Although sports talk in common anytime of the year, it seems to be the Fall season that brings out the best conversations regarding sports. People are extremely passionate about their teams,whether college or professional. I know Saturday and Sunday afternoons in this community are ghost towns. Everyone glued to the television, from early afternoon through the late night.
Recently visiting with neighbors, hailing from Michigan, baseball playoffs were on every one's mind. Although the Tampa Bay Rays are currently in the first leg of the playoffs, it doesn't look good for the "home" team. Their stadium only twenty minutes from here, is never filled to capacity. It seems most people's loyalty, is usually reserved for the teams that dominated their region of the country. Fred's News baseball teams...Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. A fierce rivalry, it produced many "colorful" verbal battles as die hard fans of each team tried unsuccessfully to unseat their rivals. Much like a congressional filibuster, shouts of "up your ass, you don't know what the hell you are talking about, or the ever popular, "the only way those G-damn Yankees are gonna get another pennant is if that a-hole Steinbrenner buys them one." Having never been on the Senate floor during a filibuster, one can only hope, the speeches are of a much more professional nature, than those echoing through the walls of Fred's News.
Not all sport related conversation at Fred's turned passionately violent. Boston Red Sox 1950 Rookie of the Year, Walter Dropo, was a native of eastern Connecticut. For many years, he was also a weekend regular at Fred's News. Patrons thoroughly enjoyed baseball conversations with him and brother George. Both were also avid University of Connecticut fans, therefore college sports were always being analyzed.
Baseball, football, basketball, golf, tennis all conversation fodder at Fred's. The emergence of Tiger Woods on the golf scene also caused many regular customers to consider taking up the game as well. A few years prior to Tiger, a number of us decided to learn to play the game. Luckily, the couples that played are still married to their respective spouses. Husbands, learned first, then attempted to be their wives' mentor. All of these teachable moments would of garnered better ratings than the Golf Channel's Haney Project!
Truly amazing, the number of sports firsts our generation has been a part of. Boston Red Sox winning two World Series, something my Dad prayed for, but never witnessed. Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, all bringing basketball to a new level. Secretariat, truly a phenomenal Triple Crown Winner, the rise and fall of baseball stars like Mark McGwire and Roger Clement, because of the accusations of using performance enhancing drugs, and many more outstanding sport history. These moments and more were all part of Fred's News history, just as were the fishbowl lives of family and friends.
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