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I hope you are old enough to remember the names of some famous Yankees – Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, and Joe Dimaggio. Now imagine that Phil Rizzuto is your next door neighbor. Imagine as a 7-year-old that Phil Rizzuto would take you to the Yankee games and you would ride home with him and Yogi and “Joltin’ Joe”. That is exactly how the childhood of Lafayette grad Mark Holtzman was spent.
Now imagine that as a 1980 graduate you worked for sports agency, ProServ, went on to Reebok, the NFL, and finally fulfilled your lifelong dream of working for the Yankees. Yup, that happened to Mark Holtzman, too.
I interviewed Mark this past Thursday on Primetime Pards. Trust me; he has plenty of stories with a great deal of name-dropping, claiming to always be in the right place at the right time. I think he also possessed a great deal of marketing skills. You be the judge:
ABOVE THE EARS (SOME MUSINGS)
- The Phillies had three consecutive “walk-off” wins this week and one was against the Yankees. The Phillies win on Saturday was before a crowd of 38,450, the largest since 2019. Many Yankee fans went home disappointed especially after tying the game in the ninth inning with a 3-run home run. The Phils beat the Yanks again on Sunday taking the series.
- The 76ers have enticed me to watch their NBA games from the opening tip-off. It has been a long, long time since that has occurred. They play defense, share the ball, and are coached to take advantage of the other team’s weaknesses. In a nutshell, that is the way basketball should be played. I expect them to win the Atlanta series and face the Brooklyn Nets next. I will be watching!
- Being an American sports fan, I discovered, to my amazement, that the top two most Google searched sports were Soccer (39%) and Cricket (8%). Basketball, football, and golf rounded out the top five, but those three only accounted for a total of 20% of the searches. What???
- Congratulations to the Central Catholic Viking lacrosse team for being the first District XI team to capture a PIAA state title. On Saturday, they beat undefeated Mars by a 14-5 score to win the AA championship. Central outscored their opponents in the state playoffs 65-18 and finished with a 23-1 record.
- This week features our first Blue Mountain League Game of the Week. The games will be on Tuesday nights LIVE at 6:00pm. The McDonald’s All-Star Football Classic is on tap Thursday, June 17, at Nazareth’s Andrew Leh Stadium. We will have the game on a tape-delayed basis at 10:00pm. Support a great cause and get out to the game.
