Daily Archives: January 9, 2022

There might not be any Philadelphia Phillies elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022, so instead of looking forward, lets take a minute to look back.

On January 8, 1995, Mike Schmidt was officially elected to the Hall. He is, without a doubt, one of the greatest players in franchise history, if notthe greatest.

Schmidt spent his entire professional career with the Phillies, who drafted him in the second round of the 1971 June draft. The 22-year-old infielder debuted on September 12, 1972, and would spend 18 years in a Phillies uniform.

Over those 18 years and 2,404 regular-season games, Schmidt hit.267/.380/.527 with a.908 OPS. He hit 548 career home runs, including 13 seasons of 30+ home runs, and is one of only 18 players in MLB history to hit four home runs in a game. Heled MLB in home runs six times, including three years in a row between 1974-76, and frequently led in on-base, slugging, OPS, OPS+, and total bases.

Schmidt finished his career with 10 Gold Glove awards, including nine consecutively between 1976-84. He was a Silver Slugger six times and elected to 12 All-Star Games. He won three MVP awards, including going back-to-back in 1980-81.

The third baseman was instrumental to the Phillies winning their first-ever championship in 1980. On October 4, his 11th-inning home run against the Montreal Expos won the Phillies the NL East and cemented his first MVP season.

During that postseason, Schmidt hit.289/.353/.467 with a.820 OPS, a pair of doubles, and a pair of home runs. In addition to a World Series ring, Schmidt won World Series MVP for his efforts.

Despite being an All-Star in his age-39 season, Schmidt retired abruptly early that year. On May 29, 1989, he suddenly announced that he was retiring, saying he felt like a shadow of the player [he] used to be.

However, the player he used to be will forever be one of the greatest to wear a Phillies uniform. He is the franchise leader in WAR among position players, Offensiveand Defensive WAR, games played, plate appearances, runs scored, total bases, home runs, RBI, walks, runs created, adjusted batting runs and wins, extra-base hits, times on base, sacrifice flies, intentional walks, WPA, and championship WPA.

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This day in Phillies history: Mike Schmidt elected to Hall of Fame (January 8, 1995) - That Balls Outta Here

After needing a seriously long lie down to process that crazy 2021 F1 season, were now ready and super excited for 2022. With just over two months until we go racing again (yippee), it got us thinking what the longest and shortest wait between two F1 seasons have been.

With so many races now on the calendar, it can sometimes feel like theres no rest between races. In 1950 there were only seven races, up to 15 by 1973, and F1 crossed over the 20 races threshold in 2012.

The 2021 season was the longest in F1 history, stretching from the Bahrain Grand Prix on March 28th and ending in Abu Dhabi on December 12th with a whopping 22 races!

With more races and a calendar that finishes in mid-December, its left the winter break steadily shrinking over the past decade.

The gap between the 2010 season-finale to the 2011 season opener was 134 days. However, if everything goes according to plan, the record-breaking 23-race calendar for 2022 will reduce the break to only 99 days.

So will this be the shortest winter break yet?Surprisingly not.

The 99 days that separate the chequered flag to lights out is the joint-fifth shortest gap in F1 history, tied with 1973-4, 1974-5 and 1979-80. Yet the off-season is the shortest since the 1981-82 break.

To find the record for the shortest-ever winter break, youll need to go all the way back to F1s first decade in existence. Off the back of Aussie Jack Brabhams first World Championship title in 1959, the 1960 grid were back in action only 58 days later.

The tiny 58-day gap is the result of the last race finishing at the Sebring on December 12th and the 1960 season getting underway unusually early in Argentina on February 7th.

In total, 11 seasons have had winter breaks under 100 days but none in the past 40 years; there were 78 days between 1976 and 1997, 85 days from 1954-55 and 1977-8 and three 99-days-long.

Bizarrely, despite how long the seemingly never-ending wait felt between the 2019 and 2020 seasons due to the coronavirus pandemic, it wasnt actually the longest of all time. The gap between Lewis Hamilton sealing his sixth F1 championship in Abu Dhabi on December 1st 2019, to Lando Norris maiden podium at the Red Bull Ring on July 5th 2020, was a whopping 218 days.Crikey!

Yet it was 49 days shy of the longest ever off-season, following the first World Championship in 1950. 267 days separated the two seasons.However, this doesnt tell the full story as there were plenty of non-championship F1 races happening; they just didnt count towards the title.

The last time a winter break reached over 200 days was in 1961-62. As the calendars extended, more flyaways were added, and the setup became increasingly formalised, including pre-season testing.

However, as F1 bosses continue to push for more races worldwide featuring double and triple-headers, theres not going to be enough days to fit all the racing in!

Are the winter breaks getting too short? Let us know in the comments below.

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What Are The Shortest And Longest Winter Breaks In F1 History? - WTF1

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Church history scholar to discuss 'Americanization of Cache Valley' - The Herald Journal

Three men with deep Pittsburgh-area connections played key roles in what's considered one of the greatest upsets in sports history.

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Super Bowl III was the first championship game to bear the trademark Super Bowl name. Played on Jan. 12, 1969 at the Orange Bowl in Miami, the game pitted the AFL Champion New York Jets against the NFL Champion Baltimore Colts. The Jets were 19 points underdogs.

Three days before the game, Jets quarterback Joe Namath stunned reporters and fans alike by personally guaranteeing his teams victory. Those who scoffed at the prediction could only shake their heads when the Jets stunned the Colts 16-7.

Three men with deep Pittsburgh-area connections played key roles in whats considered one of the greatest upsets in sports history.

Namath, who was born in Beaver Falls, led his high school football team to the WPIAL Class AA championship with a 9-0 record. Namath also was a standout guard in basketball and outfielder in baseball and after graduation, received offers from several Major League baseball teams including the Pirates, Yankees, Indians, Phillies and Reds. Explaining that his mother wanted him to get a college education Namath accepted a football scholarship from Coach Paul Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama. Namath led the Crimson Tide to a National Championship in 1964. A year later, drafted by the Jets, he was named AFL Rookie of the year.

On the other side of the field in Super Bowl III was another Pittsburgh native, Johnny Unitas, who was considered one of the greatest NFL players of all time. Unitas, a graduate of St. Justins High School in Pittsburgh, attended the University of Louisville where injuries hampered his performance during his senior year. The Steelers drafted Unitas in the ninth round, but he was cut by head coach Walt Kiesling who didnt think Unitas was smart enough to quarterback an NFL team. The Colts thought he had potential and signed Unitas in 1956. A year later, his first as a full-time starter, Unitas led the league in passing yards, touchdown passes and was named the NFLs Most Valuable Player. He would earn MVP honors again in 1964 and 1967 and lead the Colts to championship titles in 1958, 1959, 1968 and Super Bowl V. Injured during Super Bowl III, Unitas came off the bench, engineering the Colts only touchdown drive late in the game.

The final Pittsburgh connection to Super Bowl III was a defensive backfield coach named Chuck Noll. A day after the loss to the Jets, Noll interviewed for the head coaching job with the Steelers.

Learn more about the citys past at The Odd, Mysterious & Fascinating History of Pittsburgh Facebook page.

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This Week in Pittsburgh History: The Local Connections to a Super Bowl Upset - Pittsburgh Magazine

Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Powerful political forces in China, Russia and the United States are currently engaged in aggressive attempts to rewrite history to consolidate political positions and, as Orwell states, control the future. Examine the following.

In China: For decades, the Chinese Communist Party has ferociously attempted to erase the history of the 1980s movement for democracy. On the mainland, Chinese authorities ban any memorials or public commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen protests for liberty and democracy. Human rights scholars estimate that close to 1,000 civilians lost their lives, and over 900 were wounded in the Tiananmen massacre when the Communist government brutally suppressed the protestors. The Chinese Communist Party subsequently banned discussion of the massacre and labeled democracy organizers as counter-revolutionaries.

The former British colony of Hong Kong had been the only place on Chinese soil where pro-democracy protesters killed in Tiananmen Square could be commemorated. This changed in December 2021 as Chinese authorities moved to squelch these remembrances. Three public monuments dedicated to the memory of the 1989 Tiananmen protests were forcibly removed including: a 20-foot bronze Goddess of Democracy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; a Tiananmen massacre wall relief sculpture at Hong Kongs Lingnan University; and a 26-foot statue known as the Pillar of Shame at the University of Hong Kong, which commemorated the pro-democracy protesters killed during the Tiananmen crackdown. Chinese artist Chen Weiming stated: They (the Chinese communists) want to remove the real history of the brutal crackdown. They wouldnt allow any different viewpoints to continue to exist in Hong Kong.

In Russia: In December 2021, the Russian government shut down the most prominent human rights organization, Memorial International. Memorials work focused on the identification and commemoration of the millions of victims of Stalinist purges and labor camps. The organization chronicled the persecutions of the Stalin labor camps and attempted to preserve the memory of its victims. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov and other dissidents founded the organization over three decades ago. Putin labeled the organization as foreign agents and supporters of terrorism. The Russian Supreme Court supported Putin and ruled that Memorial must close and be liquidated.

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Putin seeks to mold public opinion around a positive view of the former USSR and soften the image of Stalins regime. Putin thus focuses on the glorious accomplishments of the former Soviet Union as a powerful superpower. According to The New York Times, the Kremlin has moved aggressively to remove interpretations of Russian history by organizations it does not control. Stalins tough rule can appeal to many Russian citizens facing an insecure future and provide a rationale for Putin to continue to amass authoritarian political power.

In the U.S.: Republican Party leadership is attempting to reframe the history of the Jan. 6 riot and insurrection as no big deal. PolitiFact labeled the Republican deluge of justifications, excuses and conspiracy theories the Lie of the Year for 2021. PolitiFacts list of Republicans lies include: falsely claiming that the riot was instigated by left-wing activists; likening the event to a normal tourist visit; denying the visible and filmed role of white supremacists and far-right militia groups in the riot; suggesting that the whole affair was staged by the government; and claiming that the rioters were now held as political prisoners.

America has never before experienced such a violent attempt by an organized mob to prevent the peaceful democratic transfer of power to a new administration. We were all witnesses and can confirm Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonells description of officers punched, kicked, shoved, sprayed with chemical irritants and even blinded with eye-damaging lasers by a violent mob. We saw the insurrection cause $1.5 million in property damage. We saw the rioters brandishing bats, crutches, flagpoles, skateboards, hockey sticks, knives, zip ties, chemical sprays, a fire extinguisher and other makeshift weapons. The University of Illinois Cline Center for Advanced Social Research stated that the Jan. 6 attack qualified as an attempted coup.

Yet many Republican leaders seem intent on whitewashing the demonstrable facts about Jan. 6 in order to cover for the anti-democratic actions of the Trump administration. Their strategy is working. According to an ABC News-Ipsos survey published on Jan 3, 52 percent of Republicans believed that those involved in the attack on the Capitol were protecting democracy; and 40 percent of Republicans stated that violent actions could be justified. The continuous repetition of lies about Jan. 6 have an impact and are difficult to overcome. Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol stated: The effort to rewrite history in the service of political power goals is not unheard of in America or anywhere else. What is brazen is the history they want to rewrite includes pictures of what actually happened.

Once a lie is accepted as common knowledge, it can take decades to undo the damage. For example, the lie that the Civil War in the United States was about protecting Southern culture and not about slavery significantly helped prevent civil rights protections for African-Americans for over 100 years. The myths about the Tiananmen Square massacre will help to hold back current movements for democracy in China. Putins revisionist history of Stalinism will help to push public opinion to accept an authoritarian leader and dismiss human rights. Republican attempts to conceal and misrepresent the Jan. 6 insurrection has already invigorated white nationalists and caused many others to question the viability of American democracy itself.

George Orwell was prescient. Through controlling our understanding of the past, leaders around the world today hope to control our future.

William F. Felice is professor emeritus of political science at Eckerd College He is the author of six books on human rights and international relations. He can be reached via his website at williamfelice.com.

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What happens when Russia, China and the US erase history | Column - Tampa Bay Times

All the Colts had to do to make the playoffs was beat the hapless 2-14 Jacksonville Jaguars. They came into the game as 15.5-point favorites ... and they lost. Now their playoff hopes are on life support.

Given the circumstances win and they're in, against the worst team in the league it's fair to ask: Is this the worse season-finale loss in NFL history?

Here are some other possibilities since the NFL went to a 16-game season:

The 2008 Buccaneers came into their season finale against the 4-11 Raiders needing a win tokeep their playoff hopes alive (and they would've made it in, since Dallas beat Philadelphia). They were 10.5-point favorites, but lost at home 31-24. Tampa Bay led 24-14 with 11:27 to go in the game, but the Raiders scored the last 17 points. Coach Jon Gruden, playing his former team, was fired following the season.

Updates: Colts are getting blown out by Jaguars

The 2006 Broncos would've made the playoffs with a win at home against San Francisco (who was 6-9), but lost 26-23 in overtime. Denver tied the game late in the fourth quarter, but the 49ers won with an overtime field goal.

The Lions could have made the playoffs with a win over the 4-11 Bears. Detroitcame into the game as 10-point favorites at home. Detroit led 10-0 in the first quarter and 17-13 in the fourth.The Bears won, 23-20,on a field goal with two seconds left.

The next season, the Lions would go 2-14. They wouldn't have a winning season until 2011.

Follow IndyStar trending sports reporterMatthew VanTryon on Twitter @MVanTryon and email him story ideas at matthew.vantryon@indystar.com.

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Did the Colts just suffer the worst season-finale loss in NFL history? - IndyStar

TheCivil War was the deadliest of all American wars. No one disagrees with that. But how many died has long been a matter of debate.

For more than a century, the most-accepted estimate was about 620,000 dead. A specific figure of 618,222 is often cited, with 360,222 Union deaths and 258,000 Confederate deaths.

This estimate was not an unreasoned guess, but a number that was established after years of research in the late 19th century by Union veterans William F. Fox, Thomas Leonard Livermore and others. Their work involved an exhaustive examination of army documents, muster rolls, cemetery records, census records, pension records and other resources and documents. In 1900, Livermore published a 171-page book of his work, Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America 1861-1865.

But in 2011, demographic historian Dr. J. David Hacker published A Census-Based Count of Civil War Dead, in the scholarly quarterly, Civil War History, reporting that his in-depth study of recently digitized census data concluded that a more accurate estimate of Civil War deaths is about 750,000, with a range from 650.000 to as many as 850,000 dead.

Hacker, an associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota, believed that a fresh, detailed examination of the numbers from the 1850, 1860 and 1870 U.S. census tabulations might reveal a massive reduction for the young male population in 1870 that would reflect the human toll of the war. And that is what he found. Hackers research concluded that the normal survival pattern for young American men from 1860 to 1870 was far lessby about 750,000than it would have been had no war occurred.

Civil War History called Hackers findings among the most consequential pieces it has ever published. It even further elevates the significance of the Civil War and makes a dramatic statement about how the war is a central moment in American history, said Civil War historian Eric Foner.

The first thing to stress is this is an estimate of the number of men missing in 1870. It is adjusted for possible census undercount and other things, Hacker tells HISTORY. It is not an estimate of the number of people who died on the battlefield. And why are these men missing? I think the only reasonable reason they're missing is because of the Civil War.

A print of a dead soldier at Devil's Den on the battlefield at Gettysburg, by Alexander Gardener (1821-1882) from a negative produced by Timothy H O'Sullivan (1840-1882). The Devil's Den was the scene of bitter fighting during the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

SSPL/Getty Images

Many Civil War historians have believed the 620,000 estimate to be too low, especially on the Confederate side, given the lack of written records and the estimates questionable assumption that men in the Confederate army died of disease at the same rate as men in the Union army.

I think that there's been a long, long belief among historians that the numbers that we've been citing for a century or more are not based on solid data but were in fact, crude estimates that were likely to be underreported, Hacker says. And for that reason, I think, the results of my study verified in some people's minds exactly what they had long suspected.

The American Battlefield Trust, however, says it will continue to cite the estimate of 620,000. It praised Hackers initiative, but said his estimated range of 650,000 to 850,000 is very broad, includes civilian casualties, and is not directly linked to the war years of 1861-1865.

They say, How can you publish a number with that big of a possible error range (650,000 to 850,000)? Hacker says. So theyre going to stay with a number that we all know is much more specific. But to me, the 620,000 number has a big error range with it. Its just not published. We shouldnt prefer that number just because it does not include the possible error range.

Hacker's analysis did not break down the estimate for Union and Confederate deaths since the census records did not account for that. However, as a 2011 HISTORY.com story details, his method was able to discern patterns for various regions of birth. For example, the analysis concluded that mortality was significantly higher for white males between the ages of 10 and 44 born in the South (13.1 percent) and in the slave-holding border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware (12.7 percent) than for those born in the free states and territories (6.1 percent). The data further suggest that 22.6 percent of Southern men who were between the ages of 20 and 24 in 1860 lost their lives because of the war.

Hacker doubts that further research into national census figures will yield a significantly closer or more accurate estimate of Civil War deaths. At the same time, and he and other quantitative historians are excited about a vast new range of opportunities for census that will be possible with the release in 2022 of a massive, comprehensive digitization of all U.S. census records from 1850 to 1940.

We're looking at a time when there can be some real contributions to historical knowledge using these data that are being released, he said. We not only have complete census data on everybody, we have linked slaves to their owners so you can study slaveholding families. We can link people from census to census, so we can see where people were located, where they moved and observe their transition from, say, single marital status to married, or from married to widowed.

With these new data, were going to be able to get a much more fine-grained picture. So there are some real opportunities for understanding the Civil War generation better than we have in the past. And this is a really exciting time to be a quantitative historian of the Civil War.

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How Many Died in the American Civil War? - History

On this date in baseball history, former Texas Rangers pitchers Ferguson Jenkins and Gaylord Perry were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Jenkins and Perry became the first two players to wear a Rangers uniform to reach the Hall of Fame, though both wore different caps on their induction plaques. Jenkins wore his Chicago Cubs hat, while Perry settled on the San Francisco Giants.

Jenkins played for the Rangers from 1974-75, and again from 1978-81. He became the franchises first 20-game winner in 1974, during which he was named the American League Comeback Player of the Year and finished second in AL Cy Young voting. That season, Jenkins led the Rangers with 25 wins, 328 innings pitched and 29 complete games, all of which were new team records. In his career with the Rangers, he went 93-72 with a 3.56 ERA in 197 starts, throwing 90 complete games and 17 shutouts. He struck out 895 batters and walked 315.

For his career, Jenkins went 284-226 with a 3.34 ERA, 267 complete games, 49 shutouts, 3,192 strikeouts and 997 walks. He also played for Philadelphia and Boston. He won the National League Cy Young in 1971 with the Cubs.

Perry played 22 seasons and spent time with San Francisco, Cleveland, Texas, San Diego, the New York Yankees, Atlanta, Seattle, and Kansas City. With the Rangers from 1975-77, along with 1980, Perry went 48-43 with a 3.26 ERA, 55 complete games, 12 shutouts, 575 strikeouts, and 190 walks. At the time of his election, his ERA with the Rangers was the second-lowest in club history.

For his career, Perry went 314-265 with a 3.10 ERA, 303 complete games, 50 shutouts, 3,354 strikeouts, and 1,379 walks. Perry won 20 games in a season five times and was one of a handful of pitchers to win 100 games in each league.

Are we missing a moment from this day in Texas Rangers history? Were happy to add it. Hit us up on Twitter @PostinsPostcard and let us know what to add.

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Rangers History Today: Pair of Texas Aces Elected to Hall of Fame - Sports Illustrated

It is dangerous to declare anything related to the Giants these days as the worst ever or the lowest point. This is, after all, a franchise that has repeatedly hit rock bottom only to drill a little deeper, and deeper still, and even ... deeper ... still.

Plus, it is necessary to approach such proclamations with caution given the teams history. What might seem like the nadir for this generation of football fans might seem tame in comparison to the fans who endured the dark ages of the 1970s.

And still, even with all those disclaimers in mind, we feel comfortable declaring what happened in the second quarter of the Giants game against Washington as the most embarrassing moment in the franchises near 100-year history.

Really. This was that bad.

The Giants, trailing Washington 3-0 late in the second quarter, were pinned at their own 2-yard line when they did something that raised a white flag over MetLife Stadium in an unprecedented way. They ran a quarterback sneak on second down, and when the play gained two yards, they ran another one on third down.

And then they punted.

Run that one back. Let it sink in. The Giants, a 4-12 team with nothing to lose but another meaningless game, refused to let their offense attempt an actual play against a six-win Washington team. They might as well have just punted on second down!

Embarrassing doesnt begin to sufficiently describe it.

Lets remember, the man making this decision is Joe Judge, the head coach that co-owner John Mara is believed to be prepared to bring back for a third season despite a 10-23 overall record. Judge gave an 11-minute sermon about the teams improved culture a week ago, that his former players still dial him and tell him they wish they were still in New Jersey.

It was ridiculous when he said it and that was before Judge added a new term for giving up to footballs modern lexicon.

Surrender Punt? Meet the Surrender Sneak.

The one positive for the Giants: At least there were only a few thousand people inside MetLife Stadium to see it happen. Combine the teams current hopelessness with a bad opponent and a cold, gray January day, and you end up with what might be the lowest home attendance for the team since the stadium opened in 2010 (the NFL does not provide actual attendance numbers, just tickets distributed).

The crowd had to find ways to amuse itself. Everytime the referee made an routine announcement No. 79 is reporting eligible the fans roared with their approval. Judge, during that 11-minute rant, said that every fan has the right to boo my ass out. Somehow, this combination of indifference and scorn was even worse.

Then again, there might be a weird benefit for the fans who braved the cold to watch this lousy, meaningless football game. Theyll be able to tell their kids someday that they saw the most embarrassing moment in Giants history.

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Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting us with a subscription.

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com.

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No exaggeration: This might be the most embarrassing moment in Giants history - NJ.com

Just before 6 p.m. on Dec. 28, most of the tenants inside a single family home in Corvallis which had been partitioned into apartments were going about their lives largely unaware except for an out-of-place campfire smell their house was ablaze and everything was about to change.

But the destructive flames that would displace all six units tenants may have been inevitable.

That place was unlivable. It was miserable, said Brian Grant, one of the tenants. He and his housemates had long stories of woe, of questionable wiring, of landlords hard to reach, of poor maintenance and whack-a-mole problems when complaints were finally addressed.

With all that in mind, Im still kind of in shock, Grant said this past week.

Theyre not the only tenants of property owners Kip and Michelle Schoning to relate such stories. Mid-Valley Media has been chronicling allegations against the Schonings, who own rental property throughout the mid-Willamette Valley, for more than a decade.

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Likewise, the city of Corvallis has been fielding complaints and investigating potential code violations since the early aughts at least. AndAlbany has had its share of run-ins as well.

The Schonings did not respond to a reporters four requests for interviews left by voicemail on both office and cellphone numbers.

The probable culprit

As flames ripped through the 96-year-old house at 857 NW Tyler Ave. that Tuesday between Christmas and New Year's, tenants and first responders tried to reach Kip and Michelle Schoning to no avail. The property owners finally showed up to the dilapidated property the morning after to speak with Corvallis Division Chief Fire Marshal Jonathon Jones.

I think the biggest concern is that there were known issues with no repair or no remedy done, Jones said. It does appear that this is strictly a building maintenance issue and that electrical is really a high culprit right now. You have one breaker that is running six different apartments.

Three of the tenants reported trying to fix the breaker themselves multiple times saying that it sparked at them whenever they touched it. One of the tenants, Keanna Estes, moved into the apartment in September and said even in that short time, shes had a history with the breaker slipping.

Ive had electrical problems pretty much since I moved in, she said. Sometimes I could go a week without it tripping. Sometimes it would trip 12 times a day.

She called the Schonings several times, Estes said, adding it took Michelle Schoning a week to return her call.

They do not show up, Estes said. They do not come to their property for anything.

The night of the fire

Estes remembers coming home from the grocery store the evening of Dec. 28 when she noticed her hallway light was out. She went to flip the breaker and it sparked. Not long after, she and her boyfriend smelled smoke; they ran outside to grab a flashlight and realized smoke was coming from the roof.

She called 911 immediately and ran up the three flights of stairs to her unit to grab her animals before evacuating. With the fire alarms silent, her boyfriend, Brendyn Irwin, ran around banging on doors, warning people to get out.

Tenant Tanner Eldridge was home with his partner, Hayden Kuhman. They didnt know the house was on fire, though they could smell something.

Another tenant came out and said to get the hell out of the building. Thats when we grabbed our stuff, he said.

Eldridge had just moved to Corvallis in December, and his father started a GoFundMe to replace the belongings that were lost. While all the residents, their guests and their pets made it out safely, the same cannot be said for all the other items that make a home.

We all love Tanner and dont know what comes next for him and his friends, his dad, Chuck Eldridge, wrote.

Grant, who moved in in October, was home when he heard someone banging on his door urging him to get out. He panicked, grabbing what he could, but he too lost most of his personal belongings in the fire.

Grant had no lights or heating in the unit for the entire month of December, he said, and only two electrical outlets worked in the living room. Michelle Schoning sent out four different contractors who took everything apart and still did not know how to fix the issue, he said.

I just strung up Christmas lights from Fred Meyer, so I could see, Grant said. It was so janky.

The lights and heating were working consistently a day or two before the fire, he said. But 10 minutes before the smell of smoke permeated, the breaker went out for the last time.

The tenants sat across the street and watched their apartment burn for a couple of hours as they answered questions from the fire inspector. A city bus transported them to Oregon State University, where they had pizza and water at Cascade Hall, home of campus public safety and ironically a building that partially burned in 1992.

The Red Cross showed up and gave the displaced tenants prepaid cards with $500, so they could replace some necessary items and find a temporary place to stay.

Its oddly weird because it feels like it didnt happen at all, Estes said.

Kip and Michelle Schoning

Mid-Valley Media has covered the Schonings many times over the years, in articles informally known as the Red Door Stories. When he operated under the name Bula Enterprises, Kip Schoning was known around the mid-valley for painting the doors of run-down houses red and renting to anyone who had the cash without running a background check. The setup naturally appealed to college students who typically dont stay long enough to become a pain in landlords sides.

With the doors no longer crimson-hued, Schonings property management company has changed names several times in the past decade, from Bula Enterprises to Rising Realty LLC to Buena LLC to YourHouse LLC.

Whatever its name, the company is notorious for not returning tenant phone calls, maintaining its properties or making repairs, according to current tenants and those interviewed throughout the years and appearing in a string of "Red Door Stories."

The city of Corvallis Permitting System indicates 857 NW Tyler Ave. has been the site of 18 code violations. Among them was a 2015 tenant complaint that without a functional furnace, her unit was uninhabitable. The city agreed, posting an order for the Schonings to address the problem.

It took the city nearly five months and a court order to convince the property owners to fix the furnace. The judge called the violation egregious because the landlord had known of the broken furnace since October 2011.

The most recent fire wasnt even the first time 857 NW Tyler Ave. made the papers. In 2010, Alice Sparrow, who lived across the street from the house-turned-apartment complex, complained about an overgrowing pile of stinking trash to her then-city councilor, Mike Beilstein.

The rubbish had accumulated because all six units had to dump their refuse into three 30-gallon garbage cans, two of which did not have lids. At the time, the landlords eschewed the local trash haulers services, preferring to send their own crews occasionally, according to tenants interviewed at the time.

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Citing staffing shortages, the city did not act quickly, but 2 1/2 weeks later, a maintenance crew from what was then Bula Enterprises hauled away the pile. It was at least the city's 11th complaint about trash accumulating at the property since 2003.

Incredibly, even that wasn't the first story about 857 NW Tyler. Another set of tenants described to Mid-Valley Media in 2008 how the ceiling caved in in their 4-year-old granddaughter's room. It was only fixed after the city and a reporter got involved, according to previously published reports.

The Schonings became so infamous for exploiting low-income tenants around the mid-valley that statewide legislation was passed in 2009 to protect renters against abusive fees from landlords.

John VanLandingham, a Eugene attorney with the Oregon Law Center, remembers working with a coalition of both tenants and landlords to support Senate Bill 771, outlawing several types of charges, including an upfront lock-change fee, fees for serving pre-eviction warnings and fees for appearing in court.

At the time it passed, court records showed Schoning and Bula Enterprises had initiated more than 800 formal eviction cases in the preceding 15 years. A Corvallis City Hall employee served on the coalition and had mentioned the Schonings by name andthe published reports about them as "inspiration" for the changes, VanLandingham said.

A year later, the Schonings were having problems of their own. In 2010, Mid-Valley Media reported that Kip Schoning escaped his own foreclosure after falling more than a year behind on payments on his and Michelles half-million-dollar Timberhill residence. They ultimately moved out.

Fire investigation

While investigation into the Dec. 28 fire is ongoing, preliminary evidence from the building inspection suggests the fire originated between the second and third floors in the ceiling above a light fixture.

With such an old property, Jones said he still has to investigate what type of work has been done throughout the decades.

That place has had electrical issues for years, Jones said. Every time a handyman was sent over, the problem was fixed, and then something else stopped working. When you have buildings this old, things take place over the years, and standards change.

Once complete, the fire investigation will determine whether or not the building was up to code before the fire occurred.

All three tenants interviewed said their units had smoke detectors, six among them. Not one sounded as flames spread, they said. Oregon state laws requires landlords to install functional smoke alarms and maintain them in working order.

Next steps

A few of the tenants from the burned down property are teaming up to seek legal help. Hiring attorneys can be expensive, and as college students, they said they will need to work together to take the matter to court.

I dont really know whats next, Eldridge said. Maybe a class action suit against them because this is ridiculous. Weve told them about this.

In the meantime, they have to live.

Some of the tenants have friends or family they are staying with until they are able to secure another apartment. Others are staying in a hotel and worrying about where to go. Some have said it is difficult to find available units because most are already occupied by college students who moved in the fall.

Im just planning a way forward, Grant said.

Joanna Mann covers education for Mid-Valley Media. She can be contacted at 541-812-6076 or Joanna.Mann@lee.net. Follow her on Twitter via @joanna_mann_.

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Corvallis apartment fire reveals history of complaints against landlords - Corvallis Gazette Times