Free Republic

Bob Friend, an ironman right-handed pitcher who never spent a day on the disabled list during his 16-year Major League Baseball career, died Sunday from a cardiac event in his sleep. He was 88. “It was sudden and there were no warning signs,” his son, also Bob Friend, a longtime pro golfer,said. “He wasn’t suffering and went out quickly and was discovered by my mother [Pat Friend] this morning.” The elder Mr. Friend, who lived in O’Hara, was a poster boy for the Pirates in the 1950s and 1960s. The 20-year-old was thrust into the starting rotation in 1951 and...

Not surprisingly, National Atomic Testing Museum executive director Allan Palmer has triggered a whinefest for having the gall to sponsor an upcoming lecture billed as "Military UFO Files: Secrets Revealed." Mainly it's coming from the How can you sully the Smithsonian brand with little green men? crowd. Palmer doesn't care. Although the Atomic Testing Museum is affiliated with the Smithsonian, it isn't a subsidiary. And when it comes to UFOs, like most reasonably intelligent people, the retired Navy commander would prefer an independent inquiry to a laughably outdated government fact sheet. "Well it is a little risky, because we've got...