Friday Four

1. Sy Berger, father of the modern baseball card, has died:

Baseball cards date to the 19th century, but for Mr. Berger, the decade after World War II was the perfect time to revitalize them. The Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants dominated baseball, providing a fertile marketing climate aimed at youngsters in the New York metropolitan area who had been born in the immediate postwar years. And throughout the United States, the arrival of television made it possible for youngsters to watch their baseball heroes in action.

Berger introduced several innovations to the cards, including full-color photographs and images of players' autographs. He also had to get players to sign up with his company, which required a great deal of sales work, but ultimately helped Topps dominate the market.

2. I don't drink barley wine often enough to know where Old Backus Barleywine Ale, by the Kansan Free State Brewery, stacks up relative to others within the style, but I otherwise agree with the end of a rave review:

Wow, this was just one of those beers that was a flat out experience and makes me glad that I'm in this hobby. The complexity, depth, and integration of the flavors (especially the hops) in this were something that I don't think that I've ever come across to such a degree in a Barleywine, especially one that was still this relatively young and not barrel-aged in any way. This is just a tremendous overall beer that definitely sits at the top of the style for me.

This is one I wish I'd bought more than one bottle of when I decided to try it.

3. Since I recently became interested in learning how to use Org Mode of the Emacs text editor to improve how I keep track of things, I have moved from playing around with the text editor after writing time to using it as my blog post editor. In the process, I have realized that I am also a few key bindings away from complete independence from Tiny MCE (and, therefore, browser support for the same). I am also now comfortable enough to start goofing around in Org Mode.

This isn't to say that everything is skittles and beer: a few big annoyances that I am sure I will find a way around (again) center around cutting and pasting excerpts into blog posts, especially when they need "de-moronizing".

4. I started today's post with bubble gum and I'll end with bubble gum: the only flavor for medicine that Little Man doesn't spit out. Were voting for the Nobel Prize for medicine put to a vote of sleep-deprived parents, whoever thought of that would be in the running!

-- CAV

Updates

12-22-14: Corrected location of Free State Brewery.