Randy Twizzle

In two references from 1929 he's just Peg Bates However by 1933 he's already "Peg-Leg"

Here's video of Bert Blyleven talking like a Staten Island little leaguer live on a pre-game show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q3Si6pY1do

I know I should be embarrassed to admit it, but I find this painfully funny.

How about Schlippenbach and Teschemacher

Maybe it's me, but I don't understand this Internet/talk radio breed of angry sports fan. I've been a baseball fan since I was a little kid when my father took me and my brother to the Polo Grounds, for christsakes, to see the Mets. In all that time I've never felt the need to lash out at any players. I may have been disappointed a few thousand times, but it never caused me to spew hatred at anyone. This morning on WFAN in NY I heard some foaming at the mouth caller repeatedly calling Met pitcher Steve Traschel "a bum" All the guy's done this year is win 14 games, admitedly he's got a high ERA and he's won with a ton of run suport, but that's the game. Here's a great Bob Ryan column on the subject of the "new fan"

Unfortunately not everyone is saddened by the news

For what it's worth, in 1958 the original cover offended at least one critic for the Oakland Tribune

I'm a Jersey Guy

WE'VE GOT MORE MONEY THAN YOU! New Jersey again has the highest household income of any state and one of the lowest poverty rates, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, but two of its biggest cities are among the poorest in the nation. Camden ranks as the poorest place in the country with a population over 65,000 and Newark is among the poorest cities with more than 250,000 people, according to the figures released Tuesday based on data for 2005. The numbers illustrate that New Jersey, with its middle-class and wealthy suburbs nestled up against struggling, old industrial cities, continues to be a place of stark economic contrasts. On the whole, the state has high incomes, along with a high cost of living. Half the households make more than $61,672 per year - putting the Garden State just ahead of Connecticut as the nation's richest. And the poverty rate of 8.7 percent is lower than every state except for New Hampshire, Maryland and Connecticut. The census income report a year ago found New Jersey's poverty rate slightly lower - 8.5 percent. But Legal Services of New Jersey Poverty Research Institute on Tuesday said its own analysis, which took into account the high cost of living, shows that more than one in five state residents are impoverished. Despite that, Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset and Burlington counties are all among those with the lowest poverty rates in the country and Hunterdon, Somerset, and Morris all rank among the highest-income places in the nation. Among all the counties across the country with populations over 65,000, only two - Loudon, Va., and Fairfax, Va. - have median household incomes higher than those in Hunterdon. A seat of the pharmaceutical industry with many residents who commute to New York, the county north of Trenton sees half its households bring in more than $93,342 per year. Yet, among large cities nationally, only six have lower incomes than Newark, where the median household income was $30,665. In Camden, 44 percent of the roughly 80,000 residents live in poverty - the highest such rate in the nation, according to the study. The median household income in the city is $18,007, which is the nation's lowest. The gritty city near Philadelphia, where the state has been trying to jump-start redevelopment efforts, is no stranger to studies that portray life there as harsher than in other cities with tough reputations. One research firm found in 2004 and 2005 that the city was the nation's most dangerous.

There's the Shrine of the Miracle Tortilla

From the Washington Post, an appreciation of MF from a writer with some issues:

If cooler heads had not prevailed we'd now be saying good-bye to Minerva

Nuxhall was 15 in 1944 when he pitched 2/3 of an inning allowing five runs on five walks, two wild pitches and two singles. He was sent back to the minors a few days later and returned to the majors in 1952 where he stayed until 1966.

I'm sorry this won't help you much, but I once had a squirrel enter my apartment through an opening from the attic. He hid under the living room couch and wouldn't budge. I was so freaked out that I called an exterminator who told me that the squirrel wanted to leave my apartment just as much as I wanted him out and that I could save a few hundred dollars in fees by simply placing a small amount of peanut butter by an open window and then leaving the room. The smell would attract the squirrel to the open window and he'd leave. It worked.

A July 1969 newspaper article with program details:

Here's the opposite of open-minded, circa 1930. Brooks Atkinson reviewing the Ellington band's appearance in a stage show:

Foul Mouthed Little Leaguer live on ESPN

I found the article while doing a search of 'zoot suit' stories in the Times. On June 10, 1943 the day before the Philadelphia beating story appeard there were several stories about zoot suit beatings around the country, the most prominent of course being the zoot suit riots in LA.

As the Limo Driver in the immortal "This is Spinal Tap" Limo driver: Excuse me...are you reading "Yes I Can"? Limo groupie: Yeah, have you read it? Limo driver: Yeah, by Sammy Davis Jr.? Limo groupie: Yeah. Limo driver : You know what the title of that book should be? "Yes I Can if Frank Sinatra Says it's Okay". Cause Frank calls the shots for all of those guys . Did you get to the part yet where uh...Sammy is coming out of the Copa... it's about 3:00 in the morning and uh...he sees Frank? Frank's walking down Broadway by himself.... (Limo window raised by Nigel) Limo driver: Fuckin' limeys. Marty: Well you know, ah...they're not uh,...used to that world. Limo driver: Yeah yeah. Marty: You know Frank Sinatra it's a different world that they're in. Limo driver: You know, it's just that people like this...you know... they get all they want so they don't really understand, you know...about a life like Frank's, I mean, you know when you've loved and lost the way Frank has, then you uh ...you know what life's about.

Here am I with my crew stiffly posing for the camera before consuming some stale cake. I'm the smirking bastard on the far left.

New Jersey: WE DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT US

I've been collecting letters to the editor from California newspapers of the late 1940s that reference progressive big bands of the day. Here's my entire collection:

Actually, didn't that originate in Marxist circles? The term, I mean. A search of the NY Times shows that the phrase was used in Krushchev's 1956 secret speech denouncing Stalin, but strangely enough the only other time before 1956, that the phrase appeared in the Times, was in this curious display add from Oct 15, 1926. I'm not quite sure what it meant in this context