Joe Nuxhall – legendary baseball broadcaster and trivia answer (the youngest person ever to pitch in the majors) dead at 79

Nuxhall’s place in baseball lore was secured the moment he stepped onto a big-league field. With major league rosters depleted during World War II, he got a chance to pitch in relief for the Reds on June 10, 1944.

No one in modern baseball history has played in the majors at such a young age — 15 years, 10 months, 11 days old. He got two outs against St. Louis before losing his composure, then went eight years before pitching for the Reds again.

After which he had a 14 year career in the majors, followed by four more decades in the broadcast booth.

He retired as a full-time radio broadcaster after the 2004 season, the 60th anniversary of his historic pitching debut.

Nuxhall and play-by-play announcer Marty Brennaman described the Big Red Machine’s two World Series titles in the 1970s, Pete Rose’s return as player-manager and then banishment for gambling in the 1980s, and another World Series championship in 1990.

The move to get him into Cooperstown – as a broadcaster – has already begun.

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So my pal/neighbor Flash and I went to Paul “Wog” Kuettel’s visitation yesterday afternoon after work. Paul passed away this past Sunday.

The room was crammed with people – which, itself, is a great memorial to a guy who just plain knew a lot of people. Paul was active in his community of Cretin/Derham Hall alums, in the Ramsey County GOP, the MOB, and…well, life in general. He knew everyone, and everyone liked him, whether they agreed with him or not.

Don’t believe me? Flash tripped onto a photo on one of the display boards – Paul was standing with a couple of guys who looked dimly familiar. “That’s Bill Luther”, Flash said, pointing to the guy on the right. “But who’s that…”

“Rod Grams”, I filled in. Paul had the two diametric enemies in a conversation about..the Vikings or Paul’s beloved Kinks or who knows what?

I wandered around the room, focusing mainly on the photo displays. And that was the part that got to me. A half-dozen easels showed the parts of Paul we all knew – his run for the Legislature in ’96, his political associations, his career in the software business – and the parts we only heard about; his family vacations with his beloved Laura, Alex, Drew and Catie; his days at CDH; dressed up to go see the Kinks or Ian Hunter or one of his other musical obsessions with Laura, early in their marriage; standing in the surf with the kids.

It looked like he’d left things for people to remember him by.

I talked briefly with his son Drew, a chip off the block if I’d ever met one – gregarious, outgoing. He remembered me by name, even though we’d met maybe twice; he might just have inherited his father’s political savvy. If it’s a parent’s hope that their kids carry some part of themselves onward, Paul did good. I didn’t get a chance to talk with Alex and Catie – they seemed to be pretty well mobbed with their own friends.

As was Laura. Knowing Paul over the years, it’d be hard to overstate the impression Laura makes. Paul, along with his many good points, had his issues – he admitted to having been an alcoholic – and being with someone with a major illness like Paul’s is obviously a gruelling grind. And Paul himself testified constantly to his admiration for Laura, her grace, her steadfastness.

Paul was a lucky guy, and he knew it.
More later.

UPDATE:  Flash noticed something that I – someone who agreed with Paul on most things that didn’t involve Springsteen – wouldn’t have:

Paul had a way with words, both written and spoken. I met him through the Blogosphere about 4 years ago and it always seemed that whenever there was a blogger gathering or an Issues Forum MeetUp I would be at his table, trading stories. He was a Rightie, pure and pure. But he had a nack for debate. The kind of guy who you would talk to all night, and then find yourself agreeing with him more and more. It wasn’t until you left, and got halfway to the car you would stop in mid step and go . . . HEY, WAIT A MINUTE!!!

I’ve heard that from other people this week.

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Paul “Wog” Kuettel died on Sunday, after a long battle with liver disease:

Kuettel, Paul Francis Age 51 of Falcon Heights Born May 9, 1956 in St. Paul, MN Paul showed great courage in his battle against liver disease, but died peacefully Sunday, November 4,

I probably met Paul ten years ago, after years of being among the very few Republicans on the various E-Democracy discussion groups. Paul had a wry, laconic way of defusing political arguments, of getting people to act like…people when arguing about the subject

He related his struggles with alcoholism, liver failure, and his wait as the transplant list wended its slow way on his blog, Wog’s Blog. Along with that, though, he was a warm, genuine guy who cared deeply about people.

One day, my battery conked out about the time he called to ask if I wanted to go play trivia at Old Mexico in Roseville. I related my misfortune; twenty minutes later, he and his wife of many many years, Laura, were in my alley with a charger. There was no getting out of NTN Trivia with Paul.

It’ll be a gross understatement to say he’ll be missed, and missed badly.

Please send your thoughts, prayers or whatever you’re inclined to to Laura and Paul’s kids.

UPDATE:  It was a teaching moment for Ben at Hammerschwing.  Flash also pays his respects.

…to, and prayers for, the Night Writer and his family.

Andy Aplikowki – of Residual Forces and True North – has had a death in the family.

Condolences, hopes/prayers/karmic invocations and the whole works to the MOB Mayor’s family.

(Via KAR)

Category:  Scenarios you’ve always thought sounded fun.

Topic:  Going through a carwash on foot.

Answer: Negative:

A car wash employee got entangled in the giant, automatic brushes and died, authorities said.

Police were investigating the death of Ricardo Alberto Martinez, 18, but foul play wasn’t suspected.

Damn.

In all seriousness, my sincere condolences to the Martinez family.

I’m passingly familiar with Gerald Beck of Wahpeton, ND; plane geek that I am, I knew that he restored old warplanes.

So his death at the Oshkosh Air Show on Friday was a dual tragedy;

Gerald S. Beck was killed in the crash of two P-51 Mustangs, single-seat fighters used in World War II, said Dick Knapinski, a spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Association, which puts on the weeklong air show called AirVenture.

The other pilot involved in the crash, Casey Odegaard, 24, Kindred, N.D., suffered minor injuries…Witnesses said one plane was behind the other, and when its propeller hit the tail of the other plane, it flipped up and over the other aircraft, landing upside down in a fireball.

Ugh. 

My condolences to the Becks. 

Condolences to Senator Coleman’s family on the passing of his father, Norm Senior.

I’m sad to see that Charles W. Lindberg has passed away.

Lindberg was the last surviving member of the group of Marines that raised the original flag on Iwo Jima.

That’s him, standing on the far right. 

Here he is back then:

And here’s a more recent shot:

Lindberg was born and raised in Linton, North Dakota.  After the war, he became an electrician and settled in the Twin Cities.

Back in the mid-sixties, he wrote a book about his experiences; it must have been self-published or run off at some small college press, because it was written in the style you’d expect of a farm boy-become-electrician, unvarnished and unpolished and very, very direct.  My high school library had a dog-eared copy, which I read several times.  I’m sure the book is lost to publishing history, but if you can find it it’s well worth a read.  In it, he relates his story and that of the patrol, and began his decades-long job of telling people that there was a first flag-raising, before the one immortalized by photographer Joe Rosenthal. 

“Two of our men found this big, long pipe there,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2003. “We tied the flag to it, took it to the highest spot we could find and we raised it.

“Down below, the troops started to cheer, the ship’s whistles went off, it was just something that you would never forget,” he said. “It didn’t last too long, because the enemy started coming out of the caves.”

The moment was captured by Sgt. Lou Lowery, a photographer from the Corps’ Leatherneck magazine. It was the first time a foreign flag flew on Japanese soil, according to the book “Flags of Our Fathers,” by James Bradley with Ron Powers. Bradley’s father, Navy Corpsman John Bradley, was one of the men in the famous photo of the second flag-raising.

Three of the men in the first raising never saw their photos. They were among the 5,931 Marines killed on the island.

Rest in peace, Corporal Lindberg.

My definition of “Jazz I Like” is sort of like the the definition of obscenity:  I know it when I see it.

And among the scattering of names in post-Duke-Ellington jazz I have ever really liked was saxophonist Michael Brecker.  Brecker died this past January at 57.

Scott at Powerline, who may be the best music critic in the Twin Cities, directs us to this piece by the NYTimes’ Corey Kilgannon, on Breckers’ last recording sessions, for his Pilgrimmage album, which has been out for a couple of weeks now:

Mr. Brecker’s favorite collaborators — the guitarist Pat Metheny, the bassist John Patitucci, the drummer Jack DeJohnette and the pianists Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau — all agreed to attend the session on short notice. Mr. Brecker had played on more than 900 albums, including familiar pop solos on Paul Simon and James Taylor tunes, but now it was apparent that his days were numbered. A reporter was invited to document a day of recording.

Not that there was anything morbid about Mr. Brecker. He became energized immediately upon reuniting with his longtime sidemen. He cast off his cane and began zipping around the studio taking care of logistics.

“Even the first day in the studio, we didn’t know if the whole thing was going to happen,” said Mr. Brecker’s manager, Darryl Pitt. “But Mike just kept getting stronger and stronger in spirit, and it carried through him physically.”

 Of course, I have a soft spot in my heart for Brecker, who – along with his trumpet-playing brother Randy, David Sanborn and Wayne Andre, served as the horn section on Bruce Springsteen’s original “Tenth Avenue Freezeout”, from Born to Run, which served as my introduction to the Brecker brothers.

A lot has been written about Nick Mancini, who passed away Tuesday at 80 of complications of Alzheimers.

(Photo from the Strib) 

 Mancini had been for sixty years one of old Saint Paul’s foremost restauranteurs; everybody knew him, from politicians to kids in the neighborhood.   Mancini’s was a great place to take a date – especially if she was from some godforsaken suburb and needed to be shown how really really fun a night out in Saint Paul could be.  So everybody has been eulogizing Mancini.

I’ll add my two cents.

I interviewed Mancini, and his son Johnny, back in 1987.  I was doing a story for a local paper about the big new “Vegas” addition to Mancini’s Char House, by then a 40-year institution on the West End (the part of Saint Paul west of downtown below the bluffs).  The grand opening the following week would feature Tony Bennett; a who’s who of the old Levee neigbhorhood – Saint Paul’s traditional Little Italy – was going to be there, too – Mama D, Lou Cotroneo, Vic Tedesco, and a zillion other names ending in “o” and “i” unknown to me but fixtures in the old neighborhood.

And if you hung around the place at all, you figured out a lot about the character of neighborhoods like the West End, which, even for a Saint Paul neighborhood (a city called “fifteen small towns with one mayor”) seems like a throwback; a tattered, rough-looking but comfortable and fairly safe neighborhood that, recent up-market moves closer to downtown aside, feels like it’s hardly changed since the end of World War II. 

Longtime West Ender Erik Hare – who mooched off of Mancini even more than I did – also wrote about Nick:

My first memory of Nick came when I was working on a political campaign across the street. Nick loved to dabble in politics, and while he took care of everyone he was sure to take care of the public servants he knew served Saint Paul well. I was there one evening when he carted over a great big tray of food.

“Eat it! No, it’s no problem. If you don’t eat it, I’ll just throw it out. You might as well enjoy it!”

He always downplayed his charity, making it almost a sin if you didn’t take it. So we all tucked in with the plates and napkins he thoughtfully brought along. It was great after a hard night of calling people and related politicking. But I had to ask a colleague one question:

“These are great stuffed shells, but I didn’t know they were on the menu at Mancini’s.”
“Just eat” was the reply. And we did. Boy, did we eat that night.

Nick often gave away food that way, after church or just when he felt like it. A lot of people came to wonder how he made money that way.

He made enough. Enough is as good as a feast. Everything about Mancini’s is a feast…That was the great gift that Nick gave to us all. He created an institution at the heart of the West End that we know will be a part of us all even after he is gone. A spirit like his is more than the steaks and the good times. Mancini’s belongs to all of us, throughout the community.

Anyway – it’s a legacy one hopes his kids carry on. 

UPDATE:  And Nick Coleman, working on his ostensible home turf, delivers the kind of column he does best:

I tell people that if you want to “get” St. Paul, Mancini’s is a good place to start. Each photo on the walls is part of the intricately woven story of the people and the place, including shrines to the vanished Monroe and Mechanics Arts High Schools and the legends of the St. Paul Sports Hall of Fame…In my favorite photo [of the hundreds lining Mancinis’ walls], taken on Columbus Day 1931, most of the Italians of St. Paul stand on the steps of the cathedral for the dedication of a monument to Christopher Columbus. Proudly standing in front, with his parents and his sister, is 4-year-old Nick Mancini.

It is a time and a place that are gone. But which left a city and a steakhouse still open for business. Nick Mancini started when he could buy only potatoes six at a time. He ended up helping the poor, feeding the hungry and leaving us a place where the powerful come to be seen — and to be seated — among the common people.

And where Nick was king.

Exactly.

Thank a veteran. 

And remember those who died to protect this country. 

Like lots of Americans, including many Republicans, I was of many minds about Jerry Fallwell.

He was one of the boogeymen I held before me as I tried (and eventually failed) ton convince myself to remain a liberal Democrat in high school and college. His “Moral Majority” struck me as…well, basically right about most things, but the group’s name struck me as a bit immodest for my austere Scandinavian tastes.

But he certainly helped focus attention on issues that were and are vital to Christian conservatives. And the media, inflamed by the likes of Jim Bakker and the nearly-irredeemable Pat Robertson, bayed and cavilled about him like he was a pelt they wanted to collect. Many of his worst “gaffes” were taken in a context that was, to be honest, grossly mangled.

I was sitting in a coffee shop yesterday enjoying a rare day off when I heard the news. A painfully austere-looking woman next to me was reading the news on her laptop. “Jerry Falwell is dead!”, she said to me – exhuberantly, breaking into a happy little chuckle. Apparently she assumed that since we were in a liberal neighborhood, everyone she came into contact with would share her elation.
I sat quietly for just a moment, wondering – how do I answer this? That I don’t really giggle over much of anyone dying? That many of Falwell’s stances were reported grossly out of context (as is the norm for mainstream Christian fundamentalists)?

I figured “why not play the gaffe card?”

“Ayep”, I said. “And as a firebreathing Christian conservative Republican, I didn’t agree with everything he said, but he certainly was an interesting character”.

She shrivelled just a bit.

I left it at that.

Miss O’Hara took it a bit further:

As you know, Reverend Falwell passed away today. Like him or not, I am nothing short of appalled by the reactions we are seeing from some folks. I never really followed Falwell, so can’t say much about his doctrine, but there are way too many people spewing incredible buckets of hate toward this man. Yesterday I was unhappy that people actually care about Buttafuco/Fisher; tonight I just don’t understand how we’ve become so narcissistic that we can’t feel empathy for the family of someone who has died, or the deceased themselves. It isn’t as if he were, oh, shooting homosexuals point-blank like Che Guevara or actively planning to wipe another nation or two off the face of the earth like Ahdmadinejad. And even so, they are lost souls too.Nothing prepares me for the hate unleashed by people in our society, even when the object of that hate is suffering or dead or being abused. Certain pockets of our culture have marinated in hate and vulgarity so long they have no capacity to actually care for each other as human beings, no matter one’s creed. We’re no longer human, but just belief systems. Not exactly what God intended.

I look at some of the dimbulb leftybloggers who are erupting in joy today, and all I can feel is depressed.

And yet it’s never gone away.

Learned Foot eulogizes a teacher and Minnesota notable who seemed to excoriate a younger, less learned Foot for a wrong answer in a Civil Procedure class – who then could not find the right answer…:

…I asked a friend who did attend what the damn answer was.

It was the exact same answer I had provided in class, and that the prof declared to be wrong. Apparently, because of his advanced age or whatever, he didn’t hear me correctly. I couldn’t find the right answer because I had already given it, and was looking elsewhere for it.

Amid which he discovered a vital life lesson:

And he taught me that in order to be right, you need to speak loudly.

Granted, with some of us it’s manifested more metaphorically than with Foot, but lessons is lessons.

(Scott Johnson also eulogizes the teacher, former Minnesota judge Donald Lay)

Cello was my first instrument.  And when I was learning it – especially later in high school and college, when I was the most serious in pursuing the instrument – Msistlav Rostropovich was one of the titans of the instrument that I looked up to, much like I did Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan and eventually Richard Thompson on the guitar; the guy who set the level everyone else had to aspire to.

Mstislav Rostropovich, the legendary Russian cellist and conductor whose molten intensity, interpretive imagination, and technical brilliance won him critical acclaim and widespread audience adoration as well as close friendships with three of the era’s great composers, died early this morning. The Russian press reported that he died in a Moscow cancer hospital. He was 80 years old.

Mr. Rostropovich was recognized as one of the great string players of the modern era and the last of the celebrated mid-century Soviet titans, who included the violinist David Oistrakh and the pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

Johnny Hart – the cartoonist who created BC among other strips – is dead at 76.

BC – which used Hart’s evangelical Christianity as source material – was a canary in the PC coalmine; its various religious messages were getting censored by major newspapers long before it was the norm.

Michelle Malkin has a collection of memoria for Hart.

Some of my most enduring memories of summer as a child – between probably ages six and ten, at least – in North Dakota in the early seventies:  the smell of dinner at my Grandma’s place as we all sat with her and watched Lawrence Welk and then Wonderful World of Disney; the taste of Randy’s Hamburgers (a small midwestern chain that made White Castle look like haute cuisine, and was the only fast-food place in Jamestown back then); and, above all, the voice of Herb Carneal broadcasting the Twins games that Dad listened to all summer on a green, Emerson portable radio in the back yard as he did one project or another. 

I’ve mentioned this to hundreds of people over the year, and I know I’m not the only one for whom Herb Carneal was the sound of summer on the Great Plains. 

Carneal died this morning at age 83, and the Twins know where he fits into their legacy:

“This is a sad day for the Minnesota Twins organization and millions of baseball fans across the Upper Midwest,” Twins President Dave St. Peter said in a statement. “Herb Carneal’s voice was the signature element of Twins baseball for multiple generations of fans. Clearly he was one of the most beloved figures in Minnesota sports history.”

He was one of the lucky figures in sports broadcasting – in life, really; the ones who not only carve out a niche, but who make it their own in a way that resonates with generations of people:

Carneal joined the Twins broadcast team in 1962, the team’s second season in Minnesota. He had spent the previous five seasons doing play-by-play for the Baltimore Orioles and before that had worked Philadelphia Phillies and A’s games.

This would have been his 52nd season of describing major league games.

And that’ll retire the side.

One of the annual treats of the trip to the Minnesota State Fair is the seed art exhibit.  The exhibit provides plenty of comic relief (not to mention easy material for the NARN broadcast), and of course the occasionaly “wow – didn’t know they could do that with seeds).

Most of the latter came from this woman, who died yesterday.

Lillian Colton spent the better part of 40 years immortalizing the likes of Kirby Puckett, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Rev. Billy Graham with wild rice, hay and timothy seeds glued to cardboard.

Colton, considered the Andy Warhol of seeds — yes, she did a portrait of him, too — died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at her home in Owatonna, Minn. She was 95.

“With her artistic skills she immediately made crop art into an elevated art form,” said Colleen Sheehy, education director at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis.`

That must be a sign someone has made an impression – when someone can mention “The Kirby Puckett seed picture” and you instantly remember it.

Bummer.

Calvert DeForest – AKA Larry “Bud” Melman from the David Letterman show – is dead at 85:

The Brooklyn-born DeForest, who was 85, died Monday at a hospital on Long Island, Letterman’s “Late Show” announced Wednesday.

He made dozens of appearances on Letterman’s shows from 1982 through 2002, handling a variety of twisted duties: dueting with Sonny Bono on “I Got You, Babe,” doing a Mary Tyler Moore impression during a visit to Minneapolis, handing out hot towels to arrivals at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

“Everyone always wondered if Calvert was an actor playing a character, but in reality he was just himself – a genuine, modest and nice man,” Letterman said in a statement. “To our staff and to our viewers, he was a beloved and valued part of our show, and we will miss him.”

Hard to even remember which Melman bit I liked the best…

Did the seventies have a voice?

You could nominate quite a few voices for the title, of course; Stevie Nicks, Jackson Browne, Paul McCartney, Barry Gibb, Eddie Kendricks, Linda Ronstadt…

…but if you were a teenager in the rural midwest, huddled in your friends’ basements, listening to their older brothers’ records on their dads’ stereos, Brad Delp of Boston was probably on the short list.

Delp – with a bit of help from Tom Scholz’ extreme production style – was the high, clear, blazingly distinctive voice of a corporate rock band that still – at least on their incandescent first album – had a heart underneath all the pure technique.

Delp was found dead yesterday, at age 55.

The Strib editorial board  wants a statewide wmoking ban, and doesn’t want any plebeian concerns about “people losing their livelihoods and investments”, “separation of powers”, “informed risk” or any of that palaver about “debate” getting in the way!

In public health circles, hopes have been high since the November election that Minnesota might soon enact a straightforward smoking ban…Alas, its now clear that the path to success remains littered with obstacles.

In the Senate, the once straightforward smoking ban was so altered this week that passing it as is would be worse than the status quo. Thats because it not only contains new provisions for smoking in establishments with ventilation systems, it preempts local entities from having stricter protections from secondhand smoke — as many do now. Passing a bill with those two provisions would force Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, Golden Valley and a number of other localities to weaken their hard-fought bans.

And for what? Compromising in this way would compromise Minnesotans health. Last years U.S. surgeon generals report was unequivocal on this point: The only way to protect employees and patrons of restaurants and bars is to prohibit smoking. No other method will work.

So, Strib editorial board – why not grow a pair, and “prohibit smoking?”

Why are you futzing around with petty minutiae like banning smoking in bars?

Ban the sale and consumption of tobacco!

Since you, the Strib editorial board, are promoting yourselves as defenders of public health, and are showing your totalitarian disdain for the protestations of the plebeians, why not go all the way?  Why not ban the leaf?

Oh, wait – you (or, rather, the gutless DFL simps that you’re in bed with) can’t figure out a way to do without the tax money that smoking raises the state?

SCREW IT!  If it’s principle you want, then operate from principle!

Strib Editors – if you can’t push for a complete ban on all tobacco, in the interest of the “public health” you barber so ignorantly about, then shut up.

It’s Reagan’s Birthday today:

I’ll be taking the kids out tonight, talking a little bit about what Reagan’s presidency meant to their future (all of it good), as well as the lies that their schools have told about the era, and what to tell to the teachers who will no doubt diss merrily away.

Oh, yeah – and jellybeans at work!

Happy Reagan’s Birthday, America!

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If my grandmother were alive, she’d be 102 today. 

I grew up four blocks from Grandma Bea, in Jamestown, until she died in October of my senior year of high school.

In this piece, on what would have been her 100th birthday, I wrote about her claim to fame.  It’s still a fun story.

Molly Ivins dead at 62.

It’s best not to speak ill of the dead.  So what I’ll do is display this quote…:

“She was magical in her writing,” said Mike Blackman, a former Star-Telegram executive editor who hired Ms. Ivins at the newspaper’s Austin bureau in 1992, a few months after the Times-Herald ceased publication. “She could turn a phrase in such a way that a pretty hard-hitting point didn’t hurt so bad.”

…and note that Ms. Ivins’ writing was in fact the exact opposite of what Mr. Blackman wrote.  Snarky and cliche-driven enough to make Jeff Fecke blanche (although better than Duncan “Atrios” Black, at least), devoid of logic or, usually, fact, embrace for “plain speaking” that was in fact generally ill-informed babble…

…well, again, it’s best not to speak ill of the dead and all that. 

UPDATE:  Brian Ward – who notes the second career that Ivins made out of attacking Bush – notes the President’s response to Ivins’ death:

She’s made a second career out of bashing him, attaching her name to no less than four books on the subject. And the President of the United States, who could have justifiably let her death pass withouth official notice, went out of his way to say this:

Molly Ivins was a Texas original. She was loved by her readers and by her many friends, particularly in Central Texas. I respected her convictions, her passionate belief in the power of words, and her ability to turn a phrase. She fought her illness with that same passion. Her quick wit and commitment to her beliefs will be missed. Laura and I send our condolences to Molly Ivins’ family and friends.

A measure of forgiveness, tolerance, and class that we can all aspire too. George Bush took office saying he wanted to improve the tone in DC. Unfortunately, you can’t do that dance with an unwilling partner.

I can’t imagine Ivins returning the favor.

UPDATE 2: Let me be clear about this, since the tone of my post above isn’t; I’m sorry Ivins died.  I dont wish cancer on anyone.  And Ivins was a good writer.  One I disagree with on virtually everything, one whose standard of proof and logic were frequently dismal, and one whose public persona irritated me (and did so long before bashing George W. Bush became her meal ticket), but perfectly capable of writing excellent stuff nonetheless.