I wonder if my family gets tired of my being so interested in TV.
Well, I'll have to give that some thought. But, anyway, here's this weekend 1969's Kentucky New Era football-picks contest.
I really love that big football player in the middle of the double-truck ad.
Here are the state high-school rankings.
And here's the Associated Press college poll. I'm hopeful that Nashville's ABC affiliate, WSIX, on Saturday shows No. 3 Tennessee at No. 11 Georgia.
And here are the pro standings.
There's no way Hoptown 1969 me is hoping for it, but it will turn out that we could've done a lot worse than WLAC showing the 0-6 Saints and the 2-3-1 Cardinals:
The World Series is over, and it's time to get serious about football, as indicated by the new Sports Illustrated this week.
So, baseballwise, 1969 Hoptown me is a straight-up A's guy. The Philadelphia Athletics were great when I was 6, 7, 8 and 9 years old, and I've stuck with them ever since--even when they moved to Kansas City, even now that they're in Oakland (California), even though I think the owner's a kook.
Footballwise, though, I'm less passionate about any single team.
My dad was a huge football fan generally, and, by the time I was born in 1922, Dad had gotten especially hopped up about pro football because Evansville had an NFL team, the Crimson Giants. He believed pro football was going to be a big deal, and he was eventually right, of course--it just didn't happen in Evansville; the Crimson Giants folded before I turned 1.
But we ended up moving to Chicago, and, with the Bears in town, Dad just kept right on following pro football, just kept right on saying he had known (All Along™) it was going to be a big deal even back in Evansville and just pulled me with his enthusiasm right along into being a fan myself. Around the same time I became an A's fan in baseball and started paying much independent attention to sports at all--the late 1920s and early 1930s--the Green Bay Packers were really, really great, and they became my team. In 1929, when I was 7, the Packers had what, to this day in 1969, remains the closest-to-perfect season in pro-football history: 12-0-1. Green Bay won eight of its games by shutout. Even in the one tie, the Packers allowed no points: Green Bay 0 at Frankford (Pennsylvania) Yellow Jackets 0. Then the Packers got Don Hutson, and they became this really exciting passing team that won NFL championships again when I was 14, 17 and 22.
Green Bay went into decline then for a good long while, when I was first living out in North Carolina. But I was so happy with the NCFA and getting married that I wasn't much bothered by the Packers' being bad, anyway. And, too, once TV came around, the game looked so great that I just enjoyed watching any of the teams--it didn't have to be the Packers (TV Is Amazing™). Plus, after Vince Lombardi arrived in Green Bay in 1959 and I got excited about the Packers again, they got so great that I could even afford to be magnanimous enough to root a little on the side for the Browns (and Blanton Collier of Paris, Kentucky), the Rams (a bunch of the NCFA guys had played with Roman Gabriel in high school and college) and the Bears (for Dad). I watched the AFL, too, and, since the Miami Dolphins got Bob Griese--from Evansville!--to play quarterback, I've gotten excited about them. Then Lombardi went to the Redskins, so now I'm paying attention to them, as well.
Point is that, by 1969, Hoptown me is pretty much interested in every pro-football team and devouring as much content on the AFL and NFL as I possibly can. Dad was totally right about pro football--it's a very big deal.
