Season's Greetings

[Ira_Silverman]

The Silverman family (Karen, Ira and Lisanne) wish to extend to all our Aerodrome Forum friends Best Wishes for a Merry Xmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year.

[mike_baram]

Ira,
And a "Git Yontif" to you and yours too.
Zei Gesundt.
Mike

And most importantly Ira, this means there is only 56 more days 'til Spring Training! Did you read that in the last month or so they have found some film of Ruth's alleged "called shot" at Wrigley (off I believe, Charley Root?) Now if they could only find footage of Bishop over the German airdrome or the downed Luke with an automatic! Of course that would eliminate about half the discourse on the "Forum". Take care and regards to you and that nice family. Lee Edw. Branch

[Ira_Silverman]

Hi Lee:

Yes, they found the film of Babe Ruth’s alleged “called shot” off Charlie Root, and lo and behold, it wasn’t! Turns out, the Babe pointed his finger at the Cubs’ dugout – taunting the bench jockeys who were heckling The Bambino. Another myth destroyed, and somehow I think we may be a little poorer for it.

Heroes are supposed to be Bunyonesque – larger than life, and their legends grow with time. Although film of Bishop’s morning raid or Luke’s “Shootout at the L’OK Stream” would answer THE questions, perhaps definitively, such absolute proof would take much of the fun out of speculative discussion, and reduce these heroes to the level of mere humans. The three we speak of here were all flawed, yet still rose well above the level of their peers. Their myths serve to maintain them in our consciousness.

Now 54 days ‘til spring training! And despite Leo’s throughts to the contrary, I often think of the similarities between sports figures (especially baseball) and fighter pilots. IMHO the fighter aces were the “sports heroes” of the First World War. Both activities required exceptional eyesight (Ruth could reportedly read the label of a 78 RPM record while it was spinning- try that some time!), superior body-hand-eye coordination, and a large degree of instinctive behavior. Finally, both baseball and WW1 air combat could be typified by long periods of boredom (patrol) punctuated by minutes or even seconds of high-adrenaline activity. Obviously, the stakes are much higher in combat, so I won’t persist in stretching the point, but there are similarities.

VBR, and Happy Holidays to you and yours,

Ira