Friday, December 9, 2022

Baseball Great Christy Mathewson

As pictured in his book, Pitching in a Pinch or, Baseball from the Inside By Christy Mathewson (1912). [In the PUBLIC DOMAIN] This edition issued under arrangement with the publishers G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York and London; The Knickerbocker Press, New York.
[Pg 1] Pitching in a Pinch
I The Most Dangerous Batters I Have Met How “Joe” Tinker Changed Overnight from a Weakling at the Plate to the Worst Batter I Had to Face—“Fred” Clarke of Pittsburg cannot be Fooled by a Change of Pace, and “Hans” Wagner’s Only “Groove” Is a Base on Balls—“Inside” Information on All the Great Batters. I HAVE often been asked to which batters I have found it hardest to pitch. It is the general impression among baseball fans that Joseph Faversham Tinker, the short-stop of the Chicago Cubs, is the worst man that I have to face in the National League. Few realize that during his first two years in the big show Joe Tinker looked like a cripple at the plate when I was pitching. His “groove” was a slow curve over the outside corner, and I fed him slow curves over that[Pg 2] very outside corner with great regularity. Then suddenly, overnight, he became from my point of view the most dangerous batter in the League. Tinker is a clever ball-player, and one day I struck him out three times in succession with low curves over the outside corner. Instead of getting disgusted with himself, he began to think and reason. He knew that I was feeding him that low curve over the outside corner, and he started to look for an antidote. He had always taken a short, choppy swing at the ball. When he went to the clubhouse after the game in which he struck out three times, he was very quiet, so I have been told. He was just putting on his last sock when he clapped his hand to his leg and exclaimed: “I’ve got it.” “Got what?” asked Johnny Evers, who happened to be sitting next to Tinker. “Got the way to hit Matty, who had me looking as if I came from the home for the blind out there to-day,” answered Joe. “I should say he did,” replied Evers. “But if you’ve found a way to hit him, why, I’m from away out in Missouri near the Ozark Mountains.” [Pg 3]“Wait till he pitches again,” said Tinker by way of conclusion, as he took his diamond ring from the trainer and left the clubhouse. It was a four-game series in Chicago, and I had struck Tinker out three times in the first contest. McGraw decided that I should pitch the last game as well. Two men were on the bases and two were out when Tinker came to the bat for the first time in this battle, and the outfielders moved in closer for him, as he had always been what is known as a “chop” hitter. I immediately noticed something different about his style as he set himself at the plate, and then it struck me that he was standing back in the box and had a long bat. Before this he had always choked his bat short and stood up close. Now I observed that he had his stick way down by the handle. Bresnahan was catching, and he signalled for the regular prescription for Tinker. With a lot of confidence I handed him that old low curve. He evidently expected it, for he stepped almost across the plate, and, with that long bat, drove the ball to right field for two bases over the head of George Browne, who was playing close up to the infield, scoring both runs and eventually winning the game. [Pg 4]“I’ve got your number now, Matty!” he shouted at me as he drew up at second base. I admit that he has had it quite frequently since he switched his batting style. Now the outfielders move back when Tinker comes to the plate, for, if he connects, he hits “’em far” with that long bat. Ever since the day he adopted the “pole” he has been a thorn in my side and has broken up many a game. That old low curve is his favorite now, and he reaches for it with the same cordiality as is displayed by an actor in reaching for his pay envelope. The only thing to do is to keep them close and try to outguess him, but Tinker is a hard man to beat at the game of wits. Many a heady hitter in the Big League could give the signs to the opposing pitcher, for he realizes what his weakness is and knows that a twirler is going to pitch at it. But, try as hard as he will, he cannot often cover up his “groove,” as Tinker did, and so he continues to be easy for the twirler who can put the ball where he wants it. Fred Clarke, of Pittsburg, has always been a hard man for me to fool on account of his batting form. A hitter of his type cannot be deceived by a change of pace, because he stands up close to[Pg 5] the plate, chokes his bat short, and swings left-handed. When a pitcher cannot deceive a man with a change of pace, he has to depend on curves. Let me digress briefly to explain why a change of pace will not make the ball miss Clarke’s bat. He is naturally a left-field hitter, and likes the ball on the outside corner of the plate. That means he swings at the ball late and makes most of his drives to left field. How is a batter fooled by a change of pace? A pitcher gives him a speedy one and then piles a slow one right on top of it with the same motion. The batter naturally thinks it is another fast ball and swings too soon—that is, before the ball gets to him. But when a man like Clarke is at the bat and a pitcher tries to work a change of pace, what is the result? He naturally swings late and so hits a fast ball to left field. Then as the slow one comes up to the plate, he strikes at it, granted he is deceived by it, timing his swing as he would at a fast ball. If it had been a fast ball, as he thought, he would have hit it to left field, being naturally a late swinger. But on a slow one he swings clear around and pulls it to right field twice as hard as he would have hit it to left field because[Pg 6] he has obtained that much more drive in the longer swing. Therefore, it is a rule in the profession that no left-handed batter who hits late can be deceived by a change of pace. “Rube” Ellis, a left-handed hitter of the St. Louis Club, entered the League and heard complimentary stories about my pitching. Ellis came up to bat the first day that I pitched against him wondering if he would get even a foul. He was new to me and I was looking for his “groove.” I gave him one over the outside corner, and he jabbed it to left field. The next time, I thought to work the change of pace, and, swinging late, he hauled the ball around to right field, and it nearly tore Fred Tenny’s head off en route over first base. Five hits out of five times at bat he made off me that day, and, when he went to the clubhouse, he remarked to his team mates in this wise: “So that is the guy who has been burning up this League, huh? We’ve got better ’n him in the coast circuit. He’s just got the Indian sign on you. That’s all.” I did a little thinking about Ellis’s hitting. He used a long bat and held it down near the end and “poled ’em.” He was naturally a left-field hitter[Pg 7] and, therefore, swung late at the ball. I concluded that fast ones inside would do for Mr. Ellis, and the next time we met he got just those. He has been getting them ever since and now, when he makes a hit off me, he holds a celebration. “Hans” Wagner, of Pittsburg, has always been a hard man for me, but in that I have had nothing on a lot of other pitchers. He takes a long bat, stands well back from the plate, and steps into the ball, poling it. He is what is known in baseball as a free swinger, and there are not many free swingers these days. This is what ailed the Giants’ batting during the world’s series in 1911. They all attempted to become free swingers overnight and were trying to knock the ball out of the lot, instead of chopping it. In the history of baseball there have not been more than fifteen or twenty free swingers altogether, and they are the real natural hitters of the game, the men with eyes nice enough and accurate enough to take a long wallop at the ball. “Dan” Brouthers was one, and so was “Cap” Anson. Sherwood Magee and “Hans” Wagner are contemporary free swingers. Men of this type wield a heavy bat as if it were a toothpick and[Pg 8] step back and forth in the box, hitting the ball on any end of the plate. Sometimes it is almost impossible to pass a man of this sort purposely, for a little carelessness in getting the ball too close to the plate may result in his stepping up and hitting it a mile. Pitchers have been searching for Wagner’s “groove” for years, and, if any one of them has located it, he has his discovery copyrighted, for I never heard of it. Only one pitcher, that I can recall, always had it on Wagner, and that man was Arthur Raymond, sometimes called “Bugs.” He seemed to upset the German by his careless manner in the box and by his “kidding” tactics. I have seen him make Wagner go after bad balls, a thing that “Hans” seldom can be induced to do by other twirlers. I remember well the first time I pitched against Wagner. Jack Warner was catching, and I, young and new in the League, had spent a lot of time with him, learning the weaknesses of the batters and being coached as to how to treat them. Wagner loomed up at the bat in a pinch, and I could not remember what Warner had said about his flaw. I walked out of the box to confer with the catcher. “What’s his ‘groove,’ Jack?” I asked him. [Pg 9]“A base on balls,” replied Warner, without cracking a smile. That’s always been Wagner’s “groove.” There used to be a player on the Boston team named Claude Ritchey who “had it on me” for some reason or other. He was a left-handed hitter and naturally drove the ball to left field, so that I could not fool him with a change of pace. He was always able to outguess me in a pinch and seemed to know by intuition what was coming. There has been for a long time an ardent follower of the Giants named Mrs. Wilson, who raves wildly at a game, and is broken-hearted when the team loses. The Giants were playing in Boston one day, and needed the game very badly. It was back in 1905, at the time the club could cinch the pennant by winning one contest, and the flag-assuring game is the hardest one to win. Two men got on the bases in the ninth inning with the score tied and no one out. The crowd was stamping its feet and hooting madly, trying to rattle me. I heard Mrs. Wilson shrill loudly above the noise: “Stick with them, Matty!” Ritchey came up to the bat, and I passed him[Pg 10] purposely, trying to get him to strike at a bad ball. I wouldn’t take a chance on letting him hit at a good one. Mrs. Wilson thought I was losing my control, and unable to stand it any longer she got up and walked out of the grounds. Then I fanned the next two batters, and the last man hit a roller to Devlin and was thrown out at first base. I was told afterwards that Mrs. Wilson stood outside the ground, waiting to hear the crowd cheer, which would have told her it was all over. She lingered at the gate until the fourteenth inning, fearing to return because she expected to see us routed. At last she heard a groan from the home crowd when we won in the fourteenth. Still she would not believe that I had weathered the storm and won the game that gave the Giants a pennant, but waited to be assured by some of the spectators leaving the grounds before she came around to congratulate us. All batters who are good waiters, and will not hit at bad balls, are hard to deceive, because it means a twirler has to lay the ball over, and then the hitter always has the better chance. A pitcher will try to get a man to hit at a bad ball before he will put it near the plate. [Pg 11]Many persons have asked me why I do not use my “fade-away” oftener when it is so effective, and the only answer is that every time I throw the “fade-away” it takes so much out of my arm. It is a very hard ball to deliver. Pitching it ten or twelve times in a game kills my arm, so I save it for the pinches. Many fans do not know what this ball really is. It is a slow curve pitched with the motion of a fast ball. But most curve balls break away from a right-handed batter a little. The fade-away breaks toward him. Baker, of the Athletics, is one of the most dangerous hitters I have ever faced, and we were not warned to look out for him before the 1911 world’s series, either. Certain friends of the Giants gave us some “inside” information on the Athletics’ hitters. Among others, the Cubs supplied us with good tips, but no one spread the Baker alarm. I was told to watch out for Collins as a dangerous man, one who was likely to break up a game any time with a long drive. I consider Baker one of the hardest, cleanest hitters I have ever faced, and he drives the ball on a line to any field. The fielders cannot play for[Pg 12] him. He did not show up well in the first game of the world’s series because the Athletics thought they were getting our signs, and we crossed Baker with two men on the bases in the third inning. He lost a chance to be a hero right there. The roughest deal that I got from Baker in the 1911 series was in the third game, which was the second in New York. We had made one run and the ninth inning rolled around with the Giants still leading, 1 to 0. The first man at the bat grounded out and then Baker came up. I realized by this time that he was a hard proposition, but figured that he could not hit a low curve over the outside corner, as he is naturally a right-field hitter. I got one ball and one strike on him and then delivered a ball that was aimed to be a low curve over the outside corner. Baker refused to swing at it, and Brennan, the umpire, called it a ball. I thought that it caught the outside corner of the plate, and that Brennan missed the strike. It put me in the hole with the count two balls and one strike, and I had to lay the next one over very near the middle to keep the count from being three and one. I pitched a curve ball that was meant for the outside corner, but cut the plate better[Pg 13] than I intended. Baker stepped up into it and smashed it into the grand-stand in right field for a home run, and there is the history of that famous wallop. This tied the score. A pitcher has two types of batters to face. One is the man who is always thinking and guessing and waiting, trying to get the pitcher in the hole. Evers, of the Cubs, is that sort. They tell me that “Ty” Cobb of Detroit is the most highly developed of this type of hitter. I have never seen him play. Then the other kind is the natural slugger, who does not wait for anything, and who could not outguess a pitcher if he did. The brainy man is the harder for a pitcher to face because he is a constant source of worry. There are two ways of fooling a batter. One is literally to “mix ’em up,” and the other is to keep feeding him the same sort of a ball, but to induce him to think that something else is coming. When a brainy man is at the bat, he is always trying to figure out what to expect. If he knows, then his chances of getting a hit are greatly increased. For instance, if a batter has two balls and two strikes on him, he naturally concludes that the pitcher will throw him a curve ball, and prepares for it.[Pg 14] Big League ball-players recognize only two kinds of pitched balls—the curve and the straight one. When a catcher in the Big League signals for a curved ball, he means a drop, and, after handling a certain pitcher for a time, he gets to know just how much the ball is going to curve. That is why the one catcher receives for the same pitcher so regularly, because they get to work together harmoniously. “Chief” Meyers, the big Indian catcher on the Giants, understands my style so well that in some games he hardly has to give a sign. But, oddly enough, he could never catch Raymond because he did not like to handle the spit ball, a hard delivery to receive, and Raymond and he could not get along together as a battery. They would cross each other. But Arthur Wilson caught Raymond almost perfectly. This explains the loss of effectiveness of many pitchers when a certain catcher is laid up or out of the game. “Cy” Seymour, formerly the outfielder of the Giants, was one of the hardest batters I ever had to pitch against when he was with the Cincinnati club and going at the top of his stride. He liked a curved ball, and could hit it hard and far, and was always waiting for it. He was very clever at [Pg 15]out-guessing a pitcher and being able to conclude what was coming. For a long time whenever I pitched against him I had “mixed ’em up” literally, handing him first a fast ball and then a slow curve and so on, trying to fool him in this way. But one day we were playing in Cincinnati, and I decided to keep delivering the same kind of a ball, that old fast one around his neck, and to try to induce him to believe that a curve was coming. I pitched him nothing but fast ones that day, and he was always waiting for a curve. The result was that I had him in the hole all the time, and I struck him out three times. He has never gotten over it. Only recently I saw Seymour, and he said: “Matty, you are the only man that ever struck me out three times in the same game.” He soon guessed, however, that I was not really mixing them up, and then I had to switch my style again for him. Some pitchers talk to batters a great deal, hoping to get their minds off the game in this way, and thus be able to sneak strikes over. But I find that talking to a batter disconcerts me almost as much as it does him, and I seldom do it. Repartee is not my line anyway. [Pg 16]Bender talked to the Giant players all through that first game in the 1911 world’s series, the one in which he wore the smile, probably because he was a pitcher old in the game and several of the younger men on the New York team acted as if they were nervous. Snodgrass and the Indian kept up a running fire of small talk every time that the Giants’ centre-fielder came to the plate. Snodgrass got hit by pitched balls twice, and this seemed to worry Bender. When the New York centre-fielder came to the bat in the eighth inning, the Indian showed his even teeth in the chronic grin and greeted Snodgrass in this way: “Look out, Freddie, you don’t get hit this time.” Then Bender wound up and with all his speed drove the ball straight at Snodgrass’s head, and Bender had more speed in that first game than I ever saw him use before. Snodgrass dodged, and the ball drove into Thomas’s glove. This pitching the first ball at the head of a batter is an old trick of pitchers when they think a player intends to get hit purposely or that he is crowding the plate. “If you can’t push ’em over better than that,”[Pg 17] retorted Snodgrass, “I won’t need to get hit. Let’s see your fast one now.” “Try this one,” suggested Bender, as he pitched another fast one that cut the heart of the plate. Snodgrass swung and hit nothing but the air. The old atmosphere was very much mauled by bats in that game anyway. “You missed that one a mile, Freddie,” chuckled the Indian, with his grin. Snodgrass eventually struck out and then Bender broke into a laugh. “You ain’t a batter, Freddie,” exclaimed the Indian, as he walked to the bench. “You’re a backstop. You can never get anywhere without being hit.” If a pitcher is going to talk to a batter, he must size up his man. An irritable, nervous young player often will fall for the conversation, but most seasoned hitters will not answer back. The Athletics, other than Bender, will not talk in a game. We tried to get after them in the first contest in 1911, and we could not get a rise out of one of them, except when Snodgrass spiked Baker, and I want to say right here that this much discussed incident was accidental. Baker was blocking[Pg 18] Snodgrass out, and the New York player had a perfect right to the base line. Sherwood Magee of the Philadelphia National League team is one of the hardest batters that I ever have had to face, because he has a great eye, and is of the type of free swingers who take a mad wallop at the ball, and are always liable to break up a game with a long drive. Just once I talked to him when he was at the bat, more because we were both worked up than for any other reason, and he came out second best. It was while the Giants were playing at American League Park in 1911 after the old Polo Grounds had burned. Welchonce, who was the centre-fielder for the Phillies at the time, hit a slow one down the first base line, and I ran over to field the ball. I picked it up as the runner arrived and had no time to straighten up to dodge him. So I struck out my shoulder and he ran into it. There was no other way to make the play, but I guess it looked bad from the stand, because Welchonce fell down. Magee came up to bat next, threw his hat on the ground, and started to call me names. He is bad when irritated—and tolerably easy to irritate, as shown by the way in which he knocked down[Pg 19] Finnegan, the umpire, last season because their ideas on a strike differed slightly. I replied on that occasion, but remembered to keep the ball away from the centre of the plate. That is about all I did do, but he was more wrought up than I and hit only a slow grounder to the infield. He was out by several feet. He took a wild slide at the bag, however, feet first, in what looked like an attempt to spike Merkle. We talked some more after that, but it has all been forgotten now. To be a successful pitcher in the Big League, a man must have the head and the arm. When I first joined the Giants, I had what is known as the “old round-house curve,” which is no more than a big, slow outdrop. I had been fooling them in the minor leagues with it, and I was somewhat chagrined when George Davis, then the manager of the club, came to me and told me to forget the curve, as it would be of no use. It was then that I began to develop my drop ball. A pitcher must watch all the time for any little unconscious motion before he delivers the ball. If a base runner can guess just when he is going to pitch, he can get a much better start. Drucke used to have a little motion with his foot just [Pg 20]before he pitched, of which he himself was entirely unconscious, but the other clubs got on to it and stole bases on him wildly. McGraw has since broken him of it. The Athletics say that I make a motion peculiar to the fade-away. Some spit-ball pitchers announce when they are going to throw a moist one by looking at the ball as they dampen it. At other times, when they “stall,” they do not look at the ball. The Big League batter is watching for all these little things and, if a pitcher is not careful, he will find a lot of men who are hard to pitch to. There are plenty anyway, and, as a man grows older, this number increases season by season. [Pg 21] i002
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Thursday, September 5, 2019

Giants 9 Cardinals 8

Peggy and I got to see this great game at Busch Stadium because our Giants were in town when we had to drive from Springfield, MO, to St. Louis for my regular visit to the Siteman Cancer Center. Siteman early in the day, baseball in the evening. One was better than the other.... Giants
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Friday, June 14, 2019

My Journey, My Testimony

Originally posted on Facebook on 6-11-19 facebook.com/kenhorn1a I have needed to post a health update for some time. Below is a far more detailed report than I had planned, but I have something to publicly thank God for, and I want you to know what He has done for me. If you want to cut through the verbosity, just scroll down and start reading near the end. (It was really my intent to write one short paragraph, but the following just flowed out.) Anyone who has seen me recently or who even has talked to me on the phone knows I am making a comeback. From my first failed surgery in Oct. 2015 and two following surgical attempts to correct it, which also failed in significant measure, I was left physically hampered, emotionally drained, and on full-time major pain management. Then my wife found me passed out on the couch one afternoon, laptop on my lap. She was unable to wake me. An ambulance ride I do not remember began a period of months of tests to find out why certain of my systemic indicators had gone ballistic. No answers came until about half a year into this, cancer was discovered in my bone marrow. I was diagnosed with a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma known as WM (I won’t trouble you with the lengthy, hard-to-pronounce name)—an incurable disease (according to medical science) only 6 in every million people contract. So it has not been studied much. Soon I needed far more pain management, including more frequent injections, for the increasing—and often crippling—bone pain. After I began on the specified chemo treatment, I had significant side effects, but it wasn’t clear if it was from chemo or the cancer. My oncologist was reading up on it, and I was getting a second opinion from a reliable source. My ability to eat normal food was compromised. My weight plummeted. I lost most of my muscle. For some strange reason, in the midst of all this, but before I was diagnosed with cancer, I filled in at a church in Springfield as interim pastor and was stunned a few months later when Grace Assembly asked Peggy and me to take the church as permanent pastor. (I have long suspected that every church that ever voted me in as pastor—4 of them in three states—did so because of Peggy. She is the consummate pastor’s wife—makes me look good, cleans up my messes, brings joy wherever she goes. I am under no illusion here. I think I am able to preach a decent expository or topical message, but my real redeeming value has been that Peggy comes in the package with me.) I missed services sporadically even before cancer treatment began, then I missed weeks at a time. When I did preach I often had to sit to make it through it. I often had to be helped to my car after services. After a Sunday morning of ministry, it was difficult for me to make it back for an evening service (yes, some churches still have those). Frequently I had to get last-minute fill-ins to preach. We were always open with our congregation and discussed with them a number of times the need for us to leave so they could have a stronger, more engaged pastor. The church would not let us go. We felt bad each time we relented, but something remarkable happened. People in the church stepped up in a big way. God sent a wonderful couple to teach Weds. nights. I took two lengthy leaves of absence for intravenous treatments … and they still wanted me back. Each time I came back, everything seemed to be running better than when I had left. People talked about our example in walking through difficulty but continuing to minister. But I felt nothing like a giant of faith. Peggy knew my struggles and the difficulty it was for me to get ready for each service. And she saw me go through deep, dark, lengthy depression … and minister between—or during—those dark times. I guess I hadn’t realized how much of the old me had been sucked out over time. Not until recently, when I started bouncing back. If God could use me in the shape I was in, I believe he could use anybody, no matter how beat up, torn down, depressed or on the edge of giving up. There have been people fighting for me in prayer throughout this ordeal. Oh, what it means to know there are people who are willing to help bear your burden (Gal. 6:2). That’s what it means to be a believer in Christ … it’s “the law of Christ.” I wouldn’t have gotten this far without all the folks, some who don’t even know me personally, who have lifted my burden on their knees. So what happened? Have I been healed? No … not completely … yet. In early April I had my last surgery. I had to go off of my oral chemo for a couple of weeks before and after the surgery. When it was time for me to start taking it again, I held it in my hand, and just couldn’t take it. The longer I stayed off it, the better I felt. But my key numbers were heading in the wrong direction. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to go back on the oral chemo. There was faith involved, but I confess, I mostly figured it was worth the trade-off. As I felt better physically, I worried about those climbing numbers. Then two things happened: God opened a door and adjusted the course of nature. The open door. I got in to see one of the very few experts in WM in the nation, head of his department at Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis (Barnes Jewish Hospital), professor at Washington U. School of Medicine, involved in research to find new treatments for lymphoma patients. This came out of nowhere, a surprise when I got in to see him, then he offered to take on my primary cancer care. Yes, he’s a doctor, and God can heal without doctors. But He can also use them. God opened this door to the oncologist most qualified for my case. Then there came the more extraordinary occurrence. Waiting for my next test reading. It had been climbing the whole time I had kept myself off of chemo. My new doc was poised and ready to begin a newer, promising form of intravenous chemo. We were nervous to get my number, knowing that it could hit the point where he would want to begin this process right away—6 months in all. Then a memorable night. I suddenly heard Peggy shouting at the top of her lungs, “Praise the Lord! Thank you, Jesus! Hallelujah!” She had been regularly checking my online cancer records chart, because results appear there before your doctor gives them to you. The only question we had been waiting to have answered was, how high did that number climb? Then Peggy told me, “It went down! It went down!” Not supposed to do that. So why do I keep feeling better every day? Because my doctor put me on watch and wait. That’s right. I’m not taking anything for my WM. He says my body is detoxing. I’m becoming the old me again (which is not 100% a good thing, but mostly). I can feel myself coming out of the fog. I am able to do more—cautiously. Peggy is here to remind me of that. IF the time comes, I will trust God through the next step of chemo. We have confidence in the doc he gave me. But we are also prepared for that to never happen. I hope, if you have read this far, you know that I have made no attempt to paint myself a spiritual giant. I crumbled often in the midst of this. All the glory goes to God. He has held me together—it feels like with duct-tape and bailing wire—for the three-and-a-half years of this journey. As have the great folks of Grace Assembly, many friends, many Facebook friends and prayer warriors who don’t know me. Many of you reading this played a role in getting me this far. (There have been so many, I have intentionally not listed any names here.) God is strengthening me a little more each day, Peggy is watching me to make sure I don’t try to do too much. And I have a doc (provided by God) with whom we have immense confidence. All glory to my wonderful, precious Savior. As Peggy said that memorable night, and I quote, “Thank you, Jesus!”
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Friday, March 29, 2019

1 Cor. 1:17

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. — 1 Co 1:17
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Friday, March 15, 2019

This Date in a WW2 Diary

"Sun. Mar. 15/42 Cecil and I went to Cinco de Junio for Meetings. Heavy gunfire coming from Corregidor. A fighter plane, flying low over Manila, let a few bursts go from its machine gun and wounded a few people in Paco. Last week I went to the Red Cross. One of the women there in charge was a fellow student of mine at the University of California. We had quite a chat. They could not do much for us, but this friend of mine made arrangements whereby we got some groceries, rice, sugar, cracked wheat, and a few canned goods." — From Deliverance! It has Come! by Missionary Herman Knight Beaber who spent three years as a prisoner of war under the Japanese in the Philippines.
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Saturday, November 24, 2018

Grandfather's Chair: Nathaniel Hawthorne Tells Mary Dyer’s Story

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. He became one of the most renowned authors of the nineteenth century. A friend to fellow writers and transcendentalists Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Louisa May Alcott, their shared philosophy sometimes colored his writing. But his writing was more influenced by Salem. He was embarrassed by his strange hometown that was so branded by its past. So he moved away in 1850 never to return—except in his writing. And there he returned repeatedly. Hawthorne’s embarrassment went beyond Salem the place. Indeed he felt a personal responsibility; his own family had had a hand in its most regrettable incidents. His ancestor William Hathorne had sat in judgment of persecuted Quakers and that ancestor’s son, John, had been a magistrate sitting as judge at the Salem Witch Trials. Thus, Hawthorne’s writings (most notably The Scarlet Letter) sometimes attempt to atone for the errors of his family’s past by calling attention to Puritan leaders’ failings. Such is the case with one of his least known books. Often this book is not even to be found in the listings of his writings. It’s a remarkable volume, written for children, that tells the story of New England through the fictionalized journeys of a single chair. The full title of the book is The Whole History Of Grandfather's Chair or True Stories From New England History, 1620-1808. It was first published in 1841. Our interest in this book, Grandfather's Chair for short, is that, in its pages we find the story of Mary Dyer, my ninth-great-grandmother. It is that tale that follows (the text is in the public domain): WHEN his little audience next assembled round the chair, Grandfather gave them a doleful history of the Quaker persecution, which began in 1656, and raged for about three years in Massachusetts. He told them how, in the first place, twelve of the converts of George Fox, the first Quaker in the world, had come over from England. They seemed to be impelled by an earnest love for the souls of men, and a pure desire to make known what they considered a revelation from Heaven. But the rulers looked upon them as plotting the downfall of all government and religion. They were banished from the colony. In a little while, however, not only the first twelve had returned, but a multitude of other Quakers had come to rebuke the rulers and to preach against the priests and steeple-houses. Grandfather described the hatred and scorn with which these enthusiasts were received. They were thrown into dungeons; they were beaten with many stripes, women as well as men; they were driven forth into the wilderness, and left to the tender mercies of wild beasts and Indians. The children were amazed to hear that the more the Quakers were scourged, and imprisoned, and banished, the more did the sect increase, both by the influx of strangers and by converts from among the Puritans. But Grandfather told them that God had put something into the soul of man, which always turned the cruelties of the persecutor to naught. He went on to relate that, in 1659, two Quakers, named William Robinson and Marmaduke Stephenson, were hanged at Boston. A woman had been sentenced to die with them, but was reprieved on condition of her leaving the colony. Her name was Mary Dyer. In the year 1660 she returned to Boston, although she knew death awaited her there; and, if Grandfather had been correctly informed, an incident had then taken place which connects her with our story. This Mary Dyer had entered the mint-master's dwelling, clothed in sackcloth and ashes, and seated herself in our great chair with a sort of dignity and state. Then she proceeded to deliver what she called a message from Heaven, but in the midst of it they dragged her to prison. "And was she executed?" asked Laurence. "She was," said Grandfather. "Grandfather," cried Charley, clinching his fist, "I would have fought for that poor Quaker woman!" "Ah, but if a sword had been drawn for her," said Laurence, "it would have taken away all the beauty of her death." It seemed as if hardly any of the preceding stories had thrown such an interest around Grandfather's chair as did the fact that the poor, persecuted, wandering Quaker woman had rested in it for a moment. The children were so much excited that Grandfather found it necessary to bring his account of the persecution to a close. "In 1660, the same year in which Mary Dyer was executed," said he, "Charles II was restored to the throne of his fathers. This king had many vices; but he would not permit blood to be shed, under pretense of religion, in any part of his dominions. The Quakers in England told him what had been done to their brethren in Massachusetts; and he sent orders to Governor Endicott to forbear all such proceedings in future. And so ended the Quaker persecution—one of the most mournful passages in the history of our forefathers."
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Thursday, November 15, 2018

Numbers ... from All Over


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Monday, August 13, 2018

Oldest Horn Family Photos


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Thursday, August 9, 2018

Flowers


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Friday, August 3, 2018

Wildlife


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