DECEMBER 15 UPDATE

SPY has been busy downloading and archiving our 2003 materials, while working on Volume Six of the SPY magazine.  More, I took Sunday off to sit in the rain and watch the Redskins play their worst game of the season.  So, today is catch-up time; those emails just keep coming.

SADDAM

Thankfully, Saddam Hussein was captured alive.  My first thought on hearing the news was gratitude that one of history’s most vicious thugs would stand trial – my mind fleeting back to that Sunday in November 1963, when we gathered under the great rotunda of our nation’s capitol, and the press corps was informed that Jack Ruby had killed Lee Harvey Oswald.  Instantly, we focused on the repercussions – the many questions about Oswald’s act which needed to be answered – by Oswald.  Instinctively, we in the press knew, as did our national leaders, that conspiracy theories would begin to form even before Oswald’s body reached the morgue.  Forty years later, there are a great many people of sound judgment who still question the Oswald-alone verdict of the Warren Commission.

The importance of putting Saddam on trial, of making him stand before the bar to face his accusers, was underscored by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld who told reporters that, in his conversations with US military commanders before the actual seizure, all hands stressed the importance of taking Saddam alive – if possible.

Equally important, the Iraqi people will have a say in his trial – not just to present evidence but to join in determining punishment.  The situation on the ground will improve immensely if the same Iraqis who are demanding that Saddam be tried by his fellow citizens will be equally adamant in urging those citizens to join together in forming a representative government – and joining together to stop the murder of US and other nationals whose only reason for being in Iraq and staying in Iraq was to help rid them of this butcher and bring some measure of democractic order to Iraq.  The more unity they show hastens the day of our departure.

COMMITMENTS

Allison Ling, P, NJ Pride, to Cornell (correction of SPY error)

Stephanie Cole, P, Michigan Finesse, commits to Grand Valley State

Darcy Sengewald, SS, Whiteford Sharks, committed to Northwestern University

Ashley Lukas, 2nd base, Orland Park A's committed to         Olivet Nazerene University

Abby Reed, P, IL Barrington Hurricanes, to Dartmouth College

Katherine Ludlow--OF- Pennsbury Gems to University of Pennsylvania

Lauren Perk, P , Texas Challengers, University at Albany

Davie Power Black Signings
Daisy Paez- Georgia Tech
Candace Allwardt-Tusculm College, Tenn.
Brittany Riddle-Wright State
Whitney Hess-Savannah College of Art/Design

JOAN, ILSA, ANASTASIA AND MARIA

There was a gentler time when Hollywood made feel-good movies.  Last night I watched The Bells of St. Mary’s, Leo McCarey’s follow-on to Going My Way, both starring Bing Crosby.  Each movie won an Oscar; a little-known fact of movie trivia is that Leo, Bing and Ingrid Bergman (Gaslight) were presented Oscars while filming The Bells.

I can remember feeling pangs of conscience as a sub-teen when I first watched The Bells (1945) because I was very focused on the beauty of Ingrid who happened to be playing Sister Mary Benedict.  I even confessed to lusting after a nun, albeit a cinematic nun.  (This can be serious stuff; after college, my friend Bill Burrell and I met these two ladies at the Jamboree Club, and went back to Burrell’s apartment.  Next morning, the other girl and I were making breakfast when Burrell, also Catholic, emerged from the bedroom with this ghastly look on his face.  I asked him about his companion, and he murmured: she’s in the bathroom putting on her habit.  I heard later that she had already informed the order she was leaving but Burrell never got over it.  I didn’t help him; when he asked what the priest at St. Joe’s would say in the confessional, I told him the punishment for bedding a nun is suicide.)  Last night, I was again struck by Ingrid’s beauty; this time I won’t go to confession.  (Some of the nuns I had in real life would be betting favorites in an arm-wrestling contest with Dick Butkus.)

My infatuation with Ingrid intensified when she played the lead in Joan of Arc (1948).  The death scene was so embedded in my mental imagery that, many years later, when I stood on the square in Rouen , France , where Jeanne d’Arc was burned at the stake, in my mind’s eye, I could still see Ingrid Bergman’s rapturous beauty. 

That beautiful look of unlimited love, whether of God or Humphrey Bogart ( Casablanca 1942) was never more enchanting than in the movie For Whom the Bell Tolls (both of  which I saw in the 1950s).  When Maria says goodbye to Robert (Gary Cooper), she spoke one of the most memorable lines of love in movie history:  “As much as I love that which I love most in this world, I love you more.”

Among the great adventures I fantasized as a teenager, I could see me in a situation abound with danger, and some fantastic creature whispering those words to me.

Alas, in real life, it was more like the time when I got sent to that famous prison in Ossining , NY , where the guards at the addict center were threatening to riot, and, the parting words from Nelson Rockefeller were: “Stay loose in a firm position.”  He loved that phrase, and I was never certain what it meant.  Or, being sent to La Paz where contract gunmen were threatening to assassinate our Ambassador, and the word came down from the Secretary’s office, also known as the Seventh floor:  “You know what to do.”  Sure; when I landed, the Ambassador, an old school chum, drives up in his limo and asks me my choice of weapons.  Our people caught the hitman.

A more mature but even more beautiful Ingrid played Anastasia, which, having studied Russian history and the fall of the Romanovs, I knew to be wholly fictional, but I shared the look of adoration on Yul Brynner’s face when she appeared on those stairs.

How our mores have changed.  When Ingrid and Rossellini had their affair, while both were married, and Ingrid became pregnant, she was denounced on the floor of the US Senate.  Today, actresses become pregnant and marry later (Paltrow) and some (Hawn and others) never bothered with matrimony while producing families. A sex tape of a spoiled rich kid named Hilton is according to AOL’s home page the third most active search item on the Internet.  No public outcry.

I never met Ingrid Bergman, but I did meet her daughter, Pia Lindstrom, in the late Sixties.  Pia was a NYC TV reporter of questionable skills but unquestioned beauty, who was assigned to interview me.  I was in total control talking about business but, later, when I summoned enough nerve to ask her for a date, I was stammering.  Later, in one to one dialogue, I crashed and burned.  Still, I was granted one more chance after I asked her to lunch.  But, I got enveloped in a command appearance at Columbia ’s Harkness Pavilion.  When I could finally break free to rush to a phone, the CBS operator said Pia had gone out.  She never returned the phone call.  Perhaps we were never going to have a romantic scene, anyhow.  Later, I learned from a CBS friend that she had an affair with Anthony Quinn – who reportedly also had an affair with Ingrid.  Old Zorba knew how to dance!

DENNIS FRADY

A great many people have contributed to the success of the Orange County Batbusters, none more so than Dennis Frady, who has announced his immediate retirement to devote more time to his children and grandchildren.  Dennis was and is a class act, a man of deeply rooted integrity, a coach of consummate skill, and a valued friend.  Many, many players have learned the game from Dennis, and college coaches and scouts like me have picked up the finer points of the sport from Dennis.  Gary Haning will miss his assistance and contributions, as will we all.  SPY has also benefited from his encyclopedic knowledge of films, especially those involving John Wayne, and his effervescent good humor, which contributed several articles to SPY.   Thanks for all you do, Dennis.

Dennis’ recipe for Tequila cookies.

Tequila Cookies

1 cup of dark brown sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup of granulated sugar

4 large eggs
2 cups of dried fruit, such as dried cranberries or raisins

1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh lemon juice

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 bottle Jose Cuervo Tequila (silver or gold, as desired)

Sample the Cuervo to check quality.
Take a large bowl, check the Cuervo again, to be sure it is of the
highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.

Turn on the electric mixer...Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy
bowl.

Add one teaspoon of sugar...Beat again.
At this point it's best to make sure the Cuervo is still OK, try another
cup ...just in case.

Turn off the mixerer thingy. Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck
in the cup of dried fruit, pick the frigging fruit off floor... mix on
the turner.  If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it
loose with a drewscriver.  Sample the Cuervo to
check for tonsisticity.

Next, sift two cups of salt, or something.  Check the Jose Cuervo.

Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.  Add one table.  Add a
spoon of sugar, or somefink.  Whatever you can find.  Greash the oven.

Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.  Don't forget to
beat off the turner.  Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish
the Cose Juervo and make sure to put the stove in the dishwasher.

CHERRY MISTMAS

End

Spy Softball Home Page