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Brooks D. Simpson Profile picture
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Apr 15 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I must have been one of the first #Isles fans to know about Mike Bossy. Heck, I may have known about him before there was a New York Islanders.

Let me explain.
During my time at Exeter I worked with the hockey program in various capacities, largely because coach George Crowe worked on recruiting players from elsewhere.

Among those recruits were a pair of brothers from the Montreal area ... Brian and Dave Bossy.
Brian was a tough scoring forward while Dave was a big defenseman.

One time they were talking about a cousin who was tearing it up back home as a teenager. For some reason that conversation stuck with me.
Years pass, everyone leaves Exeter, and then in 1977 I begin hearing about the Islanders' rookie sensation, Mike ... Bossy.

Hmm, I think. Is that the guy?
In March 1985 I was on a research trip. The Islanders were playing the Blues in the Checkerdome. I had to go.

#Isles won, 6-5. Afterwards, I hung around the arena, then identified the Isles team bus.
Out came the team. As Bossy got ready to board the bus, I asked him if he knew Brian and Dave.

"They're my cousins," he replied. Story confirmed.

So the odds are that I had heard about Mike Bossy before just about any other #Isles fan. :)

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More from @BrooksDSimpson

Brooks D. Simpson Profile picture
Apr 15
It's been said that historians who work on the documentary edition of the papers of a famous person come to like that person because they see the world through their subject's eyes.

This certainly wasn't the case for me when I worked for three years on the Andrew Johnson Papers.
If anything, I got to see just how much of a piece of work Johnson was.

Until recently I thought him the worst president the United States has ever had because of his deliberate efforts to destroy black freedom and equality.
The real "what-if" of April 1865 is not what if Lincoln had lived, but what if Johnson had not become president.

What if someone else had been nominated for VP in 1864?

What if the plot to kill Johnson on the night of April 14 had succeeded?
Read 9 tweets
Brooks D. Simpson Profile picture
Apr 15
In remembering Mike Bossy today, many #Isles and hockey fans will remember the game in which he scored twice in the third period to equal Maurice Richard's 50 goals in the first 50 games standard.

What you may forget is that he had a chance to break it.
Bryan Trottier had set up Bossy for the record-tying goal ... the one played and replayed all the time. He had also started the play that led to goal #49 for Bossy ... both goals coming with less than five minutes to go.

That made the score NYI 6, QUE 4. BTW, both teams were then penalized for too many men on the ice.

Bossy and Trottier remained out on the ice for 4 on 4 hockey.

Stefan Persson broke into the Nords' zone and hit Bossy with a pass as the winger raced down the slot.
Read 5 tweets
Brooks D. Simpson Profile picture
Apr 9
On April 9, 1865, Ulysses S. Grant woke up with a headache ... one of those migraines to which he was prone.

Then someone handed him Lee's letter of April 8. It did not make things better.

Grant wanted peace, but he knew he was not empowered to conduct peace negotiations.
He recalled how Lincoln and Stanton had made that clear in march. Nothing had changed.

So he composed a straightforward reply (Grant Papers, 14:371):
Then Grant and his staff started on their way to the front.

By the time Lee received this letter, circumstances had changed. He now knew that portions of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James had closed in on his men. There was no escape.

The emergency had arisen.
Read 22 tweets
Brooks D. Simpson Profile picture
Apr 9
A New Letter About Appomattox

Headquarters, Army of the Potomac
April 9, 1865

My dear Lilith:

I was witness today to one of the most undeserved outrages perpetuated upon our chief, the gallant victor of Gettysburg, our own dear General Meade.
The general has not been feeling well for several days. He has made good use of the headquarters ambulance in a valiant effort to keep pace with our pursuit of General Lee and his once mighty army.
Unfortunately, this has meant that that little egotistical menace, pipsqueak Phil Sheridan, to gather the laurels that should by all rights be bestowed upon our gallant chief.

But today's humiliation surpasses all that we have heretofore suffered.
Read 16 tweets
Brooks D. Simpson Profile picture
Apr 8
On April 8, 1865, Ulysses S. Grant read Robert E. Lee's letter penned the previous evening, asking Grant what terms of surrender Grant was willing to offer him. The Confederate was clearly in bargaining mode, and corresponding with his opposite number bought him time.
Grant quickly responded (from the Grant Papers, volume 14, page 267):
Note what this response says (and doesn't say) ...

No unconditional surrender; a recognition that Lee's surrender would not in itself end the war (thus the provision about exchanges); no sending Confederates to prison camps.

How could Grant be any more reasonable?
Read 15 tweets
Brooks D. Simpson Profile picture
Apr 7
When it comes to discussions about structuring the postseasons of professional sports, there's a tension between wanting to enlarge the field and giving better teams more significant advantages reflecting regular season achievements.
I think that if you enlarge the postseason, you might want to shorten the regular season, because you've devalued it. But I don't think you need to construct artificial advantages for better teams.

If you want better teams to win, restrict the postseason.
Take hockey. Say goodbye to the divisions. Construct balanced schedules (3 games versus each of 15 conference opponents, home/away versus each of the teams in the opposite conference [32 games]). That gets you to 77 games. That's enough.
Read 8 tweets

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