“Dorothy Kamenshek, women's baseball league star, dies at 84 - Chicago Tribune” plus 1 more |
| Dorothy Kamenshek, women's baseball league star, dies at 84 - Chicago Tribune Posted: 22 May 2010 05:47 AM PDT Former New York Yankee first baseman Wally Pipp called Dorothy "Dottie" Kamenshek "the fanciest-fielding first baseman I've ever seen, man or woman." Spurred by the personal philosophy that "anything less than my best is failure," she was known to jump 3 three or 4 four feet in the air and to even do the splits to snag the ball at first base as a player for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Ms. Kamenshek, 84, who had dealt with various health issues since suffering a stroke nine years ago, died Monday, May 17, at her home in Palm Desert, Calif., said Bridget Burden, a friend. She was 84. The left-handed first baseman and lead-off hitter for the Rockford (Ill.) Peaches was one of the brightest stars of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball league, which was founded in 1943, during World War II. She won back-to-back batting titles in 1946 and '47 and was the league's all-time batting leader with a .292 lifetime average. She also was selected to seven All Star teams (1943, 1946-51). In 1999, Sports Illustrated for Women named Ms. Kamenshek No. 100 on its list of the top female athletes of the century. "She was the greatest ballplayer in our league," said Pepper Paire Davis, a catcher and 10-year veteran in the league who remained friends with Ms. Kamenshek. "She was one of the few ballplayers in our league who hit .300, which is like hitting .400 in the majors." Added Davis: "She had the complete game, including the brains. She could hit with power, she could bunt, she could run, she could slide and she played a great defensive first base. She had what I call the three H's Hs — head, heart and hustle — besides all the talent in the world as a ballplayer." Davis, who served as a technical adviser on "A League of Their Own," the 1992 movie about the league, said the character played by Geena Davis "was symbolically named Dottie as the best ballplayer in the league, and that was after Dottie Kamenshek." Davis said that Ms. Kamenshek, who was known as Dottie by her fans and as Kammie by her friends, "was a great gal, very serious about her baseball. She religiously practiced, but she was a little too serious sometimes. I used to like to make her laugh." Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |
| Posted: 22 May 2010 02:41 AM PDT Political leaders in Washington could learn a lot from a 1970s rock supergroup. They ought to listen to KISS. Maybe not the band, but definitely the philosophy. Many of today's political problems come about because our leaders won't "Keep It Simple, Stupid." They go looking for complex, difficult solutions to problems, when simple, direct approaches would be better. Examples abound. OmamaCare, signed by the president this year, clocked in at more than 2,000 pages. Even the lawmakers who passed the bill didn't understand what they were doing. "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explained helpfully in March. Shouldn't it be the other way around?  Not surprisingly, as soon as the bill passed, unintended consequences started cropping up. "As a result of this legislation, including the additional tax burden, AT&T will be evaluating prospective changes to the active and retiree health-care benefits offered by the company," the telephone giant announced. Heavy equipment makers John Deere and Caterpillar also announced the law would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. Lawmakers were dismayed. "The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern," Reps. Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak wrote in letters to the heads of these companies. "They also appear to conflict with independent analyses." The lawmakers "asked" the CEOs to appear at congressional hearings. That's like "asking" your child to come to the dinner table. It's an offer they can't refuse. But those hearings were cancelled as it became clear that the execs were right. The health care bill does contain hidden costs that will burden companies for years to come. Meanwhile, both the Congressional Budget Office and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have upped their estimates of the bill's price tag. The shame here is that lawmakers could have taken some simple steps to cover the uninsured. They could have encouraged the formation of pools where individuals could buy insurance. They could have allowed citizens to buy insurance across state lines. Instead, lawmakers changed the entire insurance system in ways that won't become entirely apparent for years. Keep this in mind as politicians weigh in on immigration reform. Most demand a "comprehensive" approach. As President Barack Obama put it during a White House appearance with his Mexican counterpart, "from the time that I was a U.S. senator through the time that I ran for president until now I have consistently said that I'm supportive of a comprehensive immigration reform approach." But this needlessly complicates matters. Illegal immigration is, simply, illegal. There's no need to wait on "comprehensive" measures to prevent it. Continued... Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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