QUARANTINE BLOG # 141

August 18, 2020

I wrote yesterday about Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman being struck in the temple (August 16, 1920) by a pitched ball, and dying 12 hours later.  A blog reader asked me when the current style of protective helmets became mandatory.  Research turned up some interesting facts about baseball head gear.

After Chapman was killed, an ad for a leather batting helmet appears in a trade journal.  There is no evidence of this helmet ever being worn in a big league game.

1953: Pirates general manager Branch Rickey, arranges for the company to produce a lightweight batting helmet and mandates that it be worn by Pirates players.

1971: Batting helmets are made mandatory for all new MLB players, but veterans are permitted to keep wearing the plastic insert beneath their caps.

1978: Pirates outfielder Dave Parker fractures his cheek in a collision with Mets catcher John Stearns and returns to action wearing a hockey goalie mask.

1983: Earflapped batting helmets become mandatory for new players, but veterans are allowed to keep going flapless if they choose.

2000: Red Sox third baseman Gary Gaetti, the last player to wear a non-earflapped batting helmet, retires. The flap-free era ends.

👉  Speaking of baseball, the San Diego Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. is off to an amazing start in 2020’s short season.  However, the “unwritten rules” of the game caught up to him when he apparently missed a take sign on a 3-0 pitch with the bases loaded and blasted his first career grand slam with the score 10-3 https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1295566899334598656.

The victimized pitcher, Texas Rangers’ Juan Nicasio, was replaced on the mound by Ian Gibaut, who promptly delivered a pitch behind the back of the next Padres’ batter, Manny Machado https://twitter.com/DannyVietti/status/1295568356490108929.  “There’s a lot of unwritten rules that are constantly being challenged in today’s game.  I didn’t like it, personally,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said.  “You’re up by seven in the eighth inning; it’s typically not a good time to swing 3-0.  I don’t think we liked it as a group.”

👉  Contrast that with Mickey Mantle’s next-to-last home run https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdl6ABq6E3w.  HR # 535 pushed Mickey past the Philadelphia Phillies’ Jimmie Foxx into second place behind Babe Ruth.  The Detroit Tiger’s Denny McLain was ahead 6-0.  He would finish the season with 31 wins against only 6 losses – since 1904 only 21 pitchers have recorded 30 or more wins, and none since McLain (In 1884, Old Hoss Radbourn, pitching for the Providence Grays put up one of baseball’s unbreakable records: 60-12).

The year was 1968, and although he did not officially announce his retirement until March 1, 1969, it was one of baseball’s worst kept secrets that the ‘68 season would be Mantle’s last.  When Mickey came up for his last at bat of the game, Denny called time out, and told his catcher, Bill Freehand, “Let’s let him hit one.  This is probably his last game in Detroit.”

Mickey asked Freehand, “Did I hear him right?”  Freehand replied in the affirmative, but not completely trusting McLain, he took the first pitch for a called strike.  He then popped the second pitch foul and out of play.  On the third pitch, Mantle launched the ball into the upper deck.  As he rounded third, Mickey looked at Denny and was rewarded with a big wink.

The next batter up was Joe Pepitone, and seeing what was going on, he motioned to McLain to groove one to him.  McLain threw the next pitch being Pepitone and knocked him down.

👉  Yesterday I wrote that Jeremy Brett, who played Freddy Eynsford-Hill and Sherlock Holmes, among many parts, was offered the roll of James Bond when Sean Connery decided to retire from the roll of 007.  Let’s go take a closer look at the spy  with a license to kill.

To start, we need to go back to 1939 and a World War II operation called Operation Barclay, and the 1939 Trout memo, written by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, and his personal assistant, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming.  With the approval of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill and the military commander in the Mediterranean, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the plan – called Operation Mincemeat when it was put into operation in 1943 – was to transport a body to the southern coast of Spain by submarine and releasing it close to shore.  The body would be dressed in military garb and carry “secret” papers which would have the effect of misleading the German military command.

While working for Britain’s Naval Intelligence Division during, Ian Fleming was also involved in planning Operation Goldeneye, a plan to monitor Spain after a possible alliance between Francisco Franco and the Axis powers, and to undertake sabotage operations.  Fleming later used the name “Goldeneye” for his Jamaican home where he wrote the James Bond stories.

Fleming had first mentioned to friends during the war that he wanted to write a spy novel, an ambition he achieved with Casino Royale.  He started writing the book at Goldeneye on February 17, 1952 (your favorite blogger’s 5th birthday).  His  manuscript was typed his secretary on whom the character Miss Moneypenny was partially based.  On April 13, 1953 Casino Royale was released in the UK.  Three print runs were needed to cope with the demand.

The novel, of course, centers on the exploits of James Bond, an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6.  Bond is also known by his code number, 007, and was a commander in the Royal Naval Reserve (as was Fleming).  Fleming took the name for his character from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, an expert on Caribbean birds.  Fleming later told the ornithologist’s wife, “this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born.”

In June 1961 Fleming sold a six-month option on the film rights to his published and future James Bond novels to Harry Saltzman who formed the production company Eon Productions along with Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, and after an extensive search, they hired Sean Connery on a six-film deal.  To date, there are 27 Bond films.  2020’s No Time to Die has had its release delayed due to the coronavirus.  Only 2 of the 27 have not been produced by Eon Productions: Casino Royale in 1967 starring David Niven, and Never Say Never Again with Sean Connery playing the roll he said he would never repeat.

Tomorrow, we will return to Bondage with the movies and the actors.

👉  Today’s close is from Praying the Psalms, by Eugene Peterson.

“The earth has yielded its increase;
   God, our God, has blessed us.
May God continue to bless us;
   Let all the ends of the earth revere him” (Psalm 67:6-7).

Blessings are not bribes that God uses to get us to serve him; they are experiences that people have when God saves them.  The person immersed in God’s salvation finds life overflowing with the blessings of God’s creation.

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