Mailbag

June 25, 2022

MLB did disservice to Pirates, Phils Why did Major League Baseball take the Pirates away from their home division many years ago (1994) and ship them to the National League Central? Some of the greatest games I witnessed in the 1960-70s took place within the Keystone State in both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. MLB did a major discredit to the Pennsylvania fan base when they severed a summer-long series between the Phils and Buccos with a lab experiment that in my opinion has failed. Those turnpike matchups easily could be compared to that of the Yankees-Red Sox or Dodger-Giants; ...

PSU fans paying for average program

June 18, 2022

This is about Neil Rudel’s column last weekend that James Franklin’s message is falling on deaf ears. How about empty pockets for a team that in the majority of Franklin’s eight years has been at best an average Big Ten team as well as nationally ranked team? Without a doubt, the NIL as well as the transfer portal. will soon be the demise of college football as we know it. Nittany Lion fans realize that to be competitive, it takes up-to-date facilities, great recruiting, fan support and attendance, excellent coaching, and, of course, money. However important this money ...

Mailbag

April 30, 2022

MLB needs to embrace technology behind plate I’m sitting here watching Sunday Night Baseball (April 24). What an embarrassment to the game this home plate umpire, Angel Hernandez, is. It’s interesting, amazing and unbelievable that Major League Baseball continues to permit the ineptness of incompetent umpires to call balls and strikes. It is clearly obvious that some umpires are unable to accurately call balls and strikes. Factually, these umpires literally make their own strike zones. Why does this continue to be acceptable to the league? As I said in an ...

Mailbag

April 23, 2022

Giger’s story takes Altoona back in time I have never written about anything, but I wanted to commend Cory Giger for the great article in Thursday’s Mirror on the Mountain City’s professional baseball team in the late 1880s. I am 71 and have lived in Blair County all my life but never heard of them. I love to hear about and celebrate people that helped shape our area. I encourage more of these segments. Dave Helsel Altoona Shorter spring training showing its effects I watched the Los Angeles Dodgers lose their eight-game winning streak to the Atlanta Braves, 3-1, the ...

Mailbag: Augusta can’t match St. Andrews

April 16, 2022

Masters Week just passed, and with it came many memories of victorious thrills and agonizing defeats. No doubt this golf major and its timing in early spring, when many of us are just finding our “golf legs” on the area’s courses, make it special. Rory McIlroy was trying to compare Augusta National to St. Andrews. Both can be considered hallowed grounds to any golfers who have followed the sport. But there is a vast difference in the two places, and that is simply 99.9% of golfers will never get to play Augusta National due its exclusivity. Many have reveled in ...

‘I left my heart in Altoona’

April 2, 2022

It has been a while, but once again my wife and I get ready for a trip to my hometown, Altoona. The Blair County Sports Hall of Fame banquet and induction ceremony are being held on April 9. The committee that hosts and puts the affair together are to be congratulated on a wonderful evening. I moved from the city over 50 years ago, but I still call Altoona home. When being introduced to a stranger, I will tell them where I live, but that I was born and raised in Altoona. The weekend will be filled with old friends, family and reunions with people I have not seen in years. All ...