Mia is a suspect in a series of burglaries. She allegedly met rich men through dating apps, then stole from their homes. (Link includes nude pics.)
I gather that all Venturas are related to pets in some ways.
- Ace Ventura was a pet detective
- Mia Ventura was a Penthouse Pet
- Ventura Boulevard is a sleeping area for homeless people and their pets.
- Robin Ventura played for the Mets. (Pets. Mets. Close enough.)
Sidebar about old-time baseball:
Robin Ventura hit in 58 consecutive games in college. That’s the D1 college record. By that’s not what I want to write about. Joe DiMaggio holds the second-longest and third-longest streaks in the history of organized professional baseball. He hit in 61 consecutive games in 1933 with the San Francisco Seals, thus foreshadowing his eventual attainment of the MLB record (56). That’s also not what I want to write about. The real subject for today is “Who beat the great DiMag?”
The longest minor league hitting streak is 69 games, set by Joe Wilhoit in 1919 with the Wichita Jobbers of the Class A Western League. Joe was a college boy, rare in that day. He was a laid-back, modest, soft-spoken, much-loved player, and even opposing fans were pulling for him during that streak. (Not just fans. Joe was so well-liked that at least one opposing player helped him to achieve the impossible, and was applauded for it, in a game that was already safely out of reach!)
Joe’s lifetime minor league average was .336, including .327 in more than 3000 at-bats at the highest minor league level. In his final season, at age 37, he batted .360 with 48 doubles in the tough PCL.
Unfortunately, Joe Wilhoit’s level of incompetence seemed to be the major leagues. I suppose it’s not really fair to say he was incompetent, because he had his moments, but he was marginal. Over the course of four major league seasons he batted only .257 and was dropped or traded by several different teams, but Wilhoit had some great experiences and lived through some memorable times in one of baseball’s glory eras.
- He played in the 1917 World Series for the Giants against Shoeless Joe and the not-yet-black Sox. After crapping out with two other NL teams that same season, Wilhoit was acquired by the Giants, who needed a dependable pinch-hitter for their stretch run. Joe did the job, batting .340 in 50 at bats. That World Series didn’t work out well for Joe or his team. He was hitless, and the Giants lost in six to the “eight men out.” (It was two years later that the same Sox threw the World Series.)
- Although he played only six games in the American League, and they turned out to be the last six of his major league career, they were good ones. He batted .333 in that short stint, during which he got to play with and against the two greatest players of the era. Wilhoit led off and played centerfield in his first start for the Red Sox on September 19, 1919. (That date is 9191919, if you’re scoring at home.) The Sox had called him up for a late-season shot at the big leagues, following his incredible year at Wichita, which included the legendary streak and a .422 average for the season. He scored a run that day, driven in by his outfield neighbor, a converted pitcher named George Herman Ruth.
- On the day before that, Joe pinch hit for the pitcher in a game against Ty Cobb and the Tigers.
- Joe was the lead-off hitter in the Bambino’s last game with the Boston Red Sox. As you probably know if you’re into baseball, Ruth was sold to the Yankees in the off season because Red Sox owner Harry Frazee needed money to finance his failing Broadway theatrical ventures, particularly “No, No, Nanette.” The Red Sox had been the best team in baseball from 1912 through 1918, winning four World Series, but Frazee basically sold his six best pitchers (Babe Ruth, Bullet Joe Bush, Sad Sam Jones, Herb Pennock, Carl Mays and Waite Hoyt) to the Yankees, whereupon Ruth became a full-time outfielder and the Yankees soon became the greatest team in history. As you can imagine for a team that suddenly lost its six best pitchers, the Red Sox completely sucked for more than a decade. By 1923, still bleeding Broadway Bucks and with no marketable players left, Frazee finally sold the entire Red Sox franchise. The team that had once been perennial world champs would not win another World Series for 86 years. (They practically had to field an all-star team to break the curse of the Bambino at last. Pedro Martinez, Big Papi, Curt Schilling, Manny Ramirez and a great supporting cast were all on that team.)
Jesse “The Body” Ventura owned a horse farm with his wife Terry, who is an equestrian. Not sure if those count as pets.
Sure, why not? Those seem to be more relevant than the NY Mets.
The Curse of the Bambino, while it does have a nice ring to it, was really the Curse of the Yawkeys. The Yawkeys were probably the most racist owners in mlb. Tom Yawkey bought the Sox in 1933 and his wife Jean took control in 1976 when he died and she lived into the 1990s. The Yawkey Trust had control until John Henry bought them in 2002. They started winning world series shortly thereafter.
The curse wasn’t even necessarily karma, there were very practical issues with being so racist. With the Yawkeys in control, the Sox would hardly ever have more than 1 black player. If they had a latino player they would try to limit that to 1 as well. The only reason they had any was because mlb forced them to. The Red Sox were that last to add a black player, and we fans got used to the fact that if they did have more than 1 good black player that some would be sent out very soon. It’s hard to be good in baseball if you don’t want any black or latino players.
Things changed for them immediately after Jean Yawkey died. The Yawkey Trust had control, but without any Yawkeys around, the team added many black and latino players throughout the 90s. They weren’t good enough to win a world series, but they did start getting better. Spending was tight under the trust so they weren’t willing to pay for too much high talent. When John Henry bought the club, he willingly spent money. Theo Epstein filled out the roster and the rest is history.
And let’s not let Harry Frazee off the hook so fast. Ruth, Pennock, Hoyt, etc. He’s still the primary villain. Actually, Yawkey was a boon to the Sox at first, buying Grove and Foxx and building up a scouting system which brought in a flood of talent: Williams, Doerr, Pesky, Dom DiMaggio. Before integration, his worst move was setting up an exhibition game before the 1946 WS where Williams got his wrist injured. Jean Yawkey’s contribution was firing the great GM Dick O’Connell in favor of Haywood Sullivan, who “forgot” to mail a contract to Carlton Fisk, making him a free agent (and setting up his worthless son Marc as the new catcher).
It’s well known that the Sox passed on Jackie Robinson. It’s not as well known that they passed on an even better black player: Willie Mays.