Wednesday, December 12, 2012
2013 Results: Bonds, Clemens, Piazza and Biggio are elected to the Hall of Merit!
(bbtf)
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza and Craig Biggio have been elected to the Hall of Merit!
The timing for our first year electing 4 candidates could not have worked out better, since class of 2013 is the strongest in terms of electees that we’ve ever had. The top of the 1934 ballot included Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Eddie Collins, Pop Lloyd, Smokey Joe Williams and Cristobal Torriente, but only 2 were elected.
Bonds and Clemens were each unanimous at 1 and 2. I believe that’s the first ...
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1 2 >Lesson 1: Buy the team---That way they can't fire you for finishing last 17 times in 36 years.
Well, his main hobby was chasing fire trucks, so draw your own conclusions. (smile)
Anyone in that collar will be guaranteed to write like Oscar Wilde.
Good question. Branch Rickey would also be in contention. Also J.G. Taylor Spink and Henry Chadwick.
If we include media personalities, I'd go with Vin. Even in the era of universally-beloved broadcasters like Buck, Caray, and Harwell, Vinny is head and shoulders above them all.
What did Bill James write about him in the BJHBA? That he didn't have the brains God gave a rabbit. "Compared to Rube Waddell, Dizzy Dean was a Rhodes scholar."
Rube Waddell
Wikipedia paints a rather colorful portrait of Waddell.
Waddell was described by newspapers of his time as having an unabashed joy about certain activities that most of us abandon when we get past puberty, but then so did Mark the Bird. He also had a lot of phobias, but one must keep in mind that the newspapers of that time were basing a lot of things on the Hearst "school of scandalous and super-exaggerated reporting".
Besides, just what the heck does James know about being a Rhodes Scholar?
Yeah, I hate when that happens. It's worst when you mix up which anniversary you're supposed to be celebrating with whom.
As opposed, of course, to today's hyper-accurate, moderate Murdoch era.
Ryan Rowland-Smith making it back to the big leagues?
I am never going to forget that he was the first player with a hyphenated name in MLB. There was a couple in our book club with the last name Smith-Rowland. Their name was formed in the usual American way - the wife's name was Smith, the husband's name was Rowland.
Won't somebody think about the grandchildren!
Does it truly make no sense to you that a practice conceived against the abandonment of the female's given name would often put the name of the female first?
Is this sarcasm? We're talking about surnames. Last is first.
I simply find it odd, given how and why the practice began, that you would be confused by the more common placement of the hyphenated names.
Yes, but as Vaux notes, what happens with her daughter? Does she double-hyphenate?
I understand the desire to retain the surname of the male line in her family before a woman met her husband. But there is a practical reason for the parties in a marriage to adopt a single name.
I know a couple who decided to each keep their own names and alternate the surnames they gave their children. It apparently never occurred to them that most people would assume theirs was a second marriage and the kids were not biologically related.
When double-named people marry, they figure it out. There are options--each dropping one name, keeping their names and making a choice for their children. It isn't like nuclear fission in a bathtub; it's a mild dilemma but hardly an insuperable problem. We didn't hyphenate but it's odd to me that people get invested in opposition to it. Who cares?
Well, my direct answer to Vaux's question - "What does a person with a hyphenated last name do when he or she gets married?" - would be "Whatever he or she wants."
I'm not invested, either. Not confused. Not invested. Perhaps oddly fascinated.
I admit, I didn't read "If hypenating is supposed to be such a 'we're so progressive and liberated' thing..." as particularly objective or without agenda, if that is how you meant it.
I remember when I first learned of it I thought it was cool. And, if you know anything about Connie Mack, so apt. The name sounds like something from classic screwball comedy or from '40's radio.
People sometimes ask us what our kids will do when they get married, and sometimes: What will they do if they get married to ANOTHER hyphen. Our stock, joking answer: That's their problem! A nicer way to say it is they're free to do whatever they want.
As GregD notes, it doesn't seem to us to be an insurmountable hurdle.
There was a Dateline about a man accused (and acquitted) of murdering his wife in which the couple had done this.
Possibly because screwball comic Lucille Ball used the name McGillicuddy as the maiden name of her Lucy Ricardo character.
I guess that's way better than "Soreneck".
I'd say you just read it way too seriously. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I remember when I first learned of it I thought it was cool. And, if you know anything about Connie Mack, so apt. The name sounds like something from classic screwball comedy or from '40's radio.
Or even more precisely, from a W.C. Fields movie: Eustace McGargle, J. Effingham Bellweather, Harold Bissonette, Larson E. Whipsnade, Cuthbert J. Twillie, Egbert Sousè (accent grave), or Mahatma Kane Jeeves.
And your enjoyment of the Christopher Guest oeuvre is thereby increased 1%.
Edit: see at 0:07.
I frequently have students in my classes with Mexican (or other Latin American) style dual last names (father's name first). The only problem there is that our computer record system doesn't handle that very well and usually smashes the names together with no space, hyphen, or internal capitalization.
Mack was in his seventh screwball decade of base-ball by the 1940's.
When it comes to names that tickle,
P. G. Wodehouse
Note that the English go in for hyphenated names some, too.
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