Talkin’ Sports
With Pat
1.) Up until last night the Blackhawks had won all of their home
playoff games. Last night though
Johnathan Quick, was that quick, keeping the Kings in the game especially in
the second period when Chicago had a 2 on 1 advantage looking to make the score
3-0 in their favor. But Quick made an
outstanding play saving the Kings score one goal making it 2-1 then come out in
the third and score 5 times to win 6-2 and even the series at 1-1.
2.) The other
day there was a fight between two teammates at the Dodger minor league
team. One of the players bit part of the
other player’s ear off and he had too have plastic surgery to repair it. Today the Dodgers released the player who bit
the other player. Can you believe that
this was a grown man of 35 years of age?
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3.) Don’t know how
many people know the name Wendell Scott, he was the first African American
driver in NASCAR. The first to win a
NASCAR race. He will be inductee to the
NASCAR Hall of Fame this year. His first
race was in 1952. He ran what was called
back then the Dixie Circuit. After he
won some races on that circuit he took his car to Winston-Salam North Carolina. But NASCAR officials refused to let him
compete. He would continue to race in
Virginia and won his first race at Lynchburg, Virginia only 12 days into his
racing career. He said, “I found my
calling.” He was well respected not only
as a driver but as an excellent mechanic also by the other drivers. After a while some white drivers became his
friends and acted as bodyguards. By 53’
newspapers in the South were starting to write stories about him. In 59’ he won two championships in sportsman
class. In 61 he moved up to Grand
National (now sprint cup) in 63’ he finished 15th in points and on
Dec. 1 of that year driving a Chevy Bel-Air that he purchased from Ned Jarrett,
he won a race at Jacksonville, Florida.
The first (and only to date) event won by an African American, Scott
passed Richard Petty with 25 laps remaining.
Scott was announced the winner of the race at the time but due to the
racist culture of the time, Buck Baker the second place driver was initially
declared the winner but two hours later, officials discovered Scott had not
only won the race but was two laps ahead of everyone else. Two years later NASCAR awarded the win to
Scott but his family never received the trophy he earned for winning until
2010, 47 years after the race and 20 years after his death. He continued to race until injuries from an
accident at Talladega. He had 1 win and
147 top ten finishes in 495 starts. He
died in 1990 of spinal cancer.
