Link Banana

Perhaps everyone else knows about this stuff, but in reading this article from Smithsonian I was really surprised to learn all the tools that MLB groundskeepers have that they can use to help their team.

Grandfather Emil, who became known as the “evil genius of groundskeepers,” was a whiz at what is euphemistically called maximizing the home field advantage. Over time he honed several techniques, including tilting base lines in or out so balls rolled fair or foul, digging up or tamping down base paths to prevent or abet stealing, leaving grass long or clipping it short to slow or speed grounders. He also moved the outfield fences back 12 to 15 feet to stymie the home-run-slugging Yankees. By and large, his tricks were employed selectively to bolster home team strengths and take advantage of opponent teams’ weaknesses.

The Ho Chi Minh trail, one of the most prominent features of what the Vietnamese know as “the American war,” is being turned into a highway. David Lamb’s trip down the road delves into history and modern Vietnam, but I found this anecdote both odd and charming:

“It may sound strange, but although it was a terrible time, my four years on Truong Son was a very beautiful period in my life,” said Le Minh Khue, who defied her parents and at age 15 joined a youth volunteer brigade on the trail, filling bomb craters, digging bunkers, burying corpses and ending each day covered head to toe with so much mud and dirt that the girls called each other “black demons.”

Khue, a writer whose short stories about the war have been translated into four languages, went on: “There was great love between us. It was a fast, passionate love, carefree and selfless, but without that kind of love, people could not survive. They [the soldiers] all looked so handsome and brave. We lived together in fire and smoke, slept in bunkers and caves. Yet we shared so much and believed so deeply in our cause that in my heart I felt completely happy.

(via brijit)