February 24th

Today is the birthday

… of Abe Vigoda. Fish on Barney Miller and Sal Tessio of The Godfather is 87.

… of Steven Hill. Adam Schiff on Law and Order is 86.

… of Dominic Chianese. Uncle Junior on The Sopranos is 77.

Baseball great Honus Wagner was born on this date in 1874.

One of the Hall of Fame’s five original inductees in 1936, Honus Wagner combined rare offensive and defensive excellence throughout a 21-year career. Despite his awkward appearance – stocky, barrel-chested and bow-legged – the longtime Pirates shortstop broke into the big leagues by hitting .344 in 1897 with Louisville, the first of 17 consecutive seasons of hitting over .300, including eight as the National League batting champion. Wagner compiled a lifetime average of .329, and the Flying Dutchman also stole 722 bases, while leading the league in thefts on five occasions.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Winslow Homer was born on this date in 1836. The painting is his “Coming Storm” (1901). Click for larger version.

From the late 1850s until his death in 1910, Winslow Homer produced a body of work distinguished by its thoughtful expression and its independence from artistic conventions. A man of multiple talents, Homer excelled equally in the arts of illustration, oil painting, and watercolor. Many of his works—depictions of children at play and in school, of farm girls attending to their work, hunters and their prey—have become classic images of nineteenth-century American life. Others speak to more universal themes such as the primal relationship of man to nature.

Source: The National Gallery of Art, which has a fine online Winslow Homer exhibit.