Jim Bunning is 80 today.
Displaying a remarkable consistency during his 17-year career, Jim Bunning became the first pitcher to record 100 wins and 1,000 strikeouts in both the American and National Leagues. He also threw no-hitters in both leagues, including a perfect game on Father’s Day 1964. Accumulated 224 career wins as a seven-time All-Star selection, Bunning was also a leading figure in the founding of the player’s union and later served Kentucky as a United States Senator.
Too bad about the political career. I always liked Bunning as a pitcher, and regret not attending a game I almost went to he pitched against the Mets in 1964. He threw a no-hitter that day. As a senator he was a raving lunatic on his lucid days.
Pele is 71 today.
Oscar-winning director Ang Lee is 57.
Dwight Yoakam is 55. Yoakam has been in a number of films — he was the nasty boyfriend in Sling Blade — but it’s country music that earned his fame.
With his stripped-down approach to traditional honky tonk and Bakersfield country, Dwight Yoakam helped return country music to its roots in the late ’80s. Like his idols Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and Hank Williams, Yoakam never played by Nashville’s rules; consequently, he never dominated the charts like his contemporary Randy Travis. Then again, Travis never played around with the sound and style of country music like Yoakam. On each of his records, he twists around the form enough to make it seem like he doesn’t respect all of country’s traditions. Appropriately, his core audience was composed mainly of roots rock and rock & roll fans, not the mainstream country audience. Nevertheless, he was frequently able to chart in the country Top Ten, and he remained one of the most respected and adventurous recording country artists well into the ’90s.
Weird Al Yankovic is 52.
Johnny Carson was born 86 years ago today. A little luck and many fewer cigarettes and he might be alive today. While he was alive, Carson would have been my choice for the person I’d most like to have dinner with.
He grew up an extremely shy boy, but when he was 12 years old he happened to read a how-to book about magic tricks and he later said that it was the discovery of magic that helped him relate to people. He started writing jokes in college and went on to host a TV game show called “Who Do You Trust?” But his big break came when he took over hosting The Tonight Show from Jack Parr in 1962.
By the mid-1970s, more than 15 million people were watching The Tonight Show every night before they went to bed. When he retired in 1992, he had been on the air for 30 years. He almost never appeared in public again, and died in 2005.
Michael Crichton died three years ago; he would have been 69 today. The Writer’s Almanac (link above) has a interesting entry about Crichton.
Harvey Penick was born on this date in 1904. His Little Red Book is the best-selling golf book ever.
John William Heisman was born on this date in 1869. He’s the guy the trophy is named after. The following milestones in Heisman’s career are excerpted from his 1936 obituary in The New York Times and put here in chronological order.
In 1888 he was a member of the Brown football team, and in 1889 of the Pennsylvania varsity football eleven.
He began his coaching career in 1892 at Oberlin College. In 1893 he coached all sports at the University of Akron. From 1895 to 1900 he coached football and baseball at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, and from 1900 to 1904 was coach at Clemson College.
From 1904 to 1920 he coached football, baseball and basketball at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he developed the famous “Golden Tornado” teams.
In 1908 he was director of athletics at the Atlanta Athletic Club. From 1910 to 1914 he was president of the Atlanta Baseball Association. In 1920 he coached football at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1923 filled the same position at Washington and Jefferson College. From 1924 to 1927 he was head football coach and director of athletics at Rice Institute, Houston, Texas.
In 1923 and 1924 he was president of the American Football Coaches Association.
For the last six years [before 1936] he had been physical director of the Downtown Athletic Club.