Month: May 2016

Mark Koenig and a Legend

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The following is an excerpt from a book, The Least Among Them, I am writing about the Yankees that is currently in development:

            Mark Koenig was the Yankees starting shortstop for three seasons from 1926 through 1928.  Koenig was an erratic fielder, leading the league in errors in 1926 and 1928.  As a batter, he  usually served as the number two batter in the line-up,  hitting just before Babe Ruth.  After batting .319 in 1928 and .292 in more limited duty in 1929, Koenig got off to a slow start in 1930.  By the end of May, he was batting only .230.  On May 30, 1930, the Yankees traded Koenig, along with future Hall-of-Famer Waite Hoyt to the Detroit Tigers for Ownie Carroll, Harry Rice, and Yats Wuestling.  Of the three, only Harry Rice, who played 100 games for the Yankees in 1930 (batting .298) had any significant impact on the team.  After the trade, Koenig bounced between four teams over the remaining six years of his career, but during that time he influenced one pennant race and, in an indirect way, one of the most legendary moments in the history of baseball.

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NY Yankees in WWII

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The following is an excerpt from a book, The Least Among Them, I am writing about the Yankees that is currently in development:

Over five hundred Major League baseball players enlisted or were drafted into the United States Armed Forces during World War II.  Of course, not all of these players saw combat or dangerous action.  In fact, during the war years there was some criticism that star players, being very athletic, were not more involved in combat.  This certainly wasn’t true of all big league players.  Former (and future) professional baseball players were present at most of the important engagements of the war.  This includes numerous players who wore the Yankee pinstripes.  The following list summarizes some of the battlefield action faced by Yankees players in World War II.

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The Messages We Send

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Last Saturday I went out for a long run.  It’s one of the pleasures of spring time…getting outside in the warm air and enjoying the struggle of covering mile after mile after mile. 

As I ran, I started to notice something very interesting that we most often take little notice of – traffic signs.

As a society we seem to have a fascination with traffic signs.  It is as if we love them or at least feel the need to put them all over the place.  Once I noticed how many there are, I couldn’t help but be amazed.  They are literally everywhere. 

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The Mystery Tour

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This is the third installment of a three part series that discussed the creative competition between the Beatles and the Beach Boys in the mid-1960’s.

Please click here for Part One – Getting Better

Please click here for Part Two – The Power of the Individual

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Ramanujan!

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It has been said, although I would hardly claim this as an absolute fact, that a person only will need to read a year’s worth of my blog posts to learn, as much, or more than any traditional four year program at Harvard University or Trinity College in Cambridge.  

It has been said, although, I have never had the theory tested, that readers of this blog will see their IQs grow by no fewer than 25 points over the course of a calendar year.

Mind you, these are just claims with no definitive proofs.  Because we’d need proof.  Or so they told Srinivasa Ramanujan.  But, alas! I am getting ahead of myself.

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