PVLD Adult Services Blog

“Iowa? I could have sworn this was heaven.”

An Iowa site which was used as a setting for scenes in the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” will be sold, and the field kept intact for visitors.  The film, based on W. P. Kinsella’s book Shoeless Joe, made the site a popular tourist destination.  The asking price for the 193-acre farm was $5.4 million; [...]

“The Giants Win the Pennant!”

At New York’s Polo Grounds on Oct. 3, 1951, outfielder Bobby Thomson of the Giants hit a game-winning home run off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca for the National League championship.   The home run was immortalized as “the shot heard ‘round the world.”  Thomson died yesterday in Savannah, Georgia at the age of 86. His [...]

Girls and Baseball

The New Jersey judge whose ruling opened Little League baseball to girls, died Monday at the age of 75.  Sylvia Pressler ruled in 1973 that 12 year old Maria Pepe should not have been barred from playing on a boys team.  The organization’s national office had threatened to revoke the local league’s charter. Although Little League [...]

The Cathedral of Baseball

The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles 7-3 in the final game at Yankee Stadium on Sunday.  “The House that Ruth Built” was dedicated 85 years ago, with Babe Ruth hitting the first home run on opening day. Yankee Stadium will be demolished next year, as a new $1.3-billion stadium opens across the street.  Since [...]

More Glory

Retired University of Texas El Paso basketball coach Don Haskins died Sunday.  Haskins took the 1966 Texas Western Miners to the NCAA championship game, where his team defeated a heavily favored University of Kentucky team coached by the legendary Adolph Rupp. The game was significant in that it was the first time a team won [...]

Sports in the World

The 2008 Olympics in Beijing may see a unique intersection of sports, politics, human rights, and commercialism.  Some athletes have organized because of concern about Chinese governmental actions in Sudan and Tibet. But conflict with the international Olympic movement and the business of sports seems inevitable, given the traditional separation between athletic competition and social [...]