Baseball and the Shift

This week one of my sons alerted me to a sports agent for Bryce Harper, who is having a dismal year at the plate for the Washington Nationals, saying: Bryce’s poor batting record reflects “discriminatory shifts.” In short, he is discriminated against by opposing defensive players employing an effective strategy. 

This brought back memories of my youth when I was about 14 or 15 and listened to the Red Sox games on the radio. There was no television in 1946, or at least we did not have one.  

Today, July 14, is the 72nd anniversary of the Lou Boudreau “Ted Williams Shift." Boudreau was the shortstop and manager for the Cleveland Indians. In the second game of a doubleheader, he was playing the percentages against Williams, an extreme pull hitter.

Boudreau rolled out an infield player shift that packed all four infielders between first and second base. The announcers and Red Sox fans were astonished at this deployment but it worked in that game. Williams went 1-for-2 with a double and a pair of walks. It is estimated that the shift, later also used by other teams, took 15 points off Ted’s lifetime batting average: .344 BA (8th).

Ted was the proudest hitter in baseball and would not modify his swing to hit to left field. (He did not play golf because a golf swing is different from baseball and he felt it might adversely affect his baseball swing.)

Incidentally, in the first game of the July 14, 1946, doubleheader, Ted hit three home runs and drove in eight runs for a Boston 11 to 10 victory.  Ted was in his first season back after military service in World War II.

Young Mr.Harper could not do much better than take a lesson from Ted Williams. 

The Bixby Letter and Saving Private Ryan

I find it thoroughly enjoyable and highly interesting when separate pleasant events come together by accident, and certainly without planning on my part. I recently had just such an experience. 

I watched a movie on TV and a day later read a review of four new books on the life of John Hay, President Lincoln’s presidential secretary and later ambassador to European courts and Secretary of State.

I viewed “Saving Private Ryan” on one of those TV channels which show movies without commercial interruptions. A pleasurable experience despite having seen the movie years ago in a theatre. 

The early part of the movie is getting the Rangers led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) off Omaha Beach on D-Day. The story moves on to the catastrophic news that a mother in Idaho is about to be notified three of her four sons have been killed in combat. A fourth is somewhere in Normandy. 

General George C.Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, orders a search for the fourth son and to “get him to hell out of there.” In explaining his order to staffers who brought him the news of the Ryan family, General Marshall quotes from a letter President Lincoln sent to a Mrs. Bixby of Boston who was thought to have lost five sons (it later turned out to be two) during the Civil War. 

The Bixby letter was an expression by the President of how inadequate words and feelings are to console the mother in such an overwhelming loss. It is the type of letter history and our imaginations let us accept Lincoln would have written. 

It now turns out that Lincoln was not the author of the letter; it was written by John Hay, considered to be “the stylish” writer on Lincoln’s staff, with the “pen of a poet.” 

Four new books on the life of this literary scholar, lawyer, presidential ghostwriter, and longtime cabinet member, are reviewed in depth by Christopher Benfey, Mellon Professor in English at Mount Holyoke College, in The New York Review of Books (March 8, 2018).

I am indebted to Professor Benfey and the authors of the reviewed books for this fascinating background which played an important part in the development of the storyline of Stephen Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” and for the pleasant surprise of watching a movie and shortly thereafter learning a bit of the history of what makes the movie work.

The Overcoat: Stolen, Worn, Gone

A film editing error

A couple of week sago I went to see Bridge of Spies, a film based on factual events recounting the swap of convicted Soviet Spy Rudolph Abel for U.S. U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers. The film stars Tom Hanks in the role of James Donovan, a New York Attorney, who is pressed into defending Abel when he is caught by the FBI, and is later enlisted by the CIA to negotiate the swap. The time is the late fifties and early sixties: the early days of the late and unlamented Cold War. 

Over the weekend, I bought a DVD copy of the film to add to my collection of such films. Last night I viewed it again,

As the story develops, in 1962, Donovan (Hanks) is on his way to the Soviet Embassy in East Berlin in bitter cold weather when he is stripped of his overcoat by some street thugs. 

In the Embassy he talks with a man who claims to be only a Second Secretary, but we learn later is the KGB chief in Germany, who makes fun of the lost coat. He gives Donovan the address of an East German lawyer named Wolfgang Vogel, representing an East German woman who claims to be the wife of Abel. 

In the meeting with Vogel, Donovan is wearing his stolen overcoat. Later when he is back in the CIA safe house nursing a cold, sipping tea, and wrapped in a blanket he asks the CIA chief to get him a coat since he lost his own doing “spy stuff.”  For the rest of the film he wears a new coat. 

Obviously, as is often the case, scenes were short out of sequence to be later put together in the editing process, and something like this should have been caught by the editors and the scene probably re-shot.  It doesn’t materially affect the fine film that Steven Spielberg has produced but it is an interesting oddity. 

Mark Rylance plays the role of Abel, and for his performance won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor this past Sunday night.

The Abel for Powers swap was only one incident in the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, but this exciting film helps us to understand the dangerous times the Cold War presented for the world. 

Click here for the complete blog.

Send comments to: arch@archibald99.com

My visit to Normandy

In 2012, I visited France and Germany. The main purpose in visiting France was to go to Normandy where D-Day had taken place almost 70 years earlier. For many years I wanted to show a sign of respect to the the fighting men who sacrificed everything for us on that fateful day in history. These are some pictures from that visit. The American Cemetery and Memorial is a World War II cemetery and memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, that honors American troops. It is slightly East of what in June 1944 was known as Omaha Beach.

Directional sign, simple and understated.

In the Memorial, one of the remembrances of the men who came and fought.

Carved in stone for generations to remember.

The Pointe Du Hoc. Germans on top fired down on American Rangers.

Final resting place for 9,387Americans.

Paying my dues

In the mail this week came a reminder to pay my annual dues to the AFOSISA: the Association of Former Office of Special Investigations Special Agents. The OSI is the Air Force equivalent of the FBI, the model on which it was created on  August 1, 1948, under the brilliant, innovative and inspiring leadership of General Joseph F. Carroll, a former FBI agent, supervisor, and special assistant to J. Edgar Hoover.

Sixty years ago, I was an airman serving as the Legal Clerk in the 3650^th Air Base Group at Sampson AFB, New York. Sampson had been a Naval Training site during WWII, but when the Korean War started the Air Force took it for basic training of new recruits. The 3650^th was the house keeping group on the base. I wanted to transfer to the Office of Special Investigations and in the spring of 1953 the deputy group commander, Lt. Col. John A. Brock, recommended me for such service.

(In 2013, AFOSI is the second-most requested career-field choice in the Air Force.)

Within a few weeks I was on my way to Washington, D.C., and posted as the Senior Administrative Airman in the Sabotage & Espionage Branch, Counterintelligence Division, Headquarters, OSI. When I arrived in the spring of 1953, street cars were operating on Pennsylvania Avenue, and cherry blossoms were in full bloom around the tidal basin facing the Jefferson Memorial.

Our offices were located in buildings built at McLean Gardens in NW Washington as “temporary” during World War I. The OSI mission in the early fifties was to provide personnel, criminal and counterintelligence investigative services to the Air Force around the world. It was an AFOSI agent who first alerted Gen. Douglas MacArthur's headquarters of the attack from North Korea that began the Korean War in June of 1950.

(Today, OSI is a federal law enforcement and investigative agency operating throughout the full spectrum of conflict, seamlessly within any domain; conducting criminal investigations and providing counterintelligence services.)

In September 1953, I went to the OSI Special Agents’ training school and was graduated in November. For the next six years I served in a variety of assignments, stateside and overseas. My special interest was with counterintelligence and I took advantage of my status and opportunities to learn everything I could. When I left the Air Force in 1959, after eight years of service, I was employed by the United States Navy as a security administrator and director. I was the first civilian security officer hired by the Naval Supply Corps, which in Charleston, SC, had responsibility for world-wide support of the nuclear powered submarine force carrying Polaris-Poseidon missiles as the Navy’s first line of deterrence against the threats posed by the Soviet Union. Later I was elected to the S.C. House of Representatives and was a senior manager at the state’s Department of Corrections.

Looking back it was the totality of my eight years work and specialized training and duties in the Air Force which set the stage for my life’s work. To this end, I will always be grateful for the opportunities I had and the men and women who helped me along the way. That is why I will send off my dues this week and remain in the brotherhood of former OSI Special Agents.

The AFOSISA was incorporated on December 7, 1966, and its objectives are to maintain and further friendships emanating from service with or employment by AFOSI; to assist one another through combined efforts and mutual association; to perpetuate the ideals and principles of AFOSI; to facilitate contact with members on a worldwide basis; and to unite former and present AFOSI Special Agents in the common interest of promoting the security of the U.S. Air Force

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A new king

Prince Willem-Alexander will ascend to the throne in the Kingdom of the Netherlands today following the abdication of his mother, Queen Beatrix, who governed for 33 years. Her mother and grandmother before her also abdicated making room for the young to have the honor of serving. 
I actually saw Queen Beatrix in May 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Holland at the end of World War II. She came on her boat to a major canal in Amsterdam to join the festivities which included a massive light show and music from American, British, Canadian and Dutch bands. I recall being impressed with the frogmen who were on her boat. When it dropped anchor in the canal about eight of them were over the side, checking the bottom and the canal. (They brought back memories of the 1960's  when frogmen would check the hull of Polaris carrying submarines as they prepared to leave Pier Bravo at the Naval Weapons Station in Goose Creek, SC.) When they were finished the frogmen disappeared as quickly as they appeared. The Queen then came out of her quarters into view amidst cheering and applause from the multitudes.
The festive crowd along the canal was so massive and packed together one could hardly move. When someone asked if I wanted a beer and I replied, one appeared in my hand as if by magic.
I had the opportunity to talk that day with some Canadian veterans of WWII. It was they who liberated Holland. One told me he was on the trip courtesy of the Dutch government. "All I had to do was show up at the airport in Canada. I have not been able to spend a dollar since." The Dutch picked up the tab for all the living Canadian veterans.
For about 120 years today, April 30, has been "Queen's Day" in the Netherlands. From now it will be "King's Day." Long live the King.

Where the danger is

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, in his first major public address since being confirmed, spoke at the National Defense University on April 3 about the threats the United States faces today and tomorrow. Addressing the senior military and civilian personnel pursuing a year of study at the prestigious NDU, including some foreign military officers, he said (in part):


 "The security landscape of 2013 is of a far different character than the world of 1960, or even the world of a few years ago.  *****  The United States is emerging from more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the threat of violent extremism persists and continues to emanate from weak states and ungoverned spaces in the Middle East and North Africa.  
"There also stands an array of other security challenges of varying vintage and degrees of risk to the United States:  the proliferation of dangerous weapons and materials, the increased availability of advanced military technologies in the hands of state and non-state actors, the risk of regional conflicts that could draw in the United States, the debilitating and dangerous curse of human despair and poverty, as well as the uncertain implications of environmental degradation.
"Cyber attacks – which barely registered as a threat a decade ago – have grown into a defining security challenge, with potential adversaries seeking the ability to strike at America’s security, energy, economic and critical infrastructure with the benefit of anonymity and distance.
"The world today is combustible and complex, and America’s responsibilities are as enormous as they are humbling.  These challenges to our security and prosperity demand America’s continued global leadership and engagement, and they require a principled realism that is true to our values."
The Secretary reminded us that "the most destructive and horrific attack ever on the United States came not from fleets of ships, bombers, and armored divisions, but from 19 fanatical men wielding box cutters and one-way plane tickets."
(Emphasis added.)

The entire speech is well worth reviewing.  
(To respond e-mail: arch@archibald99.com.) 

Ted Stern has passed

My good friend and mentor, Ted Stern, has passed away. He was 100 last month on Christmas Day. We will miss his friendly demeanor and consummate skills. Our condolences to his family. (See an earlier blog below dated: November 13, 2012.)

Spirit of a church lives on

One of the more interesting mornings on my trip to Hamburg in September was spent at the St. Nikolai Memorial, “a place of commemoration for the victims of war and persecution 1933-1945.”

This church was founded in 1195 and is one of the oldest churches in Hamburg. It burned and was re-built in 1874.

During air raids conducted by British and America bombers in World War II the church steeple, 483 feet high above the ground, served as a landmark for bomber pilots. The church was destroyed, only the steeple and parts of the walls survive to this day. 

The Lutheran Bishop refused re-building after the war, deciding instead on a memorial for the victims of war. 

 

The morning was clear and a ride in the lift to the top of the steeple gave me a splendid view of the entire city. This is one view.

The Carillon, (visible in the lower half of the pictured steeple) erected in in 1993, played a soft, delightful melody adding to the enjoyment of the moment.

In the crypt of the church (entered via the glass structure in front of the  steeple) there is a permanent exhibition (library, scheduled panel discussions, lectures and educational films) outlining the massive destruction of Hamburg, primarily by English Royal Air Force bombers. In one ten day period in the summer of 1943, 35,000 people were killed, 120,000 were injured and almost a million subsequently fled the city. To keep this horrendous destruction in perspective, however, the exhibition also details the role of the German Luftwaffe in the bombing and destruction of Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War, and the bombing and destruction of Warsaw, Coventry, and Rotterdam and the massive bombing of London. The destruction of Guernica from the air is understood to be the first such act of war carried out by aircraft. 

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16 Days of Pure Fun

In sixteen wonderful, fun-filled days I recently visited four countries and enjoyed the sights and sounds of London, France, The Netherlands and Germany. I joined throngs of people visiting Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle to visit the State rooms (where official receptions are held). Some of these individual rooms are larger in size than my one bedroom apartment at Franke.

A boat from Portsmouth in Southern England took me to the Normandy peninsula and my first stop was at the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, a place of remembrance and reflection where 9387 American servicemen and women lay at rest, many of them killed on D-Day 1944. 

I went on to other places that many Americans know only from movies, e.g. Omaha Beach (“The Longest Day”) and Point de Hoc (“Saving Private Ryan.”) To stand there and try to imagine what it was like on June 6, 1944, is to take a deep breath and let it out as you feel your eyes water.

I traveled to Der Hag in The Netherlands to sit in on the trial of the war criminals from Yugoslavia, however, arrangements to enter the court needed to be made in advance.

Moving on by train to Hamburg, Germany, my first stop was the “Miniatur Wunderland,” the world’s largest model railway and, most recently, airport, exhibition. The major purpose of my trip was to see this famous creation of varied scenes adapted from Switzerland, Scandinavia, America, Germany, and Bavaria complete with miniature trains, airplanes, vehicles, and representations of people.

A tour boat around the amazing harbor enlightened me me why Hamburg is the world’s second largest port. Only Rotterdam is bigger, I was told.

In addition to visiting the palaces in London, I rode the London Eye, a Ferris wheel with sealed cars which lift the visitor for a fantastic view of Parliament and the entire city. I also took in a major exhibition of the Cecil Beaton's wartime photography 1939-1945. 

Because of my previous work background and long-time personal interests I visited the headquarters of MI 6, the British Secret Intelligence Service. I asked a Londoner to take my picture outside the building (dedicated by the Queen in July 1994) on the bank of the River Thames at Vauxhall Station and he said, “Sorry mate, I can’t take a picture of that building.” (

I had less trouble taking a picture at the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street.

The trip was great, but I am happy to be home.

(For the complete blog click here.)