11 July 25

It was on July 11, 1914 that "Babe" Ruth first appeared in major league baseball, pitching for the Boston Red Sox. He went on to fame primarily as a hitter, holding the record for career home runs from 1935 until 1974. Charlie Brown was famous in Peanuts® as the pitcher who was always tumbled over by flying baseballs. Snoopy could hit, but he was also a great fielder who caught balls in his mouth.

30 March 23

It's the first day of Major League Baseball 2023! For the first time since 1968, all the teams are playing on opening day -- and that means 15 games. Besides playing under some new rules intended to speed up the games, this is the first year in history when each of the 30 teams will play each other at least once during a single season. My tie shows Charlie Brown and his team playing baseball!

8 March 22

While I was growing up in Bethlehem, PA, my baseball team was the Philadelphia Phillies, and one of their stars was "Richie" Allen (also known as Dick Allen). He was born on this date in 1942. He was an All-Star and MVP several times. Two other baseball stars with this birthdate are Jim Bouton (1939-2019) and Jim Rice (1953). My tie shows a bunch of players on Charlie Brown's baseball team! More birthday greetings go to my cousin-once-removed Alyssa Kleppinger. Today is National Proofreading day! (Haha -- I left that uncapitalized d so you could catch it!) I must let Google help you celebrate International Women's Day. See today's Google Doodle at https://www.google.com/doodles/international-womens-day-2022.

20 October 20

 It's still baseball time this year! Today in baseball history, it's the birthday of Mickey Mantle (1931), Juan Marichal (1937), and Keith Hernandez (1953). It's a surprise to have the World Series in the second half of October, rescheduled to cope with the pandemic that shut down Major League Baseball (and much of everything!) in March and April. Tonight is the first game of the 2020 World Series, featuring the Tampa Bay Rays and the Los Angeles Dodgers. My tie shows Charlie Brown's team, whose win/loss record from Peanuts® comics is understood to be pretty awful. But there are quite a number of documented wins, almost all of them when Charlie Brown was not on the field.

6 May 19

Today marks the birthday of baseball great Willie Mays (1931), star center fielder/hitter with the New York and San Francisco Giants, 1951-1972. I may have seen him play against the Philadelphia Phillies on one of our family's annual summertime game trips in the 1950s and 1960s.

2 April 18

Charlie Brown's team is helping me celebrate the 142nd anniversary of the first National League game, between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Boston Red Caps, in Philadelphia, 1876. The Red Caps had been the Boston Red Stockings in the earlier National Association, but when the National League was formed, the Boston team became the Red Caps to avoid confusion with the new Cincinnati Red Stockings. Over the years this team changed names several times: Beaneaters, Doves, Rustlers, Bees, and finally Braves. In 1953 the franchise moved to Milwaukee, and then (in 1966) to Atlanta, where the Braves continue to play in the National League. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Athletics team that played in that first game was expelled from the National League at the end of the season. Other teams with the Athletics name played in Philadelphia from 1882-1891, in different leagues, but the Athletics team that started in 1901 in the American League exists today as the Oakland Athletics (moving from Philadelphia to Kansas City in 1955, and then to Oakland in 1968).

My baseball cap honors the Colorado Rockies, a team with more straightforward (but recent) history! (1991-present.)

2 February 17

Happy Birthday, National League! On this date in 1876, baseball teams from Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Hartford, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis formed the National League. It would be another 25 years before the American League was founded.

20 April 16

Another day, another green shirt. On this date in 1912, Fenway Park (in Boston) and Tiger Stadium (in Detroit) opened for baseball! Also, in 1939, Ted Williams began his major league career with the Boston Red Sox. Other years I have celebrated this date's association with Marie and Pierre Curie's first purification of radium, in 1902.

2 October 14

On this date in 1950, the first Peanuts® cartoon was published! My tie is also appropriate to mark the early games of the MLB division championships, this year featuring 3 teams from California, 2 from Missouri, and one each from Maryland, Michigan and Washington, DC. Today is also the annual International Day of Nonviolence, honoring the 1869 birthday of Mohandas K. Gandhi. Oh, and my own special duties today focus on EKU's Disabilities Awareness Day. I am the coordinator for this annual "sidewalk fair" event, because of my position as vice chair of the university's ADA Awareness and Accessibility Committee. Yay.

2 October 13

Today marks 63 years since the publication of the first Peanuts® cartoon! This is also the International Day of Non-Violence, honoring the birthday of Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948).

25 October 12

It's World Series time again. This year it's the Detroit Tigers versus the San Francisco Giants. Charlie Brown's team had fun but they never won a championship.

2 October 11

Today marks the 61st anniversary of the first publication of Charles Schultz' comic strip Peanuts®! The baseball theme started in the summer of 1951, when the strip was almost one year old. I found a Web site where you can see some calculated statistics for Charlie Brown and his team!

12 May 11

Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra (born May 12, 1925) is a former American Major League Baseball catcher, outfielder, and manager. He played almost his entire 19-year baseball career (1946–1965) for the New York Yankees. He is also famous for many very witty quotable comments, including "Think?! How the hell are you gonna think and hit at the same time?" and "I didn't really say everything I said."

With me today are two Yogi Bearuhs who live with us in Berea, Kentucky.

08 July 10

As reported by my son Jonathan, last night's MLB game between St. Louis and Colorado became the first time since 1986 that a team lost a second game in succession when leading by five or more runs and then losing on a walk-off home run. The Rockies now have a three-game win streak. And this is the first chance I've had to wear this Father's Day present!