Category Archives: events

The Year Ahead 

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Sheldon Harnick, who wrote the music for the great Broadway hit, Fiddler on the Roof¸ wrote a song earlier (1955) that seems fitting today.

They’re rioting in Africa,
They’re starving in Spain.
There are hurricanes in Florida.
And Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans,
Italians hate Yugoslavs,
South Africans hate the Dutch,
And I don’t like anyone very much.

He called it “The Merry Minuet,” and it became a big hit in ’56 for the Kingston Trio.

It seems to fit our times, almost 70 years later, with a few nationality changes.  Palestinians, Jews, Russians, Ukranians, Republicans, Democrats.   And so forth.

While the world seethes with 2023 Merry Minuets, we’re are reminded that we are only a year away from The Big Political Dance of ’24—The Election.

The pundits made sure last week that we know it.

Biden wants to shuffle onto the podium in January 2025 and be sworn in again.  Trump wants to rant his way to the podium to begin his revenge tour in earnest.

Will the zoo animals in the Capitol have passed a budget by then?

A year away from the national election and you and I are in a runaway stage coach driven by headless horsemen.

Donald, who promised to drain the swamp in 2016 is now living proof of the old adage that, “If you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s too late to drain the swamp.”

Joe, who has presided over a pretty strong economic recovery can’t find enough ears who can hear abot it over the cacophony of today’s politics when he tells us how good we have it.

A year away, and—-what?

A year is a long time in politics.  Nothing is a given a year out in politics.

Kelly Gordon and Dean Kay put it this way in a song popularizd by Frank Sinatra;

You’re riding high in April, shot down in May.

A political career can become political careening in a matter of days or hours.  We’ve seen it happen time and again in Missouri politics as well as nationally.

Joe is growing older and vows to run for re-election. Trump is growing older, too, and is running from coviction.

What is the backup plan for both parties if decisions are made by others for both of these guys’ goals?  And a key issue, not often on the front page despite its great importance a year away, is who will be their running mate—because, at their ages and the different uncertainties about their abilities to serve second terms, our parties might wind up nominating someone who either won’t make it to inauguration day or, if inaugurated, might not last the next four years?

Both parties do have rules allowing replacement of candidats on the national ticket. Older Missourians will remember when Tom Eagleton resigned as George McGovern’s running mate in 1972 after information was leaked that Eagleton had undergone shock therapy for depression and exhaustion three times in the early to mid-60s. He was replaced by Sargent Shriver, a brother-in-law of President Kennedy and founder of the Peace Corps.

Ballotpedia lists these folks as potential VP candidates in 2024:

For the Democrats:

Incumbent Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Congressman Lauren Underwood of Illinois, U. S. Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgie, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

On the Republican side: U. S. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee,             Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida, Congresswoman marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, 2022 failed governor candidate Kari Lake of Arizona, Congresswoman Nancy Made of South Carolina, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, New York Congresswoman Elise Stevanik.

They have a year to show that they not only are Vice-Presidential material, but would be logical people to pick up the torch if either of the old men lay it down or are forced to lay it down.

If, within the next year, Joe winds up in a home and Donald winds up in the big house, who becomes the most viable person to take their places on the ticket?  Are there others who will emerge in the months ahead?  Any number of circumstances could lead to the most chaotic but interesting and significant conventions in decades, events that could lead to a lot of negotiations in vape-filled rooms if the two people most determined to fight for the job suddenly drop out of the picture after the primaries and before the conventions or are determined by the conventioneers to be bad choices after all.

Although the two leading figures in both parties don’t want us to think about it, there is no sure thing about politics in 2024.

You’re riding high in April, shot down in MayBut I know I’m gonna change that tuneWhen I’m back on top, back on top in June

…I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
A pawn and a king
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself
Flat on my face
I pick myself up and get
Back in the race

That’s life (that’s life)
I tell you, I can’t deny it
I thought of quitting, baby
But my heart just ain’t gonna buy it

We only hope our heart can stand it.

We’re a year away.  A long time.

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The Team Player 

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Being a team player means placing greater value on a team’s success than on individual achievement.

In sports it might mean passing up a chance to hit a home run when a sacrifice bunt is necessary.  In business it might mean supporting the competitor who got the job you wanted because the company is more important than one job, more important than one individual.

Sometimes being a team player means figure out what your team is.

The issue came up recently when Congresswoman Ann Wagner, who represents a district in eastern Missouri, announced she would support Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, who had the backing of former President Trump, for Speaker of the House just days after she said she would “absolutely not” support him.  She complained that when Jordan lost the original caucus vote to Congressman Steve Scalise, “He gave the most disgraceful, ungracious—I can’t call it a concession speech—of all time.”

Talk about a turnaround!

She justified her change by saying it is because she is a team player.

In baseball terms, she tore off her Cardinals uniform and put on one for the Cubs. Instantly.

More and more, though, it appears we don’t have teams in Washington.  We have tribes.  At least four of them: the extreme right tribe, the center right tribe, the center left tribe, and the extreme left tribe.

Jordan, whose record of getting bills passed is so thin it is, well, non-existent,* got the Republican conference’s majority vote as its candidate for Speaker—-but with substantial opposition, casting doubt on whether he could get the 217 Republican votes he needed to take the gavel. He came out of the conference caucus 65 votes short of what he needed in a floor vote. He and his supporters spent the days getting people like Wagner to turn around. But 65 votes was a whole lot of turning. And Jordan couldn’t do it.

Some of his opponents had the temerity to suggest that the Republican minority within the Republican majority might align with Democrats to pick a Speaker, an impracticality at the time because a Democrat in charge of a chaotic Republican House would be unable to bring sanity to the large room that seemingly needs to add padding to its walls and to rewrite its recently-rewritten dress code to include canvas blazers with long sleeves that tie in the back.

But give credit to those who have had the courage to suggest that the other side is not the enemy; they’re just friends who have different ideas.  And if they can find areas of agreement and move forward, it sure beats focusing on differences that stand in the way of service.

We do not mean to target Wagner in this entry because there are others who have misunderstood the concept of team when they proclaim in word and deed that they, too, are team players, an observation that applies to both of our political parties.  She just happened to use the phrase.

Minority Democrats, who have seemingly been inessential to the slim-majority Republicans and therefore beneath respect by them, have had the luxury of sitting back and watching the GOP House fall into a state of extreme disarray without addressing the possibly troublesome fringe of their own party and the mischief it might cause if Democrats regain control of the House—which a lot of pundits think the Republicans are proving should be the case.

It appears the only teams that matter in that climate are Republican and Democrat.  Anyone who has spent a lot of time inside the political system at the national or state level can understand how consuming that world becomes, so consuming that the real team is forgotten.

As we said earlier, there are four tribes in the House, not two teams.

Who IS the team?

Look in your mirrors.

Somebody in Washington or Jefferson City wants to be a team player?  The first step is to get rid of tribes. The second step is remembering who the team really is.

WE are the team.

Reaching across the aisle in a way that benefits the team more than it benefits any one tribe isn’t a crucifiable offense.

Was Jim Jordan interested in taking one for the team?  No, he was in it for Jim Jordan (and his big booster at the time).  And he lost three times, each time with fewer members of his own party supporting him.

So what is the team’s responsibility for straightening out the whole mess? Simple. Pay attention to what our congressional delegation is saying and doing and make sure that whomever we send to Washington next November is more loyal to country than to tribe and certainly more loyal to country than to a disgraceful former leader.

*The New Republic, an unabashedly liberal publication, said in its October 17 webpage entry,  “Jordan stands out among his predecessors and colleagues because he is not a real lawmaker… The Center for Effective Lawmaking, a project by Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia, rates House members based on their legislative performance. In the 117th Congress, Jordan was tied for fourth place among the least effective lawmakers.

Jordan sponsored only a single bill in the last Congress—on social media censorship, a perennial issue among some conservatives—and it did not advance out of committee. He has never successfully drafted a bill that became law…Meredith Lee Hill, who covers all agriculture-related goings-on on Capitol Hill for Politico, reported that Jordan’s supporters pitched his speakership to agriculture-minded Republicans as the “best way to get the huge [Farm] bill to the floor” in what remains of this Congress’s term. As Hill noted, Jordan has never himself voted for a farm bill at any time in his career.”

Crock

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Republicans in the U. S. House of Representatives have had the night to twist arms, make promises or threats, or do other things to cajole their own caucus to vote for a Speaker who has been in the House since 2006, has introduced only thirty bills in all that time, and has gotten none of them passed.  They’ll try again today.

Jim Jordan not only didn’t get the votes to become Speaker of the House on the first ballot yesterday, he got outvoted by Democrats.  All 212 Democrats voted for their leader, Hakeem Jeffries. Jordan had only 200 votes after twenty of his fellow Republicans voted against him.

The Republicans, who can’t get their own ducks in a row, are blaming Democrats for their failure to use their majority to pick a new Republican  Speaker to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy.

Whose fault is this historic and ugly deadlock?

McCarthy maintains the House would not be stalemated if “every single Democrat didn’t vote with eight Republicans to shut this place down.”

That, my friends, is a crock. And it’s full to the brim.

The Democrats have no obligation to Republicans who have let four percent of their caucus run their conference.  Democrats are not in charge of putting the Republican House in order.

Democrats have scored some points by saying they’ll work with moderate Republicans to end the chaos.  But McCarthy and Jim Jordan and their supporters who have shown no interest in bipartisanship otherwise think Democrats should ride to their rescue.

Hypocrisy flows in buckets with their whining.

Perhaps the Republicans, especially those who have aligned themselves with the political evangelicals should have a discussion group about the meaning of Luke 4:23—“Physician, heal thyself.”

And to remember another old adage:  If you point a finger at someone remember that there are three fingers pointing back at you.

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Has it Really Been 25 Years? 

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For those who do not read our Tuesday entries on sports, please bear with us today because we’re going to talk about integrity today.  But we have to set up the discussion with some sports talk.

A few days ago I picked up a book by ESPN commentator Mike Greenberg and his associate Paul Hembekides, Got Your Number; the Greatest Sports Legends and the Numbers They Own.  It’s one of thoe “list” books—such as a thousand this or that’s to do before you die stuff.  This one lists 100 people and events in sports that are the greatest moments in the broad world of athletic competition.

Number 98 references the year 1998.  Those old enough need to think back 25 years to the dominating sports story of that year.  Let’s pause while you close your eyes and look for an answer, which I will give you after the (pause) but don’t peek.

(PAUSE)

The year 1998 was the year two men dominated baseball—Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.  The fact that they played for the Cardinals and the Cubs—two long-time baseball antagoinists—made the competition even more significant.  Throughout that long season, these two men battled to see who would set a new major league home run record.

There was McGwire, who was under incredible pressure from the beginning. It was expected he would break Roger Maris’ record of 61 homers.  McGwire had come to the Cardinals year earlier after starting the season with the Oakland Athletics.  He hit 34 home runs for the A’s and 24 more when he reached St.Louis.  58, and from the first day of the 1998 season the  Post-Dispatch headlined each home run he hit.

In Chicago there was Sosa, a power-hitter for the Cubs who had hit 33-40 home runs a year since 1993. But there was no reason to exepect what would happen in 1998.  In fact, the biggest challenge to McGwire was expected to come from Ken Griffey Jr., who had 56 home runs in ’97.

Griffey had his second-straight 56-homer year.  Sosa briefly held the record at 66 before McGwire swept past him on the way to a 70-home run season.

Many say that those two years, particularly 1998, restored the faith of baseball fans who had been resentful of the 1994-95 player’s strike and owners’ lockout.  Greenburg isn’t buying any of that, writing, “That magical season turned out to be an illusion, unworthy of being celebrated though steadfastly impossible to forget. I have heard it said that the best way to gauge whether or not a player belongs in the Hall of Fame is by asking the question: Can you tell the story of the history of the sport without him?”

Neither McGwire nor Sosa is in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. The reason the two are outside is because, as Greenburg puts it, “McGwire and Sosa dishonored the game.”  But, he says, what they did is unforgettable.  He finds it “a tad insulting” when people say these two “saved” baseball.  He argues that such statements preclude the idea that nobody else could have saved the game because baseball is so much part of the American spirit to have gone unrescued by somebody. These two men, he says, “were in the right place at the right time.”

McGwire and Sosa, and Roger Clemens—the most dominant pitcher of his time—and Barry Bonds, who holds the career and single-season home run records—have joined Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose in the mist of fame/infamy that keeps them from having plaques in Cooperstown because their greatness cannot overcome their violations of the integrity of the game, the first three because they are suspected of using, or have admitted using, performance-enhancing drugs, the fourth because of gambling on the sport.

The integrity of the game.

Whatever the game might be.

For many years I have been invited to speak to the incoming freshman class of the House of Representatives, who gather at the capitol a few days after their elections to begin learning how to be state representatives.  I usually tell them near the end of my remarks, “Never lie to a reporter because the first time to you lie to me is the last time I believe anything you say.  Never lie to your colleagues because your integrity is really the only thing you have going for you here.”

This is a time when we must measure those in the game of politics for their integrity for if we dismiss it as the primary qualification for public office we are dismissing it for ourselves. Our public integrity must not be sold to those who would mislead us in their search for power.

There are plenty of those who dishonor that great game of politics. Integrity to them is meaningless as they place power over us ahead of service to us.  It is up to us to exercise our integrity to save ourselves and our country from those who, as Greenburg would put it, “dishonor” the game.

We must never lie to ourselves.

Because our integrity is all that we have if we are to have, or save, our state and our nation.

(Photo credit: ESPN)

 

A Creek by Any Other Name

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—is still a creek.

But what IS its name?

Jefferson City has a creek that winds through the town, divides the north part where the Capitol and the old penitentiary and the business district are located from the south side called by early German immigrants “Munichburg,” crosses under the Rex Whiten Expressway (Red Whitton, for those not native to these parts was the chief engineer of the state highwy department in 1941. Early plans for an expressway through Jefferson City were drawn up during his term, and Missouri became the first state to pave segments of the interstate system during his tenure. He was appointed Federal Highway Administrator in 1961 and oversaw early work on the interstate system.) and traverses what we call the “mill bottom” before emptying ito the Missouri River.

In flood times, the creek backs up and helps flood low-lying areas of central Jefferson City.

We call it Wear’s Creek today, or most all of us do. But it has worn various names through the peopled history of this area and the name’s origin is a mystery.

An 1825 map shows it as Wyer’s Creek.  A 1947 Jefferson City Daily Capital News article quotes then-County Recorder Henry LePage saying the creek’s name was recorded “under different spellings in different deeds.”  Some people called it “Ware’s Creek,” after Clem Ware, who owned a lot of property in the county.  But the creek’s name preceded him by many years.

He suggested that some called it “Wire Creek” because it twists and turns “in a wiry fashion,” leading to the spelling of is name as “Wier” or “Weir.”

The research for our next book, about the Capitol’s location, creation, and other history noted a report from the commissioners picked to find a permanent central location for the seat of state government that refers to it as “Wan’s Creek.”  An account of the execution of a Confederate guerilla by Union soldiers in the Mill Bottom calls it “Weir’s Creek.”

The 1947 newspaper article concludes by suggesting the then-new Cole County Historical Society could study the issue and settle the question about the creek’s name or, if the CCHS failed to do that, “Mayor Blair could appoint a commission to ponder the question, reach the decision on the spelling that could be accepted and which will permit uniformity.”

Neither the society nor Blair (who later became Governor) did anything about it.

However—

Missouri has a State Board on Geographic Place Names (did you even know such a thing exists?). It coordinates place names, working in cooperation with local, state, and federal agencies to coordinate the naming of places so we don’t have two of something with the same name.

Maybe someone should look into having this organization decide what this creek’s name should be once and for all.

On a related note:  About fifty years ago, the Cole County Court (an administrative body using a long-outmoded name from Missouri’s early days) decided to name all of the county roads.  As I recall, it was being done so emergency vehicles could find places and people in trouble.  The public was invited to suggest names. Then-Presiding Commissioner Tony Hiesberger told me that a suggestion for one road was “Old Muttonhead School Road,” a name stemming from a long-ago incident in which some rustlers took the sheep they had stolen to a country school, butchered them, and hid the remains underneath the school.   The commission decided against using that name, the reason why is lost to me but it would have taken a pretty large road sign to have the full name.  I don’t recall what name was adopted.

 

Now, Wait A Minute!!

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We are intrigued by the Trumpists who think our former president was correct when he said now-retired Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley should be executed for treason because he called his Chinese counterpart in the crazy post-January 6 days of the Trump administration to assure him that the United States was not planning an attack on China.

Trump called the conversation “treason,” writing on his (un)Truth Social page, “This guy turned out to be a woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the Prsident of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH. A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act.”

The statement is remarkable because Trump seems to give credence to reporting by those he considers “fake news media.” But such self-contradictions within his constant self-aggrandizing verbal disgorgements are always expected.

Many observers warn that this typical Trump rant is another call for violence by his supporters and is an example of why his re-election would be perilous for our Democratic Republic. While reporters who interviewed several Trumpists in Iowa, where he recently campaigned found some willing to cut Milley some slack, one seemed to voice the common temper of the larger MAGA cult: “Why was he not in there before a firing squad within a month?”

As long as the Trumpists are asking THAT question—

There’s another question that nobody we have heard of has asked Trump. And if anybody does, we know the answer will be a doozy.

The question is this:

If it was treason for Milley to assure the Chinese that there were no plans for an attack—-

WERE THERE PLANS FOR AN ATTACK?

Well, Donny?

Sports: Baseballs Says Goodbye to the Season; Two Great Pitchers Remembered; Football Leagues Merge; And Other Sports

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

Before we delve into tributes to two pitchers who left their marks on the game, two football games that merit comment, and a race, there is one thing we want you to understand.

TRAVIS KELCE AND WHAT’S HER NAME ARE NOT SPORTS.

And this is the only time you will read about them in this column.

(FOND FAREWELLS)—–

When Will We See Players Like TheseAgain?

Every year about this time, those of us who live for the next baseball season and live for the first day a spiked foot steps across a baseline in Florida or in Arizona bid farewell to some young men who are too old to play our game anymore.

We’re going to forego our usual appraisal of the Cardinals and the Royals today. Both have seasons best left in the quickly descending night of the 2023 baseball season. Instead, we want to say some things about two guys whose careers will far overshadow their final successful days in struggling seasons.

We Missouri baseball fans have been blessed by two remarkable pitchers who are leaving, or likely to leave, the game with memorable performances and memorable careers.

(WAINWRIGHT)—Adam Wainwright struggled all year He wanted to to reach a goal, to realize a dream, to accomplish something rare in today’s game.  He finally won his 200th game.

Remember that night.  It will be years before we see something like that again.

It wasn’t just a personal goal.  It was a professional goal.  He has known that in today’s game, 200 wins is a Hall of Fame credential.

Two-hundred baseball wins seems to be a modest amount for those who have watched the greats of the past.  But in today’s game of 100 pitch limits, five-man rotations and parades of pitchers to the operating room for Tommy John or other surgeries, 200 wins is remarkable. This year, for example, only five pitchers threw more than 200 innings. And there were only 35 complete games pitched.

When did the last THREE-hundred game winner throw his final pitch?  Fourteen seasons ago, when Randy Johnson retired with 303 victories.  Since 1990, only four pitchers have reached 300—Johnson, Tom Glavin, Greg Maddux, and Roger Clemens.  All are in Cooperstown but Clemens, a victim of the performance enhancing drugs era.

Only five pitchers ended this year with 200 victories.  Justin Verlander, 40, has 257.  The Royals’ Zack Greinke has 225.  Former Missouri Tiger Max Scherzer is in at 214 and is 38.  35-year old Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers has 210 and Wainwright with his 200. All of them are in the twilight of their careers or at the end.

Are all of these guys, even Wainwright, bound for Cooperstown some day?  Yes, although most of them are unlikely to be first-ballot selections.

Brady Farkas, writing on FanNation a few days ago, pointed out that Wainwright’s 200th win makes him unique. He is the only player (not just pitchers) whose career has been within the divisional era (there have been 10,331 of them) to hit ten or more home runs in their careers (2,395) AND win 200 games as a pitcher (36).

He also has 75 RBI and a career .193 batting average.

The first pitch he saw as a major league hitterr turned into a home run.

He is a three-time All-Star. He has two Golden Gloves and a Silver Slugger bat and a World Series Ring. He never won the Cy Young Award (runnerup a couple of times), but he led the league in wins twice, led the league in innings pitched two times, and was a 20-game winner in 2014.

And, from all accounts, he’s been a class act.

When will someone else win number 200? It might be quite a while.

Cole Hamels has 163 wins and he’s 39.  Johnny Cueto is next at 144. He’s 37.  Gerrit Cole seems to have the best chance. He’s only 32 but has 145 wins. If he has three more years such as the last three years, he could be within 10-15 wins of 200.  Aaron Nole is 30 with 90 wins. The biggest winner for pitchers less than 30 is Jose Berria, who is 29 and has 83 victories.

Wainwright’s final game was a seven-inning masterpiece. He was given only one run and he tenaciously battled to keep that lead. It was a final curve, to Milwaukee’s Josh Donaldson that induced him to fly out to end the seventh.  He had gone into the game with back spasms and struggles during his pre-game warmup and he knew he had to make one more pitch, get one more out, before leaving the mound after the 7th inning.

“I know its gonna hurt. I’ve gotta go one more time over the top and get this ball to have a little more depth to it.  I think I can do one more of those,” he recalled in an interview with Post-Dispatch reporter Derrick Gould and others a few days later. “I knew in that moment, from up on top, that I had one more pitch.”

His discussion of his last pitch is a masterpiece in describing, in real not Hollywood dramatics, all that went into it—the curve to Milwaukees’s Josh Donaldson that induced Donaldson to fly out.  “I literally left everything I had out there,” he said a few days later.  Watch this rare insight we fans don’t usually get to hear.

(screenshot  from Gould’s article, Sept. 27, 2023)

With a curve, Adam Wainwright’s pitching career ends. So, what about an at-bat? Cardinals Extra (stltoday.com)

He thought he might have another start or two before the end, but when tried to play catch a couple of days after the Milwaukee game, he hurt badly enough that he decided he had thrown his last pitch.

He has herniated discs that will need repair and says his shoulder needs looking-at because he can’t lift his arm over his shoulder without pain.

He goes out with others recognizing his uniqueness, competitors who appreciate not only what he has done but what he is.  Cincinnati’s Joey Votto presented Wainwright with a bouquet before the game and eloquently explained the respect the game has for Wainwright later in the locker room—

“This game gets harder not only the older you get but as your tools fade. To be able to stay put and still be a contributor at you know, 30, 35, 40 and beyond, which Adam has done, and to be steady with it, is admirable. There’s a reason why the St. Louis fanbase is celebrating this weekend, because it’s rare, rare is the pitcher who can compete this deep into their career, can stay with one organization, can be a productive player, productive member of the community, and to me that’s what I admire the most. Game recognizes game.”

Votto knows what he’s talking about because he is a Wainwright kind of guy—17 years with one team, almost 40, finishing a disappointing   season after having surgery on his shoulder, an aging veteran on a team that has seen a good crop of promising young talent come up from the minors. An extended standing ovation that prompted the umpire to delay the last game of year in Cincinnati so he could enjoy it showed the affection for Votto in Cincinnati that Wainwright has gotten in St. Louis. The crowd seemed to realize it was seeing a great player for the last time although Votto hasn’t said yet that he’s retiring.

And Votto has a sort-of connection to St. Louis. A Canadian native, now a naturalized American citizen, he and former Cardinal Larry Walker are the only Canadians in major league history to have 2,000 hits, 1,000 runs batted in, and 300 homers.

Game recognizes game.

So Wainwright has reached his goal and has come to the end of the line as a major league pitcher, the last of a generation of Redbirds that included last year’s retirees, Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina.

The torch has now fully been passed to the next generation. We wonder who among them in what has become a game for contract gypsies will be as beloved fifteen, twenty years from now as Adam Wainwright is to this generation of fans.

There’s a red jacket in his future when he joins the Cardinals Hall of Fame. And eventually, we think, a bronze plaque on the wall of a building in a picturesque little upper New York town.

(GREINKE)—We might have seen the last of Zack Greinke of the Royals Sunday.   As was the case with Adam Wainwright, he finished with a season that was far less than he hoped it would be. But in his last game, he was young again.

Greinke went five innings, gave up only one run on four hits and struck out two. He finishes the season 2-15—and a standing ovation from the crowd.

He’s a free agent seemingly with limited possibilities for another season in the majors. We don’t know if he has, or had, some goals he wanted to reach this year—as Wainwright wanted to get his 200th win.  He did reach 225 wins with the outing Sunday, putting him ahead of Hall of Famers Jim Bunning and Catfish Hunter on the all-time win list. But he finished about twenty strikeouts short of 3,000.

But there is a significant strikeout milestone he DID get.  On May 13th, he fanned Brewers rookie Joey Weimer to become only the fifth pitcher ever to strike out 1,000 different batters.

(The Royals created a special commemorative image for the accomplishment.)

That night, he joined Nolan Ryan (1182), Randy Johnson (1123), Greg Maddux (1049) and Roger Clemens (1022).  He finished with two more than Clemens.

The one thing that has eluded him is a World Series ring.

He started with the Royals, but battled depression and social anxiety and almost gave up the game after leading the league in losses (17) in 2005. He left spring training early in 2006 but returned late in the season to make three relief appearances.  He returned to starting pitcher status in 2008 and the next year won the Cy Young Award by going 16-8 and leading the majors with a 1.66 ERA.

His best years were eight seasons with the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks when he went 134-49, a .732 winning percentage.

And he was a pretty good hitter for a pitcher. He finished with a .225 batting average and won two Silver Slugger Awards.  As with Wainwright, his first major league hit was a home run. He also succeeded in nine out of ten stolen base attempts.  He pinch hit in the 2021 world series and became the first pitcher to have a pinch hit since Jack Bentley of the New York Giants in 1923.

He is, as of today, the last pitcher to get a hit in a postseason baseball game.

Greinke admitted after signing with the Royals that he had hoped to stay in the National League for a couple more years because he hoped for more chances to hit.  But when the NL adopted the designated hitter, he looked to returning to the Royals.  He hoped there might be a chance to pitch AND be a designated hitter some time when the team was short at that position. But he never got the chance.  He cited Kansas City’s fan enthusiasm and his relationship with former Royals official Dayton Moore, for signing with the team in March, 2022.  He pitched the last two opening days for the team. His 2022 start was the first time he’d pitched for the Royals on opening day since 2010.  It set one of those arcane records baseball is so full of—the largest gap between opening day starts for the same team.  He finished his career by starting the first and the last games of the 2023 season for the Royals.

Cooperstown for him, too?  Wouldn’t it be nice if both Greinke and Wainwright could go in on the same day?

(CARDS/ROYALS)—The Cardinals had their first losing season since 2007 when they were 78-84. The Royals tied their record for losses with 106.  The last year the Royals had a winning record was their World Series-winning year of 2015.

The Royals finished on a hopeful note, going 14-12 in September—their only winning month of the year (well, they were 1-0 in October).  The Cardinals had only two winning months, going 15-13 in May and 14-13 in July. The Royals finished the year going 12-5.

The Cardinals’ Miles Mikolas was one of the five pitchers to throw 200 innings this year—201.1.  No MLB pitcher gave up more hits than he did—226. He faced 860 batters, the most in the major leagues. His 35 starts were the most of any pitcher in the majors.  He finished 9-13 with a 4.78 ERA.

Relief pitching was a sore point all year. Cardinals relievers saved 36 of 64 games, 56%.  Royals relievers held on 53% of the time. Neither was anywhere close to the top in the final rankings.  The Royals pitchers had a 5.17 ERA. Cardinals pitchers were at 4.79.

And get this:  There were 4,840 games this year.  There were only 35 complete games by pitchers.  The Royals had three of them.  No pitcher went the distance this year for St. Louis.

But both showed a lot of young talent, particularly the Royals’ Bobby Witt who joined the 3030 club with thirty home runs and 49 stolen bases. The Cardinals promise a busy off-season. Several of the Royals’ young hopefuls didn’t pan out, leaving fans to speculate on whether the team will invest in the free agent market or be active traders.

(MIZ)—Missouri’s win against Vanderbilt 38-21 in its SEC season opener has set up a match between two ranked SEC teams next Saturday in Columbia. The Tigers, 5-0 now in their best start in a decade are 21st in the weekly AP poll and 22 in the USA Coaches Poll.  LSU, which is 3-2 with three of its games being in the conference already, is 23rd in the polls , a ten-place drop after losing to Old Miss 55-49 last weekend.

Missouri’s ranking is its highest since the fifth week of the 2015 season, the year they won their first seven games of the season. Quarterback Brady Cook will be looking to extend his conference record consecutive passes without an interception, now standing at 347.

The Mizzou offense chewed up Vanderbilt’s defense to the tune of 532 yards, 395 of them by Cook, a personal best.   (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—The chiefs beat the Jets Sunday night but nobody is happy about it including the winners.  A late field goal, a fumble by the Jets’ quarterback, and a clock-sapping final drive that ended with Patrick Mahomes sliding to a stop at the New York one-yard line so the clock could run out salvaged a 23-20 win.

The win is number 250 for Coach Andy Reid. That puts him into a tie with Dallas coach Tom Landry for fourth all time. He has won 120 of those games while with the Chiefs and trails Hank Stram for the team record by only four.

The Chiefs seemed to be on the road to a blowout with an early 17-0 lead before rookie quarterback Zack Wilson, filling in as Aaron Rogers and his repaired achilles tendon watched from the owner’s suite, found his rhythm and led the Jets to a 20-20 tie.  But he lost a snap with his team on the move in the fourth quarter; the chiefs recovered and picked up a field goal and then held on the rest of the way.

Patrick Mahomes had an off-game with two interceptions. But Isaiah Pacheco’s running kept the chains moving at key moments. He picked up 115 yards on 20 carries and scored one of the two Chiefs’ touchdowns. He also caught three passesfor 43 yards.  He was responsible for 158 of the Chiefs’ 401 total yards.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—We’re waiting to learn if the St. Louis Battlehawks of the XFL will survive the merger of the XFL and the USFL, announced last week.  The merged league plans to begin play next spring.

The XFL has been resurrected twice. The last couple of years there have been eight teams in eight cities—St. Louis; Arlington, San Antonio, and Houston Texas; Las Vegas; Orlando, Florida; Seattle, Washington; and Washington, D. C.

The USFL was reincarnated a couple of years ago with all games played in Birmingham, Alabama. Last season, the eight teams were located in four “hub” cities—Detroit, Memhis, Birmingham and in Canton, Ohio, the home of the NFL Hall of Fame.

The Battlehawks have played in the domed stadium abandoned by the Rams. The team drew a record 38,310 fans for the fourth game last year. They have compiled seven of the biggest crowd numbers in theleague’s short history.

Officials will announce late rif all 16 teams will have home cities when play starts after the NFL’s Super Bowl in February.

Now, on to the crash-and-turn sports.

(NASCAR)—Ryan Blaney has survived 500 tense miles on the Talladega high banks to pick up his ninth career win and second of the year.

Blaney finished .012 seconds ahead of Kevin Harvick, the biggest margin he has enjoyed in his three wins at Talladega. He beat Ryan Newman and Ricky Stenhouse, respectfully, in  2019 and 2020 by 0.007 of a second.

He only led eight laps in a race that featured 70 lead changes during its 188 laps with the field running two and three wide in a tight pack for most of its running.

Harvick’s second-place car was disqualified after the race because some windshield fasteners were found to be loose.  He was moved to last place.  Crew Chief Rodney Childers says some windshield bolts loosened and vibrated out because of buffeting caused by the close running.

The win locks Blaney into the semifinal field of eight drivers who will compete for the final four spots in the last race shootout of the season. The field of 12 will be cut to eight at next weekend’s race on the Charlotte “Roval,” a road race course that uses part of the tri-oval track and a road course on the track’s interior.

(NASCAR—IOWA)—Missouri NASCAR fans have another Cup race within driving distance.  Iowa Speedway has been added to the schedule next year. The track has featured IndyCar races for the past several years.  It’s a .875 track designed by former NASCAR Cup winner Rusty Wallace, a St. Louis native. The track is at Newton, Iowa, about 30 miles east of Des Moines.

Actually, NASCAR’s  first choice for a new track on its schedule had been Montreal, Canada but that deal never came together, opening the door for Newton. The race is set for next June 16.

Notes from a Quiet Street  (travels with Bob edition)

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The other day I heard a commercial on the radio for a securities investment firm.  It closed with the announcer cautioning, “Investment in securities involves the risk of loss.”

If investing in securities involves the risk of loss, why do we call them “securities?”

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I have been watching gasoline pump prices rise during the summer and have yet to hear anybody comment on a key supply-and-demand contribution to their rise.

It occurred to me as I drove along the newly-resurfaced street between gas stations on Ellis Boulevard to ask: How much petroleum is under our tires instead of in our gas tanks at this time of year?

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On a related note: When I was growing up on a small farm in central Illinois, there was an annual event (or maybe it was every couple of years event, memory isn’t clear) that we used to dread. Road-oiling.

We knew it was coming when the county road department came by our house and ground up the old surface into little pieces which would be rolled smooth or used to fill in potholes.   Then a few days later, a truck would creep past our house spraying a very thick coat of hot road oil on the surface. Another truck would spread sand on top of the gooey surface.  For the next sevcral days, cars and trucks would also creep down the road as the new surface hardened. But it was impossible to avoid the oil splattering onto the car or the truck—or the whitewall tires that were part of the automobile.

One positive that came out of that operation is that cars and trucks got a new undersealing to protect against the rusting salt that was spread on those same roads in the winter.

If often seemed that the crews didn’t re-oil the road past our place until the start of school—and the bus drivers undoubtedly cursed the practice as they cleaned the goop off the buses. And I’m sure the school didn’t appreciate all the tar that was spread into the school from the shoes of students who had to step on that surface to get on the bus.

This enlightening observation came one day on the way back from Columbia when 63 drops down to the flood plain and the ball diamonds and the turf farms and there was so much dust from the gravel side roads blowing across the highway as to make driving a tad bit more dangerous.

Gravel or oil?  I choose gravel.  I helped my father clean the splattered oil off our cars enough times to appreciate dust.

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I was on the Whitten Expressway in Jefferson City and in the lane to my left was a dump truck hauling an empty trailer.  Written in regular-pickup truck-size letters on the rear gate of the truck was, “Stay back 300 feet.”

I thought, “What an I supposed to be doing?  Wearing binoculars instead of my glasses so I can read something on a truck a football field away telling me not to get any closer?

And how would you pass such a vehicle?  Or is a 50 mph truck a rolling roadblock—albeit a safe one.

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Back in the Arab Oil Embargo times of the 1970s, I recall when the 55 mph speed limit became a standard.  Not only would it save petroleum, we were told, it would save lives.

I remember thinking, “If saving lives was the goal, why not set the limit at zero.  Parked cars don’t cause fatalities.

Unless, I suppose, somebody opens the door as a bicyclist is going past.

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We went to Kansas City for a meeting a few days ago.  The shortest trip, timewise, was on Highway 50. It’s four lanes from Jefferson City to California, two lanes to Sedalia and  four from there to Kansas City.  It’s also four lanes east to Linn although it doesn’t become four lanes again until the highway funnels traffic onto I-44.

We took 50.  And most of the time we didn’t have a lot of traffic.

We wonder if the Transportation Department has considered looking at two more lanes for those stretches of 50 as it launches its aggressive expansion of I-70, which already requires great courage and patience to use.  If the department hasn’t, we hope it doesn’t say anything that would make Highway 50 an alternate cross-state route while 70 is torn apart during the next several years.

 

THUNDERFOOTED TIGERS; HOLDING CHIEFS; BASEBALL MISERY ENDING; And cars And: WAINO GETS #200

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor(

MIZ)—The first, the longest, the biggest—-Harrison Mevis’ long-range leg became the deciding factor in what might become the most consequential Missouri football game in years.  Missouri beat Kansas State, the nation’s 15th ranked team, 30-27 as the clock stopped at 0:00 Saturday afternoon.

Mevis kicked the winning field goal from 61-yards, a Southeastern Conference record. (Tom Whelihan holds the team record with a 62-yard kick against Colorado twenty-seven years ago, long before Missouri joined the Big 12).

Quarterback Brady Cook and a tenacious Tiger defense kept the Wildcats under control even when K-State took the lead and then took it back (there were 7 lead changes in the game).  Cook, gimpy with a knee injury in the second half finished with 356 passing yards, two passing touchdowns and one running touchdown.

The win brings Coach Eli Drinkwitz’s record at Mizzou to .500, with twenty of each wins and losses.  It is the first win against a ranked team at Faurot Field in almost a decade (November 30, 2013 against the Texas A&M, ranked nineteenth, 28-21).

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The University has been fined $100,000 by the SEC because it let jubilant fans swarm onto the field while the players, coaches, officials, and others essential to the game were still there. A repeat performance will make the fine a quarter-million dollars and a third offense will cost the University a half-million. The rule has a couple of reasons for being: public safety and what at firt appeared to be a penalty flag on the play. Turned out to be something thrown onto the field by someone else.  But clearing the field for another play would have been impossible or nearly so.

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The victory cost K-State its place among the top 25 teams in the country.  But it didn’t elevate the Tigers into those ranks.  They’re just outside, though.  The AP puts Missouri 27th in ratings points, barely behind Clensom  K-State is 28th and trail Misosuri by 18.

The USA TODAY Coaches Poll leaves Kansas State ahead of Missouri but 26th with Missouri 27th.  The CBS Poll ranks Missouri 26th; K-State 27th.

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The last time Missouri started 3-0 was 2018.  They haven’t gone 4-0 since 2014. The Tigers play Memphis and Vanderbilt in their next two games. Memphis beat Navy last weekend 28-24 to also go 3-0.  Vanderbilt lost to UNLV 40-37 Saturday night to drop to 2-2, with Kentucky next weekend.  (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—If end zones were eleven or twelve yards wide instead of ten, the Kansas City Chiefs might be 0-2.  The end zone, however, at ten yards, was one footstep short for the Jacksonville Jaguars three times and the Chiefs escaped Jacksonville with a 17-9 win to go 1-1 for the year.

The Chiefs were troubled by penalty after penalty, a dozen of them for 94 yards and have yet to show dominance in the regular season this year—-remembering that last year’s offensive coordinator, Eric Bienemy, whose team Washington Commanders team is 2-0 for the first time since 2011 after beating Denver 35-33.

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Well, let’s look around and see if there is another major league sport to talk about, there sure is. Or, at least, one of its players

(WAINO)—For one more night, he was the Adam Wainwright we remember.  Seven shutout innings (a Cardinals record for a pitcher so old), only four hits, three strikeouts and two walks. Fifty-eight of his 93 pitches were strikes last night against the league-leading Brewers.

Wilson Contreras homered in the fourth for the only run in the game and for once Wainwright and the bullpen made a slim lead hold up.  Ryan Helsley pitched his first four-out save since mid-May to preserve it.

He’s the 122nd pitcher in Major League history to record 200 wins. He is, by far, the winningest pitcher in the game today—

Wainwright is the third Cardinals pitcher to reach 200 in a Cardinal uniform, joining Bob Gibson 251 (who spent his career only in a Cardinals uniform), and Jesse Haines, (210 all with the Cardinals except one game for the Reds in which he pitch for five innings with no decision in 1918).

For the next few days he will be one of five active major league pitchers with 200 wins (Justin Verlander, 255; Zack Greinke (224), Max Scherzer (214) and Clayton Kershaw (209).

As far as the rest of baseball, well—-

Gratefully, we are down to the last dozen or so games of this season for both of our teams.  Our teams are a combined 114-185 (66 of the wins belong to the Cardinals and 102 of the losses belong to the Royals).  In in-state standings, the Cardinals began the week with a comfortable 20 game lead on the Royals, long ago locking up the championship of Missouri.  The Cardinals have used 51 players this year, 28 of them pitchers.  The Royals have used 57, of which 34 pitched.  Four Royals pitchers are a combined 14-53.

Jordan Lyles leads major league baseball with 17 losses (four wins, though). Zach Greinke is number two with 15 (also one win). Brady Singer ranks sixth (eight wins) , one of five with 11 losses. One of those tied with him in 6th place is St. Louis’s Adam Wainwright (with five wins now).  Tied for tenth is Carlos Hernandez (who also has a win for the Royals), one of seven ten-game losers this year.

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And for the few who care but don’t know what they’re missing, let’s look at the sports of motor.

(NASCAR)—Denny Hamlin nailed down the final spot in the rount of 12 NASCAR playoffs while four other guys, except for one, started thinking about next year.  The night race at Bristol, one of the favorite events of the schedule each year, was the cutdown race for the first playoff round.

Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick—both former NASCAR Cup Champions—didn’t make the cut. Neither did Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Michael McDowell.

Hamlin outran Kyle Larson by two-and-a-half secondsafter the lsst pit stop with Christopher Bell taking the other podium spot.

Joey Logano became the first defending champion to fail to make the second round of playffs in the next year.,  His car was too badly damaged to continue in a five-car backstretch wreck.  It was hard for him to accept being out of the championship competition. “You get ouf the race like that and you’re behind the wall and you’re in denial for a minute. You don’t want to believe that it happeed and you want to think that it’s fixable, but the car was tore up too bad,” he said afterward.

On the other end was Hamlin after his third win of the year and 51st of his career: “It’s our year. I just feel like we’ve got it all put together. We’ve got the speed (at) every single type of racetrack. Nothing to stop us at this point.”

The playoff field now is William Byron, Martin Truex Jr., Hamlin, Larson, Chris Buescher, Kyle Busch, Bell, Tyler Reddick, Ross Chastain, Brad Keselowski, and Bubba Wallace.

The next three-race round is at Texas Motor Speedway next weekend.

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We add this sad note this week the Ovarian Cancer has finally claimed the life of Sherry Pollex, the longtime partner of Martin Truex Jr.  The two had been together for 19 years before announcing their separation in January.  She was 44 and got her first diagnosis nine years ago.  She finished her first chemotherapy two years later.  But in September, 2021 she was told cancer was back and was in her lungs.

She and Truex founded a foundation in 2007 to raise money to fight childhood cancer. It raised more than four million dollars. In 2020 she and the foundation worked to open the Sherry Strong Integrative Medicine Oncology Clinic in Charlotte, NC.

She was a familiar face in the NASCAR garages and the NASCAR community on behalf of the fight against cancer.

Truex commented after her death Sunday, “From the very minute of her disagnosis, Sherry was determined to not only fight ovarian cancer with everything she had, but also make a difference in the lives of others battling this terrible disease. Through her tireless charity work for so many years, her legacy will live well beyond our lifetimes and continue to help countless families.”

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(FORMULA 1)—The Streaks are over in Formula One.  Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz emphatically ended it with the Grand Prix of Singapore, holding off Lando Norris of McLaren and Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes to the end.  The Best Red bull and Max Verstappen could do was fifth, ending Red Bull’s string of 15 straight races and ending Verstappen’s record string of victories at 10.

(Photo credits: MLB.COM and Bob Priddy)

 

Eggheads, Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose but Your Yolks!”  

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I recently came into possession of a little book from 1965 called A Stevenson Sampler, 1945 to 1965,  a compilation of quotations from Adlai E. Stevenson II, the former Governor of Illinois who had the misfortune of running twice as the Democratic Party nominee for President against Dwight D. Eisenhower.  When John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960, he made Stevenson the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, where he played a historic public role and a largely unrecognized backroom role in the Cuban Missile Crisis. There are things to be learned from that time.

Stevenson was an unrepentant intellectual, one of several eggheads chosen by Kennedy for key posts in his administration.  When the Cuban Missile Crisis exploded in our headlines, Stevenson was the one who delivered this country’s response in the United Nations to Russia’s installation of guided missiles that could easily reach the United States in Cuba.

Many in my generation felt that we were staring down the deep black barrel of an atomic cannon.  Those days are a couple of generations past and we think it’s time for the young folks to learn about how close we came to a nuclear war, and why it didn’t happen at a time when many of us woke up each day and turned on the radio to see if we had a future.

Stevenson played a major role in keeping the crisis from becoming the war we (as we recall those days) were scared to death would happen.  But his role often is overlooked although it was Stevenson who proposed the ultimate solution.  Peter Kornbluh, writing for Foreign Policy magazine a year ago, says much of the reason for the lack of recognition dates from a Saturday Evening Post article in late 1962 by Stewart Alsop and Charles Bartlett that claimed Kennedy and his associates came up with the solution to the dangerous deadlock. They also claimed that Stevenson was the only one around the strategy table who “preferred political negotiations to the alternative of military action,” as Kornbluh put it.

The article, to use a current phrase, threw Stevenson under the bus when, actually, he was driving it.

A major question for most of the crisis was whether Russia really did have ICBMs in Cuba.

It all became clear on the tenth day when Stevenson, far tougher than he had been credit for being until then, confronted Soviet delegate Valerian Zorin at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.  It is one of the most dramatic moments in UN history. Here is a long version of that confrontation and a short version of it.  The longer version is good for the background leading up to the event. The shorter one is the denouement only.

Long version of the session and challenge:  (30) Adlai Stevenson and Valerian Zorin on Soviet Missiles in Cuba (1962) – YouTube  (Audio quality varies)

Short version: TWE Remembers: Adlai Stevenson Dresses Down the Soviet Ambassador to the UN (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Ten) | Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org)

If you want to follow along, here is a transcript of the confrontation in which Stevenson accused the Soviet Union of being less than honest about its missiles in Cuba:

 I want to say to you, Mr Zorin, that I do not have your talent for obfuscation, for distortion, for confusing language, and for doubletalk. And I must confess to you that I am glad that I do not. But if I understood what you said, you said that my position had changed, that today I was defensive because we did not have the evidence to prove our assertions, that your government had installed long-range missiles in Cuba.

Well, let me say something to you, Mr.  Ambassador: we do have the evidence. We have it, and it is clear and it is incontrovertible. And let me say something else: those weapons must be taken out of Cuba.

Next, let me say to you that, if I understood you, with a trespass on credibility that excels your best, you said that our position had changed since I spoke here the other day because of the pressures of world opinion and the majority of the United Nations. Well, let me say to you, sir, you are wrong again. We have had no pressure from anyone whatsoever. We came in here today to indicate our willingness to discuss Mr U Thant’s proposals, and that is the only change that has taken place.

But let me also say to you, sir, that there has been a change. You, the Soviet Union has sent these weapons to Cuba. You, the Soviet Union has upset the balance of power in the world. You, the Soviet Union has created this new danger, not the United States.

And you ask with a fine show of indignation why the President did not tell Mr Gromyko on last Thursday about our evidence, at the very time that Mr Gromyko was blandly denying to the President that the USSR was placing such weapons on sites in the new world.

Well, I will tell you why: because we were assembling the evidence, and perhaps it would be instructive to the world to see how far a Soviet official would go in perfidy. Perhaps we wanted to know if this country faced another example of nuclear deceit like that one a year ago when in stealth, the Soviet Union broke the nuclear test moratorium…

Finally, the other day Mr. Zorin I remind you that you did not deny the existence of these weapons. Instead, we heard that they had suddenly become defensive weapons. But today again if I heard you correctly, you now say that they do not exist, or that we haven’t proved they exist, with another fine flood of rhetorical scorn.

All right, sir, let me ask you one simple question: Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no. Don’t wait for the translation, yes or no?

[Zorin] This is not a court of law, I do not need to provide a yes or no answer…

[Stevenson] You can answer yes or no. You have denied they exist. I want to know if I understood you correctly. I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that’s your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room.

And he did. Stevenson’s show and tell exposed the Soviet duplicity to the world.  By then, Kennedy had offered to take obsolete United States nuclear missiles out of Turkey bases in exchange for Russia’s withdrawal of its missiles in Cuba. Most tellings of the story do not mention who originated that strategy.  That was Adlai Stevenson.

The possible nuclear war was averted not by threats of attacks on sites in Cuba and deadly confrontations at sea but by Premier Nickolai Khruschev’s acceptance of the base-swapping plan.

Today we have a Russian leader threatening nuclear war and there are those who are suggesting strong military action against Russia.  Kornbluh suggests the not well-known story of how diplomacy, not military confrontation, disarmed a possible Armageddon in 1962, is forgotten by those dealing with events in Ukraine and threats of atomic conflagration.

Kornbluh wrote last year, “Iit would seem prudent to revisit the story of how and why Kennedy sacrificed both Stevenson and the truth about the resolution of the missile crisis and what lessons that history really holds. Documents and transcripts now accessible to the world from government archives allow us to tell the story more fully and accurately than ever before.”

Today, as a Russian leader threatens the use of nuclear weapons in a war of his own making, we edge close to the events we dodged in 1962—-but we are yet a distance from those tense hours before the Soviet ships turned around. You and I are not privy to secret diplomatic discussions while more threatening words are flung into the air evoking frightening possibilities.

Talking is always better than shooting, as Adlai Stevenson and John Kennedy knew.

Some suggest we have no business being involved with Ukraine and the conflict.  Adlai Stevenson, the defender of eggheads that included himself, had an answer for them in a 1954 speech at Harvard:

There was a time, and it was only yesterday, when the United States could and did stand aloof.  In the days of our national youth, Washington warned against “entangling alliances,” John Adams spoke of that “system of neutrality and impartiality” which was to serve us long and well, and Jefferson enumerated among our blessings that we were “kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe.”  But those days are gone forever.”

Unfortunately, almost ninety years after Stevenson’s remarks, far too many reject their reality and want to believe the United States is not separate from the rest of the world and its troubles, challenges, and opportunities.

Adlai E. Stevenson II (1900-1965) was the grandson of Grover Cleveland’s vice-president, and great-grandson of Jesse Fell, the campaign manager for Abraham Lincoln.  I think there will be some days when we offer another comment from A Stevenson Sampler, a collection of excerpts from a man dead for almost sixty years who still has something to say to us.

(Photo credit:  JFK Library)