Monthly Archives: November 2017

Cup of Coffee

13 November 2017: November Darkness

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Thanks to a link posted by someone I follow on Micro.blog, I came across The Dark Feels Different in November, which introduced me to the concept of ma:

Ma loosely translates to negative space, to emptiness, vacancy, blankness. It is a pause, in time, space, music, conversation. “Ma makes nothingness palpable and tangible,” writes Ando. It’s a space ripe with an atmosphere of uncertainty, suspension, and possibility. The Japanese character consists of the graphic for door and for moon, suggesting “a door through the crevice of which the moonshine peeps in,” as the Swedish linguist Bernhard Karlgren defines it in his Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese. Ma is the crack that lets the light in.
...
The candlelight makes one better know the dark, the shadows, the spaces unseen. And the dark—the hollows and corners behind the curtains, above the rafters, the places where dimness pools—helps one better know the light.

Likewise, ma makes one aware of the presence of absence. It’s the gap where the moonlight sifts through; it’s the space between two slate stones that guide your steps along a path; it’s the hollow where ghosts gather; it’s the pause in conversation, the ripe silence of the unspoken.

It’s worth your time.

Keeping Track

2002 Rewind: Game Forty

KANSAS CITY 8, MINNESOTA 1 IN KANSAS CITY

Date:  Tuesday, May 14.

Batting stars:  Torii Hunter was 2-for-3.  A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-4.

Pitching star:  LaTroy Hawkins pitched two shutout innings, giving up one hit while striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Jeff Suppan pitched eight shutout innings, giving up an unearned run on nine hits and no walks.  Neifi Perez was 3-for-4 with a triple.  A. J. Hinch was 2-for-4 with a home run (his third) and four RBIs.

The game:  Doug Mientkiewicz hit a sacrifice fly in the first to give the Twins a 1-0 lead, but it was all downhill from there.  Chuck Knoblauch homered to lead off the bottom of the first and tie the score.  Hinch had an RBI single in a two-run second to make it 3-1 Royals.  Kansas City added two more in the fourth and Hinch hit a three-run homer in the fifth.  The Twins had nine hits, but eight of them were singles and they had only five at-bats with men in scoring position, going 1-for-5.

WP:  Suppan (4-4).  LP:  Matt Kinney (1-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  Brian Buchanan was again in right field, going 1-for-4...With both Corey Koskie and Luis Rivas out, the Twins had been going with either Casey Blake or Denny Hocking at third and Jay Canizaro at second.  In this game, however, Hocking was at second and Canizaro at third...Matt Kinney lasted only 3.2 innings, giving up five runs on seven hits and five walks with one strikeout...Hawkins lowered his ERA to 1.52...Jeff Suppan pitched a long time without really being all that good.  In a seventeen year career, he only once had an ERA under four (2005) and only had five seasons in which his ERA was under 4.50 (2001, 2003-2006).  In contrast, he had eight seasons in which his ERA was over 5.00, although two of those were his first two seasons in which he pitched only 22.2 innings per season and one was his last in which he pitched 30.2 innings.  He was a very durable pitcher, throwing over 200 innings in six seasons and over 160 in eleven seasons.  2002 was not one of his best seasons--he went 9-16, 5.32.  He had a fine game here, though.

Record:  The Twins were 23-17, in first place by a half game over Chicago.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–November 13

Johnny Kling (1875)
Jackie Price (1912)
Ted Wilks (1915)
Jim Delsing (1925)
Steve Bilko (1928)
Wes Parker (1939)
Mel Stottlemyre (1941)
Gene Garber (1947)
John Sutton (1952)
Dan Petry (1958)
Pat Hentgen (1968)
Jason Simontacchi (1973)
Gerald Laird (1979)
Asdrubal Cabrera (1985)

Jackie Price played one season in the major leagues, but was better known as a baseball entertainer.  He is sometimes called a "baseball clown", but that's not really accurate, because he really performed tricks more than actually clowning.

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