OCTOBER 28 UPDATE

 

COMMITMENTS

Danielle Urincho, P,IF, Gordon’s Panthers, to BYU

Liz Caputo, IF/OF, Gordon’s Panthers, to Ohio State

Andrea Piela, C, NJ Pride, to Siena

Chanel Roehner , Southern CA Diamonds, to Syracuse

Alex Austin , Texas Cobras, to Syracuse

Erin Downey ,P,   San Jose Strikkers, to Syracuse

 

ANGIE HILL

SPY inadvertently identified a photo as including Deanna Parks of Akron, when the caption should have read Angie Hill, the Akron assistant, whom I spoke with at least half a dozen times at Rising Stars.  I can only say I was a bit distracted last night.  I could not find the instructions for downloading that new camera (found them today in the box) and was a bit frazzled.  I also got the word my oldest daughter has accepted an offer of marriage; didn’t really faze me; the young man came by beforehand and actually asked my permission to marry Kathryn.  Good breeding.  At 25, Kathyrn is old enough to marry; I am not sure I am old enough.  My apology to Angie.

 

IN MEMORIAM: MADAME CHIANG KAI SHEK

A journalist once wrote of the sisters Soong: one loved money (Soong Ai-ling who married H H Kung); one loved China (Soong Ching-ling who married the legendary Sun Yat Sen) and one loved power (Soong Mei-Ling who became one of the world’s most powerful women as the wife, spokeswoman, and chief confidant of Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek).  Daughters of a Chinese tycoon, and sisters to T.V. Soong, once one of the world’s richest men, the legendary sisters were powers unto themselves, and were married to men who became foreign and finance ministers, and leaders who were either de facto or de jure rulers of China before the Communist takeover.  Few women in the last century – maybe Eleanor Roosevelt, Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir – had the global recognition and, generally, respect accorded Madame Chiang Kai Shek.  A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wellesley, a prolific writer and persuasive speaker, she was a leader of that informal group known as the China Lobby which won over the Roosevelt administration and Congress, and resulted in a generous outflow of aid to China – both for war goods in China’s long fight against Japan and food and infrastructure support for the Chinese.  Chiang’s Kuomintang unfortunately based a major measure of its ruling power on arrangements with Chinese warlords.  Ultimately, Chiang was forced to leave mainland China and establish a government on Taiwan – again aided by his wife who tried unsuccessfully to use her influence in America – one of the few women and even fewer non-heads of government to address a joint session of Congress – to convince the United States to intervene in China before and after the takeover.  Every serious student of Asian politics should read the history of this remarkable woman.

 

IN MEMORIAM: THE SHOE

The horses he rode responded to his soft touch, and Bill Shoemaker won 11 Triple Crown races on some of the sport’s outstanding thoroughbreds.  Small even by jockey standards at 4’11” – with a penchant for marrying tall women – the Shoe set an outstanding record, winning 22% of his races, but notably coming in second in some key matchups with his long-time rival, Eddie Arcaro.  Shoe was a quadraplegic after a 1991 auto accident, yet came back to win more than $3 million in purses, working from a wheelchair.  A study in determination to overcome the handicaps of heighth and disability.

 

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

The wizard of Windows, Bill Gates, logged on to his 48th birthday today.  Marie Dollinger of Germany , who was born this day in 1900, was the Bill Buckner of her times, forever remembered for dropping the baton in a race at the 1936 Olympics.  On this day in 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba , 458 years before Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano.  Harvard was founded on this day in 1636.  In 1958, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli became Pope John XXIII.  The Cuban missile crisis ended on this day in 1962.  On that same day in 1962, Y A Tittle embarrassed the Redskins with 7 TD passes.  Benito Mussolini (Il Duce) took power in Italy in 1922.  Finally, one of the worst decisions ever by Congress – the Volstead Act – became law, and Prohibition would empower gangsters from coast to coast – Al Capone, Dutch Schultz, Luciano, Lansky, and generations of Mafioso to come built their empires on booze and bullets.

 

TOURNAMENTS

SPY now has the results of 150 games at Rising Stars – and that’s just the Bamford complex.  Unfortunately, the Excel charts are coded (A1 beat A2, etc) and when I have finished flipping through the coaches guide to match scores with team names, I will publish them this week.

 

Whether or not Andy Anderson can hold his tournament in San Diego this coming weekend, given the fires, smoke, etc., SPY will miss two weekends.  Asian disease flared again and my legs are too swollen to walk. Very painful.   Doctors advise two weeks, so I will miss San Diego and Steve McNee’s tournament, but, I will post scores that I receive.

 

THE FIRES IN CALIFORNIA

SPY joins the Southern California ASA Players Association and all of our friends in California in praying for those who have lost their lives and their homes.  Much of my parents’ home burned when I was a child; it’s not just the loss of property, homes can be rebuilt, new possessions acquired.  The devastation which overwhelms you is the feeling that the fire has consumed part of your history, that it has attacked the very essence of your being.  We can never thank sufficiently all the men and women who don their firesuits and helmets and confront this beast.  We offer a few photos.

 

               

   

 

 

 

END

             

 

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