Pop Culture – The Shorts

Speed

I just watched Speed for the 45th time. Maybe it was the 46th, or perhaps the 47th. It’s in the late 40s for sure.

Michael Jordan Wheaties Poster

I spent the last week or so rewatching the Last Dance, the ultimate documentary chronicling the history of Michael Jordan’s Bulls. It’s easily the greatest piece of basketball nostalgia for my generation. So much so that it got me thinking back to my childhood and the Michael Jordan paraphernalia that I owned, but was lost to time. I didn’t have a lot, a few cards, magazines, and collector’s cups. Oddly, the most significant piece of memorabilia that sticks out is a poster that came with a box of Wheaties. It was one of a set of three that made one big poster if you had them all. My mother bought several boxes of Wheaties while these posters were included, but I always kept pulling the same one of Jordan shooting a free throw on one side and his torso on the other side, so I was never able to complete the set. The good news is that I was able to easily track them down on eBay.

Tiger

Author’s Note: I wrote this piece months ago, had it edited, scrapped most of it, then rewrote it. I had planned on posting it during Masters Week, but Tiger wasn’t playing and it felt less important, so I’m just posting it now.

Almost all of my memories of watching Tiger Woods include my dad. Like a lot of people I know, I didn’t have any interest in golf before Tiger turned pro in 1996. Any golf highlights I saw were mostly seen on SportsCenter between the baseball highlights I was actually interested in. I also had no plans on starting to watch golf until he hit the mainstream. And in only his fourth professional tournament, Tiger came to play the B.C. Open¹, a now-defunct PGA Tour event in Endicott, NY. This was a stone’s throw from my hometown of Vestal. My family owned and operated a landscaping business at that time and were sponsors of the tournament, which meant my dad was able to get tickets.

Harrison Ford Blockbuster Run 1980-1984

On the blockbuster run of Harrison Ford.

I love researching filmographies. I can go down a rabbit hole on IMDB.com and forget what I originally went to look for in the first place. Usually, I think of an actor and dive into their film history to find their best string of hit movies. I’ve written about this before on consecutive runs of Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks, two of the all-timers. Recently, I found myself on Harrison Ford’s page and gazed upon what is probably the greatest blockbuster run of all time. Continue reading “Harrison Ford Blockbuster Run 1980-1984”

Top 5 Baseball Movies

Back in December, I committed to the following list of favorite baseball movies on Twitter:

This list came with a caveat that it changes frequently. But, I wondered if there was a semi-scientific way to determine what the actual order would be, so I decided to rank them based on the following categories: Continue reading “Top 5 Baseball Movies”