Serial cereal blogging

I have not eaten cereal for breakfast in about a week. Frozen waffles, CoCo Wheats and IHOP have been my breakfasts of choice.

Statement from the Feller Family (from the Indians' Web site)

This may be of interest, especially since I have put so much Feller stuff up here since his death. Today I received this in an e-mail from Indians.com:

The Feller family would like to thank everyone for their warm wishes in the wake of Bob's passing. In addition to being a national baseball icon, Bob Feller was a husband, father, and grandfather. He will be remembered for his intelligence and charm, grit and seemingly limitless memory - and we all yearn to hear just one more of his larger than life tales. Baseball was his deepest love, and kept him remarkably active right to the end. As a father, he lovingly taught the game to his three sons. Most recently, he returned to the mound and threw his grandson batting practice at age ninety.

Bob's family was larger than us though, extending to Cleveland and well beyond. He loved the city and its people. We know we are not alone in our sadness, and look forward to celebrating his illustrious life with you in the coming months.

Lastly we would like to thank Cleveland Clinic and Hospice of the Western Reserve, for the care they afforded our entire family, and the members of the Cleveland media for respecting the family's privacy. Most importantly, we are indebted to the Cleveland Indians for supporting Bob and his family throughout the years.

Sincerely,
The Feller Family

Indians.com also has a Feller tribute page here.

Yo! M.C. turtle raps (on Jack's Big Music Show)

Easily my favorite bit of children's programming (since I have to watch hour after hour of it) is "Jack's Big Music Show." If this clip fails to amuse you, you don't deserve amusement.

MisterCelleneous Miscellany

Looking at the most popular blog posts, what does it say that my popular blog post is a post from two years ago about "She Hulk" being cancelled?
Does this mean if I did nothing but blog about She Hulk, my blog would be top-rated?
Maybe I ought to just add "She Hulk" into every blog title for a while, and see what happens.
Or maybe change the blog's name to MisterSheHulkCellaneous.
Or something.

Serial cereal blogging

Fruity Pebbles are always good. No matter where, no mater when.

NFL playoff scribbles

1. If the Cleveland Browns had scored 37 more points in their close games, they'd have seven more wins. That means, they have lost seven games by an average of less than a touchdown, but more than a field goal. That would make them 12-2, with losses only to Pittsburgh and Atlanta. (I know a loss is a loss, but I'm just sayin'.) If they even split those games 4-3, they'd be 9-5 and somewhere on the fringes of the AFC playoff conversation.
2. If the San Francisco 49ers make the playoffs with a record of 7-9, becoming the first NFL team to win a division with a losing record, I am going to root for them to win the Super Bowl.
3. If asked for a Super Bowl prediction today (and I am far, far worse a prognosticator than Mike Greenberg can ever dream to be), I'd say Steelers-Falcons. This means the actual Super Bowl teams will probably be the Bears and the Jets.
4. The underdog team that would scare me the most if my team was facing them in the playoffs is the San Diego Chargers, who have scored more points than any team in the AFC except the Patriots, and have allowed fewer than any, except the Ravens, Steelers and Jets.
5. I think it would be really cool if the Chiefs went really deep in the playoffs. Then I could start wearing all my Chiefs stuff again. Seriously, if they aren't coached by Dick Vermeil or Marty Schottenheimer, I don't have as much affection for my second favorite team. But, I'd still watch more closely if they made it into the post-season.

How I became a Bob Feller fan

Here’s my “I met Bob Feller” story:
I was maybe 12 or 13, I don’t really remember exactly how old I was, but Feller was holding an autograph session at the Findlay Village Mall. (I assume it was called that even then.)
It was before all the renovations that added the Elder-Beerman and the whole corridor to the rear if the mall leading to it. For those of you who remember these things, that whole area was still a K-Mart store with a little lunch counter.
The JC Penney store was still in the front of the mall (about where the Radio Shack is today) instead of in the back, and right across from it was a little craft store of some kind that sold baseball cards. I used to go in there and look at them in the glass counter. I may have bought a couple, but I remember looking at them a lot.
I have no idea if that store had anything to do with Feller coming to the mall that day, but that’s where he set up for the autograph session.
My dad took me. He had seen an advertisement for Feller’s appearance in one of the the papers.
I don’t think I really knew who Feller was then, only that he was a Hall-of-Fame pitcher for the Cleveland Indians.
I am pretty sure my dad knew who he was, because they were about the same age, and, even though my dad was not a big baseball fan until I came along, he probably remembered the name from when Feller was still pitching.
To be signed, I brought with me the book “Pitching” by Bob Shaw. It’s one of the better “How-To” books about its subject, and may have been among the first of its kind. It explained the proper form for pitching, how to throw various pitches and lots of other related things like exercises that would help strengthen the muscles needed for pitching.
(To that end, Shaw recommended staying away from weight training because it could leave you muscle bound and inflexible. Hey. it’s an old book.)
I pretty much knew the book backwards and forwards. It was dog-eared from reading it so many times.
I remember standing in line for a while. I couldn’t tell you if it was a long time. I was wearing my first, really beat up Cleveland Indians hat. It was one of the blue ones with the old block “C” in red on the front. Like many hats of the day, the back was made out of a mesh and it had plastic snaps to adjust the size.
Feller was seated at the table, chatting with everyone who came by. He was very friendly and talkative and engaging.
My dad said he seemed like an old farmer, which made for easy conversation with all the northwest Ohioans standing in line. (Later I learned he had, rather famously, grown up on a farm in Van Meter, Iowa.)
When I made it up to where Feller was sitting, I handed him my book.I remember him being very friendly, and smiling and greeting us plesantly.
One of the first things he said when I handed him my book was, “So, did you read this book?”
Which prompted me, I am sure, to give him the dumb look of all dumb looks. Of course I had! Couldn’t he see how beat up it was?
I told him I had read it lots of times.
He approved my answer and signed the front page “Best wishes, Bob Feller.”
As we stood there, someone handed him a baseball to sign. He told the crowd he was glad he had a short name so it fit on the baseball. He was glad he didn’t have a name like Connie Mack, the former Philadelphia Athletics manager.
Mack’s full name, Feller said, was “Cornelius Aloysius McGillicuddy” and he could never have fit that on one baseball. You’d need a basketball for that one, he said.
Feller added, however, Mack’s real middle name wasn’t Aloysious. He didn’t know what it was, but still would have been too long to fit on a baseball.
Naturally, I looked it up when I got home, and Mack’s full name really was Cornelius McGillicuddy.”
(Interestingly enough, Mack managed the A’s throughout most of Feller’s career, which lasted from 1936-1956. Mack was the owner/manager of the As from 1901-1954. He stopped managing in 1950 at age 87.)
My dad and I went home happy that we’d met Feller and found him to be a fine gentleman.
One post script: We saw Feller pitch in an old-timer’s game later that year.
Feller would have been in his early 60s at the time, and I remember my dad commenting about how spry and fit he still looked when he pitched.
Indians broadcaster Herb Score also threw a few pitches in that game, and I remember my dad noting, and me agreeing, that Feller seemed to have retained more of his youthful athleticism that Score, who was 15 years younger.
The game was all the more enjoyable because we could say we knew one of the players.
One more post script: I was moved to tears (quietly, though) this past opening day in Cleveland when Feller threw out the first pitch of the 2010 season to Sandy Alomar.
Feller left the mound to a thundering ovation and tipped his cap to the fans.
I think I could have skipped the rest of the game and gone home happy just to have seen that.
Feller strode out to the mound at age 92, wound up and delivered a pitch to home plate. Some guy sitting in front of me was amazed that, at Feller’s age, he still went to the mound and threw the pitch from the pitching rubber.
I thought to myself the guy who said that didn’t know Feller very well. Or course he could still pitch from the mound. If he couldn’t, I don’t think he’d have even gone out there.
If that’s to be his last big moment in Cleveland in front of the fans, he left on a good note, and I am very happy I was there to see it.
I thought at the time it was almost as though he was handing off the reigns of being the senior statesman to a younger generation of Indian stars.
I don’t suppose Feller thought of it that way. I’d imagine he was just the greatest Cleveland Indian ever throwing out another ceremonial first pitch to start the season and would do it again next year if asked.
But, even though Feller probably has thrown out more than a few first pitches with Alomar catching, now it seems even more like a de facto generational handoff.
Maybe someone on the Indians will get the symmetry, and let Alomar, one of the greatest and most popular Indians from recent memory, throw out the first pitch next year.
And, yes, before you ask, I still have the book Feller signed. And, yes I still pull it out and read it now and again.

Serial cereal blogging

I like "Corn Pops." I think they used to be called "Sugar Corn Pops," but they haven't changed much over the years.
They are still little yellow blobs of sweet, corn-based cereal. They still stay crunchy in milk for a little while and slowly soften until they are mooshy by the time you get to the end of bowl.
I don't mind them when they are mooshy. I like them better when they are in the in-between stages, actually.
I like them so much, I have been eating them as "snacks" since I opened the box.

Another Bob Feller post

Here's a really nice piece about Bob Feller, by John Sickles, who wrote "Bob Feller: Ace of the Greatest generation."
One of these days, I'll post my own "I met Bob Feller" story. I promise.

The 1987 Cleveland Browns on video

There's a commercial at the beginning, and the video is some 21 minutes long, but for those of you who want to remember how fun it used to be to be a Browns fan, this is a great video!
I still wish the Browns would hire Marty Schottenheimer as their head coach.

Nev Chandler interviews Bob Feller

From 1990.

Some Bob Feller footage

Bob Feller went into hospice care, the Plain Dealer reported yesterday. Here's some footage of him from his prime.

Bob Feller footage from OleMissCub on Vimeo.

A few funny Chuck Norris jokes

Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger walked into a bar. The bar was instantly destroyed, because no building can contain that much awesomeness.
Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck Norris met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.
Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.
When Chuck Norris is bitten by a vampire, the vampire turns into Chuck Norris.

Here's a place to find some more.