This day in history, September 14.
On this day in 1994, Bud Selig announced that the baseball season was over due to a players' strike that could not be resolved. There would be no more baseball that year and no World Series. Greed on the part of players and owners cost the baseball world a great deal and it would be several years before people would again appreciate the sport of baseball.
In 1901 on this day, President William McKinley died after being shot eight days earlier in Buffalo, NY.
It is also the day that in 1849 the famed Russian physiologist, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, was born. His studies in the conditioned reflex would make him famous. A common proverbial insult that resulted was "you are like Pavlov's dogs." Later brainwashing techniques would use Pavlov's procedures to get people to do perform desired behavior without any reward but in hopes of a reward. It is a little like the petrol industry. They raise prices to a new level. Everyone complains. The price is lowered a few cents and we talk about how petrol prices have gone down. In reality, the prices are much higher than they were before, but we think we are saving money. Pavlov would say we were acting like "Pavlov's dogs."
Finally, in 1814, this is the day Francis Scott Key penned the national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner." The song has been immortalized at all sorts of ball games and has two extra words added.
PLAY BALL.
1 comment:
Actually I know of one person (and there are certainly more) who pretty-much gave up on baseball after the strike, and have never gone back. My wife grew up a baseball nut. Her dad played semi-pro for a short time early in his life, and baseball was important to him, so the girls grew up listening to games and following teams' progress. After the strike, she never cared much for the game again.
Oh, and you have the added words to the national anthem wrong. They're *really* "Gentlemen, start your engines!" :)
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