Kansas City Royals Quiz (1969-present): 1) 1st manager? 2)
What year did the Royals win the World Series? 3) A.L. ERA
champ in 1993? 4) Who threw 2 no-hitters as a Royal? 5) Who
is the team’s only A.L. RBI champ? 6) Who is the last to win 20
games? 7) Who is the single-season HR leader? Answers below.
[Note: The following was written on Tuesday due to extensive
travel, Wednesday (in the U.S.), and thus I may have missed an
event or two in the interim.]
History of Memorial Day…the Civil War
April 26, 1865…Confederate Memorial Day, a legal holiday in
Mississippi, was born of the visit of Mrs. Sue Landon Vaughn, a
descendant of Pres. John Adams, and other ladies to the military
cemetery in Vicksburg, Miss.
May 30, 1868…Decoration Day was celebrated nationally for the
first time. The day was chosen by John A. Logan, national
commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, for decoration of
Civil War graves. Previously, local communities had held
decoration days at various times.
1873…Memorial Day became a legal holiday in New York, the
first state to recognize it.
As I look for things to write about I decided to peruse my vast
library here and Kenneth C. Davis’s “Don’t Know Much About
History.” The following is part of his broad discussion on the
Civil War.
“History doesn’t show whether London’s touts laid odds on the
war’s outcome. On paper, as they say in sports, this contest
looked like a mismatch. About the only thing the South seemed
to have going for it was a home-field advantage. Looking at the
numbers alone, the South’s decision and fortunes seemed
doomed from the outset. But as the history of warfare has
consistently proven, Davids often defeat Goliaths – or, at the
least, make them pay dearly for their victories.”
Union
–Twenty-three states, including California, Oregon, and the four
slaveholding ‘border states’ of Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware,
and Maryland, and seven territories. [West Virginia would join
the Union in 1863.]
–Population: 22 million (4 million men of combat age).
–Economy: 100,000 factories.
1.1 million workers.
20,000 miles of railroad (70% of U.S. total; 96% of all railroad
equipment).
$189 million in bank deposits (81% of U.S. total bank deposits).
$56 million in gold specie.
Confederacy
–Eleven states.
–Population: 9 million (3.5 million slaves; only 1.2 million men
of combat age).
–Economy: 20,000 factories.
101,000 workers.
9,000 miles of railroad.
$47 million in bank deposits.
$27 million in gold specie.
And the North vastly outproduced the South in agricultural
products and livestock holdings. The only commodity that the
South produced in greater quantities than the North was cotton,
employing slave labor.
But the South had an immediate advantage in trained soldiers
and command leadership. Plus, fighting on home soil, “popular
partisan support, (and) the motivation of defending the homeland
– which had contributed to the American defeat of the British in
the Revolution – were on the side of the Confederacy.”
Well, you know the rest of the story, though from time to time I
will continue to pick out a battle or two, especially if I come
across one in my travels. But Kenneth Davis addresses the
question “What did the Civil War cost America?”
“The federal army began force reductions on April 13, 1865.
According to Senate figures at the time, the Union had enlisted
2,324,516 soldiers, approximately 360,000 of whom were killed.
The Confederate army peaked at about one million soldiers, with
losses of some 260,000. The war cost the Union side more than
$6 million and the Confederate states about half that much.
“The number of war dead was equal to nearly 2 percent of the
population at the time. Civilian casualties are difficult to
measure, but James McPherson, the prominent Civil War
historian, puts the number at more than 50,000, mostly in the
South. [Using 2000 census figures of a population of some 280
million Americans, an equivalent loss today would be well more
than 5.5 million dead.] Thousands more were critically wounded
or disabled. A wave of syphilis, fostered by the thousands of
young men who had frequented the many brothels that sprouted
up in most cities during the war, was spread to many women.
“But it is impossible to measure the cost in lives and dollars
alone. A generation of America’s ‘best and brightest’ – the
young, well-educated, and motivated Americans on both sides –
died. It is impossible to calculate the loss of their intelligence,
invention, and productive potential. The deep animosity –
regional and racial – that had been created in the wake of the
bitter war would continue to bedevil American society and
politics for most of the next 150 years.”
As to the issue “Why did the Union win the war?” Davis
observes:
“In many respects, the Confederate states fielded an eighteenth-
century army to fight a nineteenth-century war against a
twentieth-century power. And while the South fought
ferociously, the numbers were finally too great for it.
“Outmanned two to one, the Confederate armies were worn away
by Grant’s woeful tactics of attrition. The successful blockade of
southern ports reduced supplies of munitions, food, and other
necessities to the point of bringing the South to starvation. The
ultimate failure of the Confederacy to gain foreign recognition
further weakened its prospects. The oft-cited superiority of
southern military leadership overlooks two factors: the number
of these commanders, like Stonewall Jackson, who died early in
the conflict; and the rise of Grant and Sherman in the western
war against the less brilliant Confederate commanders there….
“In retrospect, it was a war that also turned on a number of small
moments, the speculative “ifs” that make history so fascinating.
At a number of turning points, small things, as well as larger
strategic decisions, might have changed the course of the war.
“If McClellan hadn’t been given Lee’s battle plans at Antietam…
“If Lee had listened to Longstreet at Gettysburg and attempted to
outflank the Union troops…
“If the 20th Maine hadn’t pushed back a rebel assault at
Gettysburg with a bayonet charge…
“The speculation is interesting but ultimately useless, because it
didn’t happen that way, and any of those changes might simply
have prolonged the inevitable.”
Davis comments that with regards to the commemoration of
Memorial Day, the Southern states kept separate dates,
considering May 30 a “Yankee” holiday. Actually, in 1876 a bill
making 5/30 a national holiday was defeated and by the end of
the century, with most veterans of the war dead, the tradition was
fading. It was only with the two world wars that veterans’
groups successfully lobbied for a national holiday on May 30 to
honor the dead in all America’s wars. Then in 1968, Memorial
Day was made one of five “Monday” holidays.
Back to the Civil War, the April ’05 issue of National
Geographic has a great piece on the struggle to save the
battlefields, a cause I have trumpeted from time to time. These
next few years, in particular, are critical; especially in the
Spotsylvania region of Virginia where from 1862-1864 there
were over 107,000 combined casualties (killed, wounded,
captured, missing in action). Or the site of the Battle of Franklin,
Tennessee, Nov. 1864, where a Pizza Hut marks the epicenter of
a conflict that claimed 8,500 casualties on both sides.
There have been some successes, such as one of my own favorite
sites, Antietam (Sharpsburg), where 15,000 acres are protected.
Union Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain once said of the scene of the
bloodiest one-day battle in American history:
“Generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-
drawn to see where and by whom great things suffered and done
for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and
dream.”
One can’t help but wonder why the preservation topic stirs such
passions. Adam Goodheart, who wrote the piece in National
Geographic, observes “the Civil War’s battlefields are precious
to us not just because of blood and heroism, but because they let
us glimpse a vanishing, agrarian America – the very landscape in
which our national identity was formed.”
More and more communities are recognizing the importance of
this heritage.
Selected Civil War Quotes
“If General McClellan does not want to use the Army, I would
like to borrow it for a time, provided I could see how it could be
made to do something.”
–President Abraham Lincoln, exasperated with McClellan’s
inaction, 1862.
“I will receive 200 able-bodied men if they will present
themselves at my headquarters by the first of June with a good
horse and gun. I wish none but those who desire to be actively
engaged…Come on, boys, if you want a heap of fun and to kill
some Yankees.”
–General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 1862. [Brilliant military
leader, but he was also a founder of the KKK in the post-war
era.]
“I have heard…of our recently saying that both the Army and the
Government needed a dictator…Only those generals who gain
success can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military
success, and I will risk the dictatorship.”
–President Abraham Lincoln to General Joseph Hooker, 1863.
Hooker had told a newspaper correspondent that the country
should place itself under a dictator.
“Let me know what brand of whiskey Grant uses. For if it makes
fighting generals like Grant, I should like to get some of it for
distribution.”
–President Abraham Lincoln to a Congressional delegation,
1863, after Grant’s enemies in Congress told Lincoln the general
was not fit for high command.
“Let us cross over the river and rest under the trees.”
–Last words of General Stonewall Jackson, May 10, 1863.
[Alternatively I’ve seen “…rest under the (shade of) the trees.”]
“My pen is heavy…O, you dead, who died at Gettysburg have
baptized with your blood the second birth of freedom in
America, how you are to be envied! I rise from a grave whose
wet clay I have passionately kissed, and I look up to see Christ
spanning this battlefield.”
–Samuel Wilkeson, New York Times correspondent, July 6,
1863; Wilkeson had just lost his son at Gettysburg.
“They are the most dangerous set of men that this war has turned
loose upon the world. They are splendid riders, first-rate shots,
and utterly reckless…These men must all be killed or employed
by us before we can hope for peace.”
–General William Tecumseh Sherman on the young bloods of
the South, 1863.
“Don’t duck! They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dis…”
–General John Sedgwick, last words before being shot by a
Confederate sniper at the Battle of Spotsylvania, May 1864.
“Good, now we shall have news from Hell before breakfast.”
–General William Tecumseh Sherman, on hearing that three war
correspondents had been killed by artillery fire.
[Source: “History in Quotations” M.J. Cohen and John Major]
Stuff
–The other day Johnny Mac was talking about baseball’s Wally
Berger and Ken P. just wrote to check out the 1934 and 35
seasons for him. The similarity is remarkable.
1934: 150 games…92 runs…34 HR…121 RBI .298
1935: 150 games…91 runs…34 HR…130 RBI .295
OK, so Ken and I (and I assume J. Mac) are the only ones in the
country who give a darn about this. I bet if you asked Wally’s
descendents they’d care!
Actually, it kind of reminds me of Atlanta’s Chipper Jones and
his RBI streak.
1996 – 110
1997 – 111
1998 – 107
1999 – 110
2000 – 111
2001 – 102
2002 – 100
2003 – 106
Chipper, affectionately known to Mets fans as Larry, his real first
name, played in 153 to 160 games each campaign during this
run.
–On a personal note, I just want to congratulate Art Cotterell for
being elected to the New Jersey Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame.
Art was Willie Wilson’s coach and is a good family friend. Plus
I went to school with his sons. He was known as the “gentleman
coach” in his day….a real class act.
Top 3 songs for the week of 5/24/75: #1 “Shining Star” (Earth,
Wind & Fire) #2 “Before The Next Teardrop Falls” (Freddy
Fender) #3 “Jackie Blue” (Ozark Mountain Daredevils)
Kansas City Royals Quiz Answers: 1) 1st manager: Joe Gordon,
69-93 in only season. 2) The Royals won the Series in 1985. 3)
A.L. ERA champ, 1993: Kevin Appier (2.56). 4) 2 no-hitters:
Steve Busby (1973 / 74…just 22 in ’74, a year in which he went
22-14…but then he quickly faded due to arm problems). 5) Only
A.L. RBI champ: Hal McRae, 1982 (133). 6) Last to win 20:
Bret Saberhagen, 23-6 (1989). 7) Single-season HR leader:
Steve Balboni, 36 (1985).
Royals Opening Day Lineup…first game, 4/8/69
Lou Piniella, CF
Jerry Adair, 2B
Ed Kirkpatrick, LF
Joe Foy, 3B
Chuck Harrison, 1B
Bob Oliver, RF
Ellie Rodriguez, C
Jackie Hernandez, SS
Wally Bunker, P
**Wednesday PM…from Abilene, Texas.
Flew to Dallas this morning from Newark and then drove 180 miles
to visit a manufacturing facility connected to an investment of
mine.
But as I”m listening to the radio, I heard my first commercial
for Shiner Bock Beer of Shiner, TX…the best brew in America.
The slogan is “Nothing”s finer than to have a Shiner.”
Oh baby, I”m thirsty as hell but I went to a restaurant for
dinner and asked if they had beer. “No.” Drat! Unfortunately,
I”m not exactly dressed for hitting a bar in the area, as in I
look like the Wall Streeter I used to be.
Hey, did you see that Illinois guy who caught a world record
catfish?! 124 pounds! It”s still alive as of this morning and
from the picture it”s a stunning feat. The fellow caught it in
the Mississippi. I just wish I could quaff a Shiner Bock to the
guy.
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday.
