The Pecan Park Eagle

1908: CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN!

November 15, 2016

Cubs Wib World Series Boston Post November 15, 1908

Cubs Win World Series
Boston Post
November 15, 1908

An Explication of What You May Miss in the Cartoon As Sized Here

In the background, the clouds are parting, the sun is shining, and the Church of Baseball’s bells are ringing.

Strolling down the Lane of Life to the Land of “Happily Ever After” are the World Series Winning Groom Chicago Cubs-man and his arm-in-arm bride, complete with wedding bouquet, Lady World Series herself. There is even an arrow sign that identifies the bride over her right shoulder as “World Series”.

The dog on the lower front left that the Cubs Groom guides with a leash has a pennant tied to his tail which reads “National League Championship”.

The tombstone grave on the lower front right reads as follows:

“TIGE: No Wedding Bells For Me” – and there is a tiger tail sticking out of the recently deposited grave site.

The Cubs Groom is looking down at the grave of “Tige” as he speaks these words: “He was a good fellow, but this foot slipped!”

“NONE BUT THE CUB DESERVES THE FAIR”

The Boston Post went all out to celebrate the Five Game previous World Series victory by the Chicago Cubs, that one springing forth over Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers on November 14, 1908 – and on the road in the Motor City, as well. “Orvie Overall”, as he’s referenced in the story, went all the way for the Cubs that distant and fated afternoon, shutting out the Bengal Boys, 2-0, while striking out 10 and limiting the Detroit offense to 4 walks and 3 hits on the day. The Cubs scratched over single tallies in the tops of the 1st and 5th innings to tally all the scoring on the day – and Wild Bil Donovan went all the way for the Tigers to take the final loss. He gave up 10 hits and 3 walks on the day, while fanning 3.

Bennett Field in Detroit had few fans present to witness the last appearance of a winning Chicago Cubs team in a World Series for 108 years. The Boston paper reports that Detroit fans were so discouraged when the Tigers fell behind 3 games to 1 in Game 4 that only 6,210 hearty souls turned out to watch the deciding Game 5. Of course, figures are relative in this instance. “6,210 fans, compared to what?” should be the question. – 12,907 fans had shown up in Game 4 to see if the local Tigers could knot the Series at 2-2. When that didn’t happen, due to a 3-0 shutout of Detroit by Three Finger Brown, attendance fell by a little more than 50% for what turned out to be the Game 5 Series finale. – Now that’s a big, big drop – especially when we consider that both games were day games played during the normal work week and we remember too that there were no radio or TV coverages of baseball back in 1908. The fans who neither used nor bought tickets for Game 5 were giving up their only opportunities to see the big game.

1908 World Series: Final Game 5 Box Score ~ Courtesy of Baseball Almanac.com

Chicago Cubs	ab	r	h	rbi
Sheckard lf	3	0	1	0
Evers 2b	4	1	3	1
Schulte rf	3	0	1	0
Chance 1b	4	0	3	1
Steinfeldt 3b	2	0	0	0
Hofman cf	4	0	0	0
Tinker ss	4	0	1	0
Kling c	3	1	0	0
Overall p	2	0	1	0
Totals	29	2	10	2

Detroit Tigers	ab	h
McIntyre lf	3	1
O’Leary ss	4	0
Crawford cf	4	1
Cobb rf	3	0
Rossman 1b	4	0
Schaefer 2b	3	0
Schmidt c	4	0
Coughlin 3b	3	1
Donovan p	2	0
Totals	30	3

Chicago	1	0	0		0	1	0		0	0	0	–	2	10	0
Detroit	0	0	0		0	0	0		0	0	0	–	0	3	0

Chicago Cubs	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO

Overall W (2-0)	9.0	3	0	0	4	10
Totals	9.0	3	0	0	4	10

Detroit Tigers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
Donovan L (0-2)	9.0	10	2	2	3	3
Totals	9.0	10	2	2	3	3
E–None. DP–Detroit 2. 2B–Chicago Evers (1,off Donovan), Detroit McIntyre (1,off Overall). SH–Overall (1,off Donovan); Steinfeldt (2,off Donovan); Schulte (2,off Donovan). CS–Steinfeldt (1,2nd base by Donovan/Schmidt); Evers (2,Home by Donovan/Schmidt); Schaefer (1,2nd base by Overall/Kling). SB–Donovan (1,2nd base off Overall/Kling). WP–Overall (1). U–Jack Sheridan (AL), Hank O’Day (NL). T–1:25. A–6,210.

Baseball Almanac Box Score |

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

Tags: 1908: CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN!
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Welcome Back, Super Moon

November 14, 2016

Sunday, 11/12/2016, 9:33 PM The Super Moon Through the tress in our front yard.

Sunday, 11/13/2016, 9:33 PM
The Super Moon over Houston
Looking Up through the Trees in Our Front Yard.

Welcome, back, Super Moon

We haven’t seen you since 1948, about six weeks prior to my 11th birthday, but, back then, there wasn’t all this hoopla about you in Pecan Park – or any other part of Houston, as I recall. As memory serves those remembered events from that ancient time, we learned of your coming first night appearance at school. Imagine that! Old St. Christopher’s School out in Park Place had to bring us the advance news, or, very possibly, the grown ups in our neighborhood may have missed the whole thing. There was no television in Houston in 1948 – and we didn’t have anyone like meteorologist Frank Billingsley of present day Channel 2 around back then to tell us these things on a daily basis. It’s even amazing we survived all the thunder storms that hit us back then with no one in the newspapers or radio news shows there to consistently tell us they were coming. Back then, weather was just one of those “whatever happens, happens” parts of life. And that makes the point here even clearer. If we were not going to get warnings about frog-strangling rains, lightening, and thunder – things that happened a lot more often in Houston than big news from space in 1948 – we sure were not likely to get any advance notice about the next closest passing of the moon near to earth in 68 years. – Shoot! The Super Moon prior to 1948 must have done a fly-by in 1880. Just imagine what the advance media coverage of physical science events was like all over the world in 1880.

With social media being what it is now – and even president-elects can hardly resist its power – time and space markers like Halley’s Comet will never again slip past us in an eye-blinking moment of human forgetfulness in the ego-blinding lights of our small screen personal lives on Planet Earth.

Have a nice Monday, friends!

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

Tags: Super Moon, Welcome Back
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Time Travel Cruises To Light Your Fire

November 14, 2016

time-3

USA PECAN PARK EAGLE TIME TRAVEL CRUISES

Fall of 2016 One-Day and Extended Days Cruise Schedule

Which of Our Time Travel Cruises Do You Wish to Book?

USA Pecan Park Eagle Time Travel Cruises come with only three trip costs:

(1) Your willingness to suspend belief in a feat that seems scientifically impossible, or beyond us, for the moment;

(2) An understanding that you get two wishes for your time trips. Please pick one single day trip – and one multiple day trip. There are no swap outs.

(3) You have to register your two choices (one single day trip and one multiple day trip) by leaving your two picks in the comment section that follows this column.

Our Scheduled Time Trips

One Day Trips. For each of the One Day Trips, you will arrive about an hour prior to the game connected to the special event and you will suddenly return to this time zone exactly an hour after the last out of the game is either made or confirmed. In one of the following five schoices, “confirmed” is the operative time-ticker word. Try to find an open rest room stall or dark corner to be when the teleportation back to the future takes place. We cannot tolerate other time period witnesses to coming and going. Something on that level could energize a change in life directions for some of those people and change the future in a way that may even impact who will be around for our times as we know them.

Here are the one-day excursions:

Fred Merkle’s boner base-runner mistake costs the Giants a surefire win and the eventual 1908 pennant. Event, Location, and Date: Full Game at Polo Grounds, NY, 9/23/1908.
Babe Ruth’s 60th Home Run. Event, Location, and Date: Full Game at Yankee Stadium, NY, 9/30/1927.
Lou Gehrig Hits 4 Homers in One Game. Event, Location, and Date: Full Game, NYY @ A’s, at Shibe Park, Philadelphia, PA, 06/03/1932.
Babe Ruth Calls His Shot. Event, Location, and Date: Full World Series Game 3 at Wrigley Field, Chicago, 10/01/1932.
Babe Ruth’s 3-HR Close-to-Goodbye Game. Event, Location, and Date: Full Game, Boston (NL) @ PGH, Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, PA, 05/25/1935.
19-year old Ron Necciai strikes out 27 men in 9 inning no-hitter for Class D Bristol Twins. Event, Location and Date: Full Game, Bristol, VA, 5/13/1952.
“The Catch” by Willie Mays. Event, Location, and Date: Full World Series Game 1 at the Polo Grounds, NY, 9/29/1954.
Don Larsen pitches the only perfect game in World Series History. Event, Location, and Date: Full World Series Game 5 at Yankee Stadium, NY, 10/08/1956.
Mazeroski’s Walk Off HR in Game 7. Event, Location, and Date: Full World Series Game 7 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, PA, 10/13/1960.

Multiple Day Trips. For each of the multiple day trips to World Series events, you will arrive 24 hours prior to the first pitch of Game I and teleported back to your natural time era 24 hours after the last pitch of the final series game. Please take the same precautions to be out of site when your disappearance occurs. This one is a little trickier because of the effects that seem to kick in with most people after extended removal to another time period. The tendency is for contemporary time people to become attached to the idea of remaining in the alien time zone because of the human need to belong among the things we have romanticized and now feel even stronger about.

If you think you cannot handle the attachment pull yourself, please do not go for one of the longer journeys. Your stay in a zone in which you never belonged will alter our present and there’s no way to predict how such a result would alter the world for better or worse. And please, while you staying in those older time hotels and dining in their restaurants, and mingling with their people in the clothes of those times we’ve provided, please make sure that you did not bring your modern tech devices for accidental or purposeful display to the time locals. And try not to take your own health regimen to those earlier eras. People there will not take kindly to you asking a smoker, “Sir, are you aware that it’s not healthy for the rest of us when you light up a cigarette on a crowded elevator with the rest of us – as you just did?”

AND PLEASE, above all, if you choose to travel to an era in which a younger version of you was also then alive, please stay away from the geographical area in which you then lived. One soul making contact with itself in the same time zone could be the end of the world for all of us. – Can you dig it? We know you would love to spy on your childhood, if possible, but don’t. Just take the route that former President George H.W. Bush (The Elder) took when he back to meet NY Gov. Thomas Dewey in early 1948 prior to his losing run for President against Democratic President Harry S. Truman that fall. – Bush wanted to side-trip over to Yale and watch himself playing first base for the Bulldogs. We only approved the Dewey trip from 2005 when Bush the Elder promised to stay clear from going anywhere near Yale.

Our arguments to President Elder Bush were ultimately convincing.

“Not gonna’ do it!” Bush finally and stridently offered. “Not gonna’ do it!”

Now here are your multiple-day excursion options:

1905 World Series, New York Giants vs. Philadelphia Athletics. (New York, NY and Philadelphia, PA) (Arrive: 10/08/1905) – The All Shutout 5-Game NY win – (Depart: 10/15/1905.)
1919 World Series, Chicago White Sox vs. Cincinnati Reds. (Cincinnati, OH and Chicago IL) (Arrive: 9/30/2019) – watch 8 game Series “won” by Reds, 5-3 – (Depart: 10/10/1919.)
1926 World Series, St. Louis Cardinals vs. New York Yankees. (St. Louis, MO and Bronx, NY) (Arrive: 10/01/1926) – watch Cards rally to win 1st WS, 4-3 – (Depart: 10/11/1926.)
1936 World Series, New York Yankees vs. New York Giants (Bronx, NY and New York, NY) (Arrive: 9/29/1936) – Joe DiMaggio’s 1st Series; FDR throws 1st pitch in G2; Yanks win in 6 – (Depart: 10/07/1936.)
1946 World Series, Boston Red Sox vs. St. Louis Cardinals (Boston, MA and St. Louis, MO) (Arrive: 10/05/1946) – Slaughter’s Mad Dash Series; SL wins, 4-3 – (Depart: 10/16/1946.)
1955 World Series, Brooklyn Dodgers vs. New York Yankees (All NY) (Arrive 9/27/1955) – Brooklyn’s only Series Win – (Depart: 10/05/1955.)
1963 World Series, Los Angeles Dodgers vs. New York Yankees (Los Angeles, CA and Bronx, NY) (Arrive: 10/01/1963) – Koufax at His Best; LA in 4 Game sweep – (Depart 10/07/1963.)
1975 World Series, Cincinnati Reds vs. Boston Red Sox (Cincinnati, OH and Boston, MA) (Arrive: 10/10/1975) – Famous Fisk HR Coaching Act Series; Reds win in 7 – (Depart: 10/23/1975)
1979 World Series, Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Baltimore Orioles (Pittsburgh, PA and Baltimore, MD) (Arrive: 10/09/1979) – “We Are Familee” Bucs win in 7 – (Depart: 10/18/1979)

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time-1

C’mon now. Let’s get those ticket orders booked. We will not tun out of time, but we could run out of space on the time-teleporter. 🙂

___________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

Tags: Baseball Time Travel Cruises To Light Your Fire
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

George Carlin: Baseball and Football

November 12, 2016

It’s an an oldie, but goodie that always remains fresh to those of us who’ve ever been fans of either or both sports. As displayed at the wonderful Baseball Almanac site, here’s a reprint of the late, great George Carlin’s greatest contribution to the joys of relative comparison:

by George Carlin

Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he’s out; sometimes unintentionally, he’s out.

Also: in football,basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball and in baseball the ball prevents you from scoring.

In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager. And only in baseball does the manager or coach wear the same clothing the players do. If you’d ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders uniform,you’d know the reason for this custom.

Now, I’ve mentioned football. Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.

I enjoy comparing baseball and football:

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything’s dying.

In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.

Football is concerned with downs – what down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups – who’s up?

In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.

In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.

Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog…
In baseball, if it rains, we don’t go out to play.

Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
Football has the two minute warning.

Baseball has no time limit: we don’t know when it’s gonna end – might have extra innings.
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we’ve got to go to sudden death.

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there’s kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there’s not too much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you’re capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! – I hope I’ll be safe at home!

Footnote: All of the above is compliments of Baseball Almanac.com It’s a website that is loaded with many other treats for those who research and/or crave detailed data on the histories of MLB teams, their rosters, their seasons, and their player performances.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor7.shtml

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One Unfunny Thing

My son Casey and I spent Friday on a day trip to Beeville. Coming back on the northern route, about 9 miles south of Columbus, TX, after dark, on a cool full moon night, with a fire burning in the nearby woods, a doe (young deer) suddenly bolted into the driver’s side of us. As the driver, I only saw it as it was a few feet away from crashing into our car and to its presumed death into the front fender area on my side. For whatever reason, I had the instinctual presence of mind to not try and veer away or jerk on the wheel. The traffic was pretty heavy both ways, and I could have done something that would have made writing this note today impossible. Thank you, God. I’m sorry about the young deer, but I shall be eternally grateful that the only other damage was to the body of my still drivable, but now badly-in-need-of-body-repair Nissan.

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rodney_dangerfield_2390

One funny thing. (At least, we thought it was funny, but don’t worry. I’m not quitting my day job. Just bear with me this time.)

On our trip, we kept seeing all these black and silver signs that read “Historical Marker, 1 Mile” along the way. Wish I were a cartoonist – because this is three-panel cartoon that occurred to me as a travel time mental amusement from the ubiquity of these notices.

The story takes place as we are driving across the border into a fictional country known as Comicania.

The Cartoon:

First Panel: Through the windshield, we have a view of the border line that stretches across the highway about 30 feet feet ahead. A big colorful billboard-sized sign, with a lot of smiling clown faces, balloons, and stand-up comics at mikes await us to the right of the road on the other side of the border – with the giant letters “WELCOME TO COMICANIA: The Land of Laughter” stretched across the visual message as a two-line script.

Second Panel: About 10 miles into Comicania, we next see through our windshield, the first of many small road signs, identical to the ones we have in Texas, with the exception of their first word. These signs read: “Hysterical Marker, 1 Mile”.

Third Panel: In the final panel, we are looking over the shoulder of the driver, who is now out of his car, looking ar the six-foot high aforementioned “Hysterical Marker”. A fairly long story continues in smaller lettering and it begins with these words:

“A Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi, and a Baptist minister walk into a bar together ….”

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Have a nice weekend, folks! And just know that Casey and I are simply happy to be here!

~ Bill McCurdy, The Pecan Park Eagle

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

Tags: George Carlin: Baseball and Football
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Who Is The Greatest MLB Lefty, Modern Era?

November 10, 2016

Who is the greatest lefty of the modern era?

Who is the greatest lefty of the modern MLB era?

Who do you think of as the greatest lefthanded pitcher of the Major League Baseball Modern Era? If you cannot find your pick among the names on the following table, please let us in on the secret as to whom you believe it might be. Either way, we hope that you will let us know your choice, whether it be by writing a passionate hot stove league case-building narrative for the comment section below – or by the simpler act of writing in the name of your pick in that same space. – We would love to hear from you.

Our Pecan Eagle Suggested List

Of the Greatest Modern Era Lefties

#	Alphabetical	W	L	PCT	ERA	YEARS	GAMES	K	WHIP
1	CARLTON, STEVE	329	244	.574	3.22	24	741	4,672	1.166
2	FORD, WHITEY	236	106	.690	2.75	16	498	1,956	1.215
3	GLAVINE, TOMMY	305	203	.600	3.54	22	682	2,607	1.314
4	GROVE, LEFTY	300	141	.680	3.06	17	616	2,266	1.278
5	HUBBELL, CARL	253	154	.622	2.98	16	535	1,677	1.166
6	JOHNSON, RANDY	303	166	.646	3.29	22	618	4,875	1.171
7	KOUFAX, SANDY	165	87	.655	2.76	12	397	2,396	1.106
8	PLANK, EDDIE	326	194	.627	2.35	17	623	2,246	1.119
9	SPAHN, WARREN	363	245	.597	3.09	21	750	2,583	1,195
10	WADDELL, RUBE	193	143	.574	2.16	13	407	2,316	1.102
+1	BABE RUTH *	94	46	.671	2.28	10	163	448	1.159

Babe Ruth may not have pitched enough games for consideration here, but the baseball world is loaded with historians who think he could have made the Hall of Fame as all the others on our list did, as one of the greatest lefties of all time. As it worked out, and as most you well know, the Babe used his bat to transform the way the game into the way it is still played today: “Set the table. – Hit it out. – Set the table twice. – Hit it out – et cetera – et cetera – et cetera.”

Did we get that last part right, Earl Weaver?

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

Tags: Who is the greatest lefty of the modern MLB era?
Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments »

Rabbit Maranville for President

November 9, 2016

Rabbit Maranville for President
~ If they ever make a movie on the life of Rabbit Maranville, we hope they cast actor John Malkovich to play the Rabbit.

Actor John Malkovich

It is Election Day evening, November 8, 2016. This seems like as a good a day as any to explore how our American National Election System and the Commissioner of Baseball’s Office could get together and accidentally, unconsciously, or stupidly find new ways to make things worse for the current health of the game that many of us still revere as Our National Pastime. Let’s explore some of the possibilities laying on the floor in front of us – as to how.

If the Electoral College System could be installed as the way Baseball also elects people to the Hall of Fame, it may be possible for all the most obviously assisted steroid using players to escape the shadows of suspicion that have hovered over them for most of the 21st century through 2016 to be elected finally to the HOF without having a majority vote support from the BBWAA people who now only cast ballots once, every four years.
The new HOF Political Selection Culture would wholeheartedly endorse marketing plans that include televised debates between candidates and marketing attack ads paid for by groups that opposed the induction of a candidate for Cooperstown.
Example Attack Ad Opposing the Induction of Mark McGwire: “Mark McGwire …. They say in St. Louis that he hit all those powerful long balls back in the day because of the strength he got from Big Mac hamburgers. …. Many of us ordinary folks like to eat Big Macs too. …. Makes you wonder. …. What did they put in McGwire’s Big Macs …. that they sure as hell didn’t put in ours?” …. (a psychedelic picture of McGwire swinging and going long is shown – as the shower sound theme from the movie “Psycho” plays to fade out.)
Example Attack Ad Opposing the Induction of Alex Rodriguez: “A Rod …. They say he was the last man on the field from the clubhouse prior to every Yankee game because he couldn’t close his locker door …. Some say it was because of the little power poppers he needed to take in privacy before he played. …. Others say it was because he had trouble breaking eye contact with the mirror that hung inside his locker door. …. And they may be right. ….. After all …. It’s hard to break up a lover’s embrace … especially … when the person you love …. is yourself! …. Do we really need another narcissist in the HOF?” …. (a tiny music box is shown … with two tiny figures of Alex Rodriguez dancing a waltz with each other. …. the little bell music from the box is playing the melody of the song, “Strangers in Paradise”.)
Example Attack Ad Opposing the Induction of Shoeless Joe Jackson: “Shoeless Joe Jackson …. a great baseball talent …. but a simple country boy who could neither read nor write. …. His actions on the field in the 1919 World Series speak for themselves. …. Joe hit .375 in the Series …. but he did know that some of his teammates were planning to fix the games for pay and he never told anybody. …. Joe never said “Count me in” …. but he did keep the big money he found laying on his hotel bed the night before the 1919 games started …. Looks like Joe wasn’t so stupid after all. …. He couldn’t read or write ….. But he sure knew how to count. … Leave Shoeless Joe Jackson out of the HOF. …. He’s been dead for years anyway …. and he will never know the difference.” …. (a short grainy film clip shows a smiling Joe Jackson in later life behind the counter of his South Carolina liquor store. He is handing over a bottle of bourbon to an already over-served farmer in overalls as the music in the background is supplied by John Lennon singing “Let It Be”.)

We could go forever, but will end here to watch the elections returns.

Speaking of the HOF, don’t forget that this Friday is the birthday of Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville. On November 11, 2016, the rabbit-man would have turned age 125, had he not died at age 62 back on January 5, 1954.

Speaking of Rabbit Maranville’s birthday, SABR’s own unofficial national chaplain, Father Gerald Beirne, turns 80 on the birthday he shares with Rabbit Maranville this week. It would be great if those of you who know him could drop this good man and elbows-deep baseball fan a birthday wish anytime between now and Friday. “Father Gerry’s” e-mail address is as follows: FrBeirne@aol.com

Tonight’s Presidential Election. Our hope here is that we may find a way to heal from this polarized political malaise that seems to eat all opportunities for acting as an America united in behalf of our country’s well being and future. If we do not, it isn’t going to matter much which candidate wins tonight. And may God Bless America – at a time when we need far more than a two-minute song and a salute to the idea.

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

Tags: Rabbit Maranville for President
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Who Is This Now Elderly American Icon?

November 8, 2016

“Who am I?”

Simply leave your answers as comments on this post in the section below. ~ Try coming up with your answer on looks alone – and let us know if you either did extra Google research – or else, saw this photo the same place we spotted it on the Web.

Have fun! 🙂

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

Tags: Who Is This Now Elderly American Icon?
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Our All Time Chicago Cubs Team

November 7, 2016

Even though tonight has been the only time we’ve had to focus upon its membership composition, The Pecan Park Eagle is proud to present its choices for the All Time 25-Man Chicago Cubs Modern Era Baseball Club. We eliminated consideration of Cub players from the 19th century period only because of the vast differences between the game played back then and the changes that were only beginning to appear with any rules similarity to the 2016 game, Besides, we didn’t want to take on the extra work of even trying to remediate the likes of Anson “Cappy” Jones prior to his first practice with the rest of the team.

Players were picked for their excellence in one particular season as a Cub. They had to have played for the Cubs in that year from either the 20th or 21st centuries. It does not take any researcher long to affirm or discover that the recent 2016 World Series win by the Cubs may have ended the 108-year old victory drought in the franchise’s history, but there has been no such absence of extremely talented people who have passed through or spent their entire careers without ever even sniffing a shot at the baseball season’s seminal moment while they played for the Cubs. Ernie Banks survives as the poster boy for the disappointment of Cubs Nation over their long, foreboding, some-say “cursed” absence from the World Series, but Banks sadly remains as perhaps the greatest player in history to have missed out as a player on the field of baseball’s greatest glory call. Almost needless to say, Ernie Banks was the easiest pick for our particular all time greatest modern era Cubs team.

We may have missed out on somebody, but we would be willing to go into battle with this Cubs team against the best of any other club tomorrow afternoon, if that were possible.

These final observations are begging to be written here: (1) As will be noticeable quickly, a goodly number of these players already are members of the Baseball Hall of Fame; (2) We decided early on that we just couldn’t field an all time Cubs club without the roster presence of “Tinker and Evers and Chance”, even if that trio of bear cubs spends most of their time on the bench; (3) we also didn’t want the 2016 World Champion Cubs to be shut out here, so we picked the one man we think the Cubs could not have done without in the Series with the Indians; and (4) with the 8-man staff, most of whom are capable of winning complete games and also throwing some relief without regard for pitch count that the two specialist relievers we have picked should be enough to handle the rare occasion that this club shall see victory dancing in the wind on the wings of hoped-for success by a single closer. And, when a club does face our Cubs closer, they are going to be the ones whose fates are now blowing in the wind.

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

____________________

Here it is:

Amendment Note: Close to 10:45 PM, Monday, 11/07/16, we replaced Charlie Root of 1927 on the staff with Jon Lester of 2016. We needed a great lefty to go with all of our other right handed starters. – We never made any claims of perfection here on the first bounce. Besides, Charlie Root took the news pretty good for a man of his antiquity. 🙂

Pecan Park Eagle All Time Chicago Cubs Modern Era 25-Man Roster

POS	FIELDERS	YEAR	BA	R	RBI	HR	SB
C	Gabby Hartnett	1930	.339	84	122	37	0
C	Johnny Kling	1906	.312	45	46	2	14
1B	Phil Cavarretta	1945	.355	94	97	6	5
2B	Ryne Sandberg	1990	.306	116	100	40	25
3B	Ron Santo	1964	.313	94	114	30	3
SS	Ernie Banks	1958	.313	119	129	47	4
SS	Joe Tinker	1908	.266	67	68	6	30
2B	Johnny Evers	1908	.300	83	37	0	36
1B	Frank Chance	1903	.327	83	81	2	67
2B/PH	Rogers Hornsby	1929	.380	156	149	39	2
1B/PH	Charlie Grimm	1931	.331	65	66	4	1
2B/3B	Billy Herman	1935	.341	113	83	7	6
LF	Billy Williams	1970	.322	137	129	42	7
CF	Hack Wilson	1930	.356	146	191	56	3
RF	Sammy Sosa	2001	.328	146	160	64	0
OF	Andre Dawson	1987	.287	90	137	49	11
OF	Kiki Cuyler	1929	.360	111	102	15	43

USAGE	PITCHERS	YEAR	WON	LOST	ERA	SO	BB
START	Mordecai Brown	1909	29	9	1.31	172	53
START	Grover C. Alexander	1920	27	14	1.91	173	69
START	Ferguson Jenkins	1971	24	13	2.77	263	37
START	Greg Maddux	1992	20	11	2.18	199	70
START	Jon Lester	2016	19	5	2.44	197	52
START	Lon Warneke	1932	22	6	2.37	106	64
R (31 Sv)	Bruce Sutter	1977	7	3	1.34	129	23
R (16 Sv)	Aroldis Chapman	2016	1	1	1.01	46	10

Tags: Our All Time Chicago Cubs Team
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The Andrew Lloyd Webber of Baseball Writers

November 5, 2016

Writer Roger Angell, age 96
and Friend,
Age and Name Unknown

You all know him. You cannot have followed baseball on any broad steady reading diet over time, and not have read his coverage stuff somewhere, even if you are the type reader who doesn’t check to see who wrote the piece. Since 1944, the man has been all over the map with the subject of baseball. His name is Roger Angell. and he’s now 96 years old and still sharp as a tack.

Roger Angell is not the writer who became became really famous as the Brooklyn kid who grew up and wrote “The Boys of Summer” about his 1950’s era home turf Dodgers, at a time when the Dodgers were east, and east was Brooklyn, and at a time when the team had grown into the “Monsters of the NL Midway“, but, sadly, at the same time Brooklyn fans were leaving the Bedford Avenue area to go live in the suburbs. “The Boys of Summer” writer was Roger Kahn, the great Brooklyn-born writer and another New York icon of baseball men of letters in literature. In my book, the third member of that generational trinity of great New York baseball authors was the late David Halberstam, who died in an auto accident at the age of 73 back on 4/23/2007.

Roger Angell, age 96, is the oldest, born on 9/19/1920.

Roger Kahn, age 89, was born on 10/31/1927.

David Halberstam, deceased, was born on 4/10/ 1934.

This column is about a taste of the common expressive ground shared by writer Roger Angell and Andrew Lloyd Webber, the great Broadway musical lyricist.

Even though their styles are not the same, I tend to think of Angell today as our baseball writing equivalent of Broadway musical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber for the lyrical way they each lift their publics for a flight through whatever subject territory they may happen to be covering at the time. Angell began his November 3, 2016 coverage article for The New Yorker on Game 7 that most of us watched Wednesday night with this classic line of implicit reference to the fact that the thing had concluded in extra innings, with the Chicago Cubs winning their first World Series since 1908 by this terse, but comprehensive column opening line:

“Good game, great game, and worth the wait.” ~ Roger Angell.

But ….

“But let’s think of the managers here for just a minute. Joe Maddon, the estimable Cubs leader, had briefly resembled a giant midair tarpon shaking the hook at the last possible instant when his Aroldis (Chapman) maneuvers turned out the way they did.” ~ Roger Angell.

All true, but had Andrew Lloyd Webber grown up a baseball fan, he may have responded to some of Cubs Manager Joe Maddon’s use of pitchers in Games 6 and 7 – and his early hooks in Game 7 – with these lines from Jesus Christ, Superstar:

Every time I look at you
I don’t understand
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand

You’d have managed better
If you’d had it planned
Now why’d you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?

But things worked out. The Cubs won! The Cubs won! The Cubs won!

Chapman’s arm didn’t actually fall off from over-use. And winning what they did, and how they did it, and what it was all about in the larger scheme of things in our baseball world – well – that fact became the great forgiver of Joe Maddon’s pitching management in the last two games on the road. Winning is like holy water poured on the sin that cries out for absolution. And, man, did the Cubs do some holy water pouring – early and late – from Fowler’s lead-off homer as the first batter in the game – to Zobrist’s go-ahead double in the top of the 10th for a dramatic lead that would hold up for an 8-7 Cubs victory over the Cleveland Indians and the phantoms of all those curses that supposedly had been incubating since 1908 and 1945.

“But a win washes away all sins, at least in the minds of the winning fans.” ~ Roger Angell.

The Cubs have risen. And may the shouts of “Hallelujah” from Wrigleyville keep the North Side of Chicago cozy warm throughout the upcoming 2016-17 Hot Stove League season without anyone in the neighborhood having to fire up their furnaces.

____________________

Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

Tags: Roger Angell, The Andrew Lloyd Webber of Baseball Writers
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Bill Gilbert: The 2016 MLB Playoffs and WS

November 4, 2016

SABR Analyst and Pecan Park Eagle Contributor Bill Analyst takes a look today at the 2016 MLB Playoffs and the Awesome World Series Victory of the Chicago Cubs.

Playoff and World Series Observations – 2016

By Bill Gilbert

It doesn’t seem right when a team battles through a 162-game season to receive a wild card, that it can be eliminated in one game. However, the wild card games are among the most interesting in the post-season.

Buck Showalter’s reputation as a manager took a serious hit when he failed to use Zach Britton, the best reliever in the major leagues in the wild card game.

Replacing a tiring ace (Madison Bumgarner, Max Scherzer) with a string of relievers doesn’t always work. Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker have all winter to think about it.

I agreed at the time with the moves Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, made in NLCS game 1 when he walked two batters to get Aroldis Chapman out of the game. Unfortunately, it blew up in his face when Joe Blanton insisted on throwing hanging sliders.

Dave Roberts should have a long and successful managerial career with the Dodgers.

I thought that Terry Francona removed Corey Kluber too soon in Game 1 of the World Series but it worked.

Who would have guessed that Roberto Perez and Jose Ramirez would be the hitting stars of WS Game 1?

The Indians are going to have to find a pitcher other than Kluber that can beat the Cubs to have any chance of winning the Series.

It occurred to me that probably 95% of the fans who attended Game 3 in Wrigley Field weren’t born when the last World Series game was played there in 1945. I listened to that game on the car radio while the family was traveling home from Florida to Colorado after World War ll.

I was disappointed that Fox did not show Julianna Zobrist singing “God Bless America” before Game 2. Thanks to Google, I did get to see it.

The insights on pitching from John Smoltz are a big plus in the broadcasts.

When the Cubs lost Game 3, it eliminated the possibility that they could win the clinching game at home.

Terry Francona has an uncanny ability to use the right players at the right time. Michael Martinez and Coco Crisp for the winning run?

My impression of Corey Kluber on short (3 days) rest after the first inning – velocity down a tick, location not as good, Cubs getting some good swings, won’t last more than 5 innings. I was wrong.

Francisco Lindor is a better player than Carlos Correa at this point.

I was surprised when Francona gave the Cubs another look at Andrew Miller when the Indians had a 7-1 lead.

Pete Rose was a great hitter. As a baseball analyst and commentator, not so much. I’m surprised that Fox brought him back for another year.

In Game 6, I was surprised that Joe Maddon took Arrietta out so soon with a big lead which eventually led to the use of Aroldis Chapman. That could be a factor in Game 7

The Cubs are finally hitting the way they did all season. It will be interesting to see if it will continue against Corey Kluber in Game 7.

This will probably be known as the “quick hook” World Series. Only 3 of the 14 starting pitchers made it past the 5th inning and none made it past the 6^th.

Chapman was obviously tired and less effective in Game 7, giving up his first home run since last June. Fortunately for the Cubs and Maddon, the rain delay in the 10^th inning stifled the momentum that the Indians had captured with the Rajai Davis home run.

The excessive use of relief [pitchers also caught up with the Indians as Miller and Shaw were not sharp in Game 7.

The Cubs were reminiscent of the 1984 Detroit Tigers, a team that established itself right from the start of the season as the best and carried it all the way through the World Series.

The final game will probably be remembered as a classic in a World Series that brought credit to both teams.

Bill Gilbert

billcgilbert@sbcglobal.net

11/3/16

Tags: Bill Gilbert: The 2016 MLB Playoffs and WS
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