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6 days ago | 
jmoreliving.com | Michael Olesker
That was a lovely crowd gathered the other day to bid farewell to Jim Henneman, who left us, at 89, after covering every sport around here — except maybe quoits — from the dawning of the Kennedy White House years until recently. He covered the Orioles for so long, and so well, that the ball club named the press box at Camden Yards after him.
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2 weeks ago | 
jmoreliving.com | Michael Olesker
On this Memorial Day Weekend, I’m thinking about my old friend Joe Nawrozki, who got cheated when he came home from his war. Joe never phrased it that way, but I will. He was one of the thousands who served in Vietnam and came home to a country that gave him the cold shoulder instead of the warm embrace. There were no cheering crowds for Vietnam vets. At best, there was indifference; at worst, there was blame for a hideous war that was out of their control.
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3 weeks ago | 
jmoreliving.com | Michael Olesker
With thousands gathering for this weekend’s 150th running of the Preakness Stakes, I thought I’d drive past Pimlico Race Course and keep on going along lower Park Heights Avenue. No crowds were gathered on Park Heights, but there’s been plenty of running. The running has been going on for about 60 years. It’s running from, not running to.
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3 weeks ago | 
jmoreliving.com | Michael Olesker
So where do we go for leadership and smarts and the fullest understanding of Baltimore historic nuance now that Bob Embry’s walking out the door at the Abell Foundation? Nobody’s irreplaceable, but Embry’s pretty close. Without a lot of fanfare, he’s been the brains and the moving force behind some of Baltimore’s grandest triumphs, from the dawning of the William Donald Schaefer mayoral renaissance years to the education of a young Brandon Scott.
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1 month ago | 
baltimorepostexaminer.com | Michael Olesker
Baltimore – Eighty years ago this week, the organized killing ended in Europe and the boys began packing their bags to come home. My father was one of them. He was stationed in Foggia, Italy, with the U.S. Army Air Force. Years after the war ended, I asked him what he did on VE Day. “Volunteered to go to the Pacific,” he said. The war wasn’t over yet, no matter what President Donald Trump imagines. My father got lucky.
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1 month ago | 
jmoreliving.com | Michael Olesker
On the evening of May 4, 1964, when I turned 19 years old, I began to dread turning 30. I didn’t want to leave all my dreading for the last minute, like some kid who knows he’s got a history exam somewhere down the road but waits until the last night to cram in every nuance of the Battle of Hastings. So I had an 11-year dread of turning 30. Now, as I turn 80, I’ve given up lamenting the passing of time for sheer wonder at its relentlessness. How can I possibly be 80? There must have been a miscount.
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1 month ago | 
jmoreliving.com | Michael Olesker
It’s the distinction of my generation of Baltimore baseball fans that we’ve been watching our Orioles since the very beginning of time — April of 1954. In other words, we’ve witnessed the entire history of the “modern” Orioles, through good times and bad. So it behooves at least one of us, with our sense of history and perspective, to officially declare the following:This is the single most disappointing start to a season in Baltimore Orioles history.
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1 month ago | 
jmoreliving.com | Michael Olesker
When George L. Russell Jr. left us the other day, I had one immediate thought: he not only arrived in this world too soon but, at 96, he also departed too soon. To the end of his life, he remained a man of remarkable personal history, legal brilliance, leadership and dignity, and a desire to help heal a city along its ever-festering racial divide. We could use such a man today. But Russell, for all his skills, arrived too soon to change the course of Baltimore history.
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1 month ago | 
jmoreliving.com | Michael Olesker
On the evening of Jan. 18, 2013, Earl Weaver had dinner aboard the Celebrity Silhouette cruise ship for the “Original Baltimore Baseball Cruise,” comforted to have a bunch of his old ballplayers with him. They were there to reminisce, make a little extra cash and socialize with fans. Also, as it turned out, he was there to bid farewell. Rising from the dinner table, Weaver told his old lefty pitching ace Scott McGregor he didn’t feel well and was heading for bed.
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1 month ago | 
jmoreliving.com | Michael Olesker
Every minority adds the richest, juiciest pieces of its tribal culture to the great American mix. That’s what keeps this country so fresh and alive. And if you don’t believe that, you’re in the wrong place, pal. Once in a while, we get individuals who add more than a sliver to the nation’s vitality.
