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The Daily Dose/January 15, 2009
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
   
Notes from around the Human Experience...Raquel Welch is the Column Four Foto!
BATTER UP: The National Baseball Hall of Fame announced this week that Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice will be inducted into their shrine in Cooperstown, New York this summer.
The Carter Factor: As usual, our demarcation line for determining Hall worthiness is Gary Carter. Now, we are not saying Carter does not belong in the Hall of Fame. Well, yes we are. But it's not our Hall and those to whom the Hall belongs have him in there, so what do we know.
To Review: In 19 big league seasons Carter hit a robust .262 with 324 home runs and 1,225 runs batted in. He played in eleven All-Star Games and won three Gold Gloves. A pretty good major league career.
Dry, Technical Matter: Carter led the National League in an offensive category just three times in his career. In 1984 he led the NL with 106 RBI's, and in 1986 he led it with 15 sacrifice flies and 21 double plays grounded in to.
Conclusion: So, using the official Writer's Shack Carter Criteria, Jim Rice and Rickey Henderson have certainly earned their induction.
All In Favor, Say Aye: Henderson, as he should have been, was inducted on the first ballot. Henderson is baseball's all-time leader in stolen bases (1,406) and runs scored (2,295), and once was the all-time leader in walks, until Barry Bonds broke the record, and he holds the single season stolen base record (130) as well. Henderson led the American League in stolen bases twelve times, walks four times and hits once.
Waiting Game: Jim Rice had to wait for his induction. We're not sure why; as he mentioned, his stats are the same today as they were when he retired. He hasn't padded them. And good thing he was elected this year because this was his 15th and final year of eligibility. If he hadn't made it this year his selection would have been up to the Veterans Committee and good luck with that nowadays.
Numbers Game: In 16 major league seasons, all with the Boston Red Sox, Rice hit .298, hit 382 home runs in an era when that was still an impressive figure, and drove in 1,451 runs. He led the American League in home runs three times and in RBI's twice, hit .300 or better seven times and had a propensity for hitting into double plays like few others. His 36 double plays grounded into in 1989 is still the major league record, and he is third on the all time GIDP list behind Henry Aaron and Carl Yastrzemski.
Oh Yeah: Rice played in eight All-Star Games and was the American League's MVP in 1978. Rice and Ty Cobb are the only players to lead the American League in total bases three consecutive years.
Hey, What About Us? Using the Carter Criteria, are we the only ones wondering why Steve Garvey was never elected? And if Carter's in, Whining Ron Santo should probably be allowed in, too. And forget the Carter Criteria, Bert Blyleven should have been inducted on his own merits years ago, too.
GOING BACK, AWAY BACK: Elizabeth I is crowned queen of England on this date in 1559, succeeding her sister Mary I.
Her road to the crown had more than a few curves. A daughter of Henry VIII, who had her mother, Queen Anne, executed when Elizabeth was three, making her illegitimate and demoting her from princess to lady.
And You Think Your Family's Dysfunctional: Elizabeth's older sister Mary had been heir to the throne, at least until Daddy annulled his marriage to Mary's mother, Catherine of Aragon, who got off easy compared to Queen Anne, who was beheaded for failing to produce a male heir.
Henry VIII died in 1547 and he was succeeded by Edward VI, who was all of nine at the time, a hell of an age to be thrown into the intrigue of the regnal court. Edward VI would die in July, 1553, probably of tuberculosis, but no one knows for sure. Edward, or more accurately, the Regency Council that managed the realm because Edward had yet to reach the age of majority, had decreed that both Mary and Elizabeth were not in the line of succession, though Edward's designated successor, Lady Jane Grey, had little support and reigned for a little more than a week. Mary would become queen and reign until she died five years later.
Uh, Where's The Bathroom At? On this date, in 1943, the Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, is dedicated.
Dry, Technical Matter: 66 years later the Pentagon, headquarters for the American military, is still enormous. It houses over 23,000 workers and 17-and-a-half miles of corridors, though official Pentagon propaganda likes to point you can walk between any two points in the building in less than eight minutes. The Pentagon has 284 bathrooms, 131 stairways and 19 escalators.
Hut, Hut Hike: What will become known as Super Bowl I is played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on this date in 1967 between the NFL champion Green Bay Packers and the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs, with the Packers winning 35-10.
FunFact: The most expensive ticket to the first NFL/AFL World Championship Game cost $12, about $75 in today's dollars, which was called highway robbery back then, but is a bargain compared to the $800 and $900 face values on tickets for this year's game. It remains the only Super Bowl that did not sell out and the only one televised by two tee vee networks, CBS and NBC. Both networks though so much of the game they reused the video tape the game had been saved on, so consequently little footage of the game remains.
Thought For The Day: Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruit cannot be plucked by them. - Henry David Thoreau, - Walden
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Thomas Jefferson discontinued the practice of presidents delivering their State of the Union messages in person. The next president to deliver a State of the Union message in person was Woodrow Wilson, in 1913. The last president to deliver a written message to Congress was Jimmy Carter in 1981.
Today's Stumper: Rickey Henderson is one of three major league players with more than 4,000 at-bats who threw left-handed but batted right. Who were the other two? - Answer next time!
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