The Gad About Town

Something’s in the Way

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Mark Aldrich

“You will remember nights like this,” Mom would say with a smile.

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For those aware that there is a thing called the sky, every so often those of us located on the continental United States are given the sight of a full lunar eclipse during a full moon. This last happened one year ago last September. It was not only a lunar eclipse during a full moon, but it was a “supermoon,” as online newspaper headline writers insisted.

The Moon’s orbit around the Earth is not a perfect circle; it varies from 221,000 miles away to just over 252,000 miles away. Last night, it was at perigee, or its closest point in its orbit, and that coincided with the full moon. Thus, the full moon last September looked enormous: 14% larger than the average full moon and many times brighter than average. And then the Earth’s shadow took it away in an eclipse, because that’s what the Earth does.
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Today in History: September 4

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Mark Aldrich

The two pitchers were old by baseball standards. They were yesterday’s heroes. Christy Mathewson was 36 and Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown was a month shy of 40. Mathewson had been a star with the New York Giants and Brown with the Cubs and they had faced each other two dozen times over the years. Mathewson won 13 and Brown 11 of those games, and in one 1905 game, Mathewson threw a no-hitter and Brown allowed only one hit on his side, but it scored the run that beat him.

One hundred years ago today, the two legendary pitchers faced each other one final time. It was each man’s last game in Major League Baseball. Brown had announced his retirement (he continued pitching in the minor leagues into his 40s, though) and Mathewson had taken a new job: after 15-plus seasons pitching for the New York Giants, the Giants manager John McGraw allowed him to sign with the Cincinnati Reds as that team’s manager. Mathewson postponed his retirement from pitching for one last game and as manager assigned himself the start of the second game of a double-header against his old rival, Brown.

The game was played in Chicago, at Weeghman Park, which is now known as Wrigley Field. The newspaper ads were large (above) even though they were for a late-season game between two teams with losing records, but this was because history was going to be glimpsed one last time. (The ad also explains Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown’s famous nickname. He had lost his right index finger in a farming accident when he was a child. That half-finger gave him a wicked curve ball.)
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