BatiGol Weekly 34: Auspicious

"Hey," you may say to yourself, "Why is the BatiGol Weekly coming out on a Tuesday, not a Monday? Man, they're getting lazy at Viola Nation." While this isn't a necessarily false conclusion, we opted to hold off for a day because, well, look at all the fun stuff that's happened through the years on March 1st.

293: The Roman Emperor Diocletian established the Tetrarchy, a system by which the Empire was divided in four, with four co-emperors. What I'm saying/trying desperately to convince myself is that fourth can be pretty cool, too.

1389: Scholar, reformer, and generally pretty cool dude Saint Antoninus was born in Florence; he'd spend most of his life in the city.

1810: Frédéric Chopin was born. Okay, there's no real Florentine connection here, but c'mon. It's Chopin.

1872: Yellowstone National Park was founded as the first national park in the world, which is cool, because parks are rad.

1892: Nikola Tesla gave the first public demonstration of radio, which, well, any excuse to bring Tesla in is good enough for me.

1914: Writer, activist, critic, and general thinker Ralph Ellison was born.

1930: Gastone Nencini, who won the 1957 Giro d'Italia and the 1960 Tour de France, was born in Florentine suburb Barberino di Mugello. Fellow pro Raphaël Géminiani once said of him, "The only reason to follow Nencini downhill would be if you had a death wish."

1944: Sir Roger Daltrey was born. As the man who sang "Won't Get Fooled Again" over and over, there are some definite Fiorentina vibes coming off him.

1966: The Soviet space probe Venera 3 (crash) landed onto the surface of Venus, becoming the first man-made object to reach the surface of another planet.

1969: Javier Bardem was born. There is no way to ignore the man who played Anton Chigurh, friend-o.

1973: Basketball player and Sacramento Kings legend (so much as that's possible) Chris Webber was born. Given his close acquaintance with near-championships, he's a kindred spirit.

1983: Actress Lupita Nyong'o was born. I don't usually pay attention to the Most Beautiful lists, but holy smokes.

1989: It's Beer Day in Iceland, in which Björk and various metal bands (I assume that's everyone in Iceland) celebrate the repeal of a 74-year-long national prohibition against beer.

So you see, this decision to hold off on the BGW for an extra day makes perfect sense, and we're frankly a little insulted that you're implying otherwise. Okay, actually not, but hey. Today's a cool day. Also, if you live in the US, check to see if your state's primary is today.

Latest news

Europa League? What Europa League? If there had been a recent match against Spurs, you'd find the coverage here. But there wasn't. So just don't.

If you ignored, like, that 12-second stretch in the 6th minute, the Napoli match was a blisteringly good game. But, um, yeah. Here is our full coverage.

Must read

If you can figure out what's going on with Milan Badelj and his agent, let us know here.

Want to catch up on all 30 players Fiorentina has on loan? Well, here is your opportunity.

Let us know how you feel about Fiorentina's exit from the Europa League here. And then we'll never speak of it again.

And seriously, check out Tata's mind-bending double save here. It's worth it.

Comment of the Week

wolfpackallday is a big fan of Luigi Sepe. Let him tell you how much he respects the on-loan (for now) goalkeeper.

fiorentina-vs-napoli-2016.0.html

Well, that'll do it for BGW this week. Get ready for the AS Roma six-pointer later this week. Who knows, maybe that'll be another historically good one for Fiorentina?