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(2/19/18) Here are the scores for the Top 25 teams in College Baseball from the Opening Weekend. Not that Mississippi State lost all 3 games as did Cal State Fullerton. Vanderbilt won two of three from Duke as both teams were ranked. Many will tell you not to put too much stock into the first bunch of games.

1 Florida                 3-0 Siena: W 7-1, 10-2, W 19-2
2 Oregon State      3-0 New Mexico W 5-2, Gonzaga W 4-3, Cal Poly W 16-7
3 Texas Tech         4-0 Maine: W 4-2, W 12-1, W 12-5, W 21-6
4 Arkansas             3-0 Bucknell: W 14-2, W 32-4, W 3-1
5 Florida State       3-0 Xavier: W 11-1, W 7-2, W 5-1
6 North Carolina   2-1 at South Florida: L 4-3, W 12-5, W 9-8
7 TCU                      2-1 at Grand Canyon: W 3-2, W 14-6, L 9-8
8 Kentucky             4-0 Wofford W 6-1, USC Upstate W 6-5, W 10-3, Evansville W 8-4
9 Ole Miss               3-0 Winthrop: W 7-3, W 8-1, W 3-1
10 Texas A&M        3-0 Rhode Island: W 4-1, W 4-3, W 10-2
11 UCLA 3-0 Portland: W 7-2, W 13-0, W 15-3
12 Mississippi State 0-3 at Southern Miss: L 11-0, L 7-4, L 5-2
13 Stanford 3-0 CS Fullerton: W 5-1, W 5-3, W 6-5
14 Vanderbilt 2-1 Duke: W 9-1, L 5-4, W 9-1
15 Louisville 3-0 Richmond W 4-3, The Citadel W 8-3, George Mason W 15-8
16 LSU 1-2 Notre Dame: W 7-6, L 10-5, L 11-3
17 CS Fullerton 0-3 at Stanford: L 5-1, L 5-3, L 6-5
18 Dallas Baptist 3-0 Monmouth: W 7-4, W 5-3, W 15-4
19 Virginia 2-1 UCF L 6-3, Samford W 10-4, Rice W 3-0
20 South Alabama 3-1 Kansas State W 12-5, Oklahoma W 6-5, Virginia Tech W 7-5, Indiana L 8-4
21 Texas 2-1 Louisiana: W 3-0, W 5-3, L 2-1
22 West Virginia 1-2 at Jacksonville: W 5-4, L 7-4, L 2-1
23 Indiana 2-1 Oklahoma L 6-3, Kansas State W 5-0, South Alabama W 8-4
24 Houston 2-1 Holy Cross: L 3-2, W 7-1, W 3-2
25 Duke 1-2 at Vanderbilt: L 9-1, W 5-4, L 9-1

 

Monday finds only 10 games on the schedule for President’s Day.

Virginia Tech/Kansas St.

BYU/CSUN

Stony Brook/Nicholls State

Indiana/Coastal Carolina

Cal Poly/Gonzaga

Indiana State/UNLV

Washington/Sacramento St.

St. Mary’s (Cal.)/CSU Bakersfield

New Mexico/Oregon St.

Stanford/UC Davis

 

It’s time I came clean. Not many people know this fact about me. Some would say they aren’t surpised. 🙂 I graduated last in my class in the 8th grade. True fact. I will get back to that later. What I want to let you know about will be from my Junior High school years. I will touch on the 7th grade tournament but I am saving the majority of that for a complete blog all by itself. These are some random thoughts about Junior High School

 

JH was Cool

These years were very cool. It was the first time in your life you got to move around for classes and you had some freedom between classes. It was a couple of years of experimenting and actually being able to participate in sports every night after school that made Junior High a special place. It was also cool to get out of Manito.

 

Dancing

There was an odd phenomenon called dancing. It was a horrible thing to do in Junior High school. The problem with this was it required that male and females to touch each other. But what came with it was the stigma of knowing how to dance. The school always had a back-to-school dance about the second week of the year. It was from 7-9 in the gym. The vast majority of the boys hung together and the girls all huddled off to the side. Every once in awhile some couples put on an attempt to dance but that was far and in between. What went on was the gossip that floated around the gym. Some girl would come over to the boys and tell us so and so like one of the boys. Later, a boy floated over to the girls and told what had been said in their group. This went on for about an hour and a half. By the time you worked up the courage to ask a girl to dance there was 15-20 minutes left. It was a definite social experiment.

Another thing that happened was in PE, Mrs. Rossi would have a unit in dancing. This was not good. You could actually get paired up with a girl that carried cooties and you had no control over it. She lined us up and we called out a number and that was our partner. We did that several different times and was quite embarrassing.

 

Arts and Crafts

 

We had to take Arts and Crafts. Mr Guy was the teacher and he was a very odd duck. Now for me, this was one of the worst classes that I could be in. I had/have absolutely no talent in art or in the making of crafts. It was a boring class to be in. One assignment was to sculpture something. I didn’t do until he announced that it was due tomorrow so those not done should take their sculpture block home to complete. I had done nothing to mine at all. Mid-evening, my brother Lyle asked me what it was and what was supposed to be done with it. I told him and explained I wasn’t going to do the work. He said very little and I went to bed. Lo and behold, in the morning there was this great looking sphinx sitting on the table for me to take to class. I was a bit embarrassed because I knew and everyone knew I had no talent. I took it to class and turned it in. Just before the bell was to ring, Mr. Guy called me up and asked me if I had actually completed the project or did someone else do it. What am I to do? Just what I need to do to get a decent grade…. I told him I did it all by myself. I got an A on the project but he and I both knew I didn’t do it. Thanks, Lyle!

 

Baseball

It was a blast. Two weeks before the first day of class we are practicing baseball every day. I had never experienced anything like it and Junior High was going to be so much fun. As the practices progressed, it appeared I was going to be the starting shortstop as a 7th grader on the 8th-grade team. Until….. one practice the catcher (I don’t remember who it was) got a ball fouled off his knuckles and broke two fingers. Coach Rudd took me aside and said I was to be the teams’ catcher for the season. I was just happy to play and that year and that position was a lot of fun. Jim Petty was a fireballing pitcher and he and I had played baseball in the summer for years. I loved being catcher as you were into every play of the game.

I remember two particular plays and they likely were in different games. I wasn’t a power hitter but a gap man. I was up in the bottom of the 6th inning and we were down 2 runs and the bases were loaded. Do you think I hit one out of the park? Well, not exactly. I hit the ball hard just over the second baseman’s glove that rolled on the grass in the outfield and just kept rolling and rolling. I was fast enough to make it a grand slam and we won in the 7th inning by two runs.

Another play I remember was in the field behind the plate. No big deal but I remember this. The pitch by Petty got away from me or he threw it wild with a runner on third base and the baseball rolled to the fence. I went back to get it and tossed it backward towards the plate as Jim Petty dove into the runner and he was called out. Just a cool blind throw that ended the inning. I think I remember that because the umpire told me it was the best play he had ever seen in a Junior High game.

 

Getting Stitches

Letting me share two stories with you about getting injured in the 7th grade in PE. One day we were playing flag football. Both the 7th and 8th grade boys played together. I was playing defense when the quarterback threw the ball downfield when I jumped to catch it. Problem was that at the same time on offense Leonard Wheat jumped to catch it and his teeth caught me just above the right eye and I was instantly bleeding all over. Whoever the PE teacher was sent a kid to the office to let Mr. Rudd know we needed an ambulance. He didn’t call anybody. He drove his car out to the field, put me in it and drove m to Havana hospital. It was the first time I ever heard a teacher/principal cuss as we were a fes miles from town he said, “You have a hell of a gash there, Tommy. You’re going to get damn stitches for that.” Well, they called my mom from the school and she met us there. I had 14 stitches. Ten above my eye and 4four on the eyelid. My actual eye had no damage. I went to school the next day.

In the spring I was pitching softball in PE when a line drive smacked me in the right eye. They called my mom and she took me home. I didn’t go to school the next day…….. because it was game one of the 1964 World Series and the Cardinals and Yankees were playing.

 

 

7th grade Basketball

Basketball was a blast. It was about this time of the year that I really started to like girls. However, I will add that it was also becasue girls started liking me. You see, I was the only 7th grader started on the lightweight team. Mark Thompon, Dennis Specketer, John Middleton, Lynn Vogel and myself were the primary starters. We had first year coach/science teach Frank Gassmann, a new SIU grad, as our leader. The core 5 of the team tried to emulate the players from the starting five of the then Bradley Braves. I was Joe Strawder, somebody else was LaVern Tart, another Bobby Joe Mason and I don’t remember the other three.

Our season was loads of fun as we kept winning and winning. We were 22-0 going into the state tournament to be played in Rantoul. It was because of this success that I can remember that my life was a blast. The State Touney brought out the entire towns and neighboring villages along with our own student body with fan busses and such. More on the State Tournament in a few weeks.

 

Jamboree

Remember this? The Mason County Jamboree. I don’t have anything to say about it but I enjoy it and won the baseball toss four years in a row. However, it leads into my next story.

Graduated Last in My Class

I suppose I shouldn’t be admitting this and should be ashamed that I graduated last in my class when diplomas were given out a graduation. I still shake my head but there was to be graduation on Thursday night at the Forman Junior High School. On the previous weekend I was in the Mason County Jamboree on Saturday and all went well. That night I began to feel bad. All day Sunday I laid on the couch in some pain not doing so well. My parents thought maybe I had hurt myself at the Jamboree. They mentioned a rupture and to an 8th grade kid that was an embarrassment.

Finally, Monday morning they took me to the hospital and I was diagnosed with appendicitis. They did emergency surgery Monday afternoon and I got out of the hospital on Wednesday. I missed three days of school for it. Come ThursdayI really hadn’t walked very far but about 5pm I insisted I go to the graduation. My parents allowed me if I walked sparingly. The school was in an uproar as they had practiced the ceremony and now I had put everything out of kilter. So they made an administrative decision. Instead of changing everything they just added me to the end. So, they added a chair for me at the end they called my name to graduate and I  walked up there slowly to the podium and received my diploma. Since I was last the crowd cheered loudly ( I am sure it was ALL for me) and officially graduate last in my class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome the Kick the Can Podcast #2

 

Today, I use my voice to hold accountable our President-Elect Trump to be wary of the motives of Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Putin is NOT Our Friend

Political Websites

 

Back in late March, I challenged myself to read political writings from different points of view on a daily basis. I did that for a few reasons such as being informed on the policies of this country and the stories and backgrounds of the candidates.

Each day, except Sunday, I would attempt to choose 5-8 different websites to read. I did keep that up and will do so until Election Day. After that my reading will be a bit more sporadic. I thought I would share those sites with you for your reading or for saving for a later time.

It was interesting, to say the least. If you know any other you would like for me to add to this list, let me know.

Here they are:

Harvard Political Review	Washington Post	LA Times
NY Times	Washington Times	The American Conservative
The American Prospect	The American Spectator	The Atlantic
Boston Review	Dissent Magazine	The Economist
Foreign Policy	Politico	Chronicles
Yale Daily News	Columbia Daily	Mother Jones
The Nation	National Review	The New American
The New Republic	Roll Call	U.S.News and World Report
The Weekly Standard	Huffington Post	Legislative Gazette
The Hill	Right Wing Watch	Political Wire
WND	The Skeptical Optimist	The Blaze
The Salon	Daily Caller	Breitbart
Drudge Report	Wonkette	Daily Kos
Liberal Oasis	The New Yorker	World Policy Institute
Daily Beast		American Thinker
From Other Countries
The Telegraph	BBC	Countries List
Pravda	Irish Times	The Baltic Times
Cyprus News	Budapest Business Journal
UNITED KINGDOM Bristol Evening Post (Bristol) Cambridge Evening News (Cambridge) Coventry Evening Telegraph (Coventry) Daily Record (Glasgow) The Daily Telegraph (London) Derbyshire Evening Telegraph (Derby) Evening Argus (Brighton) Evening Standard (London) Evening Telegraph Evening Times (Glasgow) Express & Star (Wolverhampton) Financial Times (London) Financial Times (U.S. mirror site) (London) Grimsby Evening Telegraph (Birmingham) Guardian, The (London) The Herald (Glasgow) Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield) Hull Daily Mail (Hull) icBirmingham (Grimsby) icNewcastle (Newcastle) Independent, The (London) Jersey Evening Post, The (Channel Islands) The Journal (Newcastle) London Evening Standard (London) The Mirror (London) The News (Portsmouth) Norfolk Now (Norfolk) Northampton Chronicle & Echo (Northampton) The Nottingham Evening Post (Nottingham) Observer, The (London) Oldham Evening Chronicle, The Sentinel Online, The South Wales Argus (Newport) South Wales Evening Post South West News The Sun (London) Sunday Mall (Glasgow) Sunderland Echo (Sunderland) Telegraph, The (London) This is Local London (London) The Times and Sunday Times (London) The Sunday Times (London) West Sussex Observer (Chichester) Western Mail, The (Cardiff) Yorkshire Evening Post (Leeds)

Baseball History

1943 New York entrepreneur William D. Cox purchases the bankrupt Phillies from the National League. The 33 year-old new owner will be banned from baseball in November by commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis when he admits to making some “sentimental” bets on his team during the season.

1954 In their first major trade since moving from St. Louis, the Orioles, formerly known as the Browns, exchange outfielders with the Senators, sending Roy Sievers to Washington for Gil Conan. Sievers will spend five solid seasons in the nation’s capital, making the All-Star squad twice, and Conan, playing less than two seasons in Baltimore, compiles a .266 batting average with three home runs, appearing in 155 games.

1960 Walter O’Malley completes the purchase of land just north of downtown Los Angeles as the site of a new ballpark for his transplanted Brooklyn club. The Dodger owner paid a reported $494,000 for the property at Chavez Ravine, believed to be worth $92,000 at the time.

1967 During a special softball exhibition game, pitcher Eddie Feigner strikes out six consecutive major leaguers, a group that includes five future Hall of Famers. The victims include Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Brooks Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Roberto Clemente and Maury Wills.

1998 Long time baseball announcer Harry Caray dies at the age of 84 after suffering a heart attack four days earlier while having Valentine’s Day dinner with his wife, Dutchie. The colorful “Mayor of Rush Street” started his career in 1945 with the Cardinals and also did play-by-play for the A’s, White Sox, and the Cubs during his 52 years in the broadcast booth
.
1999 The Blue Jays trade Roger Clemens to the Yankees for David Wells, Graeme Lloyd, and Homer Bush.

2005 After five months of captivity in a Venezuelan jungle surrounded by explosives to keep her from escaping, Ugueth Urbina’s mother, Maura Villarreal, is rescued during a daring eight-hour police raid. The kidnappers had demanded $6 million ransom from the Tigers’ relief pitcher for his mom’s freedom.

2009 After considering to play for Atlanta, a location which is closer to his family, Ken Griffey Jr. agrees to a one-year deal with the Seattle Mariners. The 39 year-old outfielder joins a list of superstars, Babe Ruth (Boston), Willie Mays (New York), and Hank Aaron (Milwaukee), to choose the city where they played with their first team as the place to end their major league career.

2009 At 11:25 a.m., the last remaining piece of Shea Stadium, the ramp to section 5, is demolished, marking the end of the New York ballpark where the Mets played for 44 years. The space will become a parking lot for the team’s new home, the $800-million Citi Field, which will open in April.

2011 The Orioles officially announce the signing of Vladimir Guerrero after the 36 year-old passed his physical. The team’s new everyday designated hitter, who batted .300 with 29 homers and 115 RBIs with the American League Champion Rangers last season, agrees to a one-year, $8 million deal to play in Baltimore.

2011 In the first game of the season, Garrett Wittels goes 0-for-4 against Southeastern Louisiana, leaving the Florida International University junior two games short of Robin Ventura’s Division l record of hitting in 58 consecutive games, established by the former major leaguer in 1987. The overall NCAA mark is 60 straight games, set by Damian Costantino playing for Division III Salve Regina from 2001-03.

 

The Twenty-fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution deals with succession to the Presidency and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, as well as responding to Presidential disabilities. It supersedes the ambiguous wording of Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution, which does not expressly state whether the Vice President becomes the President or Acting President if the President dies, resigns, is removed from office or is otherwise unable to discharge the powers of the presidency. The Twenty-fifth Amendment was adopted on February 10, 1967.

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

The Twenty-fifth Amendment in the National Archives

Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution states:
In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
That clause was unclear regarding Presidential succession and inability; it did not state who had the power to declare a President incapacitated. Also, it did not provide a mechanism for filling a Vice Presidential vacancy prior to the next Presidential election. The vagueness of this clause caused difficulties many times before the Twenty-fifth Amendment’s adoption:
In 1841, President William Henry Harrison became the first U.S. President to die in office. Representative John Williams had previously suggested that the Vice President should become Acting President upon the death of the President. John Tyler asserted that he had succeeded to the presidency, as opposed to only obtaining its powers and duties. He also declined to acknowledge documents referring to him as “Acting President”. Although he felt his vice presidential oath negated the need for the presidential oath, Tyler was persuaded that being formally sworn-in would clear up any doubts about his right to the office. Having done so, he then moved into the White House and assumed full presidential powers. Tyler’s claim was not formally challenged, and both houses of Congress adopted a resolution confirming that Tyler was the tenth President of the United States, without any qualifiers. The precedent of full succession was thus established. This became known as the “Tyler Precedent”.
There had been occasions when a President was incapacitated. For example, following Woodrow Wilson’s stroke no one officially assumed the Presidential powers and duties, in part because the First Lady, Edith Wilson, together with the White House Physician, Cary T. Grayson, covered up President Wilson’s condition.
The office of Vice President had been vacant sixteen times due to the death or resignation of the Vice President or his succession to the presidency. For example, there was no Vice President for nearly four years after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
All of these incidents made it evident that clearer guidelines were needed. There were two proposals for providing those guidelines.

Keating–Kefauver proposal

In 1963, Senator Kenneth Keating of New York proposed a Constitutional amendment which would have enabled Congress to enact legislation providing for how to determine when a President is disabled, rather than, as the Twenty-fifth Amendment does, having the Constitution so provide. This proposal was based upon a recommendation of the American Bar Association in 1960.
The text of the proposal read:
In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the said office shall devolve on the Vice President. In case of the inability of the President to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the said powers and duties shall devolve on the Vice President, until the inability be removed. The Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then be President, or, in case of inability, act as President, and such officer shall be or act as President accordingly, until a President shall be elected or, in case of inability, until the inability shall be earlier removed. The commencement and termination of any inability shall be determined by such method as Congress shall by law provide.
Senators raised concerns that the Congress could either abuse such authority or neglect to enact any such legislation after the adoption of this proposal. Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver (the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments), a long-time advocate for addressing the disability question, spearheaded the effort until he died of a heart attack on August 10, 1963.

Kennedy assassination

With President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the need for a clear way to determine presidential succession, especially with the new reality of the Cold War and its frightening technologies, forced Congress into action. The new President, Lyndon B. Johnson, had once suffered a heart attack, and the next two people in line for the presidency were Speaker of the House John McCormack, who was 71 years old, and Senate President pro tempore Carl Hayden, who was 86 years old. Senator Birch Bayh succeeded Kefauver as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments and set about advocating for a detailed amendment dealing with presidential succession.

Bayh–Celler proposal

On January 6, 1965, Senator Birch Bayh proposed in the Senate and Representative Emanuel Celler (Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee) proposed in the House of Representatives what became the Twenty-fifth Amendment. Their proposal specified the process by which a President could be declared disabled, thereby making the Vice President an Acting President, and how the President could regain the powers of his office. Also, their proposal provided a way to fill a vacancy in the office of Vice President before the next presidential election. This was as opposed to the Keating–Kefauver proposal, which did not provide for filling a vacancy in the office of Vice President prior to the next presidential election or itself provide a process for determining presidential disability. In 1964, the American Bar Association endorsed the type of proposal which Bayh and Celler advocated.
On February 19, the Senate passed the amendment, but the House passed a different version of the amendment on April 13. On July 6, after a conference committee ironed out differences between the versions, the final version of the amendment was passed by both Houses of the Congress and presented to the states for ratification.

 

(the above from wikipedia)