Some pitchers developed the knuckleball pitch as one of their primary pitches. Some of the better known knuckleballers included the following pitchers. They are listed with the years they played.
1905-1920 Eddie Cicotte
1933-1953 Emil “Dutch” Leonard
1952-1972 Hoyt Wilhelm
1961-1978 Wilbur Wood
1962-1978 Jim Bouton
1964-1987 Phil Niekro
1967-1988 Joe Niekro
1970-1994 Charlie Hough
1983-1999 Tom Candiotti
1992-2011 Tim Wakefield
1997-1999 Kirt Ojala
2001-2017 R. A. Dickey
Among batters facing knuckleballers: Lonnie Smith, Reggie Smith (no relation), Gary Gaetti, and Al Kaline were the most effective at scoring hits in the last 75 years. (Lonnie was +424 when facing Phil Niekro.)
Smith is the most common last name in United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
Joe Niekro hit one career home run. Naturally, his homer came when facing his big brother Phil, on May 29, 1976.
(Tying the two simul-posts together):
Liam Hendriks, a native of Perth, Australia, is a relief pitcher with the Chicago White Sox of the American League. Henrdriks, who won the AL Reliever of the Year Award in 2020 and 2021, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma at the beginning of 2023; after undergoing several months of treatment, he rejoined the White Sox, and resumed pitching in late May.
Unlike Joe Niekro, Hendriks does not throw a knuckleball, and has never hit a home run in MLB.
Disregard
In play —
The Port Arthur massacre was a mass shooting that occurred on 28 April 1996 at Port Arthur, a tourist town in the Australian island of Tasmania. 35 were killed and 23 were wounded. The murdered were aged 3 to 72. The single shooter used a Colt AR-15 in .223 / 5.56 NATO and an SLR, the L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle, in 7.62×51mm NATO.
The massacre quickly led to the 1996 Australia NFA, the National Firearms Agreement, passed only 12 days after the murders. The NFA placed tight controls on semi- and fully automatic weapons and included a gun buy-back provision.
Australia’s gun laws changed fundamentally. In two federally funded gun buybacks and voluntary surrenders and State Governments’ gun amnesties before and after the Port Arthur Massacre, more than a million firearms were collected and destroyed, possibly a third of the national stock.
A person must have a firearm license to possess or use a firearm. License holders must demonstrate a “genuine reason” (which does not include self-defense) for holding a firearm license and must not be a “prohibited person”. All firearms must be registered by serial number to the owner, who must also hold a firearms license.
A study found that there were no mass shooting deaths of five or more in Australia from 1997 through 2006, though the authors note that it is impossible to prove the agreement was the cause.
Two other shootings took place, in 2018 and 2019.
2018 Osmington shooting — The Osmington shooting was a familicide in Osmington, Western Australia, on 11 May 2018, in which Peter Miles, a 61-year-old retired high school farm manager, shot dead his wife, daughter, and four grandchildren, before calling police and then committing suicide. It was the worst shooting incident in Australia since the Port Arthur massacre of 1996.
2019 Darwin shooting — On 4 June 2019, a mass shooting occurred in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. The Northern Territory Police confirmed that four people were killed in the incident and another one was injured. A 45-year-old man, Benjamin Glenn Hoffmann, was arrested and subsequently convicted for murder and manslaughter.
The Northern Territory of Australia has an area of over 520,000 square miles, about twice the size of Texas. However, it has a population of only about 249,000 (compared to 30 million in Texas.) Over half of the population lives in Darwin, the capital city.
Darwin was originally settled as Palmerston before changing their name in 1911. Darwin, and the surrounding area of Port Darwin, were named after English naturalist Charles Darwin, a passenger on the HMS Beagle as it surveyed the coast of Western Australia and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania).
The HMS Beagle sailed with Charles Darwin on its second voyage, for just under five years, from December 1831 to October 1836, under captain Robert FitzRoy. FitzRoy had taken over command of the ship on its first voyage after the previous captain, Pringle Stokes, committed suicide.
Pringle Stokes was 35 on the Beagle’s first voyage when it encountered harsh winter conditions in the Strait of Magellan. Overcome with depression, Stokes attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head. The bullet remained in his skull but Stokes remained conscious and coherent. Gangrene set in, and Stokes finally died 11 days later.
Many years later Robert FitzRoy also suffered from depression, and he committed suicide in 1865. FitzRoy did not try shooting himself in the head. Instead, he died by cutting his throat with a razor.
Pringles is a brand of potato-based snacks, originally introduced by Procter & Gamble in 1968. P&G spent over a decade developing Pringles, in order to address consumer complaints about traditional potato chips being greasy and broken – food scientists developed a uniformly-shaped chip (the shape is a “hyperbolic paraboloid”), made of a fried potato-based dough.
Due to Pringles being made from a dough, rather than from sliced potatoes, other food companies successfully petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to not allow P&G to refer to Pringles as “potato chips.” As a result, they are labeled as “potato crisps.”
The Iowa-class battleships are all uniformly-shaped battleships. There are four that were built:
BB-61 USS Iowa
BB-62 USS New Jersey
BB-63 USS Missouri
BB-64 USS Wisconsin
Two more were planned but never completed, because WWII ended:
USS Kentucky
USS Illinois
The four that were built were identical in size, however, in 1956 the bow of the Wisconsin was damaged from a collision with the USS Eaton DD-510, a Fletcher-class destroyer. In repairing the Wisconsin’s bow, a piece from the unfinished USS Kentucky was grafted onto Wisconsin. As a result the Wisconsin became about one foot longer than the original.
Therefore the USS Wisconsin is the largest battleship ever built for the US Navy. By about one foot.
All four of the commissioned Iowa-class battleships have been stricken from Naval rolls, but still exist as museum ships at various locations. The Iowa is on display in San Pedro (CA), the New Jersey lies at Camden in her namesake state of New Jersey, the Missouri is currently moored at Pearl Harbor (HI), and the Wisconsin is berthed at Nauticus, a maritime-themed science center and museum in Norfolk (VA).
-“BB”-
The Los Angeles class of submarines are nuclear-powered fast attack submarines (SSN) in service with the United States Navy. Also known as the 688 class after the hull number of lead vessel USS Los Angeles (SSN-688), 62 were built from 1972 to 1996, the latter 23 to an improved 688i standard. As of 2022, 26 of the Los Angeles class remain in commission—more than any other class in the world—and they account for more than half of the U.S. Navy’s 50 fast attack submarines.
Submarines of this class are named after American towns and cities, such as Albany, New York; Los Angeles, California; and Tucson, Arizona, with the exception of USS Hyman G. Rickover, the “father of the nuclear Navy.”
The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian honor bestowed by the US Congress, and it is awarded for distinguished achievements and contributions by individuals or institutions. The Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom are the highest civilian awards in the US.
Hyman Rickover is one of only four people who have been awarded two Congressional Gold Medals.
Hyman Rickover, known as the ‘father of the nuclear Navy’, was likely the most influential innovator to ever serve, advancing Naval warship technology by huge leaps. Rickover’s total of 63 years of active duty service make him the longest-serving naval officer, as well as the longest-serving member of the U.S armed forces in history.
An interesting story about the guy. He apparently asked that a bunch of grapes be placed in his stateroom on whatever ship he was visiting. As the story goes, there was never any trace of them after he left: no seeds, no stems. Could be a “sea story”, but who knows.
I knew a guy who was interviewed for nuke duty by Rickover, who tried to interview every potential officer wanting to serve in “his” nuclear navy. The guy found him to be arrogant and abrasive, and he ended up turning down the assignment.
Excellent athletes who attended Annapolis include David Robinson (USNA 1983-1987), and Roger Staubach (USNA 1961-1964). Their nicknames were inspired by the Navy and were, respectively, The Admiral and Captain Comeback.
Late in his NFL career, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach started a commercial real estate business, the Staubach Company. The company proved to be successful, and was Staubach’s primary focus after he retired from the NFL following the 1979 season.
In 2008, Staubach sold the business to Jones Lang Lasalle for $613 million, and he became an executive with Jones Lang Lasalle until his retirement in 2018.
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Danny White took over the reins after Roger Staubach retired after the 1979 season.
It took Staubach’s retirement in order for the San Francisco 49ers to finally advance to the Super Bowl, in the 1981 NFL season. White was the Cowboys’ QB in the game and play known as “The Catch”. That is one of the NFL’s most famous plays in its history.
The New England Patriots have the most Super Bowl appearances, with 11. The Cowboys, Steelers, and Broncos each have 8 appearances. The 49ers have 7, while seven other teams have 5, including the last two champions, the Chiefs and the Rams.