The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 29.

Well, the numbering of my two podcasting franchises is now even, and the content is as superlative as ever.

In today's new "After Dark," we've got a ton of material for your enjoyment. I offer my best wishes to two more veteran New England sportswriters that are calling it a career, the Worcester Telegram's Bill Doyle and the Brockton Enterprise's Jim Fenton. I also review the Patriots' last-second win over Arizona (Nick Folk for MVP!), bemoan Northwestern's loss to Michigan State, and I chat about my full commitment (or what passes for it) to holiday decorating this winter.

But the centerpiece is an explanation of what's in store for a high school basketball season this winter. It's going to be half as long as usual, and there will be all sorts of restrictions forced upon it by the COVID-19 pandemic, but if the virus doesn't shut things down entirely, at least there will be something to follow during those long, cold months.

Plus another cool Japanese commercial and one of the best moonrise videos taken by an iPhone 8 that you'll ever see. And it's all packed into just over 50 minutes.

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving memories come in all varieties.

Mansfield QB Jack Moussette eludes Foxboro's Anton George in last year's holiday game.

I really don't know what I'm going to do with myself on Thursday.

Since 1965 (with the exception of only a few years in the 1970s), for me, Thanksgiving Day has been a game day, or a work day, or both. But not this year.

I've been a Massachusetts resident for all my life, and part of that means having a devotion to high school football on the holiday. Not many states' schools play on the holiday, but for Bay Staters, football between traditional-rival schools has been part of the holiday experience almost since the Pilgrims stepped onto that rock in Plymouth. Many schools have reached the 100-game mark in recent years -- and if you watched my most recent video podcast, you will have learned that Attleboro and North Attleboro would have been playing for the 100th time on Thursday if not for the postponement of the entire season caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Mansfield and Foxboro briefly moved the game
to Schaefer Stadium in the early 1970s.

My hometown team, the Mansfield Green Hornets, were to have played host to their rivals, the Foxboro Warriors, for the 90th time at Mansfield's Alumni Field. Not all of those games were played on the holiday; it wasn't until the 1940s when they decided to shift their annual game to the special holiday stage. But Hornets and Warriors of all ages don't pay much attention to that little fact.

Sadly, I would not have been there to see that game. As I have been a play-by-play announcer for the past two years since retiring from the newspaper, my duties would have taken me to Franklin High's Pisini Field to cover the 61st holiday meeting of the hometown Panthers and the King Philip Regional High School Warriors for North Attleboro Community Television's Plainville Channel.

But my attendance at the hometown game stopped being a regular thing about halfway through my career of 40-plus years at The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro. I've seen several Attleboro vs. North games, and in the last decade or so, I added King Philip vs. Franklin, Bishop Feehan vs. whomever they were playing (it's Bishop Stang currently), and Seekonk vs. Dighton-Rehoboth to my regular fare. And I've seen a few games played on alternate days by other schools because of weather postponements, so I'd like to think my appreciation of holiday football is not so myopic as to be tinged only in the green of my Green Hornets.

But this week? I'll be home, re-warming some Boar's Head sliced turkey and bottled gravy and opening a can of Ocean Spray jellied cranberries, and maybe crack open a Bitburger or two, for a Thanksgiving dinner of sorts. I probably won't even watch the crappy NFL games on the tube. 

I must admit here, I've been less enthusiastic lately about the importance of Thanksgiving Day football. This state is embroiled in a perpetual battle between old-timers that resist change and the newbies that want a legitimate playoff format that doesn't include a mid-stream interruption such as Turkey Day football. I'll delve more deeply into that issue in another post, but let it suffice to say that while I am an old-timer, I see more hope for the future of football in Massachusetts through the playoffs.

North TV's Peter Gay

Still, I couldn't help but be touched nostalgically this week by memories of football games past. Peter Gay of North TV has been running a "Thanksgiving marathon" of televised AHS-North games since the 1990s, and I've watched several of them with interest. It's been fun to see some of the games I covered for the paper, and also to hear for the first time in its entirety the 2018 game I worked with the North TV crew in 10-degree cold from a riser some 50-60 feet above ground level at Attleboro High.

It's also been very poignant to hear the voice of Art Chase, the color analyst who left us far too soon. Art was Peter's long-time partner in the booth in all of the incarnations of local cable television that eventually led to North TV, and working together, those guys made it sound so easy -- something I kept in mind when I came on board years later.

I also rediscovered the archives of one of my other post-retirement stops, Foxboro Cable Access, which has an extensive library of past Mansfield-Foxboro games on YouTube. I covered quite a few of those games in the early 2000s and in my re-viewing of those, I could often spot myself on the sidelines, clinging to my huge Titleist golf umbrella (it rained heavily in many of those games) and trying to keep my notes dry.

Writing a story in 1969. I still own the typewriter.

Sadly, I didn't play football -- which probably still frosts a few people in regard to my induction into the Attleboro Area Football Hall of Fame a few years back. I wanted to, but my father was firm in his denial. He played for Mansfield High in his day, a skinny split end wearing No. 13, and during the fall of 1935, an opponent's foot to the nose forever altered his breathing, even after multiple surgeries. Years later, he looked at his skinny (yes, I was) and somewhat uncoordinated son and determined that football would be too risky for my health. Even my reminders that "they have face masks now, Dad," failed to sway him.

So instead of playing, I started keeping statistics. Then in the fall of 1969, my girlfriend shoved me through the front door of the weekly Mansfield News because she was tired of hearing me say that I could cover high school sports better than those that were doing it, and a sportswriting career was born.

As it turns out, my father was probably right. I suffered a severe injury to my left knee in 1974 while playing intramural football at Northwestern University -- and it took me until this past August to finally have it surgically repaired. Funny thing, I wasn't a bad pass rusher. 

Tony Farinella in 1935.

Now, understand -- I don't resent my father's decision to keep me out of the game. I think he just lost interest in football of all sorts after suffering his injury. And the annual game against Foxboro didn't mean much to him either because his teams did not play the neighboring town on the holiday in the 1930s. His teams played Taunton, reflecting the competitive level of the Green and White in those days as opposed to that of their future foes from the other side of Robinson Hill.

But in 1967, Tony Farinella decided to engage in some male-bonding with his son, who was then 13 years old. I didn't have a ride to the Thanksgiving game to be played at the "new" Foxboro High on Mechanic Street (now the John J. Ahern Middle School), so he decided to bring me. It wasn't my first holiday game -- that had been two years earlier with the parents of a friend -- but I must admit, I thought it was cool that my father finally showed an interest in the sports of the high school I had just started attending as an eighth-grader. 

But the football gods were not happy.

Weather forecasts for Thursday, Nov. 23, 1967, were for a heavy, cold rain -- and they did not disappoint. My father and I huddled together in the small, already-rickety stands on the visitors' side of the field (surprisingly so, given that the school was only three years old) and tried to stay warm as the precipitation fell. He would occasionally excuse himself to stroll over to the concession stand behind the end zone to get multiple cups of hot coffee, but I declined the offer for hot chocolate, fearing that my bladder would betray me as there were no restrooms within reasonable walking distance. 

I probably should have been similarly worried for my 48-year-old father, but I figured that adults had greater powers of fluid retention.

The game itself was unremarkable. Mansfield lost by a 13-6 score, the heavy rain turning the center of the grass field into a muddy quagmire and bogging down the Hornets' powerful rushing attack. Later, it was learned that several of the players from both teams had suffered painful skin irritation resembling burns from the lime used for the yard markers. Apparently it was the wrong kind of lime, and when it interacted with the heavy rain, it caused a chemical reaction that left several Warriors and Hornets suffering for several weeks.

When the game ended, my father and I started walking the long distance down Chestnut Street to our Volkswagen Beetle. We were both drenched and miserable and my dad wanted to walk at a fast pace, seeming to be in considerable discomfort, but he didn't say why. And when we got to the car and started driving the back roads into Mansfield, he started squirming in his seat and moaning in a manner I had never heard from him before.

I was scared. "Dad," I said, "what's wrong?"

"I've got to pee," he said.

I remember beating back an urge to laugh out loud because when I was a youngster in elementary school, I had similarly miscalculated my bladder's capacity and had the dreaded "accident" on the bus ride home. Today, through the lens of personal experience, I understand that my father was probably also suffering one of the side effects of his Type I diabetes; I found myself struggling several years ago with my ability to gauge my bladder capacity until I got my Type II diabetes under control with medication.

Once we turned down County Street, the last leg before crossing the town line, my father was desperately trying to make it to his North Main Street clothing store, where he could make a hurried trip to the bathroom, or grab a replacement pair of pants off the racks if he didn't make it. But it was becoming clear he wasn't going to make it. I tried to convince him to just stop on the side of the road and let it hang -- there was next to no development on that street at the time and he could have easily hidden himself from view behind a tree -- but he was too embarrassed to stop and he paid the price for it before we made it to the center of Mansfield.

Our 1963 VW Beetle
(I was 9 years old here).

We just went home, where my father jumped out of the car and raced to the bathroom without saying a word. Sensing his embarrassment, I told him I'd clean up the car for him. As it turned out, I didn't have to; everything had been soaked up by his multiple layers of clothing.

Now, you may be asking me why I'd want to share that story. Why would you want to embarrass your father like that? Well, aside from the fact that my father passed in 2001, it was a story that we were able to laugh about later in our lives.

My father and I never really clicked in a sports sense. He did take me to Red Sox games for several years beginning in 1964, but probably more because I wanted to go than because he was interested in them. If you're looking for a "Field of Dreams" moment between us, keep looking. We didn't share a "Hey, Dad, want to have a catch?" relationship. On the rare occasions when we'd toss a baseball in the back yard, I'd end up teasing him unmercifully for throwing "like a girl" (yes, I used to toss that phrase around recklessly before I learned how well many girls can throw a ball).

And when it comes to football, he left his interest in the sport in a pool of blood at Fuller Field in 1935. Not until I started covering the Patriots and he could read my award-winning work in the local daily newspaper did he rekindle any interest in it.

But it struck us as funny many years later, that on the one day when we tried to have a bonding moment related to football in my youth, both Mother Nature and his bladder betrayed us. And strangely enough, it did bond us. It underscored his humanity. 

My father was a good man, a loving father and a very good provider for his family. To his everlasting credit, he didn't mind at all if a momentary human weakness took him off a pedestal in the eyes of his young son. And I firmly believe that from that moment on, I looked at my father as less of an authoritarian ruler of a household, and more of a friend and a fellow human being, trying to find his way in the world -- and able to proceed on course, even with an occasional stumble.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 28.

It's a Massachusetts tradition that won't be experienced this year -- Thanksgiving Day high school football, in which traditional rivals do battle in games that grow larger than life in the memories of those that played in them.

In Attleboro and North Attleboro, this year's game (originally to be Thursday at Attleboro's Tozier-Cassidy Field) was to be the 100th holiday meeting of the two teams. Instead, the field will be empty and silent thanks to COVID-19 -- and it's not entirely certain if the two longest-tenured rivals in our area will be able to play once the "Fall II" season arrives in March.

I take a look at the reasons why and offer some informed speculation about what may be in store for the two schools' football teams. And I take a look back at the 2018 game, my first holiday outing as a member of the North TV telecasting team (before they gave me the play-by-play job for King Philip sports). While the temperature was never much higher than 10 degrees Fahrenheit and one of our crew's headset and microphone actually malfunctioned because of the cold, it was clear that even Mother Nature on her worst day could not stem the thrills and excitement provided by the North-AHS rivalry.

I also crow with pride over the 5-0 start to the football season for my college alma mater, Northwestern University, and at the other end of the spectrum, I review the Patriots' 27-20 loss in Houston, which may be a turning point in their season -- and not for the better.

The Force will also be with you in this video podcast, but I won't spoil the surprise. 

Enjoy.

It was an ordinary Friday, until ...

Dominican Academy's fifth-grade class that greeted Nov. 22, 1963, as any other day.

Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, was just another school day for me when it began. 

The vinyl passenger seat of my family's new Volkswagen Beetle was cold as I readied for the eight-mile drive to my elementary school in Plainville, Mass. My mother, in the driver's seat, lit up the first of several Parliament cigarettes as we backed down the driveway and turned into Dean Street. There was no radio in the car, so I had to be satisfied with my imagination as we passed the same scenery that we saw every day.

By the time we had traversed Mass. Route 106 past the new Fernandes supermarket and crossed U.S. 1 to reach the back roads that took us to the Catholic elementary school at the top of a hill on School Street, I was often nauseous. Arrival meant blissful relief for my lungs, which had been repeatedly assaulted by second-hand smoke from the multiple cigarettes my mother inhaled during the drive -- not knowing at the time that each cigarette she crushed into the tiny ash tray on the Beetle's dashboard was contributing to the emphysema that would plague her some 40 years later.

The former Dominican Academy in Plainville.

I was in the fifth grade -- my first year in a classroom on the south side of the Dominican Academy building, to the left of the auditorium that dominated the center section of the sprawling one-story building. It was like a rite of passage to be on the on the other side of the auditorium, leaving the wing that was dominated by seeming infants. Even our uniforms reflected our new-found maturity, as the boys traded their clip-on bow-ties for the traditional Windsor knot tie (although mine were still of the clip-on variety).

There were 35 students in our classroom, the full fifth-grade enrollment, the students seated according to their academic rank -- the so-called smart kids at the extreme right of the classroom nearest the wall to the hallway, and the lesser-accomplished students at the far left, where they could peer out the windows and daydream to their hearts' content, as befitting the expectations that the nun teaching the class had for them.

I was seated in the first seat of Row 2, a testimony to my already-developing penchant for underachievement. That meant I was supposedly the eighth-smartest kid in the room, the seven in the first row all having better grade-point averages than I. But it had its advantages; I was able to do anything I wanted with my legs without having to worry about bothering a student in front of me, and I was in a direct line to the 19-inch RCA black-and-white television sitting atop elevated rollers at the front of the room, which was useful for my yet-to-be-diagnosed nearsightedness.

Sister Mary Eugene was not only the teacher, she was also our school's principal. She was elderly and ill-tempered in the same mold as many of our teachers, which led me to create the fantasy that almost all of the faculty were "linebackers in drag," having long left any vestige of femininity behind under the flowing white robes and black cape of the Dominican order. Why this convinced gullible parents that this represented a "better education" than what the local public schools offered is still a mystery to me.

Most of the morning was devoted to dogma, as religious indoctrination was a large part of the Dominican Academy mission. Then came lunch, when we filed past the door to pick up the small milk cartons distributed by upperclassmen and then returned to our seats to consume whatever our parents put in our lunch boxes. Then it was time for reading study, which we had begun sometime after noon. 

At some point, the sound of one student reading his assigned paragraph was interrupted by the sound of the phone ringing across the hall in the principal's office. As Sister Mary Eugene was teaching us, the task of answering the phone fell to the No. 1-ranked student in the class, who was Joanne Hastings. She dutifully leapt from her seat and exited the room to cross the hallway, and at some point, the ringing stopped. Sister Mary Eugene called for the reading to resume, and thus I could not hear the conversation.

But it didn't last long.

Within seconds, it seemed, Joanne Hastings came running back into the classroom. She was crying and tears were streaming down her cheeks as she struggled to shout, "The president's been shot! My mother said the president's been shot!"

Sister Mary Eugene gasped, then after a pause that seemed to last forever, she moved quickly to the television and turned it on in search of confirmation of this horrible news.

For a few seconds, we tried to watch the CBS coverage on a Boston TV channel. But the reception was poor close to the Rhode Island border in those days, so Sister Mary Eugene turned away from the static-obscured face of Walter Cronkite to pick up NBC's coverage on a Providence channel.

Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas.

Gradually, the kids in the class started to understand what had happened. They heard that the president's motorcade in Dallas was turning into something called Dealey Plaza when shots rang out. They heard the reporters say that the president appeared to have been shot in the head. They heard that as the motorcade suddenly sped up, a Secret Service agent jumped onto the presidential limousine from behind to force the First Lady to stop crawling out onto the trunk. And by the time we heard that the limousine had arrived at Parkland Hospital and the president was receiving emergency treatment, many of the students were crying.

Not me, however. I was transfixed by the history unfolding in front of me. I wanted to know every detail. Although only 9 years old at the time (and the youngest member of my class because of my aptitude tests), I knew full well who President John F. Kennedy was -- former Massachusetts senator, youngest president in history, defeated that sweaty guy Nixon in a really close election, and had scared the shit out of me in October of 1962 when he stood toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union over nuclear missiles in Cuba. And now, people had tried to kill him.

JFK and Jackie as the motorcade began.

But Jack Kennedy also was America's first Roman Catholic president, overcoming years of religious discrimination upon his election. And thus, not surprisingly, Sister Mary Eugene almost immediately ordered the class to stand, rosary beads in hand, to pray out loud for God to spare his life.

I was incredulous. I looked at Sister Mary Eugene and pointed to the television and said, "But this is important! This is history! We should be watching it!"

Sister Mary Eugene was incensed. "You will PRAY! You will pray to save the life of our Catholic president," she shouted. 

"We can't help him," I said. "He was shot in the head!"

With speed that would make a linebacker envious, Sister Mary Eugene grabbed the brass-tipped yardstick sitting on her desk and took a windmill swing at me. The yardstick caught me on the pinky of my right hand and opened a gash, the scar from which is still visible today.

The scar, from knuckle up.

She ordered me to stand and start praying, regardless of the blood dripping from my hand. I stood, fighting back tears and mouthing the words of the Hail Marys so I could hear as much of the news reports that I could. Even when the broadcast confirmed that the president had died, Sister Mary Eugene forced her whimpering classroom to continue reciting the prayers for his eternal soul. And I continued to watch the broadcast, seeing the reporters struggle to contain their emotions as they spoke of events that would become a turning point in American history.

Students were kept in school because our parents could not be notified for an early pickup before the regular dismissal time. Most of the members of the fifth grade were huddled together in their usual cliques and whimpering. I remained in my seat, glaring at Sister Mary Eugene and glancing occasionally at the blood-soaked napkin covering my right pinky. Eventually, she took a Band-Aid out from her top desk drawer and told me to put it on the finger. Then she hovered over me menacingly and said, "You don't want for me to tell your parents what a bad Catholic you were, do you?"

I said nothing. Not long afterward, my parents' VW pulled up outside the classroom. I left the classroom through the door to the playground and walked to the car, where I found my father behind the steering wheel. I got in, saying nothing.

"You know what happened today?" he asked me.

"Yup."

"Are you OK? Do you need me to explain anything to you," he asked.

"Nope. Can I watch TV when we get home?"

My father nodded. He knew I would learn more from the television newsmen than he could provide. But then he saw the fresh bandage on my finger with blood already seeping through. 

"What happened there?

I paused. I knew my father. He was a kind and loving man, but he also had a temper that could erupt like a volcano. And if I told him that Sister Mary Eugene had assaulted me with a brass-tipped yardstick because I wanted to know what happened to the President of the United States, he would have flown into a rage that, fueled by the events of the day, might have gotten out of control.

"Cut it on the desk," I said. He nodded and we drove home in silence. 

I didn't tell my parents of the real reason for the cut on my pinky for nearly 40 years.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

I had a "Karen" moment today, although my Karen was actually a male.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while filling icebags to combat the continuing pain in my surgically-repaired knee:

** There are times when I wish I thought quicker on my feet, as it were. Often, opportunities arise in my life in which I realize later that I should have dome something as a counter to an aggravating situation, and had I just been thinking, I could have done it and felt a lot better about myself afterward. 

Here's one such situation, in which I found myself the target of a "Karen-like" situation.

Earlier today, I had just gotten out of a physical therapy session for my knee, which is still hurting like hell even though the surgery took place on Aug. 11. To cheer myself up, I stopped at the new Patriot Place Starbucks for an egg nog latte, and then headed back to to my home in the neighboring town of Mansfield. Once I was on the divided portion of Route 140, I stopped at the Forbes Boulevard light and turned left, onto the new rotary and then to Copeland Drive, where I needed to make a stop at the post office.

Immediately upon making the turn onto Copeland Drive, I noticed in the rear-view mirror that there’s a white Buick sedan that's practically riding up onto my trunk. In the rear view mirror, I could see the driver is gesturing wildly at me. So after I pass the new pre-school on the left, I looked at my speedometer and it said 36 … 4 miles per hour below the limit at that point on the highway, but the speed goes down to 30 less than a half-mile later, by the time you get to Giles Place, where the post office is located. So I pay the gesturing soul no mind, slow down legally, put on the signal for a right turn and I turn … first into Giles Place and then into the parking lot of the post office. 

The Buick follows me in.

Suspecting something was awry, I stayed in the car as the guy raced into the post office. He’s about 5-foot-2, and he seems to be channeling his inner Little Stevie Van Zandt, including the do-rag on what I suspect was a bald head. And he’s eyeballing me, so I let him go his way.

These days, given the knee soreness, it takes me longer than usual to exit my car. By the time I make it to my feet and the left knee stops wobbling, the impatient Buick driver was walking past my car and started mouthing off at me, as if he wants a confrontation. But when I stepped from behind the door and he realized I’m almost a foot taller than he is, he started moving quickly toward his car, which was parked nearer to the street. 

All the while, he kept blathering about cameras, and insurance, and God knows what, so I turned to him and said in my best lower-octave voice, “What is your problem?” By this time he was standing next to his car and stayed there, but he continues to yell at me -- about me going 30 in a 40 zone (as I said, I was going 36) and slamming on my brakes (I signaled and decelerated safely before turning into Giles Place), and then he said he has a camera in his car and he’s going to “report me to insurance.” 

Whatever that means. Given that I currently get the largest-possible safe-driver discount from my insurance company, I'd think my agents would be rather pleased.

Now, I'm not particularly proud of myself for this part. Again, this is where I wish I reacted faster. This was classic "Karen" behavior -- you've seen the videos where deranged individuals harangue unsuspecting or undeserving people for perceived slights, and those videos go viral on the Internet as just another example of how fucked up our society has become in the Donald Trump Era -- and yes, I don't doubt for a minute that my runty accuser was MAGA through and through.

But I didn't grab for my phone -- even though it was in easy reach, clipped to the front of my fleece jacket as it was. Instead, I allowed my baser instincts to take over. As he got in his car, still muttering about how cars come with cameras, I mustered my best baritone and said, in a tone both annoyed and dismissive, “Go fuck yourself.”

As I said, I'm not proud of that. But I swear I will learn from it. I will train myself to whip out the iPhone, and I promise I'll use every media source at my disposal to shame the next reprobate that wants to act threatening toward me just because I was driving safely. 

And to be honest, Little Stevie's behavior makes me wonder about something -- the fact that there's a new school and an urgent care clinic (frequented by seniors, in fact) on that street, and yet the Buick bomber was pissed that I was going 36 mph? What did he want to do, go 60? And where the hell are cops when you need them?

"What a maroon," as Bugs Bunny would say.

** The MIAA Board of Directors should have the winter sports recommendations from the association's COVID-19 task force as I am typing this, and from what I have heard, they're not radical departures from the norm at least where the sports themselves are concerned.

I'm hearing there will be some minor changes in out-of-bounds plays and jump balls where basketball is concerned, and maybe even a mask-replacement break in each quarter for basketball (and yes, everyone will be wearing masks). I'm also hearing that checking is being preserved in boys' hockey, although the referees will be quick to stop multi-player scrums against the boards.

My guess is that there will be a much later start to the season -- possibly mid-December for practice, and no games until the new year. That will make for a much shorter season, although that's mostly speculation on my part.

We should hear the changes next week. Sad, too, because it should have been the start of preparation for the Thanksgiving football rivalries.

All I can say is that we should all hope for the best -- and do our best to bring those COVID infection rates down by wearing masks and observing social distancing.

The Owner's Box, Ep. 29.

Foxboro High coach Lisa Downs, left, instructs the troops.

The OG is back in your podcasting memory banks with a 54-minute look at the delay in approving a winter high school sports season for Massachusetts.

Foxboro High girls' basketball coach Lisa Downs guests for the fourth time, this time expressing her thoughts about the delay in the MIAA's approval process that would pave the way for basketball, hockey and indoor track to be competed this winter. Much of her concern is about her athletes, who already lost a state-championship game back in March due to the initial coronavirus lockdown. The veteran coach believes that another shutdown could have a lasting effect upon the young athletes for whom the competition and camaraderie of sports play such large roles in their lives.

And with the holiday season approaching, Lisa and I talk about her work with the Foxboro Discretionary Fund, which oversees the town's holiday gift drive for children of needy families, as well as the local food pantry -- very important for those that have been negatively impacted by this 38-week-long pandemic.

Half of the interview is also available on the video cousin of this podcast, "The Owner's Box After Dark," which is available on YouTube (just search the title or look for a link elsewhere on this page). But we had a lot to talk about -- it's been six months since her last appearance on the podcast -- and I think you'll enjoy the extended version as well.

Enjoy!

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 27.

It's another double-podcasting day, and it's timely, too.

Foxboro High School girls' basketball coach Lisa Downs makes her first visit to the "After Dark" platform, as we discuss the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the quest to crank up a winter sports season in Massachusetts. Downs, the coach of the defending Division 2 state-champion Warriors, shares her concerns about the lengthy process to get a season approved by the MIAA, and the pitfalls it may face as the COVID-19 pandemic begins its 38th week. She also talks about the concerns she has for her student-athletes' well-being if they are denied another high school sports season.

The conversation lasts about 25 minutes, but we had a lot to talk about, so it continues on for another 25 in Episode 29 of the audio-only The Owner's Box podcast, due out later Tuesday.

After the break, I delve into the Patriots' stunning upset win over the Baltimore Ravens at rainy Gillette Stadium. And I even offer a few tips about how to make a decent Chicago-style deep-dish pizza at home. It's all yours for just a click on the box below. And keep an eye out for the new episode of The Owner's Box, coming shortly to a podcast-receiving device near you.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 26.

The fact that the thumbnail view of this episode shows Rex Burkhead's hairy underarms is an indication that I take a kinder, gentler approach to the podcast today. Our long national nightmare is over, so I can get back to putting the Patriots back at the top, taking a quick look at their win over the Jets.

I also offer an update about the wait to see if winter high school sports will get the go-ahead in Massachusetts, and I also touch upon a myriad of topics -- including the decision of the Red Sox to bring back Alex Cora as their manager. Writer Maureen Mullen and I predicted as much back in September, and I pull out a clip from Episode 16 to prove that. 

All that, a 17-year-old Bud Light commercial that never saw the light of day in the U.S., and I talk about the Joy of Clam Cakes. And yeah, I do celebrate the final state projections in the presidential election. What better way to you have to spend the next 47 minutes?

Enjoy.

Hockomock League in Biden's corner.

 

The next President (Joe Biden) and Vice President (Kamala Harris).

I delved a little bit into the statistics surrounding our finally-decided national election, and was pleased to discover that the Hockomock League was solidly in the corner of the winning ticket.

The 14 communities that make up the league's 12 member high schools all voted for President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, and here's the breakdown:

Kelley-Rex Division: Attleboro, 58.2 percent; Franklin, 61.7; King Philip Regional -- Wrentham, 54.8; Plainville, 54.9; Norfolk, 60.2; Mansfield, 62.4; Milford, 60.0; Taunton, 56.0.

Davenport Division: Canton, 63.8 percent; Foxboro, 59.5; Oliver Ames (Easton), 60.1; North Attleboro, 55.7; Sharon, 75.8; Stoughton 65.6.

I'm also proud to report that of the 20 communities of Bristol County, of which 14 voted for the Biden-Harris ticket, Mansfield had the highest percentage, ahead of New Bedford (61.0) and Easton.

Massachusetts, of course, had the second-highest Biden-Harris percentage in the nation (65.6 percent), trailing Vermont (66.7) and ahead of California (64.7), Hawaii (63.7) and Maryland (63.3). But the District of Columbia blew them all away, turning in a 93.3-percent voting ratio for the next President and Vice President.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 25.

I don't mind telling you, I was exhausted -- mostly with the election process -- as I committed this episode of "After Dark" to digital history Friday night. The wait for Joe Biden's election as President of the United States was excruciating, and that's what I wanted to express as it continued.

Fortunately, as of noon today, that wait is over. The country has given itself a chance for redemption, and celebrations are the order of the day.

Beyond the election-related material, I also delivered the good news that the state's winter-season athletes got the green light to begin planning for their games after the state agency heading the COVID-19 battle opened the door for the seasons to begin -- with restrictions, of course. I offered analysis of the early details.

The sun is out and it's a nice day, and I'm feeling a lot better today. So should we all. Enjoy my podcast.

The Owner's Box, Ep. 28

Long may it wave, and may it fly proudly after tomorrow's exercise in democracy.

The original and best is back ... The Owner's Box, the franchise that launched a thousand podcasts (or really just 52 at this point).

For our Election Special, I detail every single reason why I marked my election ballot as I did -- going back as far as the demise of the USFL, to many of the important issues facing our society today. And while it's pretty clear in which direction I lean, I repeat frequently that the most important thing for all Americans to do is to go out and vote. Vote your conscience and don't let anyone try to prevent you from doing so.

As that content is shared with Episode 24 of the video production "The Owner's Box After Dark," I also gave you something unique -- a breakdown of the obstacles that may be facing the MIAA and Massachusetts student-athletes as they hope that they can resume their sports in the upcoming winter season. 

Both topics are timely and not thrown out there in a cavalier manner. Please give them a serious listen. 

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 24.

The first of our twin podcasts is ready to be viewed -- just in time to help those last, lonely undecided voters make up their minds about tomorrow's presidential election.

This episode takes on a serious tone at first, but we do lighten it up a little ... oh, wait, the Patriots lost! Well, maybe it doesn't get lighter in content, but the tone is different. And remember what I said -- this episode of "After Dark" shares content with the soon-to-arrive 28th episode of "The Owner's Box," my OG of podcasts (yes, that's audio only), but the second half of both podcasts is different and unique material.

That's how I keep you coming back. 

I have but one regret for this episode of "After Dark," however. Hugh Hefner's trademark pipe took the evening off. It shall return soon, we promise.

Enjoy.

Two podcasts coming tonight.

We put podcasting into overdrive, with two due today.

The empire that is “The Owner’s Box” is taking another step to world media dominance tonight, as I present my pre-election editions of “The Owner’s Box” (audio) and “The Owner’s Box After Dark” (video) to the public.

This will be the first “crossover” edition of the two podcasts. They will both have a segment on the election and my thoughts about why I voted the way I did — and yes, I completed my mail-in ballot the second I received it and had it in the post office’s bin by the afternoon. But both will also have fresh, new content that’s specific to the individual podcasts.

The audio version will be Episode 28 of the series, and the second episode of the “new” season. It will be available on many of the popular podcasting platforms including Google Play, Apple Podcasts and iHeartRadio.com. The video version will be Episode 24 of the “After Dark” series, and is hosted by YouTube. Neither costs a cent to watch or hear, and after you watch or listen to the first one, you can skip over 18 minutes in the middle of the second.

Watch or listen, and learn. “The Owner’s Box” knows and tells all. I expect both episodes to drop around 6 p.m., depending how motivated I am after getting home from a morning at the auto repair shop.