete with boxcars), the fruit and vegetable stand at lower right, the hustle and bustle up the street in the distance, the street sweeper sweeping up after the horse traffic, the little kids playing/running on the sidewalks.

5th Avenue and Broadway in 1915, looking north.  I like the massive Mercedes-Benz logo adorning the grille of the bus, at center.  For those of you with an interest in architecture, had the cameraman turned 180 degrees you'd be looking south, right at the famous Flatiron Building (built in 1902).

An ethereal scene from under the Brooklyn Bridge.

One of the great, lost, American pastimes - Auto Polo.  For the life of me, I cannot figure out why this sport didn't survive.  Survive may be the operative term.  My research indicates this scene took place at one of NYC's baseball fields (the Polo Grounds?  Hilltop Park?  Doesn't look like Ebbets Field) in 1915.

A rarity for Long-range Reconnaissance; a color photo.  This is Times Square during a March rain shower in 1943.  The historic - and long gone - Astor Theatre was showing the Mickey Rooney film The Human Condition.  Next door, the Globe was showing Disney's animated Saludos Amigos.  The rain-drenched streets project the reflective quality of a placid lake.  And how about that two-color traffic signal?  Who needs amber?!

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And speaking of films, this Saturday at 8 pm Turner Classic Movies will show the iconic John Ford-John Wayne western The Searchers (1956) on its weekly program "The Essentials."  In 2007 the American Film Institute ranked The Searchers 12th on its 100 Greatest American Films of All-Time and in 2008 AFI named The Searchers the Greatest Western of All-Time.  Martin Scorsese is a big fan of The Searchers.

This is the look I give people when they speak disparagingly of Pete Rose.

Shakin' It Up

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind.  Luckily, it was captured on film.  Or, I suppose I should say, it was captured on memory card.    In mostly chronological order;

I was there to greet my two nieces when they got off the bus their last day of school:

Here, Rocky and CeCe project the beaming visages that can only be produced by the benefaction of freedom from Board of Education tyranny.  The bus driver must've been swept by summer vacation fever, too, as she roared away from the community bus stop before I could snap a photo of the girls next to the bus.  In a stunning coincidence, my nieces ride on an elementary school bus which has the same number as the bus their Dad and Uncle rode to their elementary school.  Here's an interesting note regarding the community bus stop;  None of the kids live within a 5-minute walk to the bus stop.  In fact, once disgorged, the students all begin walking in the same direction (on opposite sides of the street; see the boys in the background)..... the same direction which the bus continues through their neighborhood.  And right past all of their homes!  The five students that exit the bus at this community bus stop all live within a Jay Bruce-thrown baseball's distance of one another so this isn't an issue of having the three different bus stops in a 300-foot span of street but rather a mislocated community bus stop which unnecessarily forces each of the five kids to walk a distance 5-times further than is necessary.  Talk about Board of Education tyranny!

Just days before, we all gathered at Mr B's top secret bunker in an undisclosed location for a birthday party:

Mr B and Lou at left, Rocky and CeCe at right, birthday cake center on the verge of being devoured.

No sooner had the final dismissal bell of the school year rung, Lou and family hit the road for a summer vacation roadtrip to scenic St Louis, Mizzou!  First stop; the St Louis Gateway Arch [no photos have been supplied].  Second stop, Busch Stadium III for a Cardinals-Diamondbacks tilt:

Rocky and CeCe pose with their Mom outside the gates of Hades aka Busch Stadium III.  Soon thereafter, of course, it began raining.  Time to bust out the ponchos:

Lou sent me the next photo via text, suggesting their seats were "just like your season tickets at GABP:"

There are two problems with Big Brother's assertion; 1) My seats are on the infield, and 2) My seats aren't on the roof!

Among the many fun things one experiences on a vacation are the strange and exotic foods that you can't get anywhere near home.  Such as:

Fazoli's!  And:

Noble Roman's!

While Lou & family were on vacation, some of us were still hard at work.  For example:

I had dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory.  Nobody was there.  This has been a trend lately that had me concerned.  Concerned, that is, until the server brought my meal.  The salad had the consistency of soup and the chicken was room temperature.  I may never return.

Cruising around the Empire this past week I came across some surprising sights.  For example:

This message board outside the Michelin 5-Star Indian Creek Tavern.  Can't quite read it?  Here's a closer look:

Yes!  That's right!  On August 10th Bret Michaels of Poison "fame" will be rocking downtown Reily!  I have it on good authority that someone named Travis Tritt played there last summer.  It is my understanding that Travis Tritt is a country music star.  Can't prove it by me.

This week also saw the demolition of an Oxford landmark:

Barry's BP, formerly Don's SOHIO, at the corner of High and College is no more.  I have many fond memories of going to Don's SOHIO back in the 1970s; our union-made American cars only got about 9 miles to the gallon and often needed service and Don's SOHIO - a service station - was the place to go.  Our 1973 Dodge Crestwood station wagon didn't have air conditioning and so I can vividly recall the Ding! that announced when our car, any car, pulled into the service station.  We'd drive up to the brightly-colored red, white and blue gas pumps labeled with the different grades of fuel; Boron, Cetron and Octron.  Instantly a uniformed attendant - wearing a true uniform (none of this golf shirt with an embroidered logo junk you so often see today) would be at our window ready for direction.  Sometimes it was the boss Don SOHIO (Don Krauth) himself, sometimes it was Hank, the grandfather of Jeff & Todd Lancaster.  Hank was hilarious and always went out of his way to say or do something that would make me laugh.  The whole process of the full-service gas station amazed me as a little boy; The fuel nozzle inserted, the analog digits on the pump spinning, the hood went up, oil was checked/added, the hood went down and the windshield cleaned.  Then out came the SOHIO credit card and the handheld "swiper" (is there a more accurate term?) which made a Ku-chunk! carbon copy impression of the credit card and away we went, seemingly faster than an A.J. Foyt pit stop at that year's Indy 500.  When I was 5, 6, 7 years old I wanted to grow up and work at Don's SOHIO.  I loved the scent of leaded fuel.  That probably explains a lot.  Back in January, while recuperating from a stress fracture in my foot, Barry was kind enough to plow out my driveway but he didn't mention any changes that were on the horizon (no pun intended).  As of this writing I don't know what the future holds for Barry, BP or the corner of High and College.

Back at HQ, I spied with my little NSA eye, a nearby tent offering free (are there any other kind?) Obama phones.

"Romney?  He sucks!  Bad!"  Indeed, my fair SEIU lady.  Indeed.

Back on planet Earth, former Miami basketball coach Charlie Coles passed away in his home in Oxford last Friday.  One of the all-time great quotes;  "All I heard was.... boy, this and that!"  I encourage all of you to begin using this phrase in your daily conversations as an homage to Coach Coles.  That same night, the Reds held a moment of silence for Charlie at Great American Ball Park:

Next update; Kickin' it Belmont Stakes style.

Long-range Reconnaissance

Here's a brief, random assortment of images vaguely related to the foregoing:

The photo above purports to be of "Montgomery High School."  Don't know where, don't know when, as the old standard goes.  Among the photographs decorating the back wall are Winston Churchill and Errol Flynn.  I will leave it up to you to discern which subject was taught in that particular classroom.  What a studious, neatly-dressed group of young men and ladies.  Where are the Cult t-shirts, the unlaced Nike high-tops, the ripped and faded Levi's denim jeans, the notebooks adorned with beer brands, the students passing notes and the students gazing out the windows daydreaming of Daisy Fuentes? 

Travel once meant by train.  The photo below was taken at Washington D.C.'s Union Station in 1943:

Travel once meant, also, staying closer to home.  Below is a photo from Mad Mahler's neck of the woods, taken on the mean streets of Lancaster, Ohio in 1938:

You know that what caught my eye in the photo, above, is the Daily Racing Form banner on the telephone pole (at right).  Finally, a photo (below) from an Ohio town west of Lancaster, Urbana - also from 1938:

I like the old-school highway signs attached to the lamp post.

".....Moving Like A Tremendous Machine!"

Post positions have been drawn and the serious handicapping has commenced for this Saturday's Belmont Stakes.  You can enjoy the 145th running of the Belmont Stakes from the sumptuous comfort of your lavish home theater by watching the NBC telecast between 5pm and 7 pm.

Daily Racing Form editor-in-chief Steven Crist has an interesting review of Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winners who have squared off in the Belmont over the past 40 years.  You can check it out here.

This Sunday, June 9th, marks the 40th anniversary of Secretariat's historic Triple Crown victory in the 1973 Belmont Stakes.  There is no finer exposition of this momentous achievement than ESPN's masterful "SportsCentury" feature from 1999.  You can watch the Belmont-specific segment here.

And a sentimental last look at Secretariat filmed just days before his ultimate demise on October 4, 1989, here.

Long-range Reconnaissance

 

We turn our lens this week to sights from Belmont Park 100 years ago (more or less).

 

 

 

Long Island swells mingle on the lawn behind the Belmont Park clubhouse (above), circa 1910-1915.

 

 

 

Speaking of swells from the Empire State, here you see Madeleine Astor enjoying The Sport of Kings during an afternoon excursion to Belmont Park on May 20th, 1915.  Madeleine was the wife of John Jacob Astor IV.  She survived the sinking of RMS Titanic on April 15th, 1912; he did not.  Astor was the son of William Backhouse Astor, Jr who owned the thoroughbred Vagrant, winner of the 2nd running of the Kentucky Derby (in 1876).

 

 

 

Here is a look at the inside of the Belmont Park grandstand, circa 1910-1915.