Looks like the 24-hour diner is going the way of the drive-in movie theater.
In the New York Post, Teresa Mull writes that these little greasy spoons - which often serve as community-hubs - are declining in number nationwide.
From the article:
Yelp data released in 2025 showed that 24/7 restaurants are experiencing upheaval nationwide. The number of restaurants offering 24-hour service in the U.S. fell 11% between January 2020 and January 2025.
The 24-hour Fort Hamilton Diner in Bay Ridge has been a staple of the community for, what seems like, forever.
I've lived in Bay Ridge since I was 8-years-old, and let me tell you: that diner has always been there for me.
Once, when I was a teenager, I was returning from the emergency room with my father at around 1:00AM. When we got to our front door, we realized that my mother - who, like me, is a remarkably deep sleeper - latched the door with the chain lock from the inside.
After myriad attempts at knocking and ringing the door bell, we realized that we weren't getting in anytime soon.
Our next move? We went to the Fort Hamilton Diner.
Fort Hamilton Diner in Bay Ridge
For hours, we chatted, noshed on french fries, and observed the eclectic clientele meander in and out.
Fair warning: If you're hanging around the diner at 4 or 5:00AM, you're going to see some sketchy folks. I kind of like that, though. Gives the place personality.
Most, however, are blue-collar workers getting off of their graveyard shifts. Lots of MTA workers, too. Good, hardworking people.
My buddies and I go to local pubs on the weekends. When the bars start to close, that diner is a godsend. Cheese burgers, fries, scrambled eggs, pancakes. Forget it. You can't beat it.
The waiters know us, too. It feels like home.
I love it all: the flickering neon sign, 99-cent ATM machine, duct-taped vinyl booths.
Zoomers, however, are drinking less, so they don't need a 3:00AM bacon egg and cheese and Coke to sober up. They're fine with DoorDashing Taco Bell to their studio apartments. To be fair, I've done this... What can I say, it's convenient! Plus, you mean someone can just bring a Baja Blast and Crunchwrap to my front door? Sign me up!
What's More, COVID really messed things up. Lots of once-24-hour diners scaled back their hours during the pandemic, and never went back.
Let's stop this trend. If you live by a 24-hour diner, GO TO IT. Patronize these places. Tip the waiters well. Stay for a while. Engage in conversations about dating, health issues, and America's declining status as a global hegemon. All of it. Practice your oratorical skills. Embrace conversation. But don't talk too much. Listen, too.
As the song goes: "You only know you love her when you let her go."
The same will apply to 24-hour diners if we stop patronizing them: We'll only know we love them once we let them go.
LASTLY: If you read this far, leave a comment here. Tell me about your diner experiences. Were you broken up with at a diner? Did you have celebratory meals there when your little league team won as a kid? What do you usually order? COMMENTS HELP THIS SITE GROW.
On a July 22nd episode of The Frank Forum podcast, I explained to my co-host Troy Olson what made Bumble different from other dating apps:
"Bumble is an app where the woman messages you first, meaning that no one meets."
That latter part of the description was meant to be a joke. Well, turns out it was quite the prescient remark, if I do say so myself.
Writing for The Independent, Helen Coffey explained that "as of 11 August, Bumble has axed the one feature that distinguished it from its peers, and is now enabling either men or women to contact a match first."
Would you look at that. Turns out that women are not interested in initiating romantic conversation with men. They have willingly relinquished the power that Bumble granted them.
The biggest issue seems to be that, for all that we think we’ve come a long way in terms of challenging gender stereotypes, some stubbornly persist regarding heterosexual relationships. “Women don’t make the first move very often; even when they’re explicitly told they can do it, it’s so entrenched in our society and culture that they’d rather not,” says Blears.
Though her male clients are very open to being approached, “the reality is that, for a lot of women, they would still prefer it if a man made that initial contact”.
This is backed up by Bumble’s own data – hence the app’s sudden pivot to allowing messaging from either party – which found that nearly two-thirds of women globally (66 per cent) surveyed said they prefer men to send the first message.
This checks out.
Way back when - a few years ago, that is - I, too, was on Bumble, and let me tell you: It was a barren wasteland of an app. You could practically see tumbleweeds roll by as your matches would remain reticent to make the first move.
On the rare occasions that they would message you, it was usually something along the lines of "hey," or maybe, if you were lucky, "how's your day been?"
Minimal effort, in other words.
Not to sound like a manosphere mouth-breather - I can't stand those guys - but the fact of the matter is that men are expected to put in a lot more effort than women when it comes to those introductory messages. A simple "hey" will never work for a man, unless he looks like Fabio, or whomever the current heartthrob is these days.
Women soon learned that their perfunctory opening lines were being met with a deafening silence, and they hated it. Then again, no one likes the taste of their own medicine.
Users' responses to the news have been entertaining:
"Back when I tried bumble most women's initiations were either 'hi' or liking a photo, rarely had conversations that I didn't do the work to start," wrote another Redditor.
This one was quite good: "Bumble in its prime was so validating because women are as cringe as men when making the first move."
I don't know, perhaps some things are better left alone...
In late 2025, Dean lost his best mate Rob. Grief can be isolating - and it can also make you notice how many people are quietly carrying their own things alone.
Empty Chairs exists to create low-pressure spaces where real human connection can happen. No big speeches. No awkward icebreakers. Just a seat at the table.
We all have felt grief at one point or another. But going through the loss of a loved one need not be a solo journey. There's no reason our friends, neighbors, and fellow community members can't help us through hard times.
Social connection makes everything easier.
Sara Haynes, in a CBS News interview about Empty Chairs, remarked that "the worst thing is feeling like you're dealing with something all alone."
In a comment responding to the CBS News segment, one commenter wrote: "If you put the phone down, magic happens."
So true.
The format for Empty Chairs events is quite simple: A host, wearing a conspicuous and easy-to-find orange T-shirt, sits at a pub table and welcomes attendees to join him for however long they like.
In less than a year, Perryman's project has gone global: there are Empty Chairs events happening in over 20 countries.
There are 260 upcoming events listed on the website, including one in Astoria, NY.
This is a movement.
Loneliness is a universal affliction; no matter where in the world you are, we all know the feeling and how devastating it can be.
Similarly, we all have the tools at our disposal to combat loneliness. I'm glad to see people are using them.
If you're interested in hosting an Empty Chairs event, click here.
Bedford sent its citizen-soldiers to the Second World War just like my hometown did and many towns like it did. But what sets Bedford apart from them all is the sheer magnitude of their community pain.
Last week I finished The Bedford Boys by Alex Kershaw while on my 5th (6th?) plane over the course of eight days. While we ran into just about every conceivable airport issue on our family vacation, I couldn't help but come to the conclusion that my oldest walked away with a core memory. It was here that he discovered his love for swimming pools.
Alex Kershaw's The Bedford Boys
For myself, when I wasn't trying to finish Masters of the Air, a WWII miniseries featuring the likes of Austin Butler (still not done yet!), I was finishing this beautiful book originally published in 2001.
2001 was just a few short years after Saving Private Ryan and was the release year for Band of Brothers, essential viewing for any American patriot, veteran, or WWII enthusiast. And, as a member of all three of those groups, I have unpacked just about everything I can get my hands on. So, why am I doing a quasi-book review 25 years later? I think precisely because The Bedford Boys made me look at it in a new way.
Bedford, VA is the site of the National D-Day Memorial, and is, in part, home to one of the true stories that inspired Saving Private Ryan. I now know why Spielberg chose to fictionalize his account of D-Day and its aftermath. You have to. You have to reach for "story truth" because the total truth is just too painful. Bedford had a population of just under 4,000 people in the 1940 census. I grew up in a town larger than that but not much larger. Everyone knows everyone, or knows someone who knows everyone. Especially if you stick around for a few decades, and most people do. Because these are great places to live and raise a family. Bedford sent its citizen-soldiers to the Second World War just like my hometown did and many towns like it did. But what sets Bedford apart from them all is the sheer magnitude of their community pain.
In the morning hours of June 6, 1944, in a matter of minutes, Bedford lost nineteen of its sons on Omaha Beach. This was the highest proportional loss for D-Day in the nation. Much of the town would not put together the magnitude of the loss. It took weeks, months, for the information to come into full view for the town's people and the many, many families who were affected. Some of the families had more than one son fighting. In one gut-wrenching account, Kershaw relates the story of a young man who lost his twin brother shortly after refusing to shake his hand (because he did not want to be fatalistic), saying he'd shake his hand after their mission was complete. Fifty years later, when visiting Normandy in his third act of life, he would reach out and shake his brother's hand up on the road where he said they would.
In all, nineteen of the thirty-four Virginia National Guard soldiers from Bedford - who were in Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division - were killed on D-Day, and four more died during the rest of the Normandy campaign, two of them from other 116th Infantry Regiment companies.
The pain of this loss never has left Bedford, only the passage of time and living memory could for those who directly endured it. I think this story resonated so much for me because my hometown lost three (and the overall county area even more) in the Global War on Terror conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. And those losses were excruciating for the town. The pain sticks around because remembering and honoring the war dead means it doesn't actually leave you. It's the most difficult for family, close friends, and perhaps worst of all for the tremendous survivor's guilt that befalls the living veterans. As I was reading the story of this town and its lost sons, I connected so much of what I have observed myself in others these past few decades. This is especially relevant because WWII is "the good war." And my era and Vietnam were "the complicated ones."
For Bedford, VA, even the good war meant mostly pain. I hope in the years to come to pay a visit to the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, VA.
Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author of 'The Emerging Populist Majority' available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of its Veterans Caucus. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, and OAN. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children, and is the 3rd Vice Commander ("Americanism" pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson
Tens of thousands of users across the country - myself included - were unable to make or receive phone calls.
Panic ensued.
Thinking this was an issue specific to my Android phone, I began to frantically scour the internet for answers.
Google's AI - which is a hit-or-miss - suggested I restart my phone, remove and re-insert my SIM card, and make some tweaks in the settings menu.
Nothing worked.
Then I began to wonder: "Maybe there's an outage in the area..."
That turned out to be the case.
On PhoneArena, an online tech blog, self-proclaimed "smartphone fanatic" Alan Friedman reported that there were Verizon outages throughout the country: "If you're a Verizon customer and all of a sudden you see the SOS icon on your iPhone, or you can't make or take calls, it is because Verizon is suffering an outage."
From Friedman's article, I was directed to Downdetector, a site that "reports about service issues from around the world."
I quickly learned that I wasn't alone. Within a few hours, well over a hundred messages filled the site's comment section.
"Can't make mobile calls in Western Ma. Data works fine."
"Hitting Michigan too"
"Can't make or receive calls or texts im in Northern Neck of VA"
"Cant make or receive calls in Houston tx but texts work"
I, too, left a comment about Brooklyn's outage.
For a moment, it kind of felt like we were all in this together. Like a little digital community was starting to build around this shared problem. There was something genuinely fascinating about being instantaneously connected to people around the country, all of whom were in the same metaphorical boat.
That moment, however, was fleeting.
Just minutes after I left my comment, my connection was restored.
I promptly called my girlfriend, friends, and parents, assuring them that service was back up and running.
When I looked back at the Downdetector comment section, I saw that it had quickly dried up. Everyone's service came back, so there was no longer a need to leave a comment with your name and state.
Kristin from Alabama and Steve from Western Massachusetts had moved on with their lives.
So long, old friends.
From this brief, and ultimately trivial, disruption, I extrapolated something that I wanted to share: Community is often ephemeral. That is, when a crisis occurs, our natural reflex is to band together. This is an instinct that is hardwired in us.
Once, however, the crisis is no more, we also, unfortunately, have a reflex to retreat inward and abandon those with whom we suffered.
The purpose of community is not temporary expediency; it is long-term trust and reciprocity.
Now, obviously, there was never a chance to form any kind or enduring ties with these folks on the message board. That would be silly.
That said, those who commented weren't just looking for answers; they wanted to know that they weren't alone.
Though fleeting, that nation-wide digital connection was something.
When more remarkable crises occur - and they always do - let us stay connected with those who helped us get through it.
Postcards are a forgotten but fun way to create connection when you’re traveling, even if they have their challenges.
I stared at the rack of postcards in a souvenir shop during my first day in Amsterdam, trying to figure out which ones best represented the magnificent Dutch city to me. Who are these for? I wondered. Who is buying these? I didn’t wonder that because I don’t like postcards or think they’re stupid; quite the opposite (the answer to those questions is: me). But I knew it might not be easy to figure out the logistics required to actually post the cards, to deploy them according to their design and purpose. Even back in America, it wasn’t always easy, which is a shame because postcards are a travel activity with a lot of potential for human connection.
My dedication to sending postcards began as a way to let my grandparents know I was thinking of them through the last years of their lives. When I had occasion to travel, usually a professional conference or a short trip with friends, I’d keep an eye out for a good postcard. Once I found one, I’d send two copies, one to my grandparents, and one to my parents. If Mom and Dad confirmed receipt, that was a good sign that the mailbox I picked wasn’t a dud and Grandma and Grandpa had received theirs as well.
After they passed at the end of last year, I didn’t see any reason to stop sending postcards. If anything, I could expand the operation. My recent trip to Europe, my first time on the continent, provided the perfect opportunity. The itinerary: four days each in Amsterdam and Paris, both solo, and then joining a group for a trip through southern France, most notably to the Catholic pilgrimage sites of Rocamadour and Lourdes. I sent a total of 11 postcards to four addresses back home. It reminded me why I like doing this, and the unfortunate barriers that likely keep a lot of postcards unsold on shop racks.
If you sit down to write a postcard, you might be quickly daunted by how little space there is to write about your trip. But take this as a feature, not a bug. Limitations are the fuel of creativity.
The first and most obvious benefit of postcards is that your friends and family enjoy two things: hearing about your travels, and receiving handwritten letters from you in the mail. Postcards are an efficient way to do both. If you sit down to write a postcard, you might be quickly daunted by how little space there is to write about your trip. But take this as a feature, not a bug. Limitations are the fuel of creativity. How could I distill my time in Rocamadour for its postcard? Maybe by talking about a “rose” and a “thorn”: the beautiful old chapels that I loved, and the local, barnyard-tasting goat cheese that I hated. Your postcard can take the generic but welcome approach of mentioning a highlight experience, it could play to your recipient’s sense of humor or a shared inside joke, or anything in between.
Postcards are also efficient as souvenirs. On this European trip, I had almost no luggage room to spare for three-dimensional gifts for myself, let alone friends and family. But postcards? Those save space, and you’re supposed to get rid of them (mail them out) before you come back.
One unexpected benefit of postcards: maybe you’re not a great travel photographer! I’ve been assured that the photos I took in Europe are good, but even while taking some of them, I knew that I wasn’t capturing the beauty of the places that my eyes were seeing in the moment. Where the photography of the postcards was good, they became a way of communicating the grandeur of a place to a degree that I couldn’t with my phone’s camera. Unfortunately, sending a postcard is typically not as easy as it should be. You need three things to send postcards: the card, appropriate postage, and a drop-off point. As I noted, the cards are the easiest. The second, postage, isn’t too difficult if you’re travelling and mailing domestically, especially because you can buy it ahead of time. In Europe, the logistics game was more difficult to play. In Amsterdam, the first souvenir vendor I asked had international postage. In France, most vendors didn’t have it, so I visited a post office while in Paris and lucked out in Lourdes with a vendor who asked if I needed stamps to go with those postcards. The final piece, a drop-off point, shows an eerily similar situation between America and Europe: postal services have degraded and are simply scarcer now. But Google can help you find mailboxes or post offices, and again I got lucky in Lourdes when my hotel could mail my postcards for me.
You’ll also experience returning home faster than your postcards do, not least because you’ll likely wait to mail them until you have experiences to write about. Internationally, this delay is magnified. My European postcards spent time in the system ranging from 11 days to over three weeks. But don’t wait to get home to mail them if you can avoid it! My grandfather once noticed when I sent a postcard with a postmark that didn’t match. That’s when I realized that postmarking cards from the location you’re visiting is part of the postcard magic. It’s sort of like a passport stamp (which I didn’t get in Europe. Thanks, EU Entry/Exit System). It says: you were really there!
Despite these issues, I hope you’ll try sending a postcard or two on your next trip. There’s a lot of potential in them to create connection, particularly with friends and family you don’t talk with all the time and who wouldn’t be the first to receive the pictures you send in texts and emails. Even if they’re close contacts, who wouldn’t appreciate the effort you made to brighten up their mailboxes? It’s another way we can show we’re thinking about each other.
*For bonus effort points, try reviving your grade school cursive.
Patrick Trouba is a transportation planner working in the Kansas City metropolitan area.
It's been 554 days since we've had a Senate-approved Surgeon General.
President Trump's first nominee, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, should have been a bi-partisan layup, but Laura Loomer, the rightwing provocateur and member of Trump's inner circle, launched a relentless social media pressure campaign that effectively took Nesheiwat out of the running for the Nation's Doctor.
After the jettisoning of Nesheiwat, who was too pro-vax for Loomer's liking, Trump nominated MAHA advocate Casey Means, a vaccine sceptic with an inactive medical license.
Means' MAHA-adjacency, however, scared off some GOP Senators, forcing Trump to yet again pull his nominee for Surgeon General.
Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier is Trump's latest nominee. It's unclear when her Senate confirmation hearing will be.
Dr. Vivek Murthy's influence still endures.
Dr. Vivek Murthy left the Office of the Surgeon General (OSG) on January 20, 2025.
Though no longer serving as the Nation's Doctor, Murthy has continued his crusade against loneliness and social isolation.
Just a few days ago, he appeared on Semafor's Mixed Signals podcast to discuss his new Substack Staying Human, as well as America's unabating dearth of social connection.
"I can tell you that right now we're pretty lonely and isolated," Murthy remarked to Mixed Signals co-host Max Tani.
Murthy, perhaps better than anyone, is able to articulate what the loneliness epidemic entails with eloquence and clarity.
In this nearly-hour-long interview, he touches on everything from how social media and AI have exacerbated our feelings of loneliness, to the role that government can play in fostering social connection.
There may be a trade-off between cancer risk and loneliness risk.
In an unexpectedly heated change between Murthy and the podcast's other co-host, Ben Smith, the topic of social drinking entered the mix.
Murthy, before leaving office, released the following advisory report: Alcohol and Cancer Risk. In it, he draws attention to the "causal relationship between alcohol use and increased risk for at least seven different types of cancer, including breast (in women), colorectum, esophagus, liver, mouth (oral cavity), throat (pharynx), and voice box (larynx)."
Smith rightly notes that Dr. Murthy did indeed "campaign against alcohol" and postulates that the pros of alcohol - which has often been labeled a "social lubricant" - might outweigh the cons.
I've postulated the same thing, most notably in National Review: The Case for Dive Bars.
"It sounds like," Smith continued, "there's a straight-ahead tradeoff between cancer risk and loneliness risk, and that, as a scientist, you're just instinctively going to just talk about the first one."
Good on Smith for mentioning this. What I initially thought would be a purely softball interview, highlighting Murthy's accomplishments during his time as Surgeon General, turned into a rather spirited back-and-forth.
Murthy pushed back pretty hard, saying that forgoing drinking alcohol doesn't necessarily mean that one's social life will be lessened.
The point of the report, as he puts it, was to give people the information so they can make "fully informed decisions."
Wherever you come down on the issue, I think that these are exactly the kinds of conversations that we ought to be having.
Again, props to the fine gentlemen at Semafor for facilitating a substantive conversation, and props to Dr. Murthy for continuing his extremely important work.
We need someone to succeed Murthy at OSG.
Let's hope that we get a new Surgeon General soon. Their work - particularly when it comes to releasing advisory reports that inform the public and start national conversations - is absolutely vital.
That we've gone well over 500 days without someone to fill Murthy's vacancy is unacceptable.
The sooner Dr. Saphier assumes the mantle of the OSG, the better.
Today it is quite clear that other sports, namely football for sure, have surpassed baseball for the number one spot in the hearts and minds of everyday Americans.
1991 was the last great season of America's pastime.
Now, before I get trashed on this, hear me out. At the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century, you could still make a case for baseball as America's most popular sport, even though, throughout the 1970s and 80s, it had lost considerable ground to football. Today, you can make no such case. Baseball is no longer America's pastime, as football occupies that place today, except of course in my heart and the hearts and minds of many old souls throughout this country and beyond.
Central to this 1991 thesis is what happens after. The 1994 strike puts baseball on a trajectory it never quite recovers from, and the two seasons in between were championships won by a Canadian team, the Toronto Blue Jays. No offense to our neighbors from the north of course, but nothing quite matches the storylines, the Americana of the times, and the fundamental greatness that was the 1991 season, capped off by one of the greatest if not the greatest World Series ever played, featuring two worst-to-first teams in the Minnesota Twins vs. the Atlanta Braves. But let's start with the season itself.
1991 featured what was easily Cal Ripken Jr.'s best season. Baseball's future Iron Man was in the middle of his consecutive-games-played streak that would one day see him pass Yankee legend Lou Gehrig, and on the field he was basically perfect. A gold glove (awarded to the best defender at each position), a silver slugger (awarded to the slugger at each position), an All Star, a second Most Valuable Player award, and a batting line of .323/.374/.566 (BA/OBP/SLG) with 34 home runs, and 114 runs batted in. This season would be impressive at any place on the diamond, but to do it at shortstop, catcher, or even center field is rarified greatness.
In addition to Ripken Jr.'s best season of a Hall of Fame career, another Hall of Famer, Ricky Henderson, while playing for the Oakland Athletics, broke Lou Brock's career stolen base record in the month of May. Nolan Ryan, now in his 40s, would also record his seventh career no-hitter in May. For the year, there were seven no-hitters overall. Ryan's seventh no-hitter came while playing for the Texas Rangers, who in 1991 were partially owned by George W. Bush.
In sports media, if you had cable, you could catch Major League Baseball four nights a week, otherwise CBS would cover it on Saturday afternoons. In April, the MLB required all teams wear American and Canadian flag decals in honor of those who served in Operation Desert Storm. Operation Desert Storm is to this day the last ticker tape parade honoring the military down Broadway in New York City.
Only four teams made the playoffs (compared to the twelve today), making the regular season pennant and flag chases more impactful. Of baseball's four pennant or division flag chases, the National League West went down to the wire between the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers. Of note in the American League West, every single team posted a .500 record or above, with just 14 games separating first to worst.
Of the top ten highest payrolls in baseball, only one team reached 90 wins, and none of them made the playoffs. In fact, the World Series would feature two middle-market salaried teams who had just come off last place seasons from 1990 and who were not predicted to finish any higher than 5th in their respective divisions.
And now onto that World Series. Arguably the greatest ever. The National League champion Braves, who needed nearly all of the schedule's 162 games to prevail over the Dodgers, needed all seven games of the National League Championship Series to dispatch the Pittsburgh Pirates, who had the best record in all of baseball over the regular season and featured stars like Barry Bonds in his athletic prime, Bobby Bonilla, Andy Van Slyke, Doug Drabek, and John Smiley.
The second best record in baseball, the Minnesota Twins, outlasted the Chicago White Sox, a hot start from the partially-owned by George W. Bush Texas Rangers, and the three-time defending American League Champion Oakland A's to capture the very competitive AL West flag by eight games and then dispatched the AL East champion Toronto Blue Jays in five games in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series.
This set up a worst-to-first World Series clash between the Twins and the Braves. Two very evenly matched teams whose history and future diverged greatly before and after but met perfectly in a World Series that went to all seven games, featured five games won by just one run, four games won in the last at bat (Games 3, 4, 6, and 7), and three games that were won in extra innings (Games 3, 6, and 7).
But it was the lore and baseball magic that elevated the Series and the '91 season beyond the stat sheet. After a Game One win at home, the Twins extended their 6-1 home World Series record dating back to 1987 to 7-1. An early two-run homer by Designated Hitter Chili Davis, a free agent signing that some in the league had written off as "past his prime" added to his 29 regular season Home Runs with a blast that put the Twins ahead. But it was this leg tag on Ron Gant from hometown Minnesota first baseman Kent Hrbek that grabbed the headlines in Game Two, and elicited boos from the Atlanta faithful when he was introduced in Game Three, to the happy warrior hat tip quote of: "I love it."
Game Two ended with another save from the Twins stalwart closer Rick Aguilera, picked up in the Frank Viola trade between the Twins and the Mets that along the 1987 core, helped power the Twins to a fast rebound and second World Series appearance in five years. Yet, with the game in doubt and tied 2-2 in the bottom of the eighth, it was a platoon third baseman Scott Leius from Mamaroneck, NY in Westchester County who hit a home run that would be the deciding run. Leius had just five home runs all season.
Over the next three games in Atlanta, with their backs against the wall just like it had been vs. the Dodgers during the regular season and down 3 games to 2 against the 98-win Pirates, the Braves came roaring back led by unsung heroes like Leius. There was ninth place light hitting second baseman Mark Lemke who hit three triples, a pinch hitter with fifteen at bats all year, and veteran Lonnie Smith, who hit a home run in games 3, 4, and 5. Smith had just seven home runs all season.
Games Three and Four went down to the wire, their outcome in doubt until the absolute end. Game three stretched on for 12 innings and exhausted both bullpens. Arguably, this was crucial for the Braves as the Twins bullpen had been on an incredible streak of pitching all throughout the playoffs. To not only win game three but to win it while exhausting this strength helped even the score, and in Game Five, the Braves looked primed for their first World Series title in Atlanta, winning 14-5 and crushing the once unbeatable Twins bullpen.
Coming back to the Metrodome in the Twin Cities down three games to two, the Twins future Hall of Fame CF Kirby Puckett was a calm and cool customer: "get on my back boys I'm going to carry us today."
In Game Six, Puckett did just that. For the game he batted 3 for 4, with a single, triple, home run, and three of the home team's four runs batted in. Highlighted in the lithograph above, is his super human catch in the third inning trailing backward into the left center field plexiglass wall where his stocky 5 foot 8 inch frame jumped above what seemed possible. In the biggest games, legends meet the moment. This would have been enough to solidify his Hall of Fame credentials, but Kirby was not done. Puckett, who grew up with many siblings in Chicago housing projects and lost his father before he ever stepped foot on a Major or Minor League baseball field, led off the bottom of the eleventh inning, yet another extra inning game. With the count at 2 balls and 1 strike, he sent an already all-time World Series to its seventh and decisive game.
In Game Seven, the veteran ace of the Minnesota Twins Jack Morris, another hometown player signed as a free agent in the offseason, also met the moment. Morris was on one end of his career and the boy that grew up a Detroit Tiger fan who idolized him, John Smoltz, was another. Before the seventh game Twins manager remarked that: "It's a storybook World Series, what's going to happen in Game 7, Chapter 7? Oh my, God, I can't wait. Can you believe this? Going on like this? Unbelievable."
Both Jack Morris and John Smoltz would take their own interesting and winding paths to Cooperstown, baseball's Hall of Fame. On this day, both veteran and youngster were perfect. Not perfect in a literal sense, but in a story sense. Each team got their hits here and there, had base runners on. But neither Morris nor Smoltz would let in a run. For seven innings it went on like this. A 0-0 tie in Game 7 of the World Series, the last game of the year.
In the eighth inning, fans from both teams would age and smoke in an era where smoke still filled bowling alleys and bars. For the top of the 8th, the Braves had a man on first and hit a double to the gap. 99 times out of 100 this would be a run scoring play. But not this day.
Greg Gagne, one of the best defensive shortstops in the American League, and Chuck Knoblauch, Rookie of the Year in 1991, pantomimed a fake out double play, which makes utterly no sense if the ball is hit with authority toward the left-center field gap, but the confusion and the roar of the crowd caused Lonnie Smith to hold up for just a moment, just long enough for the relay throw to get in and keep him from scoring.
Baseball is a game most like chess, not checkers after all. The love and appreciation of it escapes the instant gratification of much of modern culture.
No big deal. With runners on second and third and nobody out, surely the Braves will still get a run across. It was their most serious threat of the day. After one out though, and a mound visit later from Twins manager Tom Kelly where legend has it Jack Morris said, or was thinking: "I'm going to kill you if you take me out!"
In 2026, every manager would take out the starter in this situation and bring in the bullpen to finish up the game. But Kelly just came up and said to Morris that they should walk this guy to load the bases and set up the double play at every base. Baseball is a game most like chess, not checkers after all. The love and appreciation of it escapes the instant gratification of much of modern culture.
Morris intentionally walked to load the bases, and then a ground ball double play followed.
In the bottom of the eighth the script got reversed. It was the Twins with the threat, and as the home team, the World Series looked almost over. Like so many times throughout the previous 24 hours or so, the World Series was once again on the line... and once again, a line out unassisted double play ended the threat. Both Cinderella teams escaped the eighth inning unscathed, and lived to fight another inning. Unlike the Twins with Morris, the Braves took out the young Smoltz and turned to their bullpen.
Morris stayed in for the ninth inning. And then he stayed in for the tenth. If history called for it, he would have went back out for the eleventh.
Finally, in the bottom of the tenth the Twins leadoff man, and for years after their radio announcer, Dan Gladden, led off the inning with a broken bat shallow outfield hit that for most people would be a lead off single. But Dan Gladden hadn't stayed in the majors because of his power or any of the obvious star qualities. Tom Kelly would write his name into left field because he hustled and played the game hard. At the crack of the broken bat, Gladden hustled out of the box, after a lingering bounce on the Metrodome turf, Gladden rounded first and headed hard into second, sliding just under the tag. The relay throw to second was just a split second too late. The Twins had another threat going and only needed one run.
Like for both teams in the eighth inning, where one run wins it, the Braves decided to walk two of the Twins best players after a strategically solid bunt from Knoblauch traded and the first out for a base. Gladden was now at third and all Puckett needed to do was hit hard somewhere or hit it far, even if up high. Puckett was intentionally walked, and so was Kent Hrbek. Tom Kelly went to his bench for the pinch hitting Gene Larkin, a Columbia alumni who when he did play played would often play first base like then President George H.W. Bush did when he was at Yale playing in the College World Series in the years after the War. The Ivy Leagues rarely produce professional baseball players, certainly not at the rate they produce presidents.
All Larkin had to do was hit the ball high and far somewhere and the Twins would win the World Series. The announcers knew this. The Braves pulled in their infield, and outfield, hoping for another eighth inning type end to the threat. On the first pitch Larkin hit what in any other circumstance would have been a long fly ball out. It was solid contact to be sure, yet it was a hit that belongs to the many camped under fly balls that you'll see throughout a long season.
But the Boys of Summer in America's last great season of baseball had come to the final play. And what was usually routine, instead ended the only Game Seven in World Series history that ended 1-0 where the winning pitcher went the distance, and the game ended with a walk off at home.
The Twins had won the World Series for the second time in five years.
When I was a boy, I had such a narrow perspective of the world and my surroundings that I thought this moment was routine, as routine as that last game winning hit would have been. Since it had happened two times already in my young life, I thought it was a regular thing that my favorite team would win the World Series, and took for granted and assumed, the American love affair with baseball. Yet it has now been thirty-five years since the Twins last won the World Series, and with each passing year its getting harder and harder to make the case that America's pastime is still even that pastime, let along one of the most popular sports.
Hit by the 1994 strike, the steroids scandal, a flirtation with possible contraction of teams, including my beloved Twins, and the advent of the Internet and de facto end to the mono-culture, to be replaced by silos upon silos of micro-cultures going from fix to fix, headline to headline, doom scroll to doom scroll.
The ratings for Game 7 in 1991 were 50 million viewers. By 1997 it was already down to 37 million.
Today it is quite clear that other sports, namely football for sure, have surpassed baseball for the number one spot in the hearts and minds of everyday Americans.
But in 1991 it didn't matter, and you couldn't see it. Unless you're Pat Buchanan, you couldn't see a lot of things.
Excerpt from President George H.W. Bush's White House speech welcoming the World Series Champion Minnesota Twins...
Let me welcome the authors of "That Championship Season," the 1991 Minnesota Twins, a team that helped deepen America's love affair with baseball. It is absolutely wonderful what this ball club did for sports and for the spirit in our country. You showed why baseball is the most democratic of sports. It's also the most Republican of sports. [Laughter] But whether in the major leagues or Little League, what counts is the size of your heart and your dreams.
And in 1990, I don't want to remind them of this, they didn't have their best year. They came in last in the West, American League West. And this year, they rose like Lazarus to win their division, beat Toronto in the playoffs, and then came the 88th World Series. And what a series it was: Five games decided by a single run; three went extra innings; five games won in the last inning, and four in the last at-bat. It was a series of indescribable tension, a Fall Classic for all time.
...
"It's unfortunate that anyone had to lose this series because this was a true classic in every sense of the word." So each of you made this a kaleidoscope of beauty. Each showed why millions of Americans watch baseball, listen to, read about, debate it, and why for a few golden days each October, each of us becomes a self-anointed expert.
And that wonderful friend, Fay's friend and I'm proud to say mine, the late Bart Giamatti, once wrote that baseball is designed to break your heart. True. But it also lifts as perhaps no sport can. So I really, thank you guys for the memories, for coming to the White House on this spectacular day, for giving our country a wonderful lift.
President George H.W. Bush, the last GI / Greatest Generation President, coming off of a victorious triumph of the end of the Cold War and largest coalition victory in history in the Persian Gulf War, was ushered out of office by 1992, with similar consideration and speed as we have toward many things today. 1992 was the beginning of the Baby Boomer arc of leadership that is reaching a similar end point today, yet it is hard to see how a year like 1991 shows up today or tomorrow, whether on the ball field or elsewhere.
I'll end what is an admittedly longer article for The Frank Forum with a quote from George Will's book Men at Work: the Craft of Baseball:
"Baseball, more than any other sport, is enjoyed by the knowledgeable. The pleasures it gives to fans are proportional to the fans' sense of history."
I can think of a few things this applies to beyond baseball right now.
Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author of 'The Emerging Populist Majority' available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of its Veterans Caucus. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, and OAN. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children, and is the 3rd Vice Commander ("Americanism" pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson
