Robert "Lefty" Grove was a Major League Baseball pitcher in the late 1920s and 30s. I'm not going to get into his biography because I don't know much about him, you can check out Wikipedia for his full bio. I was researching ERA leaders throughout the years for an ongoing investigation into spin rates, sticky stuff and related stats when I noticed  Lefty Groves' name in a long stretch of years. From 1929 until 1939 Robert "Lefty" Grove won the ERA title a whopping eight times! including 4 straight years from 1929 until 1932! He plkayed for the Philadelphia Athletics during those four years. The ERA title was won by Mel Harder in 1933 and as I read the ERA winner for 1934 I thought Wikipedia made a mistake because the name was Lefty Gomez, assuming it was supposed to be Lefty Grove, yet I continued reading the list and noticed that the other Lefty, Gomez, actually won it again in 1937, snapping the original Lefty, Groves' streak of consecutive titles while with the Boston Red Sox in 1935-36! I also realized that Gomez played for the Yankees. That must have been some rivalry! The original Lefty, well at least for me, Grove, went on to win the ERA title again in 1938 and 39! He ended his career with 300 wins and 141 losses, a lifetime ERA of 3.02 and 8 ERA titles in an 11 year span! I should also note that in 1931 while with the As he won the American league MVP. His stat line for that year is unbelievable. I will share a few of them that I found courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com:

41 Games started 27 complete games 4 shut outs 175 strike outs 61 Base on balls issued 

31 Wins 4 Losses 2.06 ERA 

Those numbers are staggering! Especially if you compared them to todays standards. His 27 Complete games are more than the entire League, both American and National leaders have had in a five year span from 2017-2021! The American League leader for Complete games last year had 2!

Robert "lefty" Grove won three world series' with the A's and had a stellar Major League Baseball career. I went from researching spin rates to finding a pitcher worthy of mention. I am going to end this piece on Lefty Groves and start doing some research on Lefty Gomez. This is yet another reason why I love Baseball so much, it is rich in history and full of great personalities from every walk of life. I love the fact that even with a pretty extensive knowledge of the game I can learn something new about it or one of it's many stars every single day. I truly am a student of Baseball and will be my entire life. 

A few last notes on Lefty Grove that I discovered over at Wikipedia, he owns the record for striking out the most in a 9 inning game, he whiffed in all 5 of his at bats in one game!

He won the Pitcher's Triple Crown 2 times. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1947.

and last but certainly not least, He was voted the starting left handed pitcher for Baseball's 100th Anniversary all time team.

VICTORIA WOODHULL: FIRST FEMALE TO BE NOMINATED TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT.

(Sorry Hillary, you lose again).

Hello and welcome to another edition of my blog. Since yesterday was International Women’s Day, I figured I’d introduce a very unique and amazing female from a time when women didn’t have nearly half of the rights they have, in the Western Hemisphere, anyhow. I will not get into the atrocious living conditions for women in most Middle Eastern counties. Look into it yourself, it’s disgusting but it is how most women were treated up until just less than 100 years or so. Just a few years ago Saudi Arabia allowed women to get driver’s licenses, just a FEW YEARS AGO! Of course most women still cannot or won’t drive over there because of the overt sexism and I’m sure their penalty for speeding is 100 lashes or some insane medieval crap like that but I digress. I am going to stick with the positive and tell you about the first Woman to run for the United States Presidency and no her name does not start with an H and that is one of the reasons I am writing this blog on International Women’s Day, well the day after. It is so I can rectify this major historical error that has been swirling since the first time that lady that starts with an H ran fro president, SHE WAS NOT THE FIRST FEMALE TO RUN OR BE NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY. There have been a few but none as interesting or as accomplished as my subject today. Her name was Victoria Woodhull. She was the first publisher of the “Communist Manifesto” in the US and on 2 April, 1870, Ms. Woodhull became a candidate for the presidency, running on the ticket of the National Radical Reformers. (YES, folks, we had many different political parties in the 17-1800s. Why just 2 now)? Her Vice Presidential running mate was none other than Frederick Douglass, the famous African-American orator and abolitionist. When she showed up to vote on election day she was of course turned away because women wouldn’t get the privilege to vote for another 50 years! You want to talk about courage? Could you imagine what she must have gone through on a daily basis? Campaigning everyday, being verbally abused and heckled constantly. I got the above facts from the book I am currently blogging about, The Best, Worst and Most Unusual, by Fulton & Fowler. Circa, 1976. As I went over to Wikipedia to see what they say about MS. Woodhull, I was of course not shocked to see that those biased writers

 for wikipedia turned her story into just that, a widely speculated story. The dates don’t match and some of the Historical  information is skewed. For starters the page claims Ms. Woodhull’s Presidential nomination was a scam, as she wasn’t old enough to run. They then attack the party she was in and mix up a few more dates. The article doesn’t take her claim of being the first nominated Female very seriously because they wanted that woman who’s name that starts with an H to have that honor. The wikipedia page has been changed numerous times in the last few years, with MS. Woodhull’s page even being edited as of 20 February 2020. Why would wikipedia still be changing the page of a woman long forgotten? Unless a certain woman who’s name starts with an H, is thinking about running for president again, then her cronies would be all over that page again, trying to erase an important piece of American History or at least bend it to their own historical guidelines. Just as my last post proved that History can be re-written this post is doing just the same. It wasn’t even my intentions on this post but the manipulation is easily seen. My advice to you would be to go check out your local library one of these days, find a book about Victoria Woodhull and see how historians portrayed her 150 years ago to now. Today’s historians (if that’s what you can call these people who type up a wiki page) have diminished and even tarnished Ms. Woodhull’s historical achievements because it doesn’t line up with the History they want to write or fabricate.

Women and men today should know who Victoria Woodhull is without having to find every flaw that today’s “historians” associate with her. Her wikipedia page is fairly lengthy yet only a small paragraph or two cover her presidential run(S), she ran again twice more. The page then goes on to talk about her three failed marriages, her experimentation with free love, her thoughts on abortion (she was anti-abortion), her ties to prostitution and of course how she and her sister were bribed to move to England by Cornelius Vanderbilt because he was afraid they’d testify against him about real estate abuses. This poor woman has been railroaded more by progressive historians than by those who wrote about her 150 years ago. They have turned a courageous, free spirited, liberated woman into a whore and criminal so their modern day messiah can have that spotlight on her, a clear 150 years after the fact. It is disgusting and just another example of how fragile our real history is.  I began this blog post earlier today ready to talk about a driving force in Woman’s Suffrage only to be derailed by the greed and selfishness of those people whom desperately crave power in our society. It is a true shame that Victoria Woodhull will never get the full respect she deserves just because some women now want what she already had? How can we truly evolve as a species when we keep taking three steps forward then four steps back?

Seriously though, do yourselves a favor and do some research on Victoria Woodhull, just don’t do it on line. Soon books will be a thing of the past and the words written in them will be replaced with inferior or untrue content slapped together to make someone’s history sound better or worse than it really was. Hoard your books, especially history books, protect them and for God’s sake use them! We are living in a time when the history can be re-written and the past can be forgotten.  That is a very scary thought for me.

Ok, well thanks for tuning in again and sorry if I didn’t stay on topic today. Please research this stuff for yourselves, draw your own conclusions. Be aware of what is happening and most importantly never give up on the truth. No matter how hard it becomes to find.

Until Next Time……..PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Shortest Presidency. This man was President for 24 hours and you probably don't know it.
He would have been the 12th President, after Polk and before Tyler. Yet your history says differently, here is the story and my hypothesis as to why. Please enjoy.

When it comes to Presidents of the United States, we Americans can name quite a few. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, Obama and yes of course the 45^th, Trump. This isn’t about any of them, as a matter of fact this blog is about a President that I would care to bet a very small fraction of Americans know who about at all.

Well folks I’m about to introduce you to the shortest termed and most unknown American President ever. His name was David Rice Atchinson, A Senator from Missouri who holds the distinction of being our shortest lived and most forgotten President.

 The information I will be sharing with you comes from the book: The Best, Worst, and Most Unusual. Noteworthy Achievements, Events, Feats & Blunders of Every Conceivable Kind.  Written or more appropriately compiled by, Bruce Felton & Mark Fowler. Galahad Books 1976, reprinted in 1994.

As I stated last week I was going to be using this book as reference for some material for my blog. Well I have found it. Lots of it. I cannot wait to share. Now back to our shortest tenured President. Mr. Atchison. Before I indulge what Wikipedia or other sources on the net say let me show you what was written in the book first. This next portion of the blog is word for word from the book.

MOST UNUSUAL PRESIDENT: (U.S.)  At noon on March 4, 1849, (note, I didn’t even notice the date until now! WoW!!!) Zachary Taylor was scheduled to succeed James Polk as president. But March 4 was a Sunday and Taylor was a very religious old general who refused to violate the Sabbath by taking the oath of office. Thus, under the Succession Act of 1792, Missouri Senator David Rice Atchinson, as President Pro Tempore of the Senate, automatically became president of the United States. Atchinson is said to have taken his high office very much in stride. Tongue in cheek, he appointed a number of his cronies to Cabinet positions, then he had a few drinks, and retired to bed to sleep out the remainder of his administration. On Monday at noon Taylor took over the reins of government, but Americans can look back on the Atchinson presidency as a peaceful one, untainted by even the hint of corruption.**

So after reading the book version I hop over to Wikipedia.

Here is an excerpt from their page:

 Inauguration Day fell on March 4—fell on a Sunday in 1849, and so President-elect Zachary Taylor did not take the presidential oath of office until the next day. Even so, the term of the outgoing president, James K. Polk, ended at noon on March 4. On March 2, outgoing vice president George M. Dallas relinquished his position as President of the Senate, at which time Atchison was elected President pro tempore. In 1849, according to the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, the Senate president pro tempore immediately followed the vice president in presidential line of succession. As Dallas's term also ended at noon on the 4th, and as neither Taylor nor Vice President-elect Millard Fillmore had been sworn-in to office on that day, it was claimed by some of Atchison's friends and colleagues that on March 4–5, 1849, Atchison was Acting President of the United States.

Of course Wikipedia goes on to dismiss the whole claim citing various different rules, etc.Feel free to follow any of the links or search it yourself. also check out the Succession act, it has been mentioned a time or two recently.I think the real reason no one wants to claim his one day Presidency was because of Mr. Atchinson’s Biography: Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia about his past:

  David Rice Atchison (August 11, 1807 – January 26, 1886) was a mid-19th century Democratic^[1] United States Senator from Missouri.^[1] He served asPresident pro tempore of the United States Senate for six years.^[2] Atchison served as a major general in the Missouri State Militia in 1838 during Missouri's Mormon War and as a Confederate brigadier general during theAmerican Civil War under Major General Sterling Price in the Missouri Home Guard. He is best known for the claim that for 24 hours—Sunday, March 4, 1849 through noon on Monday—he may have been Acting President of the United States. This belief, however, is dismissed by nearly all historians, scholars, and biographers.

Atchison, owner of many slaves and a plantation, was a prominent pro-slavery activist and Border Ruffian leader, deeply involved with violence against abolitionists and other free-staters during the "Bleeding Kansas" events.*

Clearly, no one wants to admit that a prominent slave owner and anti-abolishment Confederate General was president, even for a day, but it’s true. This book came before Wikipedia and it wouldn’t have claimed the title unless it was true. This is just another case of history being erased, changed or completely ignored. I am not condoning slave ownership or Confederate Generals being president, I am pissed that the establishment or whomever is in charge of writing history is ignoring or re-writing the parts they don’t like. That is censorship, it is a breach of the 1^st amendment.

George Orwell wrote about the Ministry of Truth re-writing and changing history to support the State’s agenda. Don’t think they  don’t do it know. Wikipipedia is a State sponsored “information source”. It is constantly being updated and rewritten. Check any relevant person or event on wikipedia and you’ll see it has been edited, a lot. I have written blogs about it before.

The main point I am trying to make with today’s post is that this book from the 1970s declares this man president for a day, it went through fact checking editors to make the list. It was a fact up until someone decided that this very interesting fact about the US presidents was too sensitive for some people.  I don’t know to me that seems like censorship.

Anyhow, this book is full of great knowledge like this. The next one is about the real FIRST WOMAN to run for president. (Hint it happened over 100 years before that other lady who lost twice).

So stay tuned, read, share, comment, critique, love it, hate it, whatever. Thank you so much for reading…..PEACE!!!!!!!

*Wikipedia: David Rice Atchinson

** The Best, Worst, and Most Unusual. Noteworthy Achievements, Events, Feats & Blunders of Every Conceivable Kind.  Written or more appropriately compiled by, Bruce Felton & Mark Fowler. Galahad Books 1976, reprinted in 1994.

Two years. That's how long it has been since I have posted on this blog. Well I have some great news! I am planning posting again at least once or twice a week! I have no idea what I will be posting but I can tell you that this blog is my artistic one. I will not post anything related to current politics. I will cover conspiracy theories, historical observations, and just my usual poems, short stories, etc. The first few post are going to be commentary on excerpts from a book entitled: THE BEST, WORST, & MOST UNUSUAL, noteworthy achievements, events, feats & Blunders of every conceivable kind.
Published in 1976. I've read and referenced excerpts from this book before and I'm excited to fo it again. There are some great lists, etc. in here. You'll be surprised how differently  people perceived the world even just 40 years ago.
I look forward to blogging again and hope you'll enjoy it.
Peace!!!

Winter

By Homer MakGill (Jan 2012)

Cold unsheltered coat of white

penetrate your soul on a moonless night.

Ice clogged veins refuse to work

silently pleading as death begins to lurk

Starless canvas in the darkened skies

cold bitter wind no one hears your cries

Frozen peace invades your mind

as patiently the reaper bides his time

Numb and lost with no hope in sight

the chill has sapped the will to fight

Slipping closer to the haunted end

quietly wishing fate would bend

Hardened tears stay locked in place

while your broken soul quits the race

Whitewashed world spins loosely by

where your body falls your grave will lie

Realization grips your frostbitten heart

life is over, eternity now starts.

Peace!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

I took this one with the color selector mode on the camera. I like the blue because it just screams at you to look at it. It draws your eyes right to it. I should say that I am not a photographer and I don't want to be the next Ansel Adams, I like to write, I call myself a writer bought I really haven't written much. I have ideas, lots and lots of ideas. Stories that I know would blow a readers mind, I can see them all as clear as day. I spend roughly thirteen to fourteen hours a day thinking, not average everyday normal life stuff, I am imagining new worlds, or traveling back in time to witness the evolution of man. I don't see our world for what it is I see it for what it should be or what I wish it was. I am probably the closest to actual full blown crazy then anyone else in my family. Not the hack my neighbors into pieces, cook them and feed them to you kind of crazy, the Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Kobain crazy. I am not an egomaniac by any means but I do truly have the feeling that there is something really awesome inside my constantly whirling mind. It's zinging and banging back and forth desperately  trying to burst out into the world. I love to tell stories, I love to make people laugh and I love to be different, but sometimes it isn't so easy. I get so caught up in my fantasy worlds and my mind slips further away from reality that I sometimes forget that I have to be part of that reality because it's going on with or without me. I have lost a lot, I have been in the deepest pit of hell. I've had a fully loaded shotgun to my head with the finger on the trigger, I have swallowed a bottle of pills. I was battling crippling depression and horrible pains of regret and guilt. I was surrounded by darkness and despair yet somehow I came out of it. I am a better person than I was 5 years ago and I will continue to get better.   Anything you've ever felt I've felt, except for childbirth and being shot, and that is not something to brag about. Betrayal is a very old friend of mine. I have gone from having everything to spending almost five years of daily drinking. Those years still haunt me and they don't go away. I see the way people look at me sometimes and I know they think about who/what I was back then, I have lost more friends than most people have ever had, I've ruined more lives than you could ever imagine and I’ve had more knives stabbed in my back then Julius Caesar. Back then the alcohol effectively blocked out my overworked mind and  my crippling depression, I know had it been working like it does now I wouldn't be sitting here today. In a way being a raging alcoholic probably saved my life, even though it made me someone I am not it was better than real life, yet that me is dead. I happily buried that Homer in a steel vault under 259 tons of concrete three years ago. For the first time in a very long time I am me now, the crazy, funny, solitary semi-evil genius that is actually happy to be alive. I'm not certain were I was going with all this.  My writing is like my thinking, sorry for that. Oh I think I was whining about being an alcoholic low life. I hate thinking about those days, I lay in bed at night and cry sometimes because I'm finally out of that life. I honestly didn't think I was going to make it and sometimes I'm afraid this is just a dream and when I wake up I'll be sleeping on somebody's floor with an empty bottle of vodka surrounded by the dark cloud of despair again. That is my worst fear, even worse than being covered in spiders in a confined space while listening to Nickelback. I have begun to define myself as a person, an interesting fun to be around (yet very solitary), I'd never betray him kind of person and as scary as it is it's fun as well. I'm smiling more now not from being drunk but for being happy...Happiness ,it's been so long, oh how I've missed thee, I like life. I cringe and lose my breath when I think of how close I was to pulling that trigger all those years ago. Happiness, love, family, friendship I've missed them way too much to let them go again, ever. The chair in the picture, that's me, scratched up and used but still going strong and even standing out from the crowd, whether that’s good or bad I guess we’ll have to wait and see…PEACE!!!!!!!!!!