Is there anybody who doesn’t love to read stories about acts of human kindness? I didn’t think so. So here goes… Mike Leiteritz is a self-employed, 46-year-old sports memorabilia collector in Frankfort, Ill., near Chicago. In June, he bought a box of assorted baseballs signed by different players and teams. One of the balls was […]
OK, let’s have some fun. This is going to be our All-Mississippi, All-Sports, Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame numbers team. We want audience participation. The numbers should be the numbers our guys wore in Mississippi, not in the pros. This is all about Mississippi. As self-designated commissioner, I am going to go ahead and suggest […]
This past weekend, the Braves-Cardinals-and-just-who-is-Mississippi’s-Major League Baseball team website piece generated thousands of page views and much response. Not sure we solved anything, but it surely sparked lots of give and take. We can’t have that same argument where professional football is concerned — not since New Orleans obtained a franchise in 1967. The […]
(This was last week’s column, which is syndicated across the state to more than 20 Mississippi newspapers. You really should hear Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer Robert Khayat tell the story.) Robert Khayat, a standout guard and placekicker, was accustomed to lining up nose-to- nose, eyes-to-eyes, against the best players in the Southeastern Conference. And […]
Years ago, we ran a reader poll for The Clarion-Ledger. We asked which team was Mississippi’s favorite Major League baseball team. The was back when the newspaper really went statewide and it was before the Internet went widespread, meaning readers had to care enough to put a stamp on an envelope and mail in their […]
Leave it to Cooper Manning, the funniest human not doing standup for a living, for the best one-liner on the new Direct TV music video featuring his daddy and two younger brothers. “I was pretty amazed that my Dad wrote that song,” Coop deadpanned. “I mean, for a guy who only listens to Conway Twitty […]
It was a rainy day 47 years ago. I was just a kid. My dad, Ace, and I were driving around Hattiesburg and I told him I had decided, at 13, I wanted to be a sports writer. Ace just kept on driving, never changed expression and didn’t say anything. A few minutes […]
Sixteen months into my job as director of your Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, one certainty has become clear: There’s a poignant story behind every Hall of Famer. Take the Class of 2013, inducted Friday night at the Jackson Hilton on the first bight of BancorpSouth Induction Weekend. There were six inductees, […]
