Baseball Quiz: [The following was gleaned from a bit in the NY
Times the other day] Name the 13 players in baseball history to
have ten or more 100-RBI seasons. Hint: Four are currently
active and two, old-timers, have last names beginning with the
letter ‘g’. Answer below.
Congratulations, Todd Brown!
On a personal note, folks, a few months ago I mentioned that I
may be writing from time to time about a college classmate of
mine from Wake Forest, 47-year-old Todd Brown. I’m part of a
syndicate that is sponsoring Todd on a 3-year quest to see if he
can follow the dream and make the Senior PGA golf tour. Sure,
it’s a big time long shot, but with a terrific support group behind
him, including his wife and five kids (!), we’re all going to have
some fun with this and see what happens.
So the other day, at Suburban Golf Club in Union, NJ, Todd
came up from North Carolina to attempt to qualify for his first
USGA event, the U.S. Mid-Amateur. Suburban was one of
many sites around the country where the qualifiers were held.
Out of nowhere, as Todd learned beforehand, it is also where I
play.
Well, there was only thing to do…set him up with the best reader
of the greens at the club (a course which Todd had never played),
my main man, Bobby. And guess what? Todd won with a 68
and is now off to the finals in September. I walked the 18 with
another friend / sponsor, David, and there were times we were
definitely more nervous than Todd was. And, yes, we celebrated
with a few cold frosties afterwards.
[Congrats to Mark Kellstrom, too, for also making the Mid-Am
finals. Mark’s work on the energy sector for Pritchard Capital is
terrific and has been invaluable to me in constructing another
piece I write for this site.]
Stuff
–U.S. News and World Report’s current issue focuses on
America’s obsession with food. For example, here are some key
dates.
1812 – The first recipe for ketchup based on tomatoes instead of
soy…originally called “love apple or tomato catchup.”
1845 – Visitors to Poland Spring, Maine, begin paying for bottles
of spring water.
1853 – A patron at a New York resort complains that his French
fries are too thick, so chef George Crum intentionally slices the
next batch too thin and fries the potatoes too crisp, inadvertently
inventing potato chips.
[Crum then smashed a bunch of chips…thus creating the first
crumbs………]
1858 – John Mason invents the screw-top glass jar. Millions
think, “Why the hell didn’t I come up with that?!”
1886 – John Pemberton begins selling medicinal syrup as a
fountain drink, creating Coca-Cola.
1897 – A cough medicine manufacturer creates an 88 percent
sugar gelatin dessert that his wife names Jell-O.
1902 – The Kellogg brothers push boiled wheat through a roller
and bake the thin flakes. After fiddling with the ingredients,
cornflakes are born.
1905 – Eleven-year-old Frank Epperson leaves a stick in a cup of
soda outside overnight, accidentally inventing the Popsicle.
1916 – Nathan Handwerker opens Nathan’s Famous on Coney
Island.
1918 – First diet book written by Lulu Peters, who sells 2 million
copies.
1922 – Stephen Poplawski puts a spinning blade on the bottom of
a container, inventing the blender. About 50 years later Dan
Akroyd puts a frog in one on “Saturday Night Live.”
1946 – Percy Spencer stands next to a magnetron, and the candy
bar in his pocket melts. A year later he debuts a 750-pound
microwave oven.
1953 – Swanson creates TV dinners.
1954 – Ray Kroc obtains franchising right to McDonald’s.
1964 – Ron Popeil pitches his Veg-O-Matic on TV, pioneering
the infomercial……. Forty years later it’s “Set it and forget it!”
1971 – Starbucks opens in Seattle.
1993 – The Food Network goes on the air.
But here’s a good story. As told by Amanda Spake of
USN&WR, back in the 1830s a Philadelphia minister, Sylvester
Graham, began “preaching a system of control and health based
on diet,” according to professor Warren Belasco.
Graham was an orator, abolitionist and member of the first
vegetarian church in the nation, which believed that eating what
Adam and Eve ate would restore balance to the body. Items such
as meat, shellfish, coffee and alcohol were forbidden. Graham
wrote, “The simpler, plainer, and more natural the food…the
more healthy, vigorous, and long-lived will be the body.”
As Spake reports, “Graham was fixated on controlling sexual
urges [ahem….a little editing is required here] …through diet.
He maintained that some foods could ‘overstimulate’ the organs,
leading to indigestion and sexual arousal.” Hillel Schwartz, a
cultural historian adds, “Graham believed you had to avoid foods
that stayed in the body because he believed they fermented,
essentially turned to alcohol,” which then led to eroticism. Huh.
Graham was also horrified by bread-making in his time because
it was heavily adulterated. Wheat germ, bran and fiber were
removed and “stretchers” like lime were sometimes added to cut
costs. So in 1837, Graham wrote “A Treatise on Bread and
Bread-making,” outlining the then revolutionary theory that fiber
was vital for health. And so it was the same Sylvester Graham
who came up with his famous cracker, one of the first health
foods.
John Harvey Kellogg later expounded on Graham’s theories,
arguing that the high-protein American diet, heavy on meat,
eggs, butter, sugar, and whiskey or ale, caused “dyspepsia,” or
acid indigestion, as well as the growth of bacteria in the colon
due to lack of fiber. So he invented the Enema cracker.
Well, that last bit wasn’t necessarily true, but Kellogg did later
popularize “nut butters,” including peanut butter. Kellogg also
came up with America’s first meat substitute, from flour, water,
and steamed peanuts; a sort of tofu. And now you know….the
rest of the story.
–Odds of getting a hole-in-one. Golf Digest recently had the
following stats for you golfers out there, courtesy of statistician
Dr. Frances Scheid.
Odds of ace by tour player…3,000 to 1
Odds of low handicap golfer making an ace…5,000 to 1
Low-handicap golfer making an ace at least once in a 1,000-
round career…1 in 5.
Low-handicap golfer making an ace at least once in a 5,000-
round career…nearly a sure thing….but who has the time for that
much golf?!
And Golf Digest is the keeper of the official hole-in-one records.
Longest: 447 yards, Bob Mitera, Omaha, 10th hole, Miracle Hill
Golf Course, Omaha, Oct. 7, 1965.
Longest by a woman: 393 yards, Marie Robie, Wollaston, Mass.,
first hole, Furnace Brook G.C., Wollaston, Sept. 4, 1949. [Of
course the above two were playing with inferior equipment.]
Longest on a dogleg hole: 496 yards, Shaun Lynch, 17th hole,
Teign Valley G.C., Christow, England. In other words, an ace on
a par-5.
Most in career: 59…Norman Manley (amateur), Long Beach,
CA.
–As the Springfield / Summit, NJ area prepares for the first
round of the PGA championship, I got a kick out of this story, as
reported by Kevin Manahan in the Star-Ledger.
“When his loaner Buick rolled through the front gates in the
darkness of the early morning (Monday…for the first formal
practice round), the world’s No. 1 golfer fittingly was the first
player to arrive at Baltusrol Golf Club….Tiger Woods, the
game’s most famous morning person, was getting an early start
in his effort to win his third major championship of the season.
“The car drove through the security checkpoint [ed. note: this
was what I manned in my toy cop year, 1980, at the U.S. Open
here.] and past the first tee, then took a right up the ramp and into
the members’ parking lot, where past winners of the event have
been given preferred parking in stalls designated by painted
wooden signs. The vehicle drove past the first spot – “Hal
Sutton, 1983 PGA champion” – then past spaces assigned to
Larry Nelson, Wayne Grady, Paul Azinger and Mark Brooks.
The sign at the next parking space read:
TIGER WOODS
1999, 2000 PGA champion
“There was just one problem: Somebody had parked in his space.
A rusty silver Honda with Pennsylvania license plates had been
dumped brazenly in the spot reserved for the greatest golfer of
his generation. So, while embarrassed tournament officials
hurriedly called to have the car towed, Woods found another
spot.
“Jack Nicklaus’ space.”
As it turns out the Honda belonged to some local pro in
Pennsylvania who had qualified and been told Sunday evening
he could park there by security. Dopes. And this sports fans, is
why one should never have 100% of their assets in equities
because we have idiots like this in our security forces.
Actually, in the same report by Kevin Manahan, he reports on the
actions of the fans following Tiger during the practice round.
What a bunch of jerks we have in my area. Check this out….
some of the comments directed at Tiger.
“Tiger, you’re my idol…[Woods smiled]…I love you, too. Can I
borrow $200,000?” [Yuck yuck]
Referring to Steve Williams, who gets up to 10 percent of
Tiger’s purses as his caddy. “Tiger, I’ll carry your bag for 5
percent!” [Yuck yuck]
“Mulligan!” someone yelled when Tiger hit a second tee shot on
the same hole.
“You’re why I love golf, Tiger,” one fan told him. “Well, that
and it gets me out of the house.”
Manahan writes, “State troopers Chris Boyle and Lenny Strobel
shook their heads at the comments.”
Our society today is filled with the biggest bunch of losers in the
history of mankind.
–Speaking of a-holes, USA Today / CNN / Gallup conducted a
survey to gauge opinion on Rafael Palmeiro and the Hall of
Fame following his suspension for taking steroids. 46% of fans
say he should be elected to the Hall, 40% say he shouldn’t. 60%
said Mark McGwire should get in, 59% would vote for Sammy
Sosa, and 57% would put Bonds in.
–Incredibly, both the Houston Astros and Oakland A’s could
become the first teams since the 1914 World Series champion
Boston Braves to make the playoffs after starting the season 15
games under .500 at one point.
Post-All-Star-break, since 2000 the A’s have a .662 winning
percentage…remarkable.
–You want a real baseball hero? Try Hall of Fame pitcher Bob
Feller, now 86 and in good shape. Sports Illustrated’s Frank
Deford has a terrific piece in the August 8 issue and while I have
written in the past of how some players like Feller gave up key
years in their careers to fight in World War II and Korea, Feller’s
trajectory bears repeating.
1938…17-11…won/loss record…240 Ks
1939…24-9….246 Ks
1940…27-11…261 Ks
1941…25-13…260 Ks
1942-44….World War II
1945…5-3 after missing beginning of season due to war.
1946…26-15…348 Ks
1947…20-11…196 Ks
Anyway, Feller goes on to finish up his career 266-162 and, as I
surmised in the past, had he not lost those years in his prime he
obviously would have finished with well in excess of the magic
300 mark in wins, something like 350.
But from Deford’s story on his life, here’s but a snippet to give
you an idea of what kind of man Bob Feller is.
Wife Anne Feller says, “For all he accomplished in baseball, and
all that baseball means to him, I still think Bob’s more proud
about his service in the Navy.”
Deford notes, “few in baseball sacrificed more to war than Rapid
Robert Feller did…
“In fact, no one served more willingly, and no one seems to have
fewer regrets, than Feller. He was driving his fancy new Buick
Century (with expensive accessories: radio and heater) from Van
Meter, Iowa, to Chicago on Dec. 7, 1941, to meet with Indians
officials and sign his new contract. On old Route 6, just after
crossing the Mississippi at Davenport, Iowa, he heard about the
attack on Pearl Harbor. He decided right then that he would sign
up. Right then. He was sworn in on Dec. 9 – never mind before
any other ballplayer, before any other celebrity in the land. He
could have had a deferment, too, because his father was
terminally ill, and he was the sole supporter of the family.
“Feller wanted to be a fighter pilot but couldn’t qualify because
his high-frequency hearing was deficient – from growing up, he
thinks, in proximity to so many noisy tractors and hunting guns.
Instead the Navy assigned him to a physical fitness program, but
he volunteered for combat and was put aboard the battleship
Alabama. There, as chief of a gun crew, he first saw action in
the Atlantic and then, most extensively, in the Pacific, where the
Alabama fought from the Gilbert Islands and the Marshalls to
Truk, New Guinea, Saipan, Guam and, finally, the great sea
battles off the Philippines. When he finally was rotated back to
the States, in ’45, he told a reporter, ‘Baseball and malted milks
and a duck-hunting trip are the things that fellows want to come
back to when this thing is over.’”
–Long-time baseball manager Gene Mauch died of lung cancer
at age 79. Mauch managed for 26 seasons and is best known for
never having taken a team to the World Series, the longest such
streak in history. Of course two collapses, one extended and one
lasting an inning, defined his career.
In 1964, Mauch’s Phillies led the National League by 6 ½ games
with 12 to play, promptly lost 10 in a row and finished in second.
In 1986, his Angels were within one strike of going to the Series
when Boston’s Dave Henderson hit a homer off Donnie Moore
to complete a 4-run ninth inning rally. Boston went on to win
the game in extra innings as well as the subsequent two; another
monumental collapse. [Donnie Moore never recovered, himself,
and later committed suicide.]
Despite all the superlatives thrown around about the man called
“the Little General,” Gene Mauch was a jerk. Oh yeah, there is
the obligatory stuff on what a great person he really was, once
you got to know him…blah blah blah.
But I liked this bit by Frank Fitzpatrick and Sam Carchidi of the
Philadelphia Inquirer.
“Perhaps not since John McGraw had there been a manager as
intensely despised as Mr. Mauch. Many of his own players
detested or feared him. After one Phillies defeat in Houston, a
furious Mauch angrily overturned a table containing the players’
postgame spread, splattering food on several Phillies and their
clothes….
“(Mauch), whose competitive spirit knew no bounds, was even
more disliked in opposing dugouts. He could be foul-mouthed
and caustic when riding a player from another team, traits that
left many in the game delighted over his historic near-misses.
“ ‘You didn’t feel sorry for Gene Mauch in those days,’ Yankees
manager Joe Torre, who played against Mauch’s teams with the
Braves, Cardinals and Mets, said in 2001. ‘He’d scream at you
from the dugout. I remember one time we were in Milwaukee.
I’m in a slump and he’s screaming, ‘Knock this [expletive]
down!’
“ ‘I got a base hit. I’m at first base screaming at him, and
(Phillies first baseman John Herrnstein), with his glove up over
his mouth, is going, ‘Give it to him.’’”
But forever Mauch will be associated with ’64 and ’86. In 1976,
while managing the Twins, a reporter for the Minneapolis Star-
Tribune asked Mauch what he remembered about the final two
weeks of the ’64 season.
“Mauch stared at the distant outfield fence. The pause lasted 10
seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, maybe 45 seconds. It seemed
like an eternity. Finally, he tossed his cigarette to the ground and
spoke.
“ ‘Only…every…bleeping…pitch,’ he said, before going on to
deconstruct that excruciating stretch for nearly an hour.” [Paul
Hagen / Philadelphia Inquirer]
Well, it just so happens that I was planning on deconstructing the
’64 collapse in great detail this coming September, thanks to a
source I picked up. Now, all the more reason to do so…sorry,
my Philly friends. [Heh heh]
–Harry K. wrote in to recommend Dan Jenkins’ newest book,
“Slim and None,” a very funny look at golf’s majors. Sounds
like a winner.
Top 3 songs for the week of 8/12/67: #1 “Light My Fire” (The
Doors) #2 “All You Need Is Love” (The Beatles) #3 “I Was
Made To Love Her” (Stevie Wonder)….great week…continuing
#4 Windy – The Association
#5 A Whiter Shade Of Pale – Procol Harum
#6 Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You – Frankie Valli
#7 Mercy, Mercy, Mercy – Buckinghams
#8 White Rabbit – Jefferson Airplane
#9 Pleasant Valley Sunday – Monkees
#10 Little Bit O’ Soul – Music Explosion
#11 A Girl Like You – The Young Rascals
#16 Carrie Ann – Hollies
#17 San Francisco – Scott McKenzie
#19 Up, Up And Away – 5th Dimension
#20 For Your Love – Peaches & Herb
#36 Society’s Child – Janis Ian
#37 (I Wanna) Testify – Parliaments
#42 Don’t Sleep In The Subway – Petula Clark
#44 You Only Live Twice – Nancy Sinatra
#62 Gentle On My Mind – Glen Campbell
#66 Brown-Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
#68 Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie – Jay & the Techniques
#71 Ode To Billie Joe – Bobby Gentry
#73 San Fraciscan Nights – Eric Burdon and the Animals
#74 You Keep Me Hanging On – Vanilla Fudge
#94 The Look Of Love – Dusty Springfield
#102 Gimme Little Sign – Brenton Wood
#112 Purple Haze – Jimi Hendrix
Baseball Quiz Answer: Most 100-RBI seasons, career.
Lou Gehrig, 13; Jimmie Foxx, 13; Babe Ruth, 13
Barry Bonds, 12; Al Simmons, 12
Goose Goslin, 11; Hank Aaron, 11
Manny Ramirez, 10 (recently hit 100 mark for ’05); Frank
Thomas, 10; Joe Carter, 10; Rafael Palmeiro, 10….booooo…
booooooooo! Stan Musial, 10; Willie Mays, 10
*Gehrig and Foxx also had theirs all in a row.
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday.
