T is for Thome

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

T is for Thome

Jim Thome

Let me we be really clear Jim Thome did not ruin the White Sox.  Sure they won the World Series right before he got there and haven't sniffed it since.  But that is not Thome's fault form 2006 to 2009 Thome hit 134 of his 612 major league homers for the Sox.  The 7th most of all time the 134 is good enough for 13th on the Sox all time list.  In his 22 yr career Jim averaged 39 homers for every 162 games played.  Thome hit 42 for sox in 2006 and followed up with 35 in 2007.  Thome's time with the Sox may not have warranted the ring he so dearly wanted, but make no mistake, Thome is no Sox killer.

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T is for Turkey (place)

I went to Turkey for two weeks in 199 for a short term missions trip.  We took a team of 6 adults  and our baby daughter. I'm going to give you some brief observations from my memories of our time there.

• We spent a majority of our time in Istanbul, which is a city on two continents (Asia and Europe)
• People  on the streets of Instanbul would take our baby daughter out of our hands hold her for awhile and give her back.  We were warned about this in advance so it would not freak us out.
• In 1998 cell phones while common in the U.S. had not yet exploded to their current popularity. In Istanbul, everybody had a cell phone and were constantly on them.  Again, this seems commonplace in the US now but it wasn't at the time.
• Istanbul has a rich heritage and was the capitol of the Byzantine Empire when the city was known as Constantinople.
• Turkey is the home of some ancient biblical places like Ephesus.

Let me show you 3 visual highpoints of Istanbul, The Blue Mosque, The Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar. All places that we visited.  

The Grand Bazaar is one of the oldest and largest covered markets in the world.  It marks it's beginnings from 1445.

 M o

The Hagia Sophia was built under the direction of the emperor Justinian in the 6yh century.  It was an  Eastern Orthodox cathedral from 537 to 1453.  In the 15th century when Constantinople was invaded by the Ottoman Turks the cathedral was turned into a mosque.  It remained a mosque from 1453 until 1931 when it was converted into a museum.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosques known as the Blue Mosque because of the blue tiles on the inner walls of the mosque ws built 500 years ago.

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S is for Sherm

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

S is for Sherm

John Sherman "Sherm" Lollar

Sherm Lollar played for the White Sox from 1952 to 1963 .  He hit 124 of his 155 MLB homers for the ChiSox.  He would average 14 homers a 162 game season. In 1960, he and Minnie Minoso swapped places several times as the career home run leader for the team.   Lollar died of cancer at the age of 53 in 1977.  At the time of his death he was 3rd all-time in homers for the Sox he is now 15th, 1 behind Joe Crede and 7 ahead of AJ Pierzynski.    His best 2 seasons for the Sox homer wise were  22 in 1959 their World Series year and 20 in 1958.  

Little known fact (I just made up.)  The term LOL derives from the first 3 letters of Sherm's last name.  

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S is for Stewart (Person)

I am something of a Jimmy Stewart fanatic.  I have seen many of his movies.  It's a Wonderful Life is my favorite film of all time.  Mr.  Smith goes to Washington is also in my top 10. He was in so many great films.  So when I decided to watch 12 movies  this year that I had never seen before it didn't surprise me that a Stewart film would make the list.  What did surprise me is that it would be a Stewart film I had never heard of before.

Magic Town (1947) is just that. I had a month free trial of  Amazon prime and was looking for a Jimmy Stewart film I had not seen before and when I found Greatest Show on Earth,  which I had heard of previously but never seen,  When I found it was not available I went with Magic Town.
I did a little researching and found that It's A wonderful life (1946 pictured above) and Magic Town  were back to back box office failures for Stewart.

The main difference between the two is that Magic Town is well deserving of it's failure.  It's A Frank Capra like film , which is  not surprising as it was written and directed by long time Capra collaborator Robert Riskin.  The end result of the reteaming of Riskin and Stewart without Capra is expressed quite well in an IMDB review by Mario Gauci ...

"... while the plot is typically original and engaging, somehow it lacks Capra's cinematic expertise in putting over Riskin's ideas: the tone is too often syrupy and sentimental while the  hero isn't made to face formidable villains such as one finds in Capra's work."

Stewart is not at his best in the movie.  His portrayal of a pollster trying to put a magic formula to work, lacks the multilayered nuanced performances he so often achieved. Jimmy Stewart was in many great movies prior to 1947. If you are looking for better Stewart movies from the 40's, you might want to try The Shop Around the Corner or Rope instead of this slightly above average comedy drama.

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R is for Ragamuffin (Thing)

R is for Ragamuffin

In 2014,  the movie ragamuffin about Rich Mullins came out.  I only have 39 minutes before my R is late for the A to Z challenge.  So I will let this clip stand on it's own.







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Technical Difficulties

R is for Ray

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

R is for Ray

Ray "RAY RAY" Durham

Ray Durham played for the White Sox from 1995 to 2002.  He hit 106 of his 192 MLB homers in a White Sox Uniform.  In a 162 game season he would average 16 long balls a season.  His best 2 seasons for the Sox homer wise were 2001 with 20 and 1998 with 19. 

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Q is for Quentin

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

Q is for Quentin

Carlos Quentin

Not only does Carlos Quentin  hold the White Sox record for most homers with a last name beginning with Q (107) he also holds the MLB Q HR record with 154.  Quentin who was released last week by the Atlanta Braves and is  now a free agent, has averaged so far 30 HR for every 162 games played.  He played 4 seasons on the south side from 2008 to 2001 His best 2 seasons with the Sox were in 2008 when he hit 36 and 2010 when he added 24. 

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Q is for Quinjet (thing)

Q is for Quinjet (Thing)

I know no thing can be as strange as giraffe poop.  But you are probably wondering what a quinjet iso and I'm just the guy to tell you,  Actually, I'll show you.



A quinjet is a  fictional jet with 5 turbo engines.  It exists in the Marvel Comicbook Universe and can also be seen in the Avengers movies and the t.v. show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It was first used in Avengers # 61 which came out in 1969.

In the Marvel Universe, the quinjet was originally designed by Wakanda Designs Group, has VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) and is capable of reaching Mach 2.1 or approximately 1,600 MPH.

The quinjets are primarily used for by the Avengers and are also used by SHIELD.  More often than not, quinjets are destroyed in action.



Cover ofAvengers # 61
book included  first appearance of a quinjet


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Matthew West - Day One (Lyric Video)

Other Peoples Videos O P V

 

Matthew West

 

Day One

P is for Paulie

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

P is for Paulie

4

Paul "Paulie Longball" Konerko

I'll admit that nobody calls Konerko Paulie Longball except me.  I named him it and was never able to make it catch on.  What did catch on was Konerko's baseball prowess and love for the game.   Konerko was the heart and soul of the 2005 team and instead of following the money he opted in 2005 and again in 2010 to stay with the Sox.

When Konerko retired in 2014, his 432 homeruns was 2nd only to Frank Thomas on the Sox all time list.  His 439 total major league homers is good enough for 42nd all time.   He averaged  30 homers over a  162 game season or 1 home run  in every 5.4  games.  

Pauls best 2 HR totals came in 2004 with 41 and 2005 with 40.

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P is for Paul Konerko (Person)

P is for Paul Konerko

Pauly Longball

Paul Konerko retired from the White Sox last year.  The class act that he is stayed 1 more year in 2014 and took a drastic cut in pay and reduced playing time and mentored Jose Abreu in his rookie season.  If you look up class act .  in the dictionary you won't see Konerko's picture because class act is not in the dictionary but if it was, you would.  I took this video in 2013 on Paul Konerko Bobblehead day.  Please appreciate that I called the play and filmed it.





Go to my sports blog to see about Konerko's HR achievements for the Sox.

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Correction.  I went to My Merriam Websters dictionary and there was a definition for class act and pauly's picture was not there.  So I put one there.  

O is for Ordonez

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

O is for Ordonez

Magglio "Mags" Ordonez

I talked earlier about White Sox players who left after the 2004 season and missed the World Championship.  Magglio Ordonez was one of those guys.  Ordonez played for the Sox from 1997 to 2004 and then played with the Detroit Tigers from 2005 to 2011.  While his batting average went up 5 points while with the tiger, his slugging percentage went down 50. He made it the World Series with the Tigers in 2006 but on the losing end and batted a miserable .105 with no extra base hits.

With the Sox, Mags hit 187 of his 294 career home runs.  187 puts him 5th all-time for the Sox.  Ordonez averaged 26 homers for every 162 games played in the major leagues.  His best HR seasons for the Chisox were 2002 when he 38, and 200 when he hit 32.

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A video response to 7 annoying phrases at Blimey Cow.

Twice in a week.  How awesome is that.








Here is the awesome video to which we are referring.







For more Blimey Cow click here.  To watch What I learned listening to K-Love click here, 

O is for Oreos

It has been a while since I participated in Friday Fragments at Half-Past Kissin' Tim. So I thought I'd give it a try.  If you are not familiar with Friday Fragments, last week's offering is very typical of the genre: a few short fragments of posts that don't have any cohesiveness or unity.  I am also doing A to Z blogging this month, so my first fragment will be a thing that begins with the letter N.  This is in keping to my A to Z theme of nouns

Fragment 1: O is for Oreo.

When I was a kid there were sandwich cookies like the kind my parents brought at grocery store and then there were Oreos.  Boy were they different!  The sandwich cookies didn't look like Oreos,  hey didn't separate like Oreos and they sure didn't taste like Oreos. Oreos were reserved for special occasions because the store brand cookies sure didn't cost as much as Oreos.

Boy have things changed! These days store like Target and Aldi have their own brands of sandwich cookies.  We call them Fake Oreos.  They still don't cost as much as Oreos, but I am happy to report that they look like Oreos, separate like Oreos, and they even taste like Oreos.

Fragment 2 K-Love Pledge drive

Our family really enjoys listening to Christian music and the station K-Love is often on in our car as we drive back and forth through that thing called life.  A few times a year they have a pledge drive.  I have a strange sense of humor, and like to over analyze things.  So I pulled my vlog Dave Out Loud out of mothballs and made this video about K-Love and the pledge drive.

Pledge drive, in all seriousness has been fantastic this year.  God is doing so many wonderful things just through people listening and giving to the station.  To give K-love a listen click here..

Fragment 3: Age of Ultron

I was looking through some old posts this week and I came across this one (also a Friday Fragment post) from 4 years ago entitled I thought Super Hero Movies wer for kids.  Just like the fake  Oreos situation,  things have got better for kid-friendly super hero .  Since I wrote that movies like Thor, Captaian America, and Avengers have produced movies I enjoy and will allow my kids to watch and love.  Avengers 2 comes out in 14 days and  a majority of our family is psyched.  Here's a short featuette that came out on youtube yesterday ...



Fragment 4 Imago Film Festival

I promised before the A to Z challenge started to tell more abot ut my experiences at this year's Imago Film  Festival.  Here is the trailer for Believe Me, a film I saw at the festival.



That's all the fragmments we have time for today. Go back to whence you came by clicking on A to Z Or Friday Fragments we have time for today.

N is for Nordhhagen and Nicholson

White Sox Homerun hitters from A.J. to Zeke

N is for Nordhagen and Nicholson

Wayne Nordhagen and Dave Nicholson aren't exactly household words even around White Sox faithful.  They started the season tied for 69th all time on the White Sox HR list with 37 home runs.  Their combined 74 long balls Alex Rios   would  tie them for 36th with Alex Rios. 2 current players Jose Abreu and Tyler Flowers have already surpassed Nicholson and Nordhagen this season putting them down to 71st all-time

Nicholson played in the major leagues in  1960 and from 1962 to 1967, 1963 through 1965 for the  White Sox.   He added 14 MLB homers outside of a White Sox uniform for a total of 51. He averaged 18homers over a  162 game season or 1 home run every 9 games.  He hit 22 in 63 and 13 in 64.

Nordhagen (,282 life timeBA)was a much better hitter than Nicholson (.212. lifetime BA).  Nordhagen played for the White Sox from 1977 to 1981 hitting all but 2 of his MLB homers with the Sox.  Nordhagen would average 13 homers for every 162 games played in his career.  Nordhagen hit 15 homers for the Sox in 1980, 8 more than he hit for them the year before,

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N is for Nobody (Person), Nowhere (Place,) and Nothing (Thing)

Negative Words Can Have a Positive Meaning

You may wonder what I mean by that title.  How can negative words have positive meaning?  First, let's define terms.  I am not talking about discouraging speech.  These words are nobody, nowhere, and nothing.  Wait, you say, those words don't have a negative connotation.  They just describe absence.  They do that.  But also they certainly can have a negative connotation at times.  Just listen to this common self-talk:

                                    Why would THAT girl talk to ME?  I am just a nobody with a job that's going nowhere. In short, I'm a real nothing.  


Today, I want to use those words for positive emphasis by looking at the story of Jonah for the Bible.

1. There is NOBODY that God doesn't care for. 

 In the book of Jonah, God sent Jonah to a place called Nineveh to preach repentance.  The Ninevites were not only an enmy of Jonah's people but were thoroughly wicked.  If there was eve ra group of people God couldn't love, the Ninevites would certainly be it. Yet God loved them enough to send a prophet to them to warn them of their need for Him.  God had created them just like he created Jonah, me, and you.  He loved them and wanted them to have a relationship with him just like he loved us.

2. There is NOWHERE on Earth you can hide from God.  

God no only created us.  He created the world and the creaturs of the world.  If God calls you to do something and you go the opposite direction, do you think God won't find you?  That's what Jonah did.  He didn't love the Ninevites like God did and did not want God forgiving them so he split.  Jonah was called to go to one end of the known world.  So, Jonah quickly booked to the opposite end of the known world.  Hiding from God is something that so many of us do, one way or the other.  In the end, God finds us.  That's definitely in the job description of one who came to seek and save the lost.

Because God found Jonah and sicked a storm on him, we may think that God is out to get us.  And, He is.  But not to get us like punishment, but get us like--bring us home!  When the others on the ship heard Jonah's testimony about serving the God who created the universe, and then saw the power God had to bring and calm a storm, many of them found him, and worshiped him for the first time.  So after Jonah was found in the ship, God again "found" him in the fish and brought him back to the purpose he had called him for.

3. There is NOTHING you can do that God can't forgive.  

Jonah goes back to Ninevah and preaches repentance to the people of Ninevah.  The Ninevites, if you remember, were wicked people.  But Jonah chapter 3, says that the Ninevites believed God.  In Jonah chapter 4, Jonah says, "I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love."

I think everybody thinks that they've blown it at some point.  That they've done something so bad that if anyone were to find out, no one would be able to be in the same room with them.  They feel separate, alone, and utterly unforgivable.  Guess what?  They're wrong.  In every instance, God knows exactly what they did, and has already died to forgive their sins.  Our view of justice gets in our way of accepting that. This was true of Jonah, as I said before, he didn't think the Ninevites deserved to be forgiven.  He was right of course.  None of us do.  But God loved us SO much, he chose to forgive us anyway.   As Judd Hirsch famously says to Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People, "You can live with that, can't you?"

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