Library of Congress

[Guest AG/DC]

I'm on the floor of the ornate main reading room of the Library of Congress. The great dome is held up by eight pillars --- the capitals etched with the great subjects that hold up our society, COMMERCE, RELIGION, SCIENCE, LAW... .

Four stories above me is the viewing platform where tourists gaze down on us from a glassed-in chamber, lest they disburb our work, as they wonder what great thuoghts the men and women below them think.

And I think, "Donn Clendenon finished 13th in MVP voting in 1970, the only year he got support. How about that?"

Oh, and the answer is yes, the LoC does have their copy of Mets by the Numbers on file. Good of you to ask.

[Valadius]

What are you doing at the LoC today, Edgy?

[metirish]

Obviously he was presenting a copy of Mets by the Numbers to the Library. I saw it on C-SPAN.

[Guest AG/DC]

Valadius wrote: What are you doing at the LoC today, Edgy?

As I said, researching the Mets.

[Willets Point]

Speaking of LC, I meant to post this a few days ago: Historical Baseball Records.

[Guest AG/DC]

="Valadius"]What are you doing at the LoC today, Edgy?

I'm just now realizing that Val meant this as "What are you doing at the LoC today, Edgy?" Hey, I can read!

What I didn't know previously was of a print reference to baseball from 1744, a poem called "Base-Ball," from a British anthology called A Little Pretty Pocket Book:

The Ball once struck off

Away flies the Boy

To the next destin'd base

And then Home with Joy

Not much but pretty remarkable in its existence, especially to know the first reference came in poetry.

I also found this quatrain, appropriate to our time, from Edmund Vance Cooke from a poem called "Batter Up," and published in a collection of his baseball poetry called Baseballology:

Who cares which politician leads the band?

Who cares who'll be the White House tenant?

We only know the season's coming, and

We know our club is going to win the pennant

Not Shakespeare, maybe, but...

[Guest KC]

Anthem quality that second one.

[Valadius]

LOL. I meant it simply as wondering what you were doing. I was curious as to your research.