Word: firstness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Since he took power in 1966-in the wake of Verwoerd's assassination -Vorster has embraced the heretical belief that South Africa should change its policy of all-out separation from the black African states to the north. His "outward-looking" policy, built on Verwoerd's first gestures in this direction, has succeeded in creating an odd but effective trade grouping, of white-and black-ruled states in southern Africa: Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi, Rhodesia and the Portuguese territories of Mozambique and Angola. Overtures have been made, moreover, to other black republics...
...that the Mets found themselves competing in the world championship of baseball. Their foes were the strongest, most arrogant players of all-the gang from Menckenville. "A fluke," said the wise men of Las Vegas. They called the Mets 8-5 underdogs. And, as predicted, the Mets lost the first game, 4-1. All the talk was of bubbles bursting and of the explosion of impossible dreams. "We told you so," said the smart-money bettors. But the Mets were undaunted; they refused to heed the doomsayers...
...season was a seller of Scripto pens, hit three home runs. Infielder Al Weis, a man who had never harmed anyone in his life, tied the last game with a home run. And when the Mets could not hit, they found other, more devious ways of arriving at first base. Not even the umpire, for instance, knew that Batter Cleon Jones had been hit on the foot by a pitch -until Manager Gilbert Hodges produced the ball with shoe blacking on it. Some said that Hodges had carried that smudged ball in his pocket all season long, waiting...
Their outfielders grew sorely confused when baseballs flew their way; time after time, the balls landed safely between them. In the tenth inning of the fourth game, their pitcher hit a Met base runner on the wrist while trying to throw the ball to first. That blunder allowed the winning run to reach the plate and put the Orioles behind, three games to one. In the final game the Oriole pitcher and first baseman conspired to commit two errors on a single play (shades of Marvelous!) to permit the last, poetic Met run to score. The Oriole manager, a stocky...
...rest of the Soviet space effort has not gone as smoothly as Soyuz. U.S. officials, for example, are still awaiting the first successful flight of Russia's Nova-class booster, which is supposed to be nearly twice as powerful as Saturn 5 with its 75 million Ibs. of thrust; Nova's glitches, in fact, may well have cost the Russians the race to the moon. And there is no doubt that they find the loss embarrassing. Musing over the meaning of the Soyuz flights last week, a young Muscovite commented somewhat wistfully: "It's not much compared...