#avgeeks #illustrators

American League umpire Ron Luciano once called a game on account of darkness ... after 5 pitches. You’ll find the tale in my bio, “Big Loosh,” from @univnebpress.bsky.social. (Kansas City Times photo, 1976)

Happy Mother’s Day!

Nifty little cartoon of Gene Lipscomb of Baltimore Colts and Frank Gifford of NY Giants. "Gifford always went out of his way to be nice to Big Daddy Lipscomb. 'I'd start complimenting him even before the game started,' Frank says." — Gene Ward, NY Daily News, Dec 20, 1965. [Artist: Bruce Stark]

Frank Hawks’ Northrop Gamma, Sky Chief. The streamlined covers over the fixed landing gear were known as cantilevered pants. They improved on smaller coverings for wheels alone, called spats. Both were meant to decrease drag and boost speed. High fashion in aviation! — #avgeeks

I delivered the manuscript for From the Dugouts to the Trenches to @univnebpress.bsky.social #otd in 2016 — time flies!

Very busy polling place — good sign!

My thanks to SABR's Grantland Rice-Fred Russell Nashville chapter for this chat about my book Battlefields: The Chicago White Sox and the Great War, from Bloomsbury Academic. www.youtube.com/watch?v=05-H...

Softball team?

Spad VII from #ww1 at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Dayton, Ohio USA, 2025 — #avgeeks

I've been privileged to work with therapy horses, riders and school kids in Ohio and in Florida. Good for everyone's soul.

The Ohio National Guard mustered #OTD in 1864 for 100 days of federal service during the Civil War. It was an eventful campaign. Learn more in my book A Hundred Days to Richmond (Indiana University Press, 1999).

Sky King wants his plane back! Lost Treasure Golf, Coastal Hwy, Ocean City MD, 2017. Anyone know whether it’s still there? — #avgeeks

Flamboyant American League umpire Ron Luciano abandoned the diamond in 1980 to become a color analyst for NBC Sports. "“I’ve been opening my mouth since the beginning of time," he said, "and now they’re gonna pay me for it.” Learn more in my bio Big Loosh, from @univnebpress.bsky.social. (UPI photo)

Sports pages often combined photography and illustration a century ago. Here's a collage showing Boston Braves catcher Hank Gowdy, first active MLB player to enlist during #ww1. He fought in France with the infantry, though, not the field artillery. — Ogden (UT) Standard, July 24, 1918

Going to the Columbus (Ohio) Chaos women's football team game tonight. Hope they have as much fun as vintage men's clubs.

The Divine Miss M — “All you fascists bound to lose!”

💯

This former print journalist agrees. 💯

Fabulous.

Imposing, yet not without elegance. The Breguet ‘Deux-Ponts’ was a cargo and passenger aircraft introduced in 1949 and operated by Air France from 1953 to 1972. Its most distinctive feature is its two-deck configuration. © Ecpad

That old time aviation vibe: Hangar, Grimes Field, Urbana OH, October 2015. — #avgeeks

A favorite sketch of a soda vendor, from a larger baseball cartoon. Also appropriate for OSU’s spring football game this afternoon. (Thornton Fisher, New York Evening World, April 12, 1922.)

Gaggle of passenger aircraft, Columbus OH international airport, April 2020, during the Covid shutdown. — #avgeeks

My thanks to Enrique Acosta Gonzalez and the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award Foundation for the discussion, viewable on YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=egJm...

Gift from a Canadian Forces team for helping plan a #ww1 baseball game at Folkestone UK in 2019. Proudly displayed in my man cave.

Mexican Border Patrol insignia, 1919. National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Dayton OH USA. — #avgeeks

Thanks to Enrique Acosta Gonzalez of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award Foundation for the excellent discussion this morning. The episode will go live Thursday.

Thanks to the Baseball Book Club podcast for the interview, which will air during the summer.

RIP, Davey Lopes. I had the pleasure of covering him on the 1983 Oakland A’s club. This is his Granny Goose card that season.

👇👇👇🧵

WWI baseball in Nashville this week in 2018, sponsored by Tennessee State Parks. Keep this photo on my desk.

Digital banner for Battlefields: The Chicago White Sox and the Great War, from @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social. The "season like no other" was 1918, the year before the Black Sox threw the World Series.

A favorite photo of umpire-turned-broadcaster-turned-author Ron Luciano. Learn more in my biography, "Big Loosh," from @univnebpress.bsky.social. (Binghamton NY Press, March 24, 1982.)

Happy to be right in the middle of the SABR bookshelf! Check out Battlefields: The Chicago White Sox and the Great War, from @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social, and all the other spring titles.

🐴🐎🏇

Halberstadt CL IV (German, 1918), National Museum of the US Air Force, Dayton OH — #avgeeks

Kellet K-2/K-3 Autogiro, National Museum of the US Air Force, Dayton OH. — #avgeeks

ICYMI - Samuel L. Jackson (!!) narrated this powerful video for Saturday's No Kings rally about the strength of Minnesotans protesting ICE: "When your neighbors are being attacked and your communities are being targeted, you don't give up. You don't look away. You don't back down. You showed up."

A favorite image I like to share in the spring. This ballpark on the Ohio River was home to the Portsmouth Cobblers in the Ohio State League (1908-1916), both now long gone. The penny postcard was mailed in September 1919.

#NoKings Ohio Statehouse - 3/28/26 - 1/4

My favorite accidental newspaper find. Rodeo Queen Esther Yokley, Southwest Range Stock Show and Roundup, El Paso TX, 1930. (El Paso Evening Post photo)

TOMORROW: Be a part of history! Show the world that the majority of Americans oppose the most corrupt, inept, criminal, orange "president" in U.S. History. NO KINGS. Also: NO SERIAL LIARS/CONVICTED FELONS/ADJUDICATED RAPISTS & NO ILLEGAL WAR IN IRAN Be there. Make your voices heard! 🇺🇸 ✊ #NO_KINGS

USN Neptune, like an immense winged Easter egg, near Baltimore, OH, 2016. Still there, but with a vintage navy paint scheme now. — #avgeeks

Learn how one @mlb.com team endured #ww1 in my new book, Battlefields: The Chicago White Sox and the Great War, from @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social.