NC Flag

My daughter is working diligently on a school project about North Carolina. Watching her color a state flag, I noticed the dates and wondered what importance they held. Hours later, I'm not sure I know what is real, but I like the conclusion drawn by the History channel:

While the Meck Dec has largely been consigned to the realm of folklore, historians are quick to note that North Carolina was still at the tip of the spear of American independence. British General Charles Cornwallis dubbed Mecklenburg County a “hornet’s nest” of rebellion during the Revolutionary War, and the state made history by issuing April 12, 1776’s Halifax Resolves, the first official document to support separation from Great Britain. Whether its citizens also issued the first declaration of independence will likely never be known for sure, but the story persists to this day. Visitors to Charlotte can see a statue of Captain James Jack on his way to deliver the Mecklenburg Declaration to Philadelphia, and the date of its supposed signing—May 20, 1775—still appears on both the North Carolina state flag and seal.

And now for the explanation; it's alleged that on May 20th 1775, in Mecklenburg County the state officially called for independence. There are no records of the alleged declaration and a reproduction crafted years after the fact seemingly reflect too much of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence to stand as separately produced material. Also, this document gained notoriety decades after it's alleged creation. Nevertheless, it's on the state flag for a reason. The real pride is the state's proactive stance against Britain, which the second date listed on the flag is indisputably representative of. That is the date a state body unanimously agreed to support colonies working together to separate from British rule in the Halifax Resolves. The state claims these as the first official legislative thrust of the American Revolution.

NCPedia lists the full text of the Halifax Resolves as:

The Select Committee taking into Consideration the usurpations and violences attempted and committed by the King and Parliament of Britain against America, and the further Measures to be taken for frustrating the same, and for the better defence of this province reported as follows, to wit,

It appears to your Committee that pursuant to the Plan concerted by the British Ministry for subjugating America, the King and Parliament of Great Britain have usurped a Power over the Persons and Properties of the People unlimited and uncontrouled and disregarding their humble Petitions for Peace, Liberty and safety, have made divers Legislative Acts, denouncing War Famine and every Species of Calamity daily employed in destroying the People and committing the most horrid devastations on the Country. That Governors in different Colonies have declared Protection to Slaves who should imbrue their Hands in the Blood of their Masters. That the Ships belonging to America are declared prizes of War and many of them have been violently seized and confiscated in consequence of which multitudes of the people have been destroyed or from easy Circumstances reduced to the most Lamentable distress.

And whereas the moderation hitherto manifested by the United Colonies and their sincere desire to be reconciled to the mother Country on Constitutional Principles, have procured no mitigation of the aforesaid Wrongs and usurpations and no hopes remain of obtaining redress by those Means alone which have been hitherto tried, Your Committee are of Opinion that the house should enter into the following Resolve, to wit

Resolved that the delegates for this Colony in the Continental Congress be impowered to concur with the other delegates of the other Colonies in declaring Independency, and forming foreign Alliances, resolving to this Colony the Sole, and Exclusive right of forming a Constitution and Laws for this Colony, and of appointing delegates from time to time (under the direction of a general Representation thereof to meet the delegates of the other Colonies for such purposes as shall be hereafter pointed out.

Barring the historical accuracy of the 1775 claim, there's a strong North Carolina position at the earliest stages of the American Revolution. Unambiguous opposition to British rule. So important to the state is this role that the state symbols bear no other reference to all of history but this. Indeed, as preclude to the revolution itself, within the state of North Carolina was an insurgency and the War of the Regulation from 1765 to 1771. Farmers complained of excessive taxes and corrupt officials, to which the colonial official response was rather predictable, as expressed in Rev. William Henry Foote's 1846 work Sketches of North Carolina, Historical and Biographical, Illustrative of the Principles of a Portion of Her Early Settlers that calls its second chapter BLOOD SHED ON THE ALAMANCE—THE FIRST BLOOD SHED IN THE REVOLUTION, MAY 16TH, 1771 and notes:

To these acts of rebellion, unfortunately, were added acts of personal violence that called the governor from his palace, with his armed force to revenge.

The point of drawing these connections is to put the roots of the state of North Carolina squarely in the same narrative of the American Revolution with at least some portion of state legacy claiming to be at the forefront.

I also learned that from 1861-1885 the second date on the flag was May 20th, 1861, the date the state withdrew from the Union. Obviously the need to remove that reference from the flag was done to reinforce the American Revolution forefront position by placing the date of the Halifax Resolves. While doubling down on that pre-revolution position, NC leaders failed to take the opportunity to remove both the disputed Mecklenburg 1775 document date and the failed Civil War date when adding the legitimate historically accurate 1776 date. You can imagine the great debates over not removing the first date that was refuted by Jefferson himself balanced against traditionalists opposed to taking off a 1775 date when removing the 1861 date. The compromise, like many, probably serviced none adequately. Two dates symbolizing the same idea do not avoid the uncomfortable idea that one of them is erroneous. By now the passage of time and infrequency of state flag usage put the probability of any further alterations on the same order as the probability the state redraws its borders. 130 years is a long runway for something like this to come up, which has seemingly not ever gained attention, awareness, interest, and traction to do anything about.

Gobbledygook

At work today I used the word gobbledygook. A coworker commented on it being a word from a movie she saw, but she struggled to say the word back and stumbled over the consonants. I was surprised someone else was less familiar with the term. If internet dictionaries are to be believed, then the word gobbledygook was born in the middle of the 20th century.

Poking around online for a feel for how frequently (or infrequently) the word gobbledygook gets used, I learned there is a statistical formula to measure readability, created in 1969, called the simplified measure of gobbledygook.

First game ball

Dylan really enjoys tee ball. He's become comfortable starting to call for the ball when covering a base. Last game, he took his budding confidence to another level. He came to bat with a runner at second base. Before he stepped up to hit, he put his hand to his mouth and yelled loudly to the runner at second base, "[player's name]! I'm going to bring you home!" Then he stepped up and pounded the ball into the outfield for a double. The runner did indeed score. Our coach said it was a real Babe Ruth moment, alluding to the fabled called shot in the 1932 World Series. After the game, Dylan received a game ball, his first ever. He was really proud. He should be, he played great.

Plays of the year - the last and the first

Dylan really enjoyed playing tee ball. By the end of the spring season, he developed into one of the few players that chased down batted balls when playing defense. They put him at pitcher in the final game and since batted balls went around ten feet on averaged he chased down nearly every ball. So towards the end of that inning, which was the very last inning of the season, they changed Dylan out with another, younger player. When the very final batter stepped to the plate, the last batter of the season, Dylan was ready. The batter drove the ball hardly towards the pitcher. Dylan was running to back him up. The ball glanced hard off his leg, which hurt the pitcher. We winced from the sidelines as the boy seemed upset and in pain. Dylan never stopped playing. He hustled to get the ball as it bounced away. Dylan scooped it up, but instead of throwing it to a base or trying to tag out a runner, he ran towards the boy who was pitcher. By this point the coaches were telling the boy to walk it off. Dylan ran into their circle and put the ball into the boy's glove. This created a natural next step of the coaches encouraging the boy to run to home, where he was able to tag out the runner. It felt like a real sentimental moment at the time. I'm not sure I can accurately depict how nice it was to see Dylan make that play. After the game one of the coaches came up to tell me that was his favorite play of the year. What a great way to end the spring season!

We did not know what to expect for the summer season, but Dylan was definitely interested. During the first game he again emerged as the best defensive player. He made all three outs one inning, including forcing out runners at second base and home plate. For his second at bat, he led off the inning. Despite there being literally six second basemen, he batted a sharp ground ball through all of them and into the outfield. He took off running for first and never even considered stopping. He rounded first base like he's been playing for years and galloped to second base. The ball was still in the outfield so he rounded second and ran towards third. The third base coach was kind enough to wave him to run home, but I wonder if he even considered stopping, because he rounded third base and easily made his way for a "home run" - from the moment he hit the ball to the moment he crossed the plate he never once broke his stride. It was a really amazing thing to see. One of the parents came up to us and remarked that our son really knows how to play the game. What a great way to start the summer season!

Card for Luke

Dylan's best friend at pre-school is moving away soon. We dreaded the inevitable. Last year Dylan had a friend move to Canada and he asked if he could invite him to his birthday party "so he could come back." This morning I found Dylan making a card with a couple nice photos pasted to paper of the boys posing together. There were three red shapes and two green shapes. I asked if the red ones were strawberries. He said they were hearts. I asked about the little lines. Dylan said they were worms, because Luke loves digging up worms. Somehow I found my son's heartworms endearing and the sentimentality struck home with me. The green shapes were the basketball hoop they played on together and "the high green grass by the hoop." I looked Dylan in the and admired him and his work. I reminded him I loved him and told him he made a great card. He seemed happy, but I wonder how much he really understands about his best friend leaving the state. Dylan told his teacher that he wanted to move to Virginia too. Thanks for the memories Luke, I hope Dylan finds another friend as good as you.

Put Me In Coach

My son really enjoyed playing tee ball so I introduced him to watching MLB games on TV. He is hooked. In the morning before school, in the afternoon after school, and in the evening before bed he is often wanting to watch more baseball. It is fun for us to watch together.

It did not take long for him to ask me how I enjoyed playing as a major league baseball player. I told him I was never a professional baseball player. He told me I could, if I just pay the entry fee like he did to get onto the tee ball team.

Imagine that, all I had to do was pay an entry free and I could play in the majors!

He has also told me several times that I am good enough to play with the MLB players. I try telling him I am not that good, but he is not convinced. I should feel flattered. I know better though. The idea of my feeble bat and arm making my way into a dugout and telling them I have arrived is one absurd image. Like Roy Cobb in the Robert Redford film The Natural. Only I have no talent, about the only similarities would be that I'm too old to start playing and nobody knows me.

We also watched a film about Bo Jackson, who he now associates with being the best athlete ever. We watched the White Sox play and he kept asking where Bo was. I told him Bo stopped playing 20 years ago and is over 50 years old. My boy still wants him on the team. Me and Bo, making our unlikely comebacks together I suppose.

A Baseball Saturday

The day started with Dylan and I heading to the field mid-morning for his 10:30 tee ball game. We had a cooler in tow, for it was our turn to supply the team snacks. I also volunteered to help as "bench coach" which is a fancy way of describing herding cats. The boys range in their interest but almost none of them know where to go at any given time, so I say them in uniform number order and made sure the boys had a helmet and bat when it was their turn to bat. To get a sense of the "competition"; when one of our boys decided to take a bathroom break in the middle of the inning we had four boys leave their defensive positions at the same time and the game was remarkably the same. Dylan fielded a few balls but was unable to connect with the first baseman to record outs. The last batter of each inning hits a "home run" to clear the bases to we can change sides. Dylan covered home and received the ball from a teammate to proceed to tag "out" three consecutive runners at home. Or not, the plays sort of have an open interpretation to them in tee ball.

We returned home after the game to get our lunch. I was tired! I am not used to parenting other children and definitely not non-stop for a couple hours.

Next it was Sonya's turn to play. We got to the field early, around 1pm, to help prepare the field. I dragged the field and set the bases in place. Been years since I did anything like that, so even those mundane things have a novelty that is still fun for me. I'm also one of the three assistant coaches and maybe my best contribution that day was telling the girls to take a water break. The kids were playing catch in the outfield waiting for the other team to show up; the sun was getting the better of them. The other team arrived a little late, but we got started quickly. The pitching machine is still a little challenging for many of the girls, I believe this is the first time playing organized softball for many of them. Somewhere around half of our team does not know the position names and gets confused when told where to play defensively. Likewise, they will ask where to throw the ball and a couple still get confused about when to run the bases and in which order. After striking out a couple of times against the machine, Sonya came to bat with two runners on base and two outs. After getting two strikes, she hit the ball hard enough to roll into the outfield grass. I was coaching first base and wildly yelling for her to keep going, and she did. Her first hit of the year was a double, driving in two runs batted in, creating our first (and only) runs of the year (after two games).

We left the field somewhere around 6pm to get some well deserved ice cream. We were tired, but everyone seemed to really enjoy the day. I know I did.

3-1-1

Sonya participated in a chess tournament today and finished with 3 wins, 1 draw (tie), and 1 loss. This is an improvement from her 2-2-1 record last year. Lisa went this year instead of me, and I took Dylan to his first tee ball practice. That went great too, but I missed seeing Sonya's smile when she won. I told Lisa when I played in tournaments my persona goal was 4 wins; 3 and a half is really good and in the contention for trophies. Sonya did not get a trophy today, her loss was in her first match and the way chess tournaments work that put her against weaker players than others who ended with the same record. To be in contention is terrific, and something I am very proud of her for today. Lisa told me she had a hard time prying Sonya from the playground to leave after the end, which again tells me that Sonya really enjoyed herself today at the chess tournament.

Duke basketball players

While watching tonight's Duke-UNC game, Lisa asked me if one of the senior players on the Duke team was destined for the NBA. I noted how few players get drafted into the NBA (60) compared to the thousands of college players active, and looked up the mock draft for next year to confirm the player - while great in his own right - was not listed among the players expected to be drafted.

Out of the 550 players to play for Duke, 63 players went on to play in the NBA. That's a fairly high percentage, representative of the talent attracted to the Duke basketball program, but still only a small fraction of the players made it to the NBA.

The top ten scoring leaders in Duke basketball history are

1. J.J. Redick
2. Johnny Dawkins
3. Christian Laettner
4. Kyle Singler
5. Mike Gminski
6. Danny Ferry
7. Mark Alaire
8. Gene Banks
9. Jason Williams
10. Jon Scheyer

The last name on the list is the only one without NBA experience;  Jon Scheyer was a second team All American and team captain at Duke, but never played a single NBA game.

Among the retired jerseys all players have NBA experiences:

• #4 J.J. Redick
• #10 Dick Groat
• #11 Bobby Hurley
• #22 Jason Williams
• #23 Shelden Williams
• #24 Johnny Dawkins
• #25 Art Heyman
• #31 Shane Battier
• #32 Christian Laettner
• #33 Grant Hill
• #35 Danny Ferry
• #43 Mike Gminski
• #44 Jeff Mullins

Looking at it the other way around, the former Duke players with the most NBA games played:

1. Grant Hill
2. Elton Brand
3. Shane Battier
4. Mike Gminski
5. Danny Ferry
6. Mike Dunleavy
7. Christian Laettner
8. Jack Marin
9. Carlos Boozer
10. Corey Maggette

 So of the top ten NBA careers by games played only 5 had their number retired at Duke and only 3 were among the top ten scorers in Duke history. 4 players left college early to play in the NBA; Elton Brand, Carlos Boozer, Mike Dunleavy, and Corey Maggette.

NBA success is not dependent on college success - players skipping college entirely include Kobe Bryant. College success does not assure NBA success, as has been the case for many players over the years. Especially in the modern era where the best players bypass college years to go professional, collegiate success is not predictive of NBA success.

All-Time Yankees Lineup

Back in 2007, I outlined one way to compile the all-time Yankees lineup using simple statistical measures (games played for batters, games started for starting pitchers, saves for closer). Several years have passed so I decided to refresh the data to see how this looked now.

Starting lineup:
Catcher = Yogi Berra
1st Baseman = Lou Gehrig
2nd Baseman = Willie Randolph
3rd Baseman = Graig Nettles
Shortstop = Derek Jeter
Outfielder = Mickey Mantle
Outfielder = Babe Ruth
Outfielder = Bernie Williams

Bench:
Catcher = Jorge Posada
Corner Infielder = Don Mattingly
Middle Infielder = Frank Crosetti
Outfielder = Roy White
Outfielder = Joe DiMaggio

Rotation:
Starting Pitcher 1 = Whitey Ford
Starting Pitcher 2 = Andy Pettitte
Starting Pitcher 3 = Red Ruffing
Starting Pitcher 4 = Mel Stottlemyre
Starting Pitcher 5 = Ron Guidry

Bullpen:
Middle reliever = Mike Stanton
Middle reliever = Sparky Lyle
Middle reliever = Bob Shawkey
Middle reliever = David Robertson
Middle reliever = Johnny Murphy
Set-Up Man = Dave Righetti
Closer = Mariano Rivera

The only change on offense was Posada overtook Bill Dickey as the reserve Catcher. Pettitte overtook several pitchers to climb up to second and bumped Lefty Gomez from the starting rotation. Also, Robertson climbed up into the bullpen and bumped out Waite Hoyt.