From onoma@oxy.edu Sun Jul 14 21:19:31 2002
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Message-ID: <3D324C4B.B7BA1335@oxy.edu>
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 21:15:07 -0700
From: "T. Walsh" <onoma@oxy.edu>
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To: classics@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: counterfactuals
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>From a friend who knows these baseball well:

"I cannot fathom the statement. Ruth retired in 1936 and died some ten years
later. Mays arrived in the majors in, I think, 1951, having played
previously for the Birmingham Black Barons from the age of 18. And the color
line, remember, stayed in effect until Robinson's National League rookie
year, 1947. Barring a warp in space-time, Mays could never have appeared on
the same field with Ruth."

I guess that makes it a past most-contrafactual. Smyth number anyone?

--Tom (Walsh)

Owen Cramer wrote:

> Dan's presidential examples are fun. For about 40 years (since I moved to
> Austin TX in the lamented Southwest Conference) I've been interested in "more
> vivid contrafactual" conditions in (primarily) sports contexts (I found this
> headline on a column after a short search:
> "Mays may have caught Ruth if not for Army stint".)
> Owen  Cramer

.