Preakness 140: One To Remember, On And Off The Track
May 18, 2015 17:51:53 GMT -5
Post by cait on May 18, 2015 17:51:53 GMT -5
nice article - the riots would have not happened if the dumb mayor had not told the police to "stand down" - a bunch of teens got together on social media to hit a mall - the police knew it, they were there - BUT - then told to do nothing - so of course the bs escalated - to the credit of the majority of citizens in the area, they cleaned up themselves the next day - 2 rival gangs amazingly joined forces - and the local reverends were very active - this did not go on for weeks like St Louis - all big cities are facing similar issues - even LA!
Preakness 140: One To Remember, On And Off The Track
by Ray Paulick
There is something special about the Preakness. It’s not as big an event as the Kentucky Derby or as important a horse race as the Belmont Stakes. But the middle jewel of the Triple Crown for years has been my favorite stop of the horse racing year.
That’s due in part to the atmosphere encouraged by the Maryland Jockey Club, through its various ownership groups and management teams over the last 25 years. It’s all about fun and putting on a good show, whether it’s the Preakness week parties that have been held at places like Orioles Park at Camden Yards, Fort McHenry and the Inner Harbor or the infield activities that have morphed from a nearly out-of-control BYOB drunkfest to a more peaceful InfieldFest with its mainstream musical acts.
And, of course, the racing is pretty good, too, as horses like American Pharoah, Ben’s Cat, Keen Pauline, Commissioner, Ironicus and others showed over the two-day Preakness festival.
But it’s also the people and the neighborhoods of Baltimore that make me look forward to coming back year after year. They really do live up to the “Charm City” nickname that four advertising executives conceived when then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer looked to lift Baltimore’s image it the down-and-out 1970s.
That’s why it was so painful to watch Baltimore burning on the night of April 27 when peaceful protests over the death of a local man in policy custody raged out of control, forcing Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to impose a 10 p.m. curfew.
This was just 20 days before the Preakness. One Orioles game at Camden Yards was postponed. Another was played to an empty stadium. A home series was moved to Tampa.
Something happened the morning after the riots. Members of the community came out of their homes, took to the streets and cleaned up much of the damage that was done in the protests gone wrong. Many of them helped prevent further looting of the small businesses they depend on in their neighborhoods. On May 3, the day after American Pharoah won the Kentucky Derby, the mayor’s office lifted the curfew. Baltimore tried to get back to its normal, proud self.
This was the Baltimore that greeted me when I arrived from Kentucky last Wednesday.
Cab drivers, bellmen and front-desk clerks thanked out-of-towners for coming to their city. “We were worried people would give up on us and be afraid to come here,” one of them said. Hotels, restaurants and bars in the downtown and Inner Harbor areas were bustling. Little Italy was its same old self. So was Mt. Washington and other regular stops for many of those who look forward to coming to the Preakness year after year.
The root of the problem remains. John Angelos, the chief operating officer of the Baltimore Orioles and a big booster of horse racing, offered this candid personal assessment on the night of the riots, when the first of the baseball games was cancelled: “My greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships … plunged tens of millions of good hard working Americans into economic devastation and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state. The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, an ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importance of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever.”
Through Angelos’ eyes, no single event is going to cure all that ails Baltimore. He’s right.
But the Preakness, along with the return of the Orioles to their Inner Harbor stadium earlier in the week, were necessary mileposts to show the world that the city of Baltimore and its people were not about to give up.
As Baltimore Sun sports columnist Peter Schmuck wrote in a compelling column on Sunday, “Maybe the Preakness was just a horse race, but it also was a symbol of the resilience of a city that has been knocked down before and always finds a way to get up.”
This 140th edition was a Preakness to remember. Mother Nature put on an awesome display just as the horses were taking to the track, pelting the record crowd of 131,680 with a deluge of rain. American Pharoah turned a hard-fought Kentucky Derby victory into the easiest kind of romp in the park and is on the precipice of greatness for Ahmed Zayat and his family’s breeding and racing stable. Hall of Famer Bob Baffert demonstrated his training brilliance by winning the Preakness for the sixth time from just 17 starters.
Considering all that the city and its people had just gone through, however, it was something of a miracle that it happened at all.
Preakness 140: One To Remember, On And Off The Track
by Ray Paulick
There is something special about the Preakness. It’s not as big an event as the Kentucky Derby or as important a horse race as the Belmont Stakes. But the middle jewel of the Triple Crown for years has been my favorite stop of the horse racing year.
That’s due in part to the atmosphere encouraged by the Maryland Jockey Club, through its various ownership groups and management teams over the last 25 years. It’s all about fun and putting on a good show, whether it’s the Preakness week parties that have been held at places like Orioles Park at Camden Yards, Fort McHenry and the Inner Harbor or the infield activities that have morphed from a nearly out-of-control BYOB drunkfest to a more peaceful InfieldFest with its mainstream musical acts.
And, of course, the racing is pretty good, too, as horses like American Pharoah, Ben’s Cat, Keen Pauline, Commissioner, Ironicus and others showed over the two-day Preakness festival.
But it’s also the people and the neighborhoods of Baltimore that make me look forward to coming back year after year. They really do live up to the “Charm City” nickname that four advertising executives conceived when then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer looked to lift Baltimore’s image it the down-and-out 1970s.
That’s why it was so painful to watch Baltimore burning on the night of April 27 when peaceful protests over the death of a local man in policy custody raged out of control, forcing Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to impose a 10 p.m. curfew.
This was just 20 days before the Preakness. One Orioles game at Camden Yards was postponed. Another was played to an empty stadium. A home series was moved to Tampa.
Something happened the morning after the riots. Members of the community came out of their homes, took to the streets and cleaned up much of the damage that was done in the protests gone wrong. Many of them helped prevent further looting of the small businesses they depend on in their neighborhoods. On May 3, the day after American Pharoah won the Kentucky Derby, the mayor’s office lifted the curfew. Baltimore tried to get back to its normal, proud self.
This was the Baltimore that greeted me when I arrived from Kentucky last Wednesday.
Cab drivers, bellmen and front-desk clerks thanked out-of-towners for coming to their city. “We were worried people would give up on us and be afraid to come here,” one of them said. Hotels, restaurants and bars in the downtown and Inner Harbor areas were bustling. Little Italy was its same old self. So was Mt. Washington and other regular stops for many of those who look forward to coming to the Preakness year after year.
The root of the problem remains. John Angelos, the chief operating officer of the Baltimore Orioles and a big booster of horse racing, offered this candid personal assessment on the night of the riots, when the first of the baseball games was cancelled: “My greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships … plunged tens of millions of good hard working Americans into economic devastation and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state. The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, an ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importance of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever.”
Through Angelos’ eyes, no single event is going to cure all that ails Baltimore. He’s right.
But the Preakness, along with the return of the Orioles to their Inner Harbor stadium earlier in the week, were necessary mileposts to show the world that the city of Baltimore and its people were not about to give up.
As Baltimore Sun sports columnist Peter Schmuck wrote in a compelling column on Sunday, “Maybe the Preakness was just a horse race, but it also was a symbol of the resilience of a city that has been knocked down before and always finds a way to get up.”
This 140th edition was a Preakness to remember. Mother Nature put on an awesome display just as the horses were taking to the track, pelting the record crowd of 131,680 with a deluge of rain. American Pharoah turned a hard-fought Kentucky Derby victory into the easiest kind of romp in the park and is on the precipice of greatness for Ahmed Zayat and his family’s breeding and racing stable. Hall of Famer Bob Baffert demonstrated his training brilliance by winning the Preakness for the sixth time from just 17 starters.
Considering all that the city and its people had just gone through, however, it was something of a miracle that it happened at all.
