Late Show Top Ten Cool Things About Pitching A Perfect Game

Delivered by Randy Johnson Wednesday night (he pitched a perfect game against Atlanta Tuesday night):

10. “After this, I can go 0-15 for the year and honestly not give a crap”

9. “My pre-game dinner at Denny’s tonight? On the house!”

8. “Shows everyone that even though I’m 40, I can still…I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought”

7. “Cool to get congratulatory call from the President, even though he kept calling me “Larry”

6. “Can walk up to guys who’ve thrown no-hitters and whisper, “Loser”

5. “All the pine tar I can eat!”

4. “Your catcher hugs you and it feels kinda…nice”

3. “Maybe people will finally forget about the time I killed that bird”

2. “It’s just one more thing about me that’s perfect, am I right, ladies?”

1. “George Steinbrenner just offered me a billion dollars to sign with the Yankees”

Voters can go to hell

Excerpt from “A Pastoral Letter to the Catholic Faithful of the Diocese of Colorado Springs on the Duties of Catholic Politicians and Voters”

Any Catholic politicians who advocate for abortion, for illicit stem cell research or for any form of euthanasia ipso facto place themselves outside full communion with the Church and so jeopardize their salvation. Any Catholics who vote for candidates who stand for abortion, illicit stem cell research or euthanasia suffer the same fateful consequences. It is for this reason that these Catholics, whether candidates for office or those who would vote for them, may not receive Holy Communion until they have recanted their positions and been reconciled with God and the Church in the Sacrament of Penance.

Most Reverend Michael J. Sheridan
Bishop of Colorado Springs

With Lewis and Clark

Tuesday, May 15, 1804

It rained during the greater part of last night and continued untill 7 OCk. A. M. after which the Prarty proceeded, passed two Islands and incamped on the Stard. shore at Mr. Fifer’s landing opposite an Island, the evening was fair. some wild gees with their young brudes were seen today. the barge run foul three several times —on logs, and in one instance it was with much difficulty they could get her off; happily no injury was sustained, tho’ the barge was several minutes in eminent danger; this was cased by her being too heavily laden in the stern. Persons accustomed to the navigation of the Missouri and the Mississippi also below the mouth of this river, uniformly take the precaution to load their vessels heavyest in the bow when they ascend the stream in order to avoid the danger incedent to runing foul of the concealed timber which lyes in great quantities in the beds of these rivers

Lewis

Tuesday 15— rained all last night and this morning untill 7 oClock, all our fire extinguished, Some Provisions on the top of the Perogus wet, I sent two men to the Countrey to hunt, & proceed on at 9 oClock, and proceeded on 9 miles and Camped at a Mr Pip:[er’s] Landing just below a Coal Bank on the South Side the prarie Comes with ¼ of a mile of the river on the N. Side I sent to the Setlements in the Pairie & purchased fowls &. one of the Perogue are not Sufficently maned to Keep up.

Clark

Source: Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online

With Lewis and Clark

NewMexiKen is not going to include journal entries from Lewis and Clark every day of the bicentennial, but let’s get them off to a good start. This is Clark’s first entry of the Field Notes (River Journal). I should have posted it yesterday (May 14).

Set out from Camp River a Dubois at 4 oClock P. M. and proceded up the Missouris under Sail to the first Island in the Missouri and Camped on the upper point opposit a Creek on the South Side below a ledge of limestone rock Called Colewater, [2] made 4½ miles, the Party Consisted of 2, Self one frenchman and 22 Men in the Boat of 20 ores, 1 Serjt. & 7 french in a large Perogue, a Corp and 6 Soldiers in a large Perogue. [3] a Cloudy rainey day. wind from the N E. men in high Spirits

Clark

Source: Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online

Best line of the day, so far

“The essence of horse racing is wagering. Take away gambling, and you might as well have two mice running for all the interest it would generate.”

William C. Rhoden, The New York Times

Yeah, but where would we find jockeys?

Celebrity Courtship Won’t Go Courtside

Larry Stewart from Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times:

Cancel the wedding plans. It appears Luke Walton and Britney Spears won’t be getting together any time soon.

When “Access Hollywood” told Walton that Spears had a crush on him, Walton said the feeling was mutual and he’d like to find a ticket to a game for Spears near the Laker bench.

Times reader Mario Gamez offered to sell his two front-row seats right behind the Laker bench for tonight’s game to Walton for $5,000 apiece.

“I’m only trying to help Luke close the deal,” Gamez said.

The bad news: Spears’ publicist, Nicole King, said that the pop singer was on an international tour until August.

*****

Through the roof: So how outlandish is $5,000 for a front-row seat? According to Eric Baker, president of stubhub.com, tickets to tonight’s game are the hottest of the playoffs, and probably hotter than tickets would be if the Lakers made it to the NBA Finals.

Baker said the resale value of courtside seats was $15,000, and about $1,500 for floor-level seats. Face value of courtside seats for this series is $2,400, and face value for the best floor-level seats is $240.

In America

No monsters, no ghosts,
No nightmares, no witches;
No people coming in the kitchen and smashing the dishes—
No devils coming out of the mirror;
No dolls that come alive…

Bob Somerby really likes In America. So does NewMexiKen. Scroll down near the bottom of The Daily Howler to read Somerby on the film.

My other halves — corny and sly

Functional Ambivalent has some kind words — I think

I’ve added [linked to] NewMexiKen. When I’m travelling, I like nothing better than reading local, small-town newspapers, and NewMexiKen has some of that flavor. He lists celebrity birthdays, covers events of note in Albuquerque, and keeps the pictures of his grandchildren off to the side where I can ignore them without too much trouble. He’s also funny in a half-corny/half-sly way. He had a thing up recently bragging that he’d had his highest traffic day ever: 239 visitors. Now that Functional Ambivalent has linked to him, his traffic will doubtless shoot up to 242 visitors a day. Soon, I’m sure, he’ll be begging for donations to pay for bandwidth.

Everybody is entitled to two mistakes

From the St. Petersburg Times —

It sounds like something from the 2000 presidential election: an absentee ballot isn’t counted because it isn’t filled out properly. And the disenfranchised voter, Katherine Harris, is no stranger to election debacles.

Harris, who as Florida’s secretary of state oversaw the presidential recount, forgot to sign her absentee ballot when she voted in Longboat Key’s local election March 9.

“I feel terrible,” Harris, now a member of Congress, said Friday. “It’s a mistake. I regret it.”

Fouling it off

At Only Baseball Matters, Greg Hunnicutt tells us about a remarkable at bat.

In what was still a close, two run game, with the Dodgers ahead 2-0 against the Cubs in the seventh inning, Alex Cora managed a home run after an 18 pitch at-bat against Matt Clement. With the count at 2-2, Cora fouled off 14 straight pitches to stay alive. Clement, who pitched solidly despite giving up two runs on four straight infield hits in the third inning, made fourteen very good pitches against Cora, all coming down and in against the left-hander. Cora, mostly weakly fouled off each pitch. But he stayed alive. At first the fans seemed disinterested, as they often can in the more routine parts of a game. After about the eighth consecutive foul, the mood in the stadium seemed to change.

Camera shots of the fans and the Dodgers bench showed that mixture of humor and fascination that begins to set in when faced with the strange and absurd. With each successive foul after that, the atmosphere became more charged. On the eighteenth pitch, Clement left a ball over the plate, and Cora hit it out. There was a collective sense of amazement in the stadium, and I expect among people watching at home.

The Dodgers web site has the story, too, complete with the pitch-by-pitch video and Vin Scully with the call. It’s worth a look, but as Hunnicutt says, the fun must have been between pitches.

The Babe

NewMexiKen is decidedly not a Red Sox fan, but the photo of Babe Ruth at Bambino’s Curse (default style) is priceless.

One can’t help but be reminded of the story in Robert W. Creamer’s delightful Babe: The Legend Comes to Life (1974).

There is a story, probably apocryphal, about a time [Ruth] and [Bob] Meusel were barnstorming together. They shared a hotel suite. Meusel was half asleep when Ruth came in with a girl, went into his room and made love to her in his usual noisy fashion. Afterwards he came out to the living room of the suite, lit a cigar and sat in a chair by the window, smoking it contemplatively. When he finished the cigar he went back into the bedroom and made love again. And then came out and smoked another cigar. In the morning Meusel asked, “How many times did you lay that girl last night?” Ruth glanced at the ashtray, and so did Meusel. There were seven butts in the tray. “Count the cigars,” said Ruth.

Joe Louis…

was born on this date in 1914. Dave Kindred listed Louis’ first round knockout of Max Schmeling in 1938 as the second leading sporting event of the 20th century (to Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics). “[T]he Louis-Schmeling rematch had become a metaphor of that coming war.”

For an excellent analysis of Joe Louis’ career and its meaning to America, see Chris Mead, Champion — Joe Louis, Black Hero In White America (1985). The book is out of print unfortunately, but available in many libraries. A fine read, and I’d say that even if author Mead wasn’t NewMexiKen’s attorney.

Home sweet home

From the June Atlantic —

If you’re interested in buying an extravagant home, the most expensive property on the U.S. market is a $75 million spread in Bridgehampton, Long Island, that includes a 25,000-square-foot main house, a nine-hole golf course, three large ponds, and a 3,000-bottle wine cellar. But million-dollar homes aren’t just for people who like to golf in their back yards. According to a recent report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, the number of owner-occupied U.S. homes valued at a million dollars or more increased by 170 percent from 1989 to 2001 (the total number of homeowners grew by only 21 percent); the average price of such houses now stands at roughly $1.7 million. A full 41 percent of the nation’s million-dollar houses are in California, and five percent of them are within the Los Angeles city limits alone. But for concentration of expensive houses L.A. can’t compete with Cambridge, Massachusetts, where 11.6 percent of all single-family dwellings cost $1 million or more—though $1 million buys only about 1,800 square feet in crowded Cambridge. There, locals say, “fancy starts at $2.5 million.”

—”‘Million-Dollar Homes’ and Wealth in the United States,” Zhu Xiao Di, Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University

What’ve facts got to do with it?

From the York Daily Record —

Well, at least you have to give the Bush campaign points for aplomb. When it shoots itself in the foot, it does so with a tank, not some little pistol.

It’s no secret that President Bush badly needs to win Pennsylvania for re-election. Neither is it a secret that he pretty much has the York County vote locked up.

But last week’s campaign ad gaffe probably didn’t help his cause here.

Workers at United Defense in West Manchester Township are feeling a little left out — hurt that the Bush campaign seems to have forgotten their contributions to the figurative war on terrorism and the literal war in Iraq.

A $10 million ad blitz in Michigan (another crucial swing state for the president) criticized presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry for votes against various weapons systems. An ad that ran in Detroit claimed Kerry voted against the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a tank-like weapon that saw extensive action in Iraq.

The ad said the vehicle was “made in Michigan,” and campaign spokespeople stood in front of the General Dynamics headquarters there asking if Kerry cared about the site’s 1,200 jobs.

Wrong state.

Wrong company.

While General Dynamics makes some fine weapons systems, it doesn’t manufacture the Bradley.

Any York countian can tell you it’s made right here in West Manchester Township by 910 United Defense workers.

Link via Eschaton.

Steveland Hardaway Judkins…

was born on this date in 1950 (later Steveland Morris). As Little Stevie Wonder he first recorded for Motown as a 12-year-old; his “Fingertips (Pt. II)” was the first live recording to ever reach number one. Stevie Wonder’s greatest achievements however, began with the album Talking Book (1972), one of just seven albums to be part of the NPR 100. (Listen to the NPR report here [Real Audio].) Steve Huey tells us about Wonder’s best albums at the All Music Guide —

The result, Talking Book, was released in late 1972 and made him a superstar. Song for song one of the strongest R&B albums ever released, Talking Book also perfected Wonder’s spacy, futuristic experiments with electronics, and was hailed as a magnificently realized masterpiece. Wonder topped the charts with the gutsy, driving funk classic “Superstition” and the mellow, jazzy ballad “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” which went on to become a pop standard; those two songs went on to win three Grammys between them. Amazingly, Wonder only upped the ante with his next album, 1973’s Innervisions, a concept album about the state of contemporary society that ranks with Gaye’s What’s Going On as a pinnacle of socially conscious R&B.

*****

Finally released in 1976, Songs in the Key of Life was a sprawling two-LP-plus-one-EP set that found Wonder at his most ambitious and expansive. Some critics called it brilliant but prone to excess and indulgence, while others hailed it as his greatest masterpiece and the culmination of his career; in the end, they were probably both right. “Sir Duke,” an ebullient tribute to music in general and Duke Ellington in particular, and the funky “I Wish” both went to number one pop and R&B; the hit “Isn’t She Lovely,” a paean to Wonder’s daughter, became something of a standard, and “Pastime Paradise” was later sampled for the backbone of Coolio’s rap smash “Gangsta’s Paradise.” Not surprisingly, Songs in the Key of Life won a Grammy for Album of the Year; in hindsight, though, it marked the end of a remarkable explosion of creativity and of Wonder’s artistic prime.

Richard Steven Valenzuela…

would have been 63 today. But, as everyone knows, Ritchie Valens died in a plane crash on February 3, 1959, along with Buddy Holly and “The Big Bopper,” J.P. Richardson. Valens was 17.

In the course of his short life, Ritchie Valens left a lasting impact on rock and roll with the classic rocker “La Bamba.” A high-energy reworking of an old Mexican wedding song, its driving simplicity foreshadowed garage-rock, frat-rock and punk-rock. Ironically, “La Bamba” was the B-side of “Donna,” a paean to Valens’ girlfriend that rose to #2 on Billboard’s singles chart. “La Bamba” also charted, peaking at #22. This double-sided smash is one of the greatest rock and roll singles of the Fifties.

Or so says the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

La Bamba was one of the NPR 100. Listen to story [Real Audio].

One of the most useful Internet services since Google itself

David Pogue reviews Gmail (Google’s upcoming free email service). He concludes —

Otherwise, Gmail is infinitely cleaner, faster, more useful, more efficient, less commercial and less limiting than other Web-based e-mail services. Once Gmail goes live, Hotmail and Yahoo won’t know what hit them.

The only population likely not to be delighted by Gmail are those still uncomfortable with those computer-generated ads. Those people are free to ignore or even bad-mouth Gmail, but they shouldn’t try to stop Google from offering Gmail to the rest of us. We know a good thing when we see it.

An international group of vandals and criminals

Sound advice from Walt Mossberg —

I would never run a Windows PC without a good, constantly updated antivirus program, period. Unless your ISP is supplying software like this that resides on your PC, rather than on its servers, I urge you to hasten to a store or a Web site and buy an antivirus program immediately. Install it right away, and make certain you keep it up to date. Do not procrastinate on this. There is an international group of vandals and criminals whose sole purpose in life, every day, is to unleash viruses and other malicious programs onto your PC.

The only exception might be if you own a Macintosh. Windows viruses can’t run on the Mac, and I know of no viruses that do run on the Mac’s OS X operating system and that have spread to the public. I still advise running an antivirus program on a Mac, just in case. But it’s a much less urgent matter.

Watch Out, Luke, She Marries Really Fast

From Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times —

It must be cool being Luke Walton. Your dad is Bill Walton, you play for the Lakers and now comes word that Britney Spears has a crush on you.

That’s what “Access Hollywood” told Walton after the Lakers’ game against San Antonio on Tuesday night.

“Oh yeah?” Walton said. “I’ve had a crush on her for a long time.”

His next move, he said, is getting her a ticket to a game.

“I’d sit her as close [to the court] as I could get a ticket,” he said.