It’ll be 20 years Thursday since Dale Earnhardt, the greatest NASCAR driver of his generation, died on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. 

No, that can’t be right. 

How can it be 20 years since my greatest hero was found to be mortal? I can still remember being bummed with my mom at Daytona International Speedway the Thursday prior when Earnhardt lost the lead on the last lap of his Daytona 500 qualifying race. I can still remember racing off to my job at Baskin Robbins as FOX left the air that Sunday, my mom saying to me, “I don’t like this” as I walked out the door. 

Me neither.

I remember the phone call from my brother at work. Fortunately, the ice cream parlor was empty. 

“Dale’s dead,” my brother’s voice told me directly. That’s when I found out, but I already knew. 

NASCAR changed forever that day, and it’s been changing ever since. An entire generation of drivers have come and gone since Earnhardt helped steer it to national prominence. It’s hard to say what he would think about NASCAR’s path it has been on since he left us. 

Part of the challenge, you see, was trying to get a clear signal.

Really, it was an artform — shifting the knob ever so slowly, ever so softly, a degree to the right or left, hoping to boost the volume a bit while tamp down the static just enough to make out what was going on. 

I’d squint and sigh, inching the dial back and forth in what all too often was a futile attempt to secure an unfettered, unhindered reception. It didn’t really matter. The crackle that would accompany Larry Munson’s voice as he fretted his way through a Georgia game only heightened the experience.

For generations of sports fans, the radio was the only way you could connect with your favorite team week in and week out, ensuring you didn’t miss a single play. From Munson urging Lindsay Scott to run to John Ward correcting himself after a Notre Dame field goal slid by the goal posts to cap off a Tennessee victory, it was these voices that brought our favorite teams into our living room.

Today, we don’t need the radio. 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

There’s this longtime underdog team. Much of its existence has been a mixture of a few tantalizingly close highs balanced out by a preponderance of underachieving lows. The fans are loyal and true, but they’re growing more and more restless. The years of falling just short are wearing on them. 

They’re ready to win. Finally.

The team makes it to a championship game. Everything is on the line. The thing the loyal fans have wanted for so long seems within reach. 

And things are going great! The underdog has built up a pretty big lead early against an opponent that has long dominated the sport. Surely, this is the year it all comes together. This is the time they finally break through.

But … they don’t. 

There are some confusing coaching decisions. The once confident players now seem suddenly unsure. Anxiety builds among the fanbase. That dreaded, familiar feeling washes over them.

Here it comes again.

In the years before I crossed the threshold to become a Baseball Hall of Fame voter, I always swore I wouldn’t be one of those writers who yo-yoed on candidates from year to year. 

Some voters’ apparent distinction between a “first-ballot” Hall of Famer and a run-of-the-mill Hall of Famer — like the handful who dropped previous support of other candidates to vote for Derek Jeter and no one else last year — made no sense to me. Hall voting is mostly, though not entirely, a function of statistics. And it’s not like any of these guys’ statistics change from year to year once they retire. 

Yet there I was late last month, agonizing as always over which boxes to check, reevaluating a couple of players who have been on the ballot for years and never received a vote from me. 

It’s Christmas Week, and we figured there’s no better topic to dive into this week at Beyond The Trestle than that of a big guy himself – Santa Claus. 

The world’s most famous gift-giver has a history that spans more than 1,700 years, with geographic roots that are as diverse as Asia Minor and Scandinavia. He’s been viewed as a cheerful, round grandfather figure who delights in the joy of children, as well as a truly weird, fairly terrifying hairy beast that demands offerings and sacrifices.

Fortunately, the story of Santa today is one of merriment and joy. So, in the spirit of the season, we’ve decided to dive into the history of Santa by asking a few key questions and sharing the origins of his story.

Let’s dive in.