A City’s Downtown is Its Heart, Image, and Lifeblood

A City’s Downtown is Its Heart, Image, and Lifeblood

Even in a small town—or, maybe, especially in a small town—downtown becomes a focal point of life. I grew up on the town limits of such a place and, even so, downtown was only a short, safe bike ride away. It had everything a boy needed: a couple of drug stores with...

Mayfield Memorandum 3: The Good, the Bad, the Punter

During the past season plus one game, the Cleveland Browns have cleared many of the hurdles that for years had tripped them and prevented them from becoming respectable. They have made quantum leaps—but only over the lowest hurdles. The last hurdles are high. They...

Can’t Auction Off Pinball Memories Along with Machines

Men of a certain age—middle to dotage—have been known to attempt to turn back their clocks with fast cars, faster women, and even pinball machines with fast flippers. Fast cars can kill a man. Faster women can make him wish he were dead. So except for one small...

Mayfield Memorandum 2: Catchy Spotlight Question

When skill players want the football in their hands, inevitably some ninny will inquire: Are there enough footballs to go around? As if Wilson is going to run short. (The NFL version is made in Ada, Ohio, of course. Everything NFL seems to come back to Ohio. We are...
Not Always an Angel, Doyle Baird Punched Like the Devil

Not Always an Angel, Doyle Baird Punched Like the Devil

pound4pound.com Photo Doyle Baird (left) guides one of the fighters he helped through the years When Doyle Baird was young, Akron was a tough rubber town, a fight town. Tire builders still stretched the rubber that became the carcasses onto their machines with their...
Best Sooners Ever—Sliced, Diced, and Okie Covered

Best Sooners Ever—Sliced, Diced, and Okie Covered

sooner sports.com photo Don Ursetti always has done his homework and stored it for instant recall in what must be a brain as deep as the Grand Canyon and as wide as the Mississippi River. That, or this all-Akron sports broadcaster has had Google surgically implanted....