Cup of Coffee

07 August 2017: 263 Years

56 Comments

On Saturday I drove out to attend a firemen's dance at Pops Hayes' former department. The department was honoring its retired firefighters, Pops among them. One of my uncles (Pops' brother-in-law) was also in the retired group; he was on the department for 36 years. Toward the end, the emcee gave the total service time for the firefighters honored – 263 years. It was pretty neat to celebrate that level of commitment to a community.

56 thoughts on “07 August 2017: 263 Years”

  1. Today, I am exactly as old as Guy Fawkes was the day of the Gun Powder Plot: 12,990 days old. Oh, and Mickey Mantle the day he hit his 500th homerun.

    2. This tickled me:

      Guitarist Keith Richards is exactly as old as John Quincy Adams was the day he defended the Amistad prisoners before the Supreme Court (26,896 days).

      No match for me or my immediate family today, but my little brother (who shares my birth day) is as old as John Philip Sousa the day he became the leader of the Marine Band. It was his second stint in the Corps; his Marine father enlisted him at 13 to prevent him from joining a circus band.

    3. exactly as old as Tom Cruise was the day the movie Mission: Impossible was released.

      Well, okay, then. Maybe I've got a blockbuster or two left in me.

    4. That's exactly as old as Joseph Smith was the day he died.

      That's exactly as old as United States of America was the day the Battle of New Orleans occurred.

      That's half as old as Barbara Tuchman was the day she died (28,132 days, or 77.02 years).

    5. Exactly as old as Georges Clemenceau was the day he published J'Accuse.
      Exactly as old as President Andrew Johnson was the day of his presidential inauguration.

    6. Mine says I'm exactly as old as Peyton Manning was the day his Broncos were "killed" in the Super Bowl by the Seahawks. I'm now imagining the Broncos getting murdered on the field as Seahawks fans bathe in the blood of their enemies.

  2. Did the answer to CH's trivia question about the player for the Twins & Rangers ever get posted?

  3. An exchange with Rhu_Ru in yesterday's game log prompted me to go in search of the pitcher with the lowest career rWAR and at least 90 wins. I was floored by the results. Two pitchers appeared on the winner's side of the box score 90+ times and accumulated fewer than 2.5 rWAR.

    Tony Cloninger pitched for the (Milwaukee & Atlanta) Braves, the Reds, and the Cardinals between 1961-1972. In that time has credited with 113 wins. Cloninger was actually among the league leaders in two categories in back-to-back seasons. Unfortunately, those categories were walks and wild pitches. His best season was 1965, when he won 24 games and with a 107 ERA+ and respectable 3.25 FIP. That season appears to have been an aberration. He finished with a 88 ERA+, 4.00 FIP, and 1.381 WHIP. He was traded twice, most notably in a package to the Reds for Milt Pappas. His efforts on the bump amounted to 2.2 rWAR. He accumulated an additional 3.0 rWAR for his hitting, which puts him in the interesting category of a pitcher who earned more value for his hitting than for pitching.

    The second pitcher was Mike LaCoss, who played for the Reds, Astros, Royals, and Giants from 1978-1991. He was credited with 98 wins during his career. He never lead the league in any category. His best season was his second, when he won 14 games with a 108 ERA+ and 4.03 FIP. In fact, the season was so good it was worth nearly double his total career rWAR. But the best part? His 9 wins and 2.22 ERA in the first half got him voted onto the NL's All-Star squad. LaCoss twirled 1.1 scoreless innings with no strikeouts and one walk as the NL came back twice to win the exhibition at the Kingdome. Unfortunately, the second half of LaCoss' season didn't go so well: 5.69 ERA and 1.632 WHIP. He retired with a 89 ERA+, 3.89 FIP, and 1.443 WHIP. He had three seasons by rWAR better than his career total, so there were many ups and downs along the way. He was waived once, in 1982, but never traded. In the end, his career line reads 1.2 rWAR on the hill, -0.7 rWAR with the stick. But hey, he was an All-Star and had a fascinating career.

    The really weird thing? Neither Cloninger nor LaCoss was lefthanded.

    1. Cloninger's claim to fame is that he hit two grand slams in one game (that'll raise the WAR!)

    2. He accumulated an additional 3.0 rWAR for his hitting, which puts him in the interesting category of a pitcher who earned more value for his hitting than for pitching.

      Just like the Bambino!

  4. My sister and BiL are volunteer fire fighters down in Iowa. We live just at the edge of the area you can live in and still be a firefighter for our town. Much further down the road and I couldn't make it to the firehouse within the allotted time. I've often thought of joining up.

    1. Pops became a firefighter when he was 37, so you're certainly young enough. His department is all-volunteer, as are most in the county he called home. That's not an anomaly, either: seventy percent of firefighters in the US are volunteers.

    2. I've considered joining the local EMT team, but there's something about the lawyer driving the ambulance that doesn't feel right.

      1. That '93 Phillies team was something else. I'm glad Molitor got his ring, but at the time I was rooting for Philadelphia.

        1. Same here. In fact, there are many teams I rooted against at the time for one reason or another and in retrospect I don't know if I would still do the same today. I rooted for the Marlins over the Indians. For sure I'd rather have Thome have his ring, but at the time I hated Cleveland so much.

          1. Same here. I was very anti-Atlanta in the Nineties; the obnoxious tomahawking (I can't believe they still do this) and ubiquity of TBS really turned me off. There are many players on those teams I would've gladly rooted for on other teams – and did, Maddux in San Diego as one example. At the time, I was glad the Yankmes won the '96 Series. Little did I know what I was wishing on myself.

            I don't regret rooting for the Padres in '98, the Mets in '00, or the Diamondbacks in '01. The last time I had a strong preference for a team in the World Series was the Rockies in '07. An anti-preference couched in ambivalence is more likely.

            1. That the Braves still encourage that is reason enough to think the team deserves every bad thing that happens. On a similar note, I was strongly rooting for the Cubs against Cleveland last year, especially because the Clevelanders seemed intent on shoving that thing in everyone's faces all playoffs.

  8. "Minor Details" now includes a section at the end giving you how the playoff races are going. Right now, the Twins have six teams in position to be in the playoffs (two have already clinched based on the first half of the season) and the seventh, Rochester, is only two games back.

  9. So I'm heading up to the bullseye tomorrow for the Twins-Brewers to see which team is fading faster in the second half and checking tomorrow's probables I will be seeing a Matt Garza start! I don't know why I find that hilarious, but I do. (I'm also immensely relieved to see that it won't be a Gibson start. Its too long a drive to watch an SP I dislike watching that much.)

      1. My beer drinking plan was to drink some beer. I'm not actually sure where the seats are, though. My step-dad got the tickets and I have't asked where we're sitting yet, although I imagine its either lower deck on a base line or the Legend's club.

        1. Well we will be in lower deck too. It's his birthday so I'm splurging for good seats, just haven't secured them . Yet.

    2. I'm very surprised Garza is still in the league.

      Not for his skill, just that he seems like he should be too old.

      1. Garza's eleven years younger than Bartolo! The '05 draft class was pretty good – many players are still active, including J. Upton, A. Gordon, R. Zimmerman, R. Braun, Tulowitzki, Pelfrey, Maybin, McCutchen, Bruce, Ellsbury, Rasmus, Buchholz, and Lowrie.

        1. I would have told you Garza was way older than all those players. Either I think Garza is way too old, or I think that list is way too young.

          1. When I think of Garza, I always suspect he's not a great teammate/worker. His pitching has been pretty good overall his entire career, but he's been with a number of teams. I think if he was viewed more highly on a personal level, he'd probably have managed to stick around with the Twins at least until he became a FA. But people can mature, and he's been in Milwaukee a while now, so maybe that's changing.

  10. A pretty good podcast on relevant issues of Con Law: "What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law". Not a political podcast, but an address of Con Law issues.

        1. I'll have to queue that one up. I'm sure its very different than 99% Invisible, but I've heard good things from few people now. Plus I'm commuting from the cities to Fargo these days for work, so plenty of time for podcasts.

          1. The first episode, or zeroth, was on 99%I. I can't find it so it may have been a B-side thing. It was quite different.

            1. I just downloaded 6 of the 99% I's and am 5 into them now.

              Revisionist History (Malcolm Gladwell, a Canadian) is also quite good.

              1. Gladwell is good but his insistence that his anecdote definitively proves something gets old. Just leave it at "a good story."

  11. Just gassed up at a Circle K on the outskirts of Phoenix. On the video screen at the pump was the "word of the day": jejune. A sign?

  13. Designated hitter Eduardo Escobar batting cleanup? Maybe they should send down a reliever for a bat.

    1. It really is annoying. They have Vargas, Park, Daniel Palka, Mitch Garver, all of whom could provide some power, and yet they'd rather have two utility infielders on the bench. I know we're focused on the future, but it's still annoying.

  14. When I was in Omaha last month, I joined my grandpa at the weekly lunch for all the retired firemen/widows. Pretty fun stuff. (I also recorded a Story Corps interview with him about his memories a few years ago.)

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