Blow Out the Candles March 19

Phillies great Richie Ashburn was born in Tilden, Nebraska on this date in 1927.

 2003 Flair Greats #13

"To cure a batting slump, I took my bat to bed with me. I wanted to know my bat a little better."

Richie taking hitting with Willie Mays

Philly Railbirds Watch an Expert at Work. Clearwater, Florida March 4, 1955: A demonstration on how to "scoop one off the sky" is given by Richie Ashburn (who bats .313) for benefit of a group of Philly Railbirds at their spring camp in Clearwater. On the fence are Del Ennis; Clyde Schell; Peanuts Lowery and Melvin Clark

Novelist Philip Roth is celebrating his 78th birthday.

"I don’t ask writers about their work habits. I really don’t care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they’re actually trying to find out, "Is he as crazy as I am?" I don’t need that question answered."
— Philip Roth

Among others, Roth wrote:

"My 
God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you
shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs
and bullets —no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!"
— Philip Roth (Portnoy's Complaint)

"And as Lindbergh's election couldn't have made clearer to me, the unfolding of the unforeseen was everything. Turned wrong way round, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as "History," harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic."
— Philip Roth (The Plot Against America)