Day: February 17, 2006

God Bless You, Lou Proctor

I was doing some online reading about baseball statistics the other day and happened upon an awesome story of a stunt pulled by some opportunistic telegraph operator in 1912.

The Telegraph operator was Lou Proctor, and what good old Lou did was insert himself into the box score of a Browns-Red Sox game. He put himself down as a pinch hitter who walked in his only at-bat in the game.

What is so cool about Proctor’s stunt is that it wasn’t uncovered until 1987, so for 75 years Proctor remained listed as having had that one at-bat as a major leaguer.

I wonder what Proctor thought of his long-running stunt. Did he tell tall tales of baseball heroism and pull out the box score from that day as proof? Or did he share the sheer brilliance of a well-done hoax with his family and friends?

Hey, You’ve Got NASCAR In My Romance Novel

I rarely watch NASCAR and I’ve never read a romance novel, but I just might have to give the NASCAR branded Harlequin Romance novel, In the Groove, a quick read.

From the Amazon.Com description,

“She wouldn’t know a NASCAR star if he hit her with his car…and he just did. Sarah was a kindergarten teacher until a sleazy ex-boyfriend got her fired. Now the only job she can find is driving the motor coach for racing star Lance Cooper. She doesn’t know a thing about NASCAR – and she’s off to a rocky start when she doesn’t recognize her ultra-famous boss. Lance can’t help but notice Sarah’s sweet smile – and how seriously unimpressed she is with his fame. Her reaction piques his interest – and he’s convinced she’s a good-luck charm. But Sarah has no interest in Lance’s jet-setting life; she’d rather deal with spitballs than one supersexy race car driver. Too bad whenever he comes near her she turns hot as race fuel. Soon things begin to heat up on the track, and Sarah begins to wonder if she might be able to teach one famous race car driver a few lessons about love.”

Video Game Violence vs. the Bible

Someone sent me a link the other day to a profile of anti-videogame nutcase Jack Thompson that contained the following quote attributed to Thompson,

The Bible doesn’t promote killing innocent people. Grand Theft Auto does.

This quote appears in a number of profiles/attacks on Thompson, but I haven’t been able to track it back to its source, so I have no idea if it is accurate or not. Regardless, it is an interesting observation, and one that is completely false — at least on the Bible side of things.

Consider, for example, Psalm 137, which laments the destruction of Jerusalem and proposes an interesting form of revenge, (emphasis added)

5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;
if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
7 Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem;
who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Someone really needs to make a Half-Life or Unreal Tournament mod depicting that.