71 Wins to be Top 1,000: Amos Rusie has 246 Career Wins

    I have paid attention to baseball and many of the statistics from it since the 1970s. By then the sport had a pretty robust history. There were legendary names, always. Reggie Jackson was earning his status as legend when I was watching. Like Pete Rose and Johnny Bench of nearby Cincinnati.  Before them there were others, many names. Aaron, Mays, Mantle, DiMaggio, Berra, Gibson (there was more than one, one of the Negro Leagues, too), Koufax, Robinson... I leave out many. We all know the Bambino, Babe Ruth.

    Home runs and hits get a lot of attention and renown. I pay those numbers there due, watching some current players rise through the historic lists and surpass their way into elite status. Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, Juan Soto. These guys are doing great things in the context of the game where history and stats intertwine. Some write books and poetry about it.

    Win totals in pitching have become a more elusive statistic deeper into the 21st century than it used to be for the first hundred years of the game. I like to see certain hurlers advance in the career wins in number of their career accomplishments. But as some know, it is harder than ever to get credited those wins in the modern game. Pitchers throw less, relievers come in much more, and the wins that were attributed more in the 1960s or back in the early 1900s to the starting pitchers, like what happened with Cy Young or so many others, does not come as much. A great pitcher of 1910 could much more readily accrue a few hundred wins than now. Today in the game even great pitchers may only get a hundred or so total career wins. 

    71 wins will get a pitcher in the top 1,000 of all time. There are about 30 current pros with the 71 or more career victories. Only a few have north of 200 wins recorded at present. Those are Justin Verlander (246), Zach Greinke (224), Maz Scherzer (208), and Clayton Kershaw (206). Adam Wainwright is right at the door with 198. It looks good for all of them to make the Hall of Fame, which is a hard club to join. Some of the greatest pitchers and position players of all time do not make it. Especially a select few who gambles (Pete Rose) or were caught using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs).

    At win total 246 with Verlander is a guy named Amos Rusie, who only competed a total of 10 years.

    His stats will be included below. He pitched for the Indianapolis Hoosiers in 1889, a team that I did not know existed. Then he was quickly part of the New York Giants most of his tenure; he did his last year with the Cincinnati Reds, starting two games and going 0-1 at age 30. He was basically done at age 27, not recording any games when he was 28 and 29. At 27, his last full season, he went 20-11. Pretty good. He did make the Hall of Fame after only those 10 years of competition, mostly from ages 18-27. He did lose a high of 34 games in 1890, at age 19. He won 29 that season, which is much more than any modern amazing game winner in one year of the modern era. Twenty wins is enough to get a Cy Young (best pitcher) in this day and age. More than twenty wins in one year is really hard to do now.

    Rusie's best win year was 36 in 1894, as part of a string of four 30 plus win seasons.

    As a Giant of the Big Apple, I am sure that this man was lauded and celebrated so much where a modern-looking game was becoming a bigger part of the American world. Before Ruth made the game the game of the long ball, we had Cy Young and Ty Cobb, Cap Anson and Honus Wagner. A pitcher of over 500 career wins, and hitters who did not hit so many homers, but likely got more career triples than long balls. The game has changed. Home runs are the most vital stats, triples are elusive, and wins are really hard to come by.

    I know Scherzer should have 100 more, I believe, because the lack of run support and numerous times pulled for early relief has cost him many good decisions.

    And we have Rusie of the 19th century sitting on 246 career wins, maybe in a three man rotation in the 1890s. Times do change. Incidentally, he is from Mooresville, Indiana, a town on the way to the Indianapolis Airport for me growing up, a town police known for doling out speeding tickets, of which I have earned one in 1994 or so. 

    That is a bit about Amos. And baseball. History and perspective.

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	GF	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	BK	WP	BF	ERA+	FIP	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9	SO/W	Awards
1889	18	IND	NL	12	10	.545	5.32	33	22	11	19	1	0	225.0	246	181	133	12	116		109	9	0	9	1036	77	4.40	1.609	9.8	0.5	4.6	4.4	0.94
1890	19	NYG	NL	29	34	.460	2.56	67	62	5	56	4	1	548.2	436	300	156	3	289		341	26	0	36	2379	134	3.47	1.321	7.2	0.0	4.7	5.6	1.18
1891	20	NYG	NL	33	20	.623	2.55	61	57	4	52	6	1	500.1	391	244	142	6	262		337	18	1	17	2167	123	3.02	1.305	7.0	0.1	4.7	6.1	1.29
1892	21	NYG	NL	32	31	.508	2.84	65	62	3	59	2	0	541.0	410	290	171	7	270		304	12	0	24	2314	113	3.04	1.257	6.8	0.1	4.5	5.1	1.13
1893	22	NYG	NL	33	21	.611	3.23	56	52	4	50	4	1	482.0	451	260	173	15	218		208	16	0	26	2111	143	4.24	1.388	8.4	0.3	4.1	3.9	0.95
1894	23	NYG	NL	36	13	.735	2.78	54	50	4	45	3	1	444.0	426	228	137	10	200		195	5	0	10	1910	188	4.61	1.410	8.6	0.2	4.1	4.0	0.98
1895	24	NYG	NL	23	23	.500	3.73	49	47	2	42	4	0	393.1	384	248	163	9	159		201	7	0	10	1690	124	4.12	1.381	8.8	0.2	3.6	4.6	1.26
1897	26	NYG	NL	28	10	.737	2.54	38	37	1	35	2	0	322.1	314	143	91	6	87		135	10	0	6	1336	163	3.63	1.244	8.8	0.2	2.4	3.8	1.55
1898	27	NYG	NL	20	11	.645	3.03	37	36	1	33	4	1	300.0	288	149	101	6	103		114	9	0	13	1261	116	3.39	1.303	8.6	0.2	3.1	3.4	1.11
1901	30	CIN	NL	0	1	.000	8.59	3	2	0	2	0	0	22.0	43	25	21	1	3		6	0	0	2	109	38	3.38	2.091	17.6	0.4	1.2	2.5	2.00

 The Daughter that I do not Blog About Enough*...

    First of all, in my defense: I used to have two blogs with FoxSports.com from 2006 (started the last few days of 2005, after returning to California from Chile right before New Year's) until sometime in 2009. Two aught-aught-nine, that inauspicious year, was the last time that I had access to them, and then FoxSports deceptively wiped them out. I curse them! They did not properly inform me or us of the blogicide that would occur. That is my word for it.

    Some of my posts in edclinch'sit and papaclinchsaints blogs may have touched on that girl of whom I speak now. I would gladly pay someone to retrieve them for me. I have toyed with the Way Back Machine to find them, but no dice so far. So, there is that. Having been born between 2003 and 2005, it is very possible that among my 200 or so entries, the daughter in question may have been a part. Bet! As, the kids say.

    Also, I have jobs in my everyday life that I perform where I am not trying to advertise too much about myself, or things related to my children. Luckily, I am not Mexican, where my life and my family would be under much more threat in general, and possibly specifically as to what I work in. I try not to name my children by name too much. I do not want them to be targeted by scammers and thugs other such low-life vermin of the world. Of them there are plenty. The best thing about getting regular telework at home is blocking all the dumb, misdirected scam calls that bombard our landline phone. 

    But anyway, back to talking about this daughter, known as FNU. (First Name Unknown. It really is known, but not for this forum.)

    She is great, she is doing well in college, she is going abroad and will learn some languages, and I could go on some more.

    I read her college application letter the other day, and it says some good stuff.

    Why not publish her words?

    Ever since I was little, my mom has asked my siblings and I what we think about when we don't have to think about anything. This question always bothered me because I could never categorize my thoughts and passions into one subject, and it overwhelmed me. As I began seriously pondering my future, the answer to this formidable question finally came to me. My mind goes to people. The people around me, close to me, far away, even across the world. People I have known for years, people I have never met, people I want to meet. Faces, memories, and thoughts of future relations constantly run through my head. 

    The biggest tragedy in my life is that I cannot meet and personally know everyone. I want to learn everything; their stories, their fears, their cultures, the sound of their laugh. I cannot begin to explain the comfort I find in the fact that after this life I have all of eternity to get to know each of my spiritual brothers and sisters. Even with this consolation, I wish to spend my mortal life getting to see as much of the world as possible. I want to get to know others, and not only learn from them, but teach them what I am lucky enough to know about this life; about what came before, and what is coming after. When I am with other people, I honestly lose all track of time. Days go by in a happy flash when I am surrounded by a crowd, discussing and laughing the hours away. Long work shifts seem like minutes when I get to talk to customers, and days spent with friends and family seem to pass by in a blink.

     Not only do I want to know people, I want to help them. After I leave a social event, I spend hours absentmindedly theorizing ways to serve and stay connected with those I interacted with. Growing up as a mediator between friends, peacekeeper to siblings, and a support to parents and teachers has provided practice. I look to the future with excitement, not only for all the wonders and people I will get to experience, but for all the positive impacts I plan to make.

    Yep. She said a lot.

    I will say more later. I shall!

Rhythm and Soul: NBA Life and Meaning Pt. 3

 Rhythm and Soul: NBA Life and Meaning Pt. 3: Upward Struggle 

Overcoming and upward struggle may seem synonymous, but I wanted to differentiate between overcoming in larger senses versus upward struggle, which I think of as rising up economically to a better standard of living, like surviving in a world of no money, when it comes to achieving the arduous goal of making the NBA and financial prosperity, the latter upward struggle being more of establishing a presence and a value in a place of relative wealth from the backdrop of poverty, in many cases oppression, in this case belonging on the court of basketball and its highest echelons.

Not all who won the riches of the Association were able to hold on to their earnings. See Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, formerly Lou Alcinder.  Many other great and not so great players, black and white, lost their money earned as an amazing money earner from the league.

There is the upward struggle to belong on the court and contribute and be paid, and there is the continuous fight for status, relevance, and the bottom line financial stability afterward. Many are hard luck cases, some have done very well since.

The United States has a history of human bondage which affects us till today, deep into the 20th century.  Rural, suburban, and urban youth and adults have a respite from drudgeries and stifling with the freedom and relative autonomy of the basketball court, outdoors, indoors, in the various venues played across the world.

I would wager that most of the foreign players that have made it huge in the NBA did not come from the poorest or worst of life circumstances, although one could argue in non-American settings there were plenty of economic struggles, especially in Africa and a lot of Latin America.

I did not finish this as of 19 February 2020.

I will push it out now....

A Good Family and Holiday Story

 Now about our daughter Torrey . . . many years ago when she was only three years old, she had a memorable Christmas. I had been deployed in Afghanistan as a brand-new Aircraft Commander flying the venerable C-130 Hercules. It was the longest separation our family had experienced up until that point in our military service. I was scheduled to return home in late January, but the Squadron was relocating to another Air Base and they wouldn’t be needing as many pilots at the new location. My Squadron Commander asked me if I would be willing to “sacrifice” and go home early from the deployment—it was a tough call but someone had to do it. The Squadron Commander told me he had all the volunteers he needed so it was fine for someone like me with a young family to return a few weeks early to be home for Christmas. I told him that I was going to surprise my wife and family by not telling them that I was coming home early. My Squadron Commander laughed and said he would normally discourage that but since he knew our family well, he would help keep it a surprise.

 

I emailed my wife Chalon and fabricated the story that I wouldn’t be able to email or call for the next several days since our unit was relocating to another country in theater. She understood but was sad since our three little girls would miss talking to their Dad during the holiday.

 

I coordinated with my uncle in Bountiful, where Chalon and my girls were staying, to come and pick me up from the airport. My flight home arrived late into Salt Lake City International and my uncle secretly picked me up. Since my wife and kids were already asleep, he suggested that I sleep in the room next to the girls and we would wait until morning to surprise the family. Do you know how hard it was to sleep in the next room after not seeing your family for months? The plan was to have Chalon and the girls go upstairs for breakfast and then my uncle would sneak downstairs with a large box to wrap me up as a present. Everything went according to plan. With my family upstairs, I slipped into the box and my uncle gift-wrapped the box and tied on a giant red ribbon. He went upstairs and asked Chalon and the girls if they would like to open a Christmas present before breakfast. The girls obliged and they hurried downstairs with Chalon in tow and surrounded the large, beautifully wrapped present by the Christmas tree. My uncle encouraged the girls to open the present and they immediately started tearing away the paper. When they opened the top of the box, Torrey (3 years old) peered down into the box and excitedly exclaimed—“it’s a man!”

 

After reflecting on the laughter and joy that followed, I thought on the significance of that moment. Torrey’s excitement of receiving a gift was supplanted by true joy when she realized that it was not just a man but her father. Likewise, we celebrate this season not just for a man…but rather the coming of the promised Messiah, our Savior and Redeemer, even the very Son of God.  When we more fully understand and realize the significance of His birth, we can more fully revel in the peace and joy this brings. “And he cometh into the world that he may save all men” (2 Nephi 9:21) It is my hope that through our examples, service and support, we can help our brothers and sisters all over the world to realize the significance of the Savior in our lives. I wish you and your families a blessed season of joy and happiness as we remember Christ and share His gospel.

 

Merry Christmas and Godspeed!

 

Your Brother,

C. Todd Linton

Director, Military Relations

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

 I Read my Third Complete Michener Book! It took me a few decades...

    I am confident that this is the book recommended to me by Pete H. back in high school in the 1980s. I started it maybe 4 or 5 years ago, finally? I have had two copies of it, one paperback and the other hardcover. I taped up and repaired the paperback, and I finished it. 1235 pages. I took it overseas and across the United States in 2021.

    I first read a smaller book by him, Journey, back in 2005. Then I finished and completed The Source, well over a thousand pages, a few years ago. During the 2020 pandemic?

    I have started and not gone on very well with others by him: Mexico (while living in L.A. twenty years ago), Chesapeake, Iberia... He is not the greatest author, but he is a an amazing one, no question. Your brain increases by reading him.

    Thanks Pete, for your suggestion almost four decades ago!

    South Africa did what it did. May the Africans of that great country continue to be blessed under the covenant of God's chosen.

    Grateful to live this long, have the time available, and have a resource like James Michener to delve into.

    I have a book to add myself at this point in my life, mostly to do with Afghanistan. I wonder what he would think of it?

    We may know someday...

 Forgotten Arabs, Arabic Language and their Stakes and Lands

    I recently spent the greater part of a year in the Middle-East, in an Arabic speaking nation. I have been trying to speak Arabic, give or take, since 1992. It has been a while of attempting and interacting for me. Thirty-one years? Not much in the scheme of things, but the majority of my life. I got back from there, very close to the Persian or Arabic Gulf, last year. More recently I re-took the Arabic listening and reading test, a standard affair that some people ace. I usually do not. I failed again a little over a week ago; this costs me some money not earned that I could be doing. My motivation and pride stung once again. I hear things, possibly for the 10th time in my life, that I guess I am not understanding. A friend of mine speaks native Arabic because his mother is Tunisian, and I struggle to understand him. Perhaps some of it is its own dialect. But a lot of the blame is on me. Not doing enough.  No. La. La means no in arabiya. 

    I am not as bad as the rest of the world, though.  

    And I continue to try. Sort of. I do not try hard enough, really. I admit this.

    Most of the people with me in the Middle-East did not bother to learn any more Arabic. They are Americans, and have no use for that tongue. English only.

    Yep, that is enough for most Americans. Even for those of us living in other lands. Why learn their languages and customs, cultural nuances and unique views on the world?

    The worst of the Arabic-based terrorist groups have been pummeled and while not quite rooted out, the highest value targets have been neutralized, to the West's satisfaction. On to Africa, where much of it is not as Arab. But still much of it is.