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June 29, 2006
Warning: Planet in trouble
News item:
President Bush awoke Monday to find a 100-year-old elm tree lying across the driveway by the North Portico of the White House. Several days of rain in Washington, D.C., had uprooted the tree
My sister sent this cartoon from the June 28 Washington Post.
We saw "An Inconvenient Truth" last night. Very powerful. Hope everyone wakes up to the ugly reality soon.
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:27 AM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2006
Inmage of the Week: Godspeed in NY
A photo from yesterday's New York Times.
The ship was making it's way to the South Street Seaport, where it will be for about ten days before sailing up to Boston. I plan to attend the openng ceremony of the Boston visit on July 14.
All this comes as we are working hard on the rough cut of the show. We just completed a first pass beginning to end, which is 55 minutes long, leaving us ten minutes or so to cut. Good thing too, 'cuz at 55 minutes it was a little slow. We've got some perking up to do.
The show, I am told, will air first quarter of next year.
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2006
On the trail of the Seventh Inning Stretch
After The Greatest Stories Never Told proved to be a success, I entered into a discussion with Arielle, my agent, about possible subjects for future books in the same vein. Out of these discussions, of course, came The Greatest War Stories Never Told and the book I am working on now, The Greatest Presidential Stories Never Told. But the book I really wanted to write, I told Arielle, was The Greatest Stories that Never Happened. A book debunking some of the many great history nuggets that are often reported as true, but turn out to be just urban legends. Unfortunately, she wasn’t buying what I was selling, and the idea went nowhere.
I mention this because in the past few days I have researched myself out of another great story for the presidents book. That is to say, I had a perfectly good story, but in trying to go that extra mile on research to really nail it down, I pretty much exploded the whole thing. Too bad I'm not writing the Stories that Never Happened book...this would be perfect for that.
The story concerns President William Howard Taft and the origin of the seventh inning stretch. You can read versions of this story on the web and in various books. Here’s a simple telling of it:
A baseball tradition was started in 1910 when President William Howard Taft opened the season by throwing out the first ball. In years to come, a veritable parade of presidents would follow in his footsteps.
But the 330 pound Taft, a huge baseball fan in every since of the word, is credited with popularizing another tradition during the same game.
By the middle of the 7th inning, his wooden had become unbearable… and the portly President stood up to stretch. The crowd, thinking Taft is standing up to leave the stadium, respectfully rises.
But then Taft sat down again, as did the crowd.
A presidential endorsement of a tradition that lasts 'til this day—the seventh inning stretch!
Thus basic story. But there were a couple of nagging problems that made me want to do more research.
1) There are a couple of earlier references to fans in amateur games taking a break in the 7th inning. So Taft definitely didn’t invent the idea. Still, I thought, perhaps he popularized it.
2) Some reports say this happened on opening day of 1910 in the game Philadelphia played at Washington, but other accounts suggest it happened in a Cubs-Pirates game that he went to later that year in Pittsburgh. And all the accounts were second-hand.
3) The earliest known written reference to the “seventh inning stretch” is from 1920, some ten years afterward.
I craved some firsthand information that would, if not confirm the story, at least offer some evidence on the likilihood of it.
I turned to the NY Times database, which I have access courtesy of the Minute Man Library Newtwork, and which contains complete text of the NYT dating back to the 1850’s. I quickly discovered a use of the phrase “seventh inning stretch” in a baseball article dating to May 26th, 1910, ten years earlier than anyone else had reported, and coming just a few weeks after the game in which Taft supposedly stood up and got the stretch going. This seemed promising.
Then I pored over accounts of the 1910 Opening Day game in Washington and a May 2nd game at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, both of which were attended by Taft. (Ah the exciting life of a researcher.)But neither had a hint of evidence or information to offer about the going son in the seventh inning.
I expanded my search, tried some other terms, poked around here and there, and hit the motherlode. (I can’t reveal exactly how I managed it—trade secrets, you know.) Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the motherlode landed on the story like an elephant sitting on a Volkswagon Beetle, with similar results.
On September 16, 1909—the year before Taft supposedly initiated or popularized the seventh inning stretch—the president visited Chicago. By all accounts it was a splendid day. 150,000 school children lined the streets to wave at the president’s motorcade, and his luncheon speech at the Commercial Club was enthusiastically received.
Then the President made his way to the ballpark.
The ballpark in question was the West Side Grounds, the pre-Wrigley Field home of the Cubs, to see the Chicago team take on the Giants. The park’s normal capacity was about 15,000, but it was packed with twice that many people on hand to see the president. He greeted the teams and managers, then made his way to the stands. A box had been provided for him, but Taft turned it down with a remark that was to become celebrated among baseball enthusiasts. “Let me sit with fans, “ he said.
I found two descriptions of the President's afternoon at the ballpark, one in ext day's New York Times, the other in Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide of 1910. The stories say the president watched with great interest. And then came the 7th inning. The Cubs were down 2-1. The two accounts pretty much match, but the one in the Spalding Guide is more colorful, so I will quote that:
…in the first half of the “lucky seventh” the Giants failed to make a run. When the last half of the seventh began and the local enthusiasts arose to their feet “for luck,” President Taft also stood up, and when the crowd saw him on his feet there was a mighty cheer from the “bleacherites.”
Here is Taft standing up in the 7th…not because he wants to stretch, but because the crowd had already stood up. And by the way it is the “Lucky 7th,” a term everyone apparently knows, so there is already something special about it. The tradition is obviously already in place…he is just joining in.
A little more research showed mentions as early as 1908 of people stretching or standing in the “lucky 7th”—which really puts the lie to the Taft story. The truth most likely is that the story of Taft joining in the seventh inning stretch got turned around, and a myth was born.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light, And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville—The Taft story has struck out.
Sources: “Big Welcome to President,” New York Times, September 17, 1910 ,p 1
“President’s Day at Chicago,” Spalding Official Baseball Guide, 1910, pages 51 and 53 (Found on Library of Congress website)
“Fans at the Polo Grounds,” New York Times, October 5th, 1908.
Posted by rickbeyer at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)
June 11, 2006
Odds and Ends
I spoke on Saturday (June 10) to the Old Colony Civil War Roundtable at their annual picnic. Rain forced the event inside, and cut down on the crowd, but it still went quite well. I spoke on "Civil War oddities," drawing stories from both of my books. People seemed very enthusiastic, and I sold quite a few books when the shindig was done. I got a note from Joe Scalia, the President of the group, saying how pleased they were. He was especially pleased that they had four propsoective new members show up, and after the talk they all said that they planned to join.
I got an email the otyher day from Staff Sergeant Jonathan P. Farrar USMC, who is working on the Marine Corps Birthday Ball in Charleston SC. He wrote a note asking if I would donate an autographed copy of The Greatest War Stories Never Told to help raise money for the event.
I was happy to do so--in fact I sent them two!!
I received a note from my agent, Arielle Eckstut, that Harper plans to turn my books (along with all the other books on their list) into e-books.
The books have been doing well on Amazon.com since my Memorial Day appearances on Fox and CBS Radio. They're on the front table in all the Barnes and Noble stores, and so I imagine they are doing well there too. And I heard from Harper that Barnes and Noble has already inquired about putting one or both books on the front table for CHristmas, which would be huge. (They did it last year and it was BIG BIG BIG for sales.
Just finished the script for the Godspeed show, I'll be sending that in to The History Channel on Monday.
Posted by rickbeyer at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)