From the New York Times Crossword puzzle, August 15, 2015

15 Across  Symbol of the Franciscan order

Now, I did know that St. Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscan order, but a symbol?   Well, a few minutes of research revealed the answer:  the Tau cross.  It seems self-explanatory that a priest would use a cross as his symbol, but the Tau cross has a great deal more meaning – particularly for the Franciscans.

Tau is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet and was used by the prophet Ezekiel in 9:4:  “Go through the city of Jerusalem and put a TAU on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.”  So the Tau symbol predates St. Francis by several centuries.

It was at the Fourth Latern Council where Pope Innocent spoke of the Tau cross using the quote from Ezekiel and also stated that it was the shape of the cross on which Christ was crucified.  From that point on, Francis used it as his coat of arms and signed using the Tau and wrote it on the doors and places where he stayed.Also of interest is the fact that the cross is traditionally made of wood.  Why wood?  Well, it is flexible and responsive as the Christian should be to the word of God.

St. Bonaventure said, “This TAU symbol had all the veneration and all the devotion of the saint: he spoke of it often in order to recommend it, and he traced it on himself before beginning each of his actions.”

One of the better known stories of St. Francis was his blessing of  Brother Leo, in which Francis wrote on parchment, “May the Lord bless you and keep you! May the Lord show His face to you and be merciful to you! May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace! God bless you Brother Leo!” Francis sketched a head (of Brother Leo) and then drew the TAU over this portrait.

From The New York Times Crossword, August 5, 2015

6 Down  The orbital workshop was its largest component

These days I get more reminders that I am getting older.  A recent clue from the crossword brought back memories from high school.  The orbital workshop?  That was a puzzler.  After a few solvings of other clues, the answer was clear:  Skylab.  For anyone forty years old and older – the name Skylab will likely conjure up the mass hysteria that surrounded the beleaguered space station.

Back in 1979, it was announced that Skylab was exiting its orbit and was plummeting towards the earth.  Speculation abounded as people wondered which country or area of the planet would be obliterated.  In those days, you knew you had it made when Saturday Night Live parodied you in one of their weekly skits.  True to form, John Belushi acting as a news broadcaster, predicted the crashing of Skylab – he was subsequently pictured sitting in his basement wearing a crash helmet.

When it finally fell to earth, its landing was rather unspectacular with bits falling over the Pacific Ocean and some parts actually landing on Australia.  No one was injured, no country was demolished.  It was rather, boring.  Never mind that, T-shirts were printed and rushed to the stores with slogans such as, “I survived Skylab!”  Australia mined the event for all that it was worth.  The hysteria surrounding its demise ground to a whimper.

Just what was Skylab after all?  As the name suggests, it was a space station – operated by NASA which orbited the Earth from 1973 to 1979.  It had a solar observatory and an orbital workshop.  Experiments were conducted, some of which proved the coronal holes in our sun.  Other accomplishments were thousands of photos of Earth taken from space as well as the extension of time spent in space by the crew.

NASA photo

The concept of a manned space station was first conceived by Werner von Braun as well as writer Arthur C. Clarke, among others.  The idea was first proposed by von Braun in 1959, but it took almost two decades for the project to be launched, so to speak.  Developments with NASA, the United States Air Force and manufacturing by McDonnell Douglas and computers from IBM all contributed to the space station.

It was planned that Skylab would remain in orbit until the 1980’s but in early 1978, greater than anticipated solar activity produced increased drag on its orbit, so scientists then predicted a much earlier return of the station.  The crash of the Soviet Union’s Cosmos 954 which dropped radioactive waste on Canada was largely responsible for the growing hysteria surrounding Skylab’s re-entry.

Landing near Western Australia, some viewers reported large fireworks display as it descended.  A part of it was actually on stage at the Miss Universe pageant held that year in Perth, Australia.

From the New York Times crossword, August 6, 2015

68 Across  One of many for Argus

Work the crosswords or watch Jeopardy, and almost every week there is a reference to mythology – sometimes Norse, sometimes Egyptian, but most commonly Greek or Roman.  If you’re like I am, you studied mythology at some point while in school but have long since forgotten many of the references.  Such is the case for the clue above – now in the puzzle, the answer was revealed by solving the surrounding clues:  eye.

Back to our mythology lesson:  Argus was a monster, sometimes called Panoptes because of his many eyes – by many reports at least one hundred of them.  As he always had at least a few eyes open even when asleep, he was considered the master watchman.  Hera, the wife of Zeus, appointed him to guard Io, who though in the guise of a heifer, was actually a nymph Zeus planned to seduce to create a new order of gods.

So, Argus was the beast of a hundred eyes, servant of Hera and guardian of Io – got it?  Zeus, even though, he was the king of the gods, could not get close to Io, so he hired Hermes to slay Argus.  Hermes was a god that was both divine and mortal and able to travel to both worlds.  In traditional mythology, he is known as the trickster, the herdsman, and the transporter of souls between the two worlds.  His counterpart in Roman mythology is Mercury.

Hermes, once hired by Zeus, decided to disguise himself as a shepherd.  By using charms, Hermes managed to lull Argus to sleep and then killed him by hitting him with a stone – a rather anticlimatic end to the beast, it seems.  At any rate, Hera, according to Ovid, memorialized her faithful servant by putting his eyes into the peacock’s tail.

From the New York Times Crossword, July 29, 2015

42 Across  Knuckleballer Wilhelm

Hmmm – my family and friends know that my baseball knowledge could never be described as vast, but the name of a famous knuckleballer?  Forget about it!  Fortunately the letters in adjacent clues revealed the answer:  Hoyt.  Since I wanted to know more about what a knuckleballer is, I sought the answer in the most common of sites these days:  Wikipedia.  The first line in the description read (List of Knuckleballer pitchers):  “Knuckleball pitchers are those professional baseball players who have relied on the knuckleball as their primary pitch or who made it to professional baseball based on their ability to throw a knuckleball. ”  Gee, thanks, Wikipedia, that really cleared that up for me!

Further reading revealed that the trajectory of the pitch is so erratic that a true knuckleballer pitcher requires a dedicated catcher, often with a special mitt, to field the pitches.  Another curious fact is the slower velocity allows those who use this technique exclusively more stamina and ability to pitch longer and potentially for longer careers on the mound.  To add credence to this idea, Hoyt Wilhelm pitched until he was fifty years old – with others pitching well into their forties.

To delve into the physics of it, an excellent description is provided on Science of Baseball which stated: “The ideal knuckleball rotates about a quarter of a revolution on its way to the plate. Without the stabilizing gyroscopic effect of spinning, the ball becomes aerodynamically unstable, and the raised seams create an uneven flow of air over the surface of the ball, pushing it one way or another.”  The advice of one pitching coach said that there were several ways to hit a knuckleball pitch, only none of them worked.

Given the increased longevity of the pitchers who use it, why don’t more use this pitch? Well, part of the unpredictability lies with the pitch and the pitcher himself.  The slowed velocity if not couple with the variance of stability can certainly land a ball in the bleachers.  The incidence of passed balls increases dramatically with the use of this pitch leaving a rather dim endorsement of it.  The use of the knuckleball has fluctuated over time and it still has its adherents, although R. A. Dickey is the only knuckleballer to ever win the Cy Young award and Joe Niekro is the only one to have won 300 games.

Of course, since a picture is worth a thousand words (or in this case, a video), click on this link to see a rare video of Hoyt Wilhelm demonstrating his knuckleball:  YouTube video of Hoyt Wilhelm.