History Archives - The Bank

In Die Hard, What Christmas Eve Bowl Game has Notre Dame vs USC?

December 11, 2020 By paulmbanks 1 Comment

(Editor’s note: re-publishing this holiday season article from a previous year because it’s Christmas time)

This weekend begins the bowl season, and with it the crappy bowl games that very few of us care about. Saturday brings us a cadre of bowl games that are just as awful as whatever bowl game hosted Notre Dame and USC in the classic Christmas film “Die Hard.”

The total number of bowl games has multiplied at an absurd rate these past few decades, but one truth still remains- real bowl games don’t start until after Christmas, and for the most part well after Christmas. Genuinely desirable bowl games still adhere to tradition, and take place on New Year’s. (For a preview of #14 Notre Dame vs #17 LSU go to this link)

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Filed Under: College Football, Entertainment/Media, History, Notre Dame

History of How Football Betting Evolved

December 1, 2020 By Jeff Trudeau Leave a Comment

The history of football itself is long, fascinating and somewhat mysterious. No one can precisely pinpoint the date, year or even century when the sport came to being. Taking into consideration remainings, sports fields, and balls made out of organic materials some scientist say that it can be traced back to ancient civilisations such as Ancient China and Egypt.

However, the football as we know it today, or at least a very similar form can be traced back to 19th century England. this was the first time rules to football were presented, and this is precisely why the UK is the place commonly related to this sport.

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Filed Under: Business, History

Montreal Expos: the Unfiltered and Brutally Honest History

August 17, 2020 By paulmbanks Leave a Comment

The Montreal Expos, Sacre Bleu! Yes Les Expos, what other franchise, in Major League Baseball history, had a weirder existence. They existed from 1969-2004, and only had one division title, in a strike shortened season.

The postseason has only been cancelled once in our lifetimes, during the labor crisis of 1994, and yes, it was the Montreal Expos who held the best record in baseball when that season ended abruptly. Their history is strange, as is this current Major League Baseball season, and the times we currently live in.

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Filed Under: History, MLB

1919 Black Sox World Series Centennial Will Likely Go Overlooked

July 21, 2020 By paulmbanks Leave a Comment

Sunday sees the ending of the Chicago White Sox season, with not much of note to show for it, except Tim Anderson winning the batting title. Tuesday marks the centennial of the beginning of the most intriguing and interesting thing the White Sox, or anyone else in sports for that matter, has ever done.

We are referring of course to the 1919 World Series, which will forever be defined by the Black Sox scandal, in which eight ballplayers were forever evicted from the game, due to their conspiring to intentionally suffer defeat. The Sox were heavily favored to beat the National League-champion Reds that fall classic, which began Oct. 1, 1919, but fell behind 4-1 in the best-of-nine, and lost in game eight (they were experimenting with the format that autumn). Eight Sox players, including one of the most mythical figures in baseball history, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, were charged in 1920 with conspiring to throw the Series, but were acquitted.

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Filed Under: Business, Chicago White Sox, History, MLB

Random Cooperstown: 10 Obscure Objects to See in the Baseball Hall of Fame

April 19, 2020 By paulmbanks Leave a Comment

There will be a time when museums are open again, and we’ll all be free to enjoy them. That time is not next week, or next month, but it will return. For now, well as Albert Camus wrote on page 67 of The Plague: “once the town gates were shut, every one of us realized that all…were, so to speak, in the same boat, and each would have to adapt himself to the new conditions of life.”

That’s now, the rest of this month, and probably May as well, but in time public events will return and destinations like the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York will re-open. When they do, I highly encourage to get out and roam. Definitely go to Cooperstown! I went last August and I wrote up the experience here and here.

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Filed Under: Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, History, MLB, New York Yankees

Dock Ellis “D”: Story of Pirates Pitcher who Threw a No-Hitter on Acid

March 24, 2020 By paulmbanks Leave a Comment

There have been approximately just 300 no hit games pitched in the history of baseball, a sport that goes all the way back to the 1870s. Of all those no-hitters, only one was achieved while tripping balls on LSD.

Yes, lysergic acid, or “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was one of many controlled substances in the bloodstream of Dock Ellis on June 12, 1970. The Pittsburgh Pirates hurler, known for not never pitching sober in his career, and a frequent user of “greenies,” dexamills and other metamphetamines, tossed a no no that night against the San Diego Padres. Listen below as we tell you the tale, in the 17th episode of “Let’s Get Weird, Sports.”

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Filed Under: History, MLB, New York Yankees

Super Bowl peaked in 1991 with Buffalo Bills, Whitney Houston

January 22, 2020 By paulmbanks Leave a Comment

As Super Bowl 2020 arrives, it’s time to reflect on the biggest of all the big games. The Buffalo Bills went to four straight Super Bowls and lost all four in the 1990s, but man did they give us the best Super Bowl of all time. Like Tom Petty said, “even the losers- get lucky sometimes.”

Obviously, they never did but sometimes history is better when it’s written be the losers. It wasn’t just the Buffalo Bills who made that Super Bowl so special.

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Filed Under: Business, History, NFL

Revisiting the Michigan vs Ohio Toledo War of 1835, Frostbitten Convention

November 25, 2019 By paulmbanks 11 Comments

This week is rivalry week in college football. Which conjures up memories of the Toledo War and the Frostbitten Convention. This weekend brings awesome games with cool names like “The Iron Bowl” (Alabama-Auburn) and “The Holy War” (BYU-Utah). But only one of these rivalry games can claim an actual war in the history of its geographic region. That’s the Michigan Wolverines vs. the Ohio State Buckeyes, or “The Game,” as it’s called.

The Toledo War is one of the many reasons ESPN Classic is running a marathon of past tOSU-UM games today.

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