Daily Dirt: Relax, Cardinals fans, it could be (much, much) worse

Daily Dirt for Sunday, June 18, 2023

I love announcer Chip Caray’s comments, which you can find below. Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 641 of The Daily Dirt.

1. “Every franchise has had its share of forgettable seasons,” writes Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru for MLB.com.

Do you have the feeling that Cardinals fans are feeling this might be one of those years? St. Louis was 27-41 entering the weekend, a winning percentage of .397. The last time a Cardinals club had a .397 winning percentage — or lower — was 1919 when the club ended up 54-83.

“If it can happen, it WILL happen to the 2023 Cardinals,” Cardinals play-by-play man Chip Caray said after a recent loss. “Baseball is a cruel game.”

But cheer up, El Birdo followers. There have been worse starts by other teams. Much, much worse.

Cardinals fans can take some solace from the following records, the worst 50-game starts in MLB history:

• 10-40, Oakland A’s, 2023: I realize these guys have been winning games this week, but let’s be serious. There are probably fewer than 10 bona fide major leaguers on the entire roster.
• 12-38, Detroit Tigers, 1996: Only one starting pitcher had an ERA below 5.22.
• 13-37, Miami Marlins, 2013: Of the team’s 27 hitters that season, only two reached double figures in home runs. 
• 13-37, Kansas City Royals, 2006: The club’s closer this season was Ambiorix Burgos. He didn’t get a lot of work.
• 13-37, Kansas City Royals, 2005: The top two pitchers were Zack Greinke and Jose Lima, who combined for a 10-33 record and an ERA over 6.00.
• 13-37, Detroit Tigers, 2003: They finished 43-119. I’m pretty sure the Cardinals will be able to better THAT record.

2. After having lived in Illinois for the last 25 years, I was pretty sure I knew everything possible to know about Abraham Lincoln.

I was wrong.

Here are a few things — presented in medal-worth form — I recently came across about Honest Abe:

• Gold medal: Lincoln was the first president to have a beard. This one really surprised me, because “back then” it seemed like just about any grown man had some sort of facial hair. Lincoln originally grew his first beard after political opponents made fun of his gaunt face and rather emaciated frame. Lincoln’s beard became iconic, but it proved to be a short-lived trend. Only four other Presidents had full beards while in office. The last was Benjamin Harrison, who left office in 1893.
• Silver medal: Lincoln helped establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. Sarah Josepha Hale, the author of the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” lobbied for a national day of thanks at the end of November. She wrote a letter to Lincoln in 1863, and within weeks of receiving Hale’s letter, Secretary of State William Seward drafted a proclamation in the hopes of healing “the nation’s wounds (from the Civil War).” The proclamation also called for a national day of Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November to be celebrated annually. That remained the date until 1939, when it was briefly moved to the third Thursday by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, before returning to its current day in 1941.
• Bronze medal: Lincoln was the only president to receive a patent. Lincoln had a life-long fascination with machinery and often tinkered with mechanical devices and tools. While Lincoln was serving his sole term as a U.S. congressman in 1848, a boat he was on traveling home to Illinois got stuck on a sandbar — forcing the captain to empty the barrels of cargo on board so he could use them to buoy and lift the ship back on the water. The incident sparked a new idea in Lincoln, who spent the Congressional break working on a design for inflatable bellows that could be attached to a ship’s hull to lift it over sandbars or other impediments. He had a scale model created and submitted the idea to the U.S. Patent Office. In May 1849, he received U.S. Patent No. 6469, although his flotation system was never put to practical use.
• Honorable mention I: Lincoln was the first U.S. president to appear on a coin. Since the nation’s founding, U.S. currency has featured images and symbols linked to the concept of liberty, such as eagles or winged figures of victory. That changed in 1909 when the U.S. Mint redesigned the 1-cent coin to commemorate the centennial of Lincoln’s 1809 birth. The new coin, the first circulating one to honor a real person, featured a portrait of Lincoln by sculptor Victor David Brenner. Lincoln remained the only president honored on a coin for more than two decades until a redesigned quarter was released in 1932 to mark the bicentennial of the birth of America’s first president, George Washington.
• Honorable mention II: The Gettysburg Address was less than 275 words long. Lincoln’s address lasted just two minutes, and immediate reactions to the speech were mixed. But in the years following Lincoln’s death, the Gettysburg Address became one of the most important speeches in American history.

3. California might be the most-populated state in the nation, but Texas is home to the most populated ZIP code. The Texan ZIP code of 77449 has a population of 128,294 people and belongs to Katy, Texas, a suburb located 30 miles west of Houston. Interestingly, the second most-populated ZIP code in the states also belongs to Katy, with 118,291 residents in the 77494 code. Five of the top 10 ZIP codes by population are located in Texas.

Steve Thought O’ The Day
Favorite Beatles’ song(s)? How about, in no particular order, “Twist and Shout,” “Hello Goodbye” and “Revolution.”

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. As Cardinals fans read this story, they will be saying, “Gee thanks, Steve.”