Baseball Quiz: 1) Who holds the major league single season
record for runs scored? 2) Who was the last pitcher to lose 24
games in a single season? 3) Who are the only three pitchers to
appear in 90 games in a single season? [Hint: 2 of the 3 did it
multiple times. If you get the third, pour yourself a frosty.]
Answers below.
Stalingrad, Part I
With the recent release of the film “Enemy at the Gates,” which
tells the tale of a duel between two snipers, I thought it might be
appropriate to shed a little light on its backdrop, the decisive
World War II battle of Stalingrad. Once again I bit off more than
I can chew (it”s not the easiest thing to distill into two editions of
“Bar Chat”), but I”ll give it a whirl.
On June 22, 1941, Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union
(Operation Barbarossa). The goal was to intimidate Britain and
keep the U.S. out of intervening in Europe (“I”m taking over and
there”s nothing you can do about it.”) By January 1942, the
Wehrmacht had captured some 500,000 square miles of Soviet
territory and even Leningrad was surrounded. But far to the south,
Hitler had his eyes on the rich oil fields of the Caucasus.
As 1942 wore on, Russian defenses stiffened as millions of men
(and women) heeded the call of “Papa Joe” Stalin and threw their
bodies at the German armies, all in the name of Mother Russia.
At least 3 Russian soldiers were dying for every German across a
front hundreds of miles long.
The Nazis could control the Caucasus without Stalingrad, but
Hitler thought the city could be taken easily. Formerly
Tsaritsyn, Stalin had renamed the city on the Volga River after
himself back in 1925. For obvious reasons then he had some
affection for the old place. Strategically, it was also Russia”s 3rd
largest industrial city, about 500,000 in population, and it
produced a quarter of the Red Army”s tanks, including the best tank
that any force had in the war, the T-34.
On August 23, 1942, the German 6th Army under the command
of General Friedrich von Paulus launched its attack. As one of
his commanders approached the city he announced in tour guide
fashion, “Over on the right, the skyline of Stalingrad.” That
same night, the Luftwaffe launched a terrorist raid which
decimated the municipal water works and set 100 downtown
blocks ablaze. A piece of cake, the Germans thought.
The next morning, however, they got a taste of what was to
come. In an assault on the tractor factory, the Germans were
confronted by the brand new T-34 tank, some of which were
rolled straight into battle from the assembly lines and driven by
the very workers who made them. Yet on August 29, German
forces brought up from the south ripped through the inner ring of
the city. But then General Paulus made a crucial mistake.
Paulus was one of those who would have looked good if he
appeared at the Oscars. He was well aware of his image. [The
general was known to bathe and change his uniform twice a day.]
But he lacked decisiveness and instead of applying what could
have been a crushing blow, he waited for three days before
making his next move, allowing the Russians to retreat into
Stalingrad and build their defenses.
On the Russian side, General Yeremenko and a Commissar
(Stalin”s political leaders) by the name of Nikita Khruschev were
assigned to organize the defenses. In one instance, a division
commander called out his men and made a speech while walking
down the line. As he extolled the virtues of patriotism, pistol in
hand, he began to count: “One, two, three, four.” When he got
to the tenth man he shot him through the head. Then he repeated
the process five times. There was no problem with discipline in
his ranks thereafter. And as Yeremenko”s commander in charge
of the city defenses, Chuikov, told him, “We shall hold the city
or die there.”
An outsider at the time would have said, “No way the Russians
win.” Entire divisions had been decimated in the Nazi rout of the
previous twelve months. For example, at Stalingrad one of the
10,000-man forces was down to just 1,500. Tank brigades that
once consisted of 80 were down to one or two. But the Russians
kept throwing tens of thousands into the fighting and all the
pounding from the Luftwaffe failed to totally shut down weapons
production.
By September 13, the Germans still had not been able to crack
the city defenses. And while they launched a huge offensive that
day, for their part the Russians were preparing for the
inconceivable, an offensive of their own once the Volga River
and the surrounding land were frozen.
Over the coming weeks, the Germans finally fought their way
into the center of Stalingrad. They found a hellhole, where every
street corner had been barricaded and every little hill or ravine
was a fortress. At this point, the Germans had suffered 38,000
casualties and the Russians about 80,000. Then there was a
pause in the fighting. Both armies did what they could to
reinforce their troops. While the Germans controlled most of the
immediate surrounding area, the Russians were still able to get
thousands across the Volga into the city, 160,000 more by early
October. The battle started anew on October 4. A panzer officer
wrote the following. [Historian John Keegan notes, Nietzschean-
Nazi rhetoric aside, this is an accurate picture of the horror.]
“We have fought for fifteen days for a single house with mortars,
grenades, machine-guns and bayonets. Already by the third day
54 German corpses are strewn in the cellars, on the landings, and
the staircases. The front is a corridor between burnt out rooms; it
is the thin ceiling between the two floors. Help comes from
neighboring houses by fire escapes and chimneys. There is a
ceaseless struggle from noon to night. From story to story, faces
black with sweat, we bombed each other with grenades in the
middle of explosions, clouds of dust and smoke…Ask any
soldier what hand-to-hand struggle means in such a fight. And
imagine Stalingrad; eighty days and eighty nights of hand-to-
hand struggle………Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an
enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is a vast furnace
lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one
of those scorching, howling, bleeding nights, the dogs plunge
into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The
nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell;
the hardest storms cannot bear it for long; only men endure.”
Russian General Chuikov wrote:
“On October 14 there were over 2,000 Luftwaffe sorties. That
morning you could not hear the separate shots or explosions, the
whole merged into one continuous deafening roar. At five yards
you could no longer distinguish anything, so thick were the dust
and the smoke…That day 61 men in my headquarters were
killed.”
It gets worse. Friday, the conclusion.
[Sources: “The Second World War,” John Keegan; “A History of
the Twentieth Century,” Martin Gilbert; “The Illustrated History
of World War II,” (Time-Life); “Russia: A History,” Gregory
Freeze.]
Stuff
–Alberta: Harry K., our resident expert on all things Canadian,
sent me a note the other day on the pleasures of Alberta.
“Alberta has Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper. The Calgary Stampede.
CFL teams that still sell out the stadium. KD Lang. Ian Tyson
(Harry recommends Tyson”s CD ”Cowboyography”). Chinook
winds that can make a foot of snow vanish without even melting
(it vaporizes). Oil. Lots of oil: the oil sands near Ft. MacMurray
contain more oil than all of Saudi Arabia! Dinosaurs (notably
Albertosaurus, T. Rex”s smaller brother). No sales tax.
Privatized liquor retailers. The lowest (and still dropping) taxes
of all Canadian provinces. The Edmonton Oilers. They don”t
use salt on the highways, so you see a lot of real old cars in great
shape (they use sand). Lower unemployment, faster job growth
than the rest of Canada.”
And Harry doesn”t even live here, though I assume he is
receiving compensation from the Canadian tourism and development
boards. There is one major concern, however, that being rutting elk
on the Banff Springs golf course. Golfers have been killed. And
you”ll recall our cougar story from last fall. But since it takes
awhile for the snow to melt up there, I assume we won”t have our
first new casualty until mid-May. StocksandNews will be there to
cover it.
–Golf spectators who are in attendance at a PGA event and then
clap for a simple bogey, or worse, should be forever banned from
the sport.
–Johnny Mac passed on this tale of woe (as reported by
Reuters). Miami police are investigating the death of a woman
who died while evidently receiving an unauthorized silicone or
collagen injection for the purposes of enlarging her buttocks.
The would-be Marcus Welby had fled the apartment before
police arrived. Let this be a lesson to you young ladies out there
attempting to “be like J-Lo.” There is only one.
–Say it ain”t so! A new exhibition at the British Museum reveals
that Cleopatra looked nothing like those who have portrayed her
over the years (namely Liz Taylor). According to the London
Times, new statues are being unveiled which were once
thought to be other queens but now appear to be those of
Cleopatra. She may have been “short, frumpish and in need of a
good dentist.” [Regarding the latter, how British?!]
Top 3 songs for the week of 3/24/73: #1 “Love Train” (O”Jays)
#2 “Killing Me Softly With His Songs” (Roberta Flack) #3
“Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)” (Deodato…simply awful tune,
one of the worst all-time)
Baseball Quiz Answers: 1) All-time record for runs scored in a
single season – Babe Ruth, 177 (1921). 2) The New York Mets
Roger Craig was the last pitcher to lose 24 games in a single
season, 1962, as he went 10-24. 3) The three pitchers to appear
in 90 or more games – Mike Marshall (3 times: 106, 93, 90),
Kent Tekulve (3 times: 94, 91, 90), and Wayne Granger (90).
Next Bar Chat, Friday.
