A youth baseball team whose star female pitcher and performance in the Little League World Series drew a wide following received a champion's treatment in a parade Wednesday in downtown Philadelphia.
Hundreds of office workers and city residents lined a major thoroughfare to cheer on the Taney Dragons and their pitcher Mo'ne Davis, who made it onto the cover of Sports Illustrated.
The Dragons represented the mid-Atlantic region in the World Series. They won their first two games before being eliminated by eventual U.S. champion Jackie Robinson West from Chicago and the Las Vegas Mountain Ridge.
Mo'ne became the first female pitcher to win a game in the series' 68-year history, and her last start drew record-setting TV ratings for the series.
"They did a good job of bringing the city together," said Jerome Belo, 55, who, on a day off, made it a point to be on hand to watch the start of the parade. "They took the focus off the negative in the city."
The city has been scarred this summer by a number of tragedies, including the deaths of four children in a rowhouse fire and the deaths of a mother and her three young children in an accident caused by carjackers. Philadelphia has also been struggling to cope with a school funding crisis.
A time piece
A watched owned by Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig has been sold for $340,000 in an online auction.
The buyer of the watch, given to Gehrig to commemorate the New York Yankees' 1928 World Series title, was not identified by SCP Auctions.
The bidding ended Monday, and the company made the announcement Tuesday. Both the company and the consignor agreed to make donations to their local ALS Association chapters, which fund research aimed at finding a cure for the disease named after Gehrig.
Eye contact
Bill VandenBush is a Seattle Seahawks devotee, and he proved his mettle by getting a Seahawks logo emblazoned on his own prosthetic eye. VandenBush has a degree of fandom that's both inspiring and terrifying.
The Seahawks eye is only the second-most fascinating thing about VandenBush -- he lost his eye in Vietnam in 1969 while on a rescue mission. VandenBush published an account of his story in If Morning Never Comes. He needs a new eye every six years or so.
The Seahawks model was built by Erickson Laboratories in Seattle, and was a 10th-anniversary present to VandenBush from his wife. He plans to wear it on special occasions, like Seahawks games.
Sports quiz
Who was the first Dallas Cowboys player to be elected to the NFL Hall of Fame?
Answer
Bob Lilly was the Cowboys' first draft pick in the team's history and the team's first NFL Hall of Famer.
Sports on 08/28/2014