General
While the San Francisco Giants are in balmy Scottsdale, Ariz., reminiscing and shaking the dust off their recent World Series trophy, the Kennedy Eagles baseball team has been under Bay Area clouds working hard on shagging fly balls and fielding grounders. First-year head coach Tim Logan said for the past two weeks his team has been practicing nothing but defensive fundamentals. But the ABCs of a 6-4-3 double play have turned into rocket science for Kennedy the past few years….
Eleven-and-zero. That’s the Kennedy Lady Eagles home record this year. And if they win three more home games this week they’ll call themselves Tri-County League champs. After the final buzzer sounded on Tuesday night, and the song “Another One Bites The Dust” boomed over the loud speaker, the number two-seeded Lady Eagles huddled together at midcourt with fans to celebrate their 73-68 tournament victory over six-seeded St. Patrick/St. Vincent Lady Bruins of Vallejo. According to Lady Eagles head coach Rae…
Nine Richmond firefighters trained for a mass casualty drill involving hazardous materials Saturday morning. The two-hour instruction took place at Station 64, parallel to the railroad tracks off Carson Avenue where freight cars often park while transporting high-risk materials. Training began in a classroom where HAZMAT specialists studied a slideshow and discussed how to transport a decontamination trailer to the scene of an accident. The long red trailer with the words “Decontamination Unit” written on its side housed an inflatable…
If anyone that wears their heart on their sleeve it’s Richmond Oilers head basketball coach Rob Collins. And on Wednesday night there was no doubt the unease he felt as his team lost in overtime on Senior Night to the Hercules Titans 51-49. As the final buzzer sounded, and after both team shook hands at mid-court, Collins took his team to the locker room and quickly shut the door. The loss was the Oilers second in a row, and with…
Boxing had the “Thrilla in Manila.” Football had the “Immaculate Reception.” Baseball had the “Shot Heard Around the World.” And now basketball has Kennedy High Lady Eagles’ “Three Against Five.” In what might be the most famous basketball game ever played at Coach Dolly Felix Gym, the Lady Eagles defeated the Hercules Lady Titans Friday night on a last-second shot while playing the last 55 seconds of the game with only three players. With the score knotted at 70, and…
Luis Moreno brought his 17-year-old stepdaughter to Doctors Medical Center last Monday after she missed two days of school due to flu symptoms. She is not a Richmond resident—she lives in Pinole—but Doctor’s Medical Center is the closest emergency room. And she is uninsured. Like her, nearly a quarter of the patients Doctors Medical Center sees every day are uninsured and an additional 30 percent are underinsured, meaning that Medicare or MediCal covers a portion—but not all—of their hospital costs,…
After 30 years as the President of the Richmond Museum Association, Lois Boyle is retiring—sort of. “I’ll be 80 this year,” Boyle said, eyes shining as she reclined back in a felt chair in her office. Her office these days is a small, bare room on a historic battleship—the SS Red Oak Victory Ship. To get to work, Boyle drives into Richmond’s long, windy port, past modern day freight carriers and hundreds of recently offloaded brand new cars, before the SS Red…
Political differences were—mostly—set aside Tuesday night during the celebratory swearing-in of re-elected city council members Nat Bates and Tom Butt. But beneath the congratulatory speeches for Bates and Butt, and the appreciative acknowledgments of outgoing councilmember Jeff Ritterman, were concerns for councilmember-elect Gary Bell and worries about the council’s potential make-up now that Bell’s seat is formally vacant. Bell was hospitalized in early November and underwent two neurosurgeries for complications caused by a bacterial sinus infection, his family wrote in a…
In a bare classroom at the Coronado YMCA in Richmond, a small group of women—and one man—dance around in a misshapen circle as they imitate activities from running to praying. The instructor, Sonjay Odds-Eggleton, sings out, “My name is Sonjay and I like to squat,” as she squats down and pops back up twice. The other people in the circle copy her movements and improvised lyrics. They move a bit slower, but after a couple times around they nearly have…