Archive for October, 2008
Oct. 31, 2008 — The Friday Statwatch for games played through Oct. 29
Today’s Game of the Day
Tulsa Holland Hall (Okla.) at Oklahoma City Casady (Okla.), 3 p.m.
Our last Game of the Day for the regular season is one of the long-time Oklahoma derby matches. Holland Hall is 12-4-3 on the season, and beat the Cyclones a scant two weeks ago 5-0. However, the Dutch cannot afford to look too far ahead to the Southern Prep Conference tournament, to be held next weekend in Fort Worth.
This week’s Statwatch has been affected by playoff action around the nation. For two out of the top three known scorers, their seasons are already over, so there is room for improvement for those players whose teams are advancing towards state championships.
Here’s what we’ve compiled from numerous sources, including The Baltimore Sun, The Wilmington News-Journal, The Harrisburg Patriot-News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, NJ.com, The Louisville Courier-Journal, The Hanover Evening Sun, The Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, The Citizen’s Voice, The Boston Globe, The Norwood Daily News-Transcript, SignOnSanDiego.com, The Virginian-Pilot, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, HighSchoolSports.net, The Chicago Sun Times, the Reading Eagle, the Allentown Morning Call, The West Chester Journal-News, and The North County Times:
TEAM GOALS SCORED
123 Emmaus (Pa.)
117 Center Valley Southern Lehigh (Pa.)
115 Millersville Penn Manor (Pa.)
114 Louisville Sacred Heart (Ky.)
112 Norfolk Maury (Va.)
110 Mamaroneck (N.Y.)
106 Kingston Wyoming Seminary (Pa.)
103 Oley (Pa.) Valley
103 West Long Branch Shore Regional (N.J.)
101 St. Louis Lafayette (Mo.)
TEAM GOALS ALLOWED
0 Mamaroneck (N.Y.)
1 Garden City (N.Y.)
INDIVIDUAL GOALS SCORED, SEASON
40 Lucas Long, Allentown William Allen (Pa.)
39 Tollie Bell, Norfolk Maury (Va.)
38 Leeann Black, York Springs Bermudian Springs (Pa.)
35 Erin Sevey, Skowhegan (Maine)
34 Blaise Falk, Auburn (Mass.)
32 Jill Witmer, Millersville Penn Manor (Pa.)
30 Brooke Borneman, Centerville Southern Lehigh (Pa.)
INDIVIDUAL ASSISTS, SEASON
31 Kelsey Smither, Suffolk Lakeland (Va.)
28 Charlotte Gardiner, Mamaroneck (N.Y.)
23 Liesl Schnuck, St. Louis John Burroughs (Mo.)
23 Brooke Simonovich, Stroudsburg (Pa.)
21 Cathleen Smith, Mamaroneck (N.Y.)
INDIVIDUAL GOALS SCORED, CAREER
103 Leeann Black, York Springs Bermudian Springs (Pa.)
99 Jackie Gaudioso-Radvany, Princeton Stuart Country Day School (N.J.)
93 Kelsey Mitchell, Voorhees Eastern (N.J.)
WINNING STREAK, TEAM
82 Louisville Sacred Heart (Ky.)
Got anything to add? Send us an email and we’ll try to do better next week.
Oct. 30, 2008 — Stuff I owe you, the reader (part 1)
Today’s Game of the Day
Clinton North Hunterdon (N.J.) at Flemington Hunterdon Central (N.J.), 5:15 p.m.
Even though North Hunterdon is part of a split school district with Glen Gardner Voorhees (N.J.), it always seems as though when North meets Hunterdon Central, you can throw out all of the records. The two teams have split two games already this seasons, both of which were 2-1 results.
I’ve just managed to finish up this video story. It revises and extends this story written eight years ago.
Oct 29, 2008 — The (short) road to Prague
Today’s Game of the Day
Mountain Top Crestwood (Pa.) vs. Kingston Wyoming Seminary (Pa.) at Plymouth Wyoming Valley West, 7 p.m.
We’ve had to call an audible on this one, since South Windsor (Conn.) at Granby (Conn.) was postponed to tomorrow. Besides, what better time than to highlight the toughest sectional tournament in the country? This is the final of the PIAA District 2 Class AA championship; the winner is the odds-on favorite to win the 16-team state championship; the loser goes home and has nine months to think about what happened.
A preliminary 24-woman roster for the 2009 IWLCA World Cup of Lacrosse has been released, and, to me, it reflects the sea change in the game over the last five years or so.
On the 2005 team was a group of veteran players who were together for a long period of time, for three or four World Cups. This time, however, there are only a few who ever played the game without mandatory eyewear, a core of the team from four-time defending champion Northwestern, and a number of dynamic young players.
The team will be led by veteran attackers Michelle DeJuliis and Quinn Carney, both of whom have won World Cups. DeJuliis is one of four alternates from the 2005 team currently on the U.S. team, along with Katie Chrest and Acacia Walker. Another, Sue Heether, is the current head coach.
Carney, who won four NCAA titles at Maryland, is the only member of the Terrapin dynasty on the U.S. team. There are two other members of the team with Maryland ties: current junior Caitlyn McFadden and Walker, who was for three years an assistant coach at Northwestern.
While there, Walker helped in the development of the five Wildcat alums on the U.S. roster: Hilary Bowen, Lindsey Munday, Sarah Albrecht, Kristen Kjellman, and Christy Finch. Their ability, athleticism, and skills are at the forefront of the game, and a number of their contemporaries are at the same class. Katie Rowan came within a whisker of the all-time NCAA single-season goal-scoring record at Syracuse, for example.
There are a number of players, including Bowen, Regina Oliver, Katie Chrest, and Caroline Cryer, who will create matchup problems for defending champion Australia.
One concern is in the goal cage. The three current goalies on the roster are Amy Altig, Megan Huether, and Devon Wills — none of whom have won an NCAA championship, but all of whom have faced tough competition while in their collegiate years.
Of course, given the fact that Heether was one of the finest goalies this country has ever produced, she knows a lot about what makes a great one, and her judgment shouldn’t be discounted.
Here’s the U.S. roster, as provided by U.S. Lacrosse.org:
Attack
Hilary Bowen – Northwestern ‘09
Quinn Carney – Maryland ‘01
Caroline Cryer – Duke ‘09
Lindsey Munday – Northwestern ‘06
Katie Rowan – Syracuse ‘09
Midfield
Sarah Albrecht – Northwestern ‘06
Sarah Bullard – Duke ‘11
Katie Chrest – Duke ‘06
Michele DeJuliis – Penn State ‘98
Whitney Douthett – Dartmouth ‘07
Michi Ellers – Georgetown ‘04
Kristen Kjellman – Northwestern ‘07
Erica LaGrow – North Carolina ‘08
Jessica Lieb – Penn State ‘08
Nikki Lieb – Virginia ‘06
Caitlyn McFadden – Maryland ‘10
Holly McGarvie – Princeton ‘09
Acacia Walker – Maryland ‘05
Defense
Amber Falcone – North Carolina ‘09
Christy Finch – Northwestern ‘08
Regina Oliver – Ohio State ‘05
Goal
Amy Altig – James Madison ‘05
Megan Huether – Duke ‘06
Devon Wills – Dartmouth ‘06
This roster may change between now and January. The 24-member U.S. developmental roster is still in play for a tournament in Florida. That roster has the likes of Amy Appelt (Virginia), Meredith Frank (Northwestern) and Kendall McBrearty (Virginia), and all are looking to make a final impression. The cut to 18 players comes afterwards.
Oct. 28, 2008 — Top 10 for the week of Oct. 26
Today’s Game of the Day
Haddonfield (N.J.) Memorial at Moorestown (N.J.), 3:45 p.m.
Two of the state’s oldest and most tradition-rich scholastic field hockey teams meet yet again.
This week’s Top 10 remains in stasis as the postseason is well underway in most areas of the country, and state championships will be determined this week in some places. You should also know that, despite some important games played yesterday, that our Top 10s reflect play through the end of play on Sunday.
Our RightToRightIsRight.com No. 11 Team of the Week marks the first state champion crowned this season — and likely the smallest. Wenaukee Trinity Academy (Wisc.) is a school that was formed just 11 years ago, and, playing in its first year of varsity field hockey, won the Wisconsin state championship with a thrilling 11-round penalty stroke win over the University School of Milwaukee (Wisc.) after a 1-1 draw after regulation and overtime. Kudos go to head coach Elizabeth Mitchell, who did this with a total available player pool of 22 female students; she got 17 to play for her.
1. Louisville Sacred Heart (Ky.) — 27-0
Got by Louisville Kentucky Country Day (Ky.) 3-2 in overtime last Saturday; will take on Louisville Manual (Ky.) in state semifinals today
2. Summit Oak Knoll (N.J.) — 17-0
Ended regular season yesterday against Clark Johnson Regional (N.J.) in third meeting
3. Mamaroneck (N.Y.) — 19-0
Plays second-round Class A sectional tournament game Wednesday; still has not yielded a goal this season
4. Kingston Wyoming Seminary (Pa.) — 17-1
Will play its first-round District 2-AA tomorrow after an 11-day layoff
5. Lakeville Hotchkiss School (Conn.) — 11-0
Has a Friday showdown against Milton Pine Plains (N.Y.)
6. Center Valley Southern Lehigh (Pa.) — 20-0
Will play Kintnervile Palisades (Pa.) in District 11-AA semifinals
7. St. Louis Ursuline (Mo.) — 18-0-1
Regular season complete; MWAA playoffs ahead
8. Garden City (N.Y.) — 15-0
Trojans are still unscored-upon this season
9. Voorhees Eastern (N.J.) —15-2
Very tough Group IV South sectional awaits for Vikings
10. Emmaus (Pa.) — 20-1
District 11-AAA semifinal match to be played tomorrow
11. Wenaukee Trinity Academy (Wisc.) — 11-6
Sentinels got by defending champion Arrowhead on the way to the finals
Oct. 27, 2008 — Meanwhile, in Port-of-Spain …
Today’s Game of the Day
Medford Lakes Shawnee (N.J.) at Medford Lenape (N.J.), 3:45 p.m.
Shawnee, the defending Tournament of Champions winner, takes the seven-mile trip across Rt. 70 for another meeting with their district rival.
A couple of weeks ago, the United States U-21 women’s national team won the Pan American Cup and a berth in next year’s Junior World Cup in Boston.
Yesterday, the U.S. junior men tried to earn its way into the men’s Junior World Cup, and, in the game they need to win to get there, defeated a heavily favrored Canadian side 6-5 in penalty strokes after a 2-all score in regulation. The result was not only good for the tournament’s bronze medal, but the third and final Pan American Hockey Federation berth in next year’s JWC in Malaysia and Singapore.
The thing is, a third-place finish in this tournament, for a nation without a single varsity scholastic boys’ field hockey team or a single men’s collegiate varsity field hockey team, is an supernally astonishing achievement. It is an achievement made all the more astonishing considering how strong men’s field hockey is in Ontario and British Columbia, not only in the club system, but in the schools. There is boys’ varsity field hockey in western Canada, something that is lacking in the United States.
So, with very little funding, very little corporate support, and with very little respect from even people within the American field hockey community, this group of determined young men and head coach Nick Conway have been able to make the World Cup — even without a collection of males who have been excelling in the game at the U.S. scholastic level this year.
If the performance of these U-21s isn’t a clarion call for varsity boys’/men’s field hockey in America, I don’t know what is.
Oct. 26, 2008 — Sublime brilliance in the torrent
Yesterday I stopped over at American University to do an interview for the upcoming vodcast on the subject of the growing influence of men in NCAA and high-performance coaching in the United States.
I watched the game between the hosts and Lafayette, held in a rainstorm which poured enough rain on the Jacobs Field artificial turf that the AU staff didn’t need to water it at halftime. Late in the second half, with the Eagles nursing a two-goal lead, they got a free hit in a dangerous position, about at a 45-degree angle from the offensive left post, about 22 yards out.
American ran a simple three-pronged rotation play to shake a player free in front of the goalkeeper. The player who slipped into the open space was none other than Christine Fingerhuth, who was recently named Most Outstanding Player at the Junior Pan-Am Cup in Mexico City.
The ball was deflected about waist-high on the way to the open Fingerhuth. She received the ball with a light tap, hooked the flat end of the stick, and made a backhander through the legs of the Lafayette goalkeeper.
The ball never touched the ground in the 2/10 of a second she needed to receive the ball and create the shot.
It is one of the most sublime pieces of individual brilliance your Founder has ever witnessed.
As I said a few days ago, Fingerhuth is for real.
Oct. 25, 2008 — The net result
Today’s Game of the Day
Groton (Mass.) at Dedham Noble and Greenough (Mass.), 2:30 p.m.
Noble and Greenough was the Cinderella story of last year’s New England Preparatory School Athletic Conference championship tournament, and needs a win here to stamp themselves as one of the Independent School League’s representatives to the postseason.
Eleven years ago yesterday, I saw an extremely controversial ending to a scholastic field hockey game. The scene was the championship final of the Hunterdon-Warren Tournament, one of the numerous FA Cup-style in-season tournaments held in New Jersey.
It was a game between Flemington Hunterdon Central (N.J.), a team that had won three NJSIAA championships the four years between 1993 and 1996, and challenger Glen Gardner Voorhees (N.J.).
Voorhees featured a player by the name of Andschana Mendes, who was trained the game of field hockey in Germany, winning championships with the Russelsheimer Rowing club team before her parents were transferred to the United States.
Mendes could hit the ball so hard that it would take crazy bounces off even the slightest bump on a grass pitch. She scored on one of those wildly bounding shots in the first half, only to be matched by the future Dartmouth product Kim Jenkin.
In that 1997 final, the teams went into overtime, and Mendes took a corner eight minutes in. After slinking around Central’s flyer and trailer, she wound up to take a shot. I never saw the ball go into the goal. Neither did just about anybody else on the pitch.
About all I saw was the ball bounding back into play; I didn’t know what it hit — goalkeeper, leg, netting, or some divine intervention. But after the next stoppage in play, the umpires got together and awarded Voorhees the goal.
Minutes after that game, long after most people had left, I took a stray hockey ball and chucked it at the outside of the goal cage from about a foot outside the left goalpost extended. The ball nestled into the netting and came out straight at me. The netting was very stretchy, as if made of elastic, and the netting was anchored from the inside of the goal cage, not draped over the outside over the back struts.
I tried a few angles, including one about 45 degrees out from the post, in which the ball would actually be caught up in the netting, then get deposited behind the goal cage, behind the backboard.
I didn’t think much of the rest of that experiment until last Saturday night, when Emmaus (Pa.) played at Voorhees Eastern (N.J.). One of Emmaus’ best chances on the night came when a pass off the left wing was shot at the goal cage, hit the stretchy netting on the outside, and fell outside of the back of the goal cage behind the backboard.
The umpire, a Hall-of-Famer who was standing seven yards from the goal cage and was looking directly at the ball, called a 16-yard free hit. In a 1-0 decision, the incident stands as one of several chances that Emmaus had, but did not turn into a goal.
More than a decade later, I’m not 100 percent convinced that Mendes scored the goal, but Voorhees did outshoot Hunterdon Central 5-4 on the day. One week after the Eastern-Emmaus game, I’m not convinced a goal should have been awarded there, either, and Eastern outshot Emmaus 21-7.
Thing is, if you’re going to see more of an international game at the high school level, with more and more goals being scored above the 18-inch backboard, you’d think someone would have figured out how to invent a better goal netting in the interim.
Oct. 24, 2008 — The Friday Statwatch for games played through Oct. 22
Today’s Game of the Day
Los Gatos (Calif.) at Mountain View St. Francis (Calif.), 2:45 p.m.
St. Francis has won or shared the last three CIF Central Coast champions, while Los Gatos’ last postseason title was a shared championship in 2003. The Cats were co-champs with — St. Francis.
This week’s Statwatch sees a bit of a logjam at the top of the national goal-scoring stats for individuals; and two out of the four top scorers are boys. Should be interesting to see what happens as defenses tighten.
Here’s what we’ve compiled from numerous sources, including The Baltimore Sun, The Wilmington News-Journal, The Harrisburg Patriot-News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, NJ.com, The Louisville Courier-Journal, The Hanover Evening Sun, The Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, The Citizen’s Voice, The Boston Globe, The Norwood Daily News-Transcript, SignOnSanDiego.com, The Virginian-Pilot, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, HighSchoolSports.net, The Chicago Sun Times, the Reading Eagle, the Allentown Morning Call, The West Chester Journal-News, and The North County Times:
TEAM GOALS SCORED
117 Center Valley Southern Lehigh (Pa.)
112 Emmaus (Pa.)
112 Norfolk Maury (Va.)
107 Louisville Sacred Heart (Ky.)
107 Millersville Penn Manor (Pa.)
103 Mamaroneck (N.Y.)
99 Oley (Pa.) Valley
95 Kingston Wyoming Seminary (Pa.)
94 St. Louis Lafayette (Mo.)
93 York Springs Bermudian Springs (Pa.)
88 Lehighton (Pa.)
84 Stevensville Kent Island (Md.)
83 Selinsgrove (Pa.)
81 Worthington Thomas Worthington (Ohio)
79 Garden City (N.Y.)
INDIVIDUAL GOALS SCORED, SEASON
37 Lucas Long, Allentown William Allen (Pa.)
37 Leeann Black, York Springs Bermudian Springs (Pa.)
37 Tollie Bell, Norfolk Maury (Va.)
33 Erin Sevey, Skowhegan (Maine)
32 Blaise Falk, Auburn (Mass.)
30 Jill Witmer, Millersville Penn Manor (Pa.)
30 Brooke Borneman, Centerville Southern Lehigh (Pa.)
29 Kelsey Millman, Centerville Southern Lehigh (Pa.)
28 Kelsey Amy, Lehman Lake-Lehman (Pa.)
28 Alley Evans, Emmaus (Pa.)
27 Danica Deckard, Selinsgrove (Pa.)
27 Brynne Burwell, Pen Argyl (Pa.)
26 Jackie Gaudioso-Radvany, Princeton Stuart Country Day School (N.J,)
26 Brooke Simonovich, Stroudsburg (Pa.)
25 Devon Gagliardi, Kingston Wyoming Seminary (Pa.)
25 Cathleen Smith, Mamaroneck (N.Y.)
24 Taryn Schawillie, East Rochester (N.Y.)
24 Amira Downes, Harwich (Mass.)
24 Elise Driscoll. Harwich (Mass.)
24 Jessica Lindner, Louisville Sacred Heart (Ky.)
24 Anna Simmons, Worthington Thomas Worthington (Ohio)
24 Anna Geissbuhler, Worthington Thomas Worthington (Ohio)
23 Nina Walters, St. Louis Lafayette (Mo.)
23 Abby Frey, Lehighton (Pa.)
22 Olivia Miller, Louisville Sacred Heart (Ky.)
22 Shelby Farland, Fiskdale Tantasqua Regional (Mass.)
22 Kendell Combs, Suffolk Lakeland (Va.)
22 Audra Heilman, Easton (Pa.)
22 Samantha Wootsick, Emmaus (Pa.)
21 Senada Mehmedovich, Carlisle (Pa.)
21 Britney Ryan, Highlands Ranch Mountain Vista (Colo.)
21 Kelsey Mitchell, Voorhees Eastern (N.J.)
21 Brittany Krall, Oley (Pa.) Valley
INDIVIDUAL ASSISTS, SEASON
29 Kelsey Smither, Suffolk Lakeland (Va.)
24 Charlotte Gardiner, Mamaroneck (N.Y.)
22 Liesl Schnuck, St. Louis John Burroughs (Mo.)
INDIVIDUAL GOALS SCORED, CAREER
102 Leeann Black, York Springs Bermudian Springs (Pa.)
96 Jackie Gaudioso-Radvany, Princeton Stuart Country Day School (N.J.)
89 Kelsey Mitchell, Voorhees Eastern (N.J.)
WINNING STREAK, TEAM
79 Louisville Sacred Heart (Ky.)
Got anything to add? Send us an email and we’ll try to do better next week.
Oct. 23, 2008 — The H-List: The 10 toughest sectional tournaments of 2008
Today’s Game of the Day
North Dartmouth Bishop Stang (Mass.) at Oak Bluffs Martha’s Vineyard (Mass.), 3:15 p.m.
Bishop Stang has a 16-1 record thus far this season, but take the long road trip (complete with ferry ride) to Martha’s Vineyard.
The postseason has begun in earnest across the United States this week, and your Founder has always been asked what the toughest state tournaments have been. Well, what I’ve noticed is that there are going to be a number of street fights to even get to the state tournament for some teams and regions.
Now, for the purposes of this exercise, a “sectional tournament” is defined as a tournament signifying an area of a particular state which may or may not lead to a state championship within a state. For example, Connecticut plays a straight bracket for each of its three classes towards a state titlist for each, but Virginia plays four straight brackets down to two qualifiers for the VHSL state championship. California has four sections, but no state championship tournament, while Pennsylvania has up to 12 sections (called Districts), but not all have the sport.
Here are the most difficult sectional tournaments to win this season:
1. Pennsylvania: PIAA District 2 Class AA.
Only one team gets out of a very tough section which includes Wyoming Seminary, Crestwood, and Lake-Lehman. Any of those three would be worthy winners of the Class AA state championship.
2. Virginia: VHSL Eastern Region.
Though the favorites this year appear to be Frank W. Cox and Maury, watch out for Lakeland and Princess Anne. This tournament has been the incubator for state champions.
3. New Jersey: NJSIAA Group IV South.
Three tough teams in this section: defending Group IV champion Eastern, defending Group III champion Shawnee, and the team that could upset the apple cart, Washington Township.
4. California: CIF San Diego Section, Division I.
Scripps Ranch, Torrey Pines, and La Costa Canyon are very closely matched. Whoever is playing well in mid-November wins it.
5. Ohio: OHSAA Dublin Bracket #1.
A very tough section with Thomas Worthington, Bishop Watterson, and Ottawa Hills, all of whom have won the state championship the last decade.
6. Massachusetts: MIAA West Division II.
Dominated by Smith Academy, Frontier Regional, and Greenfield.
7. New Jersey: NJSIAA Group II North 1.
Undefeated Madison Borough and West Essex highlight this competitive section
8. Pennsylvania: PIAA District 1 Class AAA.
This tournament is a lottery, since it is by far the largest district classification in field hockey’s largest-participatory state. This year, 27 teams go for six slots in the state tournament, so those “tipping point” games in the lower half of the quarterfinal round are some of the most competitive.
9. Virginia: VHSL Northern Region.
Last year, all four quarterfinal games at Oakton High School went into overtime, making the “tipping point” games almost an afterthought.
10. Maryland: MPSSAA Class 4A East.
Severna Park, Broadneck, and South River are all contending this year for the state championship.
Oct. 22, 2008 — Adventures in field hockey writing with VO2 Max
Today’s Game of the Day
Bordentown (N.J.) at Columbus Northern Burlington (N.J.), 7 p.m.
The Scotties travel five miles down Route 206 to play their Burlington County Scholastic League rivals.
So did you notice anything different about last Sunday’s field hockey story?
If you didn’t, that’s all part of my job as a writer — to get the news to you. But there was a story behind the story. After leaving Voorhees, N.J. last Saturday night, I noticed a light on the dashboard of VO2 Max. It was the battery light, but it wasn’t flashing bright red as if there was a major electrical drain. It was more like a pulse; over the past couple of years, the car did that sporadically after a major temperature change like there was last week.
But this was different. As I drove down the roadway, I noticed that it was getting increasingly difficult to see the gauges. I noticed that the headlights weren’t working as well as they should. Then, I felt the engine shudder and shake. “Alternator,” my brain told me. I had this problem with my last Volvo in 1999.
I had enough juice to take the car off the interstate and pull into a reasonably well-lit area of the interchange. I was on the Nokia cell to AAA, and the tow truck was there in about an hour. Though it was a very cool night, I stayed outside of the car because there was enough caffeine and adrenaline coursing through me that I didn’t think of the temperature.
I asked the tow truck driver for suggestions. He took the car to a garage with Sunday hours, and AAA booked me a room in a nearby inn. And it turns out the inn had a business center with an Internet connection.
I wrote the first edition shortly after midnight, and did some minor editing after a night’s rest. By about 1 p.m., the major electrical components of the car were replaced; the battery was close to the end of its useful life, and the alternator was 19 years old and just about at the end of its mortal coil (pardon the pun).
VO2 Max now has 240,000 miles on it. I know there’s a new transmission in its future, as well as a possible engine rebuild, in the next two years or so. These are investments I’m willing to make because of the inherent problems in cars of the last 15 years, which have so many electrical gadgets and circuit boards that an entire industry has been spawned to diagnose problems when they happen with testing equipment instead of experience and know-how.
It’s one of those little things that has been lost in our culture, such as the telegram, how to use a slide rule, the soda fountain at the corner drugstore, or the pickup baseball game with ground rules set by the kids without interference from parents, national governing bodies, equipment manufacturers, or judge-shopping lawyers.
