Gabe Kapler our as manager of the Phillies.
81-81 this past season.
Oh, oh! Mr. Kapler! Me. Kapler!
October 10th, 2019Obit watch: October 10, 2019.
October 10th, 2019My morning went down the drain (for reasons I’m not authorized to talk about) so I’m only getting to this now:
Francis Currey, American badass.
Here is his citation from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s website:
He was 94. His death leaves two surviving recipients of the Medal of Honor from WWII.
Obit watch: October 8, 2019.
October 9th, 2019Marshall Efron, public television personality of the early 70s.
I’d heard the name, but really didn’t have any association with him: I was very young when “The Great American Dream Machine” was on the air, and I wasn’t much older when “Marshall Efron’s Illustrated, Simplified and Painless Sunday School” came around the first time. (The latter was supposedly re-run frequently, but I’ve never seen an episode.)
Quick notes from the forensic beat.
October 9th, 2019Both by way of Hacker News.
“Obsessed fan finds Japanese idol’s home by zooming in on her eyes“.
Gil Grissom, call your office, please.
Ken Thompson’s UNIX password has been cracked.
I wonder if it would be worthwhile to add a dictionary of common chess openings to your hashcat runs?
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#59 in a series)
October 9th, 2019Hempstead, Texas, is perhaps best described as a suburb of Houston. (Technically, it is in Waller Caunty, while Houston is Harris County. Apple Maps says it is roughly an hour’s drive from Houston to Hempstead.)
Hempstead isn’t a big city: just under 6,000 people. Mike the Musicologist, who tipped me off to this, tells me that Mayor Michael Wolfe has been in that post for 15 years.
Now, being mayor of any decent sized city is probably a full time job, and being mayor of a 6,000 person city probably doesn’t pay very well. This is significant for reasons I’ll get into shortly.
Back a few months ago, the Texas Rangers started looking into “financial irregularities” discovered “during an audit of the city budget”. They turned up something interesting. You see, folks in Hempstead had until the 20th of each month to pay their utility bills, or else they’d get cut off. One of the city employees was responsible for generating a list of folks who hadn’t paid up. But that employee would then take the list over to the mayor, who’d mark off certain accounts on the list as being exempt from utility cutoffs.
Among those names: the mayor. And his daughter. Apparently, they were over $20,000 behind in their utility payments. Mayor Wolfe’s personal account was over $10,000 behind.
Okay, so this is sleazy. The good citizens of Hempstead who were paying their bills had to absorb the delinquency of the mayor and his daughter. No question about it, this is bad behavior. But is it a crime?
Yes!
…
According to an affidavit, Shayne is believed to have “intentionally or knowingly misused government property, services, personnel, or any other thing of value belonging to the government that has come into the public servant’s custody or possession by virtue of the public servant’s office or employment”.
The document cites Texas Penal Code 39.02(a), Abuse of Official Capacity.
Texas Penal Code 39.02(a), Abuse of Official Capacity, for your reference and because I don’t trust nested links.
I kind of like “Abuse of Official Capacity”. It has a ring to it, though it doesn’t quite stir the soul in the same way “barratry” or “misprision” does.
And, once again, someone throws away their life and becomes a convicted felon over a relatively small amount of money. Seriously, dude, pay the darn bill. (Yes, yes, presumption of innocence, but according to the report, he’s pretty much confessed to the crime already, and is using the ‘nobody would have known about it if it wasn’t for those meddling auditors” defense.)
Obit watch: October 7, 2019.
October 7th, 2019Ginger Baker, noted drummer.
Random thought: could Mr. Baker play “YYZ”?
Mr. Baker’s appearance behind the drum kit — flaming red hair, flailing arms, eyes bulging with enthusiasm or shut tight in concentration — made an indelible impression. So, unfortunately, did his well-publicized drug problems and his volatile personality.
Mr. Baker, who by his own count quit heroin 29 times, was candid about his drug and alcohol abuse in his autobiography, “Hellraiser,” published in Britain in 2009.
Got to give it to the man: he was persistent.
Lawrence put “Beware of Mr. Baker” on our big movie list. We actually want to watch this, but man! That is a hard movie to find: the DVD and Blu-Ray are “unavailable” from Amazon, and they do list it under “Prime Video” but it’s currently “unavailable” there as well. The movie’s website is apparently now owned by a domain squatter who uses it to advertise casinos, and we haven’t been able to check Netflix or Hulu (not being subscribers to either one).
Rip Taylor, comedian and game show guy.
Mr. Taylor was often confused with the character actor Rip Torn, who died in July.
This.
I kind of got overtaken by stuff over the weekend, so here’s your historical record obit for Diahann Carroll. Little mentioned in her obits, but well known to us common sewers connoisseurs: she was also in “The Star Wars Holiday Special“.
Your loser update: week 5, 2019.
October 7th, 2019I didn’t think there was a whole lot to say this morning, but:
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
New York Jets
Miami (bye week)
(Edited to add) Cincinnati (I think I accidentally deleted them when I was deleting Denver: thanks to Lawrence for pointing that out.)
Washington
As I was pulling this together, I started seeing reports that Jay Gruden is out as head coach of the Redskins. The reports are all “sources say” but there’s a press conference scheduled for 1 PM EDT.
Worth noting: next Sunday is this year’s edition of the “Who Cares?” bowl, in which Washington plays at Miami. I’m halfway tempted to watch this, as I kind of expect epic ineptitude on display.
Well, how do you like them apples?
October 5th, 2019I went over to GT Distributors this morning for Glocktoberfest. Oddly, while it isn’t terribly far from my office, I don’t make it over there that often: they tend to be more police and tactical oriented, and have less on the vintage S&W side. (Bill Orr, the founder, is a highly respected member of the S&W Collectors Association. It’s just that vintage Smiths aren’t their main line of business.)
But I had some Glock related stuff I was kind of looking for, and thought I’d swing by and check out Glocktoberfest.
Of course, they were doing door prize drawings. I went ahead and signed up, even though I never win door prizes. Then I browsed a little and waited for the door prize drawing at the top of the hour.
I’ve got my ticket out and am listening to them call the numbers. As I said, I never win door prizes, but hope springs eternal, right?
Then they called my number.
Well, okay, then. I don’t want to make a big deal about it: this was one of the hourly door prizes, not the big final prize (a new Glock). But the hourly prize was one of those snazzy 5.11 Tactical RUSH 24 backpacks. It’s kind of like walking into some place, hanging out for a bit, and then someone hands you a $100 bill right out of the blue.
(And I did pick up a few relatively small items: they were selling used Glock 22 and S&W M&P .357 SIG/.40 standard capacity magazines for $10 each. At that price, I figured I’d pick up a couple of each as a hedge. I also picked up some of the tchotchkes they were giving away for free, a Glock 42 magazine +1 mag extension for experimental purposes, and some FMJ .380 auto.)
They did take my photo for promotional purposes (with my enthusiastic consent) but I don’t see it on Facebook yet. I hope I didn’t break the guy’s phone…
Firings watch.
October 4th, 2019Mickey Callaway out as manager of the Mets. 163-161 over two seasons.
Lawrence tipped me off to this last night, but since it was cop shop night, I didn’t have a chance to blog: Sports Illustrated fired everybody just as hard as they could go.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#58 in a series)
October 3rd, 2019By way of Lawrence:
The Press is kind of obnoxious,but local. More from nj.com:
Mayor Gilliam pled out to one count of wire fraud, and has agreed to pay restitution.
{Harry] Rimm [the mayor’s defense attorney – DB] said Gilliam has already started paying back the money, making a voluntary payment Thursday in connection with his plea.
“To date, and in advance of sentencing, Mr. Gilliam has paid back almost half of the restitution amount that the parties have agreed is owed,” said the attorney.
Now I’m wondering: does that “almost half the restitution amount” include the “recovered” $41,000?
Guess the party watch: paragraph nine of the NJ.com story. Criminal Mayors Against Law-Abiding Gun Owners Watch: status of Mayor Gilliam unknown. I need to dig deeper into that.
But:
Even before the FBI raid on his house, Gilliam found himself in an unwelcome spotlight. The mayor was accused of simple assault and harassment stemming from a 2:30 a.m. brawl outside the Golden Nugget Casino’s Haven nightclub last year.
He was cleared of criminal charges in March by a municipal court judge in nearby North Wildwood, where the case had been transferred to avoid a conflict of interest.
But we all know he’s probably not going to get that, right?
And as far as I can tell, he hasn’t resigned as mayor. Yet.
In a statement following the plea, defense attorney Harry Rimm said the charge to which he pleaded guilty related only to his conduct as a private citizen, and not conduct in his official capacity as mayor.
“He is not charged with taking any public or taxpayer funds,” the attorney said, adding that the mayor “is accepting responsibility for his actions and is genuinely remorseful.”
Edited to add: he’s out now.
Obit watch: October 3, 2019.
October 3rd, 2019Bill Bidwill, owner of the Arizona (formerly St. Louis) Cardinals.
I’m wondering if we’re going to see an NFL team for sale soon, and if that’s going to result in a possible relocation. LA and Las Vegas are off the map…but with the St. Louis Rams gone, and a past history for the Cardinals there…?
John Rothman. Kind of an obscure figure, but interesting: he pioneered electronic access to the NYT archives.
…
In 1972, Times staff members began testing the Information Bank as a research tool. It would soon augment the paper’s archives, known as the morgue, where file cabinets are packed with clippings dating to the 19th century. In Times Talk, the paper’s in-house newsletter, Mr. Rothman assured colleagues that “once the basic methods” of searching the Information Bank were mastered, “retrieving the information is quite simple.”
In late 1972, the first installation of the Information Bank outside The New York Times was made at the University of Pittsburgh’s Hillman Library. Within six months, its 14 customers included NBC, The Associated Press, the State Department, the C.I.A., the Library of Congress, Exxon and the Chase Manhattan Bank.
I’ve been running behind, so for this historical record: Jessye Norman.
Your loser update: week 4, 2019.
October 1st, 2019NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
New York Jets (bye week)
Miami
Cincinnati
Denver
Washington
In other news about minor sports, it looks like I was wrong in thinking there wasn’t going to be a historically bad baseball team this year. At least, depending on how you define “historically bad”.
The Detroit Tigers finished 47-114 (one game towards the end of the season was cancelled and they didn’t have a chance to play a make-up) for a .292 average. Wikipedia’s cutoff for “worst Major League Baseball season records” is .300 or below, which puts them 16th on the list for the “modern” era. (Wikipedia has them at .291, or .001 better than the 2018 Baltimore Orioles. I’m not sure why they give different numbers than MLB.com, but I’m going to blame floating point math.)
Speaking of Baltimore, they finished 54-108, with a .333 winning percentage. 108 losses is kind of pathetic, but…
Orioles GM Mike Elias finds positives in rebuild after 108-loss season
“Hey, we stank. But at least we weren’t the worst team in MLB this year! And we didn’t lose as many games as we did last year!”
Firings watch.
September 30th, 2019Chris Ash out as football coach at Rutgers.
“Bring back Greg Schiano: Rutgers must look to its past to save its future after firing Chris Ash”.
Yeah, no. If the only way to save your program is to bring back Greg Schiano, let it die.
Columbia University fires…the marching band.
The MLB regular season appears to be officially over. Two 0-3 teams play in the NFL tonight, so the loser update (with some MLB commentary) will go up tomorrow morning. If i see any significant baseball (or other) firings, I’ll note them here.
Edited to add: And Brad Ausmus fired after a single season with the LA Angels. The team went 72-90.
Take me out of the ball game…
September 29th, 2019Joe Maddon, the manager who finally won a World Series for the Cubs, out. Tribune. Sun-Times.
Clint Hurdle out as manager in Pittsburgh after nine seasons. He was 735-720-1.
Obit watch: September 26, 2019.
September 26th, 2019NYT obit for Sid Haig, which is dated the 23rd but didn’t show up on their obit page until yesterday.
One I’ve been meaning to note all week: Mark von Hagen. You probably haven’t heard of him, but: he was the guy the NYT hired to determine if the paper should return Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer.
Professor von Hagen’s resulting eight-page report was highly critical of the coverage but made no recommendation about the prize. Only in interviews after the report was released did he suggest that the award be revoked because of what he described as Mr. Duranty’s “uncritical acceptance of the Soviet self-justification for its cruel and wasteful regime.” In his view, he said, Mr. Duranty had fallen “under Stalin’s spell.”
“He really was kind of a disgrace in the history of The New York Times,” Professor von Hagen was quoted as saying.
In the end, however, the Pulitzer board decided that it did not have enough grounds to annul the award, which was bestowed in 1932.