from Bruce
Anecdotes
Media
• Professional baseball player Reggie Jackson really understood the media. One day, broadcaster Joe Garagiola interviewed him about a disagreement Mr. Jackson had had with George Steinbrenner, and he gave a long answer. Unfortunately, the answer was too long. However, Mr. Jackson felt that he couldn’t tell the complete story in a shorter time, so he arranged to stretch out his second at-bat in the game so his complete answer could be played on the air. During Mr. Jackson’s second at-bat, Mr. Garagiola stood up to let Mr. Jackson know the answer was being broadcast, and Mr. Jackson did such things as calling time and getting another bat. When the answer had been completely broadcast, Mr. Garagiola sat down, and Mr. Jackson hit a double.
• Golfer Payne Stewart earned a one-stroke lead at Spyglass Hill, and he knew that rain was forecast for the next day: Sunday. If it rained and golfers could not play, then he would be declared winner of the tournament. A TV reporter asked Mr. Stewart his thoughts on the situation, and Mr. Stewart said all the right things, such as that he was hoping for good weather and that he wanted to win the tournament by playing all the holes, not through a rainout. After the TV cameras were gone, fellow golfer Peter Jacobsen asked Mr. Stewart what he really thought about the weather. Mr. Stewart grinned and exclaimed, “Rain, baby, rain!”
• For many years, Jack Brickhouse was the broadcaster of Chicago Cubs and White Sox games. Of course, this meant that he watched many, many games of bad baseball in his life. Mr. Brickhouse said shortly before his death, “If every bad game I watched reduced the time I spent in purgatory, I would spend no time there at all.”
• Charlie Dressen, who used to be manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, once said, “The Giants is dead.” Later, when Mr. Dressen was fired as manager, a New York newspaper headline proclaimed, “Dressen are dead.”
Managers
• Babe Herman of the Brooklyn Dodgers was a favorite of manager Wilbert Robinson because he was a terrific hitter despite being a terrible fielder. Once, Chicago Cubs pitcher Kiki Cuyler hit a baseball down the right-field base line. Babe should have easily caught the fly, but he didn’t move until it landed—just in fair territory. Kiki ended up hitting a triple instead of making an easy out. Dodgers Hollis Thurston, a pitcher, and Paul Richards, a back-up catcher, witnessed the entire thing from the bullpen, and they thought that manager Robinson would finally bawl out his favorite player. No such luck. Instead, Robinson bawled them out: “Hey, you two! What were you doing in the bullpen—sleeping? Why didn’t you yell to Babe that Cuyler’s hit was going to be fair?”
• In 1931, Casey Stengel managed the Toledo Mudhens, a minor-league team that was stuck in last place. Because of their losing season, the players had little interest in baseball, so they dozed in the dugout during games. During one game, Casey asked an umpire if he had an alarm clock. Surprised, the umpire asked why he needed one. Casey pointed to his dozing players in the dugout and said, “The boys left a five o’clock wake-up call. I want to be sure they get woke up.”
Mishaps
• The greatest jockey ever was Willie Shoemaker, and the jockey who made the biggest blooper ever was also Willie Shoemaker. In 1957, Mr. Shoemaker rode a horse named Gallant Man in the Kentucky Derby, and he had the race won—all he had to do was to cling to his lead. Instead, he mistook the location of the finish line, raised himself up in the stirrups, and allowed his horse to slow down. A horse named Iron Liege raced by him and won by a nose. This was a major error, and Churchill Downs officials suspended Mr. Shoemaker for fifteen days because of “gross carelessness.” Nevertheless, Mr. Shoemaker bounced back, winning the Belmont Stakes five weeks later while riding Gallant Man. In fact, Mr. Shoemaker behaved so well after his remarkable blooper that his sportsmanship won him the Ralph Lowe trophy. This is all the more remarkable because Mr. Lowe owned Gallant Man.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music/Poem: "Ego Tripping"
Artist: Nikki Giovanni
Record Company: Sundazed Music/Modern Harmonic
Record Company Motto: “Kinda like a record company, except fun and run by music lovers.”
Record Company Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Info:
“Yolande Cornelia ‘Nikki’ Giovanni Jr. (born June 7, 1943) is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children's literature. She has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her poetry album, THE NIKKI GIOVANNI POETRY COLLECTION. Additionally, she has been named as one of Oprah Winfrey's 25 ‘Living Legends.’” — Wikipedia
Price: $1.29 (USD)
Genre: Poetry
Links:
“Ego Tripping”
Sundazed Music/Modern Harmonic
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
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David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
So far, haven't been able to find a replacement camera. Sigh.
First Same-Sex Pairing
‘Dancing With The Stars’
ABC’s Dancing With the Stars will be breaking new ground in the upcoming 30th season. During a TCA panel for the show Thursday, host Tyra Banks and executive producer Andrew Llinares revealed that the new season will feature a same-sex partnership for the first time in DWTS history. Llinares said that JoJo Siwa, who recently came out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, will be paired with a woman dancer.
Social media personality Siwa earlier in the panel was unveiled as one of the first two celebrity contestants in Season 30, along with Olympic gold medal gymnast Suni Lee. Additional celebrities set to tout their dancing skills (or lack thereof) will be unveiled on Good Morning America on September 8.
“I think it’s cool, i think it breaks a wall that’s never been done before,” Siwa said about being part of Dancing‘s first same-sex pairing. “I think it’s really special that i get to share wit the world that you can love who you love, but now you can dance with who you want to dance with.”
Lee joins a number of Olympic gymnasts who have strutted their stuff on the Dancing With The Stars stage. Previous DWTS alumni are Simone Biles, Laurie Hernandez and Nastia Liukin. Hernandez was the champion of Season 23 in 2016.
Just last month at the Tokyo Olympics, Lee took home the gold in the women’s all-around and bronze in the uneven bars, while helping lead Team USA to the silver in the team event after Biles’ unexpected exit from the competition. Lee also made history as the first Hmong-American Olympian.
‘Dancing With The Stars’
Getting A Babysitter
Jeopardy!
Mike Richards, the Jeopardy! executive producer who gave himself a high-profile hosting gig and then immediately lost it once everyone realized he was a jerk, will remain on as the game show’s boss, The New York Times reports. Many observers expected Richards to hammer out an exit deal with Jeopardy!’s production company, Sony Pictures Television.
Jeopardy! has been in need of a host for nearly a year, following the tragic death of beloved host Alex Trebek, who passed away last November due to complications with pancreatic cancer. Executives tried out a variety of A-list guest hosts, including actor Levar Burton, railroad empire heir Anderson Cooper, and Jeopardy! hall-of-famer Ken Jennings.
Richards claims he recused himself from the selection process. But, as the New York Times noted, in his capacity as the show’s executive producer, he had a hand in selecting which footage of potential hosts ended up in front of focus group audiences.
On August 11, Sony announced that Richards would become the show’s permanent host. But an August 18 Ringer report resurfaced some seriously gross behavior from his past. On his podcast, The Randumb Show, Richards made sexist, racist, classist, and anti-Semetic statements. He’s also named in two anti-discrimination suits from his time as executive producer of The Price Is Right. In one instance, as the Times reports, Richards balked “when a model he had hired for the show revealed she was pregnant with twins.”
Last Friday, Richards formally stepped down as the show’s host. Given the nature of his priors and the rapidity with which he abandoned the hosting gig, Hollywood insiders expected that Richards would negotiate some sort of exit (likely with much $$$) from the show. But, as Sony TV exec Ravi Ahuja reportedly told Jeopardy! staff in an all-hands call this week, he’ll stay on as executive producer. He’ll now report to Suzanne Prete, a longtime business and legal affairs exec at Sony. Prete is also charged with overseeing the show’s financial dealings. Sony says Prete’s new role was determined before all of the recent business.
Jeopardy!
Teases New Project
ABBA
The wait for the ABBA reunion might almost be over.
On Thursday (26 August), a new website surfaced online, teasing a project called ABBA Voyage . It urges fans to “register your interest to be the first in line to hear more” on 2 September.
Fans are hoping this mystery project heralds the announcement of new music, which was originally set to be released in 2020.
The Swedish band were forced to delay these plans due to the pandemic, but said they would release five songs at some stage in 2021.
Abba’s last studio album was released in 1981, while three unreleased songs were made public a decade later in 1993 and 1994.
ABBA
Defends Leprechaun
Notre Dame
Notre Dame is offended.
The offense? Being called offensive.
Participants in a survey published Wednesday on the Quality Logo Products Blog ranked the Fighting Irish Leprechaun as the fourth most offensive college mascot in the country, behind Florida State's Osceola and Renegade, San Diego State's Aztec Warrior and Hawaii's Vili the Warrior (who was never an official mascot and is no longer affiliated with the school).
In a statement to the Indianapolis Star regarding the survey, Notre Dame expressed displeasure with being associated with those teams and others like them.
According to Notre Dame's website, no one knows exactly how the Fighting Irish nickname came about. While acknowledging "the term likely began as an abusive expression tauntingly directed toward the athletes," the site states that "the most generally accepted explanation is that the press coined the nickname as a characterization of Notre Dame athletic teams, their never-say-die fighting spirit and the Irish qualities of grit, determination and tenacity."
Notre Dame
Fighting Fire
Fire
For Don Gentry, chairman of the Klamath Tribes, the federally recognized Native American nation located in Oregon and California, this year’s wildfire season has proved devastating.
This year, wildfires have consumed land that is home to members of the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin tribes, devouring both forests and structures. To be sure, extreme drought and oppressive heat waves born of climate change bear much of the blame for this season’s conflagrations.
But experts also note another reason: the abandonment of Native American practices designed to help manage and protect the forest.
“The fires are much more dangerous than ever before, because we have interrupted that long-standing practice of cultural burning by Native peoples, which kept things in check,” said Kari Norgaard, a sociologist at the University of Oregon who has been working with the Karuk Tribe for the last 15 years. “I think there’s no question that what we’re seeing now has to do with the changing climate, as well as a combination of [the] failed management of fire suppression.”
Indigenous tribes of the West, which have largely been excluded from conversations about managing their ancestral lands, make up a large percentage of the people who have been affected by the recent wildfires, Norgaard said.
Fire
Decimating UK Insect Population
LED Streetlights
LED streetlights are decimating the UK insect population, a study has found
The ‘eco-friendly’ lights are even more harmful to insect populations than the traditional sodium bulbs they are replacing, researchers from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) found.
The negative impacts of light pollution on insects including moths - which provide essential food sources for a variety of animals and are important pollinators - are well known.
Field studies found the abundance of moth caterpillars in hedgerows under LED street lamps was 52 per cent lower than in nearby unlit areas, compared to a 41 per cent lower abundance in hedgerows lit by sodium lighting.
Meanwhile, in grass margins, the moth caterpillar numbers near LEDs were a third lower than in unlit areas, whereas sodium lights had little effect on abundance in this habitat.
LED Streetlights
Sulawesi, Indonesia
Leang Panninge
Researchers have found the remains of a teenager who died 7,200 years ago, revealing a group of humans previously unknown to science
The remains of a 17- to 18-year-old girl who died about 7,200 years ago have revealed a prehistoric lineage of humans previously unknown to science.
The Leang Panninge remains, named after the cave in Sulawesi, Indonesia, where they were found, were likely of a person of the Toalean culture, an elusive group of hunter-gatherers who disappeared about 1,500 years ago.
The process of extracting the DNA from the 7,200-year-old bones was painstaking, but it was worth it, the study's authors said in their statement.
The genetic material revealed that the teenager shared ancestors with the modern-day Papua New Guineans and Indigenous Australians who arrived in Wallacea as early as 50,000 years ago, they said.
Leang Panninge
Captured By Hubble
'Einstein Ring'
A new photograph from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a stunning “Einstein Ring” billions of light-years from Earth — a phenomenon named after Albert Einstein, who predicted that gravity could bend light.
The round object at the center of the photograph released by the European Space Agency is actually three galaxies that appear as seven, with four separate images of the most distant galaxies forming a visible ring around the others.
The farthest galaxy — a special type of very bright galaxy with a gigantic black hole at its center, known as a quasar — is about 15 billion light-years from Earth.
At such a great distance, it should be invisible to even the best space telescopes, but its light is curved by the two galaxies in front, about 3 billion light-years away, so its image appears to us in five separate places: four times in the ring and once at the center of the ring, although that can be detected only in the telescope’s numerical data.
The rare phenomenon is named after Einstein, the physicist who predicted in 1911 that gravity would affect light just as it affects physical matter. Einstein proposed the idea as a test of his theory of general relativity in 1915, and in 1919 the British astronomer Arthur Eddington confirmed the effect during a solar eclipse on the island of Principe off the west coast of Africa, noting that stars near the eclipsed disk appeared fractionally out of place because their light was being bent by the sun’s gravity.
'Einstein Ring'
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