Saturday, March 16, 2024

Spring Has Sprung

Below: the tree outside our house.

MINNIE MINOSO [SABR Bioled MLB in being hit by pitch nine times. Once he led only the AL. He was "out hit" over in the NL in 1952 when Solly Hemus, with 20 bruises to 14. He once said, "There might be players who are better hitters than me, have more power, have a stronger throwing arm, are better fielders, can even bunt better, but nobody ever hustled more on the field of play. I'll admit that there are some who maybe hustled as much as I did, but nobody hustled more than I did. Nobody". Watch this video for the full quote. Minoso played professional baseball in parts of seven decades: the 1940s, 1950s, 1960, and had stunt appearances in 1976 & 1980. In 1993, he had an at-bat for the independent minor league Saint Paul Saints. In 2003 he made a one at-bat appearance for the Saints at age 77.

LUIS APARICIO [SABR Biois the only Venezuelian enshrined in the baseball hall of fame. There have been more than 500 Venezuela's major leaguers. He played for the White Sox 1956-62; for the White Sox again 1968-70, and for the Red Sox 1971‑73.

First time a Gold Glove was won at each position by a Hall of Famer

Player         POS   Year        Team      GGs     WAR

Mays........... OF........ 1957....... NYG........ 12..... 156.1

Kaline.......... OF........ 1957........ DET........ 10....... 92.8

Minoso........ OF........ 1957....... CHW......... 3....... 53.2

Fox.............. 2B........ 1957....... CHW......... 3....... 49.5

Hodges........ 1B........ 1957....... BRO.......... 4....... 43.8

Aparicio...... SS........ 1958....... CHW......... 9....... 55.8

Robinson.... 3B........ 1960........ BAL........ 18....... 78.4

Kaat.............. P......... 1962........ MIN........ 16....... 50.5

Torre............ C......... 1965........ MLN.......... 1....... 57.5

DENISON: New York Times writer Christopher Caldwell analyzes America's shift from a consensual, objective moral worldview to a relativism that is unable to "distinguish facts from wishes." Using our fracturing response to Russian aggression in Ukraine as an example, he writes: "Fighting a war based on values at minimum requires agreement on the values being spread. The US is further from such agreement than it has ever been in its history—further than on the eve of the Civil War. There are no national principles, only partisan ones.

There was a day when our "national principles" were clear and compelling. As set forth in our founding creed, the Declaration of Independence: (1) Truth is "self-evident," not subjective. (2) All people are "created equal" by God, not the product of chaotic or evolutionary coincidence. (3) We are "endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights" which the government does not bestow but protects. (4) We each have the right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" Many have noted that our nation was birthed within the consensual morality of the Judeo-Christian worldview. Whether particular Founders were committed Christians or not, they lived in a culture where the biblical principles espoused in the Declaration were prevalent.

Oppenheimer wins seven Oscars: What "a movie of the moment" says about our cultural future (denisonforum.org)

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