Here are two lines from a poem we are not going to share today.
Tie a boat to my wrist, I sprout wings.
Give me a pair of shoes, I grow fins.
Here’s an item from The Onion:
ICE Agents Wait At Edge Of Delivery Table To Deport Newborn
D’oh! I forgot to share this song the other day. You may recall the puzzle required us to read numbers as letters by turning them UPSIDE DOWN. Diana Ross knows what we’re talkin’ about.
I was filing my newly-acquired autographs of Bob Cain and Jim Delsing in my collection yesterday and had to go online to remind myself of their particular roles in the Eddie Gaedel story. Eddie, you may recall, was the little person (3 feet, 7 inches tall) who pinch hit in a baseball game, a stunt perpetrated by Bill Veeck. Cain was the pitcher. After Gaedel walked, Delsing pinch-ran for him at first. I learned some more about it.
First, happily, everyone involved was good natured about it. Eddie did not encounter any mean shouts from fans or the opposing team, as little people sometimes do. Cain was laughing good naturedly on the mound when Eddie came up to bat. His first two pitches were actual attempts to throw strikes into the teeny-tiny strike zone. But he gave up and just soft-tossed the next two to the catcher.
Eddie was under strict instructions not to swing, but Veeck worried he might anyway. He told Eddie he took out a life insurance policy on his life and had a rifle and would shoot him if he swung. They practiced a crouch for Eddie to use to minimize the strike zone. But when Eddie was at the plate he did not crouch, instead adopting a stance Veeck described as imitating Joe DiMaggio’s. It increased Veeck’s fear that Eddie would swing. But he didn’t.
When Eddie walked, he stopped twice on the way to first base and bowed to the crowd. They gave him a standing ovation. It was Eddie’s only MLB at-bat, but he continued to work for Bill Veeck in a variety of roles.
Sadly, Eddie died after turning 36 when he was robbed and beaten. The only person from baseball to attend the funeral was the pitcher Bob Cain, even though the two men never met formally. That’s Cain, below, clearly a mensch.
Ladies, let me put it this way. If Christie f*cking Brinkley’s husband had an affair, you might as well just give up and stop trying. Jeez Louise. You can’t get more beautiful than that. She’s the poster girl for poster girls. (Just made that up.)
According to People magazine (so you know it’s true), it was 2006 and CB was giving a graduation speech at a local high school in the Hamptons, when she was approached by a man she’d never seen before.
“Excuse me,” he said softly. “I need to tell you that arrogant husband of yours has been having an affair with my teenage daughter.”
Ouch.
The arrogant husband was architect Peter Cook, CB’s hubby #4. Despite a pre-nup, they were in court for six bruising years. She came out of it okay, especially happy for her three very loving and supportive kids, all of whom are, surprise surprise, not too bad looking.
In the puzzle today, the clue at 8D was “Double-decker checker.” Anony Mouse #1 couldn’t understand why the answer was KING. Anony Mouse #2 responded with an absurd explanation, but I clarified things up.
Anony Mouse #2: In the game of checkers, when you manage to get one of your pieces all the way over to your opponent’s side of the board, your opponent will top it with one of your pieces they have taken in the game creating a “double decker king” that can move in all directions.
Liveprof (me): The Checker Cab was a popular taxicab in the U.S. and England for many years. As a convenience, on longer trips the drivers would provide a deck of cards to their passengers. And when the King (England) was riding in one, he would be given two decks, so it was known as a “double decker Checker” for the KING.
At 18A, the clue for LENA was “”Game of Thrones” co-star Headey.” I hadn’t heard of her and neither had Tig Notaro.
Duke Ellington was born on this date in Washington DC back in 1899. He said, “I never had much interest in the piano until I realized every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left, and another to my right.”
Yup. That’s why I went into tax law.
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 