He continued to paint (he had had exhibitions in Paris, in 1958 and during the 1960s) and held a major exhibition in Marseilles in 1983. He remained an impressive monument for what might have been in Algeria.Jean Pandrigue de Maisonseul, architect, town planner, artist: born Algiers 1912; married (one daughter); died Cuers, France 3 June 1999.. NICKNAMES, AFFECTIONATE and otherwise, have been common in baseball since before the turn of the century. Some are legendary: George Herman Ruth Jnr was known variously as “The Babe”, “The Sultan of Swat” and “The Bambino”, whilst Joe DiMaggio was both “Joltin’ Joe” and “The Yankee Clipper”. The shortstop Harold “Pee Wee” Reese was so named because he had been a teenage marbles champion whilst Reggie Jackson is forever “Mr October” in tribute to his efforts in five World Series. “Ducky” Medwick’s unusual gait led to his unfortunate nickname while Ernie Lombardi’s large nose gave rise to his, “Schnoz”.
Eddie Stanky was known, quite simply, as “The Brat”. Originally dubbed “The Brat from Kensington”, in reference to the north Philadelphia neighbourhood of his birth, he was a short, fiery second baseman with a reputation for antagonising opposing players, hence the tag.

Phil Rizzuto, the New York Yankees’ catcher, said of him, “He plays a snarling, dog-eat-dog kind of baseball”.When at bat he would distract the pitcher by moving around the batter’s box and repeatedly fouling balls, making it very difficult to throw strikes. A batter walks (advances to first base) following four pitches outside the strike zone, and Stanky became a master of the tactic, long holding the single season National League record: 148 in 1945. In 1969 Jim Wynn of the Houston Astros equalled his record before it was successively broken by Barry Bonds, who walked 151 times in 1996, and then “Home Run King” Mark McGwire, who last year drew 162. Stanky, however, demonstrated a remarkable consistency at the peak of his career, drawing 137 walks in 1946, 144 in 1950 and 127 in 1951.On the field, too, he aggravated, often waving his arms to distract batters as the pitcher pitched, a practice that saw him cautioned unsuccessfully by the National League President Ford Frick.An effective performer, Stanky played with three pennant-winning teams: the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, the 1948 Boston Braves and the 1951 New York Giants and had a lifetime batting average – calculated by dividing the number of hits by official times at bat, carried to three decimal places – of .268. He formed a potent partnership with the shortstop and team captain Alvin Dark whilst with the Giants and when Bobby Thompson hit his pennant-winning home run against the Dodgers in 1951, the so-called “Shot Heard Round the World”, he jumped on the back of his manager Leo Durocher in celebration and passed into baseball folklore.The following year Stanky joined the St Louis Cardinals as player-manager, remaining with them until 1955. As manager he advocated the concept of the designated hitter, a hitter who substitutes for the pitcher when his team are at bat, but it took some 20 years before formal adoption of the idea in the game and then only by the American League.

He briefly managed the Chicago White Sox and in 1977 the Texas Rangers, for just one game, before quitting because he felt homesick. In all he notched up a Major League win-loss record of 467-435.He enjoyed greater success at college level, coaching at the University of South Alabama, Mobile, for some 14 years. He later recalled: “I had played in beautiful parks with beautiful locker rooms. At South Alabama, I inherited a rock-pile for a ball field with no dugouts, a four-foot- high fence around it and no grass on the infield.” Despite the initially adverse conditions he went on to achieve a win-loss record of 488-193 and steered the college to five NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) tournaments and two Sun Bell conference titles. He retired in 1983.Pete Phillips, who played under Stanky at South Alabama, remembered that, in some ways at least, “The Brat” hadn’t changed: “He was hard to play for. He accepted no excuses, but he showed responsibility for us as a ballplayer and as a person.”Edward Raymond Stanky, baseball player: born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 3 September 1917; married (one son, three daughters): died Fairhope, Alabama 6 June 1999.. JOAN FITZGERALD was probably the most influential partner of a premier in modern Irish history.

She colluded so closely with her husband Garret Fitzgerald when he was twice Taoiseach in the 1980s that many found it hard to establish where the influence of one ended and the other began. The then foreign minister and deputy premier Peter Barry recalled her as “a huge source of strength” for her husband. “Her sensible counselling and deep knowledge of politics meant that he frequently sought her advice.” Each was instinctively devoted to the other, with attributes that perfectly complemented the other’s.
Although disabled for over two decades by crippling arthritis which weakened her spine (an illness complicated by a glandular condition), Joan Fitzgerald nevertheless remained deeply involved in Ireland’s political life during a period of violent upheavals.She had known both her husband Garret, her junior by two years, and his chief rival Charles Haughey since their time together in University College Dublin in the 1940s, where she studied Economics. She had well-formed liberal views but her commitment was less to the centre-right Fine Gael cause than to her husband personally. In younger days she had voted for the Fianna Fail founder Eamon de Valera.She was born Joan O’Farrell to Irish parents in Liverpool. Her father had worked for the British diplomatic service in Africa and returned with malaria. After developing a progressively worsening mental illness, he was hospitalised at Bray near Dublin following violent outbursts.

Joan and her mother moved to live with her aunt and godmother in Switzerland, before returning to Dublin at the age of 10.She blossomed at University College Dublin, enjoying a hectic social life rather more than her economics studies She met her future husband at a college society in 1943. He proposed to her two years later, was rebuffed, but tried again with more success later in the year. Fearful her father’s mental illness might be congenital, she was initially wary of having a family herself.Their early home life was untroubled: he worked as research and schedules manager for Aer Lingus, and the family lived in a large house in leafy Eglinton Road in Dublin’s Ballsbridge area. After Fitzgerald moved into the teaching and journalistic fields, then politics (he was a Senator from 1965 and a TD – the Irish equivalent of an MP – from 1969 to 1992), their circumstances became more difficult. They decamped to a more modest home further south in Goatstown. On Garret’s return to power as foreign minister in the 1970s they moved again to more spacious accommodation in Palmerston Road.After serving as foreign minister under Liam Cosgrave, Garret Fitzgerald replaced him as Fine Gael leader in 1977.