Blog Page...

The Men in Stripes: The History and Art of NFL Officiating Love them or hate them, football officials are an essential part of the game. They are also some of the most criticized people in professional sports. A quarterback can throw three interceptions, a running back can fumble twice, and a receiver can drop a perfectly thrown pass—and somehow, by the end of the afternoon, the officials are still getting most of the blame. It has always been that way. But take a step back f

Baseball’s Lost Specialty Players: When Every Spot in the Lineup Had a Purpose There was a time when you could look at a baseball lineup and immediately understand what a manager was trying to accomplish. The first hitter wasn’t there by accident. Neither was the cleanup hitter, the eighth-place batter, or the pitcher batting ninth. Every player had a responsibility, and every spot in the batting order fit into a carefully designed offensive strategy. Growing up in the 1960s

The Men on the Mound: The Evolution of Pitching in Major League Baseball There is an old saying in baseball that good pitching beats good hitting. Whether that is always true is open to debate, but one thing is certain: throughout the history of Major League Baseball, no position has evolved more dramatically than that of the pitcher. For more than 150 years, pitchers have transformed from gentlemen politely tossing the ball to begin play into highly trained athletes capable

Down the Stretch They Come: A Love Letter to Horse Racing... There are few sounds in sports more thrilling than the thunder of hooves pounding down the homestretch. The crowd rises as one. Programs flap in nervous hands. Cigars burn a little quicker. Somewhere, an old railbird is yelling at a jockey like he’s been training horses his whole life. And over the loudspeaker comes the call every racing fan waits for: “Down the stretch they come!” For generations, horse racing has

When Sportswriters Told the Story of America Long before social media, 24-hour sports networks, and instant highlights, sportswriters were the voice of the game. They did more than report scores. They explained what those scores meant. They told readers how a city felt after a loss, why a championship mattered, and what kind of person stood behind the statistics. For much of the 20th century, sportswriters were as essential to sports as the athletes themselves. The earliest g

There was a time when auto racing didn’t feel like an industry. It felt like a dare. Long before billion-dollar teams, data engineers, and wind tunnels, racing lived in barns, fairgrounds, and beachside straights. The first recorded automobile race, run in France in 1894 from Paris to Rouen, wasn’t about speed in the modern sense. It was about survival. Cars overheated. Wheels broke. Drivers carried tools. Simply finishing was an achievement. Those early racers weren’t celebr

When All-Star Games Meant Something: A Look Back at the 1970s There was a time when All-Star Games weren’t filler on the sports calendar. They weren’t branding exercises. They weren’t skill-showcase weekends wrapped in neon lighting. They weren’t carefully choreographed exhibitions designed to avoid bruised egos or pulled hamstrings. They were games. And in the 1970s, they mattered. If you grew up during that era, you remember the feeling. The anticipation. The sense that the

❄️ When the Winter Olympics Meant Family, Freedom, and a Flickering Black-and-White TV There was a time when the Winter Olympics didn’t live on twenty different streaming apps, didn’t come with push notifications, and didn’t follow you around in your pocket. They lived in one place.......The living room. And for a couple weeks every four years, that living room felt like the center of the world. 📺 The Television That Weighed More Than the Sofa Back then, you didn’t “turn on

Old Guy Sports Funnies: When Sports Remembered How to Laugh There was a time when sports didn’t always wear a suit and tie. Before every debate became a courtroom argument, before every player had a brand, and before every moment was immediately ranked, clipped, and monetized, sports were allowed to be funny. Not “commercial funny.” Not “viral funny.” Just plain, accidental, belly-laugh funny. And some of the best reminders of that didn’t even come from real games. They came

Saturday Nights, Studio Wrestling, and the Way We Believed There was a time when Saturday night meant one television, a living room full of noise, and a weekly ritual that kids looked forward to all week. In 1960s Pittsburgh, that ritual was professional wrestling. Studio Wrestling wasn’t flashy. It took place under hot lights in a small television studio, with folding chairs packed tight and fans who were close enough to touch the ring. My mother thought it was ridiculous. M

When New Year's Day Meant College Football I don’t remember a single New Year’s Day from my younger years without college football. Not one. I remember waking up before the house was fully alive, grabbing a cup of hot chocolate or tea that was probably too hot, and flipping on the TV while the sun was still finding its way through the windows. Before resolutions. Before brunch plans. Before anybody talked about playoff scenarios. It was just bowl games. One after another. All

A 1970s Christmas Morning: Sports, Family, and Memories That Last There’s something about Christmas that pulls memories out of places we didn’t even know they were stored. A song on the radio. The smell of pine. The glow of a tree in a dark room. For those of us who grew up in the 1970s, Christmas wasn’t flashy or fast—but it was unforgettable. If you’ve listened to our special Christmas episode of Old Guy Sports you can see that it is a love letter to that time. A time when

🎬 Old Guy Sports: Our Favorite Sports Movies (and a Quiz with Miss Amy!) Sports and movies go together like peanuts and Cracker Jack. Some of the most iconic moments in film history happen on a ballfield, in a locker room, or in the middle of a gritty underdog story. For this week’s episode of Old Guy Sports, I sat down to share my favorite sports movies of all time — the ones I’ve actually watched, loved, and rewatched so many times the VHS tapes practically wore out. And,

The Top 10 High School Football Programs in American History When it comes to high school football, greatness isn’t measured by one undefeated season or a single star athlete. True greatness is a combination of dominance, longevity, community impact, coaching legacies, national relevance, and a sustained ability to produce tough, disciplined, high-level football teams decade after decade. On the Old Guy Sports podcast, episode #39, we revealed our list of the Top 10 High Scho

The 10 Greatest College Football Teams of All Time (Before 1980) College football has always been more than just a game. It’s tradition, pageantry, and the kind of Saturday afternoons that become etched in memory. Before the modern era of mega-conferences, playoff brackets, and TV contracts, the sport was shaped by teams that built dynasties, broke barriers, and captured the nation’s imagination. Today we’re looking back at the 10 greatest college football teams of all time b

Women’s Baseball Steps Back Up to the Plate Baseball has always been more than just a game. It’s tradition, community, and sometimes,...

Baseball fans know the names Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron. But before those stars lit up the Major Leagues, they...

The Price of Greatness: How Rising Player Salaries Are Reshaping Sports In the last half-century, professional sports have undergone a...

Is Analytics Ruining Sports? There was a time when sports were all about instinct. Coaches trusted their gut. Players relied on feel....

What’s Wrong With Today’s MLB? Is “Americas PastTime” becoming past its time?? Baseball in the 1970s wasn’t just a sport—it was a way of...