Take that, China! So much for their f**king balloon. We’re going to beat the crap out of their pinata next.
In a clear case of anti-Semitism, pitcher Max Fried lost his arbitration case against the Braves and will be pitching this year for an insulting $13.5 million, and not the $15 mil he demanded. Considering that he had a better year than the other Max, Max Scherzer (whom we also love), who is getting paid $43 million, this is clearly a shonda! Your day will come, Maxie — hang in there. We love you!
Max keeps his private life private. Owl Chatter was unable to confirm if he’s still dating USA soccer star Rose Lavelle. She’s lovely, as you can see, but Max has been complaining that, in bed, she doesn’t let him use his hands.
While we’re on the topic of star pitchers, supermodel/actress Kate Upton was in the puzzle today — wife of three-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, who will pitch for the Mets this year. They have a daughter Genevieve. Kate was born in Michigan, and her grandfather was co-founder of the Whirlpool Company. What in the world does Verlander see in her?
Born dead. Wait, what? You heard me — Bob Born is dead. He died at age 98 in Conshohocken PA and there won’t be another Peep out of him. He was a confectioner, head of Just Born Quality Confections, the candy company started by his dad in Brooklyn, but greatly expanded in Pennsylvania via automation by Bob. The company’s best seller is Mike and Ike, but the most loved items are Peeps, of which they make 5.5 million a day, and close to 2 billion a year. Most are sold around Easter, of course.
The record for Peeps consumption is held by Matt Stonie, a competitive eater from San Francisco, who ate 255 in five minutes. Stonie also won the Nathan’s hot-dog eating contest in 2015 and is ranked fifth among competitive eaters. Apparently, they are ranking eaters now.
How Peeps are eaten by the general public is a personal thing. Some folks pop them into their mouths right out of the package, but others let them age a few days, use them in s’mores, or even put them on pizza or infuse them into vodka. A company survey found that 30% of Peeps are not eaten at all — they are used in floral centerpieces, or as chess pieces or jewelry. Some are woven into clothing or wreaths.
In 2004, The St. Paul Pioneer Press sponsored a competition for “Peeps-based displays,” e.g., dioramas, and 80 papers around the country picked up the idea. The Washington Post runs the largest, often getting 600 or so entries. Past “themes” have included: “We Come in Peeps,” “The Ides of Marshmallow,” and “Sweety Todd: The Demon Barber of Peep Street.”
The company has fitted out two school buses with giant fiberglass Peeps that tour the country. “Peepsfest” is celebrated annually in Bethlehem, PA, where the company headquarters are. It culminates with the dropping of a giant Peep on New Year’s Eve.
Bob’s dad, Sam, was an innovator. He developed the process for attaching lollipop sticks to their candy tops, and invented chocolate that would harden quickly around ice cream, as in Klondike bars and pops. The company prospered even during the Depression.
Rest in Peeps, Bob Born.
Here’s a photo of Bob, on his way to work. That must be the Peepmobile, no?
OMG, it’s Babe Ruth’s birthday today, born George Herman Ruth, Jr., in Baltimore in 1895. Only he and a sister survived out of eight children born to his mom. His parents struggled to eke a living out of a seedy neighborhood bar and he rarely saw them. I knew he grew up in an orphanage but I wrongly thought it was because he was an orphan. Not so — his father didn’t think he could raise the Babe so he signed custody over to the St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys when he was seven and he spent twelve miserable years there.
On the other hand, one of the priests at St. Mary’s — Brother Matthias — taught him how to play baseball, and a scout for the then-minor-league Orioles saw him play one day, and signed him to a contract for a then-whopping $600. In training camp, the players referred to him as one of the scout’s “babes,” and it stuck.
I’m not going to throw stats at you (much), but I would like to note that in 1920, when Ruth led the majors with 54 home runs, that was more than the next three hitters combined: George Sisler (19), Tilly Walker (17), and Cy Williams (15). By contrast (not to diminish Aaron Judge’s impressive season), Judge’s 62 homers last year were less than half of the next three hitters combined: Schwarber (46), Trout (40), and Alonso (40).
I bought the item pictured below from another collector for $25 when I was in high school. It’s a deposit slip signed by Ruth. Good move.
In the puzzle today, the clue for IVANA at 17A was “The first Mrs. Donald Trump.” Here’s what Rex had to say: “Are there no other IVANAs in the world? Truly? And did the clue have to write out the entire full-ass name of that creep that used to be president?” I guess Rex isn’t a fan.
Nine down had me confused today. The clue was “Ancient tool for hunters or warriors,” and the answer was SPEAR THROWER. But isn’t the tool the spear, and the thrower the hunter who uses it? NO! I had not heard of a tool called atlatl (also known as a “spearthrower”) that enables the spear to be thrown at greater velocity and for a greater distance, by employing leverage. So the ancients did use such a spearthrower as a tool. Here’s a picture:
And commenter Joe Dipinto noted there are also mini-spearthrowers for when you have the urge to hurl asparagus at your enemies.
Rex has taken to solving Monday puzzles via the down clues alone. Others have too, feeling that the puzzle is too easy otherwise. And they sometimes seem a little too full of themselves when they crow to the rest of us mortals about it. There was a comment today spoofing them: “I solved using diagonals only. Backwards and reflected in a mirror. With the cyrillic alphabet.”
The theme of today’s puzzle by Taylor Johnson was “Earthrise,” the famous picture of the Earth taken by astronaut William Anders from lunar orbit during the Apollo 8 mission on Dec. 24, 1968. MOON was the answer in the lower left corner, and the word EARTH was contained within three long down answers (e.g., in HEART HEALTHY) in such a way that it “rose” across the grid. Here’s the famous photo.
CDilly52 shared the following on Rex’s blog:
We in the “older” category remember the “space race” that started in earnest in 1957 when, despite the US touting its plans to launch satellites in 1955, the USSR sent Sputnik up and followed that by being first to achieve manned space flight with Yuri Gagarin.
We cheered when Kennedy achieved Congressional backing for the goal of getting a man on the moon and safely home again by the end of the decade. Those were heady times indeed. We were awestruck as we followed the highs and lows and all of the excitement and gut wrenching fear of every flight. No internet or cell phones and three television stations – maybe four with public tv. And Walter Cronkite. And real news.
Until this Christmas, a stunning color print of EARTHRISE has hung in my husband’s office since Christmas 1986. Our daughter was hooked on space travel and all things “space” when Sally Ride became the first woman to “slip the surly bonds of earth” in 1983. Our Kate was only four.
My husband, ever a teacher and a lifelong student and aficionado of all things astronomy, aerospace and space exploration was thrilled when Kate showed interest. They made drawings of the solar system and went out to look at the stars. With every issue of Sky and Telescope magazine, he would distill the complex information for her and many bedtime stories were about our astronaut heroes and their adventures.
The Challenger tragedy of early 1986 was traumatic. Millions of us watched in real time as the day so many children were celebrating the “First Teacher in Space” ended in tragedy.
Still participating with her dad in their mutual interest, they spent extra time talking about the sacrifices made for progress and specifically about Challenger and the hope that things the scientists learned would help make the next mission that much better.
As their exploration continued, the Apollo program caught her interest. She loved thinking about walking on the moon. I only recently tossed her shoebox diorama of a toothpick and aluminum foil “LEM” on the mostly sand and spray painted styrofoam lunar surface.
The year came to an end and Christmas became the focus. The Smithsonian catalog landed in our mail box. One of the available items was a beautifully matted and framed color reprint of the iconic EARTHRISE photo from 1968. Kate showed it to me and said we “have to get this for Daddy.” We did, and it has been the focal point of his office ever since.
My daughter has since become a dedicated teacher of very challenged fourth through sixth graders. Her twelve students this year are all boys, and she says it is a completely new dynamic. At Thanksgiving, she said “All they want to talk about is evil aliens.” I asked her if they showed any interest in the factual side of space travel. She said she’d think about it.
I packed up EARTHRISE and sent it to her. She was thrilled and hung it in her classroom. None of her kiddos had ever seen anything like it. At first they didn’t believe it was taken from space. That was all she needed to get them wanting more. She started with the clip of the Apollo 8 crew seeing EARTHRISE for the first time and taking the pictures that became the photo on the wall.
We talked last weekend and she said they were demanding to see more actual “movies” from the NASA archives. She said she was so happy to be able to pass on all her Dad taught her about space.
If we’re lucky, we actually get glimpses of things that turned out well.
I’m in my office at Hunter today, waiting for my 4 pm tax class to start. I’m looking out my 15th-floor window, north up Lexington Avenue. Hey, there’s that goddamn Chinese pinata drifting across Northern Manhattan!! C’mon Biden, bang the crap out of it!! What the hell are you waiting for??
Good night, readers. See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 