Bottom of the Bird Cage 5/11

It’s the 131st day of the year.

On May 11, 1502 Christopher Columbus left on his fourth and final voyage to the West Indies. On this day in 1858 Minnesota officially became the 32nd state of the United States. On this day in 1924 Mercedes Benz is formed in a merger of two German companies.

And on this day in 1986, Fritz Pollard passed away at the age of 92. After serving in the Army during World War I and after graduating from Brown University, Pollard was the first black player and coach in professional football, playing from 1919-26 for teams in Akron, Milwaukee, Hammond and Providence. He was a 5-9, 165-pound quarterback/running back. The Chicago native led Brown to the 1916 Rose Bowl where they lost to Washington State.

Pollard was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Jeff Garcia sure looks the part, with that part being the sage veteran and mentor to next-generation quarterback JaMarcus Russell. One minute, he’s spinning a Canadian Football League tale of backing up Doug Flutie in Year 2. Next minute, he’s giving a guided tour through five NFL teams in 10 years.

Garcia’s sideburns are as grayed as his chin stubble. Not even a fresh crew cut can hide the salt and pepper in his hair. All he needs now is a willing and ready pupil, a Grasshopper of sorts for his wax-on, wax-off wisdom (an obscure martial-arts reference, for those not in 39-year-old Garcia’s generation). “I want to help the guy as much as possible and I’m not going to force opinions on him,” Garcia said. “Hopefully, he can just absorb the knowledge that I’m able to lend to him.”

Now, it’s up to Russell to decide how much he wants to borrow from the four-time Pro Bowler. At first blush, Russell does not seem in a rush to cram it all in at once. The Raiders’ minicamp is 2 days and 4 practices old, and the relationship between the Nos. 1 and 2 quarterbacks remains in the awkward stranger stage.

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If JaMarcus Russell is smart, he’ll try to pick the brain of Jeff Garcia as often as possible. If he’s running around the Raiders complex acting like he’s the man who knows it all, then Russell will fail and he will fail miserably. No one doubts the physical skills that Russell owns. What they doubt is his ability to take those skills and translate them into the production necessary from an NFL starting quarterback.

From the Washington Post:
They crowded into the basement of Assumption Catholic Church in Southeast Washington, hundreds of people, all to celebrate something. As a child, Edwin Williams was never quite sure what, exactly. He knew there would be food and that he and his older sister would have to sing “Jesus Is Love.” He knew they were there to honor his mother and father.

What Williams did not know was that both his parents were former cocaine users and that he and his sister, Danielle, were born addicts. So when family, friends and other members of Narcotics Anonymous gathered for one day each September to rejoice in the survival of Cheron and Edwin Williams Sr., the young boy sang, though he did not understand why.

“The good thing about my family was that they always sheltered me,” Edwin Jr. said. “I didn’t know what NA stood for. I didn’t know what any of that stuff stood for until I was probably 12 years old. I was so stupid, you know? I just never put it together, I guess.”

Those who raised Williams during his formative years — the period in which his parents traveled up and down the East Coast in search of cocaine — take his perceived ignorance as an affirmation of their diligence. Williams’ grandparents, aunts and older sister shielded him as best they could. Had the family taken any other approach, he likely would not have graduated from the University of Maryland in 2008 with one season of eligibility left as an offensive lineman on the school’s football team. The chances of him being signed by the Washington Redskins as a 6-foot-3, 315-pound undrafted rookie would have been equally slim.

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What a great story about a family saving the future of a young man and giving him a chance to become a professional football player. One of the things I’ve always enjoyed most about covering pro football is that because of the number of players involved and the different skills from position to position, there are so many different stories in each locker room. Check out any offensive line meeting room in the NFL, with 10 to 12 linemen and there will be guys from every socio-economic level and from all four corners of the country.

From New York Times columnist Dave Anderson:
For any trip of meaningful mileage over the last half-century, big-league sports teams have usually traveled in sleek chartered jets, but before that, they often rode long hours in overnight sleeper trains. Yogi Berra and Carl Erskine enjoyed it. Frank Gifford tolerated it. Most basketball players disliked it. Hockey players accepted it.

But like it or not, that’s the way it was. That’s how teams went from city to city, sometimes from coast to coast. And as Amtrak celebrated National Train Day on Saturday at ceremonies at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, and at Union Station in Washington, in Chicago and in Los Angeles, travel in that era clickety-clacked through the memories of those who did it.

“I loved it,” Berra said. “My first few years with the Yankees, you slept in berths, lower or upper. Later, you had single or double compartments with nice beds that folded down out of the wall. Nobody bothered you. And you had your own dining car.”

The dining car was usually at the rear of the train, attached to the team’s two sleeping cars, which were sealed off from the other cars. The food was quality cuisine, especially the steaks, cooked to order by chefs and served by waiters in white jackets. Much different from the plastic burgers of today’s microwave culture on many trains. “There was a romance to train travel then,” said Erskine, who pitched two no-hitters with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

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When and why as a society did we forget about trains? There are places in this country where riding some sort of rail transportation is a daily fact of life, places like Boston, New York and Chicago. But there are far more cities where the only rail is a train rolling through with boxcars or tankers, certainly not passengers, and most definitely not highly paid professional athletes. Sure air travel makes more sense for long trips. Maybe it would be different if this country had invested in high-speed bullet trains. How about a run from Chicago to Houston, with stops in Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Dallas? It’s 400 miles from Kansas City to Chicago as the crow flies. High-speed trains in France and Japan have gone 200 mph. With basically a flat track from KC to Chi-town, you could go from downtown to downtown in a little over two hours. You can’t do that taking a plane. It’s a flight of just over one hour, and then trips to both airports from downtown are at least another hour.