There have been only four pairs of baseball players whose names were reversals, including Billy Maharg and Moonlight Graham, whose lives had remarkable similarities. Maharg played only two games in MLB – one of them as an amateur strike-breaker for the Detroit Tigers when the team protested the suspension of Ty Cobb, and the other when he was the team bus driver for the Phillies, who suited him up for one inning of their final game of the season. Meanwhile, Graham’s entire MLB career consisted of a single inning, in which he never touched a ball or a bat. Both were portrayed as real-life characters in well-known movies: Burt Lancaster as Graham in “Field of Dreams” and Richard Edson as Maharg in “Eight Men Out”, for Maharg’s later involvement in the Black Sox scandal.
Paraphrasing Dr. Johnson?
In play:
Burt Lancaster’s character in the 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May, Gen. James Mattoon Scott, was based in part on Gens. Douglas MacArthur and Curtis LeMay.
Yes, indeed. Try to image Jim Henson’s mouth in a Kermit’s Yayyyyyy, or Frank Oz’s scrunched up like Miss Piggy’s.
In play: On August 13, 1990, Curtis Mayfield became paralyzed from the neck down when stage lighting equipment fell on him at an outdoor concert at Wingate Field in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York. Afterwards, though he was unable to play guitar, he continued to compose and sing. And, he directed the recording of his last album, New World Order. His vocals were painstakingly recorded, usually line-by-line, while lying on his back.
A New World Record was the sixth studio album by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), recorded in Munich and released in 1976.
Neil Armstrong took a recording of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, “From the New World”, which was heavily influenced by Negro spirituals, to the Moon on the Apollo 11 mission. The theme from the Largo was adapted into the spiritual-like song “Goin’ Home”, often mistakenly considered a folk song or traditional spiritual, by Dvořák’s pupil William Arms Fisher.
The Florida Keys consist of 1,700 islands and are composed of Key Largo limestone and coral.
The Overseas Highway is a 113-mile highway carrying U.S. Route 1 through the Florida Keys. Large parts of it were built on the former right-of-way of the Overseas Railroad, the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Completed in 1912, the Overseas Railroad was heavily damaged and partially destroyed in the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. The FEC was built by former Standard Oil magnate Henry Flagler, who was indirectly responsible for the modern building of St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, Palm Beach, and Miami by providing transportation and tourists for the luxury hotels he built there. Flagler could have remained as wealthy as his former business partner John D. Rockefeller, and late in life commented ruefully “I would have been a rich man if not for Florida”.
New York City’s first subway was built by inventor Alfred Beach using a pneumatic system that prevented issues with ventilation. The construction was kept quiet due to opposition from the city political leaders and wealthy landowners, and was completed in 58 days.
USN Cdr. Edward L. Beach commanded the first submerged circumnavigation of the world on USS Triton, roughly following Magellan’s route. He is perhaps better known for writing the novel Run Silent, Run Deep, inspired by his much-decorated WWII experiences. The movie starred Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster.
Interesting. Never heard that before. Was it just symbolic cargo, or could he and the other astronauts listen to it on the way (that is, was it on tape, and did they have a tape player?).
Nitpick: Beach was a captain, not a commander, by the time of the Triton’s 1960 cruise.
In play:
Beach Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. is named after Capt. Beach and his father, who was also a decorated naval officer.
IIRC from Armstrong’s autobiography, each crewmember could take a tape and yes, they had a tape player. He learned to love the work from playing it in his high school orchestra. He did have several other selections. IIRC from Collins’ autobio, his tape included the song “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon”.
Sen. and former Capt. John S. McCain III is the son and grandson of distinguished admirals also named John McCain. McCain Sr. and Jr. were the first father and son to each gain four stars. Sr. led the Fast Carrier Task Force, with operations off the Philippines and Okinawa, and air strikes against Formosa and the Japanese home islands. As CINCPAC, Jr. helped convince Nixon to start the Cambodia incursion.
A bullfight in Okinawa is a bout between two bulls, similar to Japanese sumo wrestling – only these contestants weigh as much as a ton. Bullfighting has been a pastime of farmers in the Ryukyu Islands as far back as the 17th century. Today, bullfights can be seen at any one of a dozen outdoor arenas on the main island of Okinawa most Sunday afternoons.
There are usually 10 bouts during a session. With a line tethered to a ring in its nose, each bull is accompanied into the ring by a team of four or five handlers. Only one handler at a time is permitted at the bull’s side during the fight. They’ll take turns handling the bull, depending on how long the match lasts. Some fights only last a few seconds. Others may last half an hour or more.
Benjamin Sisko, the main character on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (played by former Oberlin College student Avery Brooks), served aboard the USS Okinawa early in his Starfleet career.
Camp Butler is the US Marine Corps Base named after Smedley D. Butler and is an element of III MEF (“three MEF”), the third Marine Expeditionary Force. The 12th Marines are stationed there. They are one of the three artillery regiments in the Marine Corps. Camp Butler is at Okinawa.
Several justices of the Supreme Court of Canada served in the Canadian Royal Artillery Corps prior to their legal careers, including Chief Justice Dickson, Chief Justice Lamer, and Justices Ritchie and LeDain.
President Harry Truman, when he served in the US Army, was an artillery officer.
Harry Truman was the owner and caretaker of Mount St. Helens Lodge at Spirit Lake in the state of Washington. He notably refused all requests and police orders to evacuate in the face of the impending 1980 eruption, and he and his lodge disappeared under pyroclastic flow. Art Carney portrayed Truman in the docu-drama film St. Helens.
Yes, Harry died that day, 18 May 1980. In a volcanic eruption’s pyroclastic explosion, the volcanic debris can travel 400-500 MPH.
Quick note: the drive from Miami to Key West is beautiful, on that Overseas Highway.
Still in play:
NM, Bullit beat me to it.