French Guiana was one of five Guiana’s colonized by European countries. The other four being Spanish, British, Dutch and Portuguese.
The New York Mets’ team colors are orange and blue. These are the same colors as the Dutch East India Company, which colonized what is now New York City.
In addition to the fact that orange and blue were the colors of the Dutch East India Company (and which are on the New York City flag), the New York Mets (which began play in 1962) also selected those colors as they represented the colors of New York’s previous two National League teams: the Giants (orange) and the Dodgers (blue), which had both left the city for California after the 1957 season.
I did not know this interesting fact. Ignorance fought, once again!
In play:
In their first year of existence, the 1962 New York Mets finished with a record of 40 wins and 120 losses, and an astonishing 60 1/2 games out of first.
Seven years later, the Amazin’ Mets won the 1969 World Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles four games to one. Donn Clendenon, who was acquired in a mid-season trade by the Mets, was named the Series MVP.
Pitcher Nolan Ryan was drafted by the New York Mets in 1965 as the 295th overall pick in the draft. He was 18 years old. In 1966 when he was called up to the majors, he was 19 and was the second youngest player in the league. Ryan was a young 22 years old when he won his first championship with those Amazing Mets.
In an illustrious career that spanned 27 seasons and 4 teams (Mets, Astros, Angels, and Rangers), when he finally retired at the age of 46(!) after the 1993 season, that 1969 Mets season would be his only championship.
Just before his retirement, on 04 August 1993, the 46 year old Ryan pitched against the Chicago White Sox. He hit Robin Ventura with a pitch. When Ventura charged the mound, the old man grabbed him in a headlock and repeatedly pummeled the younger Ventura with punches to the head. Robin Ventura was born two years after Nolan Ryan was drafted by the Mets in 1965.
Nolan Ryan’s last pitch was in the Kingdome. It was a homerun to Dann Howitt.
Will Clark’s first at bat was on Opening Day of the 1986 season at the Houston Astrodome against Nolan Ryan. Clark, from Louisiana, had many family members in attendance. On his first major league swing he took Ryan deep, a 420-foot home run into the center-field bleachers, thus becoming the 50th major-league player to hit a round-tripper in his first plate appearance.
In his career Will Clark hit pretty well against Ryan. In 36 official at-bats, Clark hit .333 with 6 home runs.
John Patrick “Jack” Ryan Sr. rises over the course of his career from a Marine officer, US Naval Academy professor and CIA intelligence analyst to President of the United States over the course of Tom Clancy’s many novels. He has been played in various movies and TV shows by such actors as Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, Chris Pine and John Krasinski.
Star Wars was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning six competitive awards (all in technical and production categories), as well as a Special Achievement Award for sound engineer Ben Burtt.
The only nomination which the film received in the acting categories was for Sir Alec Guinness, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, though he lost to Jason Robards (for Julia).
According to mashable.com, the phrase “I have a bad feeling about this” or “I have a very bad feeling about this” is said in every Star Wars movie.
The phrase “I have a bad feeling about this” is apparently, at least according to the video above, not to be found in the three post-Return of the Jedi movies: The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
Or, at least, no one has yet put together a YouTube video with the phrase from the sequel trilogy.
YouTube was founded in 2005, by three former PayPal employees. The first video uploaded to YouTube, entitled “Me at the zoo,” features co-founder Jawed Karim, along with two elephants at the San Diego Zoo. The video is still viewable on YouTube.
YouTube TV was launched 5 years ago. It currently has over 5 million subscribers, but it’s only available in the US. For now.
The U.S. is the only country yet to have landed human beings on the Moon, although in 2006, China National Space Administration (CNSA) Director Sun Laiyan announced long-term plans for his country to do so, as well.
Sun Myung Moon (1920-2012) was a Korean religious leader who was also known for his business ventures and conservative politics. Born in what is now North Korea, he was imprisoned for five years for spying and was freed during the Korean War. He founded the Unification Church, which was known for its ‘Blessings Ceremonies’, which were often labelled as mass weddings. In 1992, over 2,000 couples were part of one of these ceremonies, held at Madison Square Garden.
Johnny Lee “Blue Moon” Odom was a pitcher for the Kansas City A’s, then the Oakland A’s, in the 1960s and 1970s. Odom was one of the A’s starting pitchers during their three consecutive championship seasons (1972-74). He received his nickname in childhood, given to him by a classmate who thought his round face reminded him of the moon.
The Oakland Athletics were one of the American League’s original and initial eight charter franchises when the league was formed in 1901 in its first year in Major League Baseball. The original franchises were the original Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Americans, the Chicago White Stockings, the Cleveland Blues, the Detroit Tigers, the original Milwaukee Brewers, the Philadelphia Athletics, and the original Washington Senators. Of those eight franchises, only four have remained in their original cities (Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit), and only one, the Detroit Tigers, has maintained their team name. The Chicago White Stockings shortened their name to the Chicago White Sox, which is very close to their original name but is not exactly the same.
Major League was a 1989 comedy film, depicting a fictionalized version of the Cleveland Indians baseball team.
During filming, stadium and game scenes were shot at Milwaukee County Stadium (home of the Milwaukee Brewers), as the production team was unable to shoot at Cleveland Municipal Stadium (the actual home of the Indians), due to scheduling issues.
Due to a late season snowstorm which dumped almost a foot of the white stuff on Cleveland’s Jacobs Park, the Cleveland Indians were unable to host their scheduled 2007 home opening series versus the Los Angeles Angels. Instead, MLB was forced to find an alternate site for the series, eventually settling on Milwaukee’s Miller Park – which had been constructed in the late 1990s as a replacement for Millwaukee County Stadium (the Brewers were opening their season on the road and were in Miami, so the stadium was available).
Even with less than a 24-hour notice, over 19,000 fans eventually made their way into the park for the first game of the three-game series, and signs seen in the crowd, such as one reading “JOBU NEEDS A REFILL”, as well as the playing of “Wild Thing” over the PA system when Indians’ relief pitcher Joe Borowski came on in the ninth inning to close out the game emphasized the “Major League” movie connection.
The Indians won the game, 7-6, and notched a second ‘W’ in the third game of the series.
-“BB”-
Left-handed pitcher Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams played for six teams in his career, beginning with the Texas Rangers in 1986 and ending with the Kansas City Royals in 1997. In 1993 he pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays. In game six of the series, with the Blue Jays leading the Series 3 games to 2, in the bottom of the 9th inning in Toronto the Phillies were leading 6-5. Williams allowed a walk to the leadoff hitter, Rickey Henderson, and he gave up a single to Paul Monitor. The next batter was Joe Carter and, on a 2-2 pitch, Carter hit a home run to win the game, 8-6, and the World Series championship. Besides being a historic and dramatic home run, it also had a famous call by the Blue Jays radio announcer, Tom Cheek, who said, “Touch ‘em all, Joe! You’ll never hit a bigger home run in your life!”
Carter’s home run was the second one to win a World Series in the bottom of the 9th. The first was hit by Bill Mazeroski of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1960 World Series to defeat the favored New York Yankees.