The Matchbook Storyteller

Does anyone remember being in some neighborhood bar on a Saturday afternoon, and up behind the bar, the Saturday afternoon baseball game was on?   A cold beer, a few scattered customers you might or might not know  –  a quiet oasis with Mel Allen, or Vin Scully, Harry Carey or Ernie Harwell.    

That was then…..

This red matchcover is from DJ’s Dugout in Bellevue, Nebraska.  There are a few for sale on eBay, all red (I’d have thought this might be part of a multi-colored set, but apparently not).   I only mention any of this noting the rise and change in bars where you watch sports, because…

DJ’s Dugout, originally created in 1993  by a Vietnam veteran,  now has 7 locations around the Omaha area, and each and every one of them has at least 50 HGTV’s and projection screens and even full media walls  —  I mean, what sport could they possibly not have?   (They advertise “Every network, every game”!)

The bar has the usual bar stories  — someone was shot in one, someone tried to burgle another one, most struggled during Covid, but the stories therein are less dramatic than their headlines. Well, OK, the shooting victim actually died, but it is very hard to find any more to the story than that simple fact. 

I can’t find any other matchcovers for DJ’s…they’re all red and all for the Bellevue location, and all with a very local Omaha manumark.