History Warp (11/28-12/04): Cars, Boats & Balls

Posted: November 28th, 2011 | Filed under: History Warp | 1 Comment »

Tony Stewart just won the final NASCAR race of the season to nab the season title by catching Carl Edwards at the wire. Literally.

Americans have long had a fascination and love affair with cars and speed and auto racing. Open wheel or stock.

It didn’t start at Indy. Or with Junior Johnson and the stocks.

Auto racing in America commenced on November 28, 1895. The race was sponsored by the Chicago Times-Herald. It started in the Second City at Jackson Park. The finish line was in the metropolis of Waukegan, Illinois. The winner was one Frank “Leadfoot” Dureyea. He averaged a speedy 7.5 mph in the race, which took 7 hours and 53 minutes to complete for the winner.

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One of my new favorite things is NFL RedZone on Sundays. You get to see all the best parts of all the games in real time. I don’t even have to man the clicker. The network itself switches from game to game, showing all the important plays in all the games.

And, in this day of Monday Night Football and Thursday Night Football and the NFL Network and NFL.com, it’s hard to imagine there was a time when America’s now favorite sport wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is these days.

There was a time when the games weren’t even on — gasp — radio.

That changed on November 29, 1934, on which date there was broadcast a pro football game for the first time nationally.

Da Bears won. The Detroit Lions lost.

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Every once in awhile a guy’s got to give props to a neighbor.

In this case, it’s well deserved.

Tori Murden, now president of Spalding University, lives right across the alley from me.

On December 3, 1999, she completed her solo adventure across the Atlantic. She spent 81 days, rowing a boat by herself from the Canary Islands to Guadeloupe.

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