Some context: Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1900. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters.
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
How did he bat for Toronto?
A: He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26,
Some context: O'Brien was born on April 18, 1963 in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father, Thomas Francis O'Brien, is a physician, epidemiologist, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. His mother, Ruth O'Brien (nee Reardon), is a retired attorney and former partner at the Boston firm Ropes & Gray. O'Brien attended Brookline High School, where he served as the managing editor of the school newspaper, The Sagamore.
O'Brien moved to Los Angeles after graduation to join the writing staff of HBO's Not Necessarily the News. He was also a writer on the short-lived The Wilton North Report. He spent two years with that show and performed regularly with improvisational groups, including The Groundlings. In January 1988, Saturday Night Live's executive producer, Lorne Michaels, hired O'Brien as a writer. During his three years on Saturday Night Live (SNL), he wrote such recurring sketches as "Mr. Short-Term memory" and "The Girl Watchers"; the latter was first performed by Tom Hanks and Jon Lovitz. O'Brien also co-wrote the sketch "Nude Beach" with Robert Smigel, in which the word "penis" was said or sung at least 42 times. While on a writers' strike from Saturday Night Live following the 1987-88 season, O'Brien put on an improvisational comedy revue in Chicago with fellow SNL writers Bob Odenkirk and Robert Smigel called Happy Happy Good Show. While living in Chicago, O'Brien briefly roomed with Jeff Garlin. In 1989, O'Brien and his fellow SNL writers received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series. O'Brien, like many SNL writers, occasionally appeared as an extra in sketches; his most notable appearance was as a doorman in a sketch in which Tom Hanks was inducted into the SNL "Five-Timers Club" for hosting his fifth episode. O'Brien returned to host the show in 2001 during its 26th season. O'Brien and Robert Smigel wrote the television pilot for Lookwell starring Adam West, which aired on NBC in 1991. The pilot never went to series, but it became a cult hit. It was later screened at The Other Network, a festival of unaired TV pilots produced by Un-Cabaret; it featured an extended interview with O'Brien and was rerun in 2002 on the Trio network. Things changed for O'Brien in 1991, when in quick succession, an engagement fell through; Lookwell was not picked up; and, burned out, he quit Saturday Night Live. "I told Lorne Michaels I couldn't come back to work and I just needed to do something else," O'Brien recalled. "I had no plan whatsoever. I was literally in this big transition phase in my life where I decided, I'll just walk around New York City, and an idea will come to me." Mike Reiss and Al Jean, then dual showrunners of The Simpsons, called O'Brien and offered him a job. The series was notorious in the writing community at the time; O'Brien recalls "everyone wanted to be on that show, but they never hired." O'Brien was one of the first hires after the show's original crew. With the help of old Groundlings friend Lisa Kudrow, O'Brien purchased an apartment in Beverly Hills. He and Kudrow became involved as well, and Kudrow believed he should begin performing rather than writing. O'Brien disagreed, feeling that Kudrow was being overly flattering and that asserting he was happy as a writer. In his speech given at Class Day at Harvard in 2000, O'Brien credited The Simpsons with saving him, a reference to the career slump he was experiencing prior to his being hired for the show.
did he have any big skits
A:
During his three years on Saturday Night Live (SNL), he wrote such recurring sketches as "Mr. Short-Term memory" and "The Girl Watchers"; the latter was first performed by Tom Hanks