Around The Horn

Canadian slugger will surpass Terry Puhl tonight for number two spot in games played

Toronto - Matt Stairs, St. John, New Brunswick’s version of the Energizer Bunny, just keeps going and going and going.

Tonight, assuming John Gibbons pencils him into the line-up versus the Boston Red Sox at Rogers Centre, Stairs will hike his career games played to 1532, one more than Melville, Saskatchewan’s Terry Puhl. Stairs will only trail Maple Ridge, BC’s Larry Walker in Major League games played by a Canadian, as Walker appeared in 1988 games over his 17-year career.

Stairs, in his 15th year in the bigs, isn’t just clinging on to notch milestones. A case can be made for him as the Blue Jays MVP of this season, as evidenced by his team leading .301 batting average and .571 slugging percentage, including 19 homeruns and 59 RBI in just 115 game appearances. He is hitting at a .319 clip in September, and is .333 over the last 30 days. Stairs has had numerous clutch hits for the Blue Jays throughout the season, and has contributed on the defensive side of the ball as well, playing in the outfield as well as a stellar first base, having made just six errors all season. He’s even stolen a pair of bases.

Rounding out the top ten Canucks in career games played are Jack Graney (St. Thomas, ON) with 1402, Jeff Heath (Fort William, ON) 1383, Moonie Gibson (London, ON) 1213, Frank O’Rourke (Hamilton, ON) 1131, Pop Smith (Digby, NS) 1112, Tip O’Neill (Woodstock, ON) 1054, and Bill Phillips (St. John, NB) with 1038.

Stairs holds the record for the most consecutive seasons with 100 or more games played by a Canadian with 11 (from 1997-2007), and is second in homeruns, third in RBI, doubles, triples, total bases and walks. He is fifth in career hits, at bats and runs.

Source: Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum.

“Hank Bauer is an emblem of a generation that helped shape the landscape of our country. He was a natural leader and a teammate in every sense of the word, and his contributions went well beyond the baseball field. His service to the Yankees, his country, and his family shows why I have been so privileged to call him a friend.” - George Steinbrenner (Press Release, 02/09/2007)

Move over SportsCenter, now there is a a new source for sports catch phrases, nicknames and jargon. The Sports Junkies Book of Trivia, Terms, and Lingo (October 2005, Taylor Trade Publishing) is the definitive book on the language of sports by celebrated sports author and journalist Harvey Frommer.

The prolific Frommer successfully fuses the common with the exotic, the arcane with the ordinary, the old with the new, and the poignant with the matter of fact. Admittedly, sports language comes and goes with the times, growing each year, changing in its attempts to describe the ever expanding world of athletics. In that vein, many of the words and terms defined here have become all but extinct in today’s vernacular, while others have become incorporated into the mainstream like “Say it ain’t so, Joe?”

Broken down by sport, Sports Junkies expounds a mind boggling number of entries in the sports vocabulary originating from clubhouses, media, rulebooks, and the bleachers. For any sports fan who ever wondered,where did that come from as they listened intently to play by play, tried to learn a new game, or to coach a kid in sports - -the descriptions here will not only define the words and terms, but give accurate historical relevance and acumen to each.

This book is a must have for any ESPN addicted, season ticket-holding, sports trivia buff that thought they knew it all. (Or a great tool for the sports journalist craving slang for a story or broadcast.)

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Harvey Frommer is the noted author of more than thirty seven books on sports, including the recent and bestselling Yankees VS Red Sox: The Great Rivalry. Frommer has a Ph.D. in Communications from NYU and teaches sports journalism and oral history at Dartmouth College. He lives in Lyme, New Hampshire.

Media Contact: Tracy Miracle ~ tmiracle@rowman.com
Book Details: October 2005 ~ 420 pages ~ 8 X 8
ISBN 1-58979-255-6 ~ $16.95 pb. ~ Taylor Trade Publishing
Distributed by National Book Network 1-800-462-6420

THE TY COBB MUSEUM WILL CELEBRATE THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GEORGIA PEACH’S MAJOR-LEAGUE DEBUT

On Saturday, August 27, 2005, The Ty Cobb Museum will host a special day celebrating this 100 year old event in the life of Tyrus Raymond Cobb. A Vintage Baseball Game will take place on a ball field adjacent to the original Cobb farm - Ty himself may have played on this field as a budding teenager. This Game will be complete with a traditional refreshment stand, a Bass Band, vintage costumes and horse drawn wagons as transportation to field from the Museum. A Silent Auction of Sports Memorabilia at the Museum, and the official release of the annual Ty Cobb Collectors Baseball Card will also held.

Admission to Event is FREE, with donations accepted. Refreshments will be provided by the Royston/Franklin Springs Rotary Club as a fund-raiser. Proceeds from Silent Auction, Baseball Card and admission donations will benefit the operation and further development of the Ty Cobb Museum.

For further details call 706-245-1825 or 706-245-1832. Or check online at the Ty Cobb Museum.

TORONTO, April 20, 2005: The place where Babe Ruth hit his first home run as a professional is well on the way to being recognized with signage telling of the feat. Heritage Toronto, a charitable agency of the City of Toronto responsible for presenting heritage programming, has approved an application for commemorative plaques on the site where Ruth hit his one and only minor-league home run.

On September 5, 1914, Ruth was a 19-year old pitcher with the Providence Grays in the ‘AAA’ International League, which was one rung below the majors. Playing against the Toronto Maple Leafs at an old ballpark at Hanlan’s Point on the Toronto Islands, Ruth tossed a one-hit shutout and smashed a three-run homer that is believed to have disappeared into Lake Ontario.

Jerry Amernic, whose novel Gift of the Bambino begins with an account of the home run, has been leading a campaign to have the site declared a heritage site and to have an interpretive display erected on the spot. The Toronto Blue Jays, the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and the City of Toronto have all pledged their support.

In 1985 the city erected a small plaque on a rock at Hanlan’s Point, but many say it is hard to find and doesn’t do the moment justice. Toronto Mayor David Miller recently indicated his support publicly when he said, “If we do something to better honor that memory, I think it would be terrific.”

Jerry Amernic, who will be doing talks and book signings in New York from May 11-15, claims the 1914 ball wound up in the lake but others aren’t so sure. A veteran sports writer said he once interviewed a man who was at the game and that he told him the ball went over the fence into the right-field bleachers. However, a local historian says the ball went into the water and may still be sitting on the bottom of the lake.

“When I was doing research for my book,” says Jerry Amernic, “I discovered many stories about the ball. I heard it was stolen and even that it was bronzed and set up in a bar. But I’ve seen photos of the old ballpark and think it went into the lake which is the premise of my novel. One thing is for sure. This is the holy grail of all baseballs.”

The proposal for the heritage site calls for three commemorative plaques with photographs and text about the 1914 home run, the old park at Hanlan’s Point, and Toronto’s baseball history which goes back to the 1800s. Officials with Heritage Toronto say the Babe Ruth display could be ready in time for the beginning of the 2006 baseball season.

Contact:

Dorothy Stoikos or Jerry Amernic
416-284-0838

Kamuela, HI April 7, 2005 – Baseball season started earlier this week and it has a relation, literally, to the royal wedding scheduled for later this week.

The Family Forest® has now calculated the Kevin Bacon style six-degrees-of-separation family ties of both the bride and the groom to thousands of the most recognized names from recorded history. One of them is the person credited as the father of baseball, Civil War General Abner Doubleday.

As the chart at http://www.familyforest.com/Royal_Wedding.html shows, General Doubleday is a 15th cousin twice removed of Prince Charles and a 24th cousin twice removed of Camilla Parker-Bowles.

That chart is only a starting point. It means that in the Family Forest® one can visually point-and-click travel through maps of generation-by-generation family ties that connect all of the people on the chart in surprising ways. For instance, an earlier wedding set the stage for the royal wedding scheduled on April 9, 2005.

Hanging in the Philadelphia Museum of Art is a famous painting called “The Marriage of Constantine” (Emperor Constantine the Great on the chart, a 42nd great-grandfather of Prince Charles and a 44th great-grandfather of Camilla Parker-Bowles) by the Dutch master Peter Paul Rubens (a 35th great-grandson of Emperor Constantine the Great, a half 11th cousin 12 times removed of Prince Charles and a half 11th cousin 13 times removed of Camilla Parker-Bowles).

For a couple of other examples, Bill Gates was recently knighted by the groom’s mother. He is a 14th cousin once removed of Prince Charles and a 14th cousin of Camilla Parker-Bowles. Tom Hanks, star of Sony’s upcoming The Da Vinci Code movie, is also related to both Prince Charles (13th cousin) and Camilla Parker-Bowles (12th cousin once removed).

Prominent media personalities are also related, such as New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., (9th cousin twice removed of Prince Charles and a 21st cousin 4 times removed of Camilla Parker-Bowles) and Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau (15th cousin once removed of Prince Charles and an 18th cousin of Camilla Parker-Bowles).

If such a wide ranging group of people as those on the chart are related to Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, who else shares ancestors with them?

Millisecond Publishing Company, Inc. is the home of the Family Forest® Project, and the latest state-of-the-art presentation is the Family Forest® Leadership Edition.

Contact: Millisecond Publishing Company, Inc.
Kristine M. Harrison
www.familyforest.com
kristine@FamilyForest.com
808-885-717

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, LISTING, PLEASE
Press contact: Timothy J. Haskell at 212.307.1118

That’s One Foul Ball
The Information She Carried
By David L. Williams
Beginning March 24th

FBERUARY 14TH, 2005 (New York, NY) – W and W Productions is proud to present the world premiere of the sport’s memorabilia aficionados meets conspiracy theorists play The Information She Carried by David L. Williams at the Access Theater (380 Broadway, 4th floor). Performances begin Thursday, Match 24th, open March 25th, and end April 16th, running Wednesday – Saturday at 8 PM with an added performance Sunday, April 10th at 7 PM. Tickets are $15 each and can be reserved by calling 212-714-5363.

In 1920 Ray Chapman became the only player in the history of Major League Baseball to have been killed by a baseball in a game. Many years later, a sportswriter/ high school baseball coach and current owner of the collectible, sent one of his players to his car to grab a ball to practice with. The kid innocently took the death ball instead. On the very first pitch, the ball was hit, went up the third baseline, took a very funny hop, and seriously injured the third baseman. These are historical facts.

The Information She Carried surrounds the story of lifelong conspiracy theorist SHARON NORTH who will not be deceived anymore! She needs to know the truth behind some of the world’s most notorious cover-ups – JFK, Roswell, Moon Landing, Alien Autopsy, 9/11, etc. Having concocted a well thought out theory that the “Chapman Death Ball” was actually the work of the infamous Illuminati and holds unspeakable power, she aims to steal it, and then trade it for the answers she has so longed for. Having arranged a meeting, Sharon begins to realize the truth about where she is and the strange woman speaking to her, and tries desperately to change the way things will turn out, hoping that she still might discover one bit of truth.

Playwright David L. Williams is a graduate of Cornell University, a member of the Dramatist Guild and the author of more than 16 plays. Some of his works include: the Riverside Stage Company Founder’s award-winning Ampersand, and four winners of the Heerman’s McCalmon Playwriting Contest, The Murder of Gonzago, Behind The Nine Ball, Near Tragedy, and Ingulf. Recently he wrote the book to the musical Tess’ Last Night as part of 2003’s New York International Fringe Festival.

“In an increasingly uncertain world, anything that can connect the dots and explain things away becomes more and more reassuring,” says playwright David L. Williams. “Within a few days of the Asian tsunami disaster, I was already reading postings on the internet of people who were blaming the Bush administration’s environmental policies. People would rather believe there is a powerful group of sinister people plotting to do them harm than have to face the fact that we have no control.”

The Information She Carried is being directed by Carolyn Malone. The cast includes Breanna Pine, Christine Carroll, Christopher Drescher, Judson Jones, Christa Kimlicko Jones and Matthew Morgan.