It happens more often than one might think.
It was on this date, July 20,1912, when the Philadelphia Phillies player Sherry Magee stole home in a baseball game. Not once. But twice.
Sherwood Robert “Sherry” Magee was a left fielder . He played in Major League Baseball from 1904 through 1919. Fast on his feet, obviously, like outfielders have to be.
I like to check my facts on these things, and when I looked at the baseball schedule for that date, I found that the Phillies lost to the Cardinals, 3-0. Now, either Sherry didn’t steal home twice, or someone has made a transcription error in recording history.
Either way, it has taken me on a sidebar that I hadn’t anticipated. While this incident is a small error in our world’s history, it a perfect illustration of how human error can affect the “telling” of historical events.
Sometimes, it is just that. An error, a typo, a misread statistic, which gets put down in the books, for all of time. On other occasions, it is a point of view — someone’s judgement of the event as it occurred. We are seeing this now more than ever, as our current events are making their way into the annals of history.
If you ask a Republican and a Democrat what happened at the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, you will receive two entirely different answers.
If you ask a Republican and a Democrat why people aren’t taking the COVID vaccine in the United States, you will hear two different stories.
Regardless, we look back now, to poor Sherry Magee, standing out there on third base, his hands on his hips, saying “What the f, heck?” And despite what we are doing here, he takes off from third, stealing home twice, that day.
Yes, he remembers it clearly, and in fact, they ended up beating the Cardinals 3-0 on that hot, sunny afternoon. He remembers charging home, not once, but twice, and sliding past Jack Bliss, the Cardinals’ catcher. Sherry remembers saying something smart to Jack, as he got up and dusted off his pants, right in the guy’s face. Not once, but twice.
Which takes me on a different venue. Hearing this story immediately reminded me of the good old phrase: “Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
And I always remember George W. Bush, standing there with that lopey-dope grin on his face, saying: “There’s an old saying in Tennessee—I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, ‘Fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.'”
George, George, George.
The adage is a great one, if you say it right. But. If you ask a Republican and a Democrat, how that George W. Bush story went that September 17, 2002, in Nashville, Tennessee, you will get two entirely different answers.
The bottom line? Fool me twice, shame on me.
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It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
— Mark Twain
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
— Richard P. Feynman
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Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
— Euripides
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Stealing home. We don’t get fooled again.
