Wait+Till+Next+Year

=**2015 Supplementary Article--ALL ROADS! :)**= = = = = = =
 * This short article just came out on Dec. 31, 2015 while school was on vacation and it pertains directly to //Wait Till Next Year// because it's about why fans keep rooting for teams that don't win championships. It's called [|"Why Fans Stand by Perennial Losers."]**
 * The article even mentions the Brooklyn Dodgers and their motto of "wait till next year"! It's short, but it has much to teach us. :)**

=**2014 GROUP PROJECTS :)**=

=** Group Project on //Wait Till Next Year// **= This book seems to provide an excellent opportunity to give you more autonomy, more control, and a stronger voice in your learning. The overall idea is to read the entire book first (as you normally do with summer reading, for example), view relevant video, and then analyze it together, but in this case the analysis takes the form of giving you the chance to determine what to take a close look at and how to do it, with some general guidance from Mr. Greenhill. :) The idea is to make this a flow experience! In some ways, this is similar to the work you did on //The Ol' Man//.

We would divide the book into sections. For each section, the group would design a presentation based on two concepts the group is most interested in its section of the book. Then the group would present its project to the class and steer the discussion as well.

Here is the part that guides you:


 * 1.** When you choose **two concepts** in your section, **one should be related to baseball** and **one should be related to social progress.** You should **sincerely** be very, very interested in the concepts. Remember that you are seeking flow. :)

Choose from among these themes:
 * 2.** This book contains many important and powerful themes. When your group chooses its two concepts, each should be connected in some way to one of the themes. **This requires serious, higher-order thinking.** ** :) **

Brooklyn life The Dodgers Love Family Friendship Growing up Neighborhood Life Childhood Hope Roles of Women/Girls Racism Democracy Adversity Resilience Growing up Role of Religion Loyalty Generations Change Role Models


 * These are the sections of the book, which we will assign in a random drawing:**

1. pp. 9-73 2. pp. 73-137 3. pp. 137-200 4. pp. 200-257 (the end)


 * We will provide time in class to work on preparing the presentations. They are not supposed to reflect a quarter or semester of work, only a few days. However, we would like you to make the experience as truly worthwhile and meaningful for your group and the rest of the class as possible with the time provided to prepare.** ** :) We are putting your education in your hands and it would be a terrible shame for you to waste this chance.**


 * Each of you will also have the chance individually to write an __ANALYTICAL__ essay on the book.** ** :) ** __You could write one either related to your group’s topic, related to the book as a whole, or taken from among the topics printed in the book in the “Discussion Points” section at the end of the book.__ //(If your edition of the book does not have this section, you should check your e-mail for an electronic pdf copy sent out by Mr. Greenhill.)// You may choose any of the topics except #’s 12, 13, and 14. (If you choose #11, see me about one adjustment to make to the prompt**.)** The essay would give you a chance to take an even deeper look at something in the book that is of interest to you. You may also design your own topic that would be approved by Mr. Greenhill. :) **Your essay should be two pages long.**

In a manner that is similar to the approach we’ve asked you to take on your 10% projects, be creative about the methods you use to present your concepts to the class.


 * If you have read and taken good notes so far, you will be an asset to your group. If not, if you did not do the all the reading or only pretended you took notes, you likely will be a liability to your group, which you do not want to be.**


 * We will determine the lifelines for the essay as time passes.**


 * Embrace this as a great opportunity to experience flow through something you “get” to do rather than something you “have” to do. A flow experience NEVER feels like something you “have to” do!** ** :) **

= = =**Background and supplements to //Wait Till Next Yea//r:**=


 * [|Article just recently on the Giants left-fielder who watched Bobby Thomson's homerun fly over his head]**

www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-sp.philsfan22oct22,0,6659662.story =baltimoresun.com=
 * A present-day example of a devoted fan keeping score of all his favorite team's games, just as Doris Kearns Goodwin did with the Brooklyn Dodgers after her father taught her how**.

Die-hard fan has kept score of every Phillies game for the past 22 years
By Dan Connolly October 22, 2008, GLEN ROCK, PA. When Bob Bogart married in 1989, his streak was in its infancy, about 500games. His new bride couldn't have known it would keep going, that it would last 19 more years and counting, that it would be acknowledged by his heroes.

Still, Lauri Bogart said she wasn't blindsided. "It's pretty obvious when you are around him," she said. "You know there is something else on his mind all the time, even in the offseason.

"And all these people keep giving him attention for being nuts."

According to his wife, "he is a sick man."

It's because of the Philadelphia Phillies, who face the Tampa Bay Rays tonight in Game1 of the World Series, their first appearance in the October Classic in 15 years.

Bogart, 47, a mathematician for the U.S. Department of Defense in Fort Meade, is a Phillies partial season-ticket holder and has seats for Game5 in Philadelphia. His fandom goes a bit further, though.

Since Aug.8, 1986, Bogart has kept score of every Phillies regular-season game. In all but the rarest instances, he has watched or listened live and methodically recorded each out, each hit, each run as they occurred. For the record, that's 3,554 straight contests. Sort of makes Orioles great Cal RipkenJr.'s consecutive-games-played streak of 2,632 seem a little light.

Bogart doesn't include spring training or the postseason in his total. "Cal didn't count them in his streak, so I am not counting them in mine."

Logistically, his streak seems more improbable than Ripken's. For one, Bogart has that pesky day job with the federal government, one that includes a 65-mile, one-way trip from his home in York County, just over the Mason-Dixon Line.

What happens when the Phillies are on the West Coast? Well, he takes a nap when he gets home and then stays up after midnight. Sometimes, he arranges it so he can go in late to work. "I'd be in bed wide awake if they were playing and I didn't know what was going on, anyway," he said.

For day games, he takes a half or full day off. And for family trips outside the Phillies' viewing or listening area? "All of our vacations are planned around the Phillies' schedule," Lauri Bogart, said. "We've gone all around the country and in Canada all at the same time as the Phillies or when they aren't playing."

Years ago, they would visit Lauri's family in suburban Chicago only when the Cubs or Milwaukee Brewers were playing the Phillies - so that the radio or TV broadcast was readily available and the streak survived.

There have been a handful of times during the past 22 years in which Bogart couldn't catch a live game, so he taped it, ignored any information about the results and then scored it - as if it were live - as soon as he got home. Recent technology, though, has aided him in maintaining the streak. He has DirecTV's baseball package, XM Radio, which broadcasts all major league games, and Internet radio access. "It's almost like cheating now," he joked.

There were some close calls over the years, such as in the late 1990s when he was driving to the Midwest and settled in Ohio to listen to a Phillies- Pittsburgh Pirates game. A local signal, however, overpowered the Pittsburgh flagship station, and for a few minutes before the first pitch he methodically tuned the hotel radio in a panic until discovering the game on another small station.

Then, three years ago, the government had the nerve to send him to England for a May training session. He scheduled his flight so it wouldn't conflict with the Phillies. "My score book rode all the way to England," he joked. Because of the five-hour time difference, he had to go to sleep after dinner in England, set the alarm for midnight and then listen over the Internet until the early-morning hours. He invited his fellow travelers to join him, but no one did.

The fanaticism isn't lost on the Phillies. In 2000, Bogart was named one of 10 club super fans of the previous century and received a jersey at an on-field ceremony.

Like Ripken, Bogart said his streak wasn't something he sought out to do. He was 5 when he attended his first Phillies game at Connie Mack Stadium. By 7, he was scoring games with his grandfather. When he was in high school, he thought it would be fun to do an entire baseball season and keep the score book. One year turned into another, and he had a little streak of a few hundred games going into Aug.7, 1986, when a drive to the Midwest conflicted with a Phillies day game. He missed that one, and then started the current streak. Now, his Phillies are in the World Series for the first time since 1993 and the sixth time in a 125-year history riddled with losses and disappointment.

Maybe that's why his wife has accepted Bogart's obsession with good humor. She's a long-suffering Cubs fan. She knows what it means to love bad baseball. And she still gets the upper hand on important decisions. Their son is named Ryne Michael - after Cubs Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg first and then Phillies Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt.

So she has put up with the craziness and the scheduling nightmares for the past two decades. It has become the norm in the Bogart household.

"At least I always know where he is," Lauri Bogart said. "Whenever the Phillies are playing, he'll be home, watching TV. And we just work around it." Copyright © 2008, The Baltimore Sun

Inexplicable struggles against Pirates cost Brooklyn the pennant
By Gabriel Schechter / National Baseball Hall of Fame Library Published: 10/27/2008 9:17 AM ET

Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning homer gets all the credit, but was it the real reason the Dodgers lost the '51 pennant? (AP)

Sometimes it is too easy to associate an isolated event with a large outcome, such as saying that the so-called "Merkle's Boner" cost the 1908 New York Giants the pennant or that Bill Buckner's error cost the Boston Red Sox the 1986 World Series. Of course those were important plays, but they allow us to forget the more pervasive causes that filled the big picture. Another misleading event is Bobby Thomson's famous "Shot Heard 'Round the World," which abruptly ended the 1951 National League pennant chase. It was the single-most important play in the demise of the Brooklyn Dodgers, but by no means was it the reason why they lost. The Dodgers should never have gotten into a playoff with the Giants. It took a massive failure against the worst team in the league to force that showdown with their cross-town rivals. Like me, you'll find it hard to believe what happened to the Dodgers against the hapless Pittsburgh Pirates. I'm sure the Dodgers still don't believe it. From 1949-53, the Dodgers' and Pirates' aggregate won-lost records were nearly mirror images. The Dodgers went 483-286 while the Pirates were 284-485, finishing last three of those five seasons, while the Dodgers won three pennants and lost the other two by a hair. The opposite paths of the two franchises stood out even more dramatically in heads-up play. In 1949, the Dodgers took 16 of 22 games from the Pirates. In 1950, the edge was a whopping 19-3, and it was just as one-sided in 1952. In 1953, when the Dodgers won 105 games and the Pirates lost 104, the Dodgers pummeled the Bucs to the tune of 20 wins in 22 games. Add up those four seasons, and the Dodgers humiliated the Pirates, 74-14. They went 37-7 at each team's home park, taking no prisoners. In the middle of all that carnage stands the 1951 season. The only significant change that year was that Branch Rickey, after being deposed by the Dodgers, landed in Pittsburgh as the new general manager. Soon after arriving on the scene, he declared that Pittsburgh was the worst team he had been associated with in his life. Nobody argued with him. How could they? The last-place 1950 Bucs had the most helpless pitching staff in the league and an offense rescued to mediocrity only by the presence of future Hall of Fame slugger Ralph Kiner. So what happened in 1951? The Pirates took the season series from the Dodgers, 12-10, and won eight of the 11 games played at Ebbets Field. If the Dodgers had merely broken even with the Pirates, they would have ended the regular season one game ahead of the Giants. Winning their usual 18 games (for that period) would have allowed Brooklyn to run away and hide from the Giants. Instead, it took an astonishing combination of luck, timing and great games by also-ran players to prevent the Dodgers from achieving what should have been a simple task. How did this happen? It closely resembles what the Pirates did in the 1960 World Series, when they were blown out several times but won the close games and took the title over the New York Yankees. In 1951, the Dodgers outscored the Pirates by an average of one run a game, enjoying romps of 17-8, 11-4, 13-1, 8-3 and 10-5. Meanwhile, the Pirates took six of the eight one-run contests they played. As we take a closer look at those dozen Pittsburgh victories, keep in mind that if the Dodgers had won even one of these games, nobody today would remember any of Bobby Thomson's heroics, because they would never have happened. Here they are: This time the Dodgers led, 7-3, after six innings, but the Pirates exploded for eight runs in the seventh, drilling Newcombe and Clyde King. Castiglione homered twice, and Howerton's blast capped the big rally. In the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers loaded the bases with one out, but Dickson, pitching in relief, struck out Carl Furillo and got Pee Wee Reese to fly out to end the game. Did that romp mean anything more than giving the Pirates the edge in the season series? Quite possibly. The Dodgers had won seven of nine games before this stunning loss; perhaps shaken, they fell eight more times in the next 13 games, dropping into a fatal tie with the Giants. That set the stage for Thomson to become a national hero, but don't overlook the unsung heroes (or, for Brooklyn fans, the underhanded villains) from Pittsburgh who created an oasis of excellence in a desert of desolation versus the Dodgers.
 * 1) May 1 at Ebbets Field** — The Pirates presented Rickey with a triumphant return to Brooklyn, winning 6-2 behind Cliff Chambers, who pitched a no-hitter in his following start. Ex-Dodger Pete Reiser led the attack with three hits, and Kiner's two-run home run in the first inning paved the way to victory. Kiner went on to pound Dodgers pitching for nine home runs and 23 RBIs in 22 games in 1951.
 * 2) May 2 at Ebbets Field** — Murry Dickson went the distance to beat Don Newcombe, 4-3, one of his 20 wins on the season (out of the team's 64). The decisive run was driven in by Ted Beard, who doubled in his only at-bat all season against the Dodgers, accounting for one of his grand total of three RBIs in 1951.
 * 3) June 9 at Ebbets Field** — It was another complete game for Dickson against Newcombe, a 4-1 victory that broke a six-game Dodgers winning streak. Wally Westlake drove in three of the four runs with a home run and a single.
 * 4) June 10 at Ebbets Field** — In the nightcap of a doubleheader, the Bucs blew a 3-0 lead before winning 5-4 in 11 innings when Reiser singled and Kiner blasted the game-winning home run.
 * 5) & 6) June 24 at Forbes Field** — The Pirates swept a twin bill, 10-7 and 5-4. Dickson was bailed out by his offense while allowing seven runs in an 11-hit complete game in the opener, ending a Dodgers' 10-game winning streak in Pittsburgh. Kiner, Pete Castiglione and George Strickland homered for the Bucs, who also got three RBIs from newly-acquired catcher Joe Garagiola. In Game 2, the Pirates overcame home runs by Gil Hodges (he hit three on the day) and Andy Pafko (two on the day) as Gus Bell's two-run triple knocked in the winning runs.
 * 7) July 17 at Ebbets Field** — Howie Pollet earned career win No. 100, beating the Dodgers, 4-3. Trailing 3-2 in the eighth inning, Bucs manager Billy Meyer sent Ebbets favorite Reiser up to hit for Pollet. Reiser tripled, Castiglione singled him in to tie it and later scored the winning run on a single by Bill Howerton, a June arrival from St. Louis in the same trade that brought Pollet and Garagiola to Pittsburgh.
 * 8) July 18 at Ebbets Field** — In a vintage 1950s slugfest, the Pirates outlasted the home team, 13-12. Kiner starred with three home runs (including a grand slam) and seven RBIs. He also had a ninth-inning shot caught on the warning track. It was 10-2, Pirates on top, by the fourth inning, but they blew that lead and trailed, 12-11, going into the eighth inning. Kiner's third clout tied it, Erv Dusak (only a dozen hits with the Pirates that season) doubled, and Reiser's pinch-hit single drove in the decisive run. Reiser had just 38 hits as a Pirate near the end of his injury-ravaged career, but all of his big hits seemed to come against his former team.
 * 9) Aug. 1 at Forbes Field** — Starting pitchers Dickson and Branca were battered early, and the game was tied at seven in the seventh inning when the Pirates broke it open with a four-run rally. Kiner added a home run in the eighth as the Pirates prevailed, 12-9, ending a 10-game winning streak by the first-place Dodgers.
 * 10) Aug. 26 at Ebbets Field** — In the opener of the first of two straight doubleheaders, the Pirates won another offensive battle, 12-11. That's right, the Dodgers had scored 32 runs in their last three losses to the Pirates, when winning any one of them would have ultimately given them the pennant.
 * 11) Aug. 27 at Ebbets Field** — After a pair of Dodgers victories, the Pirates took the nightcap of the second doubleheader, 5-2, disappointing a crowd of 32,561 as the Dodgers' lead over the Giants was reduced to five games. The hero was catcher Clyde McCullough, who drove in four runs.
 * 12) Sept. 15 at Forbes Field** — It was the final game of the season between the teams, and the Dodgers still had a six-game lead over the Giants. Behind Mel Queen, the Pirates trounced the visitors, 11-4. Rookie Frank Thomas had three hits, including a home run, but the surprise star was Jack Merson. Playing in only his second game in the Majors, Merson cracked a triple and three singles, and his six RBIs crushed the Dodgers.
 * // [|Gabriel Schechter] //**// is a researcher for the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library. //