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Interesting If True - Episode 27 - Out In Left Field
Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that vies to be your new national pastime now that the nation, and baseball, are dumpster fires.
I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me is Shea;
I'm Shea, and this week I learned that blowing on the wine in your coffee mug will help convince the rest of the Zoom people that your tea is hot.
Baseball!
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Lawson
* https://www.wired.com/2014/10/fantastically-wrong-lawsonomy/
* http://www.lawsonomy.org
* https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/lawson
* https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lawsonomy
* https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29967/11-notes-alfred-w-lawson-founder-weirdest-university-ever
* https://www.wuwm.com/post/manlife-documentary-explores-lawsonomy-its-last-crusader
* https://www.manlifethemovie.com
This week I learned about a sports.
The world is on fire so I thought I'd pass the time with America's great pass-time — not letting your own object stupidity get in your way. So I "got into the game" as they say and I started early — late 1800's early.
You know, when it was about the sport!
Before the league and its helmet rules made everything lame. When manly-men played a manly game then went home to do other, also probably manly, things like build airplanes that don't fly, starting magazines no one wants, or opining on the nature of reality and how much like Jesus you are. Just baseball stuff.
And so our story begins with Alfred William Lawson being born on March 24, 1869. An amazing event he described as “...the most momentous occurrence since the birth of mankind.” He died November 29th, 1954, about which he said nothing. ‘Cause he was dead.
He was a professional baseball player, aviator, and utopian philosopher... it was before players had twitter. Iono. Of himself Lawson wrote, in the 3rd person because he's a nutcase,
“his mind responds to every question, and the problems that stagger the so-called wise men are as kindergarten stuff to him. To try to write a sketch of the life and works of Alfred W. Lawson in a few pages is like trying to restrict space itself. It cannot be done.”
And he's not wrong. It took me nearly three pages to chronicle his various failures.
His baseball career was from 1888 to 1907 when he played... the... ball... position... I guess, perhaps one of the base positions... but, definitely one of the two.
He played for the most appropriately named team ever, the Boston Beaneaters until 1895 when he transitioned to management.
In 1908 he founded the Union Professional League to rival that other league, the... "M", "L", something... but it went under a year later because he was broke, baseball is expensive, and no one wanted to play with his weird beans.
Aside from a short, beanie, baseball career Alfred fancied himself an aviator. And by aviator I mean magazine publisher. He started Fly, later renamed Aircraft, and printed interesting articles about the new and exciting world of disobeying gravity until 1914 when the magazine, like his Union league, folded.
He was one of the first people to envision commercial air travel,
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By Aaron, Jenn, Jim, Shea & Steve
5
2121 ratings
Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that vies to be your new national pastime now that the nation, and baseball, are dumpster fires.
I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me is Shea;
I'm Shea, and this week I learned that blowing on the wine in your coffee mug will help convince the rest of the Zoom people that your tea is hot.
Baseball!
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Lawson
* https://www.wired.com/2014/10/fantastically-wrong-lawsonomy/
* http://www.lawsonomy.org
* https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/lawson
* https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lawsonomy
* https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29967/11-notes-alfred-w-lawson-founder-weirdest-university-ever
* https://www.wuwm.com/post/manlife-documentary-explores-lawsonomy-its-last-crusader
* https://www.manlifethemovie.com
This week I learned about a sports.
The world is on fire so I thought I'd pass the time with America's great pass-time — not letting your own object stupidity get in your way. So I "got into the game" as they say and I started early — late 1800's early.
You know, when it was about the sport!
Before the league and its helmet rules made everything lame. When manly-men played a manly game then went home to do other, also probably manly, things like build airplanes that don't fly, starting magazines no one wants, or opining on the nature of reality and how much like Jesus you are. Just baseball stuff.
And so our story begins with Alfred William Lawson being born on March 24, 1869. An amazing event he described as “...the most momentous occurrence since the birth of mankind.” He died November 29th, 1954, about which he said nothing. ‘Cause he was dead.
He was a professional baseball player, aviator, and utopian philosopher... it was before players had twitter. Iono. Of himself Lawson wrote, in the 3rd person because he's a nutcase,
“his mind responds to every question, and the problems that stagger the so-called wise men are as kindergarten stuff to him. To try to write a sketch of the life and works of Alfred W. Lawson in a few pages is like trying to restrict space itself. It cannot be done.”
And he's not wrong. It took me nearly three pages to chronicle his various failures.
His baseball career was from 1888 to 1907 when he played... the... ball... position... I guess, perhaps one of the base positions... but, definitely one of the two.
He played for the most appropriately named team ever, the Boston Beaneaters until 1895 when he transitioned to management.
In 1908 he founded the Union Professional League to rival that other league, the... "M", "L", something... but it went under a year later because he was broke, baseball is expensive, and no one wanted to play with his weird beans.
Aside from a short, beanie, baseball career Alfred fancied himself an aviator. And by aviator I mean magazine publisher. He started Fly, later renamed Aircraft, and printed interesting articles about the new and exciting world of disobeying gravity until 1914 when the magazine, like his Union league, folded.
He was one of the first people to envision commercial air travel,