Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–January 5

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Ban Johnson (1864)
Bob Carruthers (1864)
Bill Dahlen (1870)
Jack Norworth (1879)
Art Fletcher (1885)
Rube Foster (1888)
Riggs Stephenson (1898)
Luke Sewell (1901)
Jack Kramer (1918)
Earl Battey (1935)
Bud Bloomfield (1936)
Charlie Hough (1948)
Jim Gantner (1953)
Bob Dernier (1957)
Ron Kittle (1958)
Milt Thompson (1959)
John Russell (1961)
Henry Cotto (1961)
Danny Jackson (1962)
Jeff Fassero (1963)
Brian Runge (1970)
Fred Rath (1973)
Mark Redman (1974)
Eduardo Escobar (1989)

Ban Johnson was one of the founders of and the first president of the American League.

Jack Norworth wrote the lyrics to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game".

Rube Foster was a player, manager, and owner in the Negro Leagues, eventually becoming president of the Negro National League.

Brian Runge was a major league umpire from 1999-2012.  He is the son of major league umpire Paul Runge and the grandson of major league umpire Ed Runge.

Oddly, there are three players born on this day who go by their initials:  J. P. Arencibia, C. J. Cron, and A. J. Cole.

We would also like to wish a very happy birthday to freealonzo.

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First Monday Book Day

First Monday Book Day: Two Books

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Two books of note that I read last month.  Both I loved, but only one that I would recommend.

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimar McBride - (goodreads link)

The story of this book is a good one, McBride searched for a publisher for 7 years without success, before a tiny Irish press published it and saw it take off and eventually win a whole bunch of awards.  I had heard a bunch about it due to all of this and it was always listed as very experimental, so I finally got around to it this December.  I loved it, but I'm not sure there's any way I would recommend it to someone.

The style is very fragmented in a stream-of-consciousness way. I got swept up in the broken consciousness of the narrator. The first chapters were beautiful, and things get brutal from there. The narrator and her brother (continually fighting the effects of a brain tumor) are the only bright spot, and the final scenes between the two of them are remarkable and powerful.

Upright Beasts by Lincoln Michel - (goodreads link)

A collection of short stories that are all just a little bit weird and alienated.  So, basically catnip for me.  Here's the first story (Our Education) and you should read it. I read the whole collection in one day, and it was and enjoyable quick read.

Final Stats from 2015:

112 books read (34,096 pages)
90 fiction (74 novels - 8 story collections - 8 graphic novels)
62 published in 2014 or 2015
38 by women
33 by independent publishers (loosely defined and probably inaccurate)

(Header image is Reading Two Books by William Wegman)

Keeping Track

1965 Rewind: Game Ninety

CALIFORNIA 9, MINNESOTA 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, July 20.

Batting stars:  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-3 with a walk.  Tony Oliva was 1-for-4 with an RBI.  Frank Quilici was 0-for-3 with a walk and a run.

Pitching stars:  Mel Nelson pitched 2.2 innings, giving up one run on four hits and one walk with one strikeout.  Bill Pleis pitched two shutout innings, giving up one walk with one strikeout.

Opposition stars:  Marcelino Lopez pitched a complete game, allowing one run on four hits and three walks with four strikeouts.  Bobby Knoop was 4-for-5 with a double and three RBIs.  Willie Smith was 3-for-5 with a home run (his eleventh) and three runs.

The game:  An RBI groundout by Oliva gave the Twins a 1-0 lead in the first, but Knoop's run-scoring single tied it in the second.  The Angles took control of the game with four runs in the third.  A single, a lineout, and five consecutive singles gave them a 5-1 lead.  The Twins never threatened to get back into the game--they never had more than one runner on base at a time after the first and did not even get one on after Oliva's single leading off the sixth.

Of note:  Rich Rollins was 1-for-4.  Jimmie Hall was 0-for-4.  Camilo Pascual pitched 2.1 innings, giving up five runs on seven hits and no walks with no strikeouts.

Record:  The loss dropped the Twins to 56-34, still in first place by 3.5 games, but Baltimore defeated Cleveland to tie the Indians for second place.

Notes:  This was Pascual's first start since July 4.  He was obviously still hurting.  He would struggle through two more starts, then miss the entire month of August...Hall's average dropped to .316...Earl Battey did not start but was used as a pinch-hitter.  He went 0-for-1 and dropped his average to .304.  Jerry Zimmerman started in his place...Marcelino Lopez had a fine year, going 14-13, 2.93 and finishing second in the rookie of the year voting at age 21.  It was the only good year he had as a starter.  His ERA was a full run higher, 3.93, in 1966, which doesn't sound so bad now but was not very good in 1966.  He was traded to Baltimore in June of 1967 and struggled through a couple of injury-plagued years before resurfacing as a reliever.  He had a solid season for the Orioles in 1970, but it was the last good year he would have.  He made four appearances for Cleveland in 1972, his last major league appearances.  He had started having elbow problems as early as 1962, when he was eighteen, and one assumes that throwing 215.1 innings in 1965 at age twenty-one was probably not the best thing for him.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–January 4

Tommy Corcoran (1869)
Ernest Lanigan (1873)
Al Bridwell (1884)
Ossie Vitt (1890)
George Selkirk (1908)
Gabe Paul (1910)
Herman Franks (1914)
Don McMahon (1930)
Tito Fuentes (1944)
Charlie Manuel (1944)
Ken Reynolds (1947)
Paul Gibson (1960)
Daryl Boston (1963)
Trey Hillman (1963)
Ted Lilly (1976)
Willie Martinez (1978)

Ernest Lanigan was the nephew of the Spink brothers who founded The Sporting News and worked for the publication from the time he was 15.  Among other things, he compiled baseball's first encyclopedia, published in 1922, and served as curator, historian, and director of the Hall of Fame from 1946 until his death in 1962.

Gabe Paul was the general manager of the Cincinnati Reds, the Cleveland Indians (twice), and the New York Yankees.

Trey Hillman was the manager of the Kansas City Royals from 2008-2010.

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Keeping Track

1965 Rewind: Game Eighty-nine

MINNESOTA 5, CALIFORNIA 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Monday, July 19, 2015

Batting stars:  Harmon Killebrew was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer (his seventeenth) and a walk.  Frank Quilici was 2-for-3 with a walk and a stolen base, scoring once.  Bob Allison was 1-for-2 with two walks and a run.

Pitching star:  Jim Perry pitched a complete game, giving up two runs on four hits and two walks with six strikeouts.

Opposition stars:  Jim Fregosi was 1-for-4 with a home run, his eighth.  Joe Adcock was 1-for-4 with a home run, his ninth.  Dean Chance pitched a complete game, allowing five runs (three earned) on nine hits and six walks with five strikeouts.

The game:  Killebrew hit a two-run homer in the first to put the Twins up 2-0.  Adcock got one of the runs back with a home run to start the second and Fregosi led off the fourth with a home run to tie it 2-2.  A doubleplay put the Twins in the lead 3-2 in the bottom of the fourth and Jimmie Hall brought two home in the seventh on a single-plus-error.  The Angels did not get a hit after the fourth and their last baserunner came on a two-out walk in the fifth.

Of note:  Tony Oliva was 0-for-3 with a walk and a run.  Hall was 1-for-4 with a run and two RBIs.

Record:  The win made the Twins 56-33 and kept them in first place, 3.5 games ahead of Cleveland.  Baltimore and Chicago dropped into a tie for third, 4.5 games back.

Notes:  Quilici batted leadoff for the second consecutive game and played shortstop, giving Zoilo Versalles a rest.  Earl Battey was also rested, with Jerry Zimmerman catching...Hall's average dropped to .321.

Remodeled basement. Same half-baked taste.