Hobnail Boot

The Grenadiers stomped on their faces

ATLANTA - To paraphrase an anonymous former Southeastern Conference (SEC) play-by-play announcer, "Oh my goodness, did you see that!? We just ripped their hearts out. We stomped on their faces with a hobnail boot and broke their nose. We just crushed their face." That is what is called taking something that is theirs, turning it around, and using it against them. Turnabout is fair play. Hobnailed boots, better know in the Scottish Highlands as "tackety boots", are boots with hobnails (small nails inserted into the soles of the boots), usually installed in a regular pattern, over the sole. Most have an iron horseshoe-shaped insert, called a heel iron, to strengthen the heel, and an iron toe-piece. They also have steel toecaps. The hobnails extend below the sole and provide traction on soft, or rocky terrain, and snow, but tend to slide on smooth, hard surfaces. They have been used since antiquity for inexpensive durable footwear, often by workmen and the military. Examples include the caligae of the Roman military, the "ammo boot" use by the British and Commonwealth armies from the 1860s and the U.S. Army's "trench boots" of World War I. Make no mistake about it, the Alabama vs. Georgia football rivalry has been dominated by the Crimson Tide over the years. Bama holds a 43-26-4 win-loss-tie margin all-time and has an 8-1 record against the upstart Bulldogs in the last nine match-ups. In Georgia's last 31 games, the Bulldogs were 29-2 for a 93.54 winning percentage. Within those same 31 games against Alabama, the Dawgs are 1-2 for a 33.33 winning percentage. Greg Byrne is now having to pay the Georgia property taxes at Mercedes-Benz Stadium since the Tide owns the place going 5-0 against the Barkhards in the last five games in Atlanta. Traditionally, the Tide has blown out the Junkyard Dawgs, the close games have been the anomaly and have only happened in recent years since former Tide assistant coach, Kirby Smart, took the hard-nosed "Alabama Football" blueprint to Athens in 2016 after the 2015 beatdown (38-10) in Athens, in a carbon copy move similar to what Pat Dye did in the 1980s down on the Plains. In Week 13 of the BDFL season, the Mineral Springs Grenadiers woke up from a 2023 season-long hybernation to turn in a "perfect card" (all eight positions scoring), the first one that can be remembered in quite a while, to throttle the Fairfield PowerSleds 57-22 at the neutral site - Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor Dome. As a former SEC head football coach used to say on a regular basis, "Expect the unexpected".

The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia by Vicki Lawrence (1973)

Final Scores

Throwback 2024

The BDFL to explore the Parallel Universe

PARTS UNKNOWN - You see a glimpse of it from time to time in this universe, like on Seinfeld, or the Cleveland Browns in white helmets. It can be hard to believe at times, but it’s out there. In our alternate, Parallel Universe, there is a professional football team called the Cleveland Whitecaps and their colors are brown, orange and white, but they are nicknamed after the surge and lake-effect snow of Lake Erie instead of Paul Brown and they wear solid white helmets all the time. They would never change them for anything, it is a tradition worth honoring for every game in their world. Likewise, we too exist in this Parallel Universe where things are basically the same, but just a little bit different for some reason. The BDFL somehow managed to exist in this alternate world, but all the team names got changed around somehow. We can’t explain everything in this other "Twlight Zone" world since we don’t get to see but a few snapshots of it from time to time, but it is still out there. Here are a couple of BDFL teams in the Parallel Universe, see if you can figure out who they mirror in the Milky Way’s BDFL.

Homewood Salamanders - In our Parallel Universe, the spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) is a big deal in Homewood, Alabama. Rather stout by normal salamander standards, the mature adults can reach nine inches in length and their slate gray/black bodies are prominently marked by rows of rounded yellow spots. During the winter, the spotted salamanders stay burrowed beneath the rocks and rubble of Shades Mountain, but when they feel the urge to mate, they gladly forsake this domain in a mass migration to reach the breeding ponds of Shades Creek. Once their mission is completed, they head back to their home field territory.

Valley Grande Gunners - Pronounced Valley "Gron-day" this bedroom community is just north of Morgan, Alabama in the Parallel Universe. You see the South won the American Civil War in our Parallel Universe and things are a little different. Like Robert E. Lee Day and Jefferson Davis Day are National holidays and Rebel flags and the "Rebels" nickname are socially acceptable and revered. Valley Grande's nickname, "Gunners" comes from this alternate Civil War and refers to the Confederate's cannon infantry who lined the banks of the Alabama River to sink Northern Aggression ships during the war.

Stay tuned for more Parallel Universe BDFL clubs to be revealed as the league builds towards a complete Throwback Week 2024.