It’s the midway point in this year’s Tour de France, which is one of the three races comprising the Grand Tour, along with the Giro d’Italia in May and the Vuelta a España in Aug/Sept. They each last 3 weeks. The French Tour was celebrated in today’s puzzle. The nicest theme answer was at 16D: CHAMPS ELYSEES, where the race sometimes ends — not this year though — it ends in Nice this year. There were also circled letters sloping upwards spelling out
ALPS and PYRENEES – where the toughest parts of the tour may occur. Then the clue at 40A was “Hard patterns to break … or a punny description of the climbs up the circled letters:” VICIOUS CYCLES.
Phil’s covering the race for Owl Chatter this year, but so far this is all he’s sent back to us.
There was also a good clue/answer at 55A: “How to become a whole new hue.” Answer: DYE.
A sports card show in Allen TX was the location of a spectacular heist last Sunday, according to Allen police officer Sammy Rippamonti, a great name in any context. The theft was a coordinated effort by four men to distract the card dealer and make off with 170 extremely valuable cards in a briefcase that had been kept under a table. The men spent an hour stacking chairs and performing other tasks that gave the impression they worked there.
Six Mickey Mantle rookie cards were taken. The best was graded 6 (out of ten) and selling for $175,000. This one is graded 5 — you can see it’s off-center and the corners could be sharper.
Two 1948 Jackie Robinson cards were taken too. The story did not say what condition they were in, but this beauty (graded 7, near mint) is selling on eBay for $150,000.
Also mentioned as taken was a mint Tom Seaver rookie card.
As you can see, Seaver is paired with another pitcher, Bill Denehy, on the card. Denehy’s lifetime record in the majors was 1-10, with an ERA of 4.56. Any claim he can make to fame would revolve around his being traded by the Mets for manager Gil Hodges, in November of 1967. Hodges of course managed the Mets to the world championship in 1969 and is in the Hall of Fame. Denehy is still living and is 78. Sadly, he started losing his eyesight in 2005 and became totally blind in 2018.
When it comes to the U.S. Olympic Women’s gymnastics team, if Simone Biles ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. But Biles loves the new leotards designed for the Paris Olympics by GK Elite, the company that started designing them two years ago. Each athlete will have different ‘tards to wear for different events, but the design for the final event is the most spectacular and includes close to 10,000 crystals meticulously sewn into the fabric. Take a look:
That many crystals also adorn this model, which will be worn for several floor events.
Biles opened the box containing the leotards on the Today show. Her response: “Wait — these are beautiful!”
But we can’t wait, SB — knock ’em dead, ladies.
Owl Chatter heads up to Amherst MA tomorrow to attend this year’s Klezmer Festival — Yidstock — at the Yiddish Book Center. The Klezmatics open tomorrow night. We’ll let you know how it goes.
Thanks for stopping by!
The Wellington Files 