Tag / World War II

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150 Years Of Cubs Baseball – Catchers

Originally founded in 1869, the Chicago Cubs became a charter member of the National League in 1876.  Over the next 150 seasons, the Cubs have played more than 22,000 games, scored over 103,000 runs and recorded more than 200,000 hits, more than any other team in baseball history.  Nearly 2,300 players have worn a Cubs uniform, earning eight division titles, 17 NL pennants, and three World Series championships.

Fans have witnessed generations of unforgettable players, from historical heroes like Joe Tinker, Gabby Hartnett, Ernie Banks, and Billy Williams to more recent stars like Ryne Sandberg, Derrek Lee, Kerry Wood, and Anthony Rizzo.  The team has called Wrigley Field home for 110 of those 150 seasons.

To celebrate this milestone, the Cubs are holding a fan vote to select the franchise’s anniversary team.  Each week, we will go through the provided options for each position and declare who should, and, if different, who will, win the fan vote.  We continue today with the eight selections for catcher.

Willson Contreras first joined the Cubs in 2016 and became the 30th player in modern MLB history to hit a home run on the first pitch of his first major league at bat.  Contreras made it on to the post-season roster and helped the Cubs end their 108-year title drought in winning the 2016 World Series.  He became the everyday starting catcher in 2017 and was elected to the All-Star team three times.  He spent parts of seven seasons behind the plate for the Cubs, appearing in 30 postseason games across four seasons.

Jody Davis joined the Cubs in April of 1981, quickly becoming the team’s starter.  During his Cub tenure, he was named to two All-Star teams and won the Gold Glove in 1986, a season where he set the all-time MLB record for number of baserunners caught stealing with 89.  Davis remained with the Cubs through most of the 1988 season.  He will be inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame later this year.

Silver Flint played for the White Stockings from 1879-1889.  He, alongside pitcher Larry Corcoran, is believed to have developed the first system of signs between a pitcher and catcher to indicate pitch selection.  He was the first catcher in MLB history to catch three no-hitters.  Off the field, Flint had financial difficulties that nearly got him banned from the league.

Gabby Hartnett spent the first 19 years, from 1922-1940, of his career with the Cubs, appearing in six All-Star games and earning the MVP award in 1935.  Perhaps best remembered for the “Homer in the Gloamin’” in 1938, Hartnett was considered the best National League catcher until the emergence of Johnny Bench.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1955.

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Book 40 (of 52) – With A Vengeance

With A Vengeance – Riley Sager

In 1954, a young woman rents a train, once owned by her father, to gain retribution against those she blames for the downfall of her family.  Once onboard, however, she finds that there is someone else on board, someone who has their own agenda and is planning to pick off the passengers one by one.  As the train ride continues through the night on its way to Chicago, can she unmask the killer before everyone else is dead?

Riley Sager switches things up with his latest outing, With a Vengeance.  He ditches the possible supernatural elements he has toyed with for his last couple of novels and instead heads back in time, to the early days of World War II and its aftermath on his characters into the mid 1950s.  With nine books in as many years, Sager has certainly become a reliable and annual presence on my bookshelf.

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Ballpark Tour: Cubs

With spring training wrapping up this week and Opening Day just days away, we wind down our tour of all of the different baseball stadiums I’ve been to over the years. This week, we have our penultimate entry from the north side of Chicago. So, without further ado, let’s take a deeper look at my history with Wrigley Field.

Stadium Name: Wrigley Field

Years in Service: 1914 – Present

Visits: 388 (that I’m aware of)

Weeghman Park, home of the Chicago Chifeds of the Federal League, opened on April 23, 1914.  When the Federal League folded in December of 1915, team owner Charles Weeghman was allowed to buy the rival Chicago Cubs and immediately moved them from the dilapidated West Side Park and into his stadium for the 1916 season.  The Cubs played their first game at Weeghman Park on April 20, 1916, besting the Cincinnati Reds 7–6 in eleven innings.

That year, Weeghman sold a minority interest in the Cubs to chewing gum magnate William Wrigley.  As Weeghman’s financial fortunes started to decline, Wrigley acquired an increasing number of shares in the club and took on a growing role in the team’s affairs until November 1918, when Weeghman gave up his remaining interest to Wrigley, resigned as president, and left baseball for good. Wrigley would acquire complete control of the Cubs by 1921, and, prior to the start of the 1927 season, the park was officially renamed Wrigley Field.

William’s son, Philip K. Wrigley, had intended to install lights at Wrigley Field prior to the 1942 season.  However, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 and the US entered World War II, Wrigley donated the materials for the lights to the war effort.  The Cubs eventually became the only team without lights, continuing to play day games at home exclusively until 1988, when lights were finally installed.  To this day, the Cubs are still limited in the number of night games they may schedule per season, though that number has increased significantly since the late 80s.

As Wrigley Field continues in its second century, renovations to the stadium to make it economically viable for the 21st century are nearly complete.  Expanded clubhouses and new training facilities have been put in place for the players, both home and away.  New scoreboards, rebuilt bleachers, new clubs, and expanded concourses have been put in place for the fans.

I’ve managed to identify 388 games I’ve attended at Wrigley Field, most of them since 2002, when I became a season ticket holder.  After years of futility with the occasional bit of success tossed in, the Cubs saw sustained success for the first time in decades to close out the 2010s but have struggled to repeat it since.

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Book 33 (of 52) – Clark And Division

Clark and Division – Naomi Hirahara

A Japanese family is living out the American dream in California until war breaks out between their homeland and their adopted country.  Forced to leave their lives behind, they head to the internment camp together before being released to start a new life in Chicago.  However, the death of the oldest daughter, who was released earlier than the rest of the family, haunts the youngest, who is determined to find out what happened to her in Chicago before the rest of the family arrived.

Clark and Division, by Naomi Hirahara, grabbed my attention not so much because of the subject matter but because of the setting.  While many of the businesses are no longer the same, the locations, streets, and neighborhoods ring true.  Whether it was walks on the beaches of Lake Michigan, to dances at the Aragon back when it was an actual ballroom, to the subway stop at the titular street corner, the locales of the work ring true of a Chicago gone by.  There is a second book in the series, which follows the characters back to California after the end of World War II, but I don’t know if I’m invested enough to go along for the ride.

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By The Numbers – 4

In 1929, uniform numbers appeared on the back of baseball jerseys for the first time, thanks to the Indians and the Yankees.  By 1937, numbers finally appeared across all uniforms, both home and away, across both major leagues.  Since that time, 81 distinct numbers have been worn by members of the White Sox, while the Cubs boast 76.

Today, we continue our look at those players, picking our favorite, if not the best, player to wear each uniform number for both Chicago teams with #4.  43 different players have donned #4 while playing in Chicago, 10 for the White Sox, who retired the number in 1975, and 33 for the Cubs.

In his first go-around with the Cubs, Glenallen Hill switched to #4 for the 1994 season.  He played in 89 games and clubbed 10 home runs while collecting 38 RBIs before the strike cancelled the remainder of the season.

On the south side, Luke Appling started wearing his familiar #4 starting in 1933, where he started a string of nine straight seasons with an average above .300.  His best season was 1936, when he batted .388, knocked in 124 runs, scored 111 times, recorded 204 hits, and had a team-record 27-game hitting streak.  He became the first American League shortstop to win a batting title and his .388 average was the highest recorded by a shortstop in the entirety of the 20th century.

In 1940, Appling hit .348 with a career-high 13 triples as the White Sox finished fourth, their best finish in his career.  Appling missed the entire 1944 season and most of the 1945 season due to military service.  He hit .309 in 149 games in 1946 in his full-time return and earned his seventh and final All-Star selection in 1947 when he hit .306, Appling hit .314 and .301 in 1948 and 1949 respectively, during his age 41 and 42 seasons.  He retired following the 1950 season and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1964.

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Book 3 (of 52) – The Life (And Wife) Of Allen Ludden

The Life (and Wife) of Allen Ludden – Adam Nedeff

100 years ago today, in the town of Oak Park, Illinois, the only child of Horace and Tess White, named Betty, was born.  The next year, the family moved to California, where young Betty would grow up and find her way into show business, first on radio and then, in 1949, moving to television, first as a co-host with Al Jarvis on his daily show and, eventually, on her own once he left, before moving on to the syndicated sitcom Life with Elizabeth in 1953.

A little further north, in Wisconsin, a youngster named Allen Ludden moved from town to town with his family.  The Ludden’s eventually landed in Texas, where Allen majored in English and drama at the University of Texas.  During WWII, Allen served as an officer in charge of entertainment, moving east after the war.  He continued to entertain, hosting a radio show and writing advice columns for teen magazines.  He moved to television in 1959, when the G.E. College Bowl debuted on CBS.

In 1961, their path’s crossed for the first time, thanks to the game show Password.  Ludden, named the host of the new show, didn’t remember meeting White the first time she guested, as his concentration was torn from the show by his dying wife.  When White returned a second time after the death of Ludden’s wife, the impression stuck, and Ludden knew who would be the next Mrs. Allen Ludden.  Convincing Betty, however, took a while, but they eventually married in 1963.  They continued to work and live together, feeling the ups and downs of Hollywood life, until Ludden’s 1981 death at the age of 63.  Betty White never married again, though she ultimately became an even bigger star thanks to her 7-year run on The Golden Girls.

I don’t even know if I had heard of Allen Ludden before discovering the Buzzr channel a few years back.  Since then, I’ve watched my fair share of the original Password and the late 70s revival Password Plus, which Ludden was hosting until he fell ill.  It seemed like the world was prepping to celebrate Betty White’s 100th birthday today until her surprising death, or as surprising as a death can be when someone is 99 years old, on New Year’s Eve, less than three weeks before the big bash.  It was in honor of them both that I found this biography from Adam Nedeff, who seems to have made a cottage industry looking back at old time game show hosts.  I might just have to take a look at one of them down the line.

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Book 51 (of 52) – Yogi

Yogi: A Life Behind The Mask – Jon Pessah

Lawrence Peter Berra was born on May 12, 1925 in St. Louis, the third child of Italian immigrants who wanted to try and make a living playing baseball.  When the hometown Cardinals passed on him, Berra started playing in the local American Legion league, where he picked up a nickname: Yogi.  After serving with the Navy in World War II, Yogi Berra made his mark with the New York Yankees.  Over his career, he won 3 MVP awards, appeared in a record 14 World Series. and won 10 championships.  After his playing career, he managed and coached for both the Yankees and the Mets.  When he was fired by George Steinbrenner 16 games into the 1985 season, Berra vowed to never enter Yankee Stadium again as long as Steinbrenner owned the team.  14 years later, Steinbrenner apologized and mended fences, bringing Berra back in to the fold, where he would remain until his 2015 death.

I feel like for baseball fans of my era, Yogi Berra’s accomplishments on the baseball field were blunted by his reputation off of it, that of the bumbling goofball who says funny things.  In fact, until fairly recently, I didn’t even know that he had coached with the Astros for 5 seasons following his fallout with the Yankees in 1985.  Reading through this biography, I learned that Berra was not just along for the ride for Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle’s championship teams, but was instead the driving force that bridged those two eras and kept the Yankees the champions of the American League for all but 3 seasons of his career.  I have a newfound respect for Berra and his place in baseball history.

 

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Book 21 (of 52) – Not My Father’s Son

Not My Father’s Son – Alan Cumming

When the producers of the popular UK genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? approached Alan Cumming in 2010, he agreed, hoping to solve a family mystery involving his maternal grandfather, who disappeared in the Far East following World War II.  That kicked off a few months of ups and downs, as Cumming learned not only the truth about how and why his grandfather disappeared from his mother’s life, but also brought an unwelcomed reconnection with his father, whom he had not talked to in 16 years.  An insinuation, followed by a DNA test, initially rocked Alan’s world but ended up giving him the answers, and the closure, he was looking for.

The title Not My Father’s Son is both literal and figurative for Alan Cumming, as he’s informed by the man he has known as his father for his entire life that his mother had had an affair and that another man was responsible for his creation.  This was devastating, yet welcome, news for Cumming, as his entire life was thrown for a loop but he was glad to learn that the angry, abusive man he had grown up with was not really his father.  When a DNA test confirms that his father was lying, Cumming proves to not be his father’s son by overcoming the abuse he suffered as a child and becoming a happy, mostly well adjusted adult.  This was an intriguing journey, even if one is not familiar with Cumming’s work on stage and screen.

 

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Ballpark Tour: Cubs

Well, spring training has been cancelled and nobody knows when opening day will occur, but life must go on.  So, it is time to start wrapping up our tour of all of the baseball stadiums I’ve been to over the years with the penultimate stadium: the home of the Chicago Cubs.  Over 100 years old, I’ve been able to identify 359 games that I’ve seen there.  So, without further ado, let’s take a deeper look at my history with Wrigley Field.

Stadium Name: Wrigley Field

Years in Service: 1914 – Present

Visits: 359 (that I’m aware of)

Weeghman Park, home of the Chicago Chifeds of the Federal League, opened on April 23, 1914.  When the Federal League folded in December of 1915, team owner Charles Weeghman was allowed to buy the rival Chicago Cubs and immediately moved them from the dilapidated West Side Park and into his stadium for the 1916 season.  The Cubs played their first game at Weeghman Park on April 20, 1916, besting the Cincinnati Reds 7–6 in eleven innings.

That year, Weeghman sold a minority interest in the Cubs to chewing gum magnate William Wrigley.  As Weeghman’s financial fortunes started to decline, Wrigley acquired an increasing number of shares in the club and took on a growing role in the team’s affairs until November 1918, when Weeghman gave up his remaining interest to Wrigley, resigned as president, and left baseball for good. Wrigley would acquire complete control of the Cubs by 1921, and, prior to the start of the 1927 season, the park was officially renamed Wrigley Field.

William’s son, Philip K. Wrigley, had intended to install lights at Wrigley Field prior to the 1942 season.  However, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 and the US entered World War II, Wrigley donated the materials for the lights to the war effort.  The Cubs eventually became the only team without lights, continuing to play day games at home exclusively until 1988, when lights were finally installed.  To this day, the Cubs are still limited in the number of night games they may schedule per season, though that number has increased significantly since the late 80s.

As Wrigley Field continues in its second century, renovations to the stadium to make it economically viable for the 21st century are nearly complete.  Expanded clubhouses and new training facilities have been put in place for the players, both home and away.  New scoreboards, rebuilt bleachers, new clubs, and expanded concourses have been put in place for the fans.

I’ve managed to identify 359 games I’ve attended at Wrigley Field, most of them since 2002, when I became a season ticket holder.  After years of futility with the occasional bit of success tossed in, the Cubs have seen sustained success over the past 5 years for the first time in decades, despite their collapse down the stretch last September.

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2016: The Year In Movies Part 2

Movie_Reel_22142 different people starred in the movies I saw last year (starring in being the first two named stars, a tradition dating back to the old Chicago Tribune TV guide which populated the early days of my database), and a whopping 18 of them were in more than 1 film.  Those 18 thespians are:

Name Films
Rupert Grint 7
Daniel Radcliffe 7
Anna Kendrick 4
Jason Bateman 2
Sandra Bullock 2
Brooke Butler 2
Benedict Cumberbatch 2
Robert DeNiro 2
Carla Gugino 2
Tom Hanks 2
Tom Hardy 2
Michael B. Jordan 2
Melissa McCarthy 2
Chloë Grace Moretz 2
Sam Rockwell 2
Miles Teller 2
Christoph Waltz 2
Olivia Wilde 2

Now let’s take a look at the remaining movies that I saw in 2016, following up on Tuesday’s post.

The Sand (2015)
Things go awry at a beach when the sand starts eating people.

Creed (2015)
The Rocky series returns with the focus now on the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed.

The Boy (2016)
A young woman is hired to watch over a doll, but all is not as it seems.

London Has Fallen (2016)
A terrorist attack at a state funeral in London leaves one Secret Service agent to protect the president on the run.

Cas & Dylan (2013)
A dying doctor takes a new acquaintance on a cross country road trip.

Spy (2015)
Melissa McCarthy goes in to the field as a CIA agent to avenge the death of her crush.

Joy (2015)
A woman invents a new mop and bets on herself to beat the longest of odds.

The Intern (2015)
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