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Verreaux's eagle

Verreaux's eagle (Aquila verreauxii) is a large, mostly African, bird of prey. It is also called the black eagle, especially in southern Africa, not to be confused with the black eagle (Ictinaetus malayensis) of south and southeast Asia. The Verreaux's eagle lives in hilly and mountainous regions of southern and eastern Africa (extending marginally into Chad, Mali and Niger), and very locally in the Middle East.

Verreaux's eagle is one of the most specialized species of accipitrid in the world, with its distribution and life history revolving around its favorite prey species, the rock hyraxes. When hyrax populations decline, the species have been shown to survive with mixed success on other prey, such as small antelopes, gamebirds, hares, monkeys and other assorted vertebrates. Despite a high degree of specialization, Verreaux's eagle has, from a conservation standpoint, been faring relatively well in historic times. One population of this species, in the Matobo Hills of Zimbabwe, is arguably the best studied eagle population in the world, having been subject to continuous detailed study since the late 1950s. Like all eagles, this species belongs to the taxonomic order Accipitriformes (formerly included in Falconiformes) and the family Accipitridae, which may be referred to colloquially as accipitrids or raptors.

Taxonomy
This species was first described by René Primevère Lesson in his 1830 publication, Centurie zoologique, ou choix d'animaux rares, nouveaux ou imparfaitement connus, as Aquila Verreauxii. The species’ name commemorates the French naturalist Jules Verreaux, who visited southern Africa in the early 19th century and collected the type specimen for the French Academy of Sciences.

Verreaux's eagle is part of a broad group of raptors called "booted eagles" which are defined by the feature that all included species have feathering over their tarsus, whereas most other accipitrids have bare legs. Included in this group are all species described as "hawk eagles" including the genera Spizaetus and Nisaetus, as well as assorted monotypical genera such as Oroaetus, Lophaetus, Stephanoaetus, Polemaetus, Lophotriorchis and Ictinaetus. The genus Aquila is distributed across every continent but for South America and Antarctica. Up to 20 species have been classified in the genus but the taxonomic placement of some of the traditionally included species has recently been questioned. Traditionally, the Aquila eagles have been grouped superficially as largish, mainly brownish or dark-colored booted eagles that vary little in transition from their juvenile to their adult plumages.

Genetic research has recently shown the Verreaux's eagle is included in a clade with its nearest relatives, the sister species Bonelli's eagle (A. fasciatus) and African hawk-eagle (A. spilogaster), as well as the golden eagle. More distantly related are the sister species pair, the wedge-tailed eagle (A. audax) and Gurney's eagle (A. gurneyi). Closely related to this clade are the Cassin's hawk-eagle (A. africanus). Some of the relationships within this group have long been suspected based on morphological similarities among the large-bodied species. The identification of the smaller, much paler-bellied A. fasciatus and A. spilogaster as members of the clade was a surprise, given that they were previously included in the genus Hieraaetus. Cassin's hawk-eagle has been assigned to both the Hieraaetus group and the Spizaetus/Nisaetus "hawk-eagle" group but is now known based on this genetic data to also nest within Aquila.

Other largish Aquila species, the eastern imperial eagle (A. heliaca), the Spanish imperial eagle (A. adaberti), the tawny eagle (A. rapax) and the steppe eagles (A. nipalensis), are now thought to be a separate, close-knit clade, which attained some characteristics similar to those of the prior clade via convergent evolution. Genetically, the "spotted eagles" (C. pomarina, C. hastata & C. clanga), have been discovered to be more closely related to the long-crested eagle (Lophaetus occipitalis) and the black eagle, and have been transferred to the genus Clanga. The genus Hieraaetus, traditionally including the booted eagle (H. pennatus), little eagle (H. morphnoides) and Ayres's hawk-eagle (H. ayresii), consists of much smaller species, that are in fact the smallest birds called eagles outside of the unrelated Spilornis serpent-eagle genus. This genus has recently been eliminated by many authorities and is now occasionally also included in Aquila, although not all ornithological unions have followed this suit in this re-classification. The small-bodied Wahlberg's eagle (H. wahlbergi) has been traditionally considered an Aquila species due to its lack of change from juvenile to adult plumage and brownish color but it is actually genetically aligned to the Hieraaetus lineage.

Description
Verreaux's eagle is a very large eagle. It measures 75 to 96 cm long from the bill to the tip of the tail, making it the sixth longest eagle in the world. Males can weigh 3 to 4.2 kg and the larger females weigh 3.1 to 7 kg. The average weight is approximately 4.19 kg, based on the weights of 21 eagles of both sexes. Other reported mean body mass measurements of Verreaux's eagles were lower however, with seven unsexed birds averaging 3.32 kg, while four unsexed eagles in an additional study averaged 3.72 kg. In yet another study, seven males were found to average 3.76 kg and seven females to average 4.31 kg. In another group of weighed eagles, four females were found to average 4.6 kg. It is the seventh or eighth heaviest living eagle in the world. In average mass and overall weight range, if not linear measurements, the Verreaux's is very similar in size to its occasional competitor, the martial eagle, which is regularly titled the largest of the African eagles. It also rivals the martial and golden eagles as the largest extant member of the "booted eagle" clan. It has a wingspan of 1.81 to 2.3 m. The wing chord of the male is 56.5 to 59.5 cm and that of the female is 59 to 64 cm. Among other standard measurements in the Verreaux's eagles, both sexes measure 27.2 to 36 cm in tail length and 9.5 to 11 cm in tarsus. Other than the female's slight size advantage, adult males and females are physically indistinguishable from each other. Adult Verreaux's eagles are mostly jet-black in color. The yellow coloration of the cere (the bill is gun-metal grey), eye-ring and “eye-brows”, all stand out in contrast to the black plumage. Even more prominent on flying birds when seen from above is the white on the back, rump and upper-tail coverts and part of the scapulars, which forms a V-shaped patch, although this feature is partially obscured in perched birds. Adults also have conspicuous white windows on the wing quills at the carpal joint (at the base of the primaries) when seen flying both from above and below. The bill is stout, the head is prominent on the relatively long neck and the legs are fully feathered. Juvenile and immature plumages differ markedly from the plumage of adults. They are overall a dark brown color. Immatures have a strongly contrasting golden crown and a rufous or ginger nape and mantle. They have small white streaks on the forehead and black on their cheeks. The throat is dark streaked, the lower throat is pale brown and the upper-chest is brown. The rest of the underside is brown but for a blackish-blotched rufous to cream-colored abdomen and lightly marked creamy thighs and legs. The feathers of the upper-tail and upper-wing coverts are brown with white streaks in young birds, while the other tail and wing quills are nearly black. The wing quills when seen from below in flight show considerable whitish mottling, with more extensive white than is typically seen in adult plumages. The immature has a dark brown iris and yellowish feet. Black feathers increase from 2 to 5 years of age amongst a scattering of brown-tipped feathers, though the contrasting creamy trousers are maintained through the 3rd year. By the 4th year, they look dark grey-brown with a buff-patch on the nape and mottling of retained brownish feathers. At the end of the subadult phase at around 5 years of age, the plumage is practically indistinguishable from the adult. Full adult plumage is probably attained in 5 to 6 years. The Verreaux's eagle is essentially unmistakable, especially in adulthood. No other black-colored raptor in its range approaches this species’ large size, nor possesses its distinctive patterns of white. The golden eagle is of similar size or marginally larger size and the two species are the heaviest living Aquila species and measure only marginally less than the slightly lighter-weight Australasian wedge-tailed eagle in total wing and bill-to-tail length. While the juvenile Verreaux's eagle is quite different from the adult's, its plumage is no less distinctive. No other accipitrid shares the mottled brownish body, blackish wings with large white patches or contrasting whitish, rufous and golden color around the head and neck. The flight profile of Verreaux's eagle is also distinctive: it is the only Aquila species other than the golden eagle to soar in a pronounced dihedral, with the wings held slightly above the back and primaries upturned at the tip to make a V shape. In the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia and possibly in some parts of the Arabian Peninsula and the southwestern edge of the Middle East, the ranges of the golden and Verreaux's eagles overlap, but the golden is a mostly brown bird and shares none of the Verreaux's black plumage. The immature golden eagle has white patches on its underwing as do Verreaux's, but they are less extensive than those of the latter species. The wing shape also differs from the golden's, as the Verreaux's eagle has very broad outer secondaries and a relatively narrow pinch at the base of the primaries, whereas the tapering of a golden eagle's wing is more gradual. The Verreaux's eagle wings have variously been described as paddle, spoon or leaf shaped. Imperial eagles too have white markings on their wing coverts, but are different in flight profile (flatter winged) and overall coloration (dark brown).

Voice
This species is largely silent, though is arguably a stronger vocalist than its close cousin, the golden eagle. Chicking and chirruping sounds like that of a young turkey or francolin, pyuck, have been heard in various contexts, such as pairs being reunited. More striking sounds are loud, ringing whaeee-whaeee, heeeee-oh or keeooo-keeooo calls used as contact calls or during intruder chases. Various screams, barks, yelps and mews have been heard to be issued at potential mammalian predators. The young emits feeble chirps at first, later more likely to cluck like the adults.

Habitat and distribution
Verreaux's eagle has specific habitat requirements and is rare outside of its particular habitat type. It lives in kopjes, which are dry, rocky environments in anything from rocky hills to high mountains amongst cliffs, gorges and inselbergs often surrounded by savanna, thornbush and sub-desert. It is often found in dry areas with less than 60 cm of average annual rainfall.

It is highest ranging in elevation in Ethiopia and East Africa, where found up to 4000 m above sea level. Verreaux's eagle is found from the Marra Mountains of Sudan southward through that country to 16°N in Eritrea, along the northern mountains of Somalia, in much of Ethiopia (mostly the central, mountainous spine), possibly some mountains in northeastern Uganda, Kenya, easternmost Democratic Republic of the Congo and possibly Tanzania.

Southeastern Africa is the heart of the Verreaux's eagle range: they are found in most mountain ranges in Malawi but for the Nyika Plateau, the Mafinga Hills and the Lulwe Hills, in Zambia (especially the escarpments bordering Lake Kariba to the gorges below Victoria Falls), in Zimbabwe (especially east of the central plateau), Mozambique, Eswatini, Lesotho and down into South Africa, where they largely inhabit the Karoo, along the cliffs of the Great Escarpment, the Cape Fold Mountains and Cape Peninsula. A somewhat more sparse distribution is known in Botswana, western Namibia and southwestern Angola (in the Serra da Chela). Elsewhere in Africa, the Verreaux's eagle may be found but tends to be rare and only spottily seen, such as in eastern Mali, northeastern Chad, the Aïr Mountains of Niger and southwestern Cameroon (where known only as a vagrant). In 1968, only a single record of Verreaux's eagle (from Jordan) was known from outside of Africa, but now it is known to be a rare breeder in the Middle East: from a handful of immature records and territorial adult behavior, breeding has been inferred in Lebanon, Israel, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Dietary ecology
Two species comprise considerably more than half of (often more than 90% of) the Verreaux's eagle's diet: the Cape hyrax (Procavia capensis) and the yellow-spotted rock hyrax (Heterohyrax brucei). Few other accipitrids are as singularly specialized to hunt a single prey family as Verreaux's eagles, perhaps excluding the snail kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis) and the slender-billed kite (Helicolestes hamatus) with their specialization on Pomacea snails. Not even accipitrids named after their staple food are known to be as specialized, i.e. the bat hawk (Macheiramphus alcinus), palm-nut vulture (Gypohierax angolensis), lizard buzzard (Kaupifalco monogrammicus) and perhaps the rufous crab hawk (Buteogallus aequinoctialis). Certainly, the Verreaux's eagle has the most conservative diet of Aquila species, though the diet is more diverse in South Africa than in Zimbabwe.

In the Matobo Hills of Zimbabwe, the two hyraxes comprised 1,448 out of 1,550 eagle prey items recorded at eyries just after the breeding season from 1995 to 2003. In the same area, from 1957 to 1990, 98.1% of the diet was made up of rock hyrax. In a sample size of 224 from 102 nests in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, 99.1% of the remains were of hyrax. Elsewhere in Tanzania, the diet is more mixed, with 53.7% of the remains from 24 nests made up of hyrax. In a nest in South Africa, 89.1% of the remains from a sampling of 55 were of hyrax. No detailed statistics are known but the hyrax are likely to the main prey in every population and have been mentioned to dominate the diet in Mozambique, Malawi and Botswana Around 400 hyrax may be taken through the year by a pair with young. The entire distribution of the species neatly corresponds with that of the two species of rock hyrax. To date, there are no known instances of Verreaux's eagle hunting the two species of tree hyraxes.

In the first 10 years of constant observation of the population from the Matobo Hills, only two kills were witnessed. However, enough hunting behavior has been ultimately observed to give a good idea how a Verreaux's eagle obtains its prey. This species most often forages in low-level quartering flight, with the rock hyraxes chiefly caught after a rapid, somewhat twisting dive in the few seconds after the eagle surprises the hyrax. Like the golden eagle, Verreaux's eagle uses natural contours of the ground in rocky and mountainous habitats to increase the element of surprise, as hyraxes (appropriately considering their diverse range of predators) tend to be highly wary. Verreaux's eagle have been known to hunt from a perch, though rarely. Hunting hyrax cooperatively has been recorded, with one eagle of a pair flying past and distracting the prey while the other strikes from behind. Verreaux's eagle may knock hyraxes off cliffs and take arboreal prey from treetops, but it usually kills on the ground. The daily estimate food requirements of this species are around 350 g, nearly a third more than that of a golden eagle despite the latter's marginally heavier body weight. Rock hyraxes are often difficult to observe for humans, other than a glimpse, but a Verreaux's eagle can fly out and then return to the nest with a kill in the matter of a few minutes.

Of the two species regularly taken, the yellow-spotted rock hyrax can weigh from 1 to 3.63 kg with an average of 2.4 kg, although specimens from Zimbabwe are noticeably heavier and larger than specimens from Serengeti National Park. Cape hyrax, weighing from 1.8 to 5.5 kg with average of around 3.14 kg, can be even larger than the Verreaux's eagles themselves, so can be more difficult to kill. Yellow-spotted rock hyraxes are more often taken in the Matobo Hills, perhaps because of their smaller size or its more diurnal habits. Adult rock hyraxes are disproportionately selected, perhaps due to being out in the open more regularly. In Cape hyraxes, 1- to 2-year-old males are particularly vulnerable, since they are forced to disperse at sexual maturity. Juvenile hyraxes constituted from 11–33% of prey remains in the Western Cape while 18% of hyraxes killed were juveniles in Matobo Hills. Because of their greater weight, Cape hyraxes are frequently either consumed at the kill site (putting the eagle at risk of losing prey to competing predators or to attack by large mammalian carnivores) or are decapitated and brought to the nest or perch. Fewer skulls or jaws of Cape hyraxes than of yellow-spotted rock hyraxes have been found at nest sites. However, the Cape hyrax has a wider distribution than the yellow-spotted and the Verreaux's eagle may hunt the Cape hyrax almost exclusively outside of the long band of eastern Africa where the smaller species is distributed. In comparison to the golden eagle, Verreaux's eagle has a foot pad that about 20% wider, which may be an adaptation to taking the bulky and broad-backed rock hyrax. The foot of the Verreaux's eagle is reportedly larger than a human hand. The enlarged rear hallux claw of a Verreaux's at an average of 52.3 mm in 4 females and 49.1 mm in 5 males is quite similar in size to that of a golden eagle. In South Africa, where the Cape hyrax is the main prey species, the estimated mean size of prey taken to the nest is around 2.6 kg, perhaps twice as heavy as prey taken by some nesting golden eagles. However, the mean size of prey taken by Verreaux's eagle in the Matobo Hills, with more yellow-spotted rock hyrax, was around 1.82 kg, around the same estimated weight as prey taken by golden eagles in Europe and smaller than the average estimated mass of prey taken to golden eagle nests in regions like Scotland or Mongolia.

Other prey
Verreaux's eagle are capable of taking diverse prey, but this is infrequent in areas with healthy rock hyrax populations. Cases where more diverse food is brought to the nest are usually either considered to be areas where rock hyrax populations have declined or areas where eagles occupy home ranges which included non-rocky habitat such as savanna, which are described by Valerie Gargett as “poor food areas” due to their lack of hyrax. In such areas, about 80% of prey is mammalian. Verreaux's eagles that are less specialized have diets and hunting capacities that are similar to those of the golden eagle, although the latter species often subsists on hares, rabbits, ground squirrels or grouse for about half or two-thirds of its diet, a portion still comprised by rock hyrax in the Verreaux's. One study accumulated records of Verreaux's eagle preying on at least 100 prey species. Other prey types recorded have included small (mainly juvenile) antelopes, hares, rabbits, meerkats (Suricata suricatta), other mongooses, monkeys, squirrels, cane rats, bushbabies and lambs (Ovis aries) and kids (Capra aegagrus hircus). Francolin (Francolinus ssp.) and guineafowl (Numina ssp.) as well as waterfowl, herons, egrets, bustards, pigeons, crows (Corvus ssp.), doves, chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) and a great sparrowhawk (Accipiter melanoleucus) have been among the recorded avian prey. Avian prey ranging in size from 102.6 g alpine swift (Tachymarptis melba) to 7.26 kg adult male Denham's bustards (Neotis denhami). In Tanzania, out of a sample size of 41 from 26 nests, 53.7% of remains were of hyraxes, 29.3% of francolins, guineafowl and chickens, 12.2% of antelopes, 2.4% of hares and rabbits and 2.4% of mongoose. Tortoises made up 145 of 5748 from 73 sites (2.5%) in South Africa. Rarely, snakes and lizards may also be taken and even termites have been eaten by this species.

In South Africa, the commonest foods were (in descending order of preference): Cape hyrax, Smith's red rock hare (Pronolagus rupertris), meerkat, mountain reedbuck (Redunca fulvorufula), goats and sheep, scrub hare (Lepus saxatilis), Cape francolin (Francolinus capensis), helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris), yellow mongoose (Cynictis penicillata) and Angulate tortoise (Chersina angulata). In “poor food areas” of the Matobo Hills, three nests included 53.6% hyrax, 10.7% cane-rats, 7.1% monkeys, 7.1% mongoose and 3.6% antelope. From 1997 to 2005 in the same area, non-hyrax prey (each representing less than 10 out of 1550 prey items at nests) included white-tailed mongoose (Ichneumia albicauda), steenbok (Raphicerus campestris), domestic goat, vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus), Jameson's red rock hare (Pronolagus randensis), helmeted guineafowl, Swainson's francolin (Pternistis swainsonii), Natal francolin (Pternistis natalensis), southern red-billed hornbill (Tockus rufirostris), rock pigeon (Columba livia), white-necked raven (Corvus albicollis), leopard tortoise (Stigmochelys pardalis) and giant plated lizard (Gerrhosaurus validus). In the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden of South Africa, the primary prey found around nests after a perceptible hyrax decline has become helmeted guineafowl and francolins, followed by cane rats, rabbits and dikdiks (Rhynchotragus ssp.). Young baboons may also be hunted, even the large-bodied chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) which have issued a predator alarm call in response to the presence of Verreaux's eagles. Carrion either fairly frequent or none at all. A study of the taking of domestic lambs in the Karoo found only two cases of lambs being eaten by Verreaux's eagle and these were already dead when carried off. This contrasts with the golden eagle, which in some areas may eat many dead lambs and occasionally hunt lives ones. An impressive range of mammalIan carnivores is known to be taken by Verreaux's eagles. Some of these may consist of genets, mongooses, felids, bat-eared foxes (Otocyon megalotis) and even black-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas), apparently carnivores can become more significant in human developed areas. Although any prey weighing over 4.5 kg is rarely taken, some ungulates hunted by Verreaux's eagles can be considerably larger. Adult klipspringer (Oreotragus oreotragus) are known to be hunted, and one eagle brought klipspringer lamb around 12 kg in weight to the nest. A Verreaux's eagle was observed to hunt and kill a mountain reedbuck lamb estimated to weigh 15 kg. The smallest known mammalian prey was a 97.6 g Cape gerbil (Gerbilliscus afra).

Interspecies competition
Although it is the most specialized predator of rock hyrax in the world, it does not have monopoly on this prey. Many other predators also hunt rock hyraxes, which thus puts them in potential competition with the Verreaux's eagles. Amongst the other very large eagles which are widely found in sub-Saharan Africa, both the crowned eagle and the martial eagle may also locally favor rock hyraxes in their diets. However, these species have highly different habitat preferences and hunting techniques. The crowned eagle, a forest-dwelling species, is primarily a perch-hunter and can spend hours watching for prey activity from a prominent tree perch. The martial eagle is a dweller mainly of lightly wooded savanna and often hunts on the wing, soaring high and watching for prey activity with its superb vision, quite unlike the contour-hunting technique used by Verreaux's eagles. While the habitats of crowned and Verreaux's eagle keep them segregated enough to likely eliminate competition, confrontations between Verreaux's and martial eagles have been recorded. Although somewhat larger and more powerful, the martial eagle is relatively less nimble in the air and there is a case where a martial eagle was robbed of rock hyrax prey by a Verreaux's eagle. Another case of kleptoparasitism by a Verreaux's eagle involved one stealing some carrion from a lammergeier (Gypaetus barbatus). Verreaux's eagles occasionally prey on other large raptors including vultures, including white-headed vulture (Trigonoceps occipitalis), white-backed vulture (Gyps africanus) and Cape vulture (Gyps coprotheres), though the earlier cases probably refer to nestling or juvenile predation and the latter to nest defense on the part of the eagles. An apparent predation attempt on a full grown juvenile Rüppell's griffon (Gyps rueppellii) was abortive. A unique opportunity to study Verreaux's eagle living with its closest extant cousin, the golden eagle, has been afforded in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia. The two species, with similar habitat preferences, were observed to defend their territories from one another exclusively, with many cases of goldens chasing Verreaux's eagles out of their respective territories in flight and only one of Verreaux's chasing the goldens. However, since the golden eagles prefer hares and Verreaux prefers rock hyraxes, they actually seem to have no deleterious effect on each other's breeding activities. African hawk-eagles (Aquila spilogaster) may also take a few hyraxes, but are likely to avoid direct conflicts with their much larger cousins, so will tawny eagles (Aquila rapax). Other predators of rock hyrax may include felids like African wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica), servals (Leptailurus serval), caracals (Caracal caracal) and leopards (Panthera pardus) as well as jackals (Canis ssp.), African rock pythons (Python sebae) and owls (mainly the large Verreaux's eagle-owl (Ketupa lacteus) or possibly the Cape eagle-owl (Bubo capensis)). Neonate rock hyraxes may fall prey to mongooses and venomous snakes like Egyptian cobras (Naja haje) and puff adders (Bitis arietans). Due to the formidable range of competitors it pays for Verreaux's eagle to be cautious from the moment it bears down on its prey. Cases where pirating has been attempted has involved diverse carnivores like caracals and jackals. In at least one case, a Verreaux's eagle was observed to be displaced off a rodent-kill (likely a cane-rat) by an Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis). Unlikely competitors for nest sites are known to have included baboons and even geese. As is often the case with reintroduced eagles (i.e. seen even in the huge harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja)), reintroduced Verreaux's eagle may lose their fear of other predators to their own detriment and one such bird fell victim to a caracal. Cases where Verreaux's eagles have swooped at leopards are not likely competitive but are more likely to try to displace the cat from their territory, and such attacks have occasionally had fatal results for the birds. This species is not normally aggressive to humans but may swoop uncomfortably close when the nest is being investigated.

Territoriality and movements
A rough estimated average of home range size in Verreaux's eagle is 10.9 km2. Density of breeding pairs varies from 1 pair per 10.3 km2 in the Matobo Hills, Zimbabwe, 1 pair per 24 km2 in the Karoo, 1 pair per 25 km2 in East Africa, 1 pair per 28 km2 in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia to a known maximum spacing of 1 pair per 35 to 65 km2 in the Magaliesberg and Drakensberg ranges. The Matobo Hills reportedly has one of the greatest breeding densities known of any large eagle and territories are extremely stable through seasons and years. Such stable distributions are expected of long-lived raptors living in the tropics with a relatively stable food supply outside the seasonal variation of temperate zones. While Matobo Hill home ranges ranged from 6 to 14 km2, most were observed to include about the same amount of kopje habitat (up to 5 km2). Populations fluctuate surprisingly little despite four-fold changes between peaks and troughs in hyrax numbers. At troughs, eagles may temporarily disappear or switch to alternate prey. This is only especially marked in drought periods and on average occurs once every 20 years. Some authors consider the Verreaux's eagle to be a partial migrant, others describe it as sedentary. This is more a matter of terminology than unclear behaviour, since this species is well known to behave like almost all raptors that breed in Sub-Saharan Africa. That is the young wander relatively widely once dispersed from their parent's territory but the adults generally remain sedentary on their home range for the remainder of their lives.

Verreaux's eagle displays may potentially occur almost throughout the year. Frequently displays are in response to the presence of another soaring pair or after repelling a single intruder from the territory. They will also display if anxious about the nest when humans or other large mammals approach too closely. The male's display often consists of him first flying up in an undulating flight with wings readily held spread or closed. Then, once at a great height, he plunges down as far as 305 m at a time, then quickly rises back up, sometimes swinging to and fro like the arms of a pendulum, at other times diving and rising along a straight line. These evolutions may be embellished with somersaults and sideways rolls at the peak before the descent. Some displays involve pairs of eagles. A pair frequently circles or makes figures of eight over their territory. One bird may roll over and present claws in flight or the male may fly behind female with exaggeratedly upcurved wings. It is now the prevalent thought that most displays in Aquila eagles are territorial, as they often occur along the boundary of a given home range rather than near the nest. Displays with talon-grappling and tumbling are often aerial fights between territorial birds and occasionally the eagles may clasp and whirl downwards (one such fight reportedly resulting in the birds plunging into the sea).

Breeding
In Zimbabwe, 60 pairs may nest in 620 km2, equivalent to 1 pair per 10.3 km2, but this is exceptional. In East Africa, one pair nests each 25 km2 and in South Africa sometimes as little as 1 pair per 10.2 to 15 km2, but nearer 60 km2 being more typical. Verreaux's eagle may build from 1 to 3 nests, sometimes none over the course of a year. In the Matobo Hills, the average number of nests built per pair is 1.4. Eagles nesting in the Karoo have much larger territories, though are subject to persecution and habitat change, more so than many other populations. In the Matobos, the species is near the breeding population capacity level with almost unlimited nests that are rather unevenly distributed among available jumbles of rocky kopjes. In Kenya, nests are more scattered and Verreaux's eagle sometimes do not breed even where the habitat seems appropriate and there are good numbers of rock hyrax. By virtue of location on a narrow ledge, nests tend to be much broader than deep and a relatively small for the size of the eagle. The flattish nests, made out of green branches and lined with green leaves, are up to 1.8 m across and 2 m deep. Though a nest depth of around 0.6 m is typical, one old nest was 4.1 m deep. Typically nests are on cliffs, often in an overhung crevice or in a small cave, sometimes on an open ledge. The nest site is generally marked by a 'whitewash' which is formed by the birds' droppings. Verreaux's is the most cliff dependent of all eagle species, in the late 1970s only 3 known nests were in trees. Very rarely, they may nest in trees, such as Euphorbia or Acacia, often those growing out of a cliff crevice. A handful of nests in South Africa have even been on electric pylons. A new nest takes up to four months to construct, with some repair being typical upon each use. Both sexes participate in the nest construction, though the female usually takes the lead. It may take several hundred feet of rope for a human to reach the nest. Predation of young in the nest is either suspected or anecdotely reported as having been committed by African rock pythons, baboons and caracals. However, predation is believed to be normally quite rare, due to the combination of factors such as the inaccessibility of most nests by foot (thus cutting off all but the most nimble mammalian carnivores) and the bold defenses of the parent eagles. Verreaux's eagle have reportedly dropped sticks on potential nest predators. This has been considered a form of tool-use, which is generally unknown in other raptorial birds and has been mostly reported in corvids and herons.

Egg laying may occur from November to August in Sudan and Arabia, October to May in Ethiopia and Somalia, year around in East Africa (with a peak of June to December) and anywhere from April to November in Africa from Zambia southwards. In an unusual behaviour for eagles, the males may bring food to females before egg laying and, more typically, males bring almost all food during the incubation stage. Two eggs are generally laid, though a range of one to three is known. The eggs are rather elongated ovals and being chalky white sometimes with a bluish tinge or a few reddish-brown marking, measuring from 71 to 83.4 mm in length and 56 - 62 mm in width, with an average of 76.9 x. The eggs are laid at three-day intervals starting in the middle of the day. Both sexes incubate, but the female takes the major share and tends to sit all night over them. Sometimes, the male may sit for 40-50% of the day with more shifts for him towards the end of incubation. These are close-sitters, which are not easily disturbed off the nest. Incubation is 43 to 47 days. Hatching happens at about to 2–3 days apart, with about 24 hours from the first chipping of the egg's surface to complete hatching. One egg is sometimes infertile and the second egg tends to be about 10% smaller. The Verreaux's eagle is considered an “obligate cainist”, that is the older sibling normally kills the younger one (in more than 90% of observed nests), by either starvation or direct attack. Aggression may continue for up to 70 days after hatching. At one time no cases of two young successfully reaching the fledging stage were known, however a couple of cases of two healthy fledglings from a nest have been recorded. Siblicide is regularly observed in raptorial birds, including unrelated families like owls and skuas and is common, even typical, in Aquila eagles. The behaviour is most commonly explained as a kind of insurance policy, with the second nestling existing both to act as a backup if the first egg or nestling perishes and to mitigate the stressful workload demanded of the parent raptors in feeding, brooding and defending the young. The odds of survival for the second fledging are better in the golden eagle and other temperate-breeding Aquila eagles, possibly due to a shorter nesting stage in these species. In roughly 20% of golden eagle nests and in some cases, such as prey-rich areas of North America, about half of the nests will successfully produce two fledglings. In the Verreaux's eagle, no food is given to the hatchling in the first 36 hours, thereafter they are regularly fed. Early in the fledging stage, the young is brooded up to 90% of the time. After 20 days, parents spend up to 20% of time with their eaglet around the nest, not brooding in daylight after 21 days. Feathers appear through the down at about 34 days, by 60 days feathers cover the down. In Equatorial Africa, the eaglet fledges from the nest at 95–99 days, though sometimes as little as 90 days further south. In the golden eagle, the fledging stage is roughly 35 days shorter. The young Verreaux's eagle takes its first flight and then returns to the nest for the first fortnight. In the early fledging period, the male brings more food, later it is largely the female. At some point during the post-fledging stage, she ceases to roost with the young one and sits with the male at some distance, a behaviour that seems to vary from nest to nest in timing. After 45–50 days, food is caught by the parents but is likely eaten by themselves and not brought to the young. After leaving the nest, family parties may be together for up to 6 months. The eaglet grows stronger after the first month and accompanies the parents on hunting forays away from the nest. It often breeds every year, occasionally only on every other year.

Population and status
Verreaux's eagles’ nests are estimated to have a 40–50% success rate per year. Success of nesting is significantly higher when hyrax are common: 0.56 young per year dropped to 0.28 young per year. In fact, in poor food areas no breeding attempt commonly occurred (66% did not attempt to breed) whereas 24% did not attempt to breed in better food areas. Frequency of breeding attempts is lower in wetter years. Near 90% attempted nesting in years with 300 mm of rainfall whereas 45% attempted during years with roughly 1000 mm rainfall. In the Matobo Hills, persistent intrusion by an unmated adult into a pair's nesting territory seemed to have an adverse effect on nesting success.

The estimated average lifespan is 16 years. Verreaux's eagle has a total population estimated very roughly to be somewhere in the tens of thousands in total. In northeastern South Africa, the local breeding population is estimated to include 240 pairs, while the western Cape region of the country may hold possibly more than 2,000 pairs. Verreaux's eagle lives in kopje habitat, which is generally non-vulnerable to human destruction, unlike, say, the savanna inhabited by martial eagles or the forests inhabited by crowned eagles. Unlike the other two big African eagles, they do not often partake of much carrion, so are at little risk of poisoning from carcass left out to control jackals. Nonetheless, some people shoot at or otherwise persecute them when given the opportunity due to the largely mistaken belief that they are a threat to small livestock.

Perhaps the greatest concern for the species is when rock hyraxes are locally hunted by humans for food and skins, leading to likely declines and requiring the eagles to either switch to other prey or have their nesting attempts fail. In Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden in South Africa, despite an appreciable decline in rock hyrax populations, breeding data revealed few changes in the incubation period, nestling period and post-fledging dispersal period in two known pairs of the eagles. At this same site, despite it being one of the most popular nature areas in metropolitan Johannesburg, high levels of human activity have had no apparent adverse effect on the eagles’ breeding behaviour (by contrast, when exposed to similar levels of disturbance, golden eagles have been shown to temporarily abandon their nests). However, in South Africa, the overall number of pairs declined from 78 in 1980 (25 in reserves) to 27 in 1988 (with 19 in preserves). In the Sisulu Botanical Garden, artificial feeding has been contemplated to maintain a breeding pair in the face of continuing declines of available wild prey.

title: Verreaux's eagle


text:
Eau Claire Express

The Eau Claire Express is a collegiate summer baseball team playing in the Northwoods League. Their home games are played at Carson Park, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

After two straight losing seasons in 2005 and 2006, the Eau Claire Express achieved many firsts during the 2007 season. The team won nine of its final ten regular season games to finish 42-26 overall and claim the 2007 2nd Half South Division title, their first regular season division title in franchise history and qualified for the Northwoods League playoffs, another franchise first.

In the 2007, South Division Championship Series, they faced the 1st Half South Division Champion Green Bay Bullfrogs. They won the series 2–1, claiming the 2007 South Division Pennant, another first in franchise history. In the 2007 Northwoods League Championship Series, they faced the North Division Champion St. Cloud River Bats and were swept 2-0 by the eventual Northwoods League Champions.

The 2008 season ended with the Express missing the Northwoods League playoffs by 1.5 games. The Express finished the season one game below .500.

The Express had one of their best seasons in 2009. They had a great first half, winning the NWL South Division to qualify for the playoffs. However, injuries and summer school depleted the squad in the second half. Eau Claire was eliminated in two games by the La Crosse Loggers in the Northwoods League Divisional round.

In 2010, the Express won the first half of the season again with a 22–12 record. Via www.perfectgame.org, the Express have been ranked as high as #3 in the nation for summer collegiate baseball. The team closed out the 2010 season winning both halves. They followed this up by winning the NWL Championship and www.perfectgame.org ranked the Eau Claire Express the #1 summer collegiate team in the nation.

The Express moved to the North Division for 2014, to accommodate the new NWL teams in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The 2016, season saw the Express return to the Northwoods League postseason after winning the season's first half title. This was the first time the team had qualified for the playoffs since the 2010 season. Eau Claire opened the playoffs hosting the Mankato MoonDogs in the first round of the Divisional Playoffs at Carson Park. Despite having only a 1–7 record vs. Mankato in the regular season, Eau Claire was able to defeat the MoonDogs to advance. The next night the team traveled to St. Cloud, Minn. to face the second half champion Rox for a chance to play for the NWL Championship. After blowing a late lead, the Express were able to defeat the Rox in extra innings to win the North Division title.

Awaiting the Express in the NWL Championship Series was the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters, the owners of the league's best regular season record. Eau Claire led game one by a run with two outs in the ninth inning at Witter Field in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. before giving up a walk-off, two-run home run to lose. The Express would go on to lose game two the following night at Carson Park to end a successful season and concede the Northwoods League title to the Rafters.

In 2022, The Eau Claire Express won the Great Plains East Division(2nd Half) with a record of 42–26. The Express lost in the first round of the playoffs to the eventual Plains Division champion Duluth Huskies.

In 2023, the Express found themselves back in the playoffs, winning the first half despite an 0-3 start which they were outscored 11-20 and gave up 8 runs in two of those games. They went 20-11 the rest of the first half and clinched it with a 12-1 win on July 3 over the Rochester Honkers. They got their way through the second half, going 16-17. They would get swept by La Crosse in 2 games.

Express Players to reach Major League Baseball
Source:

 * Jordan Zimmermann - Washington Nationals, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers
 * Kole Calhoun - Los Angeles Angels, Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers, Cleveland Guardians
 * Nevin Ashley - Milwaukee Brewers
 * Eddie Gamboa - Tampa Bay Rays
 * Brad Goldberg - Chicago White Sox
 * Dietrich Enns - Minnesota Twins, Tampa Bay Rays
 * Nathan Orf - Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics
 * Sam Haggerty - New York Mets, Seattle Mariners
 * Daulton Varsho - Arizona Diamondbacks, Toronto Blue Jays
 * Louis Head - Tampa Bay Rays, Miami Marlins
 * Griffin Jax - Minnesota Twins
 * Steven Wilson - San Diego Padres
 * Mickey McDonald - Oakland Athletics
 * Alex Call - Cleveland Guardians, Washington Nationals
 * Irving Lopez - St Louis Cardinals
 * Erich Uelmen - Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies
 * Lane Ramsey - Chicago White Sox
 * Michael Papierski - San Francisco Giants, Cincinnati Reds
 * Justin Slaten - Boston Sox
 * Mark Hallberg (Coach) - San Francisco Giants
 * Justin Viele (Coach) - San Francisco Giants

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Eau Claire Express


text:
William Steinberg

William Steinberg (Cologne, August 1, 1899 – New York City, May 16, 1978) was a German-American conductor.

Biography
Steinberg was born Hans Wilhelm Steinberg in Cologne, Germany. He displayed early talent as a violinist, pianist, and composer, conducting his own choral/orchestral composition (based on texts from Ovid's Metamorphoses) at age 13. In 1914, he began studies at the Cologne Conservatory, where his piano teacher was the Clara Schumann pupil Lazzaro Uzielli and his conducting mentor was Hermann Abendroth. He graduated with distinction, winning the Wüllner Prize for conducting, in 1919. He immediately became a second violinist in the Cologne Opera orchestra, but was dismissed from the position by Otto Klemperer for using his own bowings. He was soon re-hired by Klemperer as an assistant, and in 1922, he conducted Fromental Halévy's opera La Juive as a substitute. When Klemperer left in 1924, Steinberg served as Principal Conductor. He left a year later, in 1925, for Prague, where he was conductor of the German Theater. He next took the position of music director of the Frankfurt Opera. In 1930, in Frankfurt, he conducted the world premiere of Arnold Schoenberg's Von heute auf morgen.

In 1933, Steinberg was relieved of his post by the Nazis because he was Jewish. According to the grandson of composer Ernst Toch, Steinberg was "rehearsing [Toch's opera Der Fächer (The Fan)] in Cologne when Nazi brownshirts came storming into the hall and literally lifted the baton out of his hand".; Steinberg, who had married Lotte Stern in Frankfurt in 1934, was then restricted to conducting concerts for the Jewish Culture League in Frankfurt and Berlin. The Steinbergs left Germany in 1936 for the British Mandate of Palestine, which is now Israel. Eventually, with co-founder Bronisław Huberman, Steinberg trained the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, which would later be known as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Steinberg was conducting the orchestra when Arturo Toscanini visited there in 1936. Toscanini was impressed with Steinberg's preliminary groundwork for his concerts and later engaged him as an assistant in preparing for the NBC Symphony Orchestra radio broadcasts.

Steinberg emigrated to the United States in 1938. He conducted a number of concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra from 1938 to 1940. He conducted summer concerts at Lewisohn Stadium at the City College of New York (1940–41), led New York Philharmonic concerts in 1943–44, and also conducted at the San Francisco Opera. He became a US citizen in 1944, and was engaged as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra from 1945 to 1952. Steinberg is best known for his long tenure as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 1952 to 1976. Steinberg's Pittsburgh appearances in January 1952 were so impressive, he was quickly engaged as music director and also signed to a recording contract with Capitol Records. Thereafter, Pittsburgh was the center of his activity although he held other important positions. From 1958 to 1960, he also conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra, but eventually resigned that post because the added workload led to medical problems with his conducting arm. Steinberg led the New York Philharmonic for twelve weeks while on sabbatical leave from Pittsburgh in 1964–65; This led to his engagement as the Philharmonic's principal guest conductor from 1966 to 1968. From 1969 to 1972, Steinberg was music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (with which he had achieved earlier success as guest conductor), while maintaining his Pittsburgh post. He toured Europe with the Boston Symphony in April 1971.

These additional engagements often led to rumors that Steinberg would leave Pittsburgh for a full-time position elsewhere. In 1968 though he declared, "We are too closely wed, the Pittsburgh Symphony and I, to contemplate any divorce." On another occasion, Steinberg said that conducting had become the profession of a traveling salesman. "A conductor has to stay put to educate an orchestra." However, by 1975, Steinberg was suffering from heart and circulatory ailments and he felt pressured to end his tenure and retired from his Pittsburgh post at the end of the 1975–76 season.

Steinberg guest-conducted most of the major US orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestra. Abroad he conducted the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, RAI Orchestra of Rome, Orchestra of the Teatro di San Carlo, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (in their 1955 Beethoven cycle), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, and WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne. He also appeared at summer festivals in the US and Canada (Ambler Temple University Festival, Hollywood Bowl, Ojai, Ravinia, Robin Hood Dell, Saratoga, Tanglewood, and Vancouver) as well as in Europe (Salzburg, Lucerne, Montreux). Steinberg conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in several productions including Barber's Vanessa, Verdi's Aida, and Wagner's Die Walküre, during his sabbatical in 1964–65, and Wagner's Parsifal in 1974.

Steinberg had been in declining health for several years; on May 1, 1978, he conducted the final concert of his career, leading the New York Philharmonic with guest violinist Isaac Stern. He was hospitalized following the concert and died on May 16, 1978, at the age of 78.

Recording activity
Steinberg recorded Don Juan and his own suite from Der Rosenkavalier (works by Richard Strauss) with Walter Legge's Philharmonia Orchestra in the summer of 1957. The following year he conducted them in concerts at Lucerne before assuming the conductorship of the London Philharmonic. Steinberg's first recording was however made in 1928, when he accompanied Bronisław Huberman in Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the Staatskapelle Berlin. In 1940, Steinberg recorded excerpts from Wagner's Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, and Tannhäuser as well as Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, with Metropolitan Opera members, issued anonymously on "World's Greatest Opera" records. After the war, Steinberg made a single album for the Musicraft label with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra – the first studio recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad) in 1946. He led several accompaniments for concerto recordings on RCA Victor by Alexander Brailowsky, Jascha Heifetz, William Kapell, and Arthur Rubinstein.

Steinberg made numerous recordings for Capitol Records, all but two of them with the Pittsburgh Symphony. The exceptions included a recording with the Los Angeles Woodwinds of Mozart's Gran Partita, K.361, taped in Hollywood in August 1952, and the aforementioned Strauss disc with the Philharmonia Orchestra. His Pittsburgh recordings for Capitol, all made in the Syria Mosque, included concertos with Nathan Milstein and Rudolf Firkušný, as well as a cross-section of the symphonic repertoire from Beethoven to Wagner. Nearly all of Steinberg's Capitol recordings were reissued in a 20-CD boxed set by EMI in September, 2011.

In February 1960, Steinberg and the Pittsburgh Symphony moved to Everest Records, but by mutual agreement this contract was terminated after three releases since Everest abandoned their classical recording program. These were audiophile 35mm film master recordings, a technique pioneered by Everest at that time. A casualty of this decision was a planned recording of Mahler's Sixth Symphony with the London Philharmonic, which was to have been made in conjunction with Steinberg's performance given as part of the Mahler centenary in London. Steinberg and the Pittsburgh Symphony in March 1961 signed a pact with Enoch Light's Command label. Light had attended a Steinberg concert in Danbury, Connecticut a few years before and told the conductor he'd like to record the orchestra. After the Everest contract lapsed, Steinberg subsequently made a number of technically acclaimed records for Command on 35mm film recording stock. The Command releases, hailed as "outstanding examples of contemporary recording," were made in the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh. Light preferred the sound of this high-ceilinged auditorium with its open stage to that of Syria Mosque for recording. The initial Command recordings, Brahms Symphony No. 2 and Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2, were taped on May 1–2, 1961. Steinberg's recording of the Brahms Symphony No. 2 was nominated for a Grammy for Classical Album of the Year in 1962. Steinberg said of these sessions, "At first I opposed this location, because I can't hear the orchestra there, the ceiling is so high. I suppose it must be so high to make room for the Lincoln inscription. But the engineers said, 'The microphones hear very well, and we will use a lot of them.' Who am I to argue with the engineers? So we recorded in Memorial Hall. I am the only conductor in history who memorized the Gettysburg Address while rehearsing Brahms' Second Symphony."

Steinberg's Command recordings eventually included complete cycles of the Beethoven and Brahms Symphonies, along with a diverse list of other works. Command's Pittsburgh Symphony activity ended after Steinberg recorded Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, his early Overture in G minor, two arrangements by Robert Russell Bennett, and Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 in April 1968. Command Vice President and General Manager Loren Becker stated that "Steinberg's stature as a great conductor will also mean many more recordings of standard fare." However Becker departed Command a few months later and ABC Records, the label's owner, ended the Pittsburgh series. When Steinberg assumed his post with the Boston Symphony in 1969, he made several recordings, first for RCA Red Seal, then Deutsche Grammophon, which contracted the Boston Symphony upon expiration of the RCA contract. His Boston recordings for both RCA and DG were of the first rank, both musically and technically.

Awards and honors
Steinberg received numerous awards, including both the Kilenyi Bruckner Medal and the Kilenyi Mahler Medal from The Bruckner Society of America. He was named a member of the International Institute of Arts and Letters in 1960. Steinberg was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the same year. The Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce named Steinberg Man of the Year for 1964 for his contributions to the city's cultural life, and for leading the Pittsburgh Symphony on a triumphant tour of Europe and the Middle East. He was also an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music. Steinberg received an honorary doctorate of music from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1954, an honorary doctorate of music from Duquesne University in 1964, and an honorary doctorate of humanities from the University of Pittsburgh in 1966. He was named Sanford Professor of Music at Yale University in September 1973, and conducted several concerts with the Yale Philharmonia.

Conducting style and repertoire
William Steinberg was noted throughout his career for his straightforward yet expressive musical style, leading familiar works with integrity and authority such that they sounded fresh and vital. Despite the dynamic drive of his interpretations, his podium manner was a model of restraint. Steinberg said of his interpretive philosophy, "One must always respect the character of the music and never try to grow lush foliage in a well tempered English garden." Referring to some of his more acrobatic colleagues, Steinberg remarked, "The more they move around, the quieter I get." Pittsburgh principal flute Bernard Goldberg told how Steinberg "looked forward to being 70 years old because only then did a conductor know what he was doing." Armando Ghitalla, distinguished Boston Symphony principal trumpet from 1966 to 1979, said of Steinberg that "his musical taste was one of the finest I've ever heard." Boston Symphony concertmaster Joseph Silverstein said Steinberg was "as sophisticated a musician as I have ever known."

Steinberg had a wide range of repertoire, including a sympathy for the English music of Elgar and Vaughan Williams. He led several important premieres, including the US premiere of Anton Webern's Six Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6. During his first Pittsburgh season, Steinberg conducted works by Bartók, Berg, Bloch, Britten, Copland, Harris, Honegger, Milhaud, Schuman, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, and Villa-Lobos at the Pittsburgh International Contemporary Music Festival (all of these performances appeared on record, and the Bloch, Schuman, and Vaughan Williams were licensed by Capitol). He was also admired as an interpreter of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Strauss, and Wagner. He made a famous recording of Holst's The Planets with the Boston Symphony for Deutsche Grammophon, after learning the piece at the age of 70. Unusual for a conductor born in Europe, Steinberg was a sympathetic conductor of George Gershwin's music (he made Gershwin recordings for three different labels). His last Metropolitan Opera appearances were three performances of Wagner's Parsifal in April 1974.

Although sometimes criticized for his unusual programming, Steinberg was a champion of certain lesser known works including Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette, Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony, Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart, and his own orchestral transcription of Verdi's String Quartet in E minor. Steinberg said, "The literature is so enormous. I look into what my colleagues won't. Actually, I am not success minded. I merely dare. I take a risk. Criticism I get anyway." Steinberg's prestige however filled Carnegie Hall to 80 percent capacity under the unlikely circumstance of the first all-Schoenberg orchestral program ever given in New York.

Personality
Steinberg once remarked to a San Francisco Symphony musician he corrected, "I may be wrong, but I don't think so." Violinist David Schneider said, "This quality of not taking himself too seriously endeared him to the musicians." Although all business on the podium, Steinberg was not above a bit of clowning in public; at one Pittsburgh Symphony fundraiser, he donned a blonde wig on his bald head that Johnny Carson jokingly presented him. Steinberg's puckish humor was often in evidence, as when he told Time Magazine that he had conceived "something for the New York snobs—an all-Mendelssohn program. This is really the height of snobbishness, the wonderful answer to the question of just what do the snobs need." He said that he spoke four and a half languages – the half being English. Of his habit of eating a steak before every concert he conducted, Steinberg told a columnist, "So you see, it's an expensive business – this concert conducting." Referring to a disagreement with violinist Nathan Milstein that led to Milstein walking out of a rehearsal, Steinberg said, "He decided he would not stay and I decided I would not have him." Concerning acoustics he said, "If the hall is resonant, the tempos must be changed. If the acoustics are too bad, you go fast in order to go home quickly!" To an interviewer who said he had heard that the conductor did not care for giving interviews, Steinberg replied that it was fine as long as the subject was one that interested him – "for instance, myself".

Conductor and music director

 * 1924 Cologne Opera
 * 1925–1929 Prague State Opera
 * 1929–1933 Oper Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main
 * 1936–1938 Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
 * 1945–1952 Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
 * 1952–1976 Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
 * 1958–1960 London Philharmonic Orchestra
 * 1969–1972 Boston Symphony Orchestra

Recording chronology
Recording made with the Staatskapelle Berlin for Parlophone Records: Recordings made with the "Publishers Service Symphony Orchestra" for World's Greatest Opera Records: Recording made for Columbia Records Recording made with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra for Musicraft:
 * December 28, 1928 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Concerto for Violin (Bronislaw Huberman)
 * May 26–27, 1940 Richard Wagner: Tristan und Isolde excerpts (R. Bampton, A. Carron, L. Summers)
 * May 27–28, 1940 Richard Wagner: Lohengrin excerpts (R. Bampton, L. Summers, A. Carron, M. Harrell, N. Cordon); Tannhäuser excerpts (R. Bampton, A. Carron, M. Harrell, B. Hober or L. Senderowna)
 * June 5, 1940 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro excerpts (V. Della Chiesa, A. Dickey, L. Browning, N. Cordon, G. Cehanovsky)
 * 1942 (exact date unknown) Georges Bizet: Carmen, Air des fleurs (J. Kiepura)
 * December 3 & 5, 1946 Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7, "Leningrad" (This was the first commercial recording of the work. The date for the studio session is derived from the December 4, 1946, Buffalo Courier-Express, which states: "The recording to be cut tomorrow morning should bring honor to Shostakovich, the Philharmonic, and thereby to the City of Buffalo." The matrix numbers however indicate that some sides of the issued 78RPM set were recorded at the December 3, 1946, concert performance.)
 * Allegro Records LP issue, LP 3041, four sides, sourced as follows according to the sleeve note: "various takes of the original recording were first transferred to tape and then edited into a unified whole. This included portions of a concert performance of the latter part of the symphony."

Recordings made for RCA Victor (with contracted pickup orchestras unless otherwise noted):
 * March 26, 1946 Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Artur Rubinstein), NBC Symphony Orchestra
 * May 9–10, 1947 Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto (Artur Rubinstein)
 * September 12, 1947 Max Bruch: Scottish Fantasy (Jascha Heifetz, violin)
 * February 19, 1949 Alexander Glazunov: Violin Concerto (Nathan Milstein)
 * April 14, 1949 Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Alexander Brailowsky)
 * July 7, 1950 Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 (William Kapell), Robin Hood Dell Orchestra
 * June 12–13, 1951 Édouard Lalo: Symphonie espagnole (Jascha Heifetz, violin)
 * June 15, 1951 Ludwig van Beethoven: Romance No. 1 and 2 for Violin (Jascha Heifetz)
 * June 15, 1951 Pablo de Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen (Jascha Heifetz, violin)
 * June 18, 1951 Camille Saint-Saëns: Havanaise (Jascha Heifetz, violin)
 * June 19, 1951 Camille Saint-Saëns: Introduction and rondo capriccioso (Jascha Heifetz, violin)

Recordings made with the Pittsburgh Symphony for Capitol Records:
 * February 9, 1952 Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 8
 * February 10, 1952 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6
 * April 15, 1952 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5
 * February 8, 1953 George Gershwin: Piano Concerto (Leonard Pennario)
 * February 9, 1953 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 35, Symphony No. 41
 * February 10, 1953 Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1
 * February 11, 1953 Johann Strauss II: Acceleration Waltz, Adelen Waltz, Emperor Waltz, Annen Polka, Champagne Polka, Pizzicato Polka, Perpetuum Mobile, Tritsch-Tratsch Polka, Thunder and Lightning Polka
 * November 17, 1952 Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3, Richard Wagner: Siegfried's Rhine Journey, Siegfried's Funeral Music, Tristan und Isolde: Prelude & Liebestod
 * November 28, 1953 Max Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1, Felix Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto (Nathan Milstein)
 * November 29, 1953 & April 13, 1954 Johannes Brahms: Violin Concerto (Nathan Milstein)
 * November 30, 1953 Sergei Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1
 * November 30, 1953 and April 14, 1954: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6, Serenade for String Orchestra
 * December 1, 1953 Igor Stravinsky: Le Sacre du printemps
 * January 25, 1954 Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2
 * January 26, 1954 Richard Strauss: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Tod und Verklärung
 * April 15–16, 1954 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5, Symphony No. 8
 * January 11, 1955 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherezade
 * January 19, 1955 Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Concerto (Nathan Milstein)
 * October 30, 1955 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3
 * April 17, 1956 Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 1
 * April 18, 1956 Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg – Prelude, Parsifal – Prelude and Good Friday Music, Siegfried Idyll
 * April 19, 1956 Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 (1888 version)
 * October 14, 1956 Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Rudolf Firkušný)
 * October 15–16, 1956 Ernst Toch: Symphony No. 3, Paul Hindemith: Symphony: Mathis der Maler
 * March 25, 1957 Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations
 * March 26, 1957 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
 * April 16, 1957 Antonín Dvořák: Violin Concerto (Nathan Milstein)
 * April 17, 1957 Alexander Glazunov: Violin Concerto (Nathan Milstein)
 * April 18, 1957 Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
 * October 21, 1957 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Le Coq d'Or Suite, Sergei Prokofiev: Love for Three Oranges Suite
 * October 26, 1957 Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 (Rudolf Firkušný)
 * October 28, 1957 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Serenade No. 13, "Eine kleine Nachtmusik"
 * October 29, 1957 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 40
 * March 11, 1958 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Marche Slave
 * March 18, 1958: Mikhail Glinka: Kamarinskaya, Alexander Borodin: Polovtsian Dances, Modest Mussorgsky: A Night on Bare Mountain
 * October 20, 1958 George Frideric Handel: Water Music (arr. Harty)
 * October 28, 1958 Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 94
 * October 29, 1958 Maurice Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte, La Valse, Boléro
 * April 4, 1959 Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italien
 * April 6, 1959 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto (Nathan Milstein)
 * April 16, 1959 Hugo Wolf: Italian Serenade

Recordings made with the Pittsburgh Symphony for ASCAP Records: Recordings made with the Los Angeles Winds for Capitol Records: Recordings made with the Philharmonia Orchestra for EMI Records: Recordings made with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for Everest Records: Recordings made with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for Command Classics:
 * November 24, 1952 Ernest Bloch: Concerto Grosso No. 1, William Schuman: Symphony for Strings (both later released by Capitol), Benjamin Britten: Serenade, Béla Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
 * November 26, 1952 Igor Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms, Heitor Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasilieris No. 1, Darius Milhaud: Protée, Roy Harris: Symphony No. 5
 * November 28, 1952 Arthur Honegger: Symphony No. 5, Aaron Copland: A Lincoln Portrait, Alban Berg: Violin Concerto (Szymon Goldberg), Ralph Vaughan Williams: Five Tudor Portraits (Vaughan Williams later released by Capitol)
 * August 22–23, 1952 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Serenade No. 10, "Gran Partita"
 * April 16–17, 1957 Richard Strauss: Don Juan, Der Rosenkavalier Suite
 * February 13, 1960 Robert Russell Bennett: A Commemoration Symphony (based on works by Stephen Foster); A Symphonic Story of Jerome Kern
 * February 14, 1960 Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 4
 * February 16, 1960 George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (with Jesus Maria Sanroma), An American in Paris
 * May 1–2, 1961 Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 2
 * May 1–2, 1961 Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2
 * November 1–4, 1961 Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 1
 * November 1–4, 1961 Richard Wagner: Selections from Der Ring des Nibelungen
 * November 1–4, 1961 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
 * April 30, 1962 Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 3, Tragic Overture
 * May 1, 1962 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 4, Leonore Overture No. 3
 * May 2, 1962 Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 3, Symphony No. 8
 * April 29-May 1, 1963 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, "Eroica"
 * April 29-May 1, 1963 Richard Wagner: Preludes and Overtures
 * April 29-May 1, 1963 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4
 * April 27–May 1, 1964 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 2
 * April 27–May 1, 1964 Giuseppe Verdi: String Quartet in E (arr. Steinberg)
 * April 27–May 1, 1964 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Suite
 * June 7–9, 1965 Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 4
 * June 7–9, 1965 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5
 * June 7–9, 1965 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6
 * April 4–6, 1966 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
 * April 4–6, 1966 Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 8
 * April 4–6, 1966 Igor Stravinsky: Petrouchka
 * May 15, 17, 18, 1967 Maurice Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales
 * May 15, 17, 18, 1967 Antonín Dvořák: Scherzo capriccioso
 * May 15, 17, 18, 1967 Hector Berlioz: Rakoczy March
 * May 15, 17, 18, 1967 Camille Saint-Saëns: French Military March
 * May 15, 17, 18, 1967 Johann Strauss: Perpetual Motion, Tritsch-Tratsch Polka
 * May 15, 17, 18, 1967 George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess – Symphonic Picture, An American in Paris
 * May 15, 17, 18, 1967 Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid
 * May 15, 17, 18, 1967 John Francis Wade (attr.): Adeste Fidelis
 * April 6–8, 1968 Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1
 * April 6–8, 1968 Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 7, Overture in G Minor
 * April 9–10, 1968 Robert Russell Bennett: The Sound of Music – Symphonic Picture, My Fair Lady – Symphonic Picture

Recordings made with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor: Unissued recordings made with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor:
 * September 29, 1969 Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 9, D 944 The Great
 * January 12, 1970 Camille Saint-Saëns: Danse macabre with Joseph Silverstein, violin
 * January 12, 1970 Richard Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Op. 28
 * January 19 and October 19, 1970 Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 6
 * October 26, 1970 Paul Dukas: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
 * January 12, 1970 Igor Stravinsky: Scherzo fantastique, Op. 3; Scherzo a la Russe
 * October 26, 1970 Felix Mendelssohn: Scherzo from Octet in E flat

Recordings made with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for DGG:
 * September 28 and October 12, 1970 Gustav Holst: The Planets
 * March 24, 1971 Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30
 * October 4/5, 1971 Paul Hindemith: Symphony: Mathis der Maler
 * October 5, 1971 Paul Hindemith: Concert Music for Strings and Brass

Live recordings issued commercially:
 * July 18, 1943 Johannes Brahms: Violin Concerto – Adolf Busch, New York Philharmonic, Music & Arts CD
 * September 10, 1965 Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection" – Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, ICA Classics CD
 * December 19, 1969 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: "Don Giovanni" Overture – Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives Release CD
 * February 26, 1972 Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 – Boston Symphony Orchestra, BSO From the Broadcast Archives 1943–2000 CD set
 * June 15, 1973 Ludwig van Beethoven: Missa Solemnis – Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, ICA Classics CD

Video concert recordings issued commercially:
 * Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 (October 6, 1970) & Symphony No. 8 (January 9, 1962); Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 55 (October 7, 1969) – Boston Symphony Orchestra, ICA Classics DVD
 * Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 (January 9, 1962) – Boston Symphony Orchestra, ICA Classics DVD

title: William Steinberg


text:
Victoria Vetri

Victoria Vetri (born September 26, 1944; also known as Angela Dorian and Victoria Rathgeb) is an American model and actress.

Early life and education
Vetri was born in San Francisco, California, to Italian immigrant parents. She attended Hollywood High School between 1959-63 and later studied art at Los Angeles City College. She began acting and modeling in her teens.

Television and films
While Vetri was in high school director Robert Wise considered casting her as Maria in the 1961 film West Side Story, but the studio selected Natalie Wood.

In her early career Vetri often was cast in ethnic roles on television "due to her Italian heritage", such as a Native American in Cheyenne and a Mexican in Wagon Train. She also landed ethnic roles in film, including a member of an ancient Maya civilization in the 1963 film Kings of the Sun and a Mexican in the 1967 film Chuka.

Vetri appeared briefly in the 1968 film Rosemary's Baby, where she was credited as Angela Dorian. In one scene, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) remarks to Vetri's character, Teresa, that she resembles the actress Victoria Vetri.

In January 1969, Vetri signed a multi-picture contract with Warner Bros.-Seven Arts and was given a starring role in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. She refused to have her hair turned blonde from its natural auburn for the film. The story required a blonde, so Vetri demanded a wig instead. Columnist Hy Gardner nominated Vetri as "a new sex symbol on the Hollywood horizon" in 1971. In 2018, Vetri reportedly claimed she plans to return to acting.

Star Trek
Vetri has been incorrectly identified in numerous sources as playing the role of the "human form of a shape-shifting cat" in the Star Trek episode "Assignment: Earth" (a role actually played by April Tatro ). Vetri emphatically states she never appeared on Star Trek, saying, "I was never in an episode of STAR TREK. I know that people think I was [...] I am not sure who she was. Look close enough and you can see that she has blue eyes and I, of course, have brown."

Playboy
Using the name Angela Dorian, Vetri was Playboy's Playmate of the Month for the September 1967 issue and subsequently was the 1968 Playmate of the Year. Vetri won $20,000 and a new car (an all pink 1968 AMC AMX) when she was selected Playmate of the Year. A nude photo of her (along with fellow playmates Leslie Bianchini, Reagan Wilson, and Cynthia Myers) was inserted into Apollo 12 Extra-vehicular activity astronaut cuff checklists by pranksters at NASA.

Thinking it would give her the pick of acting roles, Vetri took on modelling for Playboy. However, she said that posing actually hindered her career by limiting the roles she was offered. She felt she was typecast because of her beauty.

Vetri posed topless for the April 1984 Playboy pictorial ''Playmates Forever! Part Two''. In Tom Clancy's 2004 biography of Gen. Tony Zinni, USMC (Ret.), Zinni remarks on receiving a copy of the September 1967 Playboy centerfold from his advisers for his birthday, which he kept as a memento of his time in Vietnam.

Personal life
Vetri, aged 18, married Hugh Terry Whettam on April 7, 1963. Their son was born on September 8, 1963. They were divorced in 1966. She then married John Lee Hage on December 29, 1966, and they were divorced in 1967. Vetri married Heinz Gottfried Schwetz on November 13, 1978, and they were divorced on February 25, 1983. In 1986, she and Bruce Rathgeb were married; they divorced in 2016, during Vetri’s incarceration for her attempted manslaughter of Rathgeb.

Vetri was charged with attempted murder after shooting husband Bruce Rathgeb from close range inside the Hollywood apartment they were sharing after an argument on Saturday, October 16, 2010.

The Los Angeles Police Department's Hollywood Division arrested Vetri. She was jailed on US$1.53 million bail. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael D. Abzug refused to reduce it, pending trial. In January 2011, the judge also denied her attorney's request for a reduction of the charge of attempted murder. She was ordered to stand trial on that charge.

Between January and September 2011, the charge against Vetri was reduced to attempted voluntary manslaughter. She entered a plea of no contest. The judge sentenced her to nine years in state prison. She was released on parole in April 2018, aged 73.

title: Victoria Vetri


text:
Jack McKeon

John Aloysius McKeon (born November 23, 1930), nicknamed "Trader Jack," is an American former Major League Baseball manager and front-office executive.

In 2003, at age 72, he won a World Series as manager of the Florida Marlins. Two full seasons removed from his previous managing job, McKeon had begun the 2003 season in retirement, but on May 11, he was induced to return to uniform to replace Jeff Torborg as the Marlins' skipper. The team was 16–22 and in next-to-last place in the National League East Division. Described upon his hiring by Marlins' general manager Larry Beinfest as a "resurrection specialist," McKeon led the Marlins to a 75–49 win–loss record, a wild card berth, victories over the San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs in the National League divisional and championship series playoffs, and then a six-game World Series triumph over the New York Yankees.

He remained at the helm of the Marlins through 2005, then retired at age 74. In 2011, he took over the Marlins on June 20 for a second time as interim manager following the resignation of Edwin Rodríguez and served out the season. In so doing he became, at 80, the second oldest manager in big league history, behind only Connie Mack. He retired again at the end of the season with a career managerial record of 1,051–990–1 (.510).

McKeon previously managed the Kansas City Royals (1973–1975), Oakland Athletics (parts of both 1977 and 1978), San Diego Padres (1988–1990), and Cincinnati Reds (1997–2000). From July 7, 1980, through September 22, 1990, he served as the general manager of the Padres, assembling the team which won the 1984 National League pennant, the first in San Diego history.

Early life and education
Raised in South Amboy, New Jersey, McKeon attended St. Mary's High School, later renamed as Cardinal McCarrick High School.

Minor league player and manager
Born in South Amboy, New Jersey, McKeon was a 5 ft, 195 lb catcher who threw and batted right-handed. He played baseball for the College of the Holy Cross, and also attended Seton Hall University and Elon College, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in physical education.

McKeon spent his entire early professional career (1949–64) in the minor leagues. He became a playing manager in 1955 at age 24, and then worked in the farm system of the original, modern-era Washington Senators franchise, and its successor, the Minnesota Twins, handling Triple-A assignments for the Vancouver Mounties (1962), Dallas-Fort Worth Rangers (1963) and Atlanta Crackers (Opening Day through June 21, 1964). He scouted for the Twins starting in mid-1964 before joining the Royals in 1968, one year before their Major League debut, as skipper of their Class A High Point-Thomasville farm team, where he won the Carolina League playoff championship. He led their Triple-A affiliate, the Omaha Royals of the American Association, from its founding in 1969 through 1972, and won two league titles.

Manager of Royals and Athletics
McKeon, then 42, was promoted to manager of the Kansas City Royals for 1973, succeeding Bob Lemon. The 1972 Royals had gone a disappointing 76–78 during the strike-shortened season, and moved into brand-new Royals Stadium in 1973. Paced by the slugging of first baseman John Mayberry, an All-Star performance from centerfielder Amos Otis and the 20-win season of left-hander Paul Splittorff, McKeon's 1973 club finished with a record of 88 wins and 74 losses, for a .540 winning percentage; it was the best record yet compiled by the five-year-old franchise, six games behind the eventual world champion Oakland Athletics in the AL West and the fourth-best mark in the American League. The 1973 Royals also saw the mid-August call up of 20-year-old George Brett, the future Hall of Famer.

But the 1974 Royals could not sustain that momentum and finished 77–85 (.470), next-to-last in the AL West. McKeon's relationship with some of the players soured late in the campaign after his demand that hitting coach Charley Lau be relieved of his duties resulted in the latter's reassignment to the minor leagues. Two months after primary starting pitcher Steve Busby threatened to quit the team, McKeon was fired and replaced by California Angels third-base coach Whitey Herzog on July 24, 1975. At the time, the Royals were in second place, but trailed the defending and eventual division champion Athletics by 11 games. Herzog led Kansas City to three successive AL West titles (1976–78), and, in the 1980s, he would become one of McKeon's trading partners when both were general managers in the National League.

McKeon spent 1976 back in the minor leagues as skipper of the Richmond Braves of the International League. At season's end, he was named to succeed Chuck Tanner as manager of the 1977 Oakland Athletics during a time when meddlesome team owner Charlie Finley was trading away veteran talent in anticipation of free agency. Nevertheless, McKeon had led the stripped-down 1977 A's to a respectable 26–27 mark by June 8, only six games out of first place in the AL West, when Finley shocked baseball by replacing him with Bobby Winkles. McKeon remained in the Oakland organization, initially as an assistant to Finley for the rest of 1977 while the A's struggled under Winkles, going 37–71. Then, in 1978, McKeon returned to uniform as one of Winkles' coaches. History repeated itself when the undermanned A's roared off to a 19–5 start. They were still in first place at 24–15 on May 21 when Winkles resigned because of Finley's constant second-guessing and criticism of his job performance. McKeon then returned to the manager's post and finished the 1978 season, with Oakland winning only 45 of 123 games and falling into sixth place in the seven-team AL West.

Fired again by Finley, McKeon departed the Oakland organization to manage the Denver Bears, Triple-A affiliate of the Montreal Expos, in 1979.

General manager of Padres
McKeon then moved from the field into the front office. He began the 1980 season as the top assistant to Bob Fontaine, the general manager of the San Diego Padres. During the 1980 All-Star break, with the Padres in last place in the National League West Division, owner Ray Kroc and club president Ballard F. Smith fired Fontaine and replaced him with McKeon, making him a first-time general manager at the age of 49. During his first off-season, he set about rebuilding the Padres through a flurry of trades—earning his "Trader Jack" nickname.

He began by acquiring young catcher Terry Kennedy from Herzog's St. Louis Cardinals in an 11-player deal. Over the next four off seasons, he would also trade for Dave Dravecky, Garry Templeton, Carmelo Martínez, and Graig Nettles, draft young stars Tony Gwynn and Kevin McReynolds, and sign free agents Steve Garvey and Goose Gossage, the core of San Diego's 1984 National League champions. In June 1989, he traded his own son-in-law, pitcher Greg Booker.

He told the New York Times in 1988: "Why do I trade? I'm aggressive. I'm confident. I'm a gambler. I'm willing to make a trade and not be afraid I'll get nailed."

Manager of Padres and Reds
McKeon stayed in the front office through the terms of four different managers. When the fourth skipper, Larry Bowa, started 1988 at 16–30, McKeon took over the managerial reins himself on May 28. He led the Padres to a 67–48 mark for the rest of 1988, and an 89–73 record in 1989. But when his 1990 Padres stalled at 37–43 at the All-Star break, McKeon turned the team over to coach Greg Riddoch. Slightly more than two months later, he was ousted from the general manager's job when the Padres' new owner, Tom Werner, hired Joe McIlvaine away from the New York Mets.

McKeon was out of baseball in 1991–92 before joining the Cincinnati Reds in 1993 as a Major League scout and then senior adviser for player personnel, working under GM Jim Bowden. He was in his fourth season in the latter job on July 25, 1997, when at age 66 he was asked to return to the field as the replacement for Ray Knight as the club's manager. The Reds were 43–56 and nine games out in the National League Central Division, but McKeon coaxed them to a 33–30 mark for the rest of the season. He then survived a poor 1998 campaign, with Cincinnati again posting a sub-.500 (77–85) record and finishing 25 games out of first place in its division (though the Reds had lost talent from previous years and were actually considered to have overachieved). McKeon turned the Reds around in 1999, leading them to 96 wins and a tie for the National League wild card through the full 162-game season. However, the Reds were defeated 5–0 by the Mets in a one-game playoff held in their home ballpark, Cinergy Field, and were eliminated from the postseason. Nevertheless, McKeon was named 1999 NL Manager of the Year for his achievement.

On the eve of 2000 spring training, the Reds electrified their fans by acquiring superstar center fielder Ken Griffey Jr. — a Cincinnati native and son of the Reds' coach and former star — in a trade with the Seattle Mariners. Griffey hit 40 home runs, but the Reds posted a disappointing 85–77 record and finished ten games behind the Cardinals. After the season ended, McKeon was relieved of his managerial duties.

Called to manage the Marlins
McKeon was again named National League Manager of the Year in 2003 — the result of leading the Marlins, who were six games below .500 when he took over on May 11, to a 75–49 record the rest of the way. The Marlins proceeded to win the National League pennant, and were then victorious in the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees in six games. At age 72, McKeon became the oldest manager to win the World Series. The victory came against the team for which he rooted in his youth, having lived in South Amboy, New Jersey and attending Yankee games while a child. Perhaps not surprisingly, McKeon called Game 6 his greatest thrill of his career.

McKeon would lead the Marlins to the exact same record and division finish in 83-79 that was good for 3rd in the NL East in 2004 and 2005, although McKeon was the first manager to have led the Marlins to consecutive winning seasons. On September 3 of the 2005 season, McKeon won his 1,000th game as a manager, defeating the New York Mets at Dolphins Stadium 5–4. On October 2, just after the Marlins won the last game of the 2005 season, McKeon announced that he would not be returning the following season. McKeon led the Marlins to three of the six winning seasons in franchise history, but the Marlins were undertaking a rebuilding process, exchanging for veterans for unproven youngsters, and there was a consensus within the organization that a managerial change was in order.

On June 20, 2011, after manager Edwin Rodríguez resigned, the Florida Marlins held a press conference to announce that McKeon had been named interim manager. "I don't need this job but I love it," McKeon said. The Marlins were on a ten-game losing streak at the time McKeon took over, and the team had won exactly one game in the month of June (with McKeon, he would lead them to exactly four more wins in that month). He retired after the conclusion of the 2011 season. Over the course of the remaining 90 games, McKeon won forty to lead the team to a 72-90 finish and last in the NL East.

McKeon retired with a record of 1,051–990–1. He is one of twelve managers to have a thousand wins as manager without having lost a thousand as well. He is also the only manager to have won at least 1,000 games in the major and minor leagues, having won 1,146 in the minors.

Personal life
McKeon currently lives in Elon, North Carolina. Prior to his latest managerial stint, he was serving as a special assistant to Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria.

McKeon is a devout Catholic and attends daily Mass, even doing so while his team was traveling during his managerial career. He attributes much of his success, especially the Marlins' win in the 2003 National League Championship Series, to the intercession of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.

In 1950, McKeon enlisted in the United States Air Force and played for the baseball team at Sampson Air Force Base in New York.

McKeon is the author of two books, Jack of All Trades and I'm Just Getting Started.

McKeon's son, Kasey, was a minor league catcher from 1989 to 1991 before becoming a scout; as of, he is the director of player procurement of the Washington Nationals. Jack McKeon's grandson, Kellan, is a two-time state champion wrestler for Chapel Hill High School and was the captain of the wrestling team at Duke University. McKeon has another grandson, Avery Booker, who is the head baseball coach for Greensboro College in Greensboro, NC

On May 5, 2012, McKeon was inducted into the Fulton County Baseball & Sports Hall of Fame for his achievements with the Gloversville-Johnstown Glovers, in which he played for in 1950 and 1951 in Gloversville, New York. On Tuesday, May 26, 2015, McKeon was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame, along with former Royals slugger Mike Sweeney, broadcaster Dave O'Brien, New York Mets public relations executive Shannon Forde, and Bill Murray, the comedic actor and owner of several minor league baseball teams. In 2017, McKeon was elected into the Padres Hall of Fame.

title: Jack McKeon


text:
Alexandria Blue Anchors

The Alexandria Blue Anchors (formerly known as the Alexandria Beetles) were a baseball team that played in the Northwoods League, an NCAA-sanctioned collegiate summer baseball league. The team played at Knute Nelson Memorial Park in Alexandria, Minnesota. The team was renamed in March 2013 in conjunction with the sale of the team to a new local ownership group.

History
The Alexandria Blue Anchors were founded as the Alexandria Beetles in 2001. In 2013 it was sold to Shane Schmidt, Shaynen Schmidt, Scott Allen, and Adam Barta and renamed the Alexandria Blue Anchors. The new owners failed to make the team financially viable, and it was last in attendance in the Northwoods League for the entire time it was the Blue Anchors. The team folded shortly after the 2015 season.

Since 2016 one night a season, you can still see the Beetles play in the ballpark as the Willmar Stingers become the Alexandria Beetles for a night. It pays homage to a time that once was when Alexandria had their own team. Over the past four seasons, the Willmar Stingers have played as the Beetles they have a 4-1 record. In 2019, the Beetles won a game against the La Crosse Loggers 14-4. On this night over 1,300 people from the community showed up to see their team play with the hope that someday a Northwoods League team will return to Alexandria. In July 2020, the Beetles returned to action in an exhibition game against the Willmar Stingers in a game the Beetles won 9-8. The Beetles have returned to action in 2021.

title: Alexandria Blue Anchors


text:
Chilevisión

Chilevisión (often abbreviated as CHV) is a Chilean free-to-air television channel. It is the third oldest Chilean television network, owned by Paramount Networks Americas,      being founded by the University of Chile on November 4, 1960.

Origins
When the Institute for Electrical Research and Testing of the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the University of Chile informed the rector Juan Gómez Millas, in 1959, that the experiments were already sufficiently advanced to attempt the permanent operation of a canal, this instructs the Secretary-General, Álvaro Bunster, to establish the corresponding contact with the engineers and to provide the necessary elements for its start-up. Thus, from the very beginning, Channel 9 is assumed as an institutional project of the rectory.

Within the University Council, diverse positions were expressed. The deans of the more traditional faculties viewed the initiative with reluctance. They rejected the idea that "the university continues to embark on projects that, in a way, mean becoming a Corfo-Cultural", according to Álvaro Bunster. But some shared cultural extension principles and discovered a powerful tool for it in the new environment. Among these stood out the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Education, Eugenio González, who started a real battle for university television. In its approach, university television is synonymous with cultural television. This position prevailed, and Bunster - the rector's trusted official - was in charge of shaping it.

Thus, in May 1960, the Audiovisual Department was created, reporting directly to the General Secretary. Historian Leopoldo Castedo traveled from Berkeley, United States to assume the first direction of the debuting Audiovisual Department that, apart from the television section, includes the former departments of Experimental Cinema, Cinematheque, and Photography. As Director of the channel, Raúl Aicardi, a journalist with extensive experience in the radio field and, at that time, working in the Office of Film and Radio of the US Embassy, is in charge of the Chair of Audiovisual Journalism. from the School of Journalism. The Bunster-Castedo-Aicardi formula, as the first managers of the channel, expresses the search to guarantee the central political and institutional control of the channel, the cultural management of the station, and technical efficiency in its operation.

Both the selection of people —all administrative or academic from the university—and the generation of a special instance closely linked to the rectory for the start-up show the explicit institutional will to run the channel as a properly university project.

This first stage of Channel 9 coincides with the end of the second term of the rector Juan Gómez Millas, who in cultural matters continues and deepens the principles of the extension of his predecessor Juvenal Hernández. For the rector of modernization, television is justified as a means to "cooperate with public education, a factor favorable to the scientific and technological development of the country, understanding by scientific not only the natural sciences but the set of human disciplines." So much so, that the first project presented by Leopoldo Castedo to define the channel, proposes a “serious study of the insufficiencies of the national educational system so that TV can make up for this deficiency and reach all those people and sectors - especially peasants with its action. and inhabitants of the rural sector— who, for different reasons, have been excluded from education ”.

For his part, Raúl Aicardi defines university TV from a perspective that contributes certain elements more typical of the communicational field, but within the margins that the university authority has dealt with.

Later years
The University of Chile sold a significant percentage of its TV channel to Grupo Cisneros in 1993, changing its name to Chilevisión. It was later sold to Claxson Interactive Group in 2000 and then to late Chilean investor and president Sebastián Piñera in 2006.

On 28 August 2010, it was announced that Turner Broadcasting System Latin America (later WarnerMedia Latin America) had reached an agreement to purchase it. The sale was completed on 6 October 2010. This sale did not include the terrestrial television frequency, which is still owned by Universidad de Chile and is used under a paid usufruct scheme, similar to a lease. This contract expired in 2018 and only affected the analog frequencies used by the station.

On 5 April 2021, it was announced that ViacomCBS had reached an agreement to acquire Chilevisión from WarnerMedia Latin America. The sale was granted approval on July 5, 2021, and completed on October 1, 2021.

Programming
The channel mainly airs talk shows, newscasts and talent shows. It ranks second in TV viewership in the country behind Mega.

Currently its most popular programs of the channel are Contigo en la mañana, Chilevisión Noticias and the local versions of The Voice, La divina comida and Podemos hablar.

Availability overseas
Chilevisión International is the international feed of Chilevisión that broadcasts its programming to audiences in Australia/Oceania. The channel launched in October 2007 in Australia and the following year in New Zealand on UBI World TV. The TVN-owned TV Chile subscription channel also broadcasts limited Chilevisión programming throughout the Americas for the Chilean diaspora.

Broadcasting of Teletón
Since its start in 1978, Chilevisión has broadcast Teletón, but scandals have happened of profits from the campaign going to some of the channels, including Chilevisión. Other scandals include program changes during the event, strikes from employees, and fights for the right to keep broadcasting from the government.

In 2012, Chilevisión endured controversy over journalistic ethics. On 16 January 2012, an interview aired that the interviewee, Inés Perez, was a deep class. The interview produced strong reactions, even leading social networking groups against the affected woman. The reactions returned against the broadcaster (two days after the full interview) because Pérez discriminated against assumptions and put everything in context. In response, he defended the accuracy and dismissed the officer who leaked the full video, causing even more adverse reactions among viewers.

2019 advertisement pulling controversy
In 2019, businessman Juan Sutil and food company Agrosuper decided to pull their ads. This action included some of Agrosuper's brand Super Pollo, from CNN Chile and Chilevision, purportedly because of a CNN Chile show named "Agenda Agricola", which has shown videos of anti-government protests.

title: Chilevisión