The Lake

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Wire service reporters used to do something called a “new top” as stories developed.  If something happened reasonably soon after an original story was sent out on the wire, the reporter would write a new lede that would replace the opening paragraph or paragraphs, and editors down the line could use it and graft the rest of the story behind it.

Today we offer a new top to an old story that we related in this space on September 5, 2016.  It was about the naming of the Lake of the Ozarks.

Construction of Bagnell Dam was completed in April, 1931 and the water reached spillway level in May.

A year-and-a-half before the dam was finished, a controversy broke out about what to name the reservoir.  Union Electric, now Ameren, the builder of the dam, found itself fighting an effort in January, 1930 to name the reservoir “Lake Osage.”

A land company had bought property on the planned lakeshore and had gone to the Camden County Recorder of Deeds to register the name “Lake Osage.”  But the development of the lake was a private enterprise by Union Electric which immediately said the proposed name was not authorized and would not be allowed.

The land company liked the name because it wanted to build a “summer colony” it wanted to call Osage Beach.

But critics thought “Lake Osage” would be confusing because the new lake was only two counties away from Lake Sac-Osage at Osceola (now the Truman Reservoir).

The 1929 legislature passed a bill calling the new lake “Lake Missouri,” but Governor Henry Caulfield vetoed it.  Several other names were suggested including Lake Benton, for Senator Thomas Hart Benton.  When the legislature passed a bill in ’31 calling the reservoir “Lake Benton,” Caulfield vetoed it, too, because it referred to “Missouri’s greatest Senator,” a phrase some might question then and one that could be questionable when future men and women had the job.

Union Electric, through the construction years, had referred to the dam creating the “Ozark Reservoir,” which turned out to be the largest man-made lake in the world—a claim that was eclipsed five years  later.

By 1932 the lake was generally referred to as the Lake of the Ozarks. As far as we know there was never a formal dedication of the lake’s name.

And Osage Beach became much more than a “summer colony.”

Sports—Keeping Your Head in the Game

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

Kurt Busch was sitting in a chair he didn’t want to be in Sundary afternoon.  He would rather have  been strapped in to his usual seat in his NASCAR Cup car,  racing three-dozen other drivers on the three-quarter mile track at Richmond.

But for the fourth weekend in a row the 2004 Cup champion was ruled unfit to race because of a concussion incurred in a qualifying crash at Pocono last month. He appeared unhurt when he got out of the car but doctors at the infield care center determined he was showing concussion symptoms.

Concussion protocols have become a much more important issue in sports at all levels in the last decade, highlighted by auto racing’s Dale Earnhardt Junior’s struggles in 2016 when he missed the second half of the NASCAR season. He retired at the end of the 2017 season, a season that began with the abrupt retirement of Columbia driver Carl Edwards, whose run for the 2016 championship had ended with a hard crash at Atlanta.

Edwards gave three reasons for leaving the sport. The third was his health. “I can stand here healthy after all the racing I’ve done and all the stupid stuff I’ve done in racecars. I’m a sharp guy and I want to be a sharp guy in thirty years.”

Edwards’ wife, Kate, is a doctor who works with people who have severe and traumatic brain injuries.

What do doctors look for when assessing concussions (and a person’s recovery from them?

The Mayo Clinic says someone, such as Busch after his crash, might not show signs and symptoms until hours or days after the injury.  Busch apparently did show signs because he was quickly ruled out of that weekend’s race at Pocono.

Doctors run some neurological tests that check on a person’s vision, hearing, strength and sensation, balance, coordination, and reflexes.  There also are cognitive tests—how thinking skills are working. Memory, ability to concentrate and the ability to recall information are part of that evaluation.

If the person shows signs and symptoms of severe headaches, seizures, repeated vomiting or worsening symptoms, brain imaging might be needed to see if there is bleeding of brain swelling.

The standard test to determine the condition of the brain right after an injury is a computerized tomography scan (or as they say in every episode of Grey’s Anatomy,  CT scan).

And a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can be sued to identify brain changes or complications.

The great 1950s and 1960s English Grand Prix driver Sterling Moss, who raced long before sophisticated concussion evaluations, decided after a horrible crash in his Lotus that he knew his brain was no longer fit for him to race when he had to think about doing things he had previously done automatically.

Whether it is race drivers or athletes in general, head injuries that leave them having to think about what they normally would do automatically is a sign that they need to step out of the arena until the automatic response returns.  Sometimes it doesn’t and the person risks greater harm by trying to bull through the condition.

That’s why concussion protocols are so important in sports. It’s dangerous to the individual and sometimes to those also in the game with them to play before they have recovered. Self-assessment cannot be tolerated.

As Kurt Busch put it when he was ruled unfit for last weekend’s race at Richmond:

 “Brain injury recovery doesn’t always take a linear path. I’ve been feeling well in my recovery, but this week I pushed to get my heart rate and body in a race simulation type environment, and it’s clear I’m not ready to be back in the race car.”

For Kurt Busch, the brain is more important than trying to win another trophy, a recognition that now exists across various sports platforms.  Infield care hospitals or tents on the sidelines—they’re all signs that the idea of “playing through an injury” is increasingly unacceptable.

As Carl Edwards put it: “I’m a sharp guy and I want to be a sharp guy in thirty years.”

(NASCAR)—Kevin Harvick had so much fun finally winning another race a week ago that he decided to do it again—at Richmond, where he took the lead after the last round of pit stops and then held on to beat the charging Christopher Bell, on fresher tires, by four-tenths of a second.

The win is number 60 in his career, moving him to ninth place on the all-time winner’s list.

Only two races remain in the regular season. Ryan Blaney, who has yet to win this year, is the only non-winner in the playoffs and he widened his points advantage over Martin Truex Jr., for the last  of 16 playoff slots.  If a non-winner claims one of the last two races,  other than those two, both will miss the playoffs although they are  second and forth in the overall points standings.

The Series moves to the Watkins Glen road course next weekend.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR runs the first of its last three races of the 2022 season at Worldwide Technology Raceway across the river from St. Louis next Saturday.

(FORMULA 1)—Formula 1 ends its summer break with the Grand Prix of  Belgium on August 28, the fourteenth race in the 22-race season.

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The Inner Troglodyte 

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My friend Derry Brownfield had a phrase he like to use to describe something that the “smart people” thought was special: Ignorance gone to seed.

I got a new cell phone a few months ago.  My old one was 15 model numbers behind the newest model.

A few days ago I was on a Zoom conference call, away from home and in a place with a lot of background noise.  I took the little headphones with little microphone with me to plug in so I could hear the meeting and unmute myself long enough to make a comment while keeping the background noise from distracting from the meeting itself.

That was when I learned the new phone does not have a headphone jack.  So instead of protecting my meeting attendees from the background noise of my surroundings, I contributed to the noise level at my location by listening to the meeting discussions on my cell phone speaker.

I suppose I would have known about this sort of thing if I had read the operator’s manual for the cellphone.

But it didn’t come with an operator’s manual either.

To get the operator’s manual I had to use the cell phone to get to the operator’s manual website. There were no instructions that I could find that would instruct me how to find the instructions for looking for the instructions.

Oh, and on top of all of that, the company has changed the little thingie that connects the power re-charging cord to the phone, so I couldn’t use the cable from my old phone to charge the new one. And the recharging cord is almost long enough to reach from the outlet to the nearby table where the phone can sit while charging.

So there I was, on the road 400 miles from home.  The charger I keep in my car to re-charge my cell phone had the older thingie on it so I couldn’t charge my cell phone in my car.

The other day I went back to the phone store.  I now own a pair of ear buds that have a wireless Bluetooth connection to my phone.   But I have to charge them to make them work. Fortunately, they came with a power cord with the appropriate thingie on it.  And I got an extension cord for my wall plug-in to charge the phone.

And I got a new car charger.  So now I have to carry two car chargers, one for my phone and the old one because the new charger doesn’t fit the charging port of the tablet we take with us on our trips.

As a result I have more things to worry about plugging in and more things to worry about making sure I pack for a trip. I’m not sure but I might have to leave behind three changes of underwear on the next trip so there’s room in my suitcase for all of the new charging cables, earbuds, and earbud containers.  Plus adaptors for foreign outlets.

That’s quite a racket the phone company has going for it.  I wound up spending $200 so that I can take part in my next remote meeting and so I can make sure my phone is charged enough that I can watch the whole thing.

And I still haven’t found the instruction book.

Sometimes I think cell phone companies and other tech manufacturers change things for the same reason dogs lick certain parts of their bodies—because they can.

Oh well, I can still use the earphones with my desktop computer.  And they don’t need to be charged.

You never know—

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—-what stories you might discover when you knock on a stranger’s door.

One summer night in Columbia when I was a college student selling encyclopedias door-to-door—a job that convinced me I was not meant to be in sales—an old man named Brooks Bradley answered the door.

I sold no encyclopedias that night.  Instead, I spent my time in his living room listening to him tell me stories.

He told me he was the oldest printer in the state. He showed me his commission as a Kentucky Colonel.  (Many years later, I joined him in that, uh, distinguished group.)

I wound up talking to a man who used to run steamboats on the Osage River as far upstream as Warsaw; today there are two dams and two big reservoirs below Warsaw. Nobody can take any kind of a boat upstream on the Osage anymore, at least not past Bagnell Dam at the Lake of the Ozarks.

Bradley’s family was an old family in Columbia.  He told me of the day his grandfather almost murdered General Odon Guitar, one of the city’s most famous residents. Guitar had been a Union officer and the Bradley family was on the Confederate side.

He told me he dreamed of writing a book someday called, “Pre-eminent Sons of Bitches I Have Known.”   I read his obituary in the paper a few months later. I still have it. I don’t think he ever wrote the book and to this day I wish I had a recorder that night.

The other day I decided to see if he had left any writings of any kind behind.

I found a January, 1914 copy of the magazine Typographical Journal that listed “W. Brooks Bradley, age 29 years; at trade fourteen years; learned trade in Rockport, Mo; has also worked in Pleasant Hill, Harrisonville and Warrensburg, Mo.”  He was applying for membership in the Typographers Union.”

I don’t know if the house where I spent that memorable evening was at 810 Sandifer Street, but that’s where he and his wife, Mae, were living when the census taker came round in 1940 and found them living with their 20-year old daughter, Dorothea.

I have run across one other record that includes a Brooks Bradley story.  A monthly magazine, Confederate Veteran (published “in the interest of Confederate Veterans and Kindred Topics”), from October, 1923, has him asking for some help.

An inquiry comes from Brooks Bradley, of Fayette, Mo., for some information of a soldier buried in that community, Richard Benedict, of Virginia, who went into Missouri in 1864 to secure recruits and information, and while there was taken ill and died. Mr. Bradley is very interested in securing the record of this soldier, as he and a few friends wish to erect a monument at the grave, which is on the old Bradley farm.

The following is taken from a newspaper story of this long forgotten soldier:

“In a neglected grave on a farm some seven miles northwest of Columbia (Mo.) rest the remains of a Confederate soldier whose tragic death is still remembered by a few Boone County people. The name of this soldier was Benedict, a commissioned officer of the Confederate army, and his business in this part of the country was to secure recruits. The county at the time was overrun with Federal commands.

“While on this mission, Benedict was taken sick, and, to keep his whereabouts a secret, he was placed in a camp on what was then the William Wade farm. In the same camp was a wounded soldier, Andrew J. Caldwell, now a resident of Columbia, who had been shot in a sharp skirmish on what was known as the John Fenton Ridge.

“So completely was the county overrun by Federals that it was almost impossible to give Benedict’s body a decent burial. An attempt was made to secure a suit of gray for burial purposes, but this was impossible. During the night his body was removed to the residence of James Boyce and prepared for burial. James Bradley made the coffin, and the immediate neighbors gathered and conveyed the body to its final resting place. In passing through this old deserted graveyard to-day, a close observer will find a plain, flat rock upon which is inscribed the word ‘Benedict.'”

Mr. Bradley is a young man and the nephew of a Confederate soldier. He writes: “My grandfather raised the first Confederate regiment in Boone County, Mo. He was a sort of preacher and sent out a call to meet at the church. Going into the pulpit, instead of preaching a sermon, he read the ‘Ordinance of Secession.’ At the conclusion, they all sang the ‘Bonnie Blue Flag.’ The old church yet stands as a shrine of democracy, and he is buried there. The monument marking his grave reads: ‘Here lies buried a Hardshell Baptist and an Unreconstructed Rebel.'”

Oh, how I wish that old printer had been more of a writer.

Sports:  A Super Coach, Landmark Cardinals Win, Royals Rookie Shines. And the Cars.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet contributing editor

(CANTON, OHIO)—-Dick Vermeil, the only man to serve as head coach of both of Missouri’s NFL teams, couldn’t thank enough people enough in his NFL Hall of Fame Speech. Given eight minutes to speak, Vermeil took twenty-three.

Along the way he saluted several people who made his enshrinement possible.

One of those was St. Louis Rams linebacker Mike Jones, who tackled Tennessee Titans wide receiver Kevin Dyson one yard short of a game-tying touchdown when the Rams won the 2000 Super Bowl “If he doesn’t make the tackle on the last play of Super Bowl 34, I’m not here today,” Vermeil said.

His bust was unveiled by John Shira (L) and Carl Peterson. Shira was the quarterback for Vermeil’s UCLA Bruins that defeated unbeaten Ohio State in the 1976 Rose Bowl. Peterson was an executive with the Philadelphia Eagles when Vermeil led the Eagles to four straight playoff appearances and to their first Super Bowl. Later, during his twenty-year tenure with the Kansas City Chiefs, he hired Vermeil two years after he had led the Rams to their Super Bowl Victory and then retiring.

He recalled UCLA’s win over Ohio State as the win that made him an NFL Coach. “If you don’t do that, the ownership form Philadelphia doesn’t get on a plane right after the game—so help me God it’s the truth—fly to Southern California…and recruiting me to come and coach your football team in Philadelphia.”

The Eagles were the first of three teams he led into the NFL playoffs.

But it was a basketball coach who taught him about coaching.  He took every chance he had to watch John Wooden.  “When you watch him practice, the intensity and the discipline and the structure was there of a great football practice.”  Wooden counseled him not to worry about the players he failed to recruit to UCLA. “Just make sure you do a great job of making those who you have the best that they can possibly be,” he quoted Wooden, “And I’ve operated under that simple philosophy the rest of my coaching career. It is so true. So true.”

Vermeil told the audience, many of them former players or fellow coaches, “Players win games. It’s our job to prepare them to win games.”

Kansas City Chiefs Coach Andy Reid, one of those who succeeded Vermeil with the Eagles, left Chiefs training camp in St. Joseph, Missouri to fly to Canton for a Saturday night reception for the Hall of Fame Class of 2022. “I have never had in my coaching career a better display of respect from someone else in the profession than what Andy Reid did for me last night. It will always touch me…That was unbelieveable.”

(BASEBALL)—The longest game in the short history of the current Busch Stadium has brought the St. Louis Cardinals a sweep of a three-game series against the New York Yankees.  It’s only the second time in Cardinals history they’ve won three straight against them.

Playing the Yankees is still rare for the Cardinals despite interleague play. The last time they won three straight against the New Yorkers was in the 1942 World Series when they won the last four games of a five-game series.

The Yankees have the second-best record in the American League but the Cardinals showed they could win tight games as well as slugging contests.  Sunday’s game finished 12-9. The twenty-one runs were generated by 27 hits (only three of which were home runs). The Yankees left a dozen runners on base. The Cardinals stranded eight.

The Cardinals have now surged to a two game lead over Milwaukee in their division and are on a seven-game winning streak. The Yankees lost their first three-game series this year and are on a five-game losing streak.

Yadiar Molina singled in the third inning for his 1,000th career hit at home.  The only catcher in baseball history with more is St. Louis native Yogi Berra with 1,042.

Across the state, the Royals hammered the Boston Red Sox 13-5 with rookie M. J. Melendez driving in six runs, three of them on a home run. The Royals have on four of their last five home series. It’s been nine years since they last won a four-game series against the Red Sox.

However they are not in any danger of playing in the post season. They’re 44-65. But they are not last in their division.

(NOW THE CARS)—Kevin Harvick, facing a win-or-else scenario for getting into the NASCAR playoffs, has made it in. Scott Dixon, running out of time to challenge for his seventh INDYCAR title, is knocking on the door with three races left.

Harvick, now 46 years old and 65 straight races without a win, is the fifteenth winner this year.  He went into the race at Michigan as the first man out of the playoffs, based on the points standings although in ninth place.  Playoff positions are based on wins and hadn’t had one in two years.

His victory is his 59th in Cup competition, 10th best all-time. It means Martin Truex Jr., is the odd man out.  He’s fourth overall in points but doesn’t have a win this year.  The only winless driver still in playoff contention is Ryan Blaney, who is second in overall points but also has yet to win a race this year.

There are three Cup races remaining before the field is set for the playoffs.  If both Blaney and Truex win one of those races, Kurt Bush would be eliminated. Although he has a win this year, he is 20th in points. Busch has missed three races since suffering a concussion in a pre-race crash last month. Ty Gibbs, the grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs, has filled in for him and had his first career top ten finish \

In INDYCAR—Scott Dixon went from last to first in the last 51 laps on the Nashville street circuit to close within six points of the INDYCAR points lead. He’s looking to equal A. J. Foyt’s seven series championships, the record.

Dixon (with his family at last week’s Indianapolis road course race) was in last place after a penalty for pitting when the pits were closed. The win is the 53rd of his career, breaking a tie with Mario Andretti for second-most INDYCAR victories. Foyt had 67 career wins.

A late-race collision brought out a red flag that set up a two-lap shootout between Dixon and Scott McLaughlin.  Dixon never made the high-pressure mistake during those two las and eat McLaughlin to the line by .1067 of a second, the closest finish of the year in INDYCAR racing.

Defending points champion Alex Palou was third. Last week’s winner at Indianapolis, Alexander Rossi, went a lap down after an early race shunt required repairs in his pit and then rallied to fourth.  Teammate Colton Herta, also the victim of a too-close encounter with a competitor, also rallied from a lap down (also for repairs) to finish fifth.

The top five drivers in the INDYCAR point standings now are separated by just 33 points. Their next chance to shake up the standings will be at World Wide Technology Raceway, across the river from St. Louis, in two weeks.

(photo credits: Bob Priddy, Rick Gevers, NFL)

 

 

Let us (not) pray

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In my church, and perhaps in yours, it is not unusual for the minister or a lay worship leader to begin a prayer with “Let us pray.”

Whose permission is this person seeking?

Actually, it would be more courteous to say, “Please let us pray.”

The prayers go ahead regardless of whether permission is granted, an example of “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission,” we suppose.

And then prayers are often concluded: “We pray in Jesus’ name….”

That’s okay within a group sharing common Christian beliefs. But is it appropriate in situations where there are people from different faith traditions who see other prophets and teachers as their life guides?

Wouldn’t a simple “Amen” without the preliminary phrase show respect for people of different approaches to God?

We once heard an invocation at an event attended by people of diverse religious backgrounds conclude with the words, “We pray in the name of the one we know best….”

I think of that phrase when I listen to the traditional prayer before NASCAR or INDYCAR races or other large public events and invariably hear the “Jesus” reference, and I think about those in the audience who might be Jewish, or Muslim, or Hindu—-or any other non-Christian background.

Christianity teaches, among other things, loving one another. But if we are to carry out that mission, should we not pray to a universal god in those circumstances rather than to one defined by one of many religions represented within a large crowd?

This line of thinking was triggered recently by a podcast called, “Public Witness.”  It is produced by Brian Kaylor, the President of Word& Way, a longtime Baptist publication, and Beau Underwood, the former minister at the First Christian Church in Jefferson City—my church.  Their August 4, 2022 podcast considers the effort of the new President of the Australian Senate to stop the reading of the Lord’s Prayer before the beginning of each day’s session.

They quote President Sue Lines, who observes that the diversity of the Parliament has been praised for many years.  “If we are genuine about diversity of the Parliament we cannot continue to say a Christian prayer to open the day,” she said.

The fact that Lines is an atheist is sure to trigger some jerking knees.  In their Facebook note about the podcast (these guys are young and well-connected to modern communication systems), Brian and Beau argue that Christians should give Lines the benefit of the doubt because “the tradition both violates church-state separation and hollows out the meaning of the words Jesus taught his followers to pray.”

Remember, one of these guys is a Baptist and the other is with the Christian Church/Disciple of Christ, a denomination that tried to be Baptists in its early history but found the Baptists (and the Presbyterians) too, well, conservative.

Their podcast notes the usual reactions to such suggestions. One MP, Bob Katter, claims Lines’s suggestion is proof that Christians are being persecuted.”

Katter obviously has a jerky knee. Unfortunately, a lot of people do.

Christians are not being persecuted by such suggestions as offered by Lines. Actually, she is suggesting Christians be more Christian by loving or respecting others who reach God by a different road.

The Bible justifies all kinds of behaviors if one wants to cherry-pick verses.  But we are going to do that here a little bit.

The Golden Rule is stated in different ways throughout the Old and New Testaments. Jesus, speaking in the sixth chapter of Luke puts it this way: “As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”

Paul’s letter to the Philippians urges them, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others.”

In First Peter we find: “Have unity of mind, sympathy, brother love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.”

We won’t drag this out more on quotes.

But we do urge you to read and listen to Brian and Beau’s A Public Witness because they approach social/religious issues in a thoughtful way (this time it is thinking about faith and government) at a time when many become unnecessarily defensive and alarmist, behaviors that can become destructive of the commandment Jesus gave to the disciples at the Last Supper to “love one another as I have loved you.”

There are those today who find it more personally and politically popular to anoint themselves as victims of religious persecution at a time when the answer to their concerns lies in them being more Christian.

We pray, in the name of the one we know best, that they might discover that answer.

(You can find Brian and Beau’s podcast at https://wordandway.org/, specifically at: https://wordandway.org/2022/08/04/lords-prayer-down-under/

Unfinished

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Eric Greitens has lost his Senate bid and a lot of Republicans are reported to be glad that his populist appeal finally has worn out. His opponents and news reports, and his own commercials, made it clear there was not a “new” Greitens who had changed from the scandal-plagued collapse of his career as governor and rising Republican star.

Is he finished politically now?  Will we never see his name on a ballot again?  Will we never again see a Greitens with a gun political commercial?

In politics it is advisable to use the word “never” with care.  Case in point: November 7, 1962.

Richard Nixon, who lost the 1960 presidential race to John Kennedy, challenged incumbent California Governor Pat Brown’s re-election two years later. He had lost the day before. And on November 7, in a press conference, Nixon blamed the press for his defeat and declared that reporters would miss him because, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”   The general consensus among the political punditry was that Nixon’s political career was over. We know how that turned out.

That brings us to another story—

Lucy Mercer Ruthefurd, the mistress of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, told her friend, artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff in 1943 that she should paint a portrait of her lover because, “He has such a remarkable face. There is no painting of him that gives his true expression.”

It was not until April, 1945 that Ruthefurd was able to arrange a two-day sitting by the President for his portrait.

About noon on April 12, 1945, President Roosevelt sat for the official portrait. As Shoumatoff was working her watercolor and Roosevelt was having lunch, he complained, “I have a terrific pain I the back of my head,” and slumped in his chair, unconscious. He died that afternoon from a stroke.

Shoumatoff never finished that portrait.

The political portrait of Eric Greitens remains incomplete after this defeat. He’s only 48.  Nixon was 49 when he held his “last” press conference.

For now, however, “never” might be too soon for Eric Greitens to think he has a political future in Missouri.

Sports: Racing–INDYCAR, NASCAR TRIPLE-HEADER AT BRICKYARD 

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet contributing editor

(Indianapolis)—–Whether you prefer them with or without fenders, you had your choice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the weekend.  INDYCAR’s Alexander Rossi broke a three-year, 49-race winless streak and Tyler Reddick won for the second time this year in the NASCAR Cup series.  A.J. Almendinger caught the checkers in the Xfinity race, NASCAR’s  Cup feeder series.

Rossi, who called his INDYCAR win “a relief,” had been so frustrated by his long victory drought, announced earlier this year that he was leaving Andretti Autosport for Arrows McLaren in 2023.  He started P2 next to possible future teammate Felix Rosenqvist, and was running second to Colton Herta when Herta had a major mechanical failure after running over one of the course’s curbs near the halfway point.

The win is number eight for Rossi (right) in INDYCAR since joining Andretti Autosports in 2016 after a five-race mediocre career in Formula 1, and winning the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 as a rookie.

He said his lack of victories in the last two-plus seasons caused him to push “reset” on his career—the reason he has signed to drive for Arrows McLaren next year.

Rookie Christian Lundgaard finished 3.5 seconds back. Will Power’s third-place finish gave him the series points lead over Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson, who rallied from his dead-last starting position 11th in the 25-car field.  Power now leads Ericsson by nine points.

Power’s Penske teammates Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden finished fourth and fifth.  Newgarden’s participation in the race had been in doubt until practice on Friday because of his crash the weekend before in Iowa and his later collapse in the hauler area after that race. He was tentatively cleared to practice and after the practice session was cleared to drive in Saturday’s race.

INDYCAR races next week on the streets of Nashville.

(NASCAR)—Tyler Reddick had the NASCAR race at the Brickyard under control before a series of last-segment incidents added drama to a race already marked by on-track bumping and off-track adventures.

The race was forced into overtime when several cars tangled on the first turn of the next-to-last scheduled lap, with one car mired in the gravel and unable to continue.  On the restart, Ross Chastain challenged Reddick for the lead on the first turn, found the track too crowded, and took an access road instead of the regular course turn. He briefly led Reddick, who regained the top spot before completing the lap.

The move backfired on Chastain, who crossed the finish second but was hit by NASCAR with a 30-second penalty that left him 27th in the final standings.  The wild scramble at the end left rookie Austin Cindric as the runner-up.  Harrison Burton came home third, followed by Todd Gilliland and Bubba Wallace. The results were career bests for Burton and Gilliland, and with Cindric, it marked the first time in 28 years that three rookies have been in the top five at the end of a Cup race (one of the three rookies that finished in the top five at Pocono in 1994 was Ward Burton, Harrison’s father. His uncle Jeff, now a NASCAR television analyst, was one of the others, joined by Joe Nemechek.

NASCAR  takes its show to Brooklyn, Michigan next weekend.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen survived a spin and won the Grand Prix of Hungary. In the process he built his points lead to 98 over Charles Leclerc, who started from pole and thought he had a shot at the win until a poor tire choice during a pit stop left him unable to keep up. He finished sixth.

Pole-sitter George Russell of Mercedes finished third with Russell’s teammate, Lewis Hamilton, between the two.

Formula 1 takes its summer break this month and won’t resume racing until the Belgian Grand Prix on August 28.

(Photo credits: Rick Gevers and Bob Priddy)

Notes From a Quiet Street

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It’s baseball season.  And baseball is a great radio sport.

As Jack Buck put it when he was inducted ins the Radiio Hall of Fame in 1995:

“Turn the radio on. You’ll hear a friend. You will enjoy; you will learn; you will imagine; you will improve.

“Turn the radio on, at home, in your car, in prison, on the beach, in a nursing home.  You will not be alone; you will not be lonely.

“Newspapers fold. Magazines come and go. Television self-destructs.

“Radio remains the trusted common denominator in this nation.”

Or as others have said, in various forms: “Theatre is life; film is art; television is furniture; radio is imagination.”

Perfect for baseball.

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I Read.  I write.  I am an author.  A library tells me much about a town and its people.  I’ve been on various local and regional library boards for 14 years and counting. That’s why this sign was interesting:

Of course, I saw this sign on the internet.

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We keep hearing critics of the January 6 Committee refer to it as a Kangaroo Court.  Do they consider another form of investigation a Kangaroo Grand Jury?

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Your faithful correspondent has, for the last two cars he has bought, suggested, “This might be the last entirely gas-powered car I’ll buy.”  But we’re getting closer to where that statement will true. When grandchildren live in Colorado, a car that gets 250  miles before needing a charge doesn’t make the navel tingle.

But this one does. It’s the Mercedes EQ/XX, still in prototype stage. Mercedeces ranks its range at 747 miles. Might have to mortgage the house, twice, but when it goes into production, it might not be too hard to tell the grandchildren their inheritance is greatly diminished.  It even has solar panels on the roof to power some of the little things inside.

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We have heard our most recent ex-president say at least a couple of times, including last week, that he wanted to give himself the Medal of Honor but Congress wouldn’t let him do it.

Should he ever read one of these postings (and there are some serious suspicions in this lofty place that he reads much of anything), here is how the Medal of Honor is awarded.

The main way is through nomination and approval through the military chain of command.  The second is a nomination by a member of Congress who is usually acting on a constituent’s request.  The medal is general presented by the President, in the name of Congress.

A year ago about now, I was honored to work with some veterans and with Gold Star Families to put up a monument to those families that have lost loved ones during wartime. I cherish the opportunity to have been part of that effort.

The ex-president’s remark is an insult to those who deservedly have received Medal of Honor—-or to the families of those who did not live to know they would receive it. Actually, it is an insult to anyone who has ever worn our country’s uniforms.

In fact the first time he joked about that was at an AMVETS meeting a couple of years ago and he embroidered his poorly-read remarks by kidding Woody Williams about them.

Woody Williams died a few weeks ago. He was the last surviving WWII Medal of Honor winner.  It was his foundation that supported last year’s efforts to put up the Gold Star Families Memorial Monument near the Missouri Capitol.

Our ex-president might have thought he was being funny. I am ashamed of those who laughed or applauded.

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And finally, another observation about baseball:

You faithful observer has seen a new book that says “Bull Durham” is the greatest sports movie ever made. It is difficult from this recliner chair next to the TV remote to disagree.  Part of one of Hollywood’s greatest movie scripts is when Crash explains to Nuke how to use all of the great baseball clichés.

We suggest, however, that there are two baseball clichés that need to be thrown on the ash heap of baseball cliché history.

After watching  the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals leave some of their players behind, including some of the bigger names of both teams, when they went to Canada recently because they had not been vaccinated, we suggest these two clichés be discarded:

Take one for the Team.

There is no “I” in Team.

Maybe the Royals and the Cardinals need something we find supporting our high school sports.

Booster Clubs.

 

Sports: Racing—Poke-Oh-No! for NASCAR by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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(NASCAR)—Denny Hamlin’s weekend win at Pocono was historic and so was Kyle Busch’s second-place finish.  Historically bad, that is.  Or potentially historically bad.

As this is written, Hamlin and Busch join a part of NASCAR history that includes Joe Weatherly, Jim Reed, and Emanuel Zervakis and dates back to 1955.

The cars of Hamlin and Busch failed post-race inspections, causing NASCAR to disqualify them and give third-place finisher Chase Elliott his fourth win of the season.  NASCAR says their cars had some improper material on the front fascia that affected the aerodynamics of their cars. Both cars were taken to the NASCAR tech center for additional examination.

The last time a victory was taken away from a NASCAR winner was the spring of 1960 when the car of Emanuel Zervakis had a gas tank that was too big.  The last time the top two finishers were disqualified was 1955 when Joe Weatherly and Jim Reed finished 1-2 but were disqualified, Weatherly for an illegal camshaft and reed for illegal valves.  The win was given to Herb Thomas, who finished third.

Elliott thus joins Thomas in the history books as a third-place race winner and appears to be the first driver to win a NASCAR race without leading a lap.

Hamlin and Busch both drive for Joe Gibbs Racing.

NASCAR races on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course next Sunday as part of the NACAR/INDYCAR doubleheader weekend.

(INDYCAR)—Josef Newgarden’s status for next Saturday’s road course race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is unknown as this is written.  He was taken to a hospital in Des Moines Sunday evening after collapsing in the motorhome parking lot at the Iowa Speedway.  Newgarden, who won Saturday’s race, dominated the race on Sunday until a broken suspension sent his car hard into the wall. He cleared all tests at the infield care center but was taken by helicopter to De Moines after he fell in the parking lot and suffered a cut to the back of his head.

Team Penske later said all scans at the hospital were negative and Newgarden would be released Monday morning.

INDYCAR medical personnel will re-evaluate him in Indianapolis on Thursday to determine if he can race next weekend.

Newgarden led 208 of the 250-lap race on Saturday, finishing six seconds in front of Pato O’Ward.  He led 148 of the first 235 laps on Sunday before crashing. O’Ward won the race over Will Power.

Former NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson had the best finish of his two-year INDYCAR career.  He came home fifth in the Sunday race.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen picked up his seventh win of the year, thanks somewhat to Ferrari driver Charles LeClerc’s crash while leading.  Lewis Hamilton finished second in his Mercedes, followed by teammate George Russell.

(SRX)—Marco Andretti at last has won another championship.  Andretti, whose father and grandfather had won INDYCAR titles in their careers (and grandfather Mario won the 1969 Indianapolis 500), won the title in this summer’s Superstar Racing Experience—-and did it with a broken wrist.

His last championship was the Skip Barber Racing School championship in 2004, when he was 17 and learning to compete in big-time racing..

Andretti and former NASCAR Cup driver Ryan Newman went into the race leading the six-race series in points. They started the final race in mid-pack, collided on a restart but Newman wasn’t able to finish far enough ahead of Andretti to take the championship. Newman finished 8th and Andretti 9th.

Andretti said after the race he had broken his wrist when he got his thumb caught in the steering wheel during a collision. But he said it was painful for just “a couple of laps.”

The last race of the year was won by Chase Elliott, who became the first driver other than series co-founder Tony Stewart to win an SRX race on dirt.  The final race was held at the Sharon Speedway in Hartford, Ohio.

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