November 19

After a successful career, many professional baseball players may retire to lead lives of gentlemen farmers, hit the book and speaking circuits, or carry over their product endorsement contracts into private life after leaving the baseball diamond for good. Then there are those whose choose to leave their careers as athletes behind and take a completely different path. Have you ever wondered what the unsuccessful baseball players do? William Ashley Sunday, born on the 19th in 1862, was a baseball player in the latter part of the 19th century. He played with the Philadelphia Phillies, among other teams, and was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an exceptional player. He never hit well and his fielding was generally considered to be sub-par. On the field his only talent of note was running. As a runner he was incredibly fast, which apparently is a talent that comes in handy when playing baseball. During either the 1886 or 1887 seasons, on a day off, Sunday and his teammates were wandering around Chicago drinking beer and pretty much hanging out on street corners. At this point in the story of baseball, I guess this was the equivalent of totaling expensive cars, doing cocaine and steroids, and then trashing nightclubs and hotel rooms, hobbies so popular among athletes today. On one corner, the group encountered a bunch of street preachers from the Pacific Garden Mission. It may have been the preaching or, perhaps it was the beer, but whatever it was Sunday quite drinking for good and transformed himself in to Billy Sunday, self-styled evangelist. He would go on to achieve the fame and fortune that had eluded him as a baseball player.

November 18

When you have a moment, open the book of history to any random page. Then flip through its pages and you will be hard pressed to find a page where you are not brought face-to-face with a technological leap forward that forces you to sit up straight and pay attention. Examples are many; the invention of the printing press that used movable type, wireless telegraphy, mankind’s first heavier-than-air flight, the synthesis of penicillin, and man landing on the moon are only a few of the many moments of greatness humans may take pride in. To that list, you should add the often-overlooked event that took place on the 18th in 1928 when Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks released Steamboat Willie, the first animated cartoon with synchronized sound, and featuring, in their second appearance as stars, Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

November 17

Often it is difficult, if not impossible, to look on the bright side of life. I have found however that with a little bit of effort some good may be found in anything that happens in your life. Have you fallen from a high place of fame, fortune and renown? Has life hit you repeatedly in the back of the head? Take heart, all is not as dark as it might seem to be. In your moments of despair, you would be well served if you took a moment to pause and remember Sir Walter Raleigh who, on the 17th in 1603, went on trial for treason. The trial did not go particularly well and he would in the end be convicted, the sentence of death by beheading being passed down. For a variety of reasons, the sentence would not be carried out until October 29, 1618. When Raleigh was led to the block so that justice could be administered he asked to see the axe. Upon viewing it, he stated, “This is sharp medicine, but it is a Physician for all Diseases.”

November 16

Fyodor Dostoevsky was a prominent and very vocal member of the revolutionary group the Petrashevsky Circle. Quite often, he found himself at odds with Tsar Nikolai 1. So great was Nikolai’s displeasure with Dostoevsky that he ordered the arrest of him and other members of the group; which was done on April 23, 1849. All were and charged with a variety of anti-government activities. On the 16th of November, Dostoevsky together with other members of The Circle were convicted and sentenced to death; sentence to be carried out immediately. Dostoevsky and his colleagues were led out of the courtroom and were lined up in the snow so that they could be executed by firing squad. At the last moment, the Tsar commuted Dostoevsky’s sentence to four years of exile to the Katorga prison camp at Omsk, Siberia. Unfortunately, when asked for his last words, Dostoevsky chose to read from The Brothers Karamazov. When he got to to page 312 the men in the firing squad shot themselves in the head because they just could not take Dostoevsky’s reading any more.

November 15

If there had been just a little more traffic, today’s entry would have had to appear tomorrow. At 10:00 p.m. GMT on the 15th in 1970, the Soviet Spacecraft Luna 17 slipped in to orbit around the Moon. Carried onboard was the Lunokhod 1, a really neat remote control car,which would land on the Moon on November 17. Actually, it was a bit too odd looking to be called a car. Calling it an RC car does get the point across though. Well, maybe not a car, it looked more like someone polished off all the Vodka in the liquor cabinet and then got in to the kids’ erector set. If you look at it very closely, it becomes clear that it was a miniature laboratory. Maybe not the Dr. Frankenstein kind of laboratory, but a laboratory nonetheless. The Lunokhod 1’s significance, however, lies in the fact that it was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on a planetary body other than Earth. Perhaps I should qualify that by saying it was the first rover made by Humans. That would be both accurate and leave the door open for new evidence that may be coming out of Area 51 once everything there is de-classified.

November 14

Elizabeth Jane ‘Pink’ Cochran was born on May 5, 1864, in Cochran Mills, Pennsylvania. As an adult, she would become a journalist. When she went to work for the Pittsburgh Dispatch the editor gave her the pen name Nelly Bly. In 1887, Feigning insanity, she allowed herself to be committed to the Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum in New York. The book she wrote when released, Ten Days in a Mad-House, made her famous. Stunts, similar to that one in their audacity, would mark her career. Therefore, it was not terribly surprising when on the 14th in 1889, Bly, having been inspired by Jules Verne’s book Around the World in 80 Days, left Hoboken, New Jersey and began a trip that she and her sponsors hoped would meet or beat Verne’s time. She arrived, to great fanfare, back in New York 72 days, 6 hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds later. Not that anyone was keeping an eye on the clock or anything like that.

November 13

On the 13th in 1994, Katherine Simone Perchik was born in Brooklyn, New York. I would just like to point out the fact that at no time have allegations of felonious activities been made concerning Miss Perchik. She has never been called upon to appear before the United States Senate to give testimony concerning her involvement in plotting to interfere with a Federal investigation of questionable dealings anywhere within the 48 contiguous states or Alaska. Reports from Hawaii have not, as of this writing, been finalized but it is anticipated that officials there will not charge Miss Perchik. There are others of whom the same thing may not be said. On the 13th in 1909, Collier’s magazine published an article accusing Richard Achilles Bollinger of questionable deals with private claims in the Alaskan coalfields. Change Alaskan coal fields to Halliburton and coal to oil and gas and we zoom on fast forward to the present day and Vice President Cheney. Bollinger was a member of President Coolidge’s cabinet, holding the position of United States Secretary of the Interior.