from Bruce
Anecdotes
Mishaps
• Truett “Rip” Sewell once played minor-league baseball in Beaumont, Texas. He arrived when it was raining so hard that he couldn’t see the street from his hotel window, and so he didn’t even go to the ballpark. The next day, the manager, Del Baker, asked him, “Where the h*ll were you?” Mr. Sewell says, “I didn’t know it could rain on one side of the street in Texas and not on the other. It never even got cloudy at the ballpark.”
• Baseball manager Casey Stengel’s team was behind when an umpire wanted to call the game on account of darkness. Casey protested vigorously, saying, “Look, I’m sixty years old, and I can still see the ball!” To prove his point, he threw the baseball high into the air and attempted to catch it. The baseball smashed Casey’s nose, and the umpire ruled that it was too dark to play baseball.
• When Amy Grossman and Robert Davenport first started working together in pairs figure skating, it took time for them to get used to working together as a team. For a while, Robert’s chest was black and blue from frequent accidental contact with Amy’s blades. After a particularly bruising practice session, Robert told Amy, “I think I just lost my appendix or maybe it was a kidney.”
• During the Vietnam War, Arthur Ashe played some tennis in Saigon for the American troops. He was plenty nervous about being in a war zone, and when he heard some artillery, he dropped to the ground. However, the soldiers simply laughed and told him, “That’s outgoing artillery. You’ve got to learn to distinguish between the outgoing and the incoming.”
• When a batter popped up down the third-base line, both catcher Yogi Berra and third baseman Clete Boyer of the New York Yankees ran to catch it, but collided together, letting the ball fall safely to the ground. Clete asked Yogi, “What’s the matter, Yogi? Couldn’t you yell for it?” Yogi replied, “Sure, but I thought you could hear me waving at you.”
• In 1952, Notre Dame player Johnny Lattner played badly in a game against Purdue, fumbling five times. His coach, Frank Leahy, was not pleased. As punishment, he ordered that a special football—one with a handle for easy holding on to—be manufactured, and he ordered Mr. Lattner to carry it around campus.
• Yankee Joe Pepitone once hit what should have been a game-winning home run. Unfortunately, a referee called him out for not touching second base. Manager Ralph Houk ran out to protest the call, but the Yankee first-base coach told him, “Don’t argue too long, Ralph—he missed first, too.”
• Max Nicholas, the public relations head of the New York Yankees, once telephoned the great catcher Yogi Berra, waking him. Mr. Nicholas apologized, saying, “Sorry, Yogi. I hope I didn’t wake you.” Yogi replied, “Nah, I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.”
Money
• Before comedian Don Knotts became famous, he and a friend went to New York to try—unsuccessfully—to make it big. While living in the YMCA, they met a guy and hung around with him. The guy said he needed $10 for bus fare to get home to Boston, and despite their very meager financial resources, Mr. Knotts and his friend lent the money to the guy, who promised that he would wire them the money when he got home. The guy did send a wire—it said, “SO LONG, SUCKERS!” Both Mr. Knotts and his friend did a fair amount of cursing, but they found out that the guy was only joking, as shortly afterward a wire with the money he owed them arrived. Years later, Mr. Knotts was playing in a golf tournament when a doctor watching him said, “Hey, Don. Can you lend me another ten dollars? I’ve got to get back to Boston.”
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Buy
The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Buy the Paperback
The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Kindle
The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Apple
The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Barnes and Noble
The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Kobo
The Funniest People in Sports: 250 Anecdotes — Smashwords, Volume 2: Many Formats, Including PFD
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: "Anime"
Album: BLESSED BE THE BASED
Artist: Zeed Stun
Artist Location: Austin, Texas
Info:
“Let us be the obscure band you humble brag about.”
“Thanks for checking us out.”
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
Price: Name Your Price (Includes FREE) for 12-track album; you can buy Zeed Stun’s digital discography (five albums/EPs) for $1.50 (USD)
Genre: “Perhaps the widest range of sounds in a single Zeed Stun album yet; there is our classic brand of psyche punk, 90s style hip hop, jazzy reflections, and sovietwave synth funk and many more.”
Links:
BLESSED BE THE BASED
Zeed Stun on Bandcamp
Zeed Stun on YouTube
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Charlie Watts
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Refugees
Hearing lots more planes than usual flying over my house on their way to Dulles. A friend drove me by the Dulles Expo Center Tuesday--where they're housing and vetting a lot of the refugees. We didn't see any refugees, but we did see the police blocking off the roads around the Expo Center and a lot of port-a-pottys . I admit to gawking a bit, but we were returning from my doctor's appointment and grabbing some lunch to bring back and eat here--the Expo Center is only about 5 miles from my house, and there are several restaurants and fast food joints clustered around it.
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Have a class reunion back in PA next month.
Concerts In the Covid Age
Neil Young
After pulling out of Farm Aid earlier this month because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Neil Young elaborated on his concerns in a new op-ed that accused concert promoters of valuing profits over safety.
“Garth Books and others like him have been responsible and pulled back from doing shows,” Young wrote in a post on the Neil Young Archives. “That’s a good example. But it will take big promoters and managers/agents to make the difference. It’s all about the money… The big promoters, if they had the awareness, could stop these shows. Without that, everyone just keeps going like everything is OK. It’s not.”
Live Nation and AEG are both requiring that fans at their shows provide proof of vaccination or a recent negative Covid test, but Young seems to feel that isn’t enough. “Live Nation, AEG, and the other big promoters could shut this down if they could just forget about making money for a while,” Young writes. “They control much of the entertainment business. They hold the power to stop shows where thousands congregate and spread. It’s money that keeps it going. Money that motivates the spreading. The big promoters are responsible for super spreaders.”
Artists like Nine Inch Nails, Pixies, Stevie Nicks, and BTS have all cancelled their touring plans recently because of rising Covid cases spurred by the Delta variant, but many large acts — including Dead and Company, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, the Rolling Stones, Green Day, and Genesis — are going ahead with their tours. “Folks see concerts advertised and think it must be ok to go and mingle,” Young writes. “It’s not. There are super-spreaders events, irresponsible Freedom Fests. We need Freedom to be safe. Not a bad example. This could be just the beginning.”
Young hasn’t played a pubic show since Farm Aid 2019 in East Troy, Wisconsin. He’s spent much of the pandemic preparing archival releases, but he recently cut a new album with Crazy Horse that he hopes to release later this year. When they’ll go on the road to support it is very much an open question.
Neil Young
Cuts 9/11 Truthers From HBO Docuseries
Spike Lee
Director Spike Lee has edited out the 9/11 truther elements of his HBO docuseries titled “NYC Epicenters: 9/11-2012 1/2,” HBO has confirmed to Variety.
The new runtime for the fourth and final episode of the docuseries, slated to air Sept. 11, will be around 30 minutes shorter, and “all the exchange and theories about how the towers collapsed” have been removed, according to an HBO spokesperson.
The original cut of the episode, which featured interviews with 9/11 truthers and members of the conspiracy group Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, was released in advance to media late last week. On Wednesday, as controversy swelled about the episode as well as comments that Lee made to the New York Times, the director announced that he was re-editing the episode.
In an interview published on Monday in the New York Times, Lee said that he still had “questions” about what happened on 9/11.
The four-part docuseries premiered on Sunday. It features more than 200 interviews conducted by Lee with eyewitnesses to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, including first responders, politicians and journalists.
Spike Lee
Jeopardy!
Ken Jennings
All throughout the search for the next Jeopardy! host, former champion Ken Jennings was widely thought to be the frontrunner. So what happened?
A new report from The Wall Street Journal published Friday provides some answers, revealing that like many fans, executives at Sony Pictures Entertainment initially saw Jennings as an "ideal successor" to Alex Trebek. After all, he was a major fan favorite and is well known for his 74-game winning streak on the quiz show, and the Journal says that executives felt confident he would "grow into the role."
But according to the report, the executives were then given "pause" by the reaction to old tweets of Jennings' that resurfaced. In particular, Jennings tweeted in 2014, "Nothing sadder than a hot person in a wheelchair." Before he started guest hosting Jeopardy! in January, he apologized and acknowledged that he's "definitely tweeted some unartful and insensitive things," adding, "I screwed up, and I'm truly sorry."
The Journal also reports that focus groups "didn't react well to Mr. Jennings afterward," and it describes his resurfaced tweets as "unraveling" the show's succession plan. Ultimately, Jeopardy! executive producer Mike Richards was named the show's new permanent daily host. But ironically, Richards stepped down from the job just one week later amid controversy over his own past offensive comments made on a series of resurfaced podcast episodes. Sony has indicated it was unaware of those remarks.
Ken Jennings
Next Big Headache?
More 'Jeopardy!'
This past October, actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik released a YouTube video in which she told viewers that she was going to do something she hadn't done in 30 years: Get a vaccine. Specifically, vaccines for the coronavirus and flu.
"Now you might be saying, 'Hey wait a second, Dr. Mayim Bialik, you don't believe in vaccines. You're one of those anti-vaxxers! I know it because I read it online,' " Bialik said in a jovial tone, waving her hand dismissively. "Well folks, let's finally talk about it."
Bialik was referring to the many headlines that have appeared since her 2012 parenting book revealed her two sons were not on the "typical" vaccine schedule - and when she has offered quotes such as one to People magazine in 2009, saying "we are a non-vaccinating family." While Bialik has long fought back against the anti-vaccine label, this video was the most in-depth defense yet. "I have never once said that vaccines are not valuable, not useful or not necessary - because they are," she said, adding her children did receive some vaccinations, which she delayed for reasons she doesn't want to share publicly.
But her comments are making the rounds once again as Bialik is suddenly in a bigger spotlight in 2021 than anyone could have predicted. Bialik, who drew rave reviews when she guest-hosted "Jeopardy!" earlier this year, was tapped on Aug. 11 as the host for the show's prime-time specials and spinoffs alongside executive producer Mike Richards as the daily syndicated host. When Richards was forced to step down days later after the revelation of his offensive comments on his former podcast, Sony Pictures Television announced that Bialik would fill in and film 15 episodes this week as executives continue their search for a permanent host.
Two of Bialik's stances drawing the most ire are her quotes on vaccines and her role as a "science ambassador" for Neuriva, an over-the-counter supplement marketed as a way to improve brain health, which has been slammed as pseudoscience. Bialik, who rose to fame as the starring role in the 1990s NBC sitcom "Blossom" and then CBS's monster hit "The Big Bang Theory," also earned her PhD in neuroscience from UCLA in 2007.
More 'Jeopardy!'
Lawyer Tells Woman to Stop
Afghan Girls’ Robotics Team
Allyson Reneau, an Oklahoma woman who’s been on a media blitz to say she saved an all-girls robotics team in Afghanistan, got hit with a cease and desist letter from the group’s lawyer this week.
According to the Washington Post, the lawyer for the team’s parent organization, the Digital Citizen Fund, said, “Continuingly recycling old pictures with the Afghan Girls Robotics Team, many of whom are minors, as validation that you had anything to do with their immensely stressful and dangerous escape not only impacts the safety of the girls but it also significantly affects the safety of the members of the team who still remain in Afghanistan.”
The lawyer, Kim Motley, went on, “It is highly unfortunate that you would use such a tragically horrible situation … for what appears to be your own personal gain.”
Reneau spoke to Today.com and appeared on CNN to say that she helped the girls out of the country, which fell to the Taliban earlier this month. Her story has been featured by a variety of other outlets. Reneau, a gymnastics coach and motivational speaker who is also a mother of 11 and a Harvard graduate, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Per the Post, a spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry — which has helped Afghans, including members of the the robotics team — criticized American media for turning her into a “white savior.”
Afghan Girls’ Robotics Team
Parents Must Pay
Michigan
A judge has ordered a western Michigan couple to pay $30,441 to their son for getting rid of his pornography collection.
U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney’s decision this week came eight months after David Werking, 43, won a lawsuit against his parents.
He said they had no right to throw out his collection of films, magazines and other items. Werking had lived at their Grand Haven home for 10 months after a divorce before moving to Muncie, Indiana.
The judge followed the value set by an expert, MLive.com reported. Werking’s parents also must pay $14,500 to their son’s attorney.
After moving to Indiana, Werking learned that his possessions were missing.
Michigan
Quantum Property
Water
There's a storm in your teacup of the likes we barely understand. Water molecules flipping about madly, reaching out to one another, grabbing hold and letting go in unique ways that defy easy study.
While physicists know the phenomenon of hydrogen bonding plays a key role in water's many weird and wonderful configurations, certain details of exactly how this works have remained rather vague.
An international team of researchers took a new approach to imaging the positions of particles making up liquid water, capturing their blur with femtosecond precision to reveal how hydrogen and oxygen jostle within water molecules.
Their results might not help us make a better cup of tea, but they go a long way in fleshing out the quantum modelling of hydrogen bonds, potentially improving theories explaining why water – so vital for life as we know it – has such intriguing properties.
Previously, physicists had relied on ultrafast spectroscopy to gain an understanding of the way electrons move in water's chaotic tug-of-war, catching photons of light and analyzing their signature to map the electron positions.
Water
Antwerp Zoo
Chita the Chimp
A woman who was having an "affair" with a chimpanzee at a Belgian zoo is in fact allowed to continue visiting the venue, despite earlier reports.
According to Ilse Segers, the communications manager of the Antwerp Zoo, Adie Timmermans was not banned from the zoo but rather asked to "change her behaviour" around Chita the chimpanzee, Segers said in an email to PEOPLE.
"There is no ban to see Chita, not for any visitor at the moment," Segers wrote. "We only asked [Mrs. Timmermans] to change her behaviour towards this specific animal."
Segers explained that when Timmermans has attempted to attract Chita's attention in the four years she's been visiting and interacting with the animal, she's deprived him of the bonding time he needs to have with his fellow primates.
"He is an exception: he was raised with humans at home and came to the zoo almost 30 years ago. He is still fond of humans," Segers said. "But for his own health, he has to be part of the chimpanzee group as much as possible."
Chita the Chimp
Jazz Up Plumage
Female Hummingbirds
Considering their daintiness, it might surprise you to learn that during mating season male hummingbirds can be pretty violent bachelors, pecking and body slamming the apples of their tiny eyes (they can shimmy through waterfalls though so pretty tough, I guess). To avoid the excessive advances, it seems the females have found a clever way of flying under the males’ radars by upgrading their plumage to match the brightly colored courting clothes of males on the prowl. Clever girls…
The discovery comes as part of a new paper published in the journal Current Biology. The team on the research were focusing on white-necked Jacobin hummingbirds in Panama, a species that usually exhibits sexual dimorphism meaning the males and females look different from one another.
The females are usually a more muted colorway of greens, grays, and blacks compared to the flashy iridescent blue of the males, which is offset against vibrant white on the tail and belly. That is, it seems, unless the females have had quite enough of being pushed around by amorous males.
“One of the ‘aha moments’ of this study was when I realized that all of the juvenile females had showy colors,” said first author Jay Falk, who led the research as a part of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, in a statement.
“For birds that’s really unusual because you usually find that when the males and females are different the juveniles usually look like the adult females, not the adult males, and that's true almost across the board for birds. It was unusual to find one where the juveniles looked like the males. So, it was clear something was at play.”
Female Hummingbirds
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
