Pope Francis and the city of San Francisco both take their names from St. Francis of Assisi.
New San Francisco Giants pitcher Johnny Cueto, born in the Dominican Republic, won his Giants debut game last week at Milwaukee. The very first Dominican-born Giants pitcher was Juan Marichal in 1960. Marichal’s nickname was, appropriately, “the Dominican Dandy.”
Several other Dominican-born pitchers have pitched for the San Francisco Giants. These include:
1960-1973: Juan Marichal
1960-1965: Matty Alou (1 game only)
1995 only: Sergio Valdéz
2002-2003: Manny Aybar
2004-2009: Merkin Valdéz
2010-2011: Ramón Ramírez (also 2013)
2016-???: Johnny Cueto
In 1965, outfielder Mateo Alou pitched two scoreless innings in a game for San Francisco Giants.
Johnny Cueto started today for his home debut against the Dodgers. It is his second game of the season, and second game for his new club, the San Francisco Giants.
MLB pitchers born in the Dominican Republic: http://www.baseball-reference.com/bio/D-R-_born.shtml#pitch
The town of San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, is best known for its incredible production of baseball talent (mainly because almost every kid there plays almost every possible minute of the day, trying to make it). Players from the town, population only about 195,000, with at least 400 games played or 250 innings pitched in the Major Leagues include: Manny Alexander, Joaquín Andújar, George Bell, Daniel Cabrera, Robinson Canó, Héctor Carrasco, Rico Carty, Luis Castillo, Starlin Castro, Jesús Colomé, Johnny Cueto, Mariano Duncan, Tony Fernández, Pepe Frías, Pedro González, Pedro Guerrero, José Jiménez, Manny Jiménez, Manuel Lee, Josías Manzanillo, Guillermo Mota, José Offerman, Alexi Ogando, Rafael Ramírez, Ben Rivera, Juan Samuel, Juan Castillo, Julio Santana, Alfonso Soriano, Sammy Sosa, Fernando Tatís, Salomón Torres, José Valverde.
While the term “People’s Republic” has become associated with Communist-type states such as the People’s Republic of China, at least two non-communist states use the term for their formal names": The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria (Founded 1962) and the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (Founded 1971).
The Concert for Bangladesh was the name for two 1971 benefit concerts organised by former Beatles lead guitarist George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, playing to a total of 40,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The shows were organised to raise international awareness and fund relief efforts for refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide. Featured performers included Harrison, fellow ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and the band Badfinger. In addition, Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan – both of whom had ancestral roots in Bangladesh – performed an opening set of Indian classical music.
Bangladesh is sometimes called “the playground of seasons” because it has six separate seasons (not four), which it calls grismo (summer), barsha (rainy), sharat (autumn), hemanto (cool), sheet (winter), and bashonto (spring).
The flag of Japan is a red disc centered on a white field; the flag of Bangladesh is a red disc on a green field. For the latter flag, the disc is supposed to be slightly closer to the hoist and not centered.
In July 2010 the Congress of New Caledonia, a territory of France, voted in favour of a motion to fly the Kanak flag alongside the French tricolor in the territory. The Kanak flag has a yellow disc on it.
New Caledonia is home to the New Caledonian crow, a bird noted for its tool-making abilities, which rival those of primates. These crows are renowned for their extraordinary intelligence and ability to fashion tools to solve problems, and make the most complex tools of any animal yet studied apart from humans
The Stanley Works is a manufacturer of industrial **tools **and household hardware and provider of security products and locks headquartered in New Britain, Connecticut. Stanley Black & Decker is the result of the merger of Stanley Works and Black & Decker in 2010.
Stanley Tools was founded in 1843 by Frederick Stanley in New Britain CT. Their innovations include the steel tape measure, in 1931, the modern utility knife with replaceable blades, in 1936, and also the locking PowerLock tape measure, in 1963.
John Rowlands was the illegitimate son of a penniless mother in Wales who abandoned him to an orphanage and workhouse where he was physically and (per one biographer) sexually abused until he ran away and made his way to New Orleans by working as a ship’s boy. There he found employment with Henry Stanley, whose first name and surname he took. He fought for the South during the Civil War until captured when he chose induction into the Union Army rather than a PoW camp. He would ultimately achieve worldwide fame for the line “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
“Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
That was (apparently) uttered on 10 November 1871 in the town of Ujiji, Tanzania, along the eastern north shore of Lake Tanganyika. At that time, Dr. David Livingstone had lost contact with England and Europe for six years, and had been very ill for much of that time.
Livingstone had been on a quest for the source of the Nile River. He located Lake Ngami, Lake Malawi, and Lake Bangweulu for Europeans. Livingstone was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London and was made a Fellow of the society, with which he had a strong association for the rest of his life.
There are no Canadian teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs this year.
Woe Canada!
As we sing the anthem, (please pardon my edited, bolded last stanza):
*O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
Woe Canada, where are our hockey teams?
Woe Canada, where are our hockey teams?
*
In play:
The NHL playoff teams this year are, from strongest to weakest according to CBS Sports:
Wahington Capitals
Anaheim Ducks
Los Angeles Kings
Chicago Blackhawks
Pittsburgh Penguins
St. Louis Blues
Dallas Stars
Florida Panthers
San Jose Sharks
Tampa Bay Lightning
Nashville Predators
New York Rangers
Detroit Red Wings
Philadelphia Flyers
New York Islanders
Minnesota Wild
Yep, 16 teams, all from south of the border this year.
The last time there were no teams from Canada was in 1970. The playoff teams then were:
East
- Chicago Blackhawks
- Boston Bruins
- Detroit Red Wings
- New York Rangers
West
- St. Louis Blues
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Minnesota North Stars
- Oakland Seals
The Bruins swept the Blues to win the Cup.
The Oakland Seals were the California Golden Seals club, 1967-1976, that became the Cleveland Barons, 1976-1978, then merged with the Minnesota North Stars to become the Dallas Stars.
And finally… As of 2015, the Cleveland Barons remain the last franchise in the four major North American sports leagues to cease operations. Ohio would not have another NHL team until the Columbus Blue Jackets joined the league in 2000.
The Blue Jackets name for the Columbus, Ohio NHL team was selected because the name pays homage to Ohio’s contributions to American history. During the Civil War, Ohio contributed more of its population to the Union Army than any other state, while many of the Blue Coats worn by the Union soldiers were manufactured in Columbus.
Cool trivia. Here’s another NHL team whose name has a Civil War reference. This team is in Canada, too. Pretty cool.
The Calgary Flames are named after the fire resulting from the March to the Sea in the American Civil War by General William Tecumseh Sherman, in which Atlanta was nearly destroyed. The flames were in Atlanta from 1972-1980 before relocating to Calgary where they decided to keep the name.
A couple of other moved franchises that have misplaced names are the Utah Jazz (where I think the genre might actually be illegal), moved from New Orleans, and the Los Angeles Lakers, hundreds of miles from the nearest natural lake, moved from Minneapolis. The Sacramento Kings still carry the royalty flag, from Kansas City, where they fit in with the Royals, the Chiefs and the oldest of them, the Monarchs of baseball’s Negro Leagues. The crown originated from the logo of Kansas City-based Hallmark cards…
The first name Joyce is usually given to a female in the United States. However there have been some men named Joyce. American businessman Joyce Hall, 1891-1982 was one of those men. He founded Hallmark Cards after seeing the 1903 boom in popularity of post cards.
Joyce Kilmer, whose poem ‘Trees’ is one of the best known and most memorized in American schools, was killed by a sniper at the Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918. He was 31 years old.