I couldn't think of a pithy title in honor of week 22, but I did find some "interesting" facts involving the number 22: 22 feet is the length of a regulation Shuffleboard table, a popular pastime for many, and the cause of more fights than you would expect. The 22nd state of the US was actually Alabama; they joined 32 years after the first, Delaware. The atomic number of titanium is 22. The average person takes 11 seconds to count to 22. A million dollars in $100 bills would weigh almost around 22lbs (9.979kg). 22 minutes is actually the average runtime length of a 30 minute TV show. Gliese 22 is a staggering 22 light-years away from our planet, it is a red dwarf star and has a surface temperature of 5,030°F (2,777°C), which is twice as hot as the temperature needed to melt steel. On January 31, 1865, the U.S. House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in America. The amendment read, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” When the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln’s professed goal was the restoration of the Union. But early in the war, the Union began keeping escaped enslaved people rather than returning them to their owners, so slavery essentially ended wherever the Union army was victorious. In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all enslaved people in areas that were still in rebellion against the Union. This measure opened the issue of what to do about slavery in border states that had not seceded or in areas that had been captured by the Union before the proclamation. In 1864, an amendment abolishing slavery passed the U.S. Senate but died in the House as Democrats rallied in the name of states’ rights. The election of 1864 brought Lincoln back to the White House along with significant Republican majorities in both houses, so it appeared the amendment was headed for passage when the new Congress convened in early 1865. Lincoln preferred that the amendment receive bipartisan support—some Democrats indicated support for the measure, but many still resisted. The amendment passed 119 to 56, just barely above the necessary two-thirds majority. Several Democrats abstained, but the 13th Amendment was sent to the states for ratification, which came in December 1865. With the passage of the amendment, the institution that had indelibly shaped American history was eradicated. On this date in 1936, the "Green Hornet" radio show was first heard on WXYZ Radio in Detroit. The show proved to be very popular with Michigan audiences and on April 12, 1938, the show went national and aired for twelve years, ending in 1950. The show had a great opening intro: "He hunts the biggest of all game! Public enemies that even the G-Men cannot reach!", referring to FBI agents. Bureau chief J. Edgar Hoover objected to the line's implication that some crime fighting was beyond the abilities of the FBI, and it was changed to "public enemies who try to destroy our America!" Like other radio programs of its day, The Green Hornet was broadcast live. Before May 1938, recordings were not made of the episodes. Regular recording of the live episodes, for the purpose of rebroadcasting by individual stations, began with the April 6, 1939, broadcast; recordings were made of every subsequent episode. This crime-fighting series followed the adventures of Britt Reid, a wealthy young journalist and his faithful side-kick Kato. Reid presented a ne’er do well attitude to the world which was the exact opposite of his real feelings. He violently abhorred the corruption that permeated society and sought to change it by targeting the very heart of the underworld. This dynamic duo was even compared to Batman and Robin as they had secret identities which they used as a cover for their nightly activities as masked vigilantes. The Green Hornet captured multitudes of listeners, and was in fact heralded as the most popular young adult-oriented old time radio shows of the time. And on this date in 1958, the US’ first satellite, Explorer 1, was launched into space. When Sputnik launched in October 1957, the US Army Ballistic Missile Agency was directed to launch a satellite of our own. The design and build of the satellite was completed by JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in just three months. The primary science instrument on Explorer 1 was a cosmic ray detector designed to measure the radiation environment in Earth orbit. Once in space this experiment, provided by Dr. James Van Allen of the University of Iowa, revealed a much lower cosmic ray count than expected. Van Allen theorized that the instrument may have been saturated by very strong radiation from a belt of charged particles trapped in space by Earth's magnetic field. The existence of these radiation belts was confirmed by another U.S. satellite launched two months later, and they became known as the Van Allen Belts in honor of their discoverer. Explorer 1 revolved around Earth in a looping orbit that took it as close as 220 miles to Earth and as far as 1,563 miles. It made one orbit every 114.8 minutes, or a total of 12.54 orbits per day. The satellite itself was 80 inches long and 6.25 inches in diameter, weighing in at 30.66 pounds. Explorer 1 made its final transmission on May 23, 1958. It entered Earth's atmosphere and burned up on March 31, 1970, after more than 58,000 orbits. We had our largest showing to-date this season, with 24 players coming out to play. We were thrilled to see Dot Davis play tonight (along with Jim Townsend), and John Morch has rejoined play. It was wonderful to see everyone! Also, Steve Podolski has taken the plunge, and has submitted his membership registration for becoming an ACC member. He’s ONE OF US! With 24 people coming out to play, we paid out a whopping six places and three teams. 1st place: Megan Player, with a near perfect card. 18/8/118 for her this week. 2nd place: Larry Phifer, with a 15/7/+62 3rd place: Andy Wagner, with a 13/6/+89 4th place: Joe Greiner, with a 12/6/+79 5th place: Club leader Jeff Raynes, with a 12/6/+73 5th place: Jeff Seidenstein, rounding out the top finishers with a 12/6/+48 1st team: Bernard Whitfield (11) and Tom Goeschel(10) 2nd team: Brian Wilson (12) and Glenn McMahon (8) 3rd team: Allan Simpson (10) and Steve Podolski (6) Better than Bernard? Our ol' buddy Bernard scored 11 points this week. Are you down? Did you beat him? Thanks to Megan for taking care of the team-logging last night! Full results are on the website; here are the top 10 rankings after this week: Jennifer and Jerry keep their tenuous hold on the #2 and 3 spots respectively this week , but look who's coming up all sneaky-like! Andy is one good week away from taking (back) second place. With their GRPs earned this week, Andy, Tom, Joe, Larry, and Welcome to the TopTen, Megan! are jumping spots and making their way upwards with their eye on the #1 position. Jeff Raynes, of course, is having none of that, and steadily creeping away from the rest of the pack. That's all I've got for this week; sorry it's a little late. See ya'll on Monday! ~ Jennifer The Raleigh Cribbage Club is hosting
the following upcoming tournaments: April 1-3 ~ Raleigh Spring Fling ~ Hosted by Jennifer Johnson April 23 - Raleigh Cribbage Club's GRNT ~ Hosted by Club 58 July 22-25 ~ The National Open ~ Hosted by Megan Player July 25 ~ Come Monday ~ Hosted by Fran Ward
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After an exciting weekend of football, though none of my teams won, I’m looking forward to the rest of the post-season. We are at week 21 in our own season, the snow is almost all melted, though icy patches remain where there is no sun. Winter in North Carolina is so much different than winter in Boston. Monday afternoon, for example, I went out with just a fleece jacket and mittens. Were I back in Beantown, I would have had my parka (which I actually found the other day AND found that there was $15 in the pocket), hat, mittens, scarf, and possibly winter boots. I have to say, I much prefer how NC does winter… Our GRNT Has Been Scheduled for Saturday, April 23 at 9:00 AMThe flyer is in the works, but the date has been confirmed with Mary, the manager I deal with at High Park. I'll be sending out the flyer to everyone via email like I did for the GRNT, and we'll post on this website and Facebook, too. There’s GOLD in them thar hills… On this date in 1848, James W. Marshall was building a sawmill for Captain John Sutter, using water from the South Fork of the American River in the valley the Nisenan Indians knew as Cullumah (beautiful valley). He noticed several flakes of metal in the tailrace water and recognized them to be gold. Though he tried to keep it a secret, the word spread quickly and triggered the California Gold Rush of 1849. Born on October 8, 1810, in New Jersey, where his great-grandfather had served as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the young Marshall received an adequate education for that era. He also was taught his father’s trade as a carpenter and wheelwright. Hoping to get on with his life under better circumstances, young James headed west, drifting into the Ohio Valley during the 1830s and for a while settling in Missouri. In 1844, he arrived in Oregon by wagon train. After spending a long, wet winter doing carpentry in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, Marshall soon wandered south to California where he worked for Sutter, making tools, furniture, spinning wheels, looms and virtually anything else that could be made from wood. In 1846, the restless Marshall joined the Bear Flag Rebellion and served under John C. Frémont as the Mexican War spread into California. In 1847, having been discharged, he returned to Sutter’s employ. On January 24, 1848, during his regular morning inspection, he made the discovery that would change the course of California and even American history. He spotted a gleam in the bottom of the ditch, scooped up a handful of gravel, examined it closely and concluded that he had found what appeared to be gold. Although most Californians who heard of the strike doubted its significance, by May 1848 word had reached San Francisco and within days, half the city’s population had departed; within weeks, the news had spread as far south as distant, sleepy San Diego. During 1848, Marshall and Sutter tried in vain to claim ownership of the Coloma property and charge a commission for any gold found by other miners. Harassed and unappreciated throughout much of his adult life, Marshall was a tragic victim of nature’s great lottery. Ironically, he has been remembered in death as one of California’s more influential–though accidental–history-makers. On this date in 1935, the first beer can was sold. In partnership with the American Can Company, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger's Finest Beer and Krueger's Cream Ale to faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia. Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the canned beer, driving Krueger to give the green light to further production. By the late 19th century, cans were instrumental in the mass distribution of foodstuffs, but it wasn’t until 1909 that the American Can Company made its first attempt to can beer. This was unsuccessful, and the American Can Company would have to wait for the end of Prohibition in the United States before it tried again. Finally in 1933, after two years of research, American Can developed a can that was pressurized and had a special coating to prevent the fizzy beer from chemically reacting with the tin. On the side of cans were instructions for how to use a church key. The concept of canned beer proved to be a hard sell, but Krueger’s overcame its initial reservations and became the first brewer to sell canned beer in the United States. The response was overwhelming. Within three months, over 80 percent of distributors were handling Krueger’s canned beer, and Krueger’s was eating into the market share of the “big three” national brewers–Anheuser-Busch, Pabst and Schlitz. Competitors soon followed suit, and by the end of 1935, over 200 million cans had been produced and sold. Today, canned beer accounts for approximately half of the $20 billion U.S. beer industry. A little more recently, in 2004, the Mars Rover Explorer “Opportunity” landed in a crater on the equatorial plain called Meridiani Planum, on the opposite side of the planet. This six-wheeled 380-pound rover was equipped with cameras and a suite of instruments that included a microscopic imager, a rock-grinding tool, and infrared, gamma-ray, and alpha-particle spectrometers that analyzed the rocks, soil, and dust around its landing sites. Opportunity was part of a pair of rovers; its twin Spirit landed on Mars on January 3rd. The mission of each rover was to study the chemical and physical composition of the surface at various locations in order to help determine whether water had ever existed on the planet and to search for other signs that the planet might have supported some form of life. Both rovers found evidence of past water; perhaps the most dramatic was the discovery by Opportunity of rocks that appeared to have been laid down at the shoreline of an ancient body of salty water. Each rover was designed for a nominal 90-day mission but functioned so well that operations were extended several times. NASA finally decided to continue operating the two rovers until they failed to respond to commands from Earth. Opportunity entered Victoria crater, an impact crater roughly 2,600 feet in diameter and 230 feet deep, on September 11, 2007, on the riskiest trek yet for either of the rovers. On August 28, 2008, Opportunity emerged from Victoria crater and set off on a 7-mile journey to the much larger (14 miles in diameter) Endeavour crater. Opportunity continued to explore the Martian surface. The rover arrived at the edge of Endeavour crater on August 9, 2011, and traveled along the crater rim for the rest of its mission. In June 2018 a planet-wide dust storm covered Mars, and the last transmission from Opportunity was received on June 10. In February 2019, after months of unsuccessful attempts to contact Opportunity, NASA announced that the rover was dead. Opportunity had covered 28 miles over 14 years, which were records for distance driven and mission time spent on another planet. We had 19 players come out to peg tonight, which means we paid out five places and three teams. Steve came back, and this time paid full fare. We're working on his membership paperwork...he's gonna be ONE OF US!! :) 1st place: Ernie Hodgson, after a LO-O-O-O-O-O-ONG run of cruddy cards, with a very pretty, but not quite grand slam (thanks to Kristy) 19/8/+156. Way to go, Ernie!! 2nd place: Larry Phifer, with a 14/6/+88 card. 3rd place: Jeff Raynes, with a 13/6/+46. 4th place: Frank Abernathy, with a 13/6/+7. 5th place: Jerry Gooden, with a 12/6/+9; Just edging out Jeff Seidenstein, who had a 12/6/+2. 1st team: Jeff Seidenstein (12) and Glenn McMahon (8) 2nd team: Andy Wagner (10) and Joe Greiner (8) No Bernard this week, so he'll settle up with folks when he's back :) And, thanks again to Joe for taking care of the team-logging last night! Full results are on the website; here are the top 10 rankings after this week: Jeff Raynes' 13 card bumps him further ahead of the number two spot, to which Jennifer is holding on by her fingernails. Jerry is close on her heels, angling to take the second place spot back from her. Have a great week, everyone! See y’all on Monday! ~ Jennifer The Raleigh Cribbage Club is hosting
the following upcoming tournaments: April 1-3, 2022 ~ Raleigh Spring Fling ~ Hosted by Jennifer Johnson July 22-25 ~ The National Open ~ Hosted by Megan Player July 25 ~ Come Monday ~ Hosted by Fran Ward Unfortunately, Larry's grand-slam streak has come to an end, but looking at the week prior to the slams and this week, he had 20 wins in a row. He commented that it's too bad he can't do that in a main. Amen, Larry. Amen. On this date in 1922, the venerable Betty Marion White (Ludden) was born in Oak Park, Illinois. In a youth-driven entertainment industry where an actress over 40 faces career twilight, White was an anomaly who was a star in her 60s and a pop culture phenomenon in her 80s and 90s. White started her entertainment career in radio in the late 1930s and by 1939 had made her TV debut singing on an experimental channel in Los Angeles. After serving in the American Women's Voluntary Service, which helped the U.S. effort during World War Two, she was a regular on "Hollywood on Television," a daily five-hour live variety show, in 1949. A few years later she became a pioneering woman in television by co-founding a production company and serving as a co-creator, producer and star of the 1950s sitcom "Life with Elizabeth." White went on to win two Emmy Awards for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in the 1970s and another Emmy in the 1980s for "The Golden Girls" In later years White's popularity has continued and she has appeared in TV's "Hot in Cleveland" hosted her own reality TV show "Betty White's Off Their Rockers" as well as becoming the oldest person to host comedy sketch show "Saturday Night Live". White, who had no children, worked for animal causes. She once turned down a role in the movie "As Good as It Gets" because of a scene in which a dog was thrown in a garbage chute. In music, on this date in 1976 "I Write the Songs", a a popular song written by Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys in 1975, was covered by Barry Manilow and #1. Johnston has stated that, for him, the "I" in the song is God, and that songs come from the spirit of creativity in everyone. He has said that the song is not about his Beach Boys bandmate Brian Wilson. Manilow was initially reluctant to record the song, stating in his autobiography Sweet Life: "The problem with the song was that if you didn't listen carefully to the lyric, you would think that the singer was singing about himself. It could be misinterpreted as a monumental ego trip." Barry Manilow's version reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in January 1976 after spending two weeks atop the Billboard adult contemporary chart in December 1975. It won a Grammy Award for Song of the Year and was nominated for Record of the Year in 1977. And on this date in 1984, the decision in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984), also known as the “Betamax case”, by the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use. The Court also ruled that the manufacturers of home video recording devices, such as Betamax or other VCRs, cannot be liable for infringement. The case was a boon to the home video market as it created a legal safe haven for the technology, which also significantly benefited the entertainment industry through the sale of pre-recorded movies. Thank goodness for that! I haven't watched a prime-time show (other than sports) on the day it airs in at least 20 years. I "heart" my DVR. Imagine, though, if the case had gone the other way. The basic use of a VCR -- or any other device that could copy or record -- would have had to be radically altered. Whole generations of products might have been changed. If the entertainment industry had succeeded in criminalizing home recording, might digititizing an album have been conceived the same way? The path of home entertainment might have been radically altered, and not in a good way. We had 19 players come out to peg tonight, including a repeat visit from Steve Spodolski. He scored 12 points this week, but missed the money. Maybe next week, Steve! With 18 players and one guest, we paid out four places and three teams. 1st place: Joe Greiner, with a 15/7/116. This is four weeks in a row of scoring GRPs as he stealthily makes his way up the rankings. I see you, Joe! I see you... 2nd place: Jeff Raynes, with a 15/7/99. To be fair, Jeff did give us a chance to try and catch up last week while he was feeling under the weather. Guess he's all better now... 3rd place: Jennifer Johnson, with a 14/6/+94. She's sneaking up behind Jeff, trying to fly under the radar, but can she keep it up for the rest of the season? Your guess is as good as mine. 4th place: Megan Player, with a 13/6/+83. Megain brought her daughter and husband tonight -- with a HUGE bag (and car) full of yummy Girl Scout cookies. Did you miss out? Megan said she would try to bring more next Monday. 1st team: Frank Abernathy (12) and Larry Phifer (12) 2nd team: Ernie Hodgson (11) and Bernard Whitfield (9) 3rd team: Mike Due (11) and Brian Wilson (8) Did you do better than Bernard? With the late night, some folks opted to bug out early -- For the record, Bernard scored a 9-card. Don't worry though, if "you're down", he'll find ya next time he sees ya. Thanks Joe, for taking care of the team logging duties (again) last night! Full results are on the website; here are the top 10 rankings after this week: Jeff's 15-card extends his lead in the race for club champ. Though to be fair, we're only at week 20, so technically there's still plenty of time to try to catch him. With Jerry having a decent-but-not-great night, Jennifer's 14 card puts her over Jerry (just) to take over second place. You've got another email in your inbox from me about the GRNT. So far, votes for dates in April are the overwhelming majority of requests. I'll give it to the end of the day (I think Mary doesn't work again until Thursday) and let everyone know what the decision was from the group, and what Mary can do for us. Have a great week, everyone; see y'all on Monday! ~ Jennifer The Raleigh Cribbage Club is hosting the following upcoming tournaments: April 1-3, 2022 ~ Raleigh Spring Fling ~ Hosted by Jennifer Johnson July 22-25 ~ The National Open ~ Hosted by Megan Player July 25 ~ Come Monday ~ Hosted by Fran Ward Certainly not Larry Phifer. This is his second 19 card. In. A. Row. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll get there. A scant few of us attended the Virginia Cribbage Championships this past weekend in Williamsburg. Frank Abernathy and Larry Phifer qualified in the Main, with Jennifer Johnson as the HNQ (though she did double-skunk Jack Howsare), and Jennifer went on to qualify in the Consolation. All got knocked out in their respective first rounds. Oh well. It was a fund weekend, though. On this date in 1776, the "Common Sense" Pamphlet by Thomas Paine was published advocating American independence. After armed hostilities broke out between the American colonists and British forces in 1775, many prominent colonists seemed reluctant to consider the idea of actually breaking away from Britain, and instead insisted that they were still its loyal subjects, even as they resisted what they saw as its tyrannical laws and unfair taxation. But a single 47-page pamphlet—the 18th-century equivalent of a paperback book—did a lot to quickly change that, and shift American sentiment toward independence. Common Sense, argued that Americans had a unique opportunity to change the course of history by creating a new sort of government in which people were free and had the power to rule themselves. “We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest purest constitution on the face of the earth,” Paine wrote. “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Centuries before the existence of the internet, Common Sense managed to go viral, and by the end of the Revolutionary War, an estimated half-million copies were in circulation throughout the colonies. By promoting the idea of American exceptionalism and the need to form a new nation to realize its promise, Paine’s pamphlet not only attracted public support for the Revolution, but put the rebellion’s leaders under pressure to declare independence. And even after the victory over the British, Paine’s influence persisted, and some of his ideas found their way into the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. On January 10, 1932 "Mickey Mouse" & "Silly Symphony" comics were syndicated. The strip featured adaptations of Walt Disney's popular short film series, “Silly Symphony”, which released 75 cartoons from 1929 to 1939, as well as other cartoons and animated films. The comic strip outlived its parent series by six years, ending on October 7, 1945. For the strip's first four years -- from "Bucky Bug" through "The Further Adventures of the Three Little Pigs" -- all of the dialogue was written in rhyming couplets. This changed with the 15-month period from August 1936 to December 1937 when Donald Duck was featured in the strip, often performing pantomime gags with little or no dialogue at all. When Donald relinquished the strip in favor of an adaptation of the new Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs film, the dialogue was written in storybook style, without rhyming couplets, and the rhymes never returned. On October 14, 1945, the strip was replaced by Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit, a strip inspired by the upcoming 1946 film Song of the South. The Uncle Remus strip began, like the others, as a topper for the Mickey Mouse strip, but after the first few years, almost always appeared on its own. The previous comic strip adaptations of Disney films lasted for four or five months, but the Uncle Remus strip continued for almost thirty years, telling new stories of Br'er Rabbit and friends, until the strip was discontinued on December 31, 1972. And, on this date in 1956 Elvis Presley recorded single "Heartbreak Hotel". The song was released on January 27 of the same year, and topped Billboard’s top 100 for seven weeks. This was Presley’s first million-record seller, and one of the best selling singles of 1956. The song landed spots in the top 5 on the Country and Western, Pop, and R&B charts at the same time. It became a staple of Presley's repertoire in live appearances, last performed by him on May 29, 1977, at the Civic Center in Baltimore, Maryland. We had 16 players come out tonight. Two were guests. Kelly Chilsen, Heather's dad, was in town, and came to play, and Steve Podolski, a local man, came to check us out. Both men had fun, and Steve almost scored points (!!). Not bad for first time out. With 14 full-ACC players, we paid out 4 places and only 1 team. That was tough for the field, where there lots of good cards that couldn't get into the prizes. 1st Place: Larry Phifer (again) with a GRAND SLAM (again) and 19 points (again!) but this time only 134 points. Way to go, Larry! You're going to need a really deep lapel for all those pins! 2nd Place: Tom Goeschel with his second 14 in a row, though this one was clean: a 14/7/+75 3rd Place: Jennifer Johnson with a 13/6/+35 4th Place: Joe Greiner with the best twelve card: 12/6/47 Team: Frank Abernathy (12) and Brian Wilson (6) As always, the full results can be found on the website. Here is the top-10 as of today's tournament: Positions 3 and 4 flip-flopped again, with Jennifer's GRP-earning card giving her an advantage over Andy. Jeff and Jerry were both absent this week, leaving an opening for someone with a decent card to possibly TAKE THE LEAD! Very exciting stuff in Club 58 :-) That's it for this week. Stay safe and healthy, and see y'all next week! ~ Jennifer The Raleigh Cribbage Club is hosting
the following upcoming tournaments: April 1-3, 2022 ~ Raleigh Spring Fling ~ Hosted by Jennifer Johnson July 22-25 ~ The National Open ~ Hosted by Megan Player July 25 ~ Come Monday ~ Hosted by Fran Ward Always remember to forget The troubles that pass away. But never forget to remember The blessings that come each day. I wish each and every one of you a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year! On this date in 1431 Joan of Arc, nicknamed "the maid of Orleans", was handed over to Bishop Pierre Cauchon. Joan of Arc was born around 1410 into a peasant family and into a France beset by internal conflicts and under attack from the English. At the age of 12 she claimed to have had her first vision of saints and angels eventually exhorting her to aid France in driving out the English. Arriving with the French army she successfully led attacks that broke the siege of Orleans in 1430 dressed in a suit of armor. She later helped led the army to Rheims where King Charles VII was crowned. Joan of Arc was captured during an engagement at Compiegne and she was put on trial by the English supporter the French Bishop Pierre Cauchon. The trial began in January 1431. Joan of Arc withstood days of interrogation before being found guilty of the charge of dressing in men's clothing. Joan agreed to don women's clothing but when she wore men's clothing again to avoid rape she was condemned for heresy and burnt at the stake on the 30th May. A retrial 25 years later found her innocent. She was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1920. On this date in 1920, Boston Red Sox baseball club owner Harry Frazee announced an agreement to sell slugger Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125,000 in cash and a $350,000 loan. As the story goes, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee was looking for money to finance a Broadway musical and a found a willing buyer in the Yankees. The story also goes that this particular musical was No, No Nanette, which didn't see the light of day until five years later, by which time Frazee had sold off the Red Sox as well. The reality is that Frazee was in the habit of selling them players in order to finance his other business deals, including plays and musicals on Broadway. Other famous players that Frazee sold to the Yankees include Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock, who won seven and five World Series, respectively. The other fact is that Ruth had demanded a giant salary increase, which Frazee was not prepared to pay. The trading of Babe Ruth was the start of the 84 year "Curse of the Bambino". Red Sox fans used “The "Curse" to explain the lack of a World Series win by the Red Sox, for an 86-year period from 1918 until 2004. Prior to the sale, the Red Sox had been one of the most successful teams in the Majors; after the sale, the New York Yankees became one of the most successful franchises in the Majors. The "Curse" ended when the Red Sox beat the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS, leading to their victory in the 2004 World Series in a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals. And on this date in 1987, Aretha Franklin was the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 1986, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced its first group of inductees: Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, James Brown, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke and the Everly Brothers. Since then, the Hall has added a new class of inductees each year in four categories: Performers, Non-Performers, Sidemen and Lifetime Achievers. Known as the “Queen of Soul,” she is still one of the most honored artists in Grammy Award history, with 18 Grammys under her belt. Until 2018, she had the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 hits of any female artist, that included 20 No. 1 singles. Aretha Franklin started to rule the charts in the late 1960s. In 1967, she released her now-iconic cover of an Otis Redding original, “Respect.” It topped both the R&B and pop charts and won Franklin her first two Grammy Awards. Her other Top 10 hits at the time included “Baby I Love You,” “Think,” “Chain of Fools,” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” In 1968, her nickname became “Lady Soul”. After becoming the first female artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, Franklin has continued to put out hit records and wow crowds with her riveting performances. Additionally, in 2005 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and then became the second woman ever to be inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame. Franklin announced her retirement in 2017. She passed away on August 16, 2018 after an eight-year battle with pancreatic cancer. Week 18 appropriately had 18 peggers come out to play. We said a hello again to Jeff Seidenstein, who has been away for many weeks. With 18 players, we paid out four places and three teams. 1st Place: After a long drought, Larry Phifer dominated the club tonight, with a grand slam 19/9/193. Congratulations, Larry! 2nd Place: Bernard Whitfield, with a very impressive 17/8 card. Were it not for Jeff Raynes' 15 point win over our ol' buddy Bernard, we would have had two grand slams tonight! 3rd Place: Tom Goeschel with a pretty 14/6/117 card. 4th Place: The better 13/6/+39 was had by Joe Greiner. MOST of the other GRP-winners made good partnerships, but one did not. Jeff Seidenstein, at least you got your GRPs!! 1st Team: Andy Wagner (12) and Jerry Gooden (11) 2nd Team: Jeff Raynes (13) and Mike Due (6) 3rd Team: Heather Chilson (8) and Jennifer Johnson (8) As always, the full results can be found on the website. Here is the top-10 as of today's tournament: Andy's 12-point night put him back in third place, while Jeff's 13 widens the lead over second place. That's all I have today, folks -- have a great week! ~ Jennifer |
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