“The American baseball party at the Sphinx.” Egypt, February 9, 1889. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.
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Baseball History
Spring training is upon us, ushering in the first notes of spring in the midst of the last long month of winter, as it has for over a century. The history of baseball is as integral to the fiber of the sport as is the annual trip to warmer weather and the reporting of pitchers and catchers, and no history of the game is complete without reference to one of its first serious historians. Dr. Harold Seymour’s PhD was the first awarded based on baseball research, and his book (referenced above in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Emanuel Celler, who was considering sports antitrust legislation during the 85th Congress) influenced generations of sports historians. Modern baseball historians such as John Thorn have rightly identified his wife, Dorothy Seymour Mills, as equally essential to the scholarship presented in the three seminal Seymour tomes (Baseball: The Early Years; Baseball: The Golden Age; Baseball: The People’s Game), and regularly cite the two as major contributors to our understanding of the game.
Letter to Emanuel Celler and Copy of Article, 10/26/1957; Committee Papers (HR85A-F11.16); Committee on the Judiciary; Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, RG 233.
#Congress #Springtraining #baseball #MLB #Seymour #JohnThorn #EmanuelCeller #AntiTrust
7 Sports Astronauts Love Without Gravity (Including Football)
Astronauts onboard the International Space Station spend most of their time doing science, exercising and maintaining the station. But they still have time to shoot hoops and toss around a football.
From chess to soccer, there’s a zero-gravity spin to everything.
1. Baseball
Baseball: America’s favorite pastime. JAXA astronaut, Satoshi Furukawa shows us how microgravity makes it possible to be a one-man team. It would be a lot harder to hit home runs if the players could jump that high to catch the ball.
2. Chess
Yes, it’s a sport, and one time NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff (right) played Earth on a Velcro chess board. An elementary school chess team would pick moves that everyone could vote for online. The winning move would be Earth’s play, and then Chamitoff would respond. About every two days, a move would be made. But who won the historic Earth vs. Space match? Earth! Chamitoff resigned after Earth turned its pawn into a queen, but it was game well played.
3. Soccer
NASA astronaut Steve Swanson put a new spin on soccer by juggling the ball upside down. However, he might not have considered himself upside down. On the space station, up and down are relative.
4. Gymnastics
NASA astronauts usually sign off their videos with a zero-gravity somersault (either forwards or backwards). But astronauts are also proficient in handstands, flips and twists. The predecessor to the International Space Station, the Skylab, had the best space for the moves. The current space station is a bit tight in comparison.
5. Basketball
Objects that aren’t heavy don’t move very well on the space station. They kind of just float. It’s like Earth, but exaggerated. For example, on Earth a beach ball wouldn’t go as far as a basketball. The same is true in space, which is why playing with a basketball in space is more fun than playing with a beach ball.
6. Golf
People talk about hitting golf balls off skyscrapers, but what about off the International Space Station? While golf isn’t a normal occurrence on the station, it’s been there. One golf company even sent an experiment to the station to find out how to make better golf clubs.
7. Football
Zero gravity doesn’t make everything easier. Astronauts need to relearn how to throw things because their brains need to relearn how to interpret sensory information. A bowling ball on the space station no longer feels as heavy as a bowling ball on Earth. When astronauts first throw things on the space station, everything keeps going too high. That would put a wrench in your spiral for a couple of months. But once you adjust, the perfect spiral will just keep spiraling!
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Well this looks pretty fun.
As we celebrate Women’s History Month in March, we salute Frances Perkins. She was one of our nation’s strongest voices in support of America’s workers and programs like Social Security designed to provide economic security for American families.
Read more about Frances Perkins here or click the graphic above.
Did you know?
More Social Security history here.
Congresswoman Marion Martin was the first woman to head the Department of Labor & Industry. She was elected to the House of Representatives (ME) in 1930 and went on to the Senate in 1934. Martin worked towards improving minimum wage, industrial safety, and child labor laws. She was born on this day in 1900. #HappyBirthday
Today is the first day of African American History Month. We wanted to share these three facts on why Social Security is vital to African Americans.
Americans have long celebrated our Nation as a beacon of liberty and opportunity – home to patriots who threw off an empire, refuge to multitudes who fled oppression and despair. Yet we must also remember that while many came to our shores to pursue their own measure of freedom, hundreds of thousands arrived in chains. Through centuries of struggle, and through the toil of generations, African Americans have claimed rights long denied. During National African American History Month, we honor the men and women at the heart of this journey – from engineers of the Underground Railroad to educators who answered a free people’s call for a free mind, from patriots who proved that valor knows no color to demonstrators who gathered on the battlefields of justice and marched our Nation toward a brighter day.
“Each February, we are reminded of our country’s greatest African American leaders with the celebration of Black History Month. Black
History Month provides us an opportunity not only to reflect on those
who advocate on behalf of the African American community, but also to
examine the critical concerns and issues facing African Americans today.
Even with all of the progress made over the past half-century, African
Americans still represent a disproportionate share of our nation’s poor.” - Congresswoman Gwen Moore.
March is Women’s History Month and here is a GREAT resource for information, National Women’s History Museum.
Investment in home and community-based care is popular and must be included in #infrastructure. Now it’s up to Congress to get it done. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/opinion/elder-care-congress.html #HCBS @nytimes