1895

According to Sports Illustrated (“How to Win at Poker Always”), Charles Fey, a mechanic, invents the slot machine.

 

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Babe Ruth played catcher at times in his youth,
no easy task, since he was left-handed.

 

February 6: Babe Ruth is born in the home of his maternal grandmother. Kate, his mother, and the baby return to the family residence in Baltimore. They lived above a tavern from 1897 to 1901, and while living there the boy was deemed “incorrigible. Later, young Babe was sent to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, where he lived (1902-1914). According to an article in the Orlando Sentinel (2/10/14), Babe had “infrequent” contact with his family for the rest of his life.

 

Babe’s birthplace museum in Baltimore has his 1910-era hymnal from St. Mary’s. In it he signed his name, and wrote “world’s worse [sic] singer, world’s best pitcher.”

 

At St. Mary’s Ruth learned both tailoring and how to play baseball. At times, although he was left-handed, Babe also played catcher. (See photo below of the 1912 St. Mary’s ball club.)

 

On Valentine’s Day in 1914 he signed a minor league contract with the Baltimore Orioles; then in July he was sold to the Red Sox and played in five games before being sent to the Red Sox’s minor league club in Providence, R.I. That season, Ruth met Helen Woodford in Boston, took her home to Baltimore after the games were finished, and they married in October.

 

The following year, Babe bought his father a tavern on Eutaw Street; but in 1918 there was some kind of altercation out front. “Ruth’s father was involved and fell or was knocked down and hit his head. He died of his injuries.”

 

Ruth’s hitting records, particularly when compared to the hitting of his contemporaries, always interested students.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: Someone once called Babe America’s “first sports god.” My students always liked to discuss other sports gods…and it was interesting to talk about why sports matter? I was a big fan of basketball, myself, and carried a ball around in my car in case I saw pickup games in progress at parks.

 

But I used to tell my students, “I get excited about shooting a rubber/leather ball through a metal hoop. Why do we even care?”

 

Another sportswriter has called our obsession with various teams we might love, “rooting for laundry.”

 

So, why do we pay big bucks for team jerseys and how come you rarely see people wearing the colors of lousy teams or lousy players?

Why would any fan care? The author, after another tough season for his favorite team.

 

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July 4: William Least Heat Moon found this short article in the Chase County Leader, a Kansas paper:

 

The Soap Man. 

About two weeks ago a smooth-tongued brass-eyed man traversed this city and Strong, carrying with him a cheap grade of toilets soap. This he offered to the “lady of the house,” for one dollar a box. “A dollar and a half,” said the oily tongued operator, “is the regular price, but to introduce this soap, we offer to those who buy a box, and pay the dollar today, their choice from a well selected list of valuable presents, the article selected to be forwarded to the purchaser within two weeks. This list of presents contains banquet lamps, valuable clocks and a choice collection of the most valuable articles. This, Madam, is a china plate like the china of the valuable tea set, which we can offer from this list for those who buy and pay one dollar for a box of this finest class toilet soap. We are only doing this today and it is your only opportunity. The china plate was a handsome piece of ware, and a set of dishes like it would have been cheap for ten dollars. And we are sorry to say that the feminine common sense dropped out of sight, and deluded by the wiley faker, they passed out their dollar but as might have been expected, the lovely dishes, cushioned chairs, etc. have never gladdened their vision, and fifteen cents worth of soap and a misplaced confidence is all that is left them. Will people never learn that when they hope to get something for nothing, and some traveling outfit tells them that they are going to give it to them, they are sure to be left? 100/523 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: It was always a goal of mine to show students that people don’t really change. There have always been fraudsters and crooks – and honest businesspeople, too. What scams might students compare this to, in modern times. “Catfishing,” for example?

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November 28: Frank Duryea wins the first car race in U.S. history, traveling 52.4 miles in only 10 hours and 23 minutes.

 

Or: by speeding along at a little more than five miles per hour.

 

Only one other vehicle, out of six that started even managed to finish the race.

 

As Smithsonian writes,  After the race, they established the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1896 and mass produced their car (well, 13 copies of it) – the first company to do so. A Duryea vehicle was also in the first car crash in the United States, according to Keith Barry writing for Wired.

 

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The writer of children’s stories, Eugene Field, dies. Halleck calls him “the poet laureate of children” and calls his poem Little Boy Blue one that “will be read as long as there are parents who have lost a child.” He also wrote “The Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby Street,” and the story of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. 

Halleck writes: 

He loved children, and anyone else who loves them, whether old or young, will enjoy reading his poems of childhood. Who, for instance, will admit that he does not like the story of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod?

 

“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
     Sailed off in a wooden shoe—
   Sailed on a river of crystal light,
     Into a sea of dew.
   

‘Where are you going, and what do you wish?’
   The old moon asked the three.
   ‘We have come to fish for the herring fish
     That live in this beautiful sea;
   Nets of silver and gold have we!’
                   Said Wynken,
                   Blynken,
                   And Nod.

 

“The old moon laughed and sang a song,
     As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
   And the wind that sped them all night long
     Ruffled the waves of dew.”

 

Who does not wish to complete this story to find out what became of the children? Who does not like Krinken?

 

  “Krinken was a little child,
   It was summer when he smiled.”

 

Field could write exquisitely beautiful verse. His tender heart had felt the pathos of life, and he knew how to set this pathos to music. He was naturally a humorist, and his humor often caused him to take a right angle turn in the midst of serious thoughts. Parents have for nearly a quarter of a century used the combination of humor and pathos in his poem, The Little Peach, to keep their children from eating green fruit:

 

 “A little peach in the orchard grew,
   A little peach of emerald hue;
   Warmed by the sun and wet by the dew,
         It grew.”