Hey Driver | City Reliquary Museum | Roman Empire | YouTube Rabbithole
Hey @YouTheReader,
Today’s tune is Hey Driver by Zach Bryan and The War & Treaty. If you’ve been reading Week to Week Notes for a minute now, you’ve probably read me write a ton about ZB… The War & Treaty is a husband & wife duo of Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter.
They started making music together in ‘14. This past year, they received their first GRAMMY nominations for Best New Artists and Best American Roots Song. Their song that got nominated was Blank Page. As you know, I’m a huge fan of duets so maybe we’ll put that song on in the background this spring. This power couple has a ton of potential and I’m sure will receive more GRAMMY recognition in the future. As The Tennessean wrote, “They are unlike any other act in music.” Not only have they collaborated with the best country artist in music today, but they also headline their own shows and open up for legends such as Al Green, Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, John Legend, Lauren Daigle, and Van Morrison. A duet on the rise, with great voices.
Big fan of intros like this when it just sounds like they’re playing around in the studio. It makes it feel like it was done in 1 take, which it might have, who knows?
North Carolina and Tennessee share the Cherohala Skyway, one of the windiest roads down South. He must be describing that he is on the road touring away from his home in Oklahoma.
The alllove I had worth giving is all spent on my songs piggybacks off the sentiments from his line in East Side of Sorrow when he says, “Do you ever get tired of singin' songs Like all your pain is just another fuckin' sing-along?” East Side of Sorrow was the 4th tune on his album and this was the next track. He’s gambling on more than cards and sports, risking it with the drink, his faith, and love.
‘Ol Son is in a Southern State of Mind wanting sugar in his iced tea. He doesn’t care where he ends up, just wants to live a life of windy roads with bumps along the way. Figures, he’s not much of the straight and narrow.
Sidenote: I can speak for New Yorkers, we also enjoy sugar in our iced tea.
Klonopin is a treatment for anxiety as he’s got a lot on his mind. A lot is going on outside his control and he wants to get away from it all on a nice long car ride.
This is a great sing-along chorus, just saying.
The song is about yearning for simpler times…
…but also has a positive tone in that he can be anywhere and still see the positive wherever he ends up.
On to Stumblin’ Along…
A few Sundays ago, somehow in my drunken stupor, I Stumbled Along to The City Reliquary in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The museum filled with very cool New York City history is open on Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 6 PM. For a $10 visit, you can see a ton of cool relics from The City, this week's Stumblin’ Along on Week to Week Notes features a piece on Jackie Robinson…
This is the part 2 piece on Jackie Robinson. If you’re new to Week to Week Notes and interested in learning a bit more about Robinson’s childhood and what led him to become one of the most important Americans in this country’s history check out Stumblin' Along 2/4 '24. Also if you check that link, be sure to put on Fast Car by Tracy Chapman because that song is always the answer. Double-also, last week I found out Jackie Robinson’s middle name is Roosevelt, named after Teddy Roosevelt. Last President’s Day Weekend I wrote a Stumblin’ Along 2/19 ‘23 on him.
Here is a bit about baseball before Jackie Robinson. Major League Baseball technically started when the National League was formed in 1876, however, the MLB we know today consisting of the NL and American League was established in 1903. Baseball was invented right down the street from me in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1846, it oddly spread like wildfire in part because of the Civil War. The Yanks units from up north from New York, New Jersey, and Boston would play the game with a bat, ball, and bases when they weren’t on a battlefield. Being that the Emancipation Proclamation was signed on New Year’s Day of 1863, newly freed slaves would join the war effort on the Union side where baseball would be played on Union forts. (Baseball Hall of Fame)
While in the late 1800s, Black Americans were not allowed to play in the National or American Leagues, they did love baseball and would form their own leagues. Black players would organize teams and barnstorms across the country, just not in an organized fashion until around 1911. One of the dominant pitchers of his day, Rube Foster, looked to change that when he formed the Chicago American Giants club in 1911. Foster negotiated with the White Sox in South Side Park to use their stadium, but then he eventually desired more control. Once he was able to convince enough black players that they could form a real league, the Negro National League was organized on February 13, 1920 at the YMCA in Kansas City. Two of the biggest stars of the Negro National League were pitcher, Satchel Paige, and catcher, Josh Gibson.
Satchel Paige was a 6’3” lanky starting pitcher with one of those old-school wacky windups. They didn’t have velocity radar guns back in those days, but witnesses said he threw very hard during his younger years, and then by the time he was older, he could pinpoint his spots with precision. It’s hard to tell statistically how great Paige was during his prime because the Negro Leagues statistics weren’t in the newspapers in those days. For context, however, after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball, Paige played in the MLB from age 41 to 46 and pitched to a 3.29 ERA while making the MLB All-Star Game twice. The last game he ever pitched was at the incredible age of 58 during the 1965 season where he started a game, went 3 innings, allowed no runs, and even struck a guy out. On the other hand, Josh Gibson was a stocky catcher who is considered one of the greatest home run hitters of all time. Again tracking stats back then in the Negro Leagues was largely incomplete, but some say that he hit at or around 800 home runs in his career. He was known to some as “black Babe Ruth” and to others Babe Ruth was known as the “white Josh Gibson”, even being credited for hitting a 550 ft. home run out of the ballpark of the old Yankee Stadium. (Source: ESPN) Unfortunately, Josh Gibson would never play in the MLB, but both he and Satchel Paige would be inducted into Cooperstown in the early 1970s. Now on to Jackie Robinson…
Following his military service in 1944, Jackie Robinson would join the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Baseball League. The Kansas City Monarchs at the time were so popular among the league that Black Churches would move their Sunday service time back an hour so that fans could attend games. Robinson played shortstop for the Monarchs, earning $400 a month. In the 34 games that the stats were tracked, he hit .375, leading the league with 13 doubles and 4 homers. His popularity in Kansas City in 1945 led to Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey deciding that the then 26-year-old would be the right player to break the barrier. Rickey believed that Robinson not only had the ability, talent, and style for the MLB but also the right demeanor. In 1945, the Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson to a contract that paid him $600 a month. (NPS)
Upon signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson started with the team’s farm system playing for the Montreal Royals in 1946. The Montreal Royals were a part of the International League, which was essentially a minor league ball club today. His first spring training in the Dodgers organization was very difficult as many of his new teammates on the Royals and Dodgers didn’t like the idea of playing with a black person. Robinson overcame the hate by dominating the competition once the season started. In his first game as a Royal, Jackie Robinson went 4-for-5 with a homer, 4 RBIs, 4 runs scored, and a pair of stolen bases. Yup, that’ll shut people up. He finished the 1946 season with a league-best .349 batting average with 92 walks to just 27 strikeouts, 40 stolen bases, and 113 runs scored in 124 games. Montreal had a 100-54 record and won the minor league championship. (MiLB)
On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson made sports history when he became the first African American to play in the MLB, breaking the color barrier in American sports forever. While he would go hitless in his debut, Robinson displayed his blazing speed when he laid down a sacrifice bunt which turned into a throwing error. Robinson would later score in that inning, which was part of a 3-run rally that made the difference in the ball game. The debut was described by author Robert Lipstyte as “The most eagerly anticipated debut in the annals of the National Pastime. It represented both the dream and the fear of equal opportunity, and it would change forever the complexion of the game and the attitudes of Americans.” (Baseball Hall)
While Robinson’s debut was celebrated in black communities across the country, there were still loud racist detractors. After Robinson was announced that he made the team in 1947, his own teammate Dixie Walker petitioned other Dodgers to have him removed from the team. One of Jackie’s new teammates, who also served in the US military, SS Pee Wee Reese, came to Robinson’s defense. He famously put his arm around Jackie Robinson before their first game as a sign that they were united as a team. Reese was not only a good man, but the Dodgers captain and one helluva ball player. He would make 10 All-Star Games and make the Hall of Fame in 1984.
After starting off with a slump to start his MLB career, Jackie Robinson would turn it around at the plate. He won the 1947 NL Rookie of the Year by hitting .297 with an NL-best 29 steals and 28 sacrifice bunts. He would come in 5 in the NL MVP race that year as the Dodgers would lose to the New York Yankees in 7 Games in the 1947 World Series. That Yankee team had the likes of Joe DiMaggio, along with young Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto. Following their NL Pennant, the Dodgers had enough of Dixie Walker’s BS and shipped him out of Pittsburgh. Robinson in 1948 would move from playing 1st base to playing 2nd, which he was much more comfortable at and better suited since he had great range on defense.
In Jackie Robinson’s 3rd MLB season in 1949, he dominated baseball, winning the NL MVP. The 2nd baseman hit an NL-best .342 with 16 homers, 124 RBIs, 12 triples, and an MLB-best 37 stolen bases. The other cool thing about Robinson’s 1949 season was that the NL MVP led baseball in sacrifice bunts with 17. These were small ball days of baseball and Robinson was a team player. The 1949 Dodgers would again lose to the New York Yankees in the World Series. Unfortunately, the Dodgers would again lose to the New York Yankees in 1952 and 1953. The Yankees from 1947 to 1953, won 6 World Series, it’s gotta be Noted. Eventually, however, the Dodgers and Jackie Robinson would get their ring.
Jackie Robinson famously stole home on Whitey Ford in Game 1 of the 1955 World Series and was called safe. Yankees’ catcher, Yogi Berra, would go to his grave convinced that Robinson was out. In fairness, it is pretty bang-bang but I think Robinson just got it. Jackie Robinson’s final season with the Dodgers would come in 1956. All in all, Robinson was a career .313 hitter, stole 200 bases, and hit 55 triples with 141 homers in 10 seasons. He represented the NL in the All-Star Game 6 times and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1962. At his induction in Cooperstown, Jackie Robinson said, "I had learned how to earn the respect of my teammates. They had learned that it's not skin color but talent and ability that counts."
Off the field, Jackie Robinson was a spokesman for the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People and he was friends with Martin Luther King Jr. MLK Jr. said of Robinson, “(He was) a pilgrim that walked in the lonesome byways toward the high road of Freedom. He was a sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom rider before freedom rides." Sadly, Jackie Robinson was gone in 1972 when he tragically passed away from a heart attack at 53 years old. Before his death, Robinson wrote a memoir called, I Never Had It Made, where he recalled, “There I was, the black grandson of a slave, the son of a black sharecropper, part of a historic occasion, a symbolic hero to my people. The air was sparkling. The sunlight was warm. The band struck up the national anthem. The flag billowed in the wind. It should have been a glorious moment for me…As I write this twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.”
In 1984, Jackie Robinson would be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 1997, on the 50th anniversary of Robinson breaking the color carrier, MLB retired his #42 while starting an annual Jackie Robinson Day. Mariano Rivera already had #42, so he got to keep it, but Ken Griffey Jr. is the reason that all MLB players “unretire” the #42 jersey on Jackie Robinson Day. He requested permission from the MLB office and now everybody of all races wears #42 on April 15 to celebrate the life of Jackie Robinson.
This Week’s Bit on The Roman Empire
This week your quick bit on The Roman Empire brought to you by Week to Week Notes featuring Ancient Rome: The Exhibition in New York is on Roman Games.
Romans would play games like the Rota displayed above. The Rota is the Roman version of tic-tac-toe. They’d engrave these into Roman pavements and floor tiles of villas. It was a 2 person game, the aim would be to get your 3 counters in a straight line. Each player gets 3 counters and you alternate who takes turns like tic-tac-toe. The first to get 3 counters in a row wins. Being that there are 9 spots, you move one piece after all 6 are placed on the board. Being that back in my day I was a solid tic-tac-toe player, probably could’ve gone pro if I stuck with it, I’d think the main objective is to establish the middle, but to each their own.
The other game the Romans would play to pass the Ancient Times was their own version of chess called “Latronculus.” It was also known as Ludus latrunculorum, latrunculi, or simply latrones. It’s another 2 person board game they would play on tiles with stones. You start with 1 “leader” and 8 stones with 64 positions on the board. Once you set up the game stones, the game begins with players taking turns. You can’t move diagonally but you can move horizontally and vertically up the board. Rather than jumping like in checkers, a stone is captured if it is caught between two opposing stones. If you capture a stone, you get to make another move. If you miss out on what you captured and the stone is moved by your opponent without picking up the piece, then you’re out of luck. The leader is moved like all the other stones, except you can jump with it. Players can’t skip a turn, so a stone or leader must always be moved. I would need a bit of seasoning at this game before becoming an expert Roman Latronculus player.
Emperor Constantine
Emperor Constantine abandoned the struggle against Christians as opposed to Emperor Diocletian. In 313 AD, Constantine ruled that Christians should no longer be persecuted. The man himself remained a pagan until his deathbed when he finally got baptized. He decided to leave Rome and rule from Byzantium which used to be a Greek colony. He conveniently named the city Constantine City, or Constantinople, and it is now modern-day Istanbul, Turkey. Thanks, Grandma! ❤️