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Sports Then and Now



Brave Throat Resurfaces 2

Posted on June 08, 2010 by John Wingspread Howell

This is the second in a Satirical Series

Was Blake Griffin a victim of the curse of the Buffalo Braves.

Another text message. This time, it said, meet at the base of the Peace Bridge.

It was him. Same trench-coat, same oversized shades, same Braves cap.

“It’s starting,” he said.

“It?” I asked.

“The movement.” Was all he said.

I looked at him, waiting for him to fill in the blanks.

But he didn’t. He just stared at me, waiting for my response, as if I was supposed to know what he meant.

“The movement?”

“Did you read the Simmons article?” He was referring to an article at ESPN.com, from draft day, telling the Clippers number one draft pick, Blake Griffin, to run as fast and as far away from LA as he can, to avoid the curse.

“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty similar to what you said. The curse of the Indians, jinxing the Braves/Clippers from the moment Paul Snyder started talking about moving to Hollywood, Florida.”

“He’s on the right track,” the man said. “More or less. The Indians might be part of it. It’s more than that, though.”

He took a puff on a Cuban.

“It’s the ghost of the franchise, right?” That’s what he’d told me the first time we met. Now that the Aud’s come down, the poltergeist has been unleashed. The universe is realigning. Things are happening. Read the rest of this entry →

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      The Sports Then and Now Vintage Athlete of the Month is a former major league baseball player who came into the game as a teenager and stayed until he was in his 40s. In between, Rusty Staub put up a solid career that was primarily spent on expansion or rebuilding teams.

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      Though he hit only .224 splitting time between first base and rightfield, Staub did start building a foundation that would turn him into an All-Star by 1967 when he finished fifth in the league with a .333 batting average.

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