(N)opening Day-- Part 4: Now for You Cub Fans, the Chicago White Stockings & WGN

Cubs Season Openers:

APRIL 25, 1876--  The Cubs were then known as the Chicago White Stockings and were one of he eight charter members of the National League.  In their first game, they defeated host Louisville Grays 4-0 behind pitcher/manager Al Spalding.  They went on to finish 52-14 and won the league by six games and hit a league-best .337.

*************************

APRIL 14, 1925--  Quinn Ryan called the first game for WGN radio, beginning a 90-year relationship.  Cubs score six runs in the 7th capped by Gabby Hartnett's three-run homer.  The game lasted just 1 hour and 38 minutes.

Well. that to has changed as WGN is not televising any Cub games this year as per owner Ricketts.

--RoadCub

(N)opening Day-- Part 3: White Sox Season Openers-- Gullem to Buehrle to Thome

CHICAGO WHITE SOX

APRIL 9, 1990--  The final opening day at the old Comiskey Park. The Sox win 2-1 over the Brewers.  Ozzie Guillen tripled and scored the Sox first run on a wild pitch.  Sammy Sosa score the winning run in the seventh and Bobby Thigpen recorded the final two outs for the first of his then-record 57 saves.

How's this for some famous Sox names?

***********************

APRIL 4, 2005--  Mark Buehrle, making his fourth of his team-record opening-day starts, allowed two hits in the Sox 1-0 victory.  Of course, this was the famous 2005 season when the Sox were in first, a position they never lost that year en route to their first World Series title since 1917.

***********************

APRIL 2, 2006--  The White Sox raised their World Series Championship banners.  After a 4th inning 2 hour and 57 minute rain delay, newcomer Jim Thome hit a 431-foot homer into the right field stands as the Sox won 10-4 over the Indians.

Next, Da Cubs.  --CootSox

(N)opening Day-- Part 2: Sox No-Hit in 1940, Fox WinsIt and Pudge's Revenge

APRIL 16, 1940--  It was a cold, raw day at Comiskey Park with just 14,000 fans in attendance as Bob Feller and his Indians no-hit the Sox and won 1-0.

APRIL 10, 1959--  Nellie Fox hit a two-run homer in the 14th as the Sox won 9-7 in Detroit  He went 5-for-7 that day.  The Sox finished 94-60 to finish first that year, but lost in the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

APRIL 10, 1981--  Carlton Fisk's first game as a Sox player, and against his old team, the Red Sox.  Hit a 3-run homer in the 8th as the Sox won 5-2.  He had signed a five-year deal with the Sox for $2.9 million.

Da Sox.  --CootChiSox

(N)opening Day-- Part 1: This Year, But April 24, 1901, A Sox Win

Well, yesterday was the opening day for Major League Baseball.  But, it wasn't and you-know-why.

Remember last year when we had all those season openers and regular games cancelled because of bad weather.  Bring back those good old days.

From the March 27, 2020, Chicago Tribune by Chris Boghossian.

Well, here's a trip back to season openers of yore.

************************************

CHICAGO WHITE SOX

THE FIRST TIME

April 24, 1901

It was the first official American League game and the first in franchise history.  The White Sox beta the Cleveland Blues 8-2 at South Side Park.  The Sox finished 85-53-1 to win the AL pennant under manager/pitcher/outfielder Clark Griffith, who also won 24 games and hit .303.

What?  A pitcher who can hit?

I Want Him On MY TEAM!!  Wait, the Sox Are My Team.  --Cooter

More On Ohio's Presidents-- Part 7: Could the Use of an X-Ray Machine Have Saved McKinley's Life?

Another oddity to President McKinley's  assassination was that part of the exposition was the demonstration of a new device called  an X-Ray Light  Machine.

The surgeons operating on President McKinley removed one of the bullets but couldn't find the other and they sewed him up with the bullet still lodged.  Later, McKinley inquired  that maybe the doctors could use the X-Ray machine to find the second bullet, but they refused because they didn't know of possible side effects of its use.

Instead, they opted to reopen the wound and look some more, but still could not find it.

When McKinley died, it was later determined that he had died of a bacterial infection resulting from unsanitary operating conditions at the time.

--Cooter

Top Ten Navy Sailors of All Time-- Part 2: SEALs, Armstrong and Kennedy

6.  Michael Monsoor  Navy SEAL Medal of Honor recipient.  Dived on top of a grenade and saved comrades.  Iraq

7.  Richard Marcinko  Founder of the famous SEAL Team 6.

8.  Neil Armstrong  Well, you know what he did.

9.  Dr. Jonny Kim    Medic and sniper for SEAL Team 3.  Went to Harvard Medical School.  Now a candidate for astronaut.

10.  John F. Kennedy  PT-109

11.  Roy Boehm  Fought off sharks when his ship, the USS Duncan, sank  in WW II and founded the Navy SEALs.

Okay, 11, Not 10.

Top Ten Navy Sailors of All Time-- Part 1

From April 1, 2018, Navy Times by John Fannin, American Grit.

Photographs and information are with each man.

1.  John Paul Jones  "The Father of the U.S. Navy"  American Revolution  Tie

1.  John Barry   Also known as "The Father of the U.S. Navy."   Tie

3.  Chester W. Nimitz  World War II

4.  Oliver Hazard Perry   War of 1812   Battle of Lake Erie

5.  Michael M. Murphy   Medal of Honor recipient and Navy SEAL   Killed in Afghanistan

Berlin Olympics Cancelled in 1916-- Part 2: Deutsches Stadium 1913-1933

The German Empire even constructed a dazzling new facility to serve as the center piece for the games.  Known as the Deutsches Stadium, it opened well ahead of the games in 1913.
After the First World War broke out in July 1914, preparations carried on for awhile since no one expected the hostilities to last another two years.

But, the horrific war lasted until 1918, eventually forcing the Olympics to be cancelled.

The arena was temporarily used as a military hospital.  After the war, it was used as the home of the German National Football Team (Soccer) and  German Championship games.  Also for races and the celebration of Paul von Hindenberg's 80th birthday.  Hitler even spoke here.

In 1931, the Olympic Committee made Berlin the host city of the 11th Olympics in 1936 and originally plans were to just restore the stadium, but the Nazis were in power by then and they wanted something even more grander and so the original Deutsches Stadium was torn down  in 1933, twenty years after it was built.

--DaCootOlym

This Would Not Be the First Time the Olympics Were Cancelled or Delayed-- Part 1: Berlin (1916)

I am hearing that Japan will be delaying the 2020 Olympics until next year.  However, this will not be the first time that this has happened.  It has happened three times in history, all because of war.

One time it was because of World War I in 1916 and twice during World War II in 1940 and 1944.

I will be writing about the World War I cancellation here and the two times in World War II in my Tattooed On Your Soul: World War II blog.

From the March 22, 2020, Chicago Tribune  "Olympics: Groundswell build" by Eddie Pells, AP.

Berlin was set to host the 1916 Summer Olympics (the Winter Games weren't founded until 1924), beating bids by Alexandria, Amsterdam, Brussels, Budapest and Cleveland.

--CootPics

More on Ohio's Presidents-- Part 6: Why the Scarlet Carnation Is the State Flower

It was adopted by the state in 1904 in memory of President William McKinley, who wore a red carnation on his lapel.

In 1901, at the Pan-American Expo in Buffalo, NY, McKinley was standing in the receiving line, shaking hands  with visitors.  A 12-year-old girl named Myrtle Ledger asked him for a favor:  "Could I have something to show my friends?  They'll never believe I spoke to you."

McKinley then removed his flower from his lapel, and handed it over to the little girl.

A few seconds later, Leon F. Czolgosz, an unhappy anarchist,  with a 32 caliber pistol wrapped in a bandage around his hand shot McKinley twice in the stomach.  The president died  from the wounds a few weeks later.

--Cooter

More on Ohio Presidents-- Part 5: Two More First Ladies and "Now Dear, I Hope You're Happy" and "Lemonade Lucy"

JULIA GRANT--  (Julia Dent)   was the first First Lady to write her memoirs.  Upon taking the Oath of Office for the presidency, Grant turned to his wife and said, "Now dear, I hope you're happy."

LUCY HAYES--  (Lucy Ware Webb)--    She was a member of the National Women's  Temperance League.  Once Rutherford took office as president, Lucy convinced him that alcohol should be banned from the White House.

After the decree became known, Lucy received the name "Lemonade Lucy."

Because of her  high moral principles , she was admired by many women of the day.    One reporter referred to her as "The First Lady" and that term is used even to this day for the wife of the president.

*********************************

Ohio has had six women born in the state who served as First Ladies:  Lucy Webb Hayes, Lucretia Randolph Garfield, Caroline Scott Harrison, Ida Saxton McKinley, Helen Herron Taft and Florence DeWolf Harding.

--Cooter

More On Ohio Presidents-- Part 4: Ohio's First Ladies, Anna Harrison

ANNA HARRISON  (Anna Symmes)   was the wife of William Henry Harrison, the oldest president to serve in that office at his time.  She also was the oldest First Lady at the time at age 65.  She also served the shortest time as First Lady.

She was also the only woman  who was the wife of a president and the grandmother to another (Benjamin Harrison).

Being the first widow of a president, Congress gave Anna $25,000 one-time payment  as a form of pension for her husband's 31 days in the office of the presidency.

--Cooter

More on Ohio Presidents-- Part 3: "Foreign-Born" Presidents

Only William Henry Harrison wasn't actually born in Ohio, but he did call Ohio home from the time it became a state.

Actually, when he was born, there were no states.  Just 13 colonies.

In fact, he was the last president to be elected who could be considered being born under a foreign power.

The other seven presidents  born under a foreign power were:  George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.

They were British subjects when born.

--Cooter

More On Ohio Presidents-- Part 2: Can You Name the Ohio Presidents In Order?

Who were the Ohio presidents?

**  William Henry Harrison  (9)

**  Ulysses S. Grant  (18th)

**  Rutherford B. Hayes  (19th)

**  James A. Garfield  (20th)

**  Benjamin Harrison  (23rd)

**  William McKinley  (25th)

**  William H. Taft  (27th

**  Warren G. Harding  (29th)

--Cooter

More On Ohio Presidents-- Part 1: How Many Ohio Presidents Were Assassinated?

From Touring Ohio:  Ohio's Presidents.

**  Of the four men assassinated while president, two were from Ohio:  James Garfield and William McKinley.

**  Eight presidents where born in Ohio.  Seven were born in the state.

**  Eight presidents have died while in office.  Of those four are from Ohio:  William Henry Harrison, James Garfield, William McKinley and Warren G. Harding.

**  Of the nine presidents portrayed on U.S. paper currency, two are from Ohio  Guess.  Answer below.

**  Of the twelve U.S.presidents who were generals at one time, five were from Ohio:  William Henry Harrison, U.S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison.

Ohio Proud.  --CootPres


Grant ($50) and McKinley ($500)

Buckeye Presidents-- Part 5: Outsized, Overshadowed, Births and Assassinations

At the time, Ohio was one of only three swing states along with New York and Indiana which helps explain the state's outsized place in presidential politics of the era.  Benjamin Harrison was a "two-for-one guy" because he was born in Ohio and spent his adult life in Indiana.

Yet, Rutherford B. Hayes, in particular, read the Constitution as giving the president a more modest role than big personalities, beginning with Teddy Roosevelt, who would come later.  He was one of only two presidents who chose to seek only one term.

"He really felt that his role was not to overshadow Congress," McLochlin said.  "Some would say that's eroded over the years."

The elder Harrison was born in Virginia, but spent most of his adult life in Ohio.  The others, which include Ulysses S. Grant, president from 1869 to 1877; and William Howard Taft, president from 1909 to 1913, were all Ohio natives.

William Henry  Harrison wasn't the only Ohio president to meet a tragic end.  Garfield and McKinley were assassinated --  Garfield about six months after taking office in 1881 and McKinley about six months into his second term in 1901.  Harding was in the third year of his term in 1923 when he died of a heart attack.

--Cooter

Buckeye Presidents-- Part 4: Longest Inaugural Address to the Civil War and Modern American Era

William McKinley, president from 1897 to 1901, had the first War Room.

It was perhaps no coincidence that the elder Harrison is also noted for delivering the longest inaugural address on record -- in the rain and without a coat, which led to the sickness which caused his death.

A timeline accompanying the exhibit begins with William Henry Harrison's election in 1840 and runs through the death of President Warren G. Harding, the last of the group of Ohio presidents in 1923.

Five of the Ohio presidents served in the Civil War.  The other three, beginning with McKinley served in  what is considered the  the modern American era.

The exhibition includes a Civil War  re-enactment scene and the insights drawn from Ohio presidents' administrations into how the nation changed from before to after the war.

--Cooter

Buckeye Presidents-- Part 3: "Old Tippecanoe"

Objects, artifacts and photographs displayed throughout the center's upper floors were assembled from the Library of Congress, Ohio History Connection, Western Reserve Historical Society and elsewhere.  The show highlights four aspects of each president's life:  their home life, campaign, time at the White House and Death.

Visitors will find Garfield's bathrobe as well as Warren G. Harding's silk pajamas on display. There are hats, fans, china, walking sticks, furniture, historic campaign materials and other personal items.

The first Ohio president Benjamin Harrison's grandfather William Henry Harrison, was the nation's ninth president and the first to die in office.  He was a famed War of 1812 and Indian fighter hero known as "Old Tippecanoe" (for a victory over the Indians) and died just 31 days into his term of typhoid, pneumonia, and paratyphoid fever, prompting the first protocols for replacing a sitting president when he dies.

--Cooter

Buckeye Presidents-- Part 2: "Bearded Guys, Old Civil War Soldiers"

The presidential egg roll started under President Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife Lucy in 1878.  President Benjamin Harrison's wife, First Lady Caroline Harrison placed the first White House Christmas tree in 1889 and initiated the tradition of White House china collections.

"Many of the different things that we take for granted in some respects when we hear about them on the news, were actually started by presidents from Ohio," Shererer said.

It was era, the Gilded Age, whose presidents are largely forgotten, said Dustin McLochlin, historian at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museums in Fremont, Ohio.

"They're bearded guys, old Civil War soldiers and generals when the presidency wasn't as powerful as it is today," he said.    "What the Ohio presidents really speak to, if you're going to talk about them as a whole, is it's an era when Ohio is so important to winning an election, particularly to the Republican Party."

--CootGild

Buckeye Presidents-- Part 1: Easter Egg Roll and the War Room

From the October 9, 2019, Chicago Tribune "Eyeing a Time Buckeye State bred presidents" by Julie Carr Smyth, AP.

Commanders in chief who hail from Ohio star in exhibit.

Lancaster, Ohio

Ohio had a formidable run of early U.S. presidents who established many of the White House's enduring traditions from the frolicsome Easter Egg Roll to the presidential war room.

This is explored in a new exhibit in Lancaster, about 30 miles southeast of Columbus in the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio.  The exhibit is called "The Ohio Presidents Surprising Legacies" which opened in September and ran until the end of the year.  Sorry, you missed it.

The exhibit showcases a roughly 80-year period beginning in 1840.

"We are highlighting some of the things about their lives and careers that are not typically known by the general public," said curator Christine Fowler Sherarer.  "We've tried to find the fun facts and things that aren't common knowledge."

--CootEye

The Life of Olivia Hooker Would Sure Make a Wonderful Movie

After writing these posts on Olivia Hooker's life, I am of the opinion that a feature movie on her life is in order.

I just watched the movie "Hidden Figures" which, other than the Race Riot, draws many parallels.

So, come on Hollywood.  This would make one wonderful movie.

Talk about a woman who overcame and overcame.

That was Olivia Hooker.

Death of Olivia Hooker-- Part 7: The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and An Honor

Tulsa was racially segregated and reeling from a recent lynching when Dick Rowland, a black 19-year-old shoe-shiner, walked to the Drexel Building, which had the only toilet downtown available to black people.

Rowland stepped into an elevator.  Sarah Page, a white elevator operator, began to shriek.

"While it is still uncertain as to precisely what happened in the Drexel Building on May 30, 1921, the most common explanation is that Rowland stepped on Page's foot as he entered the elevator, causing her to scream," the Oklahoma Historical Society reported.

This was what caused the Tulsa Race Riot.

*****************************

As Hooker sat in the front row at a Coast Guard ceremony in 2015, she watched as President Barack Obama honored her, recounting her life story.  He described her as a "tireless voice for justice and equality."

I agree, she is one amazing woman.

Death of Tulsa Race Massacre Survivor Olivia Hooker-- Part 6: Education and the Commission

Olivia Juliet Hooker was born in Muscogee, Oklahoma, on February 12, 1915, and was one of five children.  She graduated from Ohio State University in 1937, then taught elementary school in Columbus, Ohio.

In 1947, she received a master's degree in psychology from Teachers College at Columbia University.  In 1961, she earned a doctorate from the University of Rochester.

In 1997, she worked on the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, which investigated the massacre and issued a report in 2001 "detailing for the first time  the extent of the city and state government's involvement in the riot and the cover up that followed and the total lack of remedy available in the courts at the time," according to a congressional report.

Death of Olivia Hooker in 2018-- Part 5: One of First Women in Coast Guard and a PH.D.

She was stationed in Boston and performed administrative duties before the SPARs program was disbanded in 1946.  She was discharged as a petty officer 2nd class, according to a Coast Guard report, then went on to complete her doctorate.

She became a senior clinical lecturer at Fordham in 1963 and retired from the university in 1985.

Thirty years later, the Coast Guard named a building on Staten Island after her, breaking a tradition of ship- and building-christening in honor only of those who have died.  The service said it was making an exception because of her "distinguished service to the Coast Guard and her wonderful efforts in serving and helping others."

Death of Olivia Hooker in 2018-- Part 4: Joined the Coast Guard in WW II As a SPAR

Later, during World War II, she was a member of Delta Sigma Theta and took part in her sorority's efforts to integrate the U.S. Navy, which had started accepting women.  She said, "They wrote back and said there was complication.  They wouldn't tell me what the complication was."

Instead, she enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in early 1945, three years after Congress passed a law approving the creation of the Coast Guard Women's Reserve to help fill jobs vacated by men who went abroad to fight in the war.

Hooker became one of the first women to join the Women's Reserve, known as the SPARS.

Death of Olivia Hooker-- Part 3: What Happened to Her Doll

One of her most searing memories was what the mob did to her doll.  "My grandmother had made some beautiful clothes for my doll.  It was the first ethnic doll we had ever seen.  ...she washed them and put them on the line.  When the marauders came, the first thing they did was set fire to my doll's clothes.  I thought that was dreadful."

Her family survived the massacre.  Her father temporarily located the family, including her mother and five children, to Topeka, Kansas, while her father remained in Oklahoma attempting to rebuild his business.

He later went on a speaking tour to black Methodist churches to bear witness to the murder and incineration in Tulsa.

When the family returned to Tulsa, she attended Booker T. Washington High School.  "The teachers were scholars, and they were determined every child would do his best,  every child would be taught the King's English."

Death of Olivia Hooker-- Part 2: Survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre

She was one of the last-known survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre in what is often regarded as the deadliest episode of racial violence in American history.

This event, and others like it, are rarely mentioned mentioned in history books.

In interviews about it, she recalled the rampage through the eyes of a child.  Her father had been the owner of a department store in the community of Greenwood, a center of commerce known as the Black Wall street. When the mob marched on Greenwood, burning houses and shooting people in the street, her mother hid her and her siblings under a big oak dining room table as their home was being ransacked.

"We could see what they were doing, she recalled.  They took everything they thought was valuable.  They smashed everything they couldn't take.  My mother has [opera singer Enrico] Caruso records she loved.  They smashed the Caruso records."

They also poured oil over her grandmother's bed but didn't light it because members of the white mob were still in the house.

"It took me a long time to get over the nightmares.  I was keeping my family awake screaming."

Death of One of the Last Survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre in 2018: Olivia Hooker (1915-2018)

From the November 29, 2018, Chicago Tribune  by DeNeen L. Brown of the Washington Post.

Olivia Hooker called it "The Catastrophe," the notorious 48 hours of fire and death that leveled "Black Wall Street" in Tulsa, Oklahoma when she was six-years-old.

The Tulsa Race Massacre erupted on May 31, 1921, when a white lynch mob descended on the courthouse where a young black teenager was being held.

A group of black World War I veterans tried to protect the teen and in the ensuing violence, as many as 300 black people died and thousands more saw their homes and livelihoods destroyed by torch.

Some people were burned alive, and 40 square blocks of businesses and residential property -- valued then at more than $1 million -- were destroyed.

Dr. Hooker later was among the first black women to serve in the U.S. Coast Guard and retired as an associate professor of psychology at Fordham University in New York.  But by the time of her death on Nov,. 21, at the age of 103, she had also become one of the last known survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

An Amazing Woman.

America's Long Line of Military Heroes-- Part 6: The Pitiful Battle of Blandensburg

Only one president, James Madison, filled his commander-in-chief role under fire, and he did so with notable ineptitude.  On August 24, 1814, Madison assumed command of an artillery battery north of Blandensburg, Maryland, and directed its guns on the British as they advanced on Washington, D.C..

The American forces, though more numerous, were routed.  In his and their defense, they were mostly militia fighting against trained soldiers.

The president fled, the capital was put to the torch and the battle became "the greatest disgrace ever dealt to American arms" and "the most humiliating episode in American history."

Well, I don't know about the last two quotes.  But it was definitely embarrassing.

--Cooter

America's Long Line of Military Heroes-- Part 5: The Vietnam War Era

The hugely unpopular Vietnam War can be seen as causing a break between the presidency and the military service, which stopped being an automatic boon it once was.

War hero George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton, who sat out the Vietnam War in Oxford.  John Kerry fought with honor in Vietnam yet his experience was turned against him by the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," and he lost in 2004 to George W. Bush, whose tenure in the Texas Air National Guard was is minimal that some question can be raised whether he is entitled to call himself a veteran.

Then, the next president was Barack Obama with no military connection at all.

--CootPres