iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

My 11-year-old tonight. ❤️ Nice job kiddo

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Our view for Northwestern’s 3rd (out of 4) rushing TD last night.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

How it started/how it’s going. I loved the decrepit old relic on Central Street (first went there around 1980, & my 90-year-old dad first went there around 1950!), but wow, the new digs are amazing. The football last night was also amazing, ran all over one of CFB’s most storied programs. Go Cats!

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

“The Endless Summer” vibes. (I swam about 1,000 yards in the lake yesterday, as I try to do every Labor Day, sort of a goodbye to the season…and while it was slightly choppy with the SE winds, I don’t think there was enough for even the most skilled surfer to “hang ten.”)

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Literary-minded Chicagoans: Come see me at Printers Row Lit Fest on Sunday 9/13, from 2-6pm. I’ll be at the Chicago Writers Association’s tent JJ, on Dearborn just north of Polk. “Eckie” & “War Football” will each be available at the deep discount price of $25. I’ll throw in my autograph for free!

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Duly noted, though in not sure if I can make it down to the Art Institute this week.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Today’s ride. I have to navigate city streets for about 1 1/4 miles before I connect to the trail at Devon & Milwaukee, which is just under 5 miles northwest of the trail’s terminus at Foster and Kostner. Instead of heading that way I rode up to Skokie Lagoons today. 27 miles total.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Hortus in urbe. (Technically not “in urbe,” the deer and I were about 400 yards over the border in Niles, but on a trail that runs 5 or 6 miles into the city on its south end and all the way up to the Lake County border on the north.)

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

@rogersparkman.bsky.social After your excellent talk at Art Institute, I took a stroll to check out “The Dugout” for myself. The mob scene reminded me of the time I went to see Mona Lisa at The Louvre in 2004. As a writer of sports myself, I’m thrilled to see sports and art intersect this way.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

An oldie but a goodie. Wheaton, IL, Independence Day parade in 2018.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

You can take the middle-aged dad away from Leone Beach, but you can’t take the Leone Beach out of the middle-aged dad.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Did my good deed for the day. Now, to find a congruence of tree branches that will support this robin’s nest but that’s still close enough to the original spot for mama to find her babies.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

This old lifeguard agrees! (My lord, this photo is 39 years old already. Rookie year at Leone Beach i.e. Touhy Beach in Rogers Park, 1987.)

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Perfect Chicago day, and it happens to be my wife Emily’s birthday, so why not spend it at the lake?! (We lived mere steps from the lake as newlyweds.) Em at Montrose today with our two Tween daughters. Sadly no Piping Plover sightings for us.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

From @chicagotribune.com in April 2002. I knew Jim Hoop a little bit through lifeguarding Chicago’s beaches, though I always worked in Rogers Park and he mostly worked the South Side. From what I hear, he’s still Hanging 10 on Lake Michigan though he’s in his 60s by now.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Why do I even bother with that other site? Oh yeah, on the off chance that once in awhile, my presence there will help me sell a book or two. But still…these arguments with anonymous idiots who can’t take an “L.”

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Made some new friends on today’s bike ride. Less than 3 miles from home.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Spotted by my sister-in-law at an O’Hare bookstore, in a Chicago author-themed section. “Eckie” is sandwiched between Barack Obama and Phil Jackson, pretty good company! (My wife’s college professor & mentor, Carl Smith, is on the shelf below.) @univnebpress.bsky.social

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

I like where she’s going with this, BUT…the description of the 6900 block of North Ashland as “largely white and affluent” may miss the mark. Rogers Park (where I grew up & lived until I was 40) is EXTREMELY diverse, which is one of its greatest strengths & has largely influenced my own life.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Predictably had a bunch of my daughters’ “Hello Kitty” stuff. But then this one also popped up. Huh?! Does my iPhone think that Halloween pumpkins are from the devil?! But no…my 10-year-old is carving her pumpkin on a Tribune section with the headline, “Chill the Hell Out.”

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

About a block from my house. Good thing it fell into the street and not onto the house (or houses).

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Reason #8,000 to hate Elon’s pay-for-amplification model with its right-wing-boosting algorithms: This was a banger of a reply that, on old Twitter, would’ve earned a couple hundred “likes” & several re-Tweets. Instead, only 138 people have even seen it (compared to 34k views on the original post).

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Some of these Blue Demons are still alive, notably starting forward Dick Heise, who would be a 3rd-team All-American the following year. (So is my dad, who turns 90 exactly two months from today!) Cheers to 70 years…

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

This was a decent DePaul team under HOF coach Ray Meyer: 16-7 in regular season, beating highly ranked Duquesne and Kentucky. But Wayne State upset the Blue Demons, 72-63, in their 1st-round NCAA game. F Ron Sobieszczyk & G Bill Robinzine (DePaul's 1st Black player) would both play in the NBA.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

DePaul had hosted these doubleheaders, which drew up to 20,000 fans, since 1938. With a campus arena, 5,200-seat Alumni Hall, opening the next fall, they moved out of the Stadium permanently. Loyola of Chicago, DePaul’s occasional co-host, took over the doubleheaders & put them on until 1974.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

70 years ago today my dad, then a 19-year-old sophomore at DePaul, was at the last Chicago Stadium college basketball doubleheader that DePaul would ever host: DePaul vs. Notre Dame and Loyola vs. Marquette. And he still has the program to prove it!

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Pages 5-7 of my article. This originally appeared in "The Coffin Corner," the magazine of the Professional Football Researchers Association, in 2023.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

With yesterday's announcement that the Chicago Bears are likely moving to Hammond, Ind., this seems a good time to share my story about how "Papa Bear" George Halas launched his illustrious 64-year career in professional football in neither Chicago nor Decatur, but in Hammond.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

Posted to the "other" site: If I get unexpectedly “unalived” in the near future, here’s your prime suspect: a pseudonym-using, Vatican-hating Twitter crackpot, who thinks I’m a “deceitful, despicable POS,” “evil incarnate,” and “filth,” and has called for both swift karma and quick judgment upon me.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Municipal Device is prominent on Chicago Lifeguard Service (as opposed to Chicago Park District, they ran separate beaches & pools from 1934 to 1959, when the CPD took over) logo. Patch is from 1950s: guard in uniform is from 1939 (his name was Hutton Hutchison, I knew him when he was in his 80s).

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

A funny thing happened on the way to the (online) forum. Mike Lee - whom I used to respect, before he drank all the MAGA kool-aid - kissed Trump’s ass, on Twitter/X, after a prayer breakfast. I took exception to this & somehow gained 31 new MAGA/“patriot” followers. (I think they might be bots?!)

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

What better way to kick off Super Bowl weekend than to hear me talk about "Walter Eckersall: Chicago's Original High School Superstar"? This Saturday, 3pm, at 57th Street Books in Hyde Park! @rogersparkman.bsky.social @pmorse.bsky.social @univnebpress.bsky.social @seminarycoopbooks.bsky.social

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

120 years ago today – November 30, 1905, which was also Thanksgiving Day – undefeated University of Chicago hosted undefeated University of Michigan in the first “Game of the Century,” for the @b1gfootball.bsky.social title and the de facto national championship.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Best day ever, and the foundation for all good things that followed...15 years ago now. Happy anniversary my love!

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

120 years ago today, on November 7, 1905, scandal hit the University of Chicago football program. The first installment of “Buying Football Victories,” a four-part expose on crooked recruiting, academic fraud, and other shady dealings in Big Nine football, appeared in Collier’s magazine.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Spotted on a trip to KC (home of Hallmark Inc., of course) a couple years ago.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

120 years ago today, on October 21, 1905, the Chicago Maroons played their first road football game of the year against Wisconsin, on a suspiciously muddy field. Madison hadn’t had rain for two days, yet the ground was soaked. Coach Stagg blamed both the coaching staff and grounds crew.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

120 years ago, on October 14, 1905, University of Chicago football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg skipped his game against @indianafootball.bsky.social to scout an upcoming opponent, Wisconsin. Skipping a “lesser” game was fairly common practice at the time, but this turned out to be a near-fatal mistake.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

After serving as distributor, play-caller, & occasional kicker in Chicago's "minor" games, Walter Eckersall finally scored a TD of his own on October 7, 1905, in the team’s first @b1gfootball.bsky.social game against Iowa, on a 70-yard punt return. But the game’s star was Eckie’s regular backup.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

Back to Sam Ransom and Walter Eckersall. They became fast friends in January 1900, when Sam arrived at Hyde Park High School as a midyear entry, one semester behind Eckersall. The pair both excelled in football, baseball, and track; Sam also starred in basketball.

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

The long-awaited day is here! My new book "Eckie: Walter Eckersall and the Rise of Chicago Sports" is officially published! Thanks to all who helped me in this five-plus year journey, especially my wife and daughters for their support and patience! www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/978...

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kelloggfireman.bsky.social @kelloggfireman.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

On 9/23/1905, Chicago took on Lawrence University of Appleton, WI, in the season's 2nd game. For the 2nd week in a row, Walter Eckersall only played the first half & never attempted a rush. He kicked one PAT, but missed two others, in a comfortable 33-0 win. www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/978...

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