Read Away

With the NFL Draft just one day away Dartmouth defensive lineman Alex Schmidt has done yeoman work pulling together his 2022 NFL Mock Draft: First-Round Predictions, which is posted HERE.

Schmidt, who has written for The Dartmouth as well as several blogs and websites, had a few of his other stories on football posted HERE.

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Speaking of the draft, old friend Craig Haley of The Analyst has a piece headlined, NFL Draft Projections For 50 Former FCS Standouts that mentions four former Ivy League standouts and two other players of regional interest to Dartmouth fans HERE.

Haley's projections:

14. EJ Perry, QB Brown – Round 7 

31. Liam Shanahan, OL Harvard (LSU) – Priority Free Agent

36. Benton Whitley, DE/LB Holy Cross – PFA  

And he wraps up his 50 standouts with 10 More Prospects With Free Agent Grades:  

• Julius Chestnut, RB Sacred Heart

• Aaron Shampklin, RB Harvard

• Rodney Thomas II, S Yale

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A line in a New England Football Journal story under the headline UConn: 5 Observations from the Huskies Spring Game (LINK):

The addition of Dartmouth transfer Jake Guidone has helped solidify a young offensive line and it showed this spring.

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Dartmouth has official announced the Head Coach Buddy Teevens '79 May Tour, the first full-fledged renewal of is popular annual "coach caravan" event since the onset of the pandemic. Find the release HERE.

Teevens' stops:

May 10 – Chicago

May 12 – Los Angeles

May 17 – Dallas

May 18 – Houston

May 20 – Jupiter, Fla.

May 25 – Rowayton, Conn.

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It's still 11 days away but Dartmouth has begun promoting the "Green-White Game," that signals the end of spring football with this graphic:

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EXTRA POINT

First, an update on yesterday's PAT. Our beloved '84 VW Westfalia poptop camper is going to be just fine, thank you very much. Our "VW Bus Whisperer" emailed yesterday that he was able to get it going with a "tap" on the starter. He's going to figure out why it needed the tap and after making sure that's fixed he'll address a few other issues before we head north to bring the bus back home.

OK, now that we've got that cleared up, did you see this?

Watching that I was reminded of a game I went to at Yankee Stadium either when I was in high school or college, long before something called the internet might have given me my 15 minutes of fame.

Back then, the top section of stands at Yankee Stadium now referred to as the "grandstand level" was referred to simply as the "upper deck." My cheap ticket was directly behind home plate in those nosebleed seats and trust me, they were way up there. But here's the thing. Thanks to the poles that unfortunately obstructed views, the upper deck at the old Yankee Stadium was able to overhang the grandstand below much more than it does in the new stadium, allowing it to be a lot closer to the field. I very much miss that in the new stadium.

Now back to my story. When I was a little kid, we used to freeze cans of soda, wrap them in aluminum foil and bring them to Yankee games along with sandwiches. Pro teams put a stop to that not long after and so on this particular day when I was hungry and thirsty, I left my seat between innings to quickly grab something at the concession stand in the concourse behind the upper deck.

By the time I'd gotten my hot dog and soft drink the game had resumed, much to my chagrin because I kept a scorecard at every game I attended.

My disappointment would be short-lived.

As I neared the top of the portal to the walkway that would take me to my seat I heard the crack of the bat. I looked up and just as I stepped onto the walkway ringing the lower part of the upper deck, what did I see directly in front of me? The foul ball, which had reached its apex at exactly my eye level. With the tray of refreshments in my right hand, I reached out with my left hand and grabbed the "can of corn" that had stopped in midair for a split second directly in front of me before its anticipated return to earth.

I didn't spill a drop of my soda catching the ball, but all the pats on the back from nearby fans might have emptied half the cup. I think the entire upper deck was on its feet clapping and cheering while I proudly held my trophy aloft.

I have no idea if my grab made it onto TV because I never heard from anyone who saw it. Heck, given that it was a midweek afternoon game it might not even have been televised. What I do know is that baseball is in a box somewhere in our basement along with a half dozen or so others that I got over the years, its American League logo slowly fading away like the once-treasured autographs I got from players like Bobby Murcer, Mel Stottlemyre and Roy White on one of them.

Maybe some day I'll tell you about the Yankee Stadium seat I have in my basement from the final game before they refurbished the old stadium, but that's a story for another day ;-)