November 27, 1997
1997 Cosmic Universal Series Begins

The Overleague's Dharma Beats (1997 record, 86-76) meet the Middleague's Pranktown Busriders (87-75) in the 16th annual Cosmic Universal Series. The best-of-seven series determines the best cosmic baseball team of the 1997 season.

The Busriders, who joined the CBA last season, are making their second consecutive appearance in the series. They beat the Washington Presidents in the 1996 Series and are rapidly becoming the best new team in cosmic baseball.

The Dharma Beats are hoping to win their first Series. In sixteen years of cosmic baseball, the Beats have never made it to the championship. If they hope to supplant the Paradise Pisces as CBA's flagship team, a victory at the Cosmic Universal Series would definitely help.

The Wonderland Warriors, impatient to get back to the Cosmic Universal Series have drafted six rookies and team owner Ares has replaced manager General Norman Schwarzkopf with the ruthless Tamarlane.

The rookies are all military generals or leaders and are distinguished enough to be included on Michael Lanning's 100 Most Influential Military Leaders.

The rookies include two pitchers: Francisco Pizarro, the unprincipled conqueror of the Incas and South America and legendary Texas General Sam Houston. Emperor Napolean Bonaparte goes on the roster as a rookie outfielder along with another Spanish conquistador, Hernando Cortes, the man who vanquished the Aztec empire in Mexico. Two rookie infielders have been added to the roster:, Roman General Scipio Africanus at firstbase and Dutch general Maurice of Nassau will play at thirdbase.

Africanus

Cortes

Houston

Napoleon

Maurice

Pizarro

Tamarlane
New Warrior Manager

As rumored, the Pisces selected Lynn Behrendt, a New York poet living and working in the Hudson Valley, during the Rookie Draft. Behrendt will vie for the Firstbase position, currently held by the esteemed Beat poet, Allen Ginsberg. With two books of poetry published, Lynn Behrendt is one of the more unique and passionate voices singing today. A selection of her poetry is now available at the Cosmic Baseball Association for our members and friends consideration.

The latest issue of the JOURNAL of the COSMIC BASEBALL ASSOCIATION, Volume 16, has been put online. Poetry, essays and controversies make up the content of this volume of the JCBA. Ernest Thayer and Lynn Behrendt provide the poetics; articles on the Pete Rose Hall-of-Fame question and the litigation related to the Jack Kerouac Estate cover the controversies; essays on the Designated Hitter, Diane Arbus' photography and Friedrich Nietzsche's love life are also part of Volume 16.

The Paradise Pisces selected a record six players from five cosmic teams to play on the 1998 team. The Vestal Virgins lost two infielders when Caresse Crosby and Frances Farmer got picked. The terminated Vienna Songbirds yielded catcher Ludwig van Beethoven; the Wonderland Warriors gave up Moshe Dayan, the Eden Bohemians lost pitcher Nathanael West and the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood selected rookie pitching sensation, Christina Rossetti.

The Pisces still have one more roster postion open. Rumors are circulating that a New York poet is being considered, but no official word has been released yet. The Pisces, CBA's flagship team had a disappointing 1997 season coming in last place in the Overleague with a dismal record of 73 wins and 89 losses. Manager Henry Miller vowed last month that the 1998 team will win 90 games or more.

Crosby

Farmer

Beethoven

Dayan

West

Rossetti

The Alphatown Ionians are one of the Cosmic Baseball Association's original teams. They are also one of CBA's most successful teams having reached the Cosmic Universal Series six times (1983, 1985, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994), more than any other team. Their record in the Series is 5-1.

Last season was disappointing. The Ionians played sub-.500 baseball (79-83) prompting the owner Confucius to replace his rookie field manager, J. Robert Oppenheimer, with the former Ionian pitcher and rationalist philosopher, Rene Descartes.

Three rookies are on this year's roster, all of them pitchers: John Atanasoff, recognized as the "father" of the electronic digital computer; Marcus Aurelius, sage stoic philosopher and Roman emperor; and the scientist Charles Darwin.

The BLACK MOUNTAIN MOUNTAINS were created on November 1, 1997. They have been commissioned for service in the cosmic Underleague beginning with the 1998 season.

In 1933 several non-conformist, progressive and controversial educators created a college located in Black Mountain, North Carolina. The school was designed to be an experiment in living and education, because the founders, led by John Andrew Rice, felt that living and learning were very directly related. The experiment itself lasted for 23 years, but its effects and perhaps repercussions have been felt throughout the culture ever since. A remarkable number of very talented individuals somehow found their way to this small school in the mountains of North Carolina. Artists such as Joseph Albers, musicians like John Cage, dancers like Merce Cunningham, poets like Charles Olson , iconoclasts like R. Buckminster Fuller, and so on, taught at, influenced and were influenced by the Black Mountain College community.

John V. Atanasoff joins the Alphatown Ionian pitching staff for the 1998 season.

Though it was belated recognition, it is now accepted that John Atanasoff invented and built the world's first electronic digital computer. For years the history books credited John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, co-designers of the ENIAC computer, with this honor. Subsequent research and various legal proceedings have set the record straight. Atanasoff, with his assistant Clifford Berry successfully demonstrated a prototype of their Atanasoff-Berry-Computer (ABC) to Iowa State College officials in December, 1939.

The development of the computer, has a distinct thread that connects the "analytical machine" of George Babbage to the "tabulator" of Hermann Hollerith to the "differential analyzer" of Vannevar Bush to the pioneering work of Konrad Zuse and ultimately to Atanasoff's first electronic digital computer.

The Eden Bohemians, CBA's team of distinguished writers, poets and playwrights won 85 games last season, good enough for third place in the Middleleague but not good enough for team owner Simone de Beauvoir. She canned a few players and went out and found more rookies including Ernest Hemingway, Antonin Artaud and Delmore Schwartz. Andre Breton was supposed to join the team this season, but at the last moment contract negotiations broke down and Breton is not on the roster. Whether or not adding more rookies to an already young team is the ticket to success remains to be seen.

November 1997 CBA News & Information Archive Plate
URL http://www.cosmicbaseball.com/1197news.html
Published: November 30, 1997
Copyright © 1997 & 1998 by the Cosmic Baseball Association

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