Gaylord Perry was named after a close friend of his father’s who died while having his teeth pulled. Think of that the next time you’re in the chair. And if you need small talk: “Hey Doc — did you know . . . . ?”
Perry himself, the Hall of Fame pitcher, died last Thursday, nondentally, at age 84. His daughter Allison said he caught Covid last year and never fully recovered. He and his brother Jim combined to win 529 games, only ten behind the leading brother-team of Phil and Joe Niekro. Perry’s career spanned 22 years and he played for eight teams, including the Yanks for part of the 1980 season. He went 4-4 with the Yanks. He played longest for the Giants, his first team, and is wearing their cap on his HOF plaque. He’s with the Mariners towards the end of his career at 44 pictured below on an autographed card from my collection.
Perry was famed for throwing “spitters” which are illegal, but he was only thrown out of a game once for doing so, and that came after more than 20 years on the mound. Gene Tenace, his catcher when he was with the Padres, said he sometimes couldn’t throw the ball back to Perry: it was so greasy it slipped out of his hand. He’d walk it back to the mound on those occasions. Reggie Jackson was once so infuriated by striking out on a Perry spitter that he hurled a bucket of Gatorade onto the field and told the ump Perry could use that on the ball. Jackson was tossed from the game; not Perry. Bobby Murcer, similarly infuriated, excoriated the Commissioner and the American League office for “lacking the guts” to apply the rules, and he was fined $250 for his outburst. Shortly thereafter Murcer hit a home run off of Perry, and remarked to the press: “I got hold of a hanging spitter.”
Two days after his 30th birthday, Perry threw a no-hitter for the Giants beating the Cards and Bob Gibson 1-0. The next day Ray Washburn of the Cards no-hit the Giants. It was the only time in the history of baseball that no-hitters were pitched on consecutive days in a series.
Perry was a terrible hitter, and in 1963 his manager Alvin Dark jokingly said there would be a man on the moon before Perry hit a home run. On July 20, 1969, just an hour after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, Perry hit the first home run of his career.
He won the Cy Young award twice, and was the first pitcher to do so in both leagues: in ’72 with Cleveland and in ’78 with San Diego, at age 40. He won 314 games with a lifetime ERA of 3.11 and had 3,534 strikeouts. He never played in the World Series and was in the post-season only once, in 1971 for the Giants against Pittsburgh, and he went 1-1 in the series.
The spitball was first outlawed by baseball in 1920, more than 40 years before Perry’s debut. When it was first introduced, several designated pitchers who were accustomed to doctoring the ball were allowed to continue to do so until they retired.
When his daughter Allison was just 5 years old, a reporter asked her if her dad threw spitballs. “It’s a hard slider,” she replied.
Here are some follow-up comments from Rex’s blog about ketchup and its flow (see my previous post). “Thixotropic,” a new word for me, means capable of liquifying when agitated and re-solidifying when standing still.
“While I’m being pedantic, and since were having a ketchup discussion, ketchup behaves the way it does because it’s thixotropic. I have to bring this up whenever I can because opportunities are limited.”
And later:
“Proudly thixotropic here. Plopped down and blob-like in my favorite easy chair, I can barely move. Occasionally I become less viscous out of necessity, usually when a sandwich is located across the room in the refrigerator.”
Yesterday’s puzzle started right out with a splash. Or, actually, a mash. One across was clued as “1962 #1 hit that the BBC once deemed ‘too morbid’ to play.” MONSTER MASH.
Monster Mash came out as a single in August of 1962 and, fittingly, rose to #1 on Billboard’s hit list in the week preceding Halloween that year. It’s still seasonally popular, and made it onto the list at #37 in 2021. It’s by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and started out by him fooling around with a Boris Karloff imitation with his band. He composed it with a band-mate (Leonard Capizzi) and recorded it with a group of musicians including Leon Russell on piano. The song is featured in a Simpsons episode (what isn’t?), when radio presenter Marty accidentally played it for Valentine’s Day. Here are some of the lyrics:
From my laboratory in the castle east
To the master bedroom where the vampires feast
The ghouls all came from their humble abodes
To get a jolt from my electrodes
“Inclination to prioritize new events over historical ones,” is RECENCY BIAS (58A). It’s a cognitive bias that favors recent events over historic ones; a memory bias. Recency bias gives “greater importance to the most recent event,” such as the final lawyer’s closing argument a jury hears before being dismissed to deliberate. It is not to be confused with “recency illusion,” the belief or impression that a word or language usage is of recent origin when in reality it is long-established.
Recency bias can skew investors into not accurately evaluating economic cycles, causing them to continue to remain invested in a bull market even when they should grow cautious, and refrain from buying assets in a bear market because they remain pessimistic. Lists of superlatives such as “Top 10 Superbowls,” are prone to distortion due to recency bias.
TASHA Smith popped by. You may have seen her in “Why Did I Get Married”? (I didn’t; nor am I raising the question, darling!) Love the hair, Tash!
Speaking of hair, a good clue was “Ones long in the tooth?,” and the answer was AFRO PICKS.
And MAE Jemison stopped in, now that she is back on the planet. She was the first Black woman in space!
She can hang with supermodel TYRA Banks, who we are told at 56 down “coined the term ‘smizing,’” which means “smiling with your eyes.” Great new word for the Covid era. Way to go, TB! Here’s a nice example of smizing.
I was at a doc’s office last year and the nurse was taking my vitals (after assuring me she’d give them back when she was done with them). She asked me to take off my mask so she could take my temperature, and when I did so she recoiled in surprise. “Wow — I wasn’t expecting that moustache,” she explained. I smized.
Today’s puzzle. Remember AVA Gardner? Despite her puzzle-friendly name, I don’t recall seeing her in a while. She was born in Grabtown (not kidding), NC on 12/24/22, and died 32 years ago at age 67. She was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for Mogambo in 1953. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her #25 on their greatest female screen legends of classic American cinema list (Katherine Hepburn is #1).
It was a fun puzzle. “Quite the reverse,” was the clue for SWITCHEROO, and HEE HEE (“Couple of laughs?”) was right on top of JOLLITY (“good cheer”). At 47D, Bette Midler and Miss Piggy shared the clue for DIVA. And pretty Katherine Ross popped by, clued for her role so long ago in The Graduate. Quite a collection of ladies today, assembled by our constructor, Kate Hawkins.
25A was a four-letter answer that I needed every crossing letter to get. The clue was “Brain-tingly feeling that may come from hearing whispering or crinkling, in brief,” and the answer was ASMR, which stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. It’s a tingling sensation that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. It signifies low grade euphoria. Whispering and crinkling sounds are included among ASMR triggers. Many ASMR-inducing videos are available on YouTube. Here’s a comment:
“Many, many years ago in a guided meditation class, I noticed that the leader’s soft, soothing voice caused tingles up my spine. I never forgot the sensation. Same sort of feeling as when someone gently plays with or brushes your hair. Fast forward to the present, when I realized there’s a name for that tingling sensation: ASMR. Not everyone gets it. Check out the YouTube videos sometime. Everyone’s triggers are different, but when you figure out what yours are, the right videos can be wonderfully relaxing and sleep-inducing.”
OK, but keep your creepy fingers out of my hair.
For “Empty bottles?” the answer was TOPE, which means “to drink alcohol to excess.” Commenter Conrad shared this:
Unaware of the wiles of the snake in the grass
Or the fate of the maiden who TOPEs,
She lowered her standards by raising her glass,
Her courage, her eyes, and his hopes.
— Flanders & Swann, “Madeira M’Dear”
Michigan aims for the Big Ten Football title tonight against Purdue. Slightly worried about a let-down after the big Ohio State stomping. Sorry to see the USA men bow out of the World Cup. The Dutch were too good. How they even move in those silly wooden shoes is pretty impressive.
The Wellington Files 