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Posts published by “Fred Gardner”

The Making of Sal ‘The Barber’ Maglie

Sal Maglie: Baseball’s Demon Barber by Judith Testa, Northern Illinois University Press, 2007; 463 pages. It took an art historian from a midwestern college to…

MLB Will Accept Pesos

On the eve of the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres recent two-game series in Mexico City, the Chronicle ran a long piece by…

Dangling Plutonium

Continuation of  “Working the Mare Island Nukes.”  Three men in their early thirties, James, Kevin and Gerry, are telling a reporter about defueling and refueling…

Working The Mare Island Nukes

In 1980 a mutual friend put me in touch with Gerry Stone, a Mare Island shipyard worker who had seen some things he thought the…

Books Worth Reading

The Editor has asked for recommendations. It’s Easter Sunday and I’m re-reading ‘The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ’ — the gospel made plausible…

1455 Market Street

This is a note to John King, who has the architecture beat for the SF Chronicle. I sent him this note last week after he…

John & Rita Jenrette

Even in his own obituary, John Jenrette had to yield the spotlight to lovely Rita, his devoted wife from long ago. The Times’ account began, “John…

Raphael Mechoulam

The Israeli chemist Raphael Mechoulam, who died last week at 92, should have gotten the Nobel Prize for his role in figuring out how marijuana…

The Tragedy of Attica

The Temporary Inmate “Charles Pernasilice, Haunted by the Violence at Attica, Dies at 70,” said the hed above a photo of a lanky, handsome young man…

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