Good morning!
Turners Falls’ George F. Bush celebrates his 90th birthday today. “He’s still Mr. Bush to his former students,” writes Jean Koldis, saying the former TFHS teacher and coach has been on a birthday whirlwind since her class’s 55th reunion three weeks ago at the French King Restaurant.
“George was the man of honor but wanted everyone to know it wasn’t his actual birth date and hoped he made it to (today).”
That day has arrived and the likeable Libra shares his day with Matt Damon, who turns 45 and Mr. October himself, Reggie Jackson, who’s 74.
During last week’s GHS-TFHS game, fans serenaded Bush with song and cheer under a banner that wished him a happy birthday.
“George has Patriots season tickets and we celebrate every year while we’re tailgating,” said Koldis, whose husband Jim was the Indians’ baseball coach and is a longtime season ticket holder. “Two years ago, a Boston Globe reporter wandered over and I introduced them to each other.George being George, he pulled out his photo of him standing with his Williams College classmate George Steinbrenner.”
The story was in the next day’s Globe. “Like Jim says, not many 90-year olds go to every New England Patriots home game.”
That’s a feat that not even 39-year-old Tom Brady can match this season.
Greenfield’s Josh Hillman continues to make a name for himself on the other side of the mountain in Williamstown. A protege of the late Bucky O’Brien, Hillman played at GHS for coach Doug Gaudet and landed a scholarship at URI where he was all A-10.
He has his “dream job” in Billsville, doubling up as the Williams College men’s golf coach and serving as the club pro at the college-owned Taconic Golf Course.
Golfweek Magazine recently ranked Taconic as the second best college course in the country behind The Course at Yale. “Taconic is probably (my) best recruiting tool outside of the college itself,” Hillman told iBerkshires.com.
Last weekend at the Ralph Myhre Golf Course in Middlebury, the Ephs edged Trinity College to win the (NESCAC) Fall Qualifier, meaning it will host the spring championship round. The winning team will compete in the NCAA Division III Tournament at the Mission Inn Resort in Florida from May 16-19.
UMass football fans were forced to find a radio signal the first five games after WEEI (105.5 FM) pre-empted them to broadcast the Red Sox. Scheduling conflicts are inevitable when one season bleeds into the next, and the games were switched to WHYN-AM 560, together with affiliates in Boston, Worcester and Marshfield. WHYN is a 5,000-watt station that was once the power of the valley but is now only an afterthought at the end of the dial.
Spinning the dial while driving through Hartford, I was able to pick up scratchy sound bites of last week’s loss to Tulane on WXKS (1200 AM) out of Boston. Thankfully in Springfield WMUA (91.1FM) came in strong and clear straight up the valley to Northfield.
This is no knock against the capable veteran crew of Josh Maurer, Matt Goldstein, Adam Frenier and sideline reporter Mike Antonellis, but it was fun listening to the youthful exuburance of the student broadcasters. The crew was composed of play-by-play announcer Josh McAwley and analysts Will Hayes and Oliver Sampson, with input from operations director Alex Levitt.
There were malaprops — “aspiration” for “inspiration” — and McAwley likened a Tulane running back’s 19-yard run to “an icebreaker” ploughing through the Arctic, but that simply added to the broadcast’s spontanety.
The crew gets kudos for regularly updating the score and relaying the time remaining in each quarter. That’s something even veteran broadcasters forget to do. Best of all they were oblivious to the notion of blowback from sponsors or the powers that be in the athletic department.
They called it as they saw it, and they were good company up the interstate.
University of North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams was recently on the NMH campus, presumably chatting with guard Andrew Platek who’s committed to enroll at Chapel Hill next fall.
Three other Hoggers Hoopsters have made college commitments, Kellan Grady to Davidson, Jerome Desrosiers to Princeton and Tomas Murphy to Northeastern.
UMass hockey has gone through three coaches and four athletic directors since 1994, and in that time the sport has remained as dormant as a slacker’s notebook in study hall.
The team hasn’t had a winning season since 2008, but the winds of change blew across the ice last week when UMass overcame a 4-0 deficit and beat Dalhousie University, 7-5. Granted, it was an exhibition game, but it was a good debut nonetheless for new coach Greg Carvel.
“Nice comeback,” remarked Brock Hines, the team’s longtime radio voice. “I liked (Ryan) Wischow in net. Each goalie played one period.”
Wischow is a seasoned freshman from Green Bay who tended net for the Fargo Force of the USHL last season and the Michigan Warriors of the NAHL the previous year. He’s one of nine new faces on the team, including BC transfer Josh Couturier, who by rule must sit out the season.
The Minutemen have an October home schedule that includes back-to-back games against Colorado College Friday night and tonight, followed by Army (Oct. 21), UNH (Oct. 28) and Boston College (Oct. 29). The only road game during the witching month is Oct. 25 against Quinnipiac. The school’s geographic rival UConn visits the Mullins Center on Nov. 4, led to town by junior captain and NMH grad Derek Pratt.
The MLB Network’s Jon Heyman broke the news this week that Barry Bonds was fired as the Miami Marlins hitting coach. According to baseball analyst Craig Mish, when Marlins players asked for advice Bonds would shrug and say, “I don’t know man, just inject something. You’ll be fine.”
It reminds me of the time Red Sox catcher Rich Gedman was taking swings in the batting cage and telling hitting coach Walt Hriniak, “I feel (bleeped-up).” Hrniak paused for a moment and then thoughtfully replied, “Well, get un-bleeped up.”
No surprise about Bonds. In his book “Love Me Hate Me” Jeff Pearlman quoted a Pirates’ employee saying: “I’ve seen him walk down a hallway and throw a whole bag of sunflower seeds at a security guard.” A real peach, that guy.
Baseball Notes: Yankees’ first baseman Mark Teixeira retired this week. At his final press conference he called the Director of Media Relations Jason Zillo, “The best in the business.” Zillo is married to GHS graduate Sadye White, whose parents John and Wanda Musacchio live in Heath. … Mets radio announcers Howie Rose and Josh Lewin called Wednesday’s Wild Card game with aplomb. Rose compared Curtis Granderson’s sixth inning catch of Brandon Belt’s blast to Tommie Agee’s circus catches in the 1969 World Series. When Mets manager Terry Collins lifted Syndergaard after seven shutout innings, Lewin proclaimed, “The second-guessers convention is now open.” …. NESN’s profile of David Ortiz included a clip of his first career grand slam that landed in the right field seats at Fenway Park while he was with the Twins … “Madison Bumgarner once dated a girl named Madison Bumgarner. True story.” (ESPN) … SRO tickets to Wednesday’s NL playoff game at Citi Field started at $135. Two seats 26 rows behind first base cost $1,222.80. … Left field grandstand seats to Sunday’s game at Fenway Park are averaging about $225. Face value is $90; bleacher seats are $60. … Tuesday’s Wild Card game in Toronto ended at 11:35 p.m., turning what would have been a potential afternoon classic into an extra-inning snooze. I clicked on the DVR the next morning and saw Juan Encarnacion’s walk-off blast. … Baseball lends itself to casual conversation like John Sterling’s off-the-cuff comments to his Yankees broadcast partner Suzyn Waldman: “Years ago Temple had a basketball player named Bill Mlkvy. They called him ‘The Owl without a Vowel.’” … Tigers lefthander Dan Norris lives out of a 1978 VW van. The 23-year-old Tennessean has beaten thyroid cancer, surfed in Nicaragua and hiked the Blue Mountains, according to mlb.com. … Teixeira and Ryan Howard were removed from their last games early on Sunday so they could receive their final due from the fans. Once fearsome sluggers, they batted .204 and .196, respectively, this season. … O’s catcher Caleb Joseph had zero RBIs in 141 plate appearances this season. … What does the Red Sox in against Cleveland or the Toronto/Texas winner will be David Ortiz’s sore feet, the Boston bullpen’s unpredictable arms and Terry Francona’s baseball brains.
Squibbers: Rudeness prevailed last weekend in Minnesota of all places. According to Emily Saul of the New York Post, fans at the Ryder Cup taunted Rory McIlroy about his breakup with tennis star Caroline Wozniacki. They drunkenly sang “Sweet Caroline” while he was trying to putt. … In his review of Candice Milland’s biography of Winston Churchill, Roger Lowenstein writes that Churchill’s childhood activities portended his wartime future: “He devoted a fair portion of his boyhood to sending 1,500 toy soldiers into battle.” … In North Andover a week ago, Merrimack College and New Brunswick University combined for 172 penalty minutes during the Warriors’ 5-3 exhibition win. “That was wild,” Merrimack coach Merk Dennehy told themackreport.com. “That wasn’t a hockey game. There were players screaming. It was just disrespectful. It was disappointing.” … Going into last night’s game against 3rd-ranked Clemson at Alumni Field, the BC Eagles were 1-17 against ranked teams since 2008. Something tells me that’s down a notch to 1-18 this morning. … If there’s a heaven, Bob Feller’s watching this Red Sox-Indians series, but in his book “Bob Feller’s Strikeout Story,” he said it was the Yankees he really hated: “I’d rather beat the Yankees than pitch a no-hitter.”
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley.