March 17th-St. Patricks day, Nat King Cole, Lovin' Spoonful, Kurt Russel, Gary Sinise, Rob Lowe, Leah Amico

0:18 Hello, everyone, I am Jeff and welcome to History and Factory. Is about today? Today is March the seventeenth, Now my co host today. She's just totally cool. Not only is she a Hall of Fame softball player, she's actually one of the greatest hitters of all time. Nowadays, she is so much more. It's gonna be fun to hear all about her. Lea, why don't you introduce yourself? Yeah, I'm Leah Amiko. I'm a three time Olympic gold medalist with USA Softball, a two time world champion with them, and I really got my big start in college at the University of Arizona, where I also won three national championships. And I am married to my husband Tommy for twenty six years, and I'm a mom of three young adult boys.

0:58 You know, we got one wander that I think gets underrated pretty much, not just in softball, are you, but pretty much along. You were a three time All American academic too, weren't you? Yes, I was, And I actually loved telling people about that because the school did not come as easy for me, and I had to work really, really hard. But I feel like that same effort and focused allowed me to really excel on the field when I was able to do something that I was passionate about and I felt was a little bit more natural for me. So you just went one of those natural kids. You had to really work at it in softball, Oh, I. Had to work. I think I worked harder than most people. And there was just something inside of me that was like, I have to do my very best. I really want good results, and that just continued to drive me day after day.

1:44 Still does too. Yes, and everything I do, well, that's great. Notes. You know what alse happened on March seventeenth today, don't you. It's pretty obvious. Yes, I'm. The tiniest men that you have seen if you ever catch me. So it's told how good you might be taught of gold. Today is Saint Patrick's Day. Today we celebrate Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity into Ireland. See today also celebrates the high Irish heritage, their culture. You know, in general, it's basically the one of the biggest one day festivals in the world and pretty much every country celebrates it.

2:30 See you pundering why do we wear green? Well, it makes you invisible to leprechauns. See leprechauns. They like to pinch people that they can actually see. So yeah, everybody's Irish today. The Catholic Church, they started recognizing Saint Patrick's Day back in sixteen eighty one, see March seventeenth. It usually falls during lint, and you can't drink during lint, so they thought just giving everybody a nice break for one day and letting them all drink would be a good excuse. But the first Saint Patrick's Day, prey, it's actually older. The first Saint Patrick's Day Bread yeah, held then the Saint Augusta, Florida in sixteen oh one. Now Sat Patrick Stakes always being a lot bigger in the United States than over in Ireland. Ireland they really didn't celebrate it. But then in the nineteen seventies they were watching what was going on in the United States with all the parades and party and they said, hey, we want to partake in that. So now they actually celebrate Saint Patrick's Day in Ireland too. So yeah, I wish you all the best of the luckily Irish with you out today. So you're California girl, what took you down to Tucson for the UFA to play softball.

3:23 You know, the opportunity to get a college scholarship. I actually had Long Beach State, which was very close down the road, that asked me to come and offer me a scholarship as well. But I took one visit to the University of Arizona in Tucson, and I absolutely fell in love with the campus, the athletes, the coaches, and I went to a football game and that was it. I just thought it was nothing like my southern California football games and honestly ended up being the biggest blessing. Ended up being really the best place for me. Everything in Tucson is surrounded around the university, so for us to be able to play and be one of the top teams in the country, Long Beach Stay at the time was also top in the country. But I feel like in Tucson was where you got all the attention and it was really a great place to thrive.

4:09 And you guys definitely did thrive, won three titles while you were there. Now it's been almost I don't want to date you or anything, but it's been almost thirty years. Do you still hold the highest batting average in the women's college Words series? I do. I hit seven to fifty. My sophomore year went nine for twelve, had a few walks, sack hits, and you know, I think back to like, I don't even know how that happened. It was the best experience ever. And the fact that it has remained for three decades is really insane. Man, you talk about being in the zone, right, that might be one of those what he got work that Joe Demajio fifty six game hitting streaks, that's almost unattainable. Thenbody, don't want air embarrass you there, but you did good?

4:53 Yeah, No, I honestly I think back and actually I didn't even know it until many years later when I was working at the women College World Series calling radio, and I saw records book and it outlined every year, and I did not realize that three out of my four years there I actually led in batting average at the Women's College World Series. So three out of four I was hitting over five hundred, and obviously that included the seven to fifty mark. And that is incredible. All right, let's see happen in entertainment on March seventeenth, It's back to your nineteen ninety The number one album was Forever Your Girl by Paula Abdell. Jennet Jackson had the number one song with Escapade. Raddy Travis had the number one country song with hard Rock Bottom of My Heart.

5:54 I Keep Waiting you too? Did you keep saying? Kny Star? Hell up these logging star. To. The number one book was The Burn Ultimatum by Robert Lendlham. The top movie was The Hunt for the Red October. The Soviet's best submarine captain. He heads for the United States and an undetectable submarine. Now the United States has to figure out if he's detected, defecting, or he wants to start a war. Stars Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin and James Earl Jones twenty fifteen at a St. Patrick's Date concert over in Brussels, Belgium, the band The Script. They bought all eight thousand people at the concert to drink so according to the Guinness Book of World's Records, that is the largest round ever paid for. So do you do any coaching and clinics and that kind of stuff?

6:54 I for so long had done clinics around the entire country. I do a full here and there now actually coach internationally. I coach team Israel, the junior national team. So this summer I'll be in Spain with them and as well as in Vancouver, so a lot of opportunities to continue to share the game. And actually I'm also taking a cruise in August. I'm out of New York with softball players that want to come and cruise and play some softball. Well that sounds fun, So I'm betting is the biggest question you get for Well, I guess it transfers to the boys too. How do you keep the kids from being afraid of the ball?

7:34 Oh? Gosh, you know what I tell them? Because I actually had an athlete a long time ago I worked with and the main thing that I did was I got her thinking all the things she was trying to do. And if she's thinking about what she's trying to do, she's not as worried about what she doesn't want to happen. And so all of a sudden, she went from this athlete who was jumping away on every single pitch to becoming the best hitter on her team. Well, that have really good advice there. All right, let's see what happened in March seventeen h There is more to Saint Patrick's day than from March seventeenth and White Air say, it just so happens that you have the Catholics. They use it to drink. But a sixteen year old boy who'd become Saint Patrick, he was captured by Irish pirates. Yeah, he was in his hometown in Great Britain. They'd throw him on a boat and took him over to Ireland.

8:17 So he was sold as a slave. When he got there, he worked six years before he was able to escape. When he went home, he became a priest and then a bishop. Then he returned to Ireland. He wanted to teach that pagan country all about Christianity. Then Saint Patrick he died on March seventeenth and for sixty one. You know anything else that happened in England in like eighteen forty five, I. Thought you were going to do a clip fork. In eighteen forty five in London, England, Stephen Perry invented the rubber band. That is something that's helped us a lot. That's a bigger invention than you might have got. In eighteen ninety eight, off the coast of Staten Island, John Philip Hollands successfully tested the world's first modern submarine. It stayed submerged for one hour and forty minutes. And then in nineteen fifty, scientists at the University of California announced they had discovered the elephant. Elephant, no sorry. And then in nineteen fifty, scientists at the University of California announced they had discovered the element California. It's number ninety eight on your periodic table. It's radioactive and man made, the second heaviest of all the elements and the most expensive.

9:38 It costs twenty seven million a gram. They only can make half a gram a year. What can it be used for? Detecting oil and water levels in oil wells and detecting metal fatigueing airplanes, So basically nothing you can't do manually for a lot less. Yeah, that's a lot of money for a rock. I guess. Nineteen fifty eight, the United States they lunch. Their second satellite in this space was the Vanguard one. It was to measure the shape of the Earth. Now, get this, that's it was only six inches across, but it was the first satellite that was powered by the Sun. Now it went silent in nineteen sixty four, but still up there just circling around us, waiting to fall the earth. I think they think it'll be about tw hundred and fifty years before it comes down. Now, this story, it just cracks me up. For some reason, I just think it sounds so funny. In twenty twenty in Africa, over one thousand cows arrived on the Angola border. See, they came from the country of Chad. Chad decided they were going to start paying Angola back the one hundred million dollars that they owed them.

10:34 Bop dop doped. Dop shog thish shive birth day were gonna tar he left this shiverbfday. We don't simple targe he like this shive birthday and you know we don't give birthday. Yeah, we'll get I hit that button a little early before we talk about birthdays. You got something really cool called the gold Standard. You want to tell us about that? Yeah. I've been speaking for a lot of years and really just would answer the call when people say, hey, can you come speak to our team, our organization, our company, our league, And I really would just say, what's my audience? Who I want to talk to? But more recently, as I've continued to have more and more engagements and opportunities.

11:15 I realized that what is my branding, what is the main message? Then, no matter where I go, I want to make sure to include and I've titled that the gold Standard. I wrote a book on it called the Gold Standard Fourteen Ways to Live a Life of Excellence. And really the key behind it is that every single one of us has the opportunity every single day to make an impact, especially when we show up as our best. And I realized that I had talent in my sport. I would not have become an Olympian without it, but more than that, especially at the higher levels, I was outmatched in talent many times with speed, power, but never with heart, passion, hard work, attitude. And so I talk a lot about the choices that we make to lead to excellence, and you know, it's really about the journey, really focusing on what you are doing and allowing the results to take care of themselves. And so for me, the Gold Standards all about excellence, but it's about choice based and how we can give our best.

12:09 That is really cool. So what do you do with your three gold medals? Are they in a display case or something? They are not? I keep them tucked away safely, and then when I'm on the road and i'm speaking, I allow everyone to see them and hold them and wear them. Many times, I think my medals have been around more next then I don't know most people, they have been all over the country, they've been all over the world. And for me, that's that's part of the fun, is sharing them. Most people say, I've never seen a gold medal. I've never touched a gold medal, and I love sharing it with people of all ages. It is cool. I mean, if you have you're basically your If there is the gold standard, it's nice to have a free gold medal sitting there going around your neck too. Yeah, that helps, That helps give me a little credibility.

12:52 All right, let's go back to some birthdays. Let's see what Nat King Cole was doing. Forgettable. That's what you are. Unforgettable only of Funnt Kinkole. He was born in Montgomery, Alabama, in nineteen nineteen. He started out as a into jazz music before he slid over into pop in mainstream music. Now he had over one hundred hit songs. Some of them are unforgettable. Smile, let their be, Let Their Be, Love Mona Lisa Startist sold over fifty million records. Was the Shoes back in that time. Married a second wife in nineteen forty eight and they had five children. One of them is singer Latin Natalie Coole and Now. He died from lung cancer in nineteen sixty five, only forty five years old. Actor Junus Grayson. She was born in Croydon, England, in nineteen twenty.

13:54 She was the first James Bond girl. Yeah. She was James Bond's love interest in the first two Bond movies, Doctor Noen from MRC I Would Love Now. She played Sylvia Trench, so they didn't get into the runch he nicknamed yet now. Her other biggest movie is probably Revenge of Frankenstein. She divorced twice. She had a daughter from her second Asin you know. She died in twenty eighteen at ninety years old. Imagine Benny turtles Halls the music whenever it son since it's bad, gives the music. It makes you feel happy like an old time. I'll tell you about to imagine. To tell us aangel, Malla Rush.

14:38 That was John Sebastian singing for the Love and Spoonful. He's eighty one was born in New York City. His parents were in show business. His godmother was Vivian Vance, the actress who played ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy. John started out playing his harmonica in blues bands. Then he helped form Love and Spoonful in nineteen sixty four. They got their name from a TV commercial for maxwell Ha Coffee. They're in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They had these hits Summer in the city. Did you ever have to make up your mind? Dreamer? Do you believe in magic? They broke up in nineteen sixty eight. John went solo. His biggest hit, My Friends. They all land.

15:18 Welcome Back. Your dreams were your ticket? Uh, Welcome bad that same old place that you left bat Well. The names they. All change since you've hung around. But those dreams every day and they're turning around. Yep. John Sebastian had the theme song for the TV show Welcome Back. Hodder went to number one in nineteen seventy six. John married his third wife in nineteen seventy two, and they have two children. Actor Patrick Daffy Duffy was born let me say it again, sure. Patrick Duffy was born in Towns in Montana. He's seventy six. He's most known for TV. Started out starring in The Man from Atlantis, then was Bobby Ewing on Dallas. Was on Step by Step with Suzanne Semer's for seven years. He married in nineteen seventy four. They had two children. His wife died in twenty seventeen.

16:19 Actor Kurt Russell's seventy four. He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He started acting at twelve years old on TV nineteen seventies. He was Disney's biggest movie star. Made over a dozen movies for Disney. Some of them are like The Computer Work, Tennis is Strongest Man in the World, Super Dead. Then he made that rare leap. He went from child superstar to add an adult star. Made over seventy movies as an adult, Escaped from New York, The Thing Overboard, Tombstone, Yeah, some of them. He played Elvis twice. Do you know what movies he played Elvis in? Well, actually, he's not fair to you. He actually did one in the TV movie where he actually played Elvis. Then he played Elvis again in the movie Forrest Gump, and it's just kind of a small scene in there. He had a son from his first wife if they were there for four years.

17:01 After they divorced, he got with Goldie On. They've been together since nineteen eighty three and they have a son. Actor Gary Sinisee is seventy. He was born in Blue Island, Illinois. Now. He was also in Forrest Gump. He was nominated for an Oscar for playing Lieutenant Day and he was also in a Paulo thirteen, The Green Mile, The Quick Than the Dead Ransom Mission to Mars on TV start on CSI, New York for nine years. Now. After all his success as an actor, he's actually a more successful humanitarian. He is a huge supporter of American military personnel and veterans, received over twenty humanitarian awards over the year. And yes, he did marry in nineteen eighty one and they have three children. My friends, they all like me. Ela sam My back and told me how the thought I was insane. He said, son, you're too young. Where the Bowland chain b don't you like spalls?

17:59 Change country singer Paul Overstreet it's also seventy. He was born in Van Cleeve, Mississippi. He is a very successful song songwriter. You might know some of the artists he's written songs for that became number one hits. Randy Travis, Keith Whitley, Blake, Selt, Blake Shelton, The Judds, Kenny Chesney, Tanya Tucker. It's just to name a few. He's had a lot of success solo as well. Some of his hits love helps Those, I See my father and Me, Daddy's Come Around, Ball and Chain. His first wife was Dolly Parton's younger sister, Frieda. They were only married a couple of years. He married his second wife in nineteen eighty five. They have six kids. Actor Rob Lowe is sixty one. He's born in Charlottesville, Virginia. When Rob was a baby, he got mumps, went undiagnosed, ended up losing all the hearing in his right ear. So yeah, he's still deaf in his right ear. His first move was a first Move. His first movie was The Outsiders, then Class Saint Almos, Fire, About Last Night, a couple awesome power movies on TV. He also starred in West Wing, Parks and Recreation, Brothers and Sisters. Currently, he is on nine to one one Lone Start and he hosts the game show The Floor. Yes. Actor chadlow is His younger brother Rob married in nineteen ninety one and they have two sons.

19:25 So you also do some softball analysis, don't you. I do. I do postseason for collegiate softball with ESPN. I do regionals, done that for about seventeen eighteen seasons now and so kind of keep my eyes open throughout the season. I'm doing my own traveling and speaking, and then when it gets to the end, I get to see the teams that who have ended up on top. Oh cool. Shakedown ninety so. Kids ne. That was Billy Corgan, singing lead for the span of Smashing Pumpkins. He's fifty eight, born in Chicago. He formed Smashing Pumpkins in nineteen eighty eight. Sings le eight, plays the guitars, right sellers and song songs. Yeah, he's only the original original member still there now their biggest that's our bullet with Butterfly Wings nineteen seventy nine, zero tonight. Now, Billy he's really big into professional wrestling. He actually owns a National Wrestling Association of the NWA. Yeah, so he if you end up pro wrestling, yeah, you'll probably see Billy doing somewhere around there. Married once for four years him and his second wife. They have two children. Now we've talked about you doing that the gold standard and all that work. Can people actually contact you and come see you speak? How can they get a hold of you?

20:55 Yeah? My website is Leah Amico dot com. L E A H A M I c O. Some people say Amaco, but it's a miko. And I'm on social media. My Twitter is Leah twenty USA. You always keep that number twenty with you and as well as Instagram it's the same handle. So yeah, definitely can find me there. You could google my name and you'll find a lot of different options and views of different things that I've been a part of. Just one of the things that I've always laughed at is I was very versatile as an athlete. I played one year as a picture at Arizona, then two years in centerfield. In my last year as first baseman Olympics, I played two in rifled and one at first base, and so moved around a lot. And I'm also versatile in all the different things that I do as well.

21:42 That's true. Member, she's street time All American academic, so you know she's smart too. Listen to so you gonna do any celebrating on Saint Patrick's Day. You know what, I'm actually going to be home with my family. We might, you know, might have to just make some green eggs and ham or something like that. I'm not really sure. But you know, it's funny because I actually went out to a tournament locally here at Fullerton, and I remember in college that was always when Saint Patrick's Day fell, was when I was playing and competing, and just brings me back those memories. Cool. The oldest bar in the world, I guess since the Saint Patrick's Day we probably know. It's in Ireland now. It's called Shawn's Bar. It's actually eleven hundred years old.

22:23 It was back made back in the nine hundreds. Now let's have our quote of the day. It is by the man himself, Saint Patrick's. He said, the Lord is the greatest of all. I have said enough. You know what, Lea, It's been really fun talking to you man. I really appreciate you being here. Thank you so much, Jeff. I've had a great time. And we and every show. We have an internet radio station called Country Interground Radio where we play the best up and coming country artists and independent artists today. Are artist today digit Ronelle. She's gonna have her song ghost Towns. You guys have an awesome Saint Patrick's Day and we'll talk tomorrow. Study it safe to go, let's set. But I guess song thought our co take glue d just to see what was going on.

23:09 Boy, No, it's. Been a while while since you've been gone. A swell home and. Baby t see you freewhere. Round every corner, camp back, roast up, signed. Down Black Street a lagoa round every. Highway drive with that so so song on my Redium at a Pine time, on vaccine my cors sounds crazy and now but you just came pay in a round. You got me there, Anna, ghost town Boys, you'd never wrote out go down them or read me about to throw Town