Proud Of Area High School Athletes

Saw this in the Wisconsin State Journal on Saturday, and I was both pleased and surprised.

 It was a photo of a Friday night high school boy's basketball game (Lodi hosting New Glarus) and in the photos the paper ran, players from both teams are wearing their face masks during game action. 

Good for you, I say! Especially since the state of Wisconsin has seen numbers rise to near 450,000 cases as well as over 4,000 deaths. While Dane County schools haven't allowed high school games yet, perhaps the powers that be will take another look at their policy.

A Florida Gator defensive player drew a penalty late in Saturday's game with the LSU Tigers when he threw a shoe he had pulled off the running back he had just tackled. Oops! Th penalty allowed the Tigers to kick a game-winning field, a big upset as LSShoe was a 23-point underdog.

This probably few under your radar, as it did mine.

Seems that with last week's win, the Green Bay Packers became the first NFL franchise to win 800 games. That's a pretty amazing statistic.

And while we're talking about the newly-crowned champions of the North, thanks to a 31-24 win over the Detroit Lions, let's all hoist one in salute of kicker Mason Crosby. He talked Coach Matt LaFleur into letting him try a 57-yard field goal late in the game, and nailed it. Crosby is 15-for-15 in field goals this year and 47 of 50 in PAT kicks.

Glad the Pack resigned Crosby in the offseason. We need to have this guy play his entire career in Green Bay.

And hopefully that will apply to a certain quarterback having an MVP year in the Green & Gold!

By the way, Green Bay will host the Carolina Panthers on Saturday, a game flexed from Sunday. Kickoff will be 7:15 p.m. Saturday, but if you don't have the NFL Network or live in a Milwaukee or Green Bay television market, you won't see it.

That's gonna hit the Madison area hard, as well as the rest of Wisconsin, Wausau and Eau Claire for example.

Charlie Pride, 86, passed away over the weekend due to Covid-19. I bring him up not because he was the first Black Country-Western signing star, inducted into that hall of fame. I was a big fan of him in the 1960s and '70s.

But I didn't know he was a pitcher/outfielder for the Memphis Red Sox in the Negro American League. Seems he was a pretty good ballplayer. Put in some time in Montana in the Pioneer League as well, then had a tryout with the New York Mets before landing a recording contract in Nashville.

The Cleveland Indians of the American League have announced they will DROP the name "Indians" after the 2021 season. Will they add a name? Or go without, like the Washington Football Team is doing this season?