FW Wizards Become “Tin Caps”

The boys and I went to our share of Wizard’s games in Fort Wayne–there was some excitement on changing the name, but this is a disappointment, even though I likely won’t ever attend another “tin caps” game.

In honor of Johnny Appleseed–nice tip to the apple seed planter, but hardly the name of a sports frachise. From WANE TV:

Fort Wayne Wizards fans are trying to adjust to a new name.

Thursday, the team officially became the Fort Wayne Tin Caps.

Since we first broke news of the new name on wane.com, we’ve gotten record response!

As of 11 p.m. Thursday, nearly 200 people had left comments and more than one thousand people had taken our online poll about the name change.

Newschannel 15 also caught up with people around Fort Wayne to get their feedback on the new name. Some of it was good:

“I think it’s pretty awesome! Actually I think they should have made it the Harrison Squarepants,” says Carla Park.

“It’s actually a pretty cool name compared to the Wizards, and it’s for Johnny Appleseed, so it’s actually better,” adds Maxwell Gearhart.

Financial Crisis and God

Cardinal Bertone weighs in, from the Economic Times of India:

The financial crisis sweeping the world economy proves the need forreligion in politics, Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone said on Tuesday. 

“Politics needs religion,” Cardinal Bertone said in a speech published by the Vatican mouthpiece L’Osservatore Romano. “When instead God is ignored, the ability to respect rights and recognise the common good begins to disappear.” 

Bertone, the Vatican’s top diplomat and Pope Benedict XVI’s right-hand man, told a conference sponsored by the US-based Aspen Institute: “Where people look solely for short-term profit, identifying it with good, they end up erasing the benefit itself.” 

The prelate said the “current financial crisis” and the “tragic outcomes of all political ideologies” were symptomatic of this lack. 

He added: “To manage globalisation, politics not only needs an ethic inspired by religion, but also it needs for this religion to be rational. For that too, politics needs Christianity.” 

During a trip to France earlier this month, the pope spoke about his view of Christianityas a religion founded on the marriage between faith and reason. 

Everyone today “solemnly proclaim the unalienable rights of the person, (but) these noble proclamations are often negated by the facts,” Bertone said, pointing to “growing poverty, the persistent dominance of certain cultural and economic models (and) intolerance.”

BBQ and Football

There is no shortage of great barbeque here in Alabama, I’ve sampled it all since coming here in June and have the added weight to prove it! One of the local favorites is Dreamland BBQ, celebrating its 50th anniversary. Over the summer they ran a promotion where anyone else celebrating their 50th birthday could eat free on Mondays–I qualified for that prize. Speaking of which its my mother’s birthday today–happy birthday!

Dreamland was featured in the USA Today’s Sports page yesterday:

In 1958, within a week of each other, two larger-than-life-sized men who would become Alabama icons officially opened for business. The Bear and Big Daddy.

On Sept. 27, 1958, Paul “Bear” Bryant’s first Alabama team led LSU 3-0 at halftime before the eventual national champion rallied for a 13-3 win. Six days later, Oct. 3, John “Big Daddy” Bishop served his first slab of ribs at Dreamland BBQ. (Click here to visit Dreamland’s website)

Fifty years later, this remains the perfect union of pigskin and pork.

“If Alabama had an official restaurant, this would be it,” University of Alabama senior Tim Chandler said. “Look at the walls. You see Coach Bryant’s photo. Coach (Nick) Saban. Coach (Gene) Stallings. It’s the best ribs in the world, and it’s all from a cee-ment shack.”