1.
Pitcher
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In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the pitcher is assigned the number 1. The pitcher is often considered the most important defensive player, there are many different types of pitchers, such as the starting pitcher, relief pitcher, middle reliever, lefty specialist, setup man, and closer. The National League in Major League Baseball and the Japanese Central League are among the leagues that have not adopted the designated hitter position. In most cases, the objective of the pitcher is to deliver the pitch to the catcher without allowing the batter to hit the ball with the bat. A successful pitch is delivered in such a way that the batter either allows the pitch to pass through the zone, swings the bat at the ball and misses it. If the batter elects not to swing at the pitch, it is called a strike if any part of the passes through the strike zone. A check swing is when the batter begins to swing, If the batter successfully checks the swing and the pitch is out of the strike zone, it is called a ball. There are two legal pitching positions, the windup and the set position or stretch, either position may be used at any time, typically, the windup is used when the bases are empty, while the set position is used when at least one runner is on base. Each position has certain procedures that must be followed, a balk can be called on a pitcher from either position. A power pitcher is one who relies on the velocity of his pitches to succeed, generally, power pitchers record a high percentage of strikeouts. A control pitcher succeeds by throwing accurate pitches and thus records few walks, nearly all action during a game is centered on the pitcher for the defensive team. A pitchers particular style, time taken between pitches, and skill heavily influence the dynamics of the game and can determine the victor. Meanwhile, a batter stands in the box at one side of the plate. The type and sequence of pitches chosen depend upon the situation in a game. The relationship between pitcher and catcher is so important that some teams select the starting catcher for a game based on the starting pitcher. Together, the pitcher and catcher are known as the battery, although the object and mechanics of pitching remain the same, pitchers may be classified according to their roles and effectiveness. The starting pitcher begins the game, and he may be followed by relief pitchers, such as the long reliever, the left-handed specialist, the middle reliever. In Major League Baseball, every team uses Baseball Rubbing Mud to rub game balls in before their pitchers use them in games, a skilled pitcher often throws a variety of different pitches to prevent the batter from hitting the ball well
2.
Youngstown, Ohio
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Youngstown is a city in and the county seat of Mahoning County in the U. S. state of Ohio, with small portions extending into Trumbull County. Youngstown is located on the Mahoning River, approximately 65 miles southeast of Cleveland and 61 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. Despite having its own market, Youngstown is often included in commercial and cultural depictions of both Northeast Ohio as well as the Pittsburgh Tri-State Area due to these proximities. Youngstown lies 10 miles west of the Pennsylvania state line, midway between New York City and Chicago via Interstate 80, the city was named for John Young, an early settler from Whitestown, New York, who established the communitys first sawmill and gristmill. Youngstown is in a region of the United States that is referred to as the Rust Belt. The city has experienced a decline of over 60% of its population since 1959, Youngstown also falls within the Appalachian Ohio region, among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Youngstown was named for New York native John Young, who surveyed the area in 1796, on February 9,1797, Young purchased the township of 15,560 acres from the Western Reserve Land Company for $16,085. The 1797 establishment of Youngstown was officially recorded on August 19,1802, the area including present-day Youngstown was part of the Connecticut Western Reserve, a section of the Northwest Territory that Connecticut initially did not cede to the Federal government. Upon cession, Connecticut retained the title to the land in the Western Reserve, while many of the areas early settlers came from Connecticut, Youngstown attracted a significant number of Scots-Irish settlers from neighboring Pennsylvania. The first European Americans to settle permanently in the area were Pittsburgh native James Hillman, by 1798, Youngstown was the home of several families who were concentrated near the point where Mill Creek meets the Mahoning River. Boardman Township was founded in 1798 by Elijah Boardman, a member of the Connecticut Land Company, also founded in 1798 was Austintown by John McCollum who was a settler from New Jersey. As the Western Reserves population grew, the need for administrative districts became apparent, in 1800, territorial governor Arthur St. Clair established Trumbull County, and designated the smaller settlement of Warren as its administrative center, or county seat. In 1813, Trumbull County was divided into townships, with Youngstown Township comprising much of what became Mahoning County, the village of Youngstown was incorporated in 1848, and in 1867 Youngstown was chartered as a city. It became the county seat in 1876, when the center of Mahoning County was moved from neighboring Canfield. Youngstown has been Mahoning Countys county seat to this day, the discovery of coal by the community in the early 19th century paved the way for the Youngstown areas inclusion on the network of the famed Erie Canal. The Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal Company was organized in 1835, the arrival of the railroad in 1856 smoothed the path for further economic growth. Youngstowns industrial development changed the face of the Mahoning Valley, the communitys burgeoning coal industry drew hundreds of immigrants from Wales, Germany, and Ireland. With the establishment of mills in the late 19th century, Youngstown became a popular destination for immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy
3.
Strikeout
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In baseball or softball, a strikeout occurs when a batter accumulates three strikes during a time at bat. It usually means the batter is out, a strikeout is a statistic recorded for both pitchers and batters, and is denoted by K. Although a strikeout suggests that the pitcher dominated the batter, the style that generates home runs also leaves batters susceptible to striking out. Some of the greatest home run hitters of all time — such as Alex Rodriguez, Gorman Thomas, Reggie Jackson, and Sammy Sosa — were notorious for striking out. A pitched ball is ruled a ball by the if the batter did not swing at it and, in that umpires judgment. Any pitch at which the batter swings or, that in that umpires judgment passes through the zone, is ruled a strike. Each ball and strike affects the count, which is incremented for each pitched ball with the exception of a ball on any count with two strikes. That is, a strike may only occur by the batter swinging and missing at a pitched ball. A pitched ball that is struck by the batter with the bat on any count, a batter may also strike out by bunting, even if the ball is hit into foul territory. In Japan, this is called furinige, or swing and escape, in Major League Baseball, it is known as an uncaught third strike. When this happens, a strikeout is recorded for both the pitcher and the batter, but no out is recorded, because of this, a pitcher may occasionally be able to record more than three strikeouts in one half-inning. In baseball scorekeeping, a strikeout is recorded as a K. A strikeout looking is often scored with a backward K, and sometimes as a K-L, CK, despite the scorekeeping custom of using K for strikeout, SO is the official abbreviation used by Major League Baseball. K is still used by fans and enthusiasts for purposes other than official record-keeping. The K may be placed backward in cases where the batter strikes out looking, the use of K for a strikeout was invented by Henry Chadwick, a newspaper journalist who is widely credited as the originator of the box score and the baseball scorecard. As is true in much of baseball, both the box score and scorecard remain largely unchanged to this day, Chadwick decided to use K, the last letter in struck, since the letter S was used for sacrifice. Chadwick was responsible for several other scorekeeping conventions, including the use of numbers to designate player positions and those unaware of Chadwicks contributions have speculated that K was derived from the last name of 19th century pitcher Matt Kilroy. If not for the evidence supporting Chadwicks earlier use of K, Kilroy raised the prominence of the strikeout, setting an all-time single-season record of 513 strikeouts in 1886, only two years after overhand pitching was permitted
4.
San Diego Padres
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The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball franchise based in San Diego, California. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball as a club of the National League West division, along with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Los Angeles Dodgers. Founded in 1969, the Padres have won the NL pennant twice, in 1984 and 1998, as of 2015, they have had 14 winning seasons in franchise history. The Padres are the major professional sports franchise to be located in San Diego. The Padres adopted their name from the Pacific Coast League team that arrived in San Diego in 1936 and that minor league franchise won the PCL title in 1937, led by 18-year-old Ted Williams, the future Hall-of-Famer who was a native of San Diego. The teams name, Spanish for fathers, refers to the Spanish Franciscan friars who founded San Diego in 1769. In 1969, the Padres joined the ranks of Major League Baseball as one of four new teams, along with the Montreal Expos, the Kansas City Royals. Arnholt Smith, a prominent San Diego businessman and former owner of the PCL Padres whose interests included banking, tuna fishing, hotels, real estate and an airline. The teams fortunes improved as they won five National League West titles and reached the World Series twice, in 1984 and in 1998. The Padres main draw during the 1980s and 1990s was Tony Gwynn and they moved into their current stadium, Petco Park, in 2004. As of 2016, the Padres are the team in the MLB yet to throw a no-hitter since their addition to the league in 1969. The team has played its spring training games at the Peoria Sports Complex in Peoria and they share the stadium with the Seattle Mariners. From 1969 to 1993, the Padres held spring training in Yuma, due to the short driving distance and direct highway route, Yuma was very popular with Padres fans, and many fans would travel by car from San Diego for spring training games. Throughout the teams history, the San Diego Padres have used six different logos, the original team colors were blue and red before changing to gold and brown in the 70s. Their first logo depicts a friar swinging a bat with Padres written at the top standing in a sun-like figure with San Diego Padres on the exterior of it. The Swinging Friar has popped up on the uniform on and off ever since although the head of the friar has been tweaked from the original in recent years, in 1985, the Padres switched to using a script-like logo in which Padres was written sloped up. That would later become a script logo for the Padres, the teams colors were changed to brown and orange and remained this way through the 1990 season. In 1989, the Padres took the scripted Padres logo that was used from 1985 to 1988, in 1991, the logo was changed to a silver ring with the Padres script changed from brown to blue
5.
San Francisco Giants
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The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball franchise based in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1883 as the New York Gothams, and renamed three years later to the New York Giants, the team moved to San Francisco in 1958. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball as a club of the National League West division. As one of the longest-established and most successful baseball teams. The team was the first major team based in New York City. They have won 23 NL pennants and have played in 20 World Series competitions – both NL records, the Giants eight World Series championships rank second in the National League and are tied for fourth overall. The Giants have played in the World Series 20 times –14 times in New York, six in San Francisco –, the Giants franchise has the most Hall of Fame players in all of professional baseball. The Giants rivalry with the Dodgers is one of the longest-standing, the teams began their rivalry as the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, respectively, before both franchises moved west for the 1958 season. The Giants have won six pennants and three World Series championships since arriving in San Francisco and those three championships have come in 2010,2012, and most recently in 2014, having defeated the Kansas City Royals four games to three during the 2014 World Series. The Giants began as the baseball club founded by millionaire tobacconist John B. Day and veteran amateur baseball player Jim Mutrie, the Gothams, as the Giants were originally known, entered the National League in 1883, while their other club, the Metropolitans played in the American Association. Nearly half of the original Gotham players were members of the disbanded Troy Trojans, Louis Browns in a pre-modern-era World Series. They repeated as champions the year with a pennant and Championship victory over the Brooklyn Bridegrooms. It is said that one particularly satisfying victory over the Philadelphia Phillies, Mutrie. From then on, the club was known as the Giants, the Giants original home stadium, the Polo Grounds, dates from this early era. It was originally located north of Central Park adjacent to 5th and 6th Avenues and 110th and 112th Streets, the Giants were a powerhouse in the late 1880s, winning their first two National League Pennants and World Championships in 1888 and 1889. But nearly all of the Giants stars jumped to the upstart Players League, whose New York franchise was named the Giants. The new team built a stadium next door to the Polo Grounds
6.
Major League Baseball
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Major League Baseball is a professional baseball organization, the oldest of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. A total of 30 teams now play in the National League and American League, the NL and AL operated as separate legal entities from 1876 and 1901 respectively. After cooperating but remaining legally separate entities since 1903, the merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball in 2000. The organization also oversees Minor League Baseball, which comprises about 240 teams affiliated with the Major League clubs, with the World Baseball Softball Confederation, MLB manages the international World Baseball Classic tournament. Baseballs first professional team was founded in Cincinnati in 1869,30 years after Abner Doubleday supposedly invented the game of baseball, the first few decades of professional baseball were characterized by rivalries between leagues and by players who often jumped from one team or league to another. The period before 1920 in baseball was known as the dead-ball era, Baseball survived a conspiracy to fix the 1919 World Series, which came to be known as the Black Sox Scandal. The sport rose in popularity in the 1920s, and survived potential downturns during the Great Depression, shortly after the war, baseballs color barrier was broken by Jackie Robinson. The 1950s and 1960s were a time of expansion for the AL and NL, then new stadiums, Home runs dominated the game during the 1990s, and media reports began to discuss the use of anabolic steroids among Major League players in the mid-2000s. In 2006, an investigation produced the Mitchell Report, which implicated many players in the use of performance-enhancing substances, today, MLB is composed of thirty teams, twenty-nine in the United States and one in Canada. Baseball broadcasts are aired on television, radio, and the Internet throughout North America, MLB has the highest season attendance of any sports league in the world with more than 73 million spectators in 2015. MLB is governed by the Major League Baseball Constitution and this document has undergone several incarnations since 1875, with the most recent revisions being made in 2012. Under the direction of the Commissioner of Baseball, MLB hires and maintains the sports umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, MLB maintains a unique, controlling relationship over the sport, including most aspects of Minor League Baseball. This ruling has been weakened only slightly in subsequent years, the weakened ruling granted more stability to the owners of teams and has resulted in values increasing at double-digit rates. There were several challenges to MLBs primacy in the sport between the 1870s and the Federal League in 1916, the last attempt at a new league was the aborted Continental League in 1960. The chief executive of MLB is the commissioner, Rob Manfred, the chief operating officer is Tony Petitti. There are five other executives, president, chief officer, chief legal officer, chief financial officer. The multimedia branch of MLB, which is based in Manhattan, is MLB Advanced Media and this branch oversees MLB. com and each of the 30 teams websites. Its charter states that MLB Advanced Media holds editorial independence from the league, MLB Productions is a similarly structured wing of the league, focusing on video and traditional broadcast media
7.
Far-right politics
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Far-right politics are right-wing politics further on the right of the left-right spectrum than the standard political right. Far-right politics often involve a focus on tradition, real or imagined, as opposed to policies, right-wing populism, a political ideology often combines laissez-faire, nationalism, ethnocentrism and anti-elitism is often described as far-right. Right-wing populism often involves appeals to common man and opposition to immigration, far-right politics include but are not limited to aspects of authoritarianism, anti-communism, and nativism. Claims that superior people should proportionally have greater rights than people are sometimes associated with the far right. The far right has historically favoured an elitist society based on its belief in the legitimacy of the rule of a supposed superior minority over the inferior masses. However, right-wing populist ideologies which are described by commentators as far-right often use appeals to the common man as opposed to the appeals of the elites. Far-right politics sometimes involves anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are deemed inferior, hence, far right politics is associated with Othering. According to Christina Liang, this field is especially peculiar about its terminology. Each label carries with it a specific understanding of family of political parties as well as a particular set of assumptions regarding their origins. In an extensive survey of the literature, academic Cas Mudde found 26 definitions of right-wing extremism that contained 57 different ideological features, there is also debate about how appropriate the labels fascist or neo-Fascist are. Mudde lists nativism, authoritarianism, and populism as core elements of populist radical right political parties, in the United States, the term hard right and Alt-right have been used to describe groups such as the Tea Party movement and the Patriot movement. The term has also used to describe ideologies such as Paleoconservatism, Dominion Theology. The German political scientist Klaus von Beyme describes three phases in the development of far-right parties in Western Europe after World War II. From 1945 to the mid-1950s, far-right parties were marginalised, and their ideologies were discredited due to the recent existence and defeat of Nazism. Thus in the immediately following World War II, the main objective of far-right parties was survival. From the mid-1950s to the 1970s, the so-called populist protest phase emerged with sporadic electoral success, the most common demand-side theories are the social breakdown thesis, the relative deprivation thesis, the modernisation losers thesis and the ethnic competition thesis. The rise of political parties has also been viewed as a rejection of post-materialist values on the part of some voters. This theory which is known as the reverse post-material thesis blames both left-wing and progressive parties for embracing a post-material agenda that alienates traditional working class voters, another study argues that individuals who join far-right parties determine whether those parties develop into major political players or whether they remain marginalized
8.
Minor League Baseball
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All of the minor leagues are operated as independent businesses. Most are members of the organization known as Minor League Baseball. Several leagues, known as independent baseball leagues, do not have any links to Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball teams may enter into a PDC for a two- or four-year term. At the expiration of a PDC term, teams may renew their affiliation, or sign new PDCs with different clubs, though many relationships are renewed and endure for extended time periods. Minor League teams that are owned directly by the major league club do not have PDCs with each other and are not part of the reaffiliation shuffles that occur every other year, several more independent leagues operate in the United States and Canada. The earliest professional baseball association, the National Association of 1871 to 1875 and this system proved unworkable, however, as there was no way to ensure competitive balance, and financially unsound clubs often failed in midseason. This problem was solved in 1876 with the formation of the National League, with a membership which excluded less competitive. Professional clubs outside the National League responded by forming regional associations of their own, there was a series of ad hoc groupings, such as the New England Association of 1877 and the Eastern Championship Association of 1881. These were loose groups of independent clubs which agreed to play a series of games for a championship pennant, the first minor league is traditionally considered to be the Northwestern League of 1883 to 1884. Unlike the earlier minor associations, it was conceived as a permanent organization and it also, along with the National League and the American Association, was a party to the National Agreement of 1883. Included in this was the agreement to respect the reserve lists of clubs in each league, teams in the National League and the American Association could only reserve players who had been paid at least $1000. Northwest League teams could reserve players paid merely $750, implicitly establishing the division into major and minor leagues, over the next two decades, more minor leagues signed various versions of the National Agreement. Eventually, the minor leagues joined together to negotiate jointly, in the late 1890s, the Western League run by the fiery Ban Johnson decided to challenge the National Leagues position. Representatives of the different minor leagues met at the Leland Hotel in Chicago on September 5,1901, in response to the National–American battle, they agreed to form the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, called the NAPBL, or NA for short. The purpose of the NA at the time was to maintain the independence of the leagues involved, several did not sign the agreement and continued to work independently. Powers was made the first president of the NAPBL, whose offices were established in Auburn, in 1903, the conflict between the American and National Leagues ended in the National Agreement of 1903. The NAPBL became involved in the stages of the negotiations to develop rules for the acquisition of players from their leagues by the National
9.
X-ray
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X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz, X-ray wavelengths are shorter than those of UV rays and typically longer than those of gamma rays. Spelling of X-ray in the English language includes the variants x-ray, xray, X-rays with high photon energies are called hard X-rays, while those with lower energy are called soft X-rays. Due to their ability, hard X-rays are widely used to image the inside of objects, e. g. in medical radiography. The term X-ray is metonymically used to refer to an image produced using this method. Since the wavelengths of hard X-rays are similar to the size of atoms they are useful for determining crystal structures by X-ray crystallography. By contrast, soft X-rays are easily absorbed in air, the length of 600 eV X-rays in water is less than 1 micrometer. There is no consensus for a definition distinguishing between X-rays and gamma rays, one common practice is to distinguish between the two types of radiation based on their source, X-rays are emitted by electrons, while gamma rays are emitted by the atomic nucleus. This definition has problems, other processes also can generate these high-energy photons. One common alternative is to distinguish X- and gamma radiation on the basis of wavelength, with radiation shorter than some arbitrary wavelength, such as 10−11 m and this criterion assigns a photon to an unambiguous category, but is only possible if wavelength is known. Occasionally, one term or the other is used in specific contexts due to precedent, based on measurement technique. Thus, gamma-rays generated for medical and industrial uses, for radiotherapy, in the ranges of 6–20 MeV. X-ray photons carry enough energy to ionize atoms and disrupt molecular bonds and this makes it a type of ionizing radiation, and therefore harmful to living tissue. A very high radiation dose over a period of time causes radiation sickness. In medical imaging this increased risk is generally greatly outweighed by the benefits of the examination. The ionizing capability of X-rays can be utilized in treatment to kill malignant cells using radiation therapy. It is also used for material characterization using X-ray spectroscopy, hard X-rays can traverse relatively thick objects without being much absorbed or scattered. For this reason, X-rays are widely used to image the inside of visually opaque objects, the most often seen applications are in medical radiography and airport security scanners, but similar techniques are also important in industry and research
10.
Home run
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In modern baseball, the feat is typically achieved by hitting the ball over the outfield fence between the foul poles without first touching the ground, resulting in an automatic home run. There is also the home run, increasingly rare in modern baseball. When a home run is scored, the batter is credited with a hit and a run scored. Likewise, the pitcher is recorded as having given up a hit, a batted ball is also a home run if it touches either foul pole or its attached screen before touching the ground, as the foul poles are by definition in fair territory. A batted ball that goes over the wall after touching the ground is not a home run. A fielder is allowed to reach over the wall to attempt to catch the ball as long as his feet are on or over the field during the attempt. If the fielder successfully catches the ball while it is in flight the batter is out, however, since the fielder is not part of the field, a ball that bounces off a fielder and over the wall without touching the ground is still a home run. A home run accomplished in any of the above manners is a home run. This stipulation is in Approved Ruling of Rule 7.10, an inside-the-park home run occurs when a batter hits the ball into play and is able to circle the bases before the fielders can put him out. Unlike with a home run, the batter-runner and all preceding runners are liable to be put out by the defensive team at any time while running the bases. This can only happen if the ball does not leave the ballfield, with outfields much less spacious and more uniformly designed than in the games early days, inside-the-park home runs are now a rarity. They are usually the result of a ball being hit by a very fast runner, either way, this sends the ball into open space in the outfield and thereby allows the batter-runner to circle the bases before the defensive team can put him out. The speed of the runner is crucial as even triples are relatively rare in most modern ballparks, all runs scored on such a play, however, still count. An example of an unexpected bounce occurred during the 2007 Major League Baseball All-Star Game at AT&T Park in San Francisco on July 10,2007, by the time the ball was relayed, Ichiro had already crossed the plate standing up. This was the first inside-the-park home run in All-Star Game history, Home runs are often characterized by the number of runners on base at the time. A home run hit with the bases empty is seldom called a one-run homer, with one runner on base, two runs are scored and thus the home run is often called a two-run homer or two-run shot. Similarly, a home runs with two runners on base is a three-run homer or three-run shot, the term four-run homer is seldom used, instead, it is nearly always called a grand slam. Hitting a grand slam is the best possible result for the turn at bat
11.
Hutch Award
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The Hutch Award is given annually to an active Major League Baseball player who best exemplifies the fighting spirit and competitive desire of Fred Hutchinson, by persevering through adversity. The award was created in 1965 in honor of Hutchinson, the former MLB pitcher and manager and they also created a scholarship fund for medical students engaged in cancer research to honor Hutchinsons memory. Eleven members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame have won the Hutch Award, the inaugural winner was Mickey Mantle. Danny Thompson, the 1974 recipient, was diagnosed with earlier that year. He continued to play through the 1976 season before dying that December at the age of 29, jon Lester won the award in 2008 after recovering from anaplastic large-cell lymphoma. The award is presented annually at the Hutch Award Luncheon hosted by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, the award was originally presented at the annual Dapper Dan Banquet in Pittsburgh. Each winner receives a copy of the trophy, designed by Dale Chihuly. The permanent display of the Hutch Award is at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, heart & Hustle Award Willie Mac Award Baseball awards in the United States List of MLB awards Hutch Award Luncheon. The Hutch Award, Lou Gehrig Award, Babe Ruth Award & Roberto Clemente Award winners
12.
San Diego County Fair
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The San Diego County Fair is a county fair held every summer at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in Del Mar, California. The fair is a draw for San Diego County residents, in recent years, attendance figures have risen above a million annually. The San Diego County fair only opens in early summer, again in 2012, under the theme Out of this world, The San Diego County fair broke another record attendance with 1,517,508 guests. The fair began in 1880 as an agricultural fair, the location moved from place to place for several years, finally settling on the Del Mar Fairgrounds when it opened in 1936. In 1954, the name was changed to the Southern California Exposition. In 1970, this was shortened to the Southern California Exposition, the fair was again renamed in 1984 to the Del Mar Fair, which lasted until 2002 when the name San Diego County Fair was reinstated. It is sometimes referred to as the Del Mar Fair by locals. From 1936 through 2003 the fair included a beauty pageant, the winner was originally called Queen of the Fair, in 1947 the title was changed to Fairest of the Fair. The winner and her court of lovelies were featured at the fair, in 2004 the pageant was discontinued due to high costs and legal wrangling over a disqualified entry in 2003. For decades the official greeter and host of the fair was Don Diego, dressed in a huge sombrero, embroidered tunic and trousers, and boots, and toting a guitar, Hernandez promoted the fair as its goodwill ambassador. He escorted the Fairest of the Fair and other celebrities, after Hernandez death the fair board decided to retire the character rather than try to replace Hernandez, who they felt had been uniquely qualified for the role of Don Diego. A 16-foot bronze statue of Hernandez as Don Diego, created by artist Maher Morcos, the fair established a scholarship fund in 1986, the Don Diego fund, in his honor. Each year the statute is dressed in garb that is appropriate to the theme of that years fair, the fair features many musical and talent performances from artists of varying notability, from nationally known acts on the infield stage to local professionals to amateur groups. There are dozens of contests ranging from agricultural efforts to cooking to flower arranging, as with many county fairs, animal exhibits are abundant. There are also two full of commercial exhibits. There are exhibits featuring San Diego Countys heritage, as well as specially designed for the fairs theme. The theme for 2010 was Taste the Fun, the 2011 theme was Race to the Fair. The 2012 theme was Out of this World, followed by Game On in 2013, the Fab Fair was 2014 and A Fair to Remember, Remember, Celebrate The Worlds Fairs & Balboa Park was the 2015 theme
