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The Daily Dose/May 10, 2010
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around the Human Experience...
MR. KAPLER, HISTORY ON LINE TWO: Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Gabe Kapler became the only person in big league history to make an out in the last inning of a perfect game in consecutive years Sunday. He may well be the only person in big league history to make an out in the last inning of two perfect games at any time, but we can't be bothered to look it up, even though that's the kind of research we generally enjoy here at the Writer's Shack. Apologies are issued.
Back On Message: When you consider how difficult hitting a baseball delivered by a major league pitcher is, Gabe Kapler hasn't done too bad.
Last year, leading off the top of the ninth against Chicago's Mark Buehrle, Kapler hit the ball over the left-centerfield fence at US Comiskey Cellular Target Field, or whatever they're calling the White Sox stadium nowadays, but Sox centerfielder DeWayne Wise made one of the most memorable catches in baseball history for the first out of the inning.
Then Sunday, playing in Oakland, Kapler is batting with two outs in the ninth inning as something called Dallas Braden, or maybe it's Braden Dallas, found himself knocking on History's door, one out away from a perfect game of his own, which we define here as retiring every batter you face in a regulation game.
This Just In: Kapler didn't hit the ball over the fence again, but he dutifully made out anyway, grounding out to shortstop to end the game.
Yeah, Well, You Know: Under the circumstances, two at-bats in situations where the old scrotum is locked in the vice grips and he hits one ball over the fence and still goes 0 for 2 isn't too bad. That's baseball. He could just as easily have hit two dribblers up the first base line and gone 2 for 2.
Dallas Who? Dallas Braden, a career 16-23 train wreck heading into the game, is the most unlikely perfect game pitcher since Charlie Robertson of the White Sox, who pitched a perfect game in 1922 in his 5th big league start and finished an otherwise undistinguished career with a 49-80 record.
God, We Suck: The Rays become the third team to lose more than one perfect game, joining the Twins (Catfish Hunter, 1968; David Cone, 1998) and the Dodgers, who have lost three (Don Larsen, 1956 World Series; Tom Browning, 1988 and Dennis Martinez, 1991).
Dry, Technical Matter: Braden's perfect game was the 24th time in major league history a starting pitcher has retired every batter he faced in a regulation game. 19 times these have been nine-inning games. One was the second game of a doubleheader that was called after five innings because of darkness and two were called after five innings because of rain. Another, in 1907, only went seven innings because it was the second game of a doubleheader and they often only played seven innings in second games in those days.
COME SAIL AWAY: Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci is believed to have left on his first voyage to the New World on this date in 1497. Early in the next century a German cartographer - going by accounts attributed to Vespucci but were more likely forged - issues a map of the New World with the newly discovered continent named America, in honor of Vespucci.
We The People: The Second Continental Congress, consisting of delegates of the thirteen British colonies in America, convenes in Philadelphia on this date in 1775.
By this time the American Revolutionary War had already begun, with the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19.
Your Humble Servants: Despite having no legal authority to govern the Second Continental Congress did useful work, at least if you were on the American side during the Revolution.
In June they would authorize the formation of the Continental Army and wisely hire George Washington to command it. History has not recorded Washington as the greatest tactical general ever, but he was a brilliant leader and executive and was certainly better than the other American commanders and while he did suffer some small defeats, he ultimately won.
Congress even grabbed the bull by the horns. Even though it had no legal authority to do so, it governed the fledgling country to an extent that any good civil libertarian would find disturbing. It raised an army. It made treaties. It borrowed money. It sent and received ambassadors. And all this despite the fact it had no legal authority to do so.
The Congress, showing the good sense today's Americans would find surprising, no shocking, appointed a committee of able colonists to write what would end up being the Declaration of Independence, and this committee - John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman - had the good sense to leave the writing to Jefferson.
In 1777 the Congress approved the Articles of Confederation, a document which would give legal authority to a new government, and would serve until the Articles were ratified in 1781.
More Great Moments In American War: Former President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis is captured and imprisoned on this date in 1865. He would be indicted for treason a year later and released on bail a year after that before the charges were dropped early in 1869.
I Do Solemnly Swear To Cross Dress In Private And Not Prosecute The Mafia: J. Edgar Hoover, then only 30-years-old, is appointed director of what will eventually become the Federal Bureau of Investigation on this date in 1924. He will hold the position until 1972.
Thought For The Day: If we did the things we were capable of, we would astound ourselves. - Thomas Edison
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The Eiffel Tower replaced the Washington Monument as the word's tallest structure.
Today's Stumper: The Second Continental Congress, fleeing British-occupied Philadelphia, met in what town for only one day? - Answer next time.
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