Boston Red Sox Quiz (1901-2001): 1) Who was the only player
to win a MVP in the 1950s? 2) Who holds the single season
record for RBI? 3) Who was Rookie of the Year in 1961? 4)
Who holds the longest hitting streak at 34? 5) Name the two
hurlers who each won 20 games in the 60s? 6) Entering this
season, the Red Sox and Yankees have played 1,901 games.
How close can you get to the series record (i.e., 400-1,501).
Answers below.
Rachel Carson
To prove that the editor is really a greenie, each year we honor
Rachel Carson for Earth Day. Once again…her story.
Born in May 1907 in a 5-room farmhouse in Springdale, PA,
Rachel Carson always had a certain fondness for nature, but she
grew up wanting to be a writer. Then, while at Chatham College,
a science teacher convinced Rachel to change her major from
English to Zoology. The rest is history.
By the late 1950s, the daily flushings from industries and cities
were turning America’s waterways into sewers. Rachel took a
broad look at the impact of new technologies on earth’s life-
support system in 1958. The main subject of her 4-year study
was the effect on wildlife of the potent new poisons being
produced by the chemical industry. The work thrust the concept
of environmentalism into the mainstream of human thought.
Friends of Carson’s from Massachusetts and Long Island had
asked her to write a protest article on the widespread use of DDT
to control mosquitoes. “Silent Spring,” one of the most
influential books of the 20th century, was the result. As writer
Harold Evans notes, “She had the scientific training, she had the
reverence for life in all its forms and she had the literary ability
to make the subject readable.”
The book was purposefully divided into two sections because
Rachel had to address different constituencies. The first part was
an ecology primer that millions of ordinary readers could
understand, while the second was an argument against the
chemical industry’s scientists. The book connected the new “age
of poisons” and “nature’s web on interwoven lives” to the
everyday existence of her readers.
Knowing she would face fierce counterattacks, Carson concluded
with a huge 55-page appendix of “principle sources.” The
invitation was to “tear it apart if you can.” The chemical
industry blasted her, the conclusions were “baloney.” Ezra
Benson, Eisenhower’s former Secretary of Agriculture, said
Carson was “probably a Communist.”
Two years into “Silent Spring,” Rachel was stricken with cancer,
yet she felt a solemn obligation to finish the book.
“The beauty of the world I was trying to save has always been
uppermost in my mind,” she said. “That, and anger of the
senseless, brutish things that were being done…if I didn’t at least
try I could never again be happy in nature.”
The articles for “Silent Spring” first appeared in The New
Yorker in June 1962, followed by the book in September.
President Kennedy had his Science Advisory Committee
evaluate Carson’s findings and the prestigious group validated
her thesis.
Then in 1963, the American Academy of Arts and Letters gave
her an award:
“A scientist in the grand literary style of Galileo and Buffon
(French naturalist), she had used her scientific knowledge and
moral feeling to deepen our consciousness of living nature and to
alert us to the calamitous possibility that our short-sighted
technological conquests might destroy the very sources of our
being.”
Rachel Carson died on April 14, 1964. The pesticide DDT was
banned.
[Sources: “American Heritage” magazine; “The American
Century,” Harold Evans; “The Century,” Todd Brewster and
Peter Jennings.]
How Long Does it Take to Rot?
Aluminum can…200-500 years to decay
Cigarette butt…40 years
Diaper (biodegradable)…200 years
Glass bottle…1 million years
Paper towel…2-4 weeks
Plastic bag…10-50 years
Plastic 6-pack rings…500 years
Time for the Cubs or Red Sox to win another Series…320 years
*Actually, on a serious note, the 6-pack rings really do a number
on fish, which kind of sucks, so here at StocksandNews we
recommend the death penalty for anyone caught tossing them in
the ocean.
Stuff For Everyone
–What the hell were the folks at Abercrombie & Fitch thinking
when they manufactured those t-shirts that made fun of Asians?
The company thought they would “love” them, while adding
“humor and levity to our fashion line.” By now, you’ve probably
seen some of the slogans, like “Wong Brothers Laundry Service
– Two Wongs Can Make It White.” Hopefully, the marketing
folks involved were fired.
–Atlanta’s Rafael Furcal hit 3 triples on Sunday, the first to do
so since Lance Johnson in 1995.
–Word has it that Elin Nordegren has moved in with Tiger
Woods. Keep her, Tiger! Please…keep her.
–NASCAR great Buck Baker died the other day at age 83. Buck
was the first to win back-to-back Winston Cup titles in 1956 and
1957. His winnings for those two years were $29,700 and
$24,700, respectively. Overall he won 46 races, while son
Buddy went on to win 19.
–Wahoo McDaniel died. The Chickesaw Indian and former
Oklahoma standout was an AFL linebacker who played for 4
teams, including the Jets and Dolphins, while intercepting 13
passes in his 9 seasons. But Wahoo’s real claim to fame was as a
pro wrestler, a career that was helped along by Jets owner Sonny
Werblin, who encouraged McDaniel to hold wrestling
exhibitions at Madison Square Garden during his football
playing days.
–The other day, researchers off the coast of Wales netted a bird
called the Manx shearwater. What made this so unusual was that
the bird had originally been banded in 1957 (and was at least 5
years old back then). Well, that means our little friend is the
world’s oldest known wild bird, and it is estimated it has flown 5
million miles. [Some parrot species live longer, but it can’t
easily be proved. After all, would you believe anything a parrot
in the jungle told you? “I’m 105, I’m 105, I’m 105…” “Oh,
shut up.”]
–Thor Heyerdahl died last week, simply one of the great
explorers and scientists in history. In 1947 the Norwegian set
out to prove that the first migrants to Polynesia really came from
South America and not Indonesia as was the common thinking at
that time. Heyerdahl had spent a year living in Polynesia prior to
’47 and in observing the trade winds, reached his conclusion.
So he lashed 9 balsa wood logs together and with five
companions made the 4,000-mile voyage from Peru to Raroia
Atoll (near Tahiti), simply drifting for 100 days and proving his
point as to the origin of the Polynesian people. The documentary
on the voyage captured the world’s imagination and won
Heyerdahl an Oscar. But Heyerdahl also did pioneering work on
Easter Island, as well as groundbreaking archaeological studies
in Peru. He was 87.
–Yao Ming, the 7’ 5” center from China has been officially
released from his Chinese squad and will be eligible for the NBA
draft. There’s a lot of hype behind this guy, but he appears to be
the real deal.
–Congratulations to Cincinnati’s Jose Rijo, who on Sunday won
his first game since 1995, following 5 major surgeries over a 6-
year period. Rijo was 111-87 before he had to hang it up the first
time at age 30. This is an amazing comeback. The record for
longest stretch between victories is held by Fred Johnson, who
won a game in 1923 for the New York Giants and then next won
one for the St. Louis Browns in 1938, at the age of 44, finishing
5-10 for his career. Now there’s a story there, no doubt, as well
as a movie deal.
–Yeah, it’s early, but we can still have fun with the fact that
Montreal, Pittsburgh and Minnesota lead their respective
divisions. While I want my Mets to succeed, it would be kind of
cool to see Montreal and Minnesota have great years, after the
franchises were both marked for extinction by the lords of Major
League Baseball.
–The New York Post’s Page Six reports that Puffy Combs is
afraid of clowns, just like your editor is. What I didn’t know is
the official term for this, “coulrophobia.” Puffy evidently has a
“no-clown clause” in his performance contract, something that I
need to consider for StocksandNews.
–An 815-lb. tiger shark was caught the other day off Australia,
and human remains were found in its stomach, so investigators
are now combing through their missing persons files. Save your
breath, gents, I believe we have found Jimmy Hoffa.
Top 3 songs for the week of 4/22/67: #1 “ Somethin’ Stupid”
(Nancy and Frank Sinatra) #2 “Happy Together” (The Turtles)
#3 “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” (The Monkees)
*David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, both former lead singers for
Van Halen, are going to be touring together this summer. Roth
once called Hagar “a mindless little bridge-troll drone.” Ouch!
Boston Red Sox Quiz Answers: 1) MVP: Jackie Jensen won it in
1958, smashing 35 homers, driving in 122 and hitting .286. For
his career (various clubs), Jensen had 199 HR 929 RBI and a
.279 BA. 2) Season RBI leader: Jimmie Foxx, 175, 1938. [For
the season, Foxx also had 50 HR, 139 runs, and a league leading
.349 BA. But Hank Greenberg’s 58 homers kept Foxx from
winning the Triple Crown.] 3)Rookie of the Year in 1961 was
pitcher Don Schwall, who went 15-7, and only 49-48 for his
career. 4) Dom DiMaggio holds the club record with a 34-game
hitting streak, 1949, a year in which he had 8 HR 60 RBI and hit
.307 5) Bill Monbouquette (20-10, 1963) and Jim Lonborg (22-9,
1967) are the two 20-game winners in the 60s. 6) Entering 2002,
the series record between the Red Sox and Yankees is Red Sox
861, Yankees 1,040.
Professor Chris Auld of the University of Calgary has discovered
that people who drink earn more. The stress of high paying jobs
or the fact more sociable people may attain career success are
two likely reasons for his findings.
You’re reading Bar Chat…next one Thursday.
