Pitching Quiz: 1) Who holds the record for most strikeouts in a
game? [Hint: No, it”s not Roger Clemens or Kerry Wood.]
2) Orel Hershiser holds the record for consecutive scoreless
innings, 59, set in 1988. Don Drysdale is 2nd with 58, 1968. Who
is 3rd? Answers below.
D-Day
On June 6 the National D-Day Museum opens up in New
Orleans. This also happens to be the home of historian Stephen
Ambrose, one of the great Americans of our time. Ambrose has
spearheaded the project and it sounds like a fitting tribute to the
climatic event of the 20th century. [In addition, New Orleans was
where Andrew Higgins invented the Higgins Boat.for that story
see my Bar Chat of 5/22…click on “archives” below.]
Following is the “Order of the Day” issued by General
Eisenhower, a few days before the actual invasion:
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which
we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are
upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people
everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies
and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the
destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi
tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for
ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained,
well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi
triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the
Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air
offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their
capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have
given us an overwhelmingly superiority in weapons and munitions
of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained
fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are
marching together in Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill
in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God
upon this great and noble undertaking.
Dwight Eisenhower
—
And then the invasion. Some brief stories.
–Corporal Kenneth Kassel lost his helmet moving from one
landing craft to another off Omaha Beach. A soldier who wasn”t
going ashore said, “You might need this,” and tossed him his
own. Crawling forward under heavy fire, Kassel was hit on the
rim of his new helmet. “I wasn”t even aware of the fact that I had
been injured.I just kept on going…I stood up under the cover of
the dune line, and one of my buddies says, ”How do you feel?”
And I said, ”What do you mean?” And he says, ”You”re all
bloody.”” The bullet had struck Kassel”s helmet and pushed a
shard of the steel into his head. The fragment was removed three
days later.
–Nicholas Butrico was on a landing craft heading onto shore. He
recounts what happened when his buddy Chester approached him:
“Nick, I”m afraid I can”t swim.” I said, ”Don”t worry about it,
this boat will go right up to the land.” But the ramp was dropped
too early and ”my buddy happened to be the first one out, and as
soon as he went out, a big wave caught the craft and pushed it
over his body.a few days later I heard he was found on the
beach.””
–The Cricket: All of the Airborne troops carried a brass cricket
that clicked when you squeezed it. One click on the cricket was
to be answered by two. Private Ford McKenzie:
“If you didn”t click back, it was assumed you were the soon-to-
be-dead enemy.”
–Private Arthur “Dutch” Schultz parachuted into action on June
6 and recalled talking to a fellow paratrooper before he realized
the man had been shot in the forehead. “It was the first dead man
that I”d seen in my whole life.”
Ambrose writes:
“The museum exists to honor the men and women of America
who made the D-Days of World War II possible. They are the
ones to whom we all owe our freedom, or as Spielberg put it to
me, the ones who put to an end the Holocaust and the Japanese
death camps in Asia. It will be there throughout the twenty-first
century. Nay, for longer. The only other successful invasion
across the English Channel was in 1066. William the Conqueror
commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry to honor that invasion.
Today the tapestry draws hundreds of thousands to see it every
year. [I”ve seen it…truly impressive.] That is almost a
millennium. The National D-Day Museum is going to be there for
that long too. During that time it will teach billions of young
Americans that freedom doesn”t come free, that nothing can beat
the fury of an aroused democracy, that teamwork always prevails,
and that the virtues of dedication, patriotism, loyalty, and doing
one”s duty will prevail forever.”
God, I sure hope so. And as an inscription I saw in a chapel at
the American Cemetery in Normandy reads, “Think not only upon
their passing, remember the glory of their spirit.”
Tito Puente…RIP
El Rey, The King, and the most important Latin musician of the
last half century, Puente was born Ernest Anthony Puente in
Spanish Harlem, New York. Both of his parents were immigrants
from Puerto Rico. It wasn”t an easy childhood, for example his
little brother died at 4 in a fall from a fire escape.
But at the earliest of ages, Tito was banging away. I have the
greatest memory of seeing him in concert years ago. He was so
cool…and he was clearly having a ton of fun. This account by
the New York Times Joyce Walder just makes me smile.
“The young Tito was a drummer from the time he could
remember, drumming so loudly and so often, on the kitchen table,
with pots and pans, that the neighbors beseeched his mother to
get her son music lessons.”
He died last Wednesday but earlier that evening he was
contemplating doing a scheduled benefit concert. His health
didn”t allow him to attend but he made sure his band kept its
commitment. “Keep the boys working. Keep the boys working.”
Puente”s work ethic was legendary. For basically 5 decades, he
did 300 shows a year.
“I have not taken a vacation in my whole life. Have you ever
known a musician to take a vacation? You know when you”re on
vacation? When the phone don”t ring.”
Puente cut 118 records! And with the current success of Carlos
Santana, it”s a good time to remember that Puente wrote
Santana”s hit, “Oye Como Va.”
Top 3 songs for the week of 6/6/64: #1 “Chapel Of Love” (The
Dixie Cups) #2 “Love Me Do” (The Beatles) #3 “My Guy”
(Mary Wells).
French Open
Midway through the 3rd round, all 9 American men were gone,
the earliest wipeout of American men in 33 years of Grand Slam
play.
Gary Player
Player faltered in the final round of this week”s Senior PGA event
but it needs to be noted that he shot his age, 64, to take the first
round lead of the tournament. And folks, this is 64-year-old man
who is suffering from a bad case of Lyme disease!! So quaff an
ale to a man who is perhaps one of the ten best pure “athletes” of
the last 100 years. He was able to compete with the best of his
sport for over 40 years!
Quiz Answers: 1) Tom Cheney of the Washington Senators
struck out 21 in a 16-inning game back in 1962. 2) Walter
Johnson, 55.2 scoreless innings, 1913.
Next Bar Chat, Wednesday…the weather I had promised for
Monday.
