T is for This Year

You Tube A TO Z

T is for This Year

One of the things I like best  about You Tube are some of the cover  contests that are conducted using it.  For example, at the beginning of 2015 One of my favorite artists released this song on video.

She also announced a contest asking for people sending their covers of her song in.  I watched a couple dozen of these and this one was my favorite.








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R is for Ron

Cubs Home run hitters from Aramis to Zimmerman

R is for Ronny

Ron Santo

Cubs, White Sox

I may be the only person who liked it when Ron Santo came to the White Sox for his final season in 1974.  I was a kid,I had just switched alliances from the Cubs to the Sox and one of my favorite Cubbies was coming to the South Side.
The person who liked the arrangement the least was  probably Santo himself .  He wanted and thought he deserved to retire as a Cub.  When the Cubs let him go he opted to go play for the Chi-Sox, as he had thought he had more in the tank.

As it  turns out he had very little left in the tank and had an abysmal year.  Instead of focusing on his unhappy ending, I prefer to look back at the amazing things he did as a Cub.  

Santo hit 337 of his 342 career homers for the Cubs. He averaged 30 homers per season between 1964 and 1968.  During that same 5 year span he also had 5 consecutive gold glove awards so he was definitely a stellar offensive and defensive player.  

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R is for Responses

You Tube A TO Z

R is for Response

You Tube used to have a feature where you could make a video response and post it to another you tube video.  They have since discontinued feature but you can still find video responses to existing you tube videos.

Last year the fine folks at Blimey cow produced this video.

I then made this response not knowing that You Tube had discontinued the program.




My take on this ,which I hope you gathered ,was to use the appropriate context for each phrase to give the phrases meaning.

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S is for Schoolhouse Rock

You Tube A TO Z

S is for School House Rock

I am no expert in the history of the music video but my theory is they have 3 notable precursors

1: The Beatles Movies
2: The Monkees T.V. Show
and 3. School House Rock

For the unitiated School House Rock was a series of educational cartoons than ran in between Saturday Morning Cartoons on ABC in the 70's and 80's.  They has 5 genre's

Multiplication Rock




Grammar Rock





History Rock



Science Rock




Money Rock





These are not neccesarily my 5 favorite.  But I do like them and they are a good sampling.



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Q is for Quest

Cubs Homerun hitters from Aramis to Zimmermanan 

Joe Quest 1852 - 1924

Cleveland Forest Citys. Indianapolis Blues, Chicago Cubs as White Stockings, Detroit Wolverines, St. Louis Cardinals as Browns , Pittsburgh Pirates as Alleghenys, Philadelphia Athletics

Q:  If your last name or first name began with the letter Q, how many homers as a Cub would you need to own the outright record?

A: 2

Joe Quest played  second base for the Chicago Cubs  in the 19th century, back when they were called  the Chicago White Stockings.  Quest,  a very good defensive player, was not much of a hitter. In his 10 year professional career, he batted .217 and hit 1 HR in 2295 at bats. This is an average of 0 homers in a 162 game season.  By comparison of the 250 major leaguers who played from 2005 to 2014 and had 2295 AB or more, 54%  had 100 or more homers,  83.6 % had 50 or more and all 250 had at least 7 more homers than Quest over the same time period.   

Quest did win back to back to back pennants with the White Stockings from  1880 to 1882.  Quest is most famous for coining the phrase Charlie Horse as a term for a muscle cramp.  There are several version of how this came to be, one states that he and several of his teammates were at a horse race and all his teammates wagered money on a horse with Charlie in his name.  Quest had  not wagered on that horse.  During the race, the horse pulled up lame, and Quest made a quip about that Charlie horse not doing so well.  The next day, as one account has it, one of his teammates had the same type of injury in the course of the game, and Quest said he's just like that Charlie Horse.  

Quest's nickname for cramp is now forever etched in the English language,  but his Cubs Q homerun record is just 2 long balls from extinction. 

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Q is for Quick Draw McGraw

You Tube A TO Z

Q is For Quick Draw McGraw

For Q I present you with a trio of videos of one of my favorite cartoon heroes.  Quick Draw McGraw

Here is a short documentary on the feature.






El Kabong was my favorite character.  Here is a nice montage of some ka-bongs.

The Snuffle character with his reaction to dog biscuits was also a favorite.






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