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What a Thursday night NFL game that was
I didn’t watch a single down from that 6-3 Seahawks win over the Bears. It was Mrs. Screencaps’ night to control the TV after the FOUR HOUR & forty-three-minute Toledo Rockets game.
Yes, I’m happy MY Toledo Rockets won a bowl game society has already forgotten about, but I’m not happy with how these coaches operate not to lose games. I think it was Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi who had a chance to go for a touchdown and the win from the two-yard-line. He kicks the field goal and then, based on how the new OT rules work, his offense went right back out and had to take the ball at the 3 and had to go for a two-point conversion.
WHAT?
Just go for it, Pat! You were a yard closer with a chance to win the game in the house where Big Balls Dan Campbell goes for it on 4th & 3 from his own 25.
Narduzzi loses and then reportedly doesn’t shake hands with Jason Candle, who isn’t exactly the biggest asshole in college football.
Pat only has himself to blame here. You could’ve gone for it like a man.
Then, the NFL followed that up with a game that featured ZERO points in the second half.
Woof.
How’s the Caleb Williams experience going for Bears fans?
– John from SD emails:
Congrats on your Rockets, glad they were able to pull off the win. Was hoping for another MAC win with Bowling Green, too many mistakes.
Kinsey:
It’s always a great way to end the season when Toledo wins and Bowling Green loses, especially after sitting through this year’s BG-Toledo game with Screencaps Jr. where MY Rockets were destroyed by the turd streaks.
Now it’s time to turn my attention to MAC basketball. Did you know Toledo hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1980?
It’s true.
Do non-CFP bowl games matter?
– Rick R. hit me with a question last night after the Rockets game:
You wanna talk about a gut spill of a game between Toledo vs Pitt. These boys went to battle today. I must say that this game blew away what I saw in the CFP contests. Fights, OTs and emotions on the gas pedal with these 7-5 squads.
A classic if I’ve ever seen one.
I hope my caps community had an amazing Christmas and I’m sure we are all stoked for what’s coming our way in 2025. God bless and love to all.
Kinsey:
YES. YES. YES. YES…based on the current format the CFP is using to determine who makes the playoff.
Building buzz around a team creates NIL money (hopefully), which then attracts talent to programs that have some cash and a chance to make the playoff. Toledo beats an ACC team, they immediately go to boosters and say we need a couple of players to compete for a MAC title to give ourselves a shot at the CFP.
Some booster starts throwing around money and you have a shot. Before the CFP, you had no shot. Suddenly, these bowl games that society has forgotten do have meaning inside these programs, if the athletic directors can find people willing to throw around money to keep the program competitive.
Here’s a real intellectual challenge for Vivek: The current state of travel ball and how it’s destroying America & putting our boys (and our travel softball girls) behind the Indian engineers
Have you ever seen a team full of Indian boys playing for a plastic ring five hours from home over a long June weekend? If so, I want to hear about it.
Email: joekinsey@gmail.com
Fewer weekends in Louisville Hampton Inns, folks.
I loved hearing all the Battery Daddy stories over the last few days
I heard from Sam in my neighborhood who raved about the Battery Daddy he received. He couldn’t believe the Battery Daddy included a battery tester. My father-in-law, who is a retired lead HVAC engineer at a nuclear power plant, didn’t know he needed a Battery Daddy until he received one from us this year.
It’s the gift that just keeps giving. #Notsponsored
– Dillion in North Dakota writes:
Hey Joe merry late Christmas. We’re on the last leg of the ND Christmas tour of 2024. We avoided “no travel advisories” twice now by a day and should have decent roads for the last 290 miles back home on Friday.
Had a pretty good haul of Christmas gifts this year including 3 packs of socks. Pretty sure I can make it til next year with that re-supply. Had to snag a picture of my dad with his Battery Daddy from a couple years ago. He absolutely loves it and had to talk it up while he put batteries into the new Christmas gifts.
Hope you had a merry Christmas and a have a happy new year.
Sports memorabilia rarities owned by Screencaps readers
– This subject was right in Derick B. in Olmstead Falls’ wheelhouse:
Big fan of the screencaps – keep up the great work! I have a replica heavyweight championship belt from Rocky 4 – our son worked for a wrestling apparel company in Marysville, OH that had a licensing agreement with the Rocky movie franchise, and was given the belt at the time they signed it.
Once the promotion ended, the company was no longer using the belt in their marketing, and my being a huge Rocky fan I asked my son if I could take a picture wearing it. We were able to complete that, and I didn’t think much about it again. Come Christmas 2022, his boss knew I really liked it so they gave it up and he was able to give to me for Christmas! Maybe the best Christmas present ever!
Thanks – will continue to enjoy your work!
– Matt W. emails:
I’m originally from Ohio and in 1986 was invited to help park cars at the Wooster Country Club for a benefit golf outing for Dick Schafrath. After everyone arrived we were able to walk around and get autographs from those in attendance. At the time it was a thrill to meet both Woody Hayes (wheelchair) and Floyd Patterson (I shook his hand and he had a monstrous hand)
I’ve carried this visor around to 5 different states over the past 38+ years. It is my oldest and rarest collectible.
Bob Feller
Woody Hayes
Floyd Patterson
Paul Warfield
Marion Motley
Ken Blair
Dick Schafrath
Greg Pruitt
And a few others…
– Jon C. shares:
In the late 90s I was flying home from Atlanta after taking the oral portion of my medical specialty board. Sitting one row behind me was Coach Eddie Robinson of the Grambling Tigers. The only thing I had available was a board review book which Coach happily signed on the inside cover page.
Side note, you can easily skip the Netflix commercials, just start watching the game about an hour or so after kickoff. Then fast forward during breaks. Learned this trick when LSU had an 1100 or 1430 kickoff, DVR the game, get an appropriate tee time, play a round of golf in about 2 hours because everyone was at the game or in the clubhouse watching, go home, fast forward during breaks and catch up to the live event in the 4th quarter.
‘How should I display these 1980 Miracle on Ice hockey sticks from Buzzy Schneider?’
– PK from St. Paul has a challenge for Screencaps readers:
Love your column and I thought I could chime in on a unique collectible and ask for some reader advice on how best to display said item. A little background, my Uncle was friends with the Trainer/Doctor of the 1980 Olympic Hockey team and he was able to secure 2 sticks from Buzzy Schneider – a game used and an unused/non-taped game stick. We always told people that yhe game used stick was thebone he used to score against the Russians. Buzzy refuted that was the one he used against the Russians but did use it in the Olympics when I was able to secure his autograph on the sticks. It made for a good story in the neighborhood for a long time.
They would have been trashed had either my brother or myself shot lefty but as such they have been in a hockey stick bag for the past 40 years – undisplayed.
So I ask of the Kinsey readers, how should they be displayed.
Kinsey:
One of you specializes in hockey man cave decorations. Help out PK on this one.
Email: joekinsey@gmail.com
Cleaning the streets of Cadiz, Spain
Mike T. in Idaho clearly understands the mission of Screencaps and my desire to see the unique in the world, instead of the same old tourist photos. I want to see the golf cart full of beer kegs being driven around Cadiz and I want to see how they clean the narrow alleys.
It turns out there’s a mini street cleaner for that job.
Screencaps readers who owned the G.I. Joe USS Flagg: If only you never opened the box, you’d have a real collector’s item right now
– Bradon C. in Pinckney, MI shares:
I was a huge GI Joe kid (born 1978, so I was in the sweetest spot for the action figure – cartoon boom of the 1980s). I had so many gi joe action figures, and honestly it was a great buy most of the time- ~$3 per action figure and you got the action figure, the accessories, and the all important file card on the back of the box with the character’s backstory. Bought a Rolodex one year with my Xmas money so I could keep all the file cards organized.
Anyway, so it’s 1985, and we usually have this giant Xmas Eve party at my mom and Dad’s house. Both sides of the family were Polish 2nd-3rd generation immigrants who all grew up in Hamtramck, so having separate parties for in laws wasn’t a thought. Everybody came to my mom and Dad’s on Xmas eve, and then scattered to their own houses / other relatives on Xmas day, but even then most everybody ended up at my mom’s parents house by Xmas day dinner since they had 6 kida, were central to all the cousins and aunts/uncles, and my Grandma Danuta could cook for an army like nobody’s business.
On Xmas eve though, my dad would pay one of the cousins or uncles to dress as Santa Claus and after dinner, Santa would come in through the porch door, give a present to each kid, take photos with all the family sets, the retire to the garage to get dressed and the liquored up at the bar my dad always tended in the basement. (We lived in a at-the-time upper middle class suburb of Detroit, but you can’t take the Hamtramck out of the Pole.. basement bars with those 6′ x 2′ folding tables for everyone to sit at were the standard). The trick was after Santa left, the parents would give out the rest of the toys to the kids in the mid-floor family room (typical late 70s quad level). In ’85, all the presents were handed out but then my dad wanting to make a splash, gets my uncle to go down in the basement and help him bring up the Flagg. It was wrapped and he kept it hidden from me *and* my mom (it was hidden in his basement took room where the power tools and Dad’s playboy collection were stashed, so mom never went in there). All I remember is that the box was HUGE. Biggest than any toy box I’ve ever seen. Pops puts it down in front of me and I tear it open. I see the GI Joe logo on the box and probably passed my first kidney stone. The rest of the box gets unveiled and there’s silence then a giant chorus of hosannas ring out. I’ve never been so happier in my life. My dad is beaming, my mom is just mouth open shocked, my sister (2 years younger) is unaware what’s going on because she got a cabbage patch doll. My neighbor cousin from two doors down the street is jumping up and down, because he knew that whatever I got, he got to play with also.
We had to drag it back down to the basement and I studied the entire box, every detail was crammed in my skull. Couldn’t open it until we got back from my grandma’s the next day, but if I could slept next to it I would have.
When we finally got around to unpacking it, it was massive. My dad actually prepped and built a plywood platform for it to get mounted to. Took him about 3-4 hours to finally assemble it, but when it was done, holy shit balls it was amazing. I played with that toy until I was 12 or 13 years old. We finally disassembled it in ’91 or ’92. My dad thought, being the brilliant guy he was, made sure the pieces were boxed up for storage, including all the accessories and stores it for me in the family rental storage shed next to his X-ray racks. “Your kids are going to want this someday”.
Throughout college I always talked about wanting to build my basement bar out of the aircraft carrier, but I move to Ohio, get married, my dad dies in 2012, and I finally move back to Michigan in 2015 when my job changes from USAF civilian to contractor. Build what I thought was going to be my pine box house and my mom brings over all the aircraft carrier pieces. My kids at this point are 6, 3, and 1.
One day I finally take the plunge and reassemble the Flagg in my basement for the kids to play with. My kids have no idea what Gi Joe is, but they start putting their Star Wars, Paw Patrol, and other action figures all over it and get a good 2 years of playtime with it.
Because of Covid induced TDS in the neighborhood, we sell the custom house and move up north of Ann Arbor to the more rural, lake filled area- slightly smaller, older house. I dissemble the Flagg and box it up with the thought my middle son and maybe youngest daughter will want to play with it, but they show no interest, so it sits in basement storage.
Last year I make the tough decision to sell the Flagg. I look online and get a couple bids from online toy collectors and end up selling all my old GI Joe’s, Star Wars, and Transformers action figures in a single lot sale, including the Flagg. I get a pretty handsome payment, shopping is all taken care of by the buyer, and I package it up and send it out the door to a UPS drop off store, saluting it on the way out.
I never got my bar out of it, but the memories will last my lifetime, and my two older ones will remember it too probably. Hopefully someone else bought it with some pants of nostalgia and get some enjoyment out of it as well, even if just looking at it. The money I got went divided to each kids college fund, and while Dad paid $100 in 1985 dollars for that from Toys R Us, I ended up with a nice multiple of that from the sale. But My Lord…. That toy was the greatest toy ever created and probably will never be topped for sheer excitement, fun, and status symbol over your friends. Just kidding, I wasnt some dickhead kid who only horded HIS toys, I had all the kids over from the neighborhood and we brought our Skystrikers and Cobra A-10s and helicopters and inverted wing next gen GI Joe fighter aircraft and Shark submarine / aircraft and x-wings and would be in my basement for 2 hours setting up the battles, then play for and hour before the kids had to go home.
But the thing I remember the most and will remember is the pride my Dad had on his face, and the fun we had together, watching him build it out, superstructures piece by landing deck by tower, and him explaining how each piece and device worked. Thought I might be betraying him when I sold it, but like he always said “take care of this stuff son. It might be worth something someday”. And it was dad- just not the value of the check I got from the toy dealer in Iowa, something much more valuable.
Screencaps readers who buy Valentine’s Day candy for Christmas
– Rod in Freeport, IL admits:
Saw the post of did I buy Valentines Day candy for Christmas. After working retail for nearly 20 years, I have to answer, you’re damned right I did. That box of Russell Stover’s was just wrapped in Valentine’s paper, and I would unwrap it and take it to Christmas. As a retailer, you would start receiving your holiday candy nearly 3 months before the actual holiday, so that Valentines candy was the best in the store.
Always a hit at how I had the freshest tasting candy.
As for respecting the holidays, in retail, you just can’t anymore. The stuff starts rolling in 3-4 months before the actual day, and it comes in pallets at a time. The backrooms are miniscule any more, so you cant keep it in the back without crippling the operations of the store. As the current holiday sells out, it isn’t getting replenished, and empty shelves don’t sell products. So you get product to the floor and keep your tiny back room clear so you can function on a daily basis. People complain, but the stores really don’t have a choice as 75% of the building is retail floor space.
And places like Hobby Lobby, that is part of their business plan to have Christmas out in July because craft people are making products for the winter already. It was frustrating and crazy, but gross margins and sales numbers for bonuses mattered, and every dollar would count. Have a great New Year’s and keep it up.
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That’s it for this Friday morning. I made it pretty much to the end of the week. These holiday weeks are no joke. From working Christmas Eve, to sneaking away on Christmas morning to make sure Screencaps loaded correctly, it’s an adventure while trying to have family time.
But, we made it through another one.
Next week will present even more challenges. I’ll be in charge of OutKick from 9-5 on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day and that will include Screencaps from 6 to 9 a.m.
We can do it. We will survive. You guys are going to help by sending in great emails and we’re going to have some fun.
Now go have a great weekend.
Email: joekinsey@gmail.com
