Public-employee unions act as if they still don’t get it
For months, this newspaper has been reporting about Mayor Taveras’s warning that Providence faces bankruptcy, and could run out of money by the end of June. Which made a statement by a firefighter at...
View ArticleWishing away R.I.’s mounting problems won’t fix them
It’s hard not to feel that Rhode Islanders are too darn negative about themselves. I mean, look at this place: lovely inlets festooned with boats; great colleges; loads of culture; the PawSox;...
View ArticleR.I.’s very own Solyndra debacle
If anyone seeks an object lesson in the dangers, if not outright stupidity, of crony capitalism, Rhode Island’s 38 Studios debacle would be a good place to start. Two years ago, then-Gov. Donald...
View ArticleLincoln, and our beacon in freedom’s dark hour
Today we celebrate the Declaration of Independence, which lays out the principles underlying history’s most successful experiment in freedom: the idea that every one of us has a right to liberty that...
View ArticleA wonderful man captured in bronze
For years, Ben Mondor liked to stand outside of Pawtucket’s McCoy Stadium, the ballpark he saved, greeting happy families on their way to the game. Though far from swelled-headed, he was proud of the...
View ArticleThe Tet Offensive comes to Rhode Island
It was not a great Independence Day week for our cat, Diamond. Days before the big holiday, she was in the family room one evening, calmly looking out of the window and languidly cleaning herself, when...
View ArticleRave reviews greet Fifty-nine in ’84
Washington Post: “An astonishing book … a romantic book, equal parts heroic quest, tragic tale and doomed love story.” Los Angeles Times: “It’s the vibrancy of his story that resonates, the sense of...
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About The Summer of Beer and Whiskey
CHRIS VON DER AHE KNEW NEXT to nothing about baseball when he risked his life’s savings to found the franchise that would become the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet the German-born beer garden proprietor...
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Excerpt from The Summer of Beer and Whiskey
The original plan was to seek admission to the National League. Von der Ahe and his friends were rebuffed. “The owners of its clubs had no use for us,” sportswriter Al Spin recalled. Gambling scandals...
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Praise for The Summer of Beer and Whiskey
Von der Ahe picked up the team for one reason—to sell more beer. Then he helped gather a group of ragtag clubs into a maverick new league that would fight the haughty National League. Sneered at as...
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