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Sports—Homecomings in Columbia and Kansas City; Cooperstown Finalists  

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(MIZ)—The Missouri Tigers are having their best season in a decade and the crowds are responding .  Saturday’s Homecoming 34-12 win over South Carolina produced the third straight sellout, the first time Missouri has sold out three games in a row since 2008.  The Tigers are 7-1 for the first time since 2013.

The Tigers defense held South Carolina to four field goals, sacked the Gamecock’s quarterback Spencer Rattler six times, and stopped them ten of thirteen times on third down converstions.  The Tigers have allowed only one touchdown in the last seven quarters.

Brady Cook threw for “only” 198 yards. But Corey Schrader ran for 159 and Cook picked up 64 more.

And the Tigers showed some killer instinct.  When South Carolina closed to 24-12, Schrader led the Tigers on a drive that culminated in an 11-yard run to the end zone with 2:46 left.

Missouri scored led 24-3 at the half but only outscored the Gamecocks 10-9 the rest of the way with all of the scoring coming in the fourth quarter.  Afterwards, Coach Eli Drinkwitz said Missouri has yet to play a compete game.  “We’ve seen flashes of it. But we haven’t put it all together for four quarters. And I think that’s why this team is so hungry and coachable: because they’re wanting to prove it to each other. We can keep playing better,” he said.

Missouri hits its bye week at just the right time.   The next game is against the nation’s number one team, Georgia, on November 4.

The AP and the USA Today Coaches’  polls have Missouri at 16th this week, the highest the Tigers have been since reaching 14th in 2014.

—Harrison Mevis picked up four PATs and two field goals to move within 16 points of becoming the most prolific scorer in Missouri football history.  He has 73 field goals and 128 extra points for 347 points.  The record was set by Jeff Wolfert, 362 points on 59 field goals and 185 extra points from 2006-2008.

—The Associated Press mid-season All-American team was released this week.  Missouri’s Kris Abrams-Draine is one of four SEC cornerbacks on the list.

—The win was a landmark one for Missouri, which became the 31st Division 1 collegiate program to record 700 victories. Missouri is 700-586-53 for a .544 winning percentage. Eight D1 schools have more than 900 victories.  Michigan could win its 1,000th game this year. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—Sunday was National Tight Ends Day.  No, really.  It’s the fourth weekend of October every year.  And Travis Kelce celebrated it in style.

He was the star of a first half was a shootout between two old AFL rivals, a game that—among other things was a solid homecoming for a former team member coming home from a disappointing sojourn to New York. The second half was time for the Kansas City City Chiefs’ defense to shine as they beat The San Diego—oops, the LOS ANGELES Chargers 31-17 in a game closer than the score appears.

The Chiefs pulled ahead 24-17 with a touchdown with 2:36 to play in the first half but didn’t lock down the game until 2:36 was left on the clock with the only points either team scored in the second half.  The two teams combined for 841 yards, with Patrick Mahomes throwing for 424 of them, 321 in the first half, the fourth time in his career he’s had 300 or more yards in the first half of a game. Travis Kelce was unstoppable in the first half with 9 catches for 143 yards (he finished with 12/179 and is more than halfway to his eighth straight 1,000 yard receiving season (48/525) although he missed the first game.

The game was a homecoming for Mecole Hardman, who went to the New York Jets in a trade last year and came back last week after seeing little action.  He returned a late-game punt 50 yards, a play that Mahomes said “put the game away” and he kept the Chiefs’ final scoring drive alive with a key third-and-six catch that gave his team a first down.  The Chiefs scored the dagger touchdown on the next play.

The only casualty for the Chiefs was linebacker (and former Mizzou All-American) Nick Bolton.  His team-leading ninth tackle, of Chargers wide receiver Keenan Allen, left him with a dislocated wrist. Last night, it was reported that Bolton will need surgery and will be out for about two months. It’s the second setback Bolton has had this year. Earlier, he missed three games with a high ankle sprain.  If he can’t go next week, Drue Tranquill is expected to fill in for him again. Tranquill had a key nine-yard sack of Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert in the fourth quarter. Tranquill signed with the Chiefs in March, after three seasons with the Chargers.

Now, to mix the sports:

We normally include Formula 1 automobile racing at the end of these Tuesday posts, but we are moving part of it closer to the top because, well—

(CHIEFS/FORMULA 1)—Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce have become part owners of a Formula 1 racing team.  They are among several sports stars who have joined Otro Capital investment group in buying 25% interest in the Alpine Formula 1 racing team.

The amount the two have invested has not been made public although Otro Capital has put 200-million euros ($211.7 million US) into the team. Several other sports stars including pro-golfer Rory McElroy, two-time heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua, and others.

It’s not the first venture into sports team ownership Mahomes has made. He also has minority shares of the Kansas City Royals, the Sporting Kansas City major league soccer team, and the Kansas City Current of the national women’s soccer league.

Alpine used to be known as Renault F1 Team but changed its name to promote the Alpine, a Renault sports car. The team has been competing in F1 since 1981 under various names. Michael Schumacher won two of his record seven championships driving for the team and Fernando Alonso won both of his titles with the team.  But that was a long time ago.

Formula 1 has only 13 teams of two drivers each competing.  With five races left in the season, Alpine is sixth in the constructors points standings. In a combined 34 races, the team’s two drivers have only two top-five finishes and 18 top tens.

(BASEBALL)—-The official trading season won’t start until the end of the World Series sometime before Thanksgiving but the air is full of potential signings or trades involving the Cardinals. The Royals aren’t generating comparable headlines, perhaps because so little was expected of the them this year and because they haven’t had the traditional of excellence the Cardinals have had.

However, both teams are part of the recommendations from the Hall of Fame Contemporary Baseball Era Committee for Managers/Executives/Umpires. Eight people have made the commtittee’s short list of possible enshrinement at Cooperstown and one each comes from the Cardinals and the Royals. The eight finalists this year are Bill White, Lou Pinella, Cito Gaston, Davey Johnson, Jim Leyland, Ed Montague, Hank Peters, and Joe West. All candidates except Peters are living. The committee will announce its winners December 3.

Lou Pinella had 1,835-1713 (.517 winning percentage) in his 23 years as a manager for the Yankees, Reds, Mariners, Rays, and Cubs.  The led the Cincinnati Reds to the 1990 World Series championship, and managed the 1001 Seattle Mariners to an American League record 116 wins. He was the Manager of the Year in his league three times. As a player, four games for Baltimore in 1964 and six games for the Cleveland Indians in 1968  before being traded to the Kansas City Royals in 1969.  He he hit .282 and was American League Rookie of the Year.  He moved to the Yankees in 1974, got World Series rings in 1977 and 1978, retiring after an 18-year playing  career. He hd been a candidate for enshrinement by the Veterans Committee twice, in 2016 and 2018.  He came closest to being elected in 2018 when he received 11 votes. Twelve were necessary to gain admittance.

Bill White played for 13 seasons, starting with the San Francisco  Giants before joining the Cardinals in 1959.  He won a World Series ring with the Cardinals in 1964. He was with the Phillies from 1966-68 before finishing his career back in St. Louis in 1969. He had a career batting average of .286. White was an eight-time all star and seven-time gold glove winner. .  He was the first African-American President of the National League 1989-1994, years in which the Marlins and the Rockies entered the league. He was a key player in getting both leagues to operate under the same umbrella of Major League Baseball.

Okay, time for racing:

(NASCAR)—Christopher Bell rallied from 22nd place to win at Homestead Sunday and guarantee he will be one of four drivers running for the NASCAR Cup next month.  Kyle Larson locked in his position last week, leaving only one race left to determine the other two finalists, with six drivers competing for those slots.

He ran down Ryan Blaney and beat him to the line by about 1.7 seconds. Bell described the race as a “whirlwind” that saw 25 lead changes before he pulled in front with 29 laps left. Denny Hamlin, who was in the top four in points going into the race, crashed with 31 laps to go while running for the lead, and is now seventh in the points, sixteen below the cut line.  Martin Truex, Jr., the regular season points champion, dropped out one lap later with a blown engine.

Larson and William Byron have the remaining two finals positions based on points.  Next week’s race on the half-mile at Martinsville will be the last chance for Hamlin, Truex, Tyler Reddick, and Chris Buescher to run for the 2023 title. Buescher is in a must-win situation although, technically, all of the six who haven’t won a race in this elimination round are, too.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen’s 50th grand prix win tied his record of 15 races won in a single season.  He had to work a little harder than usual to claim it, starting sixth instead of his standard P1. But it turned out his closest competitor wasn’t that close after all.

Second-place finisher Lewis Hamilton, along with sixth-place finisher Charles Leclerc were disqualified after post-race inspections found unapproved parts on the undersides of their cars.

(Photo Credits: Bell, Bob Priddy; Mevis, Missouri Athletics; Pinella, Baseball Hall of Fame; White, Baseball Almanac)

 

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)

 

Notes from a Quiet Street (Cranky, colorful edition)

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(Notes from a Quiet Street consists of observations that aren’t worth all the words for a full-fledged blog post.  On the other hand, some blog posts don’t merit all those words, either.)

In these chaotic times dominated by demagogues, I suggest all of us learn to play bridge, or learn to play it better.  For in playing bridge we may find relief from current controversies and fears because Bridge is a land of no-trump.

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Wife Nancy got a new car the other day.  If I drive it, it recognizes my face and moves the seat and mirrors where I like to have them.  And then it puts them back in her positions when she gets back in.

It’s white, the most visible color except in a blizzard, and it doesn’t show dirt as much as darker cars do.

The quick guide to it is 150 pages.  The full owner’s manual runs to 537 pages. We’ll probably finish reading about all the bells,whistles, and foghorns sometime in February. We might learn the rudiments of the touch screen by Thanksgiving.

How odd that in these days of concern about distracted driving, new cars have touch screens that the driver has to look at to do everything but serve hot coffee and so many buttons on the steering wheel that the driver has to look down to make sure their finger is touching the right one. No wonder the thing has systems to keep the car in the right lane and to keep it from shortening the car ahead.

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My first car had three on the tree, the headlight dimmer button on the floor for the left foot to work, an AM radio, and hand-wound windows.  I turned a key to start it, turned a key to lock and unlock it, had bumpers, a bumper jack in case of a flat tire (and tires that did go flat), and a full-sized spare that had to be checked for its air levels from time to time.  It alsos had a steel dashboard, real glass windows that were deadly to go through, no seat belts to keep you from hitting your head on the metal dashboard or going through the glass window in a crash, a rigid steering column that would be deadly, and an odometer that was all zeroes after 100,000 miles.

Air conditioning was the wind coming through the window that evaporated the sweat on hot days.

And the car didn’t recognize my face.

No, it did not have a crank to start it.

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The baseball playoffs are underway. I have no idea who is playing.  Sometimes I wish I cared.  Not often, though. I’m probably not alone.  It’s football season, after all.  I remember a lot of years when the World Series was over by now—back in the days when television didn’t run the sport.

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That first car was dark green on top and light green on the body.  Cars came in white, black, blue, green, or red.  Nowadays they’re pearlescent snow white, metallic Mediterranean blue, mocha, Sequoia Green, Arrow Gray, Purple Sector,  Thundernight Metallic—

How much do the geniuses get paid to come up with these names?

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Speaking of colors:

Did you know that Crayola makes an Ultimate Crayola Collection that includes 152 colors?  Among the more recent are crayellow, timber wolf, cool mint, oatmeal, jazzberry jam, purple mountains’ majesty, manatee, outer space, aspa

ragus, and Granny Smith Apple.

That would be a great question:  “Where will you find—?”  A Crayola box.

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And finally, a story that fell out of the blue—

We want to pay tribute to Dorothy Hoffner who died last Monday at the age of 104. Only a week earlier she had set a new record by being the oldest parachutist in the world. Guiness hasn’t certified the record yet, but she did it.

The Chicago newspapers reported she left her walker on the ground so she could walk away from her landing site.

It wasn’t her first time.  When she was only 100, she was strapped to the back of a professional jumper and had to be pushed out of the plane. This time she insisted on being the jump leader, strapped to the front of a certified parachute instructor. She jumped from 13,500 feet and floated to earth seven minutes later. “Delightful, wonderful, couldn’t have been better,” she said.

She died before her next great adventure could be accomplished.

She wanted to go up in a hot air balloon.

Some people live a life. Other people devour it.

 

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.

Sports:  On a Roll:  Tigers, Chiefs, Royals, Byron, Verstappen.  Clunking Along: Cardinals

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—James Franklin and Henry Josey were leading the Missouri Tigers to a 12-2 campaign and Odelle Green-Beckham was starting to waste a possibly great football career the last time the Missouri Tigers started a year 4-0.  That was a decade ago.

The Tigers were under pressure throughout the game Saturday but this team didn’t fold, seized control late and didn’t let it slip aay.

The Tigers 34-27 win over Memphis State has moved them into the national polls, 23rd.  They’re 22nd in the Coaches Poll. It’s the first time since 2019 that Missouri has been in the top 25.  That’s the year they started 5-1 but stumbled to a 6-6 season. (ZOU)

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On a day when the Miami Dolphins ran up 70 points on the Denver Broncos, the Kansas City Chiefs indicated they could have done the same thing with the Chicago Bears.

Before we get to the Chiefs, a note or two about Miami’s demolition of the Broncos.

It’s only the fourth 70-point game in NFL history. The first was the 1940 NFL championship game the Bears won over the Washington Redskins, 73-0.  The Redskins scored 71 in 1966. And the Los Angeles Rams hit the 70 mark in 1950.  Only the 1951 Rams had more yards (735) than the Dolphins (726).  No other team has ever had five passing touchdowns and five rushing TDs. THE CHIEFS are the only other team with multiple players scoring four touchdowns in a game. Since 1950, only the 49ers in 2012 have had 300 yards passing and 300 yards rushing in a single came.

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs beat the Bears 41=10, had 34 of those points at the half, and appeared unstoppable by the Bears.  Patrick Mahomes twisted an ankle late in the first half and sat out most of the second half. His backup, former Missouri Tiger Blaine Gabbert, was unimpressive, throwing for only 40 yards and two interceptions.

Mahomes, even playing only part of the game, set an NFL Record for getting to 25,000 yards faster than any quarterback in NFL history. Matthew Stafford set the record with the Detroit Lions in 2015 at 90 games.  Mahomes did it in 83 starts.

(ROYALS)—The phrase “hot streak” has not been linked to the Kansas City Royals much in the last couple of years.  But they head into the last week of the regular season on one.

The Royals have won ten of their last eleven games and for the first time since 2019 they have racked up four straight series wins. Manager Matt Quartraro says the team has grown throughout the year.  One sign is that eight of the ten wins have been decided by two runs or fewer.

“We’ve had a lot of close games this year that haven’t gone our way. And early on, we were using that as kind of a, ‘They’re learning. They’re learning to be in close games.’ And maybe this is the byproduct of that,”‘ Quintraro observed after Sunday’s 6-5 win against the Astros Sunday.

The Royals were 29-75 at the start of August.  They have gone 24-27 since, not a pennant-winning pace by any means but enough to get Royals fans’ flowing a little faster in the off-season.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals’ underwhelming season is slouching toward its end.  Their Sunday loss to San Diego ended a three-game winning streak.  Those were the only wins in the most recent 10-game string.

The biggest question for the rest of the season is whether Adam Wainwright will ever be seen on the mound in a big league game again.

The Cardinals, once considered likely to win at least 90 back in the chilly days of Spring, have put themselves into position to LOSE that many.  68-88 heading into the last days of the regular season.

Motoring along—-

(NASCAR)—William Byron posted his sixth win this year and the 300th in the Cup Series for team oner Rick Hendrick at the Texas Speedway Sunday. He got past Denny Hamlin and pole-winner Bubba Wallace on the last restart, which was necessary because Kyle Larson crashed while racing Wallace for the lead with twenty laps to go.  Larson’s car got loose as he and Wallace raced side-by-side.  His sliding car narrowly missed the back end of Wallace’s car as it swung to the right and took him into the wall.

NASCAR’s next race in its championship playoff will be at Talladega.

(FORMULA 1)—After an off-week that ended his consecutive wins record run, Max Verstappen went pole to pole in the Japanese Grand Prix. It’s his 13th win this year.  He appears to have an insurmountable points lead with six races left.  His closest contender, Lando Norris with McLaren, was more than 19 seconds back.

Today’s Adlai 

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Last week we introduced you Adlai Stevenson, grandson of as United States Vice President, two-time presidential candidate, and historic UN representative for our country.  And we said we’d ponder some of the things he says before more of the modest number of readers of these columns were born.  His intelligence and his eloquence are, in some cases (perhaps too many) accurate for our times.  Such is the case of these remarks delivered in 1948, seventy-five years ago, in Springfield, Illinois, when he was the governor of the state:

Ours is a sad, disillusioned world.  Too many people on this blood-soaked, battered globe live in constant fear and dread; fear of hunger and want, dread of oppression and slavery.  Poverty, starvation, disease and repression stalk the world, and over us all hangs the mence of war like a gloomy shroud. But everywhere people cling to their hope and their faith in freedom and justice and peace—though fear, anguish, even death are their daily lot.

The remarks were three years after the end of a worldwide war when Europe was still putting its civilization back together after the scourge of Naziism presumably had been wiped out and only two years after Winston Churchill had warned in Fulton, Missouri that a new war, a Cold War, was underway as the Soviet Union expanded its borders.

Japan was a two-time nuclear victim and the idea that other nations would develop an A-bomb cast a frightening shadow on our futures.  The next year, on August 29, 1949, The Soviet Union conducted its first successful test of a bomb—based on the design of our “Fat Man” A-bomb.

In many ways, we still live in the world of 1948 and 1949.  Millions still live in constant fear; millions seek relief from “fear of hunger and want, dread of oppression and slavery.”

Our world has gotten smaller.  No longer are those living with these fears confined to their faraway continents.

And we have people in this country who seek to stoke fear within all of us of THEM, the people the Greatest Generation wanted to help at home and abroad when Stevenson made his speech.

In another speech we’ll refer to at another time, Stevenson spoke of the need for Christian humility.

Christian humility.

Where is it in our country today?

And why isn’t it more in evidence among those who expect us to let them lead us?

 

 

 

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)

 

The Sacred Burial Site, and Other Musings 

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I knew a man named Ed Bliss who wrote the news for Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite.  They wrote their commentaries; he oversaw the writing of their newscasts.  We often had Ed conduct newswriting seminars at our national broadcast journalism convention.  One day I asked him,  “When is a person no longer ‘late,’ but is only ‘dead?’’  Ed didn’t know.

When will we no longer refer to “the late” Queen Elizabeth II?  Why don’t we refer to “the late Harry Truman?”

King Tut is dead, not “late.”

A related issue showed up a few days ago in a news story that salvagers plan to start plucking unattached objects from Titanic despite an international agreement that considers the wreckage “a sacred burial site.”

What is a “sacred burial site” and does it become less sacred after a certain number of years?

RMS Titanic Inc., based in Georgia, has the salvage rights to Titanic. It plans an expedition next May to shoot a new film of the deteriorating ship and recover any unattached artifacts despite an agreement among Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and France that the wreckage is considered a sacred burial site off-limits to looters and salvors. There is a United States law supporting that position.

RMST, on the other hand, reached an agreement in 1994 with the owners of Titanic (Liverpool and London Steamship Protection and Indemnity Association to be considered the exclusive salvor-in-possession of Titanic. It has retrieved many items from the sinking and has put them on display in museums such as the one in Branson and in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  The place is worth seeing.

Video: (12) Titanic Museum VIP Guided Tour in Branson, Missouri – YouTube

The museums are owned by John Joslyn, who led a 1987 expedition down to the Titanic.  The museums hold artifacts recovered after the sinking but not from the wreck of the ship proper.

Other artifacts are housed in other museums in this country, Canada, and the UK.

(Your correspondent has some of the anthracite coal recovered by RMST from the debris field)

RMST says it does not plan to alter the wreckage.  But deterioration of the hull has opened new ways to get remotely operated vehicles inside. Court documents say the company also would “recover free-standing objects inside the wreck.”  The Associated Press reports that includes items in the Marconi (radio) room that aren’t bolted down.

The telegraph that sent out the distress calls that fateful night is a specific target.  RMST wants to pull it out.  A judge has rejected a federal government challenge to that plan saying the historical and cultural significance of that device should not be lost to decay.

There are fears that the creatures and the elements will leave the wreckage nothing more than a huge pile of rust within another twenty years.

Very large.  A couple of months ago the BBC reported on the completion of the most detailed view of the wreck, shaped from more than 700,000 digital photos that create a 3D rendition.  The network superimposed the image(s) on the stadium used for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Titanic: First ever full-sized scans reveal wreck as never seen before – BBC News

or: Titanic: Scan reveals world’s most famous wreck – BBC Newsround

The concept of the Titanic site as being a sacred gravesite brings us back to the “late/dead” discussion.

We have heard of only one human remain found at the wreck site in the many dives to the site, a finger bone with part of a wedding ring attached that was concreted to the bottom of a soup tureen.  It was retrieved but was returned to the sea floor on a later dive. It is generally concluded that the passengers’ and crews’ bodies have long ago been consumed by various deep sea organisms.

Some have pointed to shoes on the ocean floor as being remnants of the people who wore them.  But that contention is questionable.

Some argue that the Titanic is a graveyard—-an argument heard at the Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor and for other lost (and many later found) ships.

But if the bodies have long since disappeared, is it valid to consider such sites as sacred graveyards?

And how long must a body be dead before it can be removed from its burial site, perhaps to be studied by various kinds of scientists?

The mummies of Egypt, mummies found high in the Andes mountains, bodies preserved in peat bogs in northern Europe, skeletons excavated at Williamsburg, Virginia—all of these people clearly are not “late” and society does not demand that they stay buried.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, however, requires that Native American remains that are unearthed or located be transferred to their lineal descendants, for reburial—-the sacred ground philosophy.

And that raises a secondary question.  Is it sacred ground only because it is OUR ancestors, OUR people?

And why shouldn’t the Titanic be explored and artifacts be brought to the surface?  Are we dishonoring the dead by displaying the clothes they were wearing when they died—long after any physical trace of the person who wore those clothes has disappeared?  Or are we instead honoring their memories?

An autoworker in Wichita, Kansas—Joe Combs—was looking for answers when he saw pictures from the titanic debris field of shoes:

Titanic Shoes: Myth & Reality | joeccombs2nd

I think your thoughtful correspondent comes down on Joe’s side—that we honor the victims of the great tragedy—-and those who died less tragically hundreds or thousands of years ago by seeing something tangible about them and in doing that we recognize they were people rather than one of x-number of casualties of a tragedy or citizens of lost civilizations.

This concept is brought home strongly at the Titanic museums when entering visitors are given a card with the name of one of the ship’s passengers on it.  At the end of the trip through the museum, the patron can learn if “they” survived or died in the sinking. It’s a good way to humanize the experience.

As for referring to someone as “the late,” maybe we have the answer.  It comes from Robert Hickey, the director of the Protocol School of Washington. In his 550-page book, Honor & Respect: the Official Guide to Names, Titles, and Forms of Address, he writes:

Use ‘the late’ before a name of someone who is deceased – often recently – when one wants to be respectful. For example, on a wedding program:

—-John Smith, the bride’s uncle, will give away the bride in place of her father the late Thomas Smith.

—-The groom is the son of Mrs. James K. Gifford and the late Stephen R. Gifford

Some style guides say a person can only be ‘the late’ if they have been dead less than a decade. 

That sounds like a reasonable guideline.  Even at that, ten years is a long time to be late.

 

Lunch With—-

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Every now and then somebody in this or that group with us asks, “If you could have dinner with four famous people, who would you pick?”

The second and perhaps more difficult question to answer although it is almost never asked is, “What would you talk about?”   You. Me.

Did you ever think about how hard a decision it would be for normal people like us to take part in such a luncheon conversation.  Wouldn’t most of us feel so inferior to our lunchmates that we would be afraid of sounding like an idiot if we opened our mouths?

It’s a difficult question for your discussion leader here because I probably wouldn’t just talk with somebody. I’d interview them.  I say this because a friend from out of town and I were enjoying some ice cream at Central Dairy and a young man and his young daughter asked if they could share the table with us.  It turned out that he is Missouri’s Strongest Man, ranks something like 14th in the world.  I thought I was engaging in a conversation with him about his, uh, work.  But my friend who watched what was happening thought that I had slipped into full interview mode.

Once a reporter, always a reporter. But reporters live to get a story and I wanted to hear this fellow’s story.

But what if you could sit at a table with Einstein, Lincoln, Jesus, and George Clooney or Thomas Jefferson?  Assuming you were not a complete puddle of intellectual intimidation and inadequacy in such a gathering, what WOULD you talk about?

But why talk?  Listening to a First Century Jew and his concepts of the physical and spiritual world and the universe talking to a Twentieth-Century Jew and his concept of of the theoretical and real world, with Jefferson and his concepts of the Divinity (he compiled a Bible that removed all of the mysticism around Jesus) and freedom, with Lincoln and his concepts of freedom, spirituality, and unity—and all of their experiences in people’s search for meaning.

George Clooney? Based on one very brief interaction with him as well as sharing a big table with his father in a two-day seminar on journalism (his father, Nick, was a television newsman in Cincinnati for many years), I think he would add a Twenty-first Century dimension to the entire conversation—perhaps looking at mass media circulation of ideas that are social, political, spiritual, scientific, and practical.

What would they eat?  And what kind of wine would they want?

I confess that for years I have wanted to talk to retired professional athletes about what replaced the competitive fire that propelled them to the top level of their sports when they realized their skills were just not enough to continue at the highest level.  The fire doesn’t just go out the day their retirement is announced, I’m sure.

I know some common, ordinary folks who retire and they’re lost because they no longer fit in the world that sustained them for 30 or 40 or 50 years.  What if  you’re an elite athlete?  Do retired major leaguers switch to slow-pitch softball?  Do reired NBA players sign up for the city basketball league?  When Wimbledon champions abandons pro tennis, do they find somebody at the local YMCA to play with?

For MY fantasy lunch, however, I don’t know that I’d pick famous people.  I think I’d like to ask my dad (who died before it occurred to me to record his life story), my great-grandfather who homesteaded in Kansas in the 1870s, and the original immigrants that were my ancestors about why they came here.

I’m curious about the stars of major league sports and all of the others.  But I would rather know what there is about the ancestors that remains part of my appearance, my movements, my inclinations, and my character.

But then I think about turning this scenario around. So—

Here’s an assignment for you.

Think of what you would like to ask your grandparents or your great grandparents.  Then imagine it’s YOUR grandchildren or great-grandchildren asking the same things of you.  And write down your answers and give it to them or to a local or state historical or generalogical society so that they can find you when they want to know about you. Believe it or not,  you will be important to them.

Have lunch with yourself.  You’re important enough to buy lunch for yourself and answer your own questions.  You might surprise yourself with your answers. And your great-grandchildren will be fascinated by them.