In case you missed it, there was a recent mix-up involving the Commander in Chief and a certain ceremonial act that precedes baseball games and whether an invitation to perform said act was actually extended.
Our Dom Amore couldn’t help but think back to the spring of 2004, when the UConn men were on a victory tour following their second national championship, and coach Jim Calhoun caused a stir with a similar fib.
A staunch Red Sox fan from Braintree, Mass., Calhoun was at Fenway Park, preparing to throw out the first pitch, when he told reporters that he had turned down an offer from the Yankees to do the same at the House That Ruth Built, citing the house in which he was raised.
“Jim was saying, and it was displayed prominently in The New York Times, that he essentially told the Yankees, ‘thanks but no thanks,'” Amore recalled on the latest UConn Insider podcast. “I wrote at the time that Jim Calhoun achieved every Red Sox fan’s dream: he got under the Yankees’ skin.”
The claim was eventually debunked, landing Amore and several other scribes in hot water with George Steinbrenner and the Yankee brass. Whether or not a third party had made overtures that Calhoun interpreted as a formal invite is unclear. Regardless, when the Huskies won the national title again in 2011, the Yankees reached out to Kemba Walker, a native of The Bronx, to perform first-pitch duties — a fitting, if non-controversial, choice.
You’ll hear Amore’s thoughts on the newest Husky, Rahsool Diggins, the latest win along a contentious corridor of the recruiting trail for Dan Hurley and Co.; the perception around the Big East of “the new kids on the block,” as revealed in a series of interviews with The Courant this summer; the tragic death of Stanley Robinson and his enduring legacy in Storrs; former UConn baseball player Eric Yavarone’s unconventional path to the big leagues amid this wild start to the season; and much more.
Chris Brodeur can be reached at cbrodeur@courant.com.
