Tom Moore

Pitching Failure Turned Legend

[367 words] By 1989, baseball player Nolan Ryan reached an incredible 5,000 strikeouts, and all those no-hitters. Ryan was a phenomenal baseball player. In his rookie year, 18 years earlier, Gil Hodges was the Mets’ manager and was impatient with Ryan. Although Ryan could consistently throw over ninety miles an hour, he could not consistently…

Ready or Not

[357 words] In a cemetery in Hanover, Germany, is a grave covered with huge slabs of granite and marble, fastened with heavy steel clasps. It belongs to a woman who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yet she directed in her will that her grave be made so secure that if there…

How Gullible Are We?

[254 words] A freshman at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair, April 26, 1997. In his project he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical “dihydrogen monoxide.” And for plenty of good reasons, since: 1. It can cause excessive…

Cleaning from the Inside Out

[512 words] The story is told of an old man who lived on a farm in the mountains of eastern Kentucky with his young grandson. Each morning, Grandpa was up early sitting at the kitchen table reading from his old, worn out Bible. His grandson who wanted to be just like him tried to imitate…

Someone Get Your Goat?

  [240 words] Hoover Rupert used to say, “The measure of someone is the size of the thing it takes to get his or her goat.” The old phrase “get your goat” refers to the sensitivity of racehorses. According to Dr. Rupert, racehorses are infamously high-strung. Horse trainers learned many years ago that highly sensitive…

Grudges

[172 words] One day a visitor leaned on the fence around the farm while he watched an old farmer plowing with a mule. After a while the visitor said, “I don’t like to tell people how to run their business, but you could save yourself a lot of work by saying ‘Gee’ and ‘Haw” to…