Peeling Back The Bark
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A Blogpost Unlike Any Other: The Eisenhower Tree, The Masters, and Forest History
By James Lewis on April 6, 2017As the Master’s Tournament gets underway at Augusta National Golf Club this week, one of the icons of the course again will not be there. The famed Eisenhower Tree suffered extensive damage from an ice storm in the winter of …
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The Greatest Baseball Championship Series Ever Played
By James Lewis on October 28, 2014The debate can now be settled. We know what the greatest championship series in baseball history is. It's certainly not the 2014 San Francisco-Kansas City match-up, though that's been entertaining.
What championship am I talking about? The year was 1908. …
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Smokey Bear’s Fire Prevention All-Stars
By James Lewis on July 12, 2011Tonight’s MLB All-Star game in fire-prone Arizona reminds us that Smokey Bear had his own All-Star team back in the 1980s (back when the Pittsburgh Pirates used to have winning seasons). During spring training, Smokey—a Hall of Fame-caliber manager if …
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From the Louisiana Swamps to Major League All-Star
By James Lewis on July 13, 2010This week’s Major League All-Star Game in Anaheim, California, brings to mind baseball history as seen through the FHS Library. In the early 20th century, in addition to the two major leagues in the Northeast and the numerous minor leagues …
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When Timber Engineers Brought Ski Jumping to Chicago
By Eben Lehman on October 7, 2009With Chicago’s recent failure to become host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics, we here at Peeling Back the Bark were reminded of a little-known chapter from Chicago’s sports history which can be found in the FHS Archives. Should Chicago …
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The Fall of Timber Sports?
By Eben Lehman on July 29, 2009This past weekend saw the Lumberjack World Championships take place in Hayward, Wisconsin. The annual event of sawing, chopping, climbing, and log rolling contests celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. While the golden anniversary is cause for celebration, signs of …
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Playoff Dreams, Shattered Bats
By James Lewis on October 1, 2008Major League Baseball playoffs started today! Besides the excitement of the games, fans can also expect to see more shattered bats, a problem that has plagued baseball at all professional levels this year. In the last 15 years or so, …
