Santo Saturdays -- Patience Pays Off

An  Ebay seller had this card listed as part of a 4 card lot of Santo base cards.   With shipping I thought it was too much for one card since I have the other three.  Well, they didn't sell and he relisted.  Again, they didn't sell.  Around Thanksgiving he relisted them again but this time he dropped the price to a penny.  I wish    I could say there weren't any other bidders but there were.  Still, I think I paid about half of the original starting price.

Here's the signed version.  I have a about a half dozen of these.  I'm sure it would look better out of the case but I can't bring myself to free it.

I have two of these and assumed I had the unsigned version as well.

It turns out that I didn't have one but now I do since this one was another of the four in the lot.  So, bonus!  I ended up with two new cards instead of one and a couple of dupicates.  One was the tenth copy but the last one was just the second so it worked out great.

Blow Out the Candles December 3

Figure skating great, Katarina Witt is celebrating her 46th birthday today.

Katarina ruled women's figure skating in the 1980's winning 6 European Championships, 4 World's and 2 Olympics.

One of America's foremost portrait painters, Gilbert Stuart, was born in Saunderstown, Rhode Island on this date in 1755. You probably have a reproduction of one of his works in your wallet right now (it's about all I have) :

Known as The Athenaeum, the 1796 portrait of George Washington was unfinished.
From Wikipedia: "Stuart painted George Washington in a series of iconic portraits, each of them leading in turn to a demand for copies and keeping Stuart busy and highly paid for years.[15] The most famous and celebrated of these likenesses, known as The Athenaeum, is currently portrayed on the United States one dollar bill. Stuart, along with his daughters, painted a total of 130 reproductions of The Athenaeum. However, Stuart never completed the original version; after finishing Washington's face, the artist kept the original version to make the copies.[16] He sold up to 70 of his reproductions for a price of US$100 each, but the original portrait was left unfinished at the time of Stuart's death in 1828.[16] The painting now hangs in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.[16]"


Charles Pillsbury, founder of the Pillsbury Co. was born on this date in 1842.

The familiar logo.

The Pillsbury Doughboy "Poppin Fresh"

Brewers South

OK, the Cubs are becoming Brewers South.  Former Brew Crew pitcher Chris Bosio is apparently going to be announced soon as the Cubs new pitching coach joining Dale Sveum and Pat Listach.  Another former Brewer, Craig Counsell has also been rumored to have been offered a position under Sveum.  I really don't care who they played for as long as they help bring  a championship to The Friendly Confines.

Blow Out the Candles -- December 2

  Tennis star Monica Seles celebrates her 38th birthday today.

Monica won 9 Grand Slam singles titles and might have won many more if not for being stabbed in the back (literally) at a tournament in Hamburg, Germanyin 1993.   She recovered from the injuries but was never the same.  I loved the energy she brought to the game.

My Favorite Martian, Ray Walston was born on this date in 1914. 

Ray also played Mr. Applegate (Satan) in the Broadway and film versions of Damn Yankees.

Here's a rarity, Ray "singing" Chim Chim Cher-ee  from Mary Poppins.

The flip side:

Artist Georges Seurat was born in Paris, France on this date in 1859. 

Self-portrait

Seurat's most famous painting is A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-1886).

"Under a blazing mid-afternoon summer sky, we see the Seine flooded with sunshine... people are strolling, others are sitting or stretched out lazily on the bluish grass."

A Simpson's homage

Seurat's painting was the inspiration for Sondheim and Lapine's Pulitzer and Tony winning Broadway musical , Sunday in the Park with George.   Here's Mandy Patinkin:

More by Seurat:

"They see poetry in what I have done. No. I apply my methods, and that is all there is to it."

"Originality depends only on the character of the drawing and the vision peculiar to each artist."

"Art is harmony. Harmony is the analogy of contrary and of similar elements of tone, of color and of line, conditioned by the dominate key, and under the influence of a particular light, in gay, calm, or sad combinations."

David DeJesus

The Cubs announced on Wednesday that they had signed outfielder David DeJesus to a two year contract.  He will most likely be the team's regular right fielder in 2012.

DeJesus has played most his career in KC and since I mostly follow the National League I don't know much about him.  Did the Cubs do well in signing him?  Anyone have any stories or good tidbits of information about him?  Thanks.

Blow Out the Candles -- December 1

HOF Dodgers manager Walter Alston was born on this date in 1911.  He won 2040 games, 7 Pennants and 4 World Series Championships.

1968 Topps #472

"Look at misfortune the same way you look at success - Don't Panic! Do you best and forget the consequences."

"I'd rather win two or three, lose one, win two or three more. I'm a great believer in things evening out. If you win a whole bunch in a row, somewhere along the line you're going to lose some too."

Mathematician Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia on this date in 1792.
 For me this is an excuse to post the following song by Professor Tom Lehrer:

For many years now, Mr. Danny Kaye, who has been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the great Russian director Stanislavsky and the secret of success in the acting profession. And I thought it would be interesting to stea... to adapt this idea to the field of mathematics. I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.

Be that as it may, some of you may have had occasion to run into mathematicians and to wonder therefore how they got that way, and here, in partial explanation perhaps, is the story of the great Russian mathematician Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky.

Who made me the genius I am today,
The mathematician that others all quote,
Who's the professor that made me that way?
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat.

One man deserves the credit,
One man deserves the blame,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach-

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:
Plagiarize!

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please 'research'.

And ever since I meet this man
My life is not the same,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach-

I am never forget the day I am given first original paper
to write. It was on analytic and algebraic topology of
locally Euclidean parameterization of infinitely differentiable
Riemannian manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This I know from nothing.
What-i'm going-to do.
But I think of great Lobachevsky and get idea - ahah!

I have a friend in Minsk,
Who has a friend in Pinsk,
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk.

And when his work is done -
Ha ha! - begins the fun.
From Dnepropetrovsk
To Petropavlovsk,
By way of Iliysk,
And Novorossiysk,
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk
To Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run,
Yes, to me the news will run!

And then I write
By morning, night,
And afternoon,
And pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed,
When he finds out I publish first!

And who made me a big success
And brought me wealth and fame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach -

I am never forget the day my first book is published.
Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.
Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
This book was sensational!
Pravda - well, Pravda - Pravda said: "Zhil-bil korol kogda-to, pree nyom blokha zhila"[1] It stinks.
But Izvestia! Izvestia said: "Ya idoo kuda sam czar idyot peshkom!"[2]
It stinks.
Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles,
Changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle',
With Ingrid Bergman playing part of hypotenuse.

And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!

One of my personal favorite filmmakers, (Allen Stewart Konigsberg), Woody Allen is turning 76 today.
  I've been a big fan since the mid 1970's.  Favorites off the top of my head-- Bananas, Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Zelig, Radio Days, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy.

Here are some pictures and clips:

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying."
This is from 1965.


From 1967

Nuts and Quirk?

The Cubs have named Jamie Quirk as bench coach to our new manager Dale "Nuts" Sveum.
I found this 1989 Fleer card of Quirk back in his playing days.

Jamie spent 11 of his 18 seasons with the Royals.  Most recently he was the bullpen coach for the Houston Astros.

Here's a link to the Cubs official press release if you're interested.

Blow Out the Candles -- November 30

The multi-talented Bo Jackson is celebrating his 49th birthday today. One of the greatest, "what might have been" stories in sports, Bo did amaze us while he could.

2006 UD Legendary Cuts 144/225

"I hate to blow my own horn, but I gave a lot of people fits."

1990 Score Hot Card #2 of 10

“Baseball and football are very different games. In a way, both of them are easy. Football is easy if you're crazy as hell. Baseball is easy if you've got patience. They'd both be easier for me if I were a little more crazy - and a little more patient.”