UpperWestside

https://a.co/d/fBWcWW5 The link will take you to the book where you can purchase it. James Hornfischer features prominently in that episode up above. He lived the last two decades of his life in Austin with his family before cancer took his life at age 56 in 2021. He was a ridiculously talented writer and this is my favorite book that I have ever read. I highly suggest buying a copy of it. I have bought copies for other people because it is such an important work of literature on the Pacific War. Again remember the sacrifices made that day 80 years ago and try to do something good for a Navy vet today if you are able to.

Of every battle that the United States engaged in during the Pacific War, this is the one that truly defined what courage in the face of not just overwhelming, but seemingly impossible odds to achieve even a modicum of success, looked like. I will spare most of the details as I would assume most everyone who studies World War II as a hobby, or like myself as part of a career that will span the rest of my life going forward, knows about this battle. What I do want to draw attention to is that at the outset of hostilities on December 7th, 1941, the high command of the Japanese forces almost universally believed that America did not have the stomach to take part in a war like this one. They thought the decadent Americans would not be able to engage in the all out warfare required in a fight like this. They did not believe that the national essence of the Americans was on the level of their own. THEY WERE WRONG ON EVERY COUNT. The American sailors aboard the Hoel, the Heermann, the Johnston and the Samuel B. Roberts, famously known as “The destroyer escort that fought like a battleship” got wind of a massive fleet headed their way that fateful morning. Captain Robert Copeland of the Samuel B. Roberts uttered perhaps the greatest phrase ever said by a US naval commander as they made the decision to engage the center force of the Imperial Japanese Navy. “A large Japanese fleet has been contacted. They are fifteen miles away and headed in our direction. They are believed to have four battleships, eight cruisers, and a number of destroyers. This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.” The temerity to make that statement while knowing you are taking on the Yamato, the largest battleship ever constructed, a ship so large that it outweighed all of the ships of Taffy 3 by itself, is just stunning. It’s a wonder the Samuel B. Roberts hadn’t sank already considering all the excess weight of Copeland’s balls of steel. Commander Ernest Evans of the Johnston took his Tin Can straight into the belly of the IJN Center Force beast and blew the freaking bow off the heavy cruiser Kumano with a well aimed torpedo. He did not even wait for orders to enter the fray. He just did it. This caused a second cruiser to exit the battle to protect the Kumano. Evans was a Native American graduate of the Naval Academy and he said shortly before his ship left the west coast that it was a fighting ship and anyone who did not want to fight could leave. No one did. Evans and the crew of the Johnston fought like the hounds of hell that morning before finally being stopped dead in the water. Surviving sailors from the Johnston recalled the sailors aboard an IJN ship saluting them as they were floating in the open sea. Ernest Evans was never seen again. He would be posthumously awarded The Medal of Honor. That we do not have a statue of this man in every single state in the US is a travesty. I have no doubt he would have retired an admiral had he survived this encounter. His actions and those of his sailors, as well as those in the rest of Taffy 3, won perhaps the most improbable naval victory in history. Just sheer courage and a willingness to not back down won that morning’s brawl and saved an untold amount of lives in the invasion force on Leyte. This doesn’t even include the bravery of the pilots that flew as many as 20 dummy torpedo runs on the IJN Center Force just to shield their comrades from taking fire on the escort carriers that they took off from. Some would land on shore and reload and head back from Leyte to rejoin the fight. Good God the fight those men showed was just on a level I will never fully comprehend. Anytime I tell this story to people I have to at times just stop because it chokes me up a bit to recount the bravery and heroism on display 80 years ago today. None of us here will ever be in the position those men were in. They stepped in to save their fellow sailors on the escort carriers as well as the soldiers of the invasion force on Leyte under MacArthur’s command. They were what an actual hero looks like. Heroes are not those who compete in sports. Heroes are these men who would sacrifice their own life to save others. So many of those heroes went to the bottom of the ocean that morning. They would never return home to marry and start a family. They would never make it to old age. Many of them gave the last full measure of their life at a very young age 80 years ago today. If you have a Navy vet in your family or amongst your friends tell them thank you today. If you know a family member of one of the veterans of The Battle off Samar tell them they have not been forgotten. And also I know that the animosity towards Admiral Halsey has never completely died down for chasing the carriers and leaving things wide open for the IJN, but I look at it from a different angle. Bull Halsey chasing the decoy fleet allowed what transpired to happen. We owe a debt of gratitude to those men that we can never repay for that morning 80 years ago. I will tell and retell this story for as long as I live and can educate folks on what happened out there. Just a bunch of young men that took on a force they had no business fighting, but they did anyhow and they won because they didn’t know they weren’t supposed to be capable of what they did. Not bad for a bunch of comfortable Americans who would never withstand the rigors of warfare. Not bad at all.

Aww man that’s pretty sad. His peak years came before I was old enough to even know what baseball was. His importance though to the Dodgers and their Mexican fanbase is pretty awesome. I hope for some peace for his family as they mourn his passing as well as all his friends and fans who will be remembering him right now.

Not really giving any earth shattering stuff here, but we all know the Yankees have better revenue streams than anyone in the league. Hal treats this team at times like he owns the Pirates. If he doesn’t pony up whatever amount of money Soto asks for he should be dropped off in the South Bronx at 2am on a Friday night. For the record I think he will pay whatever the cost is, but it will not be an easy negotiation if he takes part in it.

The biggest thing in reverse is the penchant of the Yankee bullpen to implode in high leverage moments. Mariano Rivera isn’t walking through that door. I think if Soto has a big series then the Yanks win. If the Dodgers pen comes up big they win. I am not real confident in Judge becoming a pressure performer like Soto or even like Stanton in the last series. I would like to hope he flips a switch, but you can’t count on him at the moment to produce. Hopefully returning to SoCal will be good for him and Stanton. The Dodgers are a fun team. I went to a game there years ago and had a great time. If they win it I’d be happy for them, especially so because of the imbecile “WAR guys” who said Ohtani would not be worth what he is getting paid. He is just an incredible once-in-a-lifetime talent that baseball has never seen before. He makes the game fun. I hope there are more Japanese players in the pipeline that come over with more regularity in the future.

Even if it did do you honestly think he knows how to look up something like that? He’s still learning to count to potato, much less use a google search engine.

I was pretty young when I watched this with my parents for the first time on VHS. I had to have been maybe 7 at the most when I saw it. I loved the movie and it led me in the opposite direction. I love the ocean and have swam in the open ocean with sharks as well as a lagoon with reef sharks. I was actually just showing some folks a video of that yesterday. As an aside I used to work at a restaurant Roy Scheider frequented when he had doctor appointments for cancer treatment. Heard he was a really nice guy.

Would he even admit to it if he did? Stanton is frustrating because of the injuries for sure, but when he’s healthy and able to turn on one the ball just rockets off his bat. The amount of torque that guy creates from that compact swing is incredible.

He embraces the big moments. Some guys can handle it while others never will. He and Stanton both showed up when it mattered most. If they stay hot and Judge gets rolling I think they win four more games. I think Soto has at least one game changing homer coming up in the Fall Classic. He will be worth every single dollar he gets paid this off-season.

You are just incredible in the worst sense of the word. Once again, you third grade reading level clown show, I said injuries were the reason I thought the Phils would do better during the regular season. You are just such a beating to read. You are somehow less intelligent than the people hawking cryptocurrency on this site.

This is awesome! Was talking with my mom on FaceTime while she watched the last three outs. Seeing her face light up like a kid while watching a team she’s been a fan of since the 1950’s get back to the World Series is just so freaking cool. Glad to see my mom happy like that after all she has been through the last ten years health wise. I could not be happier for her. She’s 75 and I just want her to enjoy this run as much as she possibly can. I have maintained all season that Soto is the engine that makes this team go and Good Lord did he come through tonight. They win four more games and he’s getting some Ohtani type money. The Yanks would already have gone home without him. He clearly loves the pressure of playing in The Bronx. Hal better open the checkbook in the off-season.

When Jerome is out there Lampasas moves the football because of their size up front and ability to get yards on the ground with him. University’s front was getting gashed right up until Jerome got injured. The game plan changes with the WR having to play QB. Defensively Lampasas is still not up to snuff and just won’t be, but they would have gone well north of 40 on offense in that game with how limited the Trojans are in the defensive line. Jerome is a faster version of Stoever for Wimberley. Not amazingly accurate passing, but good enough.

Lampasas gets their big rival in Burnet tonight. Comes in 6-1 and would be 7-0 had QB Reed Jerome not gotten injured in the 2nd quarter against University. They lost that one 28-21 in the last 10 seconds on a TD pass for the Trojans. They would’ve boat raced University with Jerome out there. Burnet is 5-2 and all I will say for them is it’s about to be 5-3 with another home loss to the Badgers.

No Benito fits. Hirohito could speak in complete sentences.

The honking is, well, maybe the absolute hardest thing for me to deal with here since I have issues with really loud noises like that. Just honking for no reason. A large truck was honking at cars to move on a side street a few days ago. The reason the street was backed up was kids getting on their school bus. Sometimes I’d be okay with some dumb rednecks living here for awhile and getting honked at just to watch what happens to the driver that does it.

That’s just amazing right there. Why Brisket if you join that guy you’re making a 100 grand today! Despite all evidence showing crypto is a scam we still have people here propping this clown show up as being legitimate. It really is incredible what people will do to make a dishonest dollar. The love of money is not the root of all evil, but man it’s a heckuva drug for a whole lot of people.

I will never get this. The entire thing is a scam, but there are always willing participants on this kind of stuff. All you have to do is sing the siren song of “come here and get rich quick” and before long you have people handing over money they don’t have to spare. The sooner this stuff is outright banned by the government the better.

UNC is getting what they deserve on this deal. Mack will not go quietly and there will be more comical losses before this season ends. He does not have the ability to just step away and retire. We just saw this with Francona going to the Reds to manage them. It’s kinda sad to see guys not know when enough is enough, especially Francona because his health isn’t the greatest.

The biggest thing I took away from watching this game was the talent gap that exists. The Horns were just so much faster on defense. OU’s offense looked like it belonged in the SunBelt. They are going to have a rough few years ahead of them trying to make up that large a talent disparity. Also I saw a graphic that said Helm is only the 9th rated TE prospect for next year’s draft. There are not 8 better players at that position. Just laughable to even think he is rated that low.

It will never make sense to me that a single veteran or active member of our military will vote for this literal piece of human garbage when he has nothing but awful things to say about the military. This coward shirked duty in Vietnam by faking an injury while people who weren’t privileged had to go over there. Many of us here have dads and other relatives who went over when their number came up, but not this shrinking violet. It’s just incredible the cognitive dissonance on display.

Well yeah that seems fairly reckless there to do that. I know here in NYC that if a motorist hits me they have to pay me. It doesn’t mean I am going to attempt to throw myself out into traffic though. Between the cars here and the scourge of e-bikes I have just had my fill of reckless drivers. These clowns on e-bikes will ride them on the sidewalk. It takes a lot to not just want to plow one of them over for doing that regularly.

That’s steeper than the annual aggy October rollercoaster ride.

Crossing the street when the light is green and having impatient cars trying to cut me off. Even the bus drivers pull this garbage on green lights for pedestrians. Today I got surly and smacked the vehicle with my hand. It was pretty loud. Guy got pissed, but I didn’t stop to look. Felt good to make one of these horrifically bad NYC drivers have to stop. I will not miss this about living here when I leave in January.

The no Caitlin Clark in the WNBA Finals effect can be seen by the ticket prices. You can sit a few rows from the floor tonight for what many of us make in a few hours or you can sit in the mezzanine for between 30-40 a ticket.

Someone I work with went to watch it and enjoyed it. He went to a restaurant to eat afterwards with a friend and neither of them had any appetite after seeing it. The Dennis Quaid restaurant scene really sticks with you.