The Eden Bohemians deactivated Joyce Maynard, last season's rookie leftfielder and a problem-child on the team. Now they have replaced Maynard with the French romantic poet and playwright, Alfred de Musset (1810-1857). Born of educated parents Musset graduated college with honors in 1827. Originally he thought about becoming a doctor but he couldn't handle the dissecting lab so he turned to art. After studying painting briefly he began writing. Musset wrote of love and passion and his autobiographical novel Confession of a Child of the Century (1836) is an account of his unhappy two-year love affair with the writer George Sand.

The Bohemians found Musset playing baseball in the parks of Paris. He is supposed to be a skilled batsman and a good outfielder with an above-average throwing arm. And while he might not be as pesky as Maynard he does have an edge. Consider the following quote attributed to de Musset by Cesar Grana in his book Bohemian versus Bourgeois: "Damned be the Family and Society. Cursed be the Home and Cursed be the City. Damnation upon the Motherland." French players always play ball with great passion.

For the third year in a row the Cosmic Baseball Research Alliance has produced a report on the number of websites related to Major League Baseball (MLB) teams. For the third year in a row the New York Yankees of the American League lead all MLB teams with 70 websites. The Atlanta Braves lead the National League teams with 59 websites. (There seems to be a relationship between World Series appearances and the number of related websites.)

Overall the total number of MLB team sites is down from the prior year. In addition to the team standings the report includes some data on search engines and an expanded list of 30 recommended baseball sites on the World Wide Web.

• 1999-2000 Site Standings Report

• 1998-1999 Report
  
• 1997-1998 Report

The Paradise Pisces drafted the controversial former mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry, as a replacement for the deactivated Pat Coulson. Barry, a rookie left-handed pitcher, has, according to the scouting reports, a wicked fastball (clocked at over 100 miles per hour).

Born March 6, 1936 in the conservative bible-belt Black south, Barry achieved political fame as the dynamic mayor of the District of Columbia and then notoriety when law enforcement officials videotaped him and a girlfriend using cocaine in a hotel room.

Barry served four terms as mayor and a six-month term in federal prison. He first arrived in Washington in 1965 as a civil rights activist and member of the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC owns the CBA's Psychedelphia Woodstockings). In 1971 he was elected to the school board and in 1977 while a member of the City Council he was shot in the chest by radical extremists who had seized part of a D.C. government building. He was elected to his first term as mayor in 1978.

In describing Barry's political career during the 1970s, Washington Post reporter Milton Coleman wrote in 1979 that Barry had transformed himself from "chief rabble rouser to consummate politician." In 1969 when the United States put astronauts on the moon, Barry asked, "Why should Blacks rejoice when two white Americans land on the moon?" Ten years later, as a mayor, Barry had learned a more diplomatic approach to political change and he became the dominant force in D.C. politics.

In January 1990 law enforcement agencies arranged a "sting" operation that caught the mayor in a hotel room snorting cocaine. He received a six-month jail sentence that he began serving in October 1990. Despite the criminal behavior and the persistent reports of his womanizing, Barry was re-elected mayor of Washington, D.C. in 1994.

Barry was one of the first Black activists to lead a major city in the United States and the Pisces are hoping that his contribution to the team will be as dynamic as his political leadership.

Related Links

• Barry Biography from the Washington City Paper

• "Marion Barry: Making of a Mayor" from the Washington Post

• Quotes from Marion Barry

Chelsea Clinton joined the Cosmic Baseball Association for the 1997 cosmic season as a pitcher for the Paradise Pisces. She pitched for 2 years and accumulated a very good earned run average but a not-so-hot won-loss record. In 1999 she was named the Pisces' general manager and along with Pisces field manager Anais Nin she rebuilt the team so that it included only players born between February 19 and March 20.

Chelsea will be 20 on February 27 and she has begun to emerge from behind the protective wall her parents erected during her adolescence which was spent mostly as the "first daughter" of the United States. While Clinton detractors like to disparage her appearance she is regarded by many as a mature and thoughtful young woman.

• Link to Chelsea Clinton's Season 2000 Plate

Happy New Year to all our friends and members. While the Cosmic Baseball Association does not recognize the year 2000 as the first year of the third millennium, but rather the last year of the second millennium, we do recognize that this new year and the different characters used to represent it are cause for excitement. And, now, of course, preparation for the third millennium can begin in earnest. We hope the new year will be fruitful for you, our friends and members, and that its potential will be realized as the days and weeks and months unfold.

Below is a brief list of important cosmic baseball dates for this year.

CBA News & Information Plate Archive
URL http://www.cosmicbaseball.com/0100news.html
Published: January 27, 2000
Updated: January 5, 2005 231