Then... and Now Episode 21

In this podcast episode, John Schomo discusses various historical events, birthdays, and personal anecdotes. He highlights Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak, the explosion of TWA Flight 800, and the first U.S. Women's Rights Convention. He also mentions the moon landing, Ernest Hemingway's birthday, and the founding of Cleveland, among other topics. The episode concludes with the release of the single "Help" and the rebranding of the Cleveland Indians as the Guardians. Good day, everybody out there. Hope you're doing well. Hope this finds you doing well. I'm John Schomo. This is episode number 21 of the podcast, Then and Now. Being number 21, we'll dedicate this one to the incomparable Roberto Clemente. Okay. We have so much to talk about today and such little time to do so, but we're not going to ignore our normal format. We're going to go facts of the week first, and then we're going to dig into some things that are going on, and finally, we'll finish with three good questions, so we'll stick to it format-wise, but there's a lot to dive into, so let's get started with our facts and anniversaries, et cetera, for the week of July 17th through 23rd. On July 17th, 1941, in Cleveland's Municipal Stadium, Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak ended as he went 0 for 4. Ken Keltner, the Indians' third baseman, made two really good plays at the hot corner. DiMaggio was walking out of Cleveland Stadium that night with Phil Rizzuto, his teammate, and he told him that had he gotten a hit that night, he had a $10,000 deal with Heinz 57 Varieties upon his 57th game, so that hit cost him a little bit, and $10,000 in 1941 was quite a lot of money. On July 17th, 1996, a New York-to-Paris-bound flight, TWA Flight 800, exploded in the air off the Long Island coast, killing all 230 passengers and crew on board. The follow-up to that is a month or so later, our high school class got together for kind of an informal 20th, wasn't quite a reunion, but it was a 20th anniversary of graduation get-together, and one of the members of our class, I was talking to him out in the hallway, and he said he worked for the National Security Agency, the NSA, and while he couldn't tell me very much, he said they were proceeding the investigation as if it was a terrorist attack. They've never really said for sure, so I have my doubts about whether that was just an accident. Anyway, tremendously tragic event. Couple of birthdays on July 17th, the Hall of Famer, Cleveland Indians manager, player manager Lou Boudreau, born on July 17th, 1917, he was 28 or 29 years old when he led the Indians as the shortstop and manager to their last World Series title in 1948. And Queen Camilla of the United Kingdom is 77 on July 17th. Moving on to July 18th, the late great Willie Mays, and it's sad to say that now, got his 3,000th hit. He was only the 10th player to do so. He got it on July 18th, 1970. On July 18th, 1984, the Democratic Party nominated former Vice President Walter Mondale for president. Walter Mondale was a great public servant. He really had not much of a chance running against Ronald Reagan in 1984, but that doesn't diminish the public service that Walter Mondale performed for our country. July 18th, 1999, David Cohn of the New York Yankees threw a perfect game versus the Montreal Expos at Yankee Stadium. Several notable birthdays for July 18th. The South African great Nelson Mandela, born July 18th, 1918, spent 27 years in prison only to come out and lead a new, more united country of South Africa. The hero from Ohio, from the Cambridge area, John Glenn, first American to orbit the earth. John Glenn, born July 18th, 1921. The Hall of Famer, manager of the Yankees for all those titles in the late 90s, Joe Torrey, 84 years old, July 18th. Winner of six major championships, three masters, and three open championships, Cernyk Faldo turns 67 on July 18th, and the actor Vin Diesel will turn 57. All right, July 19th saw the first U.S. Women's Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls, New York on July 19th, 1848. It also saw Cleveland's Bob Feller from Van Meter, Iowa, making his major league debut on the mound at the age of 17, July 19th, 1936. And at that same convention that nominated Walter Mondale, the Democrats nominated the first ever woman to be on a major party's ticket for president. She was the late Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York. He was nominated as the vice presidential candidate by the Democrats in 1984. More about vice presidential candidates later. July 20th, a landmark day for all mankind, really. On July 20th, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and later that evening, Eastern Time, Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon, and we were watching them on our fuzzy black-and-white television screens. Just an amazing achievement to this day. More amazing is the lack of computer technology they had compared to what we have today to pull that off. Just one of mankind's greatest achievements ever. I feel fortunate to have been around to see it. July 20th, the first baseman, the guitar-playing musician, turns 77. Ray Allen, 2008 world champion with the Boston Celtics. I hear rumors he won a couple with another team. We're not going to talk about that. Ray Allen, one of the best shooters in basketball history, will be 49 on July 20th. And the 2006 Heisman Trophy winner from Cleveland, Ohio, and The Ohio State University, Troy Smith, turns 40 on July 20th. One more birthday on July 20th, by the way. The most wealthy member of the former Tom Brady marriage, Gisele Bündchen, the model, will turn 44 on July 20th. She made far, far, far much more money than Tom Brady did while they were married, by the way, FYI. July 21st, 1861, the first Battle of Bull Run, or Manassas as it was known in the South, took place, the first major confrontation in the Civil War. As it is with a lot of wars in our history, a lot of people said, well, this is the first big battle. This is going to decide everything. It was expected that the Union would trounce the Confederates. People actually came from Washington in carriages to picnic and watch the battle. Well, that was a mistake. It was a pretty brutal scene, and it was pretty much won by the Confederates, signaling, boy, this is not going to be a short conflict here. Birthdays, July 21st. Ernest Hemingway, the great author, born July 21st, 1899. Don Knotts, born 100 years ago on July 21st, 1924, born in Morgantown, West Virginia. He is best known for his role as the goofy sheriff Barney Fife on the wonderful Andy Griffith show. Cat Stevens, great musician, songwriter, turns 76 on July 21st. And the late comedian Robin Williams was born July 21st, 1951. I could never play it on this forum because of the language, but his bit on golf is one of the funniest things I've ever heard a comic do, laced with obscenities. But, oh, my gosh, I, you know, double over laughing every time I see it. Okay, July 22nd, lots of stuff here. Cleveland, Ohio, was founded by a guy named Moses Cleveland on July 22nd, 1796. Moses Cleveland spelled his name with an extra A, and they misspelled it when they named the city, and they just left it that way. General Sherman from Ohio and his Union forces won the Battle of Atlanta on July 22nd, 1864, a very important victory in the Civil War. The U.S. Senate rejected President Franklin Roosevelt's quote-unquote court packing idea on July 22nd, 1937. Roosevelt was frustrated because the sitting Supreme Court, nine members, had ruled a few of his New Deal organizations as unconstitutional. He wanted to be able to add a new justice every time a justice turned 70 years old. He would have been able to add six new justices had that been adopted, but the Senate, packed with Democrats even, went, did not go along with FDR's court packing idea. Lots of birthdays. Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, mother of the Kennedy family, President Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, born July 22nd, 1890. She lived to be 104 years old. All of the triumph and tragedies that she lived through is just mind-boggling. Former Senator, former Republican nominee for President, Bob Dole, World War II hero, was born July 22nd, 1923. Sonny Liston, one-time heavyweight boxing champion of the world, born July 22nd, 1930, lost his title to Cassius Clay, who, after the first fight, announced he was changing his name to Muhammad Ali. The late host of Jeopardy, Alex Trebek, Canadian by birth, Alex Trebek, born July 22nd, 1940. Actor Danny Glover will be 78. Singer-songwriter, member of the Eagles, very famous voice, Don Henley will be 77 on July 22nd. Heisman Trophy winner at Notre Dame and Hall of Famer for the NFL, Tim Brown, wide receiver, will be 58. Selena Gomez will be 32 on July 22nd. So will Prince George, second in line to the throne of the United Kingdom, only to his father, Prince William. Prince George will be 11 on July 22nd. And former Buckeyes running back, Ezekiel Elliott, national champion, 2014. Ezekiel Elliott will be 29. Finally, for this week, we'll go to July 23rd. Help was released as a single on July 23rd, 1965, in advance of the movie of the same name. The B-side of the single, Help, was Paul McCartney's rocker, I'm Down, by the way, for you trivia buffs. On July 23rd, 2009, I was watching TV that afternoon. The White Sox' Mark Burley hurled a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Double Rays. The top of the ninth inning was marked by a fabulous catch to keep the no-hitter perfect game intact by a little-known center fielder named Dwayne Wise. He had just been put in the game as a defensive sub, and the first ball was hit to him, and he made a juggling, leaping catch at the wall in center field to preserve the perfect game. A really great play. Three years ago, July 23rd, 2021, the Cleveland Indians announced their rebranding as the Guardians, which would go into effect in the 2022 season. I'm still a little mad about all of that. I could certainly see phasing out Chief Wahoo. That's obviously sort of a racist thing. Indians, I wasn't so worried about, but that's what they did. So there it is, Cleveland Guardians. The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games began July 23rd, 2021, a year late due to obviously the global pandemic. Birthday is July 23rd. The late Hall of Fame pitcher of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Don Drysdale, born July 23rd, 1936. Actor Woody Harrelson will be 63. Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who played young Harry Potter, is now 35 years old. And last but not least, I wanted to mention Monica Lewinsky. She will be 51 on July 23rd. Young folks may not recognize her name as much as some of the rest of us. She was the young woman, White House intern involved in a affair with President Clinton over which he was ultimately impeached in 1999. She was in her mid-20s when that all happened. To her great credit, she has come through the other side, is a very intelligent woman, very up on current affairs. She's back out in the limelight, has been for several years. And I really admire her for doing that. That's such an embarrassing situation that she went through. And then part of it was her fault, I guess. But she has really come through the other side quite nicely. So happy birthday to her. Okay, there are our birthdays and anniversaries for this week. Now we go to everything that's happened. And I do want to make a correction to something I said last week first. Bernie Kosar, we talked about his health problems. I believe I mentioned that he needed a kidney transplant. It was not a kidney transplant. He needs a liver transplant. So I made a mistake there and regret that mistake. And it's still not fun to talk about. But best to Bernie. He's a favorite around here for sure. Okay, let's deal with the events of this past Saturday. First, the assassination attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump. It's a terrible act of political violence. That stuff has no place in a civilized society. It's tragic that a person did lose his life. A former fire chief there in the Butler, Pennsylvania area died protecting his family from the bullets. I've lived through way too many moments like this. Those of us who are of a certain age have too many moments that we flash back to when something like this happens. Why does it happen so much here? There's one answer, in my opinion. It's the guns. There are crazy people, mentally ill people, people who need help everywhere in the world. We don't see this everywhere in the world. We give our people access to weapons like the AR-15, which is meant for the battlefield use in wartime. We had at one point here in 1994, we had passed an assault weapons ban in this country. Congress passed it. President Clinton signed it into law. It was in effect for 10 years and then they would have had to renew it. Congress and President Bush unfortunately allowed it to lapse in 2004. Gosh, I wish that hadn't happened. Look, I've talked about it. Those of you who were in my classes back in the day probably heard me talk about it. I have relatives in West Virginia who hunt. I have no problem with people having hunting rifles or a gun for protection in their house, if they're stored properly, etc. But nowhere in the world should a civilian be permitted to own a weapon of war. That's what an AR-15 rifle is, AK-47 type rifle is. The people who are related to the man who designed it have said so. He's deceased, by the way. It's very sad that we still allow that to go on in this country. And that's the end. We're no better or worse in terms of our mental health, etc., as a whole, than other places in the world. Why do these things happen here? Well, that's the answer in my view. Okay. Now, a couple of other things about this act. Thank goodness that former President Trump is okay. Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, where the alleged shooter was from. The best comparison I can make to those of you around northeast Ohio is it's kind of like Stowe, Ohio. It's a middle-class, upper-middle-class neighborhood just south of Pittsburgh, about the same population. So if you're looking for a comparison, maybe Stowe would be the closest around here. The real problem moving forward is the Secret Service, I think, has a lot of explaining to do here. How was a person allowed to go up on the roof of a building 140 yards from the stage with a high-powered rifle, and the Secret Service and or local law enforcement, who they do pass a lot of responsibility off to, doesn't notice that and take care of that problem? And I'm sure there'll be investigations and so forth moving forward. There should be. But that one takeaway from that is, boy, I think the Secret Service may need to re-evaluate here, and they're going to be put through some questioning, I'm sure, moving forward. Okay. Next up, J.D. Vance. The Ohio senator has been tagged by former President Trump to be his running mate. The first thing I thought of was, boy, maybe we'll now find out what kind of eyeliner he wears. Take a look at the pictures, and you'll see what I mean. Shout out to all the liberals who swooned over the book he wrote a decade or so ago, Hillbilly Elegy. You're the people who elevated this guy to this point. He's only been a senator for a year and a half, and now he's a candidate for the second highest office in the country. He's only been a senator for a year and a half, and now he's a candidate for the second highest office in the land. Earlier in 2016, he compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. That's quite the swing, from comparing him to Adolf Hitler to now being his running mate. Boy, that gives me a crick in the neck just thinking about that. Wow. Okay, so there's J.D. Vance for you. All right, moving on to more happy things. I guess. It is the all-star break as I record this in Major League Baseball. The game will be played this evening. I'm recording this on Tuesday afternoon. The game happens this evening in Texas. The break came just in time for the Cleveland Guardians. They stumbled a bit last week. Their lead is down to four and a half games, though. They are ahead. That's the good news. So hopefully the rest does them good, and they can come out firing on all cylinders and retain a large lead in the American League Central. Hopefully that happens. My Pirates are at 500, which if you know their recent history, that hasn't happened that much. And they are really in the hunt for a wildcard spot in the National League. It looks like they're building something good. I'm really happy to see it. The Pirates are represented at the all-star game with two players instead of their usual one. Brian Reynolds, who certainly has earned it, and Paul Skeens, the rookie sensation, who will be the starting pitcher for the National League. I doubt he'll go more than one inning, but he is a quick riser for sure. He was pitching in the minor leagues in April, and he's starting the Major League All-Star game in July. That is quite the turnaround. And it's exciting to have him on our side, that's for sure. Okay, a couple of other things here regarding the all-star break, this one. I don't know if you watched the National Anthem at the Home Run Derby Monday night. If you did, yikes. A couple of us were chatting on a text thread, a couple of my friends and I, we were comparing it to Roseanne Barr's rendition, if you remember that. Or Sarl Lewis's rendition, where he couldn't get through it. It was not good. It was sung by a country singer, I guess, named Ingrid Andrus, who has been nominated for four Grammys. Last night, I, you know, wondered how. But just before I went to record this, she put out a statement admitting that last night she was, quote, under the influence, unquote, doesn't say from what, and is heading to rehab. Well, if that's the case, then A, last night was sure a bad judgment moment for her. But B, if she does indeed have a problem like that, good on her for checking into rehab and trying to get clean. Hopefully, that's the case and hopefully that works for her. Just a very, very strange situation there. Lastly, but not leastly, in this very packed topic segment this week, the experiment with Bronnie James and the Lakers continues in the NBA Summer League. The Lakers lost to the Celtics in the Summer League last night. I don't care if it's in the Summer League or a fourth grade, you know, rec league. Anytime the Celtics beat the Lakers, that's a good day. But Bronnie played in that game. He's played four games in the Summer League to this point. Here are the numbers. He's played 25 minutes a game. He's shooting 22.6 percent from the floor. He is 0 for 15 from three. His plus minus rating is minus 38. In other words, the team is minus 38 points while he's on the floor in those four games. I don't like, you know, saying all this. I, you know, he's a good kid from all we know. I'm glad he's healthy. Such a scare last summer when he had a cardiac arrest on the court in practice. But man, those are not good numbers. And I don't know if this is just a vanity project for his father or what, but he should my opinion hasn't changed. He should should have gone back to USC and played at least another year of college basketball before heading into the pros. I know LeBron's dream was to play in the NBA with his son. That's awesome. But oh, my gosh, needs to get better pretty quick, I'd say. Okay, enough of that. I had another topic ready to go. I'm going to save that for next week because I don't want this to run into, like, 40-minute podcast here. So that's a lot. We've got a lot to go on this week. Hopefully, things can calm down a little bit and kind of get back to normal. We'll head to three good questions. And the first one is from my lovely wife, Tammy, who said, who asked, what's the best Who said, who asked, in light of the All-Star game and all of that, who was the last Pirates pitcher to start in the All-Star game? Well, I really didn't know. We haven't had many of them. I would have guessed it was maybe somebody like John Candelaria back in the mid-'70s. It was back in the mid-'70s, but it wasn't the Candyman. It was the left-handed, the blonde, tall left-hander, Jerry Royce, who started the 1975 All-Star game at Milwaukee's County Stadium. He pitched three shutout innings for the National League in that ballgame. So there's the answer. Jerry Royce, R-E-U-S-S, by the way. That's how he spells his last name. Big, tall guy. Pitched for the Dodgers. Pitched for a couple other teams. Had a few really good years in Pittsburgh. Okay. Thanks, Tammy. Second question is from Jeff Cole. And it honors the fact that this week the Open Championship is being played at Royal Troon in Scotland. His question is, at the Open at Royal Troon this week, Bryson DeChambeau will try to join six Hall of Famers by winning both the U.S. Open and the British Open, aka the Open Championship, in the same year. How many of the six can you name? That's six Hall of Fame golfers who have won both the U.S. Open and the Open Championship in the same year. The hint that he gave me, and I'm not going to reveal the answer here today. I haven't come up with all six of them yet. I think I have four, which I'll save for next week. I'll save my guesses for next week. The hint that he gave me is three of the six are still alive. The other hint that he gave me is none of them are former Ohio State Buckeye golfers, if you know what that means. So, there's an obvious answer that's not an answer there. So, again, at the Open at Royal Troon this week, Bryson DeChambeau will try to join six Hall of Famers by winning both the U.S. Open and Open Championship in the same year. How many of the six can you name? Three are still alive. None are named Nicholas. Okay? So, we'll give you the answer to that one next week. How's that? All right. The third of our three good questions also comes from Tammy this week. We were just talking around the table last night when this came up. She asked, what percentage of Major League Baseball draft picks make the big leagues? Well, that's certainly not something that I knew off the top of my head. So, I went and looked. The percentage of first-round draft choice that play Major League Baseball, even one game of Major League Baseball, is 66 percent. Roughly two-thirds of the first-round draft choices make it to the major leagues. That's not becoming a star or becoming an everyday player. And you play a game at least in Major League Baseball, 66 percent of first-round picks. Second-round picks, that number drops to 49 percent, just under half. And from the third, if you're drafted in the third to the fifth round of the Major League Baseball draft, that number drops to 32 percent, only about a third. This is not NFL, NBA kind of stuff where your first-round draft pick is almost guaranteed to play in the first year that they're in the professional league. Major League Baseball is not like that. And the numbers here back that up for sure. Just because somebody was picked in the first round doesn't mean they have an automatic ticket to fame. They're going to get some money. They're going to get some wealth, that's for sure. But it doesn't mean that they're going to play Major League Baseball at any point. That's kind of interesting. Those are interesting numbers. I might have even guessed a little lower than that, to be quite honest. It's a hard go to make the big leagues, even if you're a highly touted draft choice. I think that number has gone up over the years because there are more college players being drafted. It used to be a lot more people right out of high school that got drafted. The percentage of that was much higher years ago. But anyway, thanks a lot, Tammy, for the question. Interesting. I found it interesting to look that one up. I found those results very intriguing. CEC, I'm very intrigued. Okay. Well, that'll do it for a very packed episode, episode number 21. Arriba, Roberto. We'll be back at you next week with episode number 22 of the podcast, Then and Now. Hopefully, it's a little calmer week. But as always, thank you for choosing us out there in the crowded podcatosphere. This is Then and Now. I'm John Schomo, your host. Thanks a lot for joining us. Have a great week, everybody, and we'll talk to you next week. Goodbye.