History Warp (9/17-23): Cars & Consecutive Games

Revised 9/17 at 10:05 am

As I write this — a week or so before publication date — the Baltimore Orioles are inexplicably challenging the New York Yankees for supremacy 2012 in the Eastern Division of the American League.

Notwithstanding Orioles’ success in the post season, the team’s most impressive record is held by the team’s greatest player ever.

Cal Ripken came to play. More than anybody who played the game including fabled Lou Gehrig. Ripken played in 2,632 consecutive games without a break. That, my friends, is a lot o’ baseball. That’s 16 years plus without a day off.

On September 20, 1998, Cal Ripken rested.

* * * * *

There have been more than a few marketing blunders in the history of big business. Ford’s introduction of the lemon-sucking Edsel stands out as an especially egregious miscalculation. At least, when talking about automobiles. There was that tiny mistake IBM made when it turned over the operating system software rights to it new PC  to a fellow named Bill Gates.

But today we’re talking cars.

On September 21, 1959, the first Plymouth Falcon was produced. At least Chrysler Corp wanted to call its new vehicle the Falcon. Except for the minor detail that Ford had already registered the name.

So Chrysler delayed the roll out a bit. Came up the name Valiant after a company wide contest. And slapped a Mylar sticker on with name Valiant on the cars for several years until the company could get some real metal castings of the name.