Hi gang. Today, I am going to start off with a trivia question. The answer will be given, just in case anyone needs it, at the end of the post. Two famous men married their 13 year old cousin. One man received so much grief for this act that he almost lost his career but eventually won back the publics sentiment to have an outstanding career in his chosen career. The other man, while his marriage didnt cause much of a public ripple, was grief-stricken when his wife died 11 years later and those feelings showed in his chosen career and nearly caused him to go insane. Who were these two men? The UConn womens basketball team beat Louisville by 20 points to push their 2013-14 record to 34-0 (like their Wichita State counter-parts) going into the NCAA Tourney. The Huskies victory over the Cardinals gave them the inaugural Championship of the new American Atlantic Conference, their 19th conference championship, after winning 18 Big East Championships. Breanna Stewart, the 64 sophomore National Player of the Year candidate from Syracuse, led the way with 20 points and Bria Hartley had 16 points. Stefanie Dolson, their center from Minisink Valley, had 10 points and 16 rebounds. On March 11, 1972, Hall Of Fame outfielder Zach Wheat died at the age of 83. Zach Wheat played for the national League Brooklyn Team from 1909 through 1926 and played for the Philadelphia Athletics in his last season of 1927. The Brooklyn team was mostly known as the Robins until they changed their name and began the 1932 season as the Brooklyn Dodgers. Wheat played 19 seasons, finished with a batting average of .317 with 2,884 hits, 1289 runs scored and 1248 RBI. Wheat was a singles hitter with terrific speed as can be seen by his 476 doubles. Wheat won the 1918 batting title in the N. L. in a year which saw him end up with some very odd stats. He batted .335 to win the batting crown in 409 official at bats with only 137 hits (119 were singles.) He batted .335 with an OBP of only .369 and a slugging average of only .386 as he did not hit any home runs. Yes, it was the dead ball era but usually a great hitter with speed like Zach Wheat was good for 4 or 5 inside the park homers a year. Among his other 18 seasons, Wheat hit up to 14 home runs a year and he had years where his average was .359 or more and he slugged .510 or more. But , his batting title year of 1918 was a strange year. Zach Wheat also had a brother who played MLB. His name was Mack Wheat. He was a catcher. He mostly played for the Brooklyn Robins for parts of 7 seven seasons but never more than 230 ABs. He had a lifetime average of .204. Most people are aware that Jack Roosevelt Robinson (with the help of Brooklyn Dodger GM Branch Rickey and Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler) broke the color line in Major League Baseball when he appeared as the Dodger 1B on the National League opening day April 15, 1947. The first black player in the American League appeared for Bill Veecks Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947 (two and one-half months after Robinson), his name was Larry Doby. To be sure, there were black players in the major leagues in the 1800s but somewhere along the way, there was an unwritten agreement before the turn of the century that black players were not welcome to play along side white players. There were instances where attempts were made to sneak a negro player onto a team but none worked until Jack Robinson. One such attempt was in 1901 by John McGraw. On March 11, 1901, the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper reported that Baltimore Oriole manager John McGraw had signed a mysterious player named Chief Tokohama to a major league contract. The story alleged that Tokohama was a Cherokee Indian who McGraw saw play and signed to play second base for the Orioles. In reality he was the son of an African-American horse trainer who McGraw did see play in Hot Springs, Arkansas when the Orioles began to train there. The Orioles were staying at the Eastland Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas. One day McGraw was watching some of the hotels employees play baseball and spotted a bellhop named Charlie Grant who he thought had major league skills, especially defensively. Even though Grant was an African-American, he was of very light complexion and had very straight hair. John McGraw, who had great affinity for the baseball skills of African-Americans and favored integration, plotted to pass Grant off as an American Indian and gave him the name Tokohama after a place on a map he saw in the hotel lobby. Charlie Grant had played professional baseball around Chicago in the 1890s with negro teams such as Page Fence Giants, Columbia Giants and Cuban X-Giants. When the Orioles traveled to Chicago McGraws plan started to fall apart. Some of Grants friends from his playing days saw him and began to throw public welcome home parties. The cat was out of the bag, so to speak. Charlie Grant never got to play in the Major Leagues. John McGraw left the Baltimore Orioles after the 1901 season to become the long time manager of the New York Giants, 1902-1932. By the way, there is no connection, to my knowledge, between McGraws Chief Tokohama and the Atlanta Braves mascot Chief Nokahoma. On March 11, 1958, the American League made wearing batting helmets mandatory for all hitters for safety reasons. As mentioned yesterday, the National League had passed this rule in 1954. The batting helmet was developed by the Dodger GM Larry MacPhail and Professor George Bennett from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Hockey oddity. On March 11, 1979, Randy Holt of the Los Angeles Kings was penalized nine times for 67 minutes in the first period of a game against the Philadelphia Flyers. There are only 60 minutes of play in a NHL game, 20 minutes for each of three periods. On March 11, 1930, Babe Ruth signs a two year contract with the New York Yankees for $80,000 a year. Later that year, a reporter asked Ruth what he thought of his making $80,000 a year when President Hoover only made $75,000, Ruth retorted, I had a better year. (Ruth supported Al Smith who lost to Hoover in the 1928 Presidential election.) On March 11, 1974, as the baseball season is soon to open, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, knowing the Atlanta Braves open the season on the road for three games before playing back in Atlanta and also knowing that the great Hammerin Hank Aaron has 713 home runs and is one home run from tieing the legendary Babe Ruth and two homers from breaking the Sultan of Swats all time record of 714, orders the Braves to play Aaron in at least two of their first three games on the road. The Braves, of course, were plotting not to play Aaron at all so he could break Ruths record at home in Atlanta. Aaron played the opening game of the season in Cincinnati facing Reds pitcher Jack Billingham. In his first game, in his first at bat in 1974, Hank Aaron park a Billingham pitch into the left stands to tie Babe Ruth at 714. He did not his another home run in Cincinnati. The Braves headed back to Atlanta for their home opener against the L.A. Dodgers. Of course, Hank Aaron was in the line-up for the Braves home opener. The Dodgers were pitching Al Downing, a crafty veteran southpaw. In the fourth inning, in front of 53,775 fans and Hanks Mother, he flicked those powerful wrists and sent a Downing fastball toward the wall in front of the Braves bull pen. Dodger outfielder Bill Buckner raced to the wall and leaped. He missed the ball by 20 feet, not even close, but he gave the fans a good try. Braves relief pitcher Tom House caught #715 as Hank Aaron was mobbed trying to circle the bases and his Mother raced onto the field to hug her son. The ordeal was over, the shy kid from Alabama was the new Home Run King of Baseball. Hank Aaron never hit 50 home runs in a season, his cap never flew off when he ran the bases, he caught every ball hit to right-field, gunned down runners trying to stretch doubles into triples and either is #1 or in the top 5 in every offensive stat in baseball. he even helps old ladies across the street. Yet, because he did his job without the flair of Willie Mays or the charisma of Babe Ruth he remains, possibly, the most under-appreciated great player in baseball history. On March 11, 2004, Petco Park, the new baseball stadium that would become the new home of the San Diego Padres about one month later, hosted its first sports contest, a college baseball game between the hometown San Diego State Aztecs and the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. The college baseball game drew 40,106 fans which established a record attendance for a college baseball game. The previous mark was 27,673 for the 2002 contest between two Louisiana state rivals, LSU and Tulane at the Superdome in New Orleans. The SDSU Aztecs, coached by Hall Of Famer and SDSU alum Tony Gwynn beat the Rainbow Warriors 4-0. Did you get the answer to the trivia question asked at the beginning of this post? Name the two famous men to marry their 13 year old cousins. The guy who married his 13 year old cousin and got major grief but overcame it was none other than The Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis. His career took a big downturn. He was not heard from in many years until a couple of European Tours sparked a comeback. The guy whos career did not seem to be effected except that his mental health took a major blow was Edgar Allan Poe. Some people have theorized that Poe had mental problems which made his writings great without his marriage and others have stated that the death of his wife after only 11 years had a profound effect on his mental health and his writings. Either way, Poe wrote some very Macabre but interesting stuff. Thats the two. Jerry Lee and Edgar Allan. Time to go. For all of you conspiracy theorists remember, Humpty Dumpty was pushed. Stay safe. See ya tomorrow.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 17:06:15 +0000
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