OCTOBER 11 UPDATE
COMMITMENTS
Melissa Vascil, outfield, Indiana Magic Gold (Clay) to University of Louisville
Katelyn O'Donnell,ss, Beach Girls Gold, to Stony Brook University.
Danielle Spaulding 1B/P, American Pastime Gold verbal to University of North Carolina
Nikki DeRita, SS, Team FLA to South Florida Community
College
Emilee Venable 2B-3B, Team FLA to University of South Florida
Kaycee Gamez, SS, Oregon Lil' Saints Gold, Verbal to Arizona State
MISSOURI MADNESS
St. Louis College Exposure
Tournament running October 28-30 in Kirkwood, Missouri?
The event had 60 team registered to showcase talent. Last year it turned
out more then 100 college coaches. In the mix of the 60 teams are the : KC
Peppers Gold (ASA Gold nationals), KC Originals Gold, KC Zephyrs Gold,
Missouri Renegades
Gold (ASA Gold Nationals) , Southern Force Gold (ASA GOLD Nationals),
Illinois Outlaws Gold, KC Pride Gold (Top 20 ASA Nationals), KC Lasers
(USSSA National Champions), Missouri Madness(Top 20 ASA Nationals), Chicago
Rockers (Top 30 ASA Nationasl), St. Louis Chaos Gold (Top 10 ASA GOLD), St.
Louis Sluggers (Top 30 ASA Nationals), St. Peters Royals (2nd place NSA
National), St. Louis Fusion (Top 12 ASA Nationals) along with 44 other top
teams from the Midwest!
CAROLINA FASTPITCH SHOWCASE
Due to heavy rains in the area, the Carolina Fastpitch
Showcase has been postponed 3 weeks to October 29. The good news is that we
have plenty of fields that weekend and are keeping the tournament open to 14u,
16u and 18 teams. To learn more (registered teams, hotel information, etc.)
visit our website at www.spinnersfastpitch.org. If your 14u, 16u or 18u team
would like to join us on October 29-30 in Cary, NC fax the attached registration
form to 919-387-7979, or register online.
Age: 14U16U/18U
Dates: October 29-30, 2005
Location: Middle Creek Park/Thomas Brooks, Cary, NC
MEMO TO GEORGE STEINBRENNER
Time to play the blame game, at which you excel. Sell, trade, release or send A-Rod to the minors. He needs to be reminded his role in pinstripes is not fulfilled by hitting 48 dingers; he was brought in to perform like a Yankee in the post-season, the only season that counts in the Bronx. Some of his strikeouts were uglier than the late night waitress at a 134th Street greasy spoon. Do not renew Matsui, who also stranded 12 runners. This year’s fold was inexcusable: 12 runners one night, 9 in the last game at the Stadium, and 9 in the finale. Giambi’s role is to generate runs; he’s got a notoriously weak arm and makes bone-headed plays as he did last night; if he doesn’t bring home runners, he’s as useless as a bidet at an all-male prison. Keep Torre but ask what in the hell was he thinking with that lineup. Bernie might not have gotten to that fly ball with his ancient wheels but the right fielder has covered for him all season – and Bern would not have run into Gary. Bubba made a hero out of Kennedy who bats 9th because he couldn’t hit sand if he fell off a camel. Let Cano know his air-headed mistakes are not acceptable – stitch another letter on the back of his jersey – Canot. Jorge proved he can catch the Big Unit; deep six Flaherty for someone who has more than a passing acquaintance with a bat. Tell Sierra to lose 10 pounds in each cheek. Tino should have been at 1st; he would have made the right play, and Giambi could DH. You got value plus out of your young pitchers, but Wang can’t go more than six. At the winter meeting, let the Commissioner know the Yankees have won only one game in recent years when West was behind the plate. His call on Cano was as bad as his squeezing Mariano so tight last year he needed resuscitation after the game.
THE WHITE SOX
They haven’t won the World Series since 1917. They’re on the wrong side of Chicago, frowned upon by the Cubbies’ fans, and memorialized for going into the tank in 1919, courtesy of Arnold Rothstein. Time to let Shoeless Joe and the other ghosts out of the closet. Go White Sox.
1917 was quite a year.
Woodrow Wilson was in the White House and sent the doughboys to France under Black Jack Pershing, for the first of two trips across the pond to save Europe from Europeans. First U.S. combat troops arrived in France as U.S. declared war on Germany (April 6). George M Cohan reminded us who was Over There and thousands of American farm boys died in places like Flanders, the Argonne, and other killing fields. My Dad made it to Paris and didn’t want to leave; my Uncle Bill took a mustard gas shell in the stomach and spent the next 30 years dying in pieces. In April, Dutch femme fatale Mata Hari was executed as a German spy. Friend and foe thrilled to the exploits of the Red Baron and the Lafayette Escadrille, but they didn’t believe Eddie Rickenbacker and Billy Mitchell that air power would decide future wars.
On March 22, 1917, Nicholas II was arrested at army headquarters and imprisoned at Tsarkoe Selo, the famous royal palace in the countryside. .The Czar abdicated and the Bolshevik revolution began in earnest that October. The Romanov family was murdered the following year.
We’re so absorbed by the ravages of Katrina and Rita, and now that Asian quake, that we forget the much larger death toll of the 1917 epidemic. An influenza pandemic struck the world; by 1920, nearly 20 million are dead. In U.S. alone, 500,000 perish.
The modern era civil rights movement may have started on a bus in Alabama, but a noble effort to achieve racial justice and equality was mounted in 1917. In July, between ten thousand and fifteen thousand blacks silently walked down New York City's Fifth Avenue to protest racial discrimination and violence.
This was the era of the three cent stamp, and a Federal budget of $1.8 billion. We were a nation of 103.2 million people, and unemployment was 4%.
Omar Khayyam (no relation to the Persian poet and tent maker) won the Derby, while the White Sox were defeating the NY Giants, 4-2. Georgia Tech went 9-0 to claim the NCAA crown. We were still years away from Rockne’s Four Horsemen.
Movies were black and white and silent. The first Academy Awards were 10 years away. No cell phones, Ipods, or TVs. The family listened to the radio – and read. Books!
See Grapettes scores below.