The Nub
"If you don't think life imitates sports,
you're not reading The Nub”
- Bill
Moyers
“Politics
and
baseball. Interesting blog…called ‘The
Nub’ on perfectpitcher.org.”
-
(Posted: 9/2/10)
Here’s
to the Losers in both Pastimes
The start of baseball’s September stretch: what could be better? A dozen teams still in playoff contention Crucial series galore on tap. Of course, 18 teams are on the sidelines, the role of possible spoilers all that’s left. The Mets played their last meaningful game on August 1 (when the downtrodden D-backs beat them, 14-1). The Tigers became de-clawed at about the same time.
The Democratic
donkeys have been
hurting all summer. But their stats are worse now in the electoral late
innings. The most recent Gallup Poll of
fan preferences in the Congressional league shows Team GOP with a 51-41
(pct.)
lead over the Dems. The record book says
that’s the largest such club-vs-club margin in
Those figures could change after Skipper Obama’s
“There are few more
bitter ironies than watching the Republican Party -- controlled at
its
core by the very business interests responsible for the country's vast
and growing
inequality; responsible for massive transfers of wealth to the richest;
and
which presided over and enabled the economic collapse -- now become the
beneficiaries of middle-class and lower-middle-class economic
insecurity.
But the Democratic Party's failure/refusal/inability to be anything
other than
the Party of Tim Geithner -- continuing America's endless, draining
Wars while
plotting to cut Social Security, one of the few remaining guarantors of
a
humane standard of living -- renders them unable to offer answers to
angry,
anxious, resentful Americans.
“As has happened
countless times in countless places, those answers are now being
provided
instead by a group of self-serving, hateful extremist leaders eager to
exploit
that anger for their own twisted financial and political ends.
And it
seems to be working…(thanks to a) potent mix of economic
oppression and
the aggressive fanning of racial and ethnic resentments.”
Greenwald’s lineup-card of anti-Dem complaints suggests the obvious - why the left has not rallied around Team Obama to reverse the pro-GOP polling trend.
Taking a gentler approach, Globe clutch hitter Dan
Shaughnessy choked up on the rhetorical bat handle as he swung out in
frustration
with the 2010 Red Sox:: ”It’s
disappointing because postseason
baseball has been an autumn staple here since 2003. The
Sox have qualified for the tournament in
six of the last seven seasons. They have spoiled us.
But the lost weekend in
“The Yankees and Rays are on 99-win paces.
They are in a great race and have no reason to let up.
- -
-
Snap Quiz: What is the tell-tale,
talent-gauging stat that identifies a playoff-caliber team? A – Minimal length of losing streak(s). On that basis, the Yankees, the lone team in
either league to have avoided losing more than three in a row, are the
clearest
sure bet to make the post-season.
The Cardinals, 4-13, since mid-August (including a
third-straight loss Wednesday to the Astros) , and the Padres, losers
of six
straight before Wednesday, are clouding the field of NL contenders in a
negative
way. The complaint in St.Louis is
similar to the one voiced about the Mets – insufficient farm-system
reinforcements at crunch-time. The
concern in
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
The Nub will be off
this weekend,
returning on Tuesday.
August 2010 Archive
(Posted: 8/31/10)
An
Opening for
Of all contending teams hoping to add a
difference-maker when
rosters expand tomorrow, the Cincinnati Reds have most reason to be
optimistic. They will add Cuban phenom Aroldis Chapman, who spent
the
season at Triple-A Louisville, learning to control his 105-mph fastball.
There's
hopeful Cuba-related news in the political field, too. Team
It is
understandable, too, that our view of
"
It’s a question that pertains to the
plight of poor people – whether benched
- -
-
What
We Know after the
weekend:
A Braves/Phils, Yanks/Rays
division/wild card tandem looks increasingly likely. The
Braves
scored their 40th come-from-behind
and 23d ninth-inning victory in beating the Marlins, 7-6, Sunday. That kind of resiliency reinforces the
sureness of their making the playoffs.
The Phillies swept the Padres to
“It’s a big game
for…” is an
overused cliché. But when ESPN’s
Joe
Morgan said it Sunday night about the importance of the Red Sox-Rays
game to
the Sox, the cliché connected. The
Sox
went six-and-a-half back in both the division and wild card, and what
is that
phrase in “September Song,” about the “days dwindl(ing) down”? The coming of Manny Ramirez may give the White
Sox a shot at overtaking the Twins. It’s
a long one, though, dependent on Manny getting hot.
While the Rangers play three with KC,
The New Manny Watch: Chicago Trib’s Phil Rogers has advice for fans
and goes behind the White Sox decision to add Manny Ramirez (scheduled
to play
with his new team Tuesday night in Cleveland):
“The Sox are rolling the
dice that Ramirez
will turn into a stone killer playing for his contract, as he did after
the Red
Sox traded him to the Dodgers two years ago. He
put
on a show in 2008 but otherwise hasn't
had more than 13 RBIs in September since 2005.
Don't worry too much about
Ramirez's dreadlocks and what he does or doesn't do in the clubhouse. He has historically been a non-factor off the
field — although, sure, it would be nice if he kept his uniform on
until the
end of games, something he might not have always done in Los Angeles.
“Here's
the snap. Go deep. The
Sox
are so desperate, they're calling the
hail-Manny play.”
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(Posted: 8/27-28/10)
A
Down Year for the Angels, etc. and Team
It’s been a
disappointing year for
the Angels, Brewers, Cubs, Dodgers, Mariners, Marlins, (even the) Mets,
and
Tigers – all of whom hoped to be in playoff contention now. Baseball as a whole has taken a hit,
too. But it is Team
The MLB
standings attest to the
also-ran status of the eight clubs listed above. And
polls
identifying
World
education’s official scorers
note that the double-play pitfall of soaring low-income student dropout
rates
and ever-higher college costs helped knock the
Disproportionate
team earnings, we
know, make for baseball’s economic (and competitive) inequality, a main
source
of fan discouragement. Lack of a
sufficient spread of money - for scholarships and such programs as
dropout-prevention - is also at the base of Team
- - -
It was a social midweek for contending teams, no one getting too uppity: the standings going into Friday’s games remaining much the way they were after the weekend.
Rundown:
The Yankees did
fall into a tie with the Rays, losing two of three to
Bull
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(Posted:
8/25-26/10)
Underhanded
Play
on
the
Political Field, and in Baseball, Too
Snap quiz: How does the latest inning of the WikiLeaks-Pentagon contest connect to baseball’s “shot heard round the world’? Answer: The connection is deceit, something we’ve come to expect in politics, but, now, thanks to a book about Bobby Thomson’s pennant-winning home run in 1951, we know existed in baseball long before the recent steroids scandal.
The record book
shows that late
last month WikiLeaks posted thousands of secret Pentagon documents on
the
internet, many of them exposing lies about Team USA’s conduct of the
war in
Afghanistan. The Defense Department
accused the WL team skipper, Australian Julian Assange, of endangering
American
lives. He was wrongly charged with rape
in
The
record
book
also
shows
that this is what John Kerry, chair of the Senate
Foreign
Relations Committee, said the day of the WL postings: "However illegally these
documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality
of
Kerry changed signals a
couple of days later, presumably after hearing from the Pentagon, which
was
found to have covered up widespread U.S. killings of Afghan civilians. Given the DOD’s credibility problem, it is
hard not to be rooting for the continued success of Assange and his
team.
On
the possibility of Team USA filing criminal charges against the WL
team,
Salon’s Glenn Greenwald is dismissive: “The
insistence
that
WikiLeaks
editors are ‘criminal’ by virtue
of their disobedience of Pentagon secrecy orders -- even though they're
not
American citizens and are not physically present in the U.S. -- appears
driven
by the belief that the U.S. Government has the right to extend its
authority to
the entire world… (In other words,) anyone who defies the Pentagon is
a criminal:
(that
is)
warped
beyond
belief.”
Although comparatively
trivial, the confirmation in Joshua Prager’s “The Echoing Green” that
the NY
Giants used a centerfield telescope to steal signals at the Polo
Grounds over
the last 10 weeks of the ’51 season, is a crusher to Brooklyn Dodger
fans of
that era. Without admitting he knew what
Ralph Branca would throw, Thomson said to his questioner: “I don’t like
to
think of something taking away from (my hit).” Despite the evidence of
his
team’s deceit, all but diehard old Dodger fans will give Bobby, who
died last
week, the benefit of the doubt.
-
- -
“Sighs-ing”
Up Sox Pitching:
The Red Sox could sigh with relief Wednesday when they got six
good
innings from struggling Josh Beckett. White
Sox
sighs
are
anxious:
key relievers Matt Thornton and J.J. Putz are newly
on
the DL when most needed. Staff health
and performance will determine if either contending Sox team makes the
playoffs.
No More Manny
in the Offing? Respected Orange County (CA)
Register columnist Mark
Whicker sees this as Manny Ramirez’s last season. He
doubts
any
team
will want mercurial,
much-injured Manny in 2011. (Whicker
doesn’t realize how desperate at least one East Coast team can be.)
What Hitting
Coach Change in
Wait Your Turn: We like to think Timesman William Rhoden is a
baseball fan,
who resents pro football excess – and media exposure – in August. Why? Because he wrote this: “The NFL
perpetrates (an) annual fraud…against the
American public…to make the league a multibillion-dollar
enterprise….(It)is
preseason football, those empty, glamorized scrimmages that teams force
on
season-ticket holders as parts of the regular-season package.”
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 8/23-24/10)
On
Risky Investments in Baseball and War
“It’s always
difficult when the
high-priced players don’t live up to their contracts,’’ (said
First, a quick
look at a few of
the pricey players who haven't matched what teams saw as their
potential.
Team
“The
millions of American
soldiers who passed through
“Iraq(‘s)…suicide
bombers…turned
America's soldiers from men who fight to men who hide.
Anyway, they are busy re-writing the
narrative now. Up to a million Iraqis
are dead. (Tony) Blair cares nothing
about them…Nor do most of the American soldiers. They came. They saw. They
lost. And now they say they've won. How the Arabs, surviving on six hours of
electricity a day in their bleak country, must be hoping for no more
victories
like this one.”
-
- -
What
We Know after the
weekend: Three of eight playoff-bound
teams are sure things a month and a week before the regular season
ends: the
Yanks, Braves and Phillies. The Rangers
are in the almost-sure category. Mike
Scioscia and the Angels are not quite ready to be counted out. The Rays and Red Sox are either/or sure (and
won’t it be fun to watch them duke it out, and sad when one is
eliminated?)
Vin Scully, doing
Reds-Dodgers
Sunday, said Joey Votto “may well be the National League’s most
valuable
player.” Accolades don’t come much
higher.
Joe Girardi
foresaw Robinson Cano’s
bright future while doing Yankees color on YES two years ago: “He’s a
little
unfocused now, but that should change.” Cano
gets
our
vote
for
team MVP (at least).
Laugh
of the Week: The
suggestion that Joe Torre could be lured to manage the Mets next season. Mrs. Torre didn’t raise son Joey to mix with
jerks.
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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey. Comments
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(8/20-21/10)
Obama
and
Jeter:
Not
So
Clutch
Anymore
A few days after
Skipper Obama
backed away from his strong stance on the Lower Manhattan mosque, Derek
Jeter
fidgeted in the Stadium batter’s box with the game against
Obama, we remember, said a week ago that, as Americans enjoying freedom of religion, Muslims had a right to go ahead with their building plan. He stepped up in the clutch and hit a rhetorical home run. But then, unaccountably, the skipper didn’t round the bases. Instead, he asked for time to explain what he had been aiming for – to support a people’s right to freedom of religion, “not (to) comment on the wisdom of…(where) to put (the) mosque.”
Jeter, now 36, can be forgiven for looking less relaxed at the plate than in previous years. His flair for almost-automatic clutch hits couldn’t last forever. But his fans expect Obama, only in his sophomore season, to come through when the concept of fairness needs to be driven home. One of them, CUNY’s Peter Beinart, recalls Barack, the presidential candidate, two years ago:
“He
promised that if he won,
Democrats would no longer consult polls to decide what they believed…he
(would
do) what he thought was right…His initial statement in support of the
mosque
was laudable; his subsequent efforts to deny that that’s what he meant
have
been pathetic. Yes, the polling is bad; standing up for a religious
minority
being made to feel like a pariah…might cost Obama a few approval
points. So what. Core
convictions
are
worth
losing
approval
points
over. At least that’s what Obama
(used to) believe…”
Obama has Harry Reid, Anthony Weiner and Howard Dean, among other Dems, on his hit-with-the-wind team. On the other side of the field, Mike Bloomberg has, in comparison, seldom looked so good.
- - -
Although Jeter’s
BA has fallen off
drastically – from .334 in 2009 to .276 so far this season – he owns a
good
statistical year otherwise. He has
already driven in 55 runs in 118 games; last year his RBI total was
only 66 in
153 games. His range
may
have
inevitably
narrowed,
but
Derek
has made the fewest errors – five – of any regular shortstop in either
league. A tell-tale negative stat: he
has hit into the highest number of double plays - 17 - of any
19-28-16: Those Josh Beckett numbers - 19 runs, 28 hits in his last 16 innings (over three games) - are ominous for the Red Sox as they try not to be the odd team out in the AL East. It’s hard not to wallow in regret that all three mega-talented contenders in that division, the Sox, Yanks and Rays, can’t qualify for the playoffs.
Not a Pretty Picture: “Two dead teams” is how the Daily News’ Andy Martino described the Mets and Astros, playing toward “a slow conclusion” the other night. On Yes Thursday afternoon, Paul O’Neill said players on teams out of contention this time of year “don’t look forward to going to the ballpark.” And when they get there, “It becomes a personal, not a team thing: ‘How are my numbers going to look at the end of the season, how much money will I be worth at contract-time’?” The exception, said O’Neill, is when an out-of-contention club has a series with a team like the Yankees: “You perk up when the games count.” How has the Mets’ offense “perked” since the All Star break? A team BA of .211.
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 8/19/10)
Yankees
and
Right-Wing
Political
Team
Taking
No
Chances
Two strong, well-heeled teams, heading toward the homestretch of their baseball and political seasons, are taking no chances. Both the Yankees and the political squad playing for Team GOP are consensus favorites in their races. Yet, both are involved in a late surge of spending to try to guarantee success.
The Yankees, we know, just added a few million to their more than $200 million payroll by dealing for Lance Berkman, Austin Kearns and Kerry Wood. The Yanks call the trio reinforcements; opponents cry overkill. Team GOP considers a late financial rally staged by supporting players cautionary; the Dem team fears the rally will deal a death-blow to its chances of retaining control of Congress.
The hit-to-right club was permitted to swing in support of the GOPers by the Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 ruling in the Citizens United case. It gave corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts to elect or defeat anyone they want. The GOP pinch-hitters will unleash their media-driven offensive against the Dem team next week. This LA Times report of what’s in store does little to reassure the Dems:
“A conservative advocacy group
Monday will kick off a huge ad campaign in 11 states and two dozen of
the most
competitive congressional races, slamming ’wasteful federal spending’. The (script of the) $4.1-million ad buy from
the Americans for Prosperity Foundation attacks Washington policies,
describing
the economic stimulus program as a failure and declaring that ‘wasteful
spending must stop’. The ads -- part of
a midterm election likely to be the most expensive on record -- will
run in 27
media markets through August. Democrats hold all but one of the 24
House seats
in question, including 17 incumbents seeking reelection.”
The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen notes that
viewers won’t know where the ads are coming from or whether their
pitches have
merit. But they willl be noticed, he
says, and are surely “going to affect public
opinion.” Benen adds that there
will be many
more of these anti-Dem ads over the next two-and-a-half months, “with
business interests gearing up to crush as many Democratic
candidates as possible.”
Thus, the aftermath of the Citizens United outcome could begin tilting
elections to the right as early as the next few weeks.
- -
-
2-2-2
and
3-2-1: Those are
the number of first-place competitors, division by division, as the
regular season
moves into its last month-and-a-half. In
the NL, it’s Braves/Phils in the East, Reds/Cards in the Central,
Padres/Giants
in the West. Yanks, Rays and Red Sox are the threesome in the AL East;
Twins
and White Sox are left in the Central, and only the Rangers in the West. If asked to pick one other team in either
league with a chance to creep back into contention, we’d take
Then again, the
Rangers, losers of
three straight to the Rays, are showing signs of vulnerability that
could let
the Angels back into the AL West race. The other night on MLB-TV,
Mitch
Williams picked apart the team’s defensive play as
Concussion
Repercussions:
Justin Morneau has been lost to the Twins
since July 7, when he suffered a
concussion while making contact on a slide into second base. He isn’t expected back until next month,
leaving a big hole in
.
The success of the Morneau-less Twins up to now attests both to the depth of the Minnesota organization and the resourcefulness of manager Ron Gardenhire. And, oh, yes, the determined play of a spirited team.
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 8/17/10)
The
‘Selfish Game’ in the Minors and in
The words of
Giants' rookie
catcher Buster Posey and the 75th anniversary of Social Security
coincided last
week. For that reason, Posey's pitch resonated more than it might
have. Posey spoke to Timesman Tyler Kepner
about
his career up the baseball ladder: "(In
college)," he said, "everybody
had
one
common
goal,
and
that
was
to
win.
You get into the minor leagues, and whether it’s right or
wrong,
it’s a selfish game. Everybody’s trying to get (to the majors). It’s nice to be here now and feel like it’s
back to the way it should be.”
For fans who came
of age around
mid-century, the sense of people as a team was "the way it should
be." That feeling was fed not only by Social Security - a sign
that
government cared about the elderly - but also by the
"we're-all-in-this-together" spirit rallied by World War Two.
The guns-and-butter double play hit into by government at the time of
the Great
Society and Vietnam cleared the field for shifting-to-right
reforms and the
comparatively "selfish game" we see today: lots of chatter about
“freedom”. "markets", "tax cuts" and "deficits";
all that, and little patience for support of the safety
net put in place when Team
Some years before
9/11, a French
president predicted that Americans would soon change their stance and
emulate
- -
-
The Baltimore
Orioles were playing
like minor leaguers until Buck Showalter took over two weeks ago. The O’s have won nine of 13 games over that
span. What’s Showalter’s secret? Pitcher Jeremy Guthrie blows Buck’s cover: “He hasn’t
done anything…different to make us win games, but we
know what he expects.”
What
We Know after the
weekend: Twins, Padres and Reds composed
the three top stories with a combined eight key victories out of nine. The Twins’ sweep of
The opposite of
home-team
resilience was on display at Citi Field this week.
A Philadelphia-native Nubbite who attended
the Saturday night game sent this report of what he saw: “One could
understand the lack of hitting against someone of (
“The
stadium was not full. Phillies fans seemed in the
majority, with red-clad boosters overwhelming some sections. On
the walk
down the left field ramp after the game, there were hordes of Phillies
fans and
a smattering of seemingly out of place, dejected Mets fans who could
not
counter the boisterous cheering of the fans from Philly. Too bad.
The Mets are a sorry lot. No spark. No life. No
consistency.”
The Mets managed a total of
two runs in 27 innings over the weekend (2.8 per game since the
All-Star break). Bob Klapisch of the (
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(Posted: 8/13-14/10)
Missing:
Baseball
Fans
and
Political
Sense
in
“What’s the
Matter With Kansas?”
the political question posed in the 2004 book by author Thomas Frank,
has a
baseball-related equivalent - “What’s the Matter with
Despite Frank’s
effective populist
delivery,
17,875 fans a game compared to the Indians’ 17,637. The Rays, with a 22,617 average, are in the bottom third in attendance while trying to compete with the Yankees, 46,358, and the Red Sox, 37,625.
Those stat
sheets tell Democrats
that something is clearly wrong in working-class
Consensus poll results show that Crist, for all his shaky stances as governor, is a shoo-in to win the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Mel Martinez. Crist is running as an independent.
- - -
How fans in the Tampa-St.Pete area can resist flocking to Rays games is a continuing mystery. The team has been slowed by injuries to first baseman Carlos Pena, and pitchers Wade Davis and Jeff Niemann, but David Price, Matt Garza and James Shields head a still-solid rotation. Evan Longoria and Carl Crawford are two near-super-stars among position players. Going into the weekend. the Rays were wild-card leaders by four games and two behind the Yankees. The Marlins are long shots to get back into the NL East mix, but they are traditionally fast finishers. And they have the best ERA pitcher in the majors in Josh Johnson (1.97), an All-Star shortstop in Hanley Ramirez, and a slugging rookie in Mike Stanton, who has hit 12 HRs in 53 games, nine of them since July 6th.
Who will it be, the Braves or the Phillies in the NL East? The season-ending injury to Chipper Jones this week tilts the advantage to the Phillies. That’s especially true since the Phils expect Chase Utley back by early next month. Whichever way it goes, chances are the division runner-up will be the wild card. Only the Giants, a game ahead in that race, stand in the way, as of now.
In Friday’s
Daily News, SNY’s
Bobby Ojeda (quoted by Bob Raissman) all but said the Mets should fire
Jerry
Manuel now: “If you don’t make (the
change), you accept that bad
things are going to happen.” But we know bad things have already happened
to the hitting-challenged Mets…and batting coach Howard Johnson still
survives.
Support
the
Safety
Net:
The Rays, Marlins, Rangers and Padres (in
that order) were in the bottom (20-30) echelon of 2010 team payrolls. Fans whose favorite teams are out of
contention and who appreciate clubs that do more with less, have an
obvious one
to support: the Padres.
- -
-
Mailbag: “Your mention of
political ‘high, hard ones’ last time failed to note that politicians
tend to
resort to low pitches that break left or right – almost never down the
middle. – R. Ohlhausen,
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 8/12/10)
Players,
Politicians
and
Avoidance
of
‘the
High,
Hard
One’
On a crucial, bases-loaded at-bat against Daniel Bard the other afternoon, Derek Jeter swung at a 0-and-2 fastball at the shoulders. It was an un-Jeter-like moment, because the Yankee captain didn’t have a chance: Bard, the Red Sox’s closer-in-waiting, was throwing 98-miles-an-hour.
There is growing sentiment, especially among pitchers, that a high fastball down the middle, now an automatic ball, should be called a strike. The pitch would be a little lower than the one Jeter swung at. The revised strike zone proposed would run from “just below the shoulders to just above the knees,” what it was until 1988, when the zone dipped with baseball’s blessing. Now supporters of the change say it would respond to baseball’s desire to speed up the game (through fewer walks) and make the crowd-pleasing “high, hard one” an exciting feature of the game.
Batters resist the idea of the zone change the way nearly all Americans object to suggestions that they face the political high, hard one: more taxes. Yet, with reports of streetlights turned off, roads returned to gravel and school programs cut, it is clear the country is taking a punishing hit from the lack of public money.
“We’re told that we
have no choice,” says Timesman Paul Krugman, “that basic
government functions – essential services…provided for generations –
are no
longer affordable…But (we) wouldn’t be quite as cash-strapped
if…politicians
were willing to consider at least some tax increases.”
Krugman says
Republicans and
“centrist” Democrats have led a campaign to reduce the deficit through
reduced
spending, while at the same time fighting against new taxes and for
preservation of tax cuts for the rich.
The “campaign has always
been phrased in opposition to waste
and fraud,” he notes. “But those were
myths…And now that
the campaign has reached fruition, we’re seeing (the disappearance of)
services
that everyone except the very rich need, services that government must
provide
or no one else will, like lighted streets, drivable roads and decent
schooling
for the public as a whole.”
The question the current crisis poses: how long can we keep ducking away from the high, hard one?
- - -
ESPN’s Orel Hersheiser, a leader of the high-strike rally, gave viewers an illustrated lesson in how pitchers like he once was carve up home plate in their mind’s eye. “The plate is 17 inches wide,” he said, “we make it 18 inches to simplify things. There’s six inches on either side, six inches down the middle. The middle belongs to the batter, the sides belong to us.” As to how most pitchers try to get an out, Hersheiser said it depends on three things: his command, the situation, and who is swinging the bat.
Making a Statement: The Cardinals began a three-game series at
Wash Post-man Tom Boswell, after
Nats’ phenom Stephen Strasburg got hammered by the Marlins in his
return from
the DL: “For six months,
Strasburg has fulfilled every Nationals
dream - and more. But his last two
nights at
Stat
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(Posted: 8/10/10)
Once-Popular Political Exuberance Lives Anew in Baseball
The days of
irrational exuberance
have come and gone on Wall Street and in Democratic politics, but the
feeling
endures in baseball.
Many of
us remember the dreams of Hope and Change fostered by Team Obama in 2008.
New manager Buck Showalter is the
reason for such dreams now in
The O’s won the
first five of six
games under Showalter (three against the defending AL West champion
Angels),
much as did the O-team in the 2008 primaries.
The record book shows that Showalter, like Obama, had - has - a
shiny
career: his Yankees team had the best record in baseball when the
players
strike ended the 1994 season; a year after he left the Yankees and then
the
D-backs, those teams, molded by him, went to the World Series. He was voted manager of the year in
Showalter believed in having experienced coaches around him; since he was smarter than the owners, he remained loyal to those coaches in the face of the bosses’ dissatisfaction. Timesman Frank Rich could have been relating Buck-like behavior to the skipper in his piece on Eric Alter’s “The Promise” in a recent New York Review of Books:
“If
(Obama is) so smart, and so sane, why has he fallen
short of his spectacular potential so far? That shortfall is most
conspicuously
measured by his escalation of a war held hostage by the mercurial and
corrupt
Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai; a woefully inadequate record on job
creation; and the widespread conviction that the White House tilts
toward Wall
Street over those who have suffered most in the Great Recession. Alter doesn’t soft-peddle these criticisms.
‘’Even
by late 2009, when every major bank except Citigroup had paid back its TARP money’, he writes, ‘the impression of a
colossal
injustice remained—that fabulously wealthy bankers would be made whole,
but
ordinary Americans would not’.”
Just as the impression of colossal underachieving will undercut the skipper in the midterm election, inevitable dismay awaits fans of Showalter. When they face the the reality that even he cannot push the Orioles to compete winningly in a division that includes the Yanks, Red Sox and Rays, disillusionment could again curtail the tenure of an indisputably top-notch manager.
-
- -
It is expecting too much of Jerry Manuel that he emulate Showalter and refuse to allow the release by the Mets of Alex Cora. Players, fans and media people alike know that Cora was a spirited clubhouse presence as well as valuable utility infielder. The Wilpons’ order that he be cut came at a time when his playing in 18 more games would have qualified him for a $2 million option for next year. That decision is more than just further evidence of Madoff damage to the franchise; it is disgracefully cheap. The move makes clear that Manuel is finished when his contract ends this season. If he had more money owed him, as does Omar Minaya, he’d be kept on. We can look for a new, cheaper manager to be hired this fall.
What
We Know after the weekend:
In only one of six divisions – the
Those are the big questions whose answers we can guess at, but know not.
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(Posted: 8/6-7/10)
Santana
and
Schumer:
Their
Pitches
‘Aren’t
Doing
Anything’
The other night on MLB-TV, Joe Magrane was watching Johan Santana during a “look-in” of the Mets-Braves game. “His pitches weren’t doing anything,” Magrane said to his colleagues afterward. Fans and media people have noticed what Magrane saw: Santana’s breaking-ball doesn’t have the same movement it once had, and his velocity is down: He is not the ace lefty the Mets signed three years ago.
Santana has a
political
counterpart in Chuck Schumer. NY Dem
fans have noticed Schumer is not the lefty ace they thought their
Senate team
was getting 12 years ago. His political
pitches, like Johan’s, aren’t doing anything these days.
They’re almost non-existent when it comes to
financial reform. But close observers
know his sudden silences are nothing new. They detected early that
Schumer
could talk a good game; he was big on showmanship, but never a standup
performer. (No opposition to war powers for George Bush, never a
negative word
on the invasion of
Now, Chuck’s
careful approach to
the political game has been analyzed from outside the liberal
Democratic
ballpark. Straight-down-the-middle
hitter Jeffrey Toobin notes in the August 2 New Yorker that “the stereotype of
Schumer as a big-government liberal does not square
with his legislative record…He is an incrementalist, whose legislative
passions… run to ideas of…limited ambition… He talks incessantly about
delivering what middle-class voters want…His references to the poor, or
to the
broader problems of poverty are sparing.”
Toobin recalls that Schumer resisted Team Obama’s push for health care reform on pragmatic grounds: “(He) pointed out that while 30 million Americans were uninsured, only about 11 percent of them were voters – a small group to merit such a large investment of Democrats’ political capital.” That stance, so lacking in concern for needy outsiders, can most charitably be described as inside-out.
But, if Toobin
does not score Schumer high as a lefty, he does admire the NY Senator
for his
“political dexterity.” As head of the
Dems’ Senate Campaign Committee in 2006, Chuck “recruited
candidates who could win rather than those with particular beliefs,”
Toobin says. He adds that Schumer
raised
the
campaign
money
needed
to
insure
victory,
thanks
in
great
part
to
his
close
relationship
with Wall Street. Intent
on
retaining
those
ties
amid
the
current
crackdown
on
Street
practices,
Chuck
told
Toobin
he objects to any “piling on” of the banks, but recognizes the
validity
of public opposition to “leaving them alone.”
Schumer’s pursuit of electoral success has made him a sure winner at home and an invaluable guide to the party – coaching Dems to keep their eyes on the electoral ball. So, although Chuck’s lack of lefty focus and his frequent passes on key issues are dismaying to progressive voters, Toobin has this implicit message for them: “Get over it.”
- - -
Going into the
weekend, 13 of 30 teams
realistically have a chance to win their divisions: the Padres, Giants,
Rockies
and Dodgers in the NL West, the Yankees, Rays and Red Sox in AL East,
the
Braves and Phillies in the NL East, the White Sox and Twins in the AL
Central,
the Reds and Cardinals in the NL Central. A
fair
guess
would
be
that
the
wild
cards
will
come
from
the
most
competitive
divisions (where winning intensity will
be
highest) – the NL West and AL East. The
one weekend matchup that can alter the outlook is
One reason Buck Showalter went three-for-three in his first three games as Orioles manager: “He knows a player when he sees one.” MLB-TV’s John Hart made that point when Showalter got the job. Hart’s MLB teammate Harold Reynolds reminded viewers of the great players – Derek Jeter, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling, Alex Rodriguez, etc. - Showalter had managed with the Yankees, D-backs, Rangers. The sweep by Showalter’s O’s put an exclamation point on the Angels’ departure from AL West contention, just as the four-of-six the D-backs and Braves took from the Mets put a closing stamp on the NYM’s playoff pretensions.
The Mets may be moribund, with no reason to think a 2011 renaissance is in the offing. But ESPN’s Adam Rubin has found something praiseworthy about Jeff Wilpon. The team’s deer-in-the-headlights COO is credited with resurrecting the career of Wally Backman, now managing the Class A Brooklyn Cyclones. Rubin sees Backman as a likely successor to Jerry Manuel, not necessarily because he’d be better. Backman would manage for peanuts, Rubin says, out of gratitude for being given a second chance. (He lost a managerial job with the D-backs a few years ago when a domestic violence case surfaced.)
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(Posted: 8/5/10)
Bonds,
Clemens,
Rangel,
Waters:
the
Defiant
Four
The symmetry is too strong to be ignored: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters. All four - two in each pastime - stand accused of playing their separate games in unlawful or unethical ways. Bonds and Clemens are fighting charges of using illegal substances and lying about it; NYC’s Rangel and LA’s Waters of letting personal considerations influence their use of Congressional clout.
Bonds is under the most serious imminent challenge. He could go to jail if found guilty of perjury in a federal court trial scheduled for next March. Clemens faces possible indictment when federal investigators complete assembling the case against him. Clemens seems more vulnerable than Bonds in the long run: Roger’s personal trainer Brian McNamee would likely be a key prosecution witness should the Rocket go to trial. Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, also a would-be key witness, has refused to cooperate with prosecutors – even doing more than a year’s jail time for contempt. The case against Barry may thus be bound for the showers.
Rangel and Waters are under party pressure to concede ethical errors – in Rangel’s case, (among other things) pushing through a tax loophole for a contributor to an education center set up in his name; in Waters’, helping a bank in which her husband holds stock receive bailout money. Both could say they were sorry for lapses and accept reprimands. But each is prepared to face an ethics trial that could cause them further pain and do further damage to Democratic chances in this fall’s mid-term election.
Rangel and Waters, as political people, have accumulated much personal good will through the years. That suggests an accommodation will be reached before serious play begins in court. Bonds and Clemens do not have those Andy Pettitte-like personal advantages. The media have depicted both as arrogant stonewallers.
In fairness, however, we know that both former players must be presumed innocent. And, despite gut prejudices, fans should acknowledge that the two - indeed, all four competitors - have earned at least grudging respect. The resolute defense of their reputations at this stage of the game may be seen by many as quixotic. But their defiant stances are, if nothing else, examples of impressive pride and determination.
- - -
Dodgers GM Ned Colletti traded for Lilly, the Royals’ Scott
Podsednik, the
Pirates’ Octavio Dotel and Lilly’s Cubs teammate Ryan Theriot just
before the
deadline. He made similar deals that
paid off in 2008 and 2009, when the Dodgers made the NLCS.
He explained his philosophy to SI’s Tom
Verducci this way: "I
always believe that if you have a team capable of reaching the
postseason you owe
it to your players to do everything you can to make it happen. Any time you can upgrade an area even by an
nth degree you try to take a shot at doing it."
August, baseball’s first real meaningful-games month, is
also the
time when meaningless pro football stories crowd into the sports pages. Training-camp trivia desecrated more than 30
percent of the Daily News sports section yesterday.
The pro grid game must produce as much ad
money as the right-wing does during the political campaign period.
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(Posted:
8/3/10)
Baseball
and
Political
Deals
Hurting
Many
Fans
"It's an empty
feeling,"
Red Sox GM Theo Epstein said as the inter-league
At mid-summer deadline time,
especially, there is a striking correspondence
"The
annual incomes of the bottom
90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 –
having risen
by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means
most
Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the
same
period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief
executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the
multiple
is above 300. The trend
has only
been getting stronger."
The
trend can be tracked on the political field: instead of swinging hard
in
support of the need to strengthen safety-net programs like social
security,
jobless benefits, Medicare, and also unions, Congressional hitters
swipe to the
right. Their aim is to find ways to cut
back
on “entitlements” to contain the deficit.
Harvard statman Larry Katz describes how big a brush-back this
is to the
average American, and does it in vivid terms:
“Think of the
American economy as a large apartment
block. A century ago - even 30 years ago
- it was the object of envy. But in the
last generation its character has changed. The penthouses at the top
keep
getting larger and larger. The apartments in the middle are feeling
more and
more squeezed and the basement has flooded. To
round
it
off,
the
elevator
is
no
longer
working.
That
broken
elevator
is
what
gets
people
down the most.”
Apologists of
baseball's
persistent inequitable system point to occasional examples of
Since
that’s so, why does baseball allow the inequality to widen with two
months left
in the regular season? The Reds and
Marlins are two small-market teams very much in the mix in their
division
races. They couldn’t afford to take on
more salary now, as did their respective competitors, the better-healed
Cardinals
and Braves and Phils. It will clearly be
tougher for Cincy and the Fish to hang in there. The
system
is
particularly
unfair
to
their
fans
in
- -
-
What We Know after the weekend: the
Rockies, whom we said last week would have a hard time getting back
into the NL
West mix, are back(what do we know?). Big
stakes in the current Padres-Dodgers series:
E-mail from
- Ron Swoboda
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July 2010 Archive
(Posted: 7/30/31)
Team
Managers and the Military: Making the Rounds
Weekend snap quiz: Baseball, Wall Street and Team Obama frequently use what piece of equipment? Answer: a revolving door.
Exhibit A: Manny Acta.
Both the Indians and Astros liked Manny’s managerial act. He skippered the Nationals through three
losing (two last-place) seasons. But Acta
had his choice of jobs in Cleveland and Houston. Most
major-league
managers
–
Tito
Francona,
Jerry
Manuel,
Jim
Tracy,
Bruce
Bochy,
Ken
Macha,
Ned
Yost,
even
Joe
Torre,
to
name a few – failed before being rehired by another team.
The feeling in
The team owners’ play-it-safe inside game is no different from the way Wall Street and other corporate squads choose skippers. It’s their choice, one they must justify to investing fans. When Team Obama makes a similar recall move, as it did in letting Tim Geithner and Larry Summers return to play moneyball, then we, the public, have a right to boo. The O-team’s military rotation play is another crucial example of the retread problem. The same players at different positions have been part of a series of war-related setbacks. The International Herald Trib’s official scorer William Pfaff has watched the deadly game long enough to foresee a bad outcome:
“Failure
is merely a stepping-stone to success in the American military and
political systems.
No one accepts responsibility. The war will go on until it is extended to
As the O-team
campaigns to
divert attention from WikiLeaks evidence that the war is not going as
well as
the military says, the website’s Australian founder Julian Assange says
more
documentation is coming. He told Amy
Goodman on “Democracy Now” that the UK Guardian and
- - -
What
We Know as we enter the trade-deadline/beginning-of-August
weekend: the Phillies’ addition of Roy
Oswalt confirms that the Braves will have to wage an underdog battle to
stop
the defending league champions in the NL East.
Miguel Tejada may be the more important pickup; he gives the
Padres a
sorely needed bat to go with their pitching.
It will be tough for the
Yankees/Rays/Red Sox – we know the AL East will be a great three-team show, with or without deadline deals. Matt Capps makes the Twins at least an even bet to outrun the White Sox in the AL Central. The Tigers are bleeding. In their weekend series with the Angels, the Rangers can confirm the sense that they are the MLB’s only sure division winner.
The Yankees and Mets would be wise to stand pat for different reasons: the Yanks because they already have enough to make the playoffs (at least), the Mets because they can’t advance no matter who they add and can’t spare the prospects they’d have to give up in a futile cause.
Watch
Out for the Brooms: .Sweeps can be lethal as the season moves
into August. It’s unlikely either the
Yanks or Rays will take three at the Trop this weekend.
The Mets, fighting to keep fans interested,
would love to sweep the visiting D-backs (as payback for what happened
last
week in
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(Posted: 7/29/10)
No
Boos, Please, for the Next Muslim Major Leaguer
Watching the Mariners’ magnificent Ichiro stealing a White Sox home run the other night (thanks to MLB-TV) was a reminder of the boon the Japanese have been to major league baseball. The popularity of players - like Hideo Nomo, the first to switch permanently from competing in Japan to the U.S. (with the Dodgers in 1995); Hideki Matsui, a seven-year Yankee, now with the Angels, Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Red Sox’s mercurial pitching import, and Ichiro, now in his 10th season - offers a striking history lesson.
Through much of
the last century,
the Japanese were treated like outcasts in the
The lesson is that people who
don’t look and act like “regular” Americans one day can be golden-glove
outfielders the next. We’ll surely have
a standout Muslim major leaguer one day. (A utility infielder who was
Muslim -
Sam Khalifa - played for the Pirates in ’85-87.) In
the
meantime,
members
of
the
Islamic
team
find
NYC
to
be
a
rough
playing
field.
Over the last few years they’ve encountered: opposition to an
Arabic-language
public school in Brooklyn; rejection of a plan to convert a vacant
Catholic
church in
Haberman’s
teammate Robert Wright makes a cogent case for the wrongheadedness of
the
effort to stop the Islamic center:
“(Osama) bin
Laden would love to be able to say that in
- -
-
It’s a rare
year, we know, when Ichiro
isn’t leading in some department. This
season, as usual, he’s first in the
No one, least of all himself, would
describe the Mets’ Fernando Tatis as a great player.
But the 35-year-old Tatis owns a major league
record unlikely to be matched. On April
23, 1999, he hit two grand slams in one inning while playing for the
Cardinals
against the LA Dodgers. Appearing at El Museo in NYC the other night,
Tatis had
a simple explanation when asked how he did what he did: “I
know
how
I
did
it:
I
see
it
and
I
hit
it
hard!” The
Mets,
we
know,
could
use
a
hard hitter these
days. But Tatis is on the 60-day DL with
a bad shoulder.
Attention-worthy: The Phillies, with six straight wins going
into last night’s games, and the
It may be
September before the Red Sox get
back Dustin Pedroia. Can they remain in
close pursuit of the Yankees and Rays ‘til then is the nail-chewing
question in
Sox Nation. The q and a in AL West: Is
the Rangers’ runaway an accomplished fact?
Answer: It looks like it.
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“I’ve
been
reading
The
Nub with much delight, and learning from it.”
- Bill Moyers
(Posted: 7/27/10)
Where
Has Baseball Attendance and the
Observers told
baseball to cheer
up last year - that box office receipts could be
said Team
The
stats: baseball attendance off by more than half-a-million at the
season's
halfway point. The shortfall in state budgets up $90 billion from
last
year. Forty-six of 50 states are deep in the red. The Mets
have
lost 300,000 in attendance since '09, to lead both leagues in that
dubious
category. The figure is based on
slightly more than half the scheduled home games – 46 games in which
fans could
see them as playoff contenders. Since
that likely won’t be the case for the rest of the season, an attendance
falloff
of at least a million is a reasonable estimate.
Baseball, we
know, began upscaling
its product in response to growing attendance
“Our
contemporary
faith
in
“the
market”
rigorously
tracks…the
unquestioning
belief
in
necessity,
progress,
and
History…
So
“The
thrall
in
which
an
ideology
holds
a
people
is
best
measured
by
their
collective
inability
to
imagine
alternatives.
We know perfectly
well that untrammeled faith in unregulated markets kills…In vulnerable
developing countries (the) emphasis on tight fiscal policy,
privatization, low
tariffs, and deregulation—has destroyed millions of livelihoods… But in
Margaret Thatcher’s deathless phrase, ’there is no alternative’.”
Judt
says that an alternative can be found among “regulated market variants
of
liberal capitalism.” It remains for
political and economic players to agree on a variant; then, he says,
they must go
to bat freed of the need to swing to the right, looking instead to the
other
field, toward the direction of disciplined markets.
- -
-
“BETTER SEATS LOWER PRICES” says a predictable Mets ad after the team’s 2-9 road-trip debacle on the West Coast. Logically, the Mets should give up on attendance-building and take advantage of the trading deadline to exchange pricey name players with value for prospects. Frankie Rodriguez, whose $37 million contract runs through next year (with an option), could be useful to a lot of contenders. Carlos Beltran, who has $20 million coming on the last year of his contract in 2011, is another who might draw interest despite his faltering return from surgery and the DL. Jeff Francoeur has only a one-year, $5 million deal. So, trading him would add little to the team’s Madoff-reduced treasury.
“If we continue playing the way we’re playing…I could get Cy Young and Mariano Rivera, and it wouldn’t matter.” The Mets’ Omar Minaya? No. Phillies GM Ruben Amaro (before his team won five straight).
The AL Central races continues to be a fascinating tangle of injured contenders: the first-place White Sox are playing without starter Jake Peavy, the second-place Twins without their best hitter Justin Morneau, the Tigers without two key offensive players, Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen. Peavy is out for the season, Ordonez for four-to-six weeks, Morneau for an indefinite period, owing to after-effects of a concussion. Only Guillen is expected back in less than two weeks.
No Angelic White Flag: The deal sending D-backs ace Dan Haren to the Angels is significant because it says the LAAs are not giving up…even though they are almost as far behind in their division as the Mets are in theirs.
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(Posted: 7/23-24)
The
Dashed Hopes of Deep Summer
Deep summer is high season for huge hopes – in baseball, politics, life. It’s a time when doldrums spawn “gotta-get-better” thoughts, not only about the weather and our future. More to the point here, fan expectations concern a favorite ball club or political team. Among NY area baseball fans, the Mets provide a case study of how hype can raise hopes to unrealistic levels.
The Mets’ spin went like this: Once we get our regulars back – after roughly a season and a half – we’ll be a contending team again. If we can stay close until the All-Star break, we’ll surely be in the playoff mix. What’s happened, we know, is that the revivified Mets have all but dropped out of the mix, losing seven of eight since the break (with their one win the result of a bad umpiring call).
In politics, Team Obama premised its pitch on the belief that booing over the slow economic recovery would subside; then execution of the reform double play - health care and financial reg – would clear the bases of broad fan opposition and set up a progressive winning streak. The skipper had his personal pollster take a look at how the strategy was working. The results surely gave him a shock. By a score of 48(%) to 43, fans surveyed said the O-Team had made the economy worse, not better. Furthermore, in the contest pitting tax cuts for business against more stimulus spending, they sided with the tax-cutters by a whopping 54-32 margin.
Completion of
the rout came when
fans chose between two takes on
corporations. Are they "the backbone of the
-
- -
The new pitch the Mets hope fans will buy is that, in the
“weak” NL East,
anything is possible. But
Who After Lou? The
expectation
in
much
of
“Joe Torre would
be a short-term guy. Sandberg
could be a long-term guy. But something
tells me Hendry is not going to roll the dice on a guy with no
big-league track
record -- that a Fredi Gonzalez would
be a favorite over Sandberg.
”(My) guess…Sandberg winds up in
Former D-backs manager Bob Brenly is also a candidate for the Cubs’ job. His hiring would be a loss to fans who follow the team on TV. Brenly and Steve Stone, who does White Sox color, give Chicago fans two of the best, most knowledgeable baseball-announcing voices. Vin Scully, with the Dodgers, heads the “best” list. Gary Thorne, who does play-by-play for the Orioles, is on it, too. Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez get special mention; they are out of the competition because they don’t work all Mets games.
-
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-
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(Posted: 7/22/10)
Baseball
Playing
America’s
Insider
Game
How could the bankrupt Texas Rangers pull off a mid-season steal – the purchase of priceless Cliff Lee? That was the mystery. It has now been solved: the team had a friend in baseball’s highest office. That friend, Commissioner Bud Selig, helped arrange a $40 million MLB loan the team used as it snapped up Lee.
The clubby arrangement confirms something we’ve long known: personal ties with the powerful are a big part of the American success game. A day after the NY Times told how the Rangers’ exec partners Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg were tight with Selig, the paper listed the names of children of financial players chosen to be summer interns at NY’s City Hall.
These young people had the connections – through their parents – we’d all like to have: They were (as Times slugger Jim Dwyer put it) “mostly white, many quite wealthy, coming from private high schools and Ivy League colleges.” So, they represent the privileged side of the country’s class playing field. So what? Well, if nothing else, the name of Lloyd Blankfein’s son among those on the list is a reminder of the elder Blankfein’s profitable connections. His ties as skipper of Goldman Sachs with the likes of Henry Paulson, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers helped his team make out remarkably well in the deal-making that resulted from the market rout of 2008.
Selig has made clear that Ryan and Greenberg are favored buyers of the Rangers, despite the fact their bid does not match those submitted by others, including Houston businessman Jim Crane, In response to protests about the insider game being played, Selig is dismissive: Baseball has always “ha(d) the right to select ownership,” he says. The courts will decide if he’s made the proper call.
In the broader,
political
ballpark. money is the clean-up hitter of the connecting game. It can make outlier financial players
insiders,
giving them access to influence lawmaking strategy in
Who were the two elected gold glovers who fielded most financial-sector dollar drives this year and last? Let’s look at the box score posted by the Center for Responsive Politics: Senators Charles Schumer, D-NY, $4,080,089, and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, $1,838,800, were one-two. Fans could only dream of such cash-producing connections.
- - -
Stat city: Only one team has four healthy starters in the top 60 listing of major league pitchers: the Minnesota Twins, with Carl Pavano, Kevin Slowey, Scott Baker and Nick Blackburn. The Yankees would have four – C.C. Sabathia, Phil Hughes, Andy Pettitte and A.J. Burnett – if Pettitte wasn’t newly on the DL
The Phillies
have three starters -
Roy Halladay, Jamie Moyer and Cole Hamels – among the 60.
The grapevine says GM Ruben Amaro is hopeful
of landing
As of early last night, the Carlos Beltran-reinforced Mets had averaged two runs a game since the All-Star break. The team is 20th in team batting. Another team a few slots lower than the Mets, the Astros, fired hitting coach Sean Berry last week, replacing him with Jeff Bagwell. We’ve suggested often that memorably undisciplined batsman Howard Johnson should not be the Mets hitting coach. Jeff Wilpon - it says here – ought to find his buddy Howard another job and get somebody new to help the Mets develop a consistent offense.
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Posted 7/20/10)
The
Predictability Plague in Both Baseball and Politics
If you
are a NY-oriented fan of either pastime, it has been a season plagued
by
predictablilty. Everybody foresaw the Yankees making the playoffs
and
Andrew Cuomo winning the contest for governor.
At midseason, does anyone doubt either eventuality (Andy
Pettitte’s
injury, notwithstanding)? Predictable, too, to a lesser degree,
is the
plight of the scuffling Mets. That they still have a chance of
playing
meaningful games as late as mid-August, is a pleasant surprise for
still-invested fans.
At a political
league-wide level,
the dismal outcome for lefthanders of the mid-term House contest is no
longer
in doubt, despite a positive Team Dem scoring record.
Washington
Post press box observer Ezra Klein explains why in the simplest of
terms:
"Democrats
won
their
massive
majority
because
of
an
economic
collapse.
They've
passed
so
much
legislation
because
they
have
a
massive
majority
based
on
an
economic
collapse. But
the
economic collapse isn't over. And having
a lot more seats than the other party means 1) voters blame you for the
condition of the country, and 2) you have a lot of seats to lose. What
the bad
economy and the huge majority giveth, the bad economy and the huge
majority
taketh away."
It has been an
enigmatic rather
than a predictable year for Team Obama's skipper.
Who could have
foresaw his
leadership bringing so many victories while so many fans
feel so let
down? Mother
Jones scout Kevin Drum provides the plus-and-minus pieces
of the O-enigma:
"Here's
the good news: this record
of progressive accomplishment officially makes
Obama the
most successful domestic
Democratic president of the last 40 years.
And
here's the bad news: this shoddy
collection of centrist, watered down, corporatist
sellout
legislation was all it took to
make Obama the most successful domestic
Democratic
president
of
the
last
40
years.
Take your pick."
- -
-
Wild
Card Watch: Let’s concede division victories (a risky move,
we know) to
two teams - the Yanks and Braves; that leaves 16 (other) wild card
possibilities here in late July, seven in the AL, nine in the NL. Put down the Rays, Red Sox, White Sox,
Tigers, Twins, Rangers and Angels in the
Walking
wounded:
The
Red Sox will be reinforced with the return this weekend of would-be ace
Josh
Beckett. The man the team most misses,
Dustin Pedroia, is still on crutches.
The Mets are not the same without a healthy Jose Reyes
(right-quad
injury); and although he’s playing on and off (ineffectively), he’s
proving to
be, as ever, a slow healer. The Twins
must operate with much lost fire-power while Justin Morneau sits. He’ll be on the DL until the end of the
month, recovering from a contact-caused concussion while base-running. The Yankees, we know, have enough hitting to
minimize the effect of Andy Pettitte’s month-long groin-injury-caused
absence.
- o -
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(Posted: 7/9-10/10)
Two Teams Whose Fans Are Finding It Hard To Be Hopeful
At a party the other day involving fans of both pastimes, a man confided “I am hopeful about the Mets.” Then he added: “And I haven’t given up on Obama.” Clear-eyed fans know hope is poorly invested in the plucky-but-punchless Mets. And the suspicion grows stronger each day that Team Obama will not turn its losing streak around before the November playoffs.
Latest consensus polls give Team GOP an even chance of pulling a double play – winning back control of both the Senate and House. The skipper could help turn things around by being more forceful with his team and stronger in his appeal to skeptical spectators. But southpaw supporters, like Bob Kuttner in the Huffington Post, have all but despaired of its happening:
“Despite
our
hopes,
Barack
Obama
is
unlikely
to
offer
bolder
policies
or
give
tougher
speeches
any
time
soon,
even
as
threats
of
a
double-dip
recession
and
an electoral blowout in November loom. This
is
just
not who he is. If
the
worst
economic
crisis
in
eight
decades
were
going
to
change
his
assumptions
about
how
to
govern
and
how
to
lead,
it
would have done so by now.”
There is similar lefty booing of the
the skipper’s
strategy away from home, particularly in the game in
“The
Americans
who
elected
Obama…
were
counting
on
him
to
bring
to
the
White
House
an
enlightened
moral
sensibility:
He
would
govern
differently
not
only
because
he
was smarter than his predecessor but because he responded to a
different—and
truer—inner compass.
“Events
have
demolished
such
expectations. Today, when they look at
Democrats,
whether
hitting
left,
right
or
straight
away,
have reason to fear that their
skipper’s “cool, dispassionate” stance signals a devastating DP in the
making.
-
- -
Even with the imminent return of
Carlos Beltran, it is
only diehards who take the Mets’ playoff prospects seriously. The Boston Globe’s veteran baseball writer
Nick Cafardo surveys major-league teams with an experienced, objective
eye. He identifies 10 teams at the
All-Star break with valid world championship potential: the Yanks,
Rays, Red
Sox, Twins, White Sox, Angels, Braves, Phillies, Cardinals and Dodgers. Add the Tigers, Rangers, Reds,
The emergence of the Reds and Rangers
as serious
contenders in their divisions is the year’s most exciting
double-development so
far. We knew the Braves were going to be
good and know it’s risky to discount the Padres. But
Another surprise:
Little Doubt About
Lee’s Eventual Home:
If the Twins are willing to give up their blue-chip catcher Wilson
Ramos
to rent Cliff Lee, and that short-term deal goes through, here’s an
easy
question: Which team figures to snap the ace lefthander up in the
post-season for
the long-term? The Yanks don’t need Lee
now. But Yankee fans have every reason
to envision him in pinstripes. Would
that be a good thing for baseball? A
question for another time.
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The Nub will take its
regular
All-Star break over the next week.
(Posted: 7/8/10)
Team
Obama Must Face a Mariano-Like Court Stopper
If almost
everyone agrees the AL
East is the strongest of baseball’s six divisions, it’s fair to
envision an
ALCS involving the Yankees and either
The Yankees are
the only
LA Times birddog David Savage lays out some of the rutted terrain Team Obama must try to play around:
“Already, the
healthcare overhaul law, Obama's signal achievement,
is under attack in the courts. Republican
attorneys general from 20 states
have sued, insisting the law and its mandate to buy health insurance
exceed
Congress' power and trample on states' rights.
Two weeks ago, a federal judge in
”On another front, the administration says it will soon go to court in
Phoenix
seeking to block Arizona's controversial immigration law, which is due
to take
effect July 29. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer said Arizona would go to the
Supreme
Court, if necessary, to preserve the law.
As chief justice, Roberts has steered the court on a
conservative
course, one that often has tilted toward business. For example, the
justices
have made it much harder for investors or pension funds to sue
companies for
stock fraud.”
Skipper Obama can hope that, just as Rivera has proved himself to be (infrequently) human, failing in two of 21 save opportunities this season and giving up a little over a run (1.08) every nine innings, Team Roberts can somehow be scored upon successfully. It does, however, appear to be as long a shot as getting a hit off Mariano with an 0-and-2 count.
- - -
What
Makes Mariano Special?
In 1995, Rivera’s rookie year, he was asked to pitch a total of
five-and-a-half innings in the division series against the Seattle
Mariners. He did so without yielding a
run. NY Times writer James Traub asked
fabled stopper Goose Gossage about watching Mariano in the series: “Gossage
took notice when Rivera came on in the decisive fifth game
(which the Yankees went on to lose) and got out of a bases-loaded jam
with a
strikeout. ‘I just sat there,’ the
not-easily-impressed Goose says. ‘Oh, my
God – the coolness’.”
Traub also sought the opinion of veteran Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek: “Varitek described Rivera’s success with a catcher’s dispassionate appreciation. ‘You see guys with sometimes even better stuff unable to make quality pitches when the game is on the line,’ he said. Rivera, with his easy delivery and simplicity of moving parts, had the gift of execution. ‘The ability to repeat,’ Varitek said, ’ ‘is both mental and mechanical’.” And, he might have added, the result of an almost mystical composure.
Snap Quiz: Teams in one of the six divisions finished the last week and a half without a losing record. Which division was it? The AL Central, featuring a close three-team race that all but eliminates any possibility of the league’s wild card coming from the Midwest.
Stat
city: MLB leader in outfield assists:
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(Posted:
7/6/10)
A
Salute to Ballplayers Unafraid of the Political Game
As we
say goodbye to the holiday weekend, let's salute the baseball players
independent - and patriotic - enough to express their political views
publicly.
Former players Curt Schilling and Al Leiter were never shy about
their support of George W. Bush. The Cardinals' Jeff Suppan
openly
backed local Republican causes. The Rays' David Price and Carl
Crawford
made known their allegiance to Barack Obama before his election,
as did
the D-backs' Edwin Jackson and
Playing
the political game in a democratic society in a way that goes beyond
voting is
as rare as it is admirable. Most people settle for expressing
patriotic
attitudes - as baseball loves to do in frequent seventh-inning support
of the
military. The idea of Team
“Our
citizenry
has
been
brought
up
to
see
our
nation
as
different
from
others,
an
exception
in
the
world,
uniquely
moral,
expanding
into
other
lands
in
order
to
bring
civilization, liberty, democracy…We see in Iraq that
our
soldiers are not different. They have,
perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of
“One
of
the
effects
of
nationalist
thinking
is
a
loss
of
a
sense
of
proportion.
The
killing
of
2,300
people
at
Pearl
Harbor
becomes
the
justification
for
killing
240,000 in
“…We
need
to
refute
the
idea
that
our
nation
is
different
from,
morally
superior
to,
the
other
imperial
powers
of
world
history….We
need
to
assert
our
allegiance
to
the
human race, and not to any one nation.”
-
- -
.Snap quiz: Who has
the biggest post-July 4 lead in the majors?
The surprising Padres, who finished the
weekend four games ahead of the Dodgers in the NL West.
The Rangers lead by most games in the
Stat city: David Wright has a 64-62 edge
over Alex Rodriguez in RBIs as of this morning. Wright
leads
the
NL
in
that
department,
A-Rod
is
only
third
in
the
- o -
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(Posted: 7/2/3/10)
Braves
and
Waterboarding:
the
Benefits
of
Home
Field
The home-field advantage of the Atlanta Braves – 28 wins in 37 games (going into the weekend), the best domestic record in the majors – has been more than matched in the field of political journalism. A newly released Harvard study finds that, for our four largest newspapers, waterboarding, when practiced by the home team, is “enhanced interrogation”, arguably a win, but when done by others “torture”, certainly a loss.
Harvard kept a
scorebook on the
performance of the NY Times, the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal and
USA
Today. From the early 30’s to the most
recent decade – a neutral-field period - the papers uniformly called
waterboarding torture, or scored it as such – the NY Times in 44 of 54
chances,
the LA Times in 26 of 27. But
as
of
the
start
of
a
whole
new
ballgame,
the
2002
run-up
to
Predictably, the papers had no problem labeling waterboarding torture when the practitioners played for foreign teams. Over 85 percent of such articles in the NYT and 91 percent of those in the LAT made the foreign-torture connection.
Salon’s Glenn
Greenwald notes how
quickly our media – including the Washington Post and NPR - gives the
home-field advantage to Team
“(They)
explicitly adopted
policies to ban the use of the (pejorative) word…once government
officials
announced (waterboarding) should not be called ‘torture.’
We don't need a state-run media because
our media outlets volunteer for the task.”
The most cogent
theory as to why
General Stanley McChrystal used such impolitic terms while talking
about
civilian teammates in
- - -
The Mets,
Rangers and Yankees are
thriving at home almost as much as the Braves.
The NYMs and
Where the hurtin’ leaves us: The rash of injuries to the Red Sox and Phillies has
given
two
teams
reasons
to
wear
collective
smiles. The Rays, who had been slipping,
now have a legitimate shot to remain in the AL East playoff hunt. And
On
Cliff Lee: Surprising unofficial word out of
How are our
favorite five
now-departed, recent former Yanks and Mets doing at this point of the
season? Some better than others. Johnny Damon is having an off-year with the
Tigers; he’s batting .261 with three home runs and only 20 RBIs in 71
games. Hideki Matsui is batting .256
with the Angels, but has 10 HRs and 46 RBIs in 76 games. Melky Cabrera
has hit
.257 with the Braves – two HRs and 23 RBIs in 76 games. Teammate Billy
Wagner
has been lights-out as closer with
- o -
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June 2010 Archive
(Posted:
7/1/10)
Team
Obama and the
The White Sox
fan in the White
House could learn a lot from Ozzie Guillen.
Ozzie was - is - a lefty hitter, but he doesn’t like Fidel
Castro’s
politics and he’ll bat away any talk of how his president Hugo Chavez
runs Team
Guillen, a loyal
Venezuelan but
not anti-Yanqui,,
surely wishes Team Obama would turn
its Latin American fortunes around the way he did the White Sox. Why?
Because the gringo policy has led to a recent losing streak for
the
“On April 13, 2002, an
event occurred…which was as world-historical for South America as the
fall of
the
“The failure…to overthrow
President Chavez…sent a powerful new signal about the limits of the
ability of
the United States to thwart popular democracy in the region…Following
the
reversal…a succession of presidents were elected across South America
promising
to reverse the disastrous economic policies promoted by Washington…The
story of
this dramatic transformation has been largely untold in the United
States. Our major corporate media are
largely
uninterested in the freedom narrative of South America, because it's a
narrative of freedom from control by
So far, Team Obama has blown
away any hope that, Guillen-like, it would change the Bush approach in
-
- -
No sad songs for Sox: Josh Beckett, Dustin Pedroia, Victor
Martinez, Clay Buchholz, Jacoby Ellsbury, Mike Lowell, Jeremy Hermida:
an
injury list that matches any a would-be contender has had to endure in
recent
years. Yet the Red Sox keep winning,
with a minimum of the “woe-is-us” bleats heard in
The Phillies have
just taken a key double-injury hit, losing Chase Utley and Placido
Polanco, at
least until after the All-Star break.
They join catcher Carlos Ruiz, and relievers Chad Durbin, Ryan
Madson
and J.A. Happ on the DL. The Phils in
depleted condition have four games with the Pirates, three with the
Braves and
three with the Reds before the break.
A.J. Burnett’s
problems are the only obvious kink in the Yankees’ purring machine. But, as Al Leiter noted on YES the other
night, the late-emerging effectiveness of Javy Vazquez has made
Burnett’s
laboring easier to absorb. Less obvious,
but in need of watching: the mysterious disappearance of two
miles-per-hour in
Phil Hughes’ velocity. “Throwing at 91
instead of 93 is a big difference,” Leiter and Michael Kay agreed as
the
Mariners clobbered Hughes Tuesday night.
Same old story: “It
always
comes
down
to
pitching.”
–
Joe Torre on the NL West
outlook. “If
a
team
can
pitch,
it
has
a
chance
every
night.”
-
Terry
Francona
(paraphrased
by
the
Globe’s
Nick
Cafardo)
on
the
AL
East
outlook.
- o -
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(Posted: 6/24/10)
Crash!...Go
the Astros, Orioles, Pirates and Economic Team
Say what you will about inter-league baseball, the games tell teams where they fit in the broader scheme of the sport. The Astros, Orioles and Pirates, for example, now know that they really, truly suck. Together (up to last night’s games), they had won six and lost 26 – Houston, 2-10, Baltimore, 2-8, Pittsburgh, 2-8.
In the same way,
Team
In his report,
published in the latest
Johnson says Team
- - -
What We’ve Learned over the last several days: Streaks by Texas (nine straight and 12 of 13) and the White Sox (seven straight and 11 of 12) all but confirm that the Rangers and Angels will duke it out in the AL West, the Sox, Twins and Tigers in the AL Central. Less sure, but possible: the Padres will hang in to make it a four-team donnybrook – Dodgers, Giants, Rockies and SD –in the NL West.
Hard to believe
the Rays - 10 wins in 26 games through Tuesday - are fading in the AL
East, but both the Yankees and Red Sox are looking strong now, and both
have deal-making power should their teams sputter. How
hot
are
the
Bosox?
At
36-20
(up
to
last
night),
Query: Which teams among the 20-plus still in playoff contention most need, and have the resources, to rent Cliff Lee? Answer (It says here): 1) Phillies, 2) Dodgers, 3) Mets, 4) Angels, 5) Yankees, 6) Red Sox, (7) Cardinals.
- o -
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(6/22/10)
Will Team
Thanks to MLB-TV, attentive baseball fans know the meaning of the term “economic inequality.” The channel does “look-ins” of games around the majors each night. And what viewers see, more often than not, is crowds clustered in corporate-box sections of the grandstands and yawning swaths of empty seats elsewhere.
Nubbite Frank Macchiarola is certainly attentive to baseball (and may even watch MLB-TV). But he e-mailed an objection to the pitch launched here last time that progressive taxation hitting the rich on down in a proportional way would begin to narrow the income gap. “The simple fact is,” he wrote, “that governments which tax at higher rates inhibit economic growth. Governments which tax at lower rates promote that growth and hence jobs.” The record book shows Brooklynite Macchiarola to be a heavy hitter in the financial field. And national polls show his support of tax-restraint is seconded strongly by most Americans, including elected officials like Andrew Cuomo, and the corporate media.
But polls consistently show something else that is seldom publicized: Even in hard times, people have no problem investing in public services through taxation if a condition is met. The taxes, if imposed on income, must be seen as fair, in keeping with what a person can reasonably spare.. Why, then, with most new jobs on the menial/service roster, has progressive reform of the tax code been low-bridged in NY and around the economically unequal nation? The Macchiarola stance amplified by an anti-tax offensive in the right-side media is one explanation. Despair or exhaustion is another:
“In a two-party
system,” wrote the late historian Howard Zinn, “if both parties ignore
public opinion, there is no place voters can turn.”
The scorecard confirms Zinn’s reference: Team
GOP
had
its
opponent
as
accomplice
in
skewing
the
American
political
game. Repubs and Dems came together after the 1976
Supreme Court decision that allowed unlimited amounts of money to be
used in political races. Lefty author William Greider notes that “the moneyed elite
first began to win big in 1978 with the Democratic party fully in power
well before Ronald Reagan came to
A sign as to whether the shift will at last be reversed nationally may be flashed in the inheritance tax contest. There’s a chance Congress will reduce instead of ratcheting up taxes on heirs to mega-million-dollar estates. That would deprive the economy of billions-a-year in income-gap-narrowing revenues. But Dems may well join with GOP players to hit to right and move the cut into scoring position.
- - -
Weekend Overview: By
taking
two
of
three
from
the
Mets
while
the
Rays
lost
two
of
three
to
the
Marlins,
the
Yankees
gained
both
first
place
alone
in
the AL East
and the best record in the majors. But it was the
Red Sox, only a game behind the Yanks, the White Sox, on a six-game
tear, and the Rangers, who’ve won eight straight, who swept in the
The Rays had been atop their division since
April 22, but they’ve won only 10 of the last 25 games.
The Inter-league won-loss record was 42-42
after the first weekend. Since then
On ESPN’s Sunday night game,
On Manny Ramirez, Schilling said “No one I ever played with worked harder.” But Manny had a tendency to loaf, he added, “and after he let a ball drop in front of him when I was pitching, I wanted to discuss it with him. But I was told to leave him alone.” Schilling didn’t mention Tito Francona by name, but implied he didn’t approve of the manager’s kid-glove treatment of Manny.
Updating (with apology) an item by the
Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers: “Look out for CC
Sabathia. His victor(ies) over Roy
Halladay…(and Johan Santana) reminded us that we have arrived at his
time of the year. The Yankees' ace has gone 29-6 from mid-June until
the end of the season the last two seasons.”
- o -
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(Posted: 6/15/10)
Unpredictable
Cuomo Takes Ballplayers’ Stance on Taxes
If Andrew Cuomo had followed his father into professional baseball – Mario Cuomo was a highly regarded Pittsburgh Pirates farmhand – his stance on taxes would make sense: ballplayers hate anything, even the sport’s minimally close-shaving luxury tax, that might brush back their income.
But
A journalistic exception is the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett, who consistently hits the telling long ball in the political-coverage game. After cheering much of candidate Andrew’s reform-Albany offensive strategy, Barrett swings out against his approach to taxes:
“’God helps those whom
God has helped’ was Mario Cuomo’s (wry) refrain about tax cuts for the
rich. Now his son, the man who exposed the
gargantuan bonuses Wall Street continues to pay, is against taxing
them…..Cuomo’s
“Indeed, Andrew Cuomo’s
(program) contain(s) a crisp statement of his core beliefs, and they
are resoundingly liberal…but the list does not include any commitment
to progressive tax policies or even to maintaining the temporary
restructuring of the state income tax…(which) raised state taxes on the
wealthiest.”
Why would Andrew
resort to a small-ball, hit-to-right strategy when he doesn’t have to
for success in the gubernatorial game? Barrett
notes a “Clintonian triangulation” stance, a sign the younger Cuomo may
already be looking beyond
- -
-
Re: Baseball’s luxury tax: Only two of 30 teams have payrolls in excess of this year’s spending limit, $170 million – the Yankees, of course, and the Red Sox.
Weekend Wrap:
Six of the 28 teams involved in the three-game inter-league
series swept: the Yanks, Tigers and Angels in the
Dusty Baker invited second-guessing when he chose to rest red-hot Scott Rolen against KC’s Zack Greinke on a day another hot hitter, Brandon Phillips, couldn’t play. Result: the Reds lost the rubber-game of the series and a chance to extend their lead over the Cardinals in the NL Central. Rolen had gone six-for-10, Phillips five-for-eight (including a HR) in the first two games.
Final weekend (W-L) tally: AL 23, NL 19.
“I’m not trying to hype this guy,” said TBS play-by-play man Dick Stockton about Stephen Strasburg Sunday. Too late to express restraint: Stockton’s TV colleagues Dennis Eckersley and Buck Martinez had already likened the rookie to Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax, Josh Beckett, Ubaldo Jimenez and Justin Verlander.
- o -
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A minor medical problem
will put The Nub on the DL for about a week.
(Posted: 6/12/10)
Baseball, Team
It’s no secret why baseball is celebrating the exploits of rookies Stephen Strasburg, Jason Heyward and even Ike Davis: the sport needs heroes. And what about war? If we wage it in the future primarily using drones – that is, in hero-less fashion, by remote control – how can our skippers hope to get the people’s support for devastation done in their name?
These thoughts
were triggered by a pair of messages in the e-mailbag. One,
from
Seth,
of
It was Rolf, of
- - -
Why Reds could
well be for real: As weekend began, more than a
third of
Praise for
the Padres: After splitting their six games
with
While the Padres were taking three of seven from the Phils and Mets on the road, the Dodgers took five of seven at home from the Braves and Cardinals. In so doing, LA leapfrogged SD into first place in the NL West.
Open for
business:
- o -
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(Posted: 6/10/10)
Big Changes Seen in Baseball and the Waging of War
Momentous changes in baseball and politics
may be just ahead: former managers Buck Showalter and Bobby
Valentine, and Ron Swoboda, key member of the ’69 World Champion Mets,
all see expanded use of video replays during games as inevitable. Boston
Globe
columnist
James
Carroll
sees
a
similar
but
sinister
change
occurring
in
the
political
field
–
the
outcome
of
our
conducting
a
remote-control
war
in
the
“We can’t let baseball become archaic,”
Showalter said while appearing with Valentine on ESPN. Swoboda,
who
spent
two
decades
as
a
TV
sportscaster,
predicted
that
baseball
“would
have
to
concede
to
the
camera’s
eye.” Speaking
by
phone
from
his
home
in
Carroll calls the use of pilot-less drone
aircraft a “military
revolution…No
one
can
predict
the
consequences
for the meaning of war of
this
total
removal of one combatant from the field of battle on which
the other is met. War’s mainly personal character
has, until now, been its only check. The
video-screen pilot in
A propos: Helen
Thomas (newly retired Hearst White House correspondent) epitomized what
young journalists should be taught: that
reporters ought not take sides, except on the side of life. That
is, they should challenge any rationale for visiting death on people.
That idea informed much of her questioning of presidents through the
years.
- -
-
Stat city: The disparity in AL-NL offensive stats is striking: going into last night’s games, the top BA in the AL was .370 (Robinson Cano) compared to .325 in the NL (Martin Prado); in home runs, the margin at the top was 18 (Jose Bautista) to 15 (Corey Hart); RBIs 52 (Miguel Cabrera) to 35 (Troy Glaus and Casey McGehee); stolen bases, 23 (Rajai Davis) to 19 (Michael Bourn).
(The Mariners’ Cliff Lee has the mlb’s best strikeout-walk ratio, by far: In 61.2 innings, Lee has struck out 57 and walked only four.
Swoboda, remembering the ’69 Mets:
There was an anti-Vietnam war consensus among attentive members
of the team. “(Tom) Seaver even said
publicly ‘If the Mets can win the World Series, we should be able to
get out of
Former Texas Rangers scout Frankie Piliere monitored the amateur draft for FanHouse earlier in the week. Here are squibs from his report:
“By getting Kolbrin Vitek,
Bryce Brentz, and Anthony Ranaudo, the (Red Sox) netted three of
the best college players in the country and three guys that aren't that
far away from the big leagues… If they can sign all these guys, it was
a tremendous day for the Sox.”
“Hats off to the Mets. There
were
some
questions
about
their
willingness
to
spend
on
the
draft,
and
by
taking
Matt
Harvey,
it
sure
looks
like
they
are
willing
to
go
above
slot. (He)… is one of the few college arms in the class to show
front-of-the-rotation upside.”
“The…Yankees had a
player they really wanted, regardless of where he was in the draft, and
that was Cito Culver, who they picked 32nd overall…Culver… got stellar
grades from the MLB Scouting Bureau this spring, grades that could have
pushed him into the top 25.”
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(Posted: 6/8/10)
Why Can’t
Both Pastimes ‘Have It Both Ways’?
“You can’t have it both ways,” said Steve Stone to Hawk Harrelson on WGN-TV. “You can’t keep the human element in baseball and resort to using video replays.” The subject came up during a White Sox broadcast after the missed call last week at the end of Armando Galarraga’s perfect game.
Stone is one of the best baseball analysts on the air. But
he
knows
that
baseball games offer as much
individual spontaneity as does any sport; that’s true, whether or not
umpires are involved in a play.
Indeed, having
it both ways is the American way. That’s certainly
the case in politics. Louisiana Governor Bobby
Jindal is a current example. He wants Team Obama to
get the spilled oil out of the
We
know
that
Team
USA,
as
the
world’s
preeminent
power
hitter,
felt
entitled
through
the
years
to
have
it
both
ways. Possessor
of
the
largest
arsenal
of
nuclear
weapons,
it
has
sought
to keep other
nations from going similarly to bat on even a modest scale.
We know, too, that while encouraging democratic elections, it
reserves the right to oppose winners who decline to play ball with our
home team. An unwillingness to take any stance in a
contest is another strategy designed to have it both ways. Robert
Fisk
of
the
UK
Independent
cites
an
Israeli-Palestinian
case
in
point:
“The
Goldstone
report…found
that
Israeli
troops
(as
well
as
Hamas)
committed
war
crimes
in
Gaza,
but
this
was
condemned
as
anti-Semitic
-
poor
old
honorable
(Richard)
Goldstone,
himself a prominent Jewish jurist from
South Africa, slandered as ‘an evil man’ by the raving Al Dershowitz of
Harvard - and was called ‘controversial’ by the brave Obama
administration. ‘Controversial’, by the way,
basically means ‘fuck you’.”
The
“both-ways”
list
includes
a
“Baseball has always wanted the human element involved. That means
you’re not always going to get the call right. The
techno-geeks will argue that in the 21st century, why not utilize
instant replay? Why not use technology?
But if you’re going to do that, then why not remove the umpires
altogether and have a guy in the press box watch each play and make a
ruling, then push a button.”
-
- -
Few weekend
brooms: In only two of the 15 weekend series
did teams sweep: the Mets took three from the Marlins (partial revenge
on the four
The Yankees
gained another reassuringly solid performance by Javier Vazquez but
might have lost a third straight to the Jays Sunday were it not for a
puzzling strategic mistake by
The weekend results left little changed anywhere except in the AL West, where the streaking Angels (five straight and eight of 10) look poised to take command yet again. Either the Braves or Dodgers could have lost momentum in their four-game set, but neither did with the split. It seems certain both will be around at September crunch-time.
- o -
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(Posted: 6/5/10)
Selig Should
Follow Obama’s Lead on Reversing Crucial Calls
Time for Bud Selig to reconsider – and do for the missed call in Wednesday’s perfect game what the national umpire-in-chief did on the oil-spill call: try to undo the political damage. Selig has the authority to reverse Jim Joyce’ s two-out “safe” call that ruined Armando Galarraga’s unblemished no-hitter. Since Joyce conceded he made a mistake after seeing a video replay, the reversal (media traditionalists notwithstanding) will elicit universal public approval.
Chief Obama, we
know, originally justified the decision to let BP, as the “responsible”
party, clean up the mess. Belatedly he saw the
error: BP was to blame, Team
“What
we're
witnessing
is
not
merely
a
human
and
environmental
horror,
but
also
an
appalling
deterioration
in
our
nation's
governance.
Just
as
we
saw
in
Wall
Street's
devastating
economic
disaster
and
in
Massey
Energy's
murderous explosion inside its Upper Big Branch coal mine, the
nastiness in the gulf is baring an ugly truth that We the People must
finally face: We are living under de facto corporate rule that has
rendered our government impotent.
“Thirty years of laissez-faire, ideological nonsense (pushed upon us
with a vengeance in the past decade) has transformed government into a
subsidiary of corporate power. Wall Street, Massey, BP and its partners
— all were allowed to become their own "regulators" and officially
encouraged to put their short-term profit interests over the public
interest.”
(Common Dreams)
Hightower only
hints at the most troubling part of the indictment: Mega-corporations
like BP and Goldman Sachs can at least match many governments in
resources – money, connections, power, legal expertise, etc.
Team
Unlike Obama, Selig knows he has the technology to insure against any recurrence of the mistake made in his baseball bailiwick. He hints that he will broaden the use of video replays; He should do it soon, insuring at last that baseball is getting controversial calls right.
- - -
Who would have
guessed that, going into the first weekend of June, three games would
be the largest margin a first-place team would have in any of the six
divisions? The single team with such a margin: the
Epitaph for
Dave Trembley: The newly-fired Orioles manager
sounded like he knew the boot was coming with this complaint about his
team in late April: "It's time to dial it
up and get this thing going in a positive direction and quit accepting
it and saying, 'It's OK.’ It's not OK. It's
not
OK
at
all. And I'm tired of covering for them.
I get questions point blank, and I feel like I'm a damn presidential
press secretary sometimes. Instead of telling them
how it is, I have to smooth it over. I ain't
smoothing it over anymore.”
Interim manager Juan Samuel has the “smoothing-it-over” job now
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(Posted: 6/3/10)
Why Can’t
Baseball Play a Whole New Political Game?
It’s hard to boo
the way baseball observed Memorial Day this year, but let’s try: the
“Welcome Back Veterans” motif and the idea of raising money to address
their needs was fine. The men and women who have
served in our two endless wars deserve all the help baseball can offer.
But the flag-waving associated with the observance – the selling
of “Stars and Stripes” caps – is another, too familiar story:
It equates wars and patriotism, something baseball has done
slavishly since 1898 and our intervention in
If
One such approach might go like this: “Welcome Back Veterans…to a Whole New Ballgame - Playing for Peace.” Elaborating the theme would be an expression of hope that military conflicts could be brought to an expeditious, and permanent, halt. And, more pertinently, that the deaths of so many – allegedly “not in vain” – would come to an end.
The Globe’s heavy thinking James Carroll could have had baseball in mind when he launched this Memorial Day pitch:
“Just because we necessarily make something noble of war, by thinking
gratefully of those who served to the point of death, does not remove
the indictment of what killed them. War is a crime. Among its victims
are its heroes. Yet in the modern era, they have been vastly
outnumbered by men, women, and children for whom war was only
catastrophic, in no
way valorous.”
Through the centuries there may have been a few “good wars”.
Historians count World War II as one. In his
book “Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph”, Geoffrey Perrett says that
war did more than just defeat Hitler. It produced
“the closest thing to a real social revolution” in the
History thus shows that good things can ensue if a war perceived as
“good” unifies a country. We’re a long way from
that national stance today, seemingly stranded on a torn-up political
playing field.
-
- -
In the
third month of the season, three teams are running on a winning habit
developed in May: the Dodgers have won 18 of 22, the Braves 18 of 23
and the Red Sox 12 of 15. Then there are the Reds,
who have 18 come-from-behind victories as they battle the Cardinals for
the NL Central lead. The consensus on MLB-TV the
other night was that St.Louis had too many weapons - pitching and
hitting – for
Role models: “There’s ‘being in the
major leagues’ and ‘major leaguers.’ Major
leaguers are ready to play every day or night, and play hard, no matter
what the standings show.” – Astros first baseman Lance
Berkman, interviewed on MLB-TV Tuesday night.
The Reds’ Johnny Gomes on the lessons major leaguer Scott Rolen offers
the team: “He
doesn’t argue with the umpires, he runs every single ball out, he makes
great plays, he makes routine plays, he gets the runner in when he
needs to get him in, he gets the runner over when he needs to get him
over. He just plays the game exactly how it should
be played.” (Quoted by Tyler
Kepner in NY Times)
Bobby Valentine is to ESPN what Mike Lowell is to the Red Sox: an edgy
designated hitter, waiting for a chance to move on. Valentine,
owner
Jeffrey
Loria’s
choice
to
replace
Marlins
manager
Fredi
Gonzalez
(should
it
come
to
that),
is
called
on
to
pinch-hit
as
well
as
to
make
regular
appearances on Baseball Tonight. The other
night he was asked to fill in as co-anchor when the Phillies-Braves
game was rain-delayed. Valentine took the occasion
to lecture the Tigers front office about reducing the team’s stock of
starting pitchers. “They gave Nate Robertson away
to the Marlins and now (Dontrelle) Willis has been let go to the
Diamondbacks. They better watch out; they’re
starting to fall behind in their division.”
Valentine mixed an impressive array of stats into an overview of the
pennant races; he had prepped well, it seemed, for his turn at the TV
plate. But then he erred on an identification play,
referring to Yankee outfielder Kevin Russo as “Romano.” A
tell-tale
sign,
perhaps,
that
he’s
looking
ahead
to
returning
to
what
he
really
wants
to
do.
- o -
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
May
2010 Archive
(Posted: 5/27/10)
Anti-Incumbent
Fervor
Felt
on
Political
Field
as
in
Baseball
The sharply hit
message of a New Yorker cartoon made an impact this week on both
political and baseball fields: A spouse, leaving with bags packed, says
to her husband: “There’s
nothing
wrong
with
you,
Steve
–
it’s
just
you’re
the
incumbent.”
What’s stopping Loria is similar to what’s causing Arkansas Dems to hesitate before giving incumbent Senator Blanche Lincoln her outright release (which could happen in a June 8 playoff with lefty Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter): the Marlins are above-.500 and very much in the hunt in NL East; as for Lincoln, the state’s Dems know that, although she hits too much to right, she swings up-the-middle enough to appeal to a broad section of voters.
Loria, who has
allowed the Marlins’ payroll to more than double since 2008 – from $21
to $57 million (40 percent of which is paid to shortstop Hanley Ramirez
and pitcher Josh Johnson – says he expects the team to make the
playoffs this year. Until they completed a
four-game sweep of the Mets a week-and-a-half ago, the Marlins had
been, for the most part, a sub-.500 team. Gonzalez,
vulnerable only because Valentine is available, could still be shown
the dugout door if
On the political field, a recent National Journal poll found that more than 80 percent of those questioned gave Congress either poor or “only fair” marks. The negative hits went to both – Dem and GOP – sides of the diamond. Journal columnist Ronald Brownstein says incumbents out of touch with unhappy constituents is just one aspect of what is happening:
“The common longer-term
development is the enhanced ability of insurgents to harvest that
discontent. Party leaders once controlled a
disproportionate share of money and resources, but the Internet now
makes it easier than ever for compelling challengers to construct a
powerful, even nationwide, network of supporters. (Paul, for instance,
raised more than three-fourths of his money outside
Which team is more vulnerable as November approaches? The one beginning with “D” that numerically has more to lose.
-
- -
May is the month it all came together for the Red Sox. They were 15-9 for May and won seven of eight going into last night’s game with the Rays. Superb starting pitching and timely hitting spurred by revitalized David Ortiz get much of the credit. But Marco Scutaro was singled out on MLB-TV the other night for helping to keep the team loose. Prior to game-time, the camera caught him saying something that had several players in stitches. “Fans can’t imagine how important stuff like that is,” said one of the panel that included former players Dan Plesac and Sean Casey. Incidentally, the AL East, with the Rays, Yanks and Jays ahead of the Sox, are the only division with four above-.500 teams.
With the Memorial Day weekend milestone approaching, it may be time to take the low-budget Padres seriously. They’ve stayed around, or in first place (as they are now) in the NL West for virtually the entire first quarter of the season.
Larry Dierker pitched for 14 years, managed the Houston Astros for five (making the playoffs in four of them). He then wrote one of the best baseball books extant, “It Ain’t Brain Surgery,” about his career. In an article the other day, Dierker mused about how hard it must be for Trevor Hoffman and Ken Griffey, Jr. to be close to the end of their careers:
“No
one
will
tell
you
when
to
quit.
Yet,
some
demigod
will
have
to
tell
even
the
most
exalted
players
to
clear
out
their
lockers.
Hoffman
and
Griffey may be incapable of making that decision. Their mindsets as
players, indeed the essence of their greatness, does not allow the
thought of quitting…The only ones who told me it was time to hang them
up were the hitters. They spoke so loud and clear that I could not
ignore them.”
- o -
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
The Nub will be away on
a holiday road trip, returning next Thursday.
(Posted: 5/25/10)
About
Ellsbury, Braun, Kinsler, Youklis…Netanyahu
Add the Red Sox’s reactivated Jacoby Ellsbury to the list of prominent Jewish players in daily lineups, a list that includes Ryan Braun of the Brewers, the Rangers’ Ian Kinsler, the Mets’ Ike Davis and Ellsbury’s teammate Kevin Youklis. All, with the exception of Youklis, are under 30, and, thanks to Ellsbury, offer a new composite of speed as well as power.
The play of
American Jews on the political field is changing, too. In
going
to
bat
for
“Yes,
How
has
the
belligerent
use
of
such
power
by
Team
Netanyahu
affected
Beinart’s
Of
course,
a
similar
charge
can
be
leveled
against
most
of
the
expanded
roster
of
Team
- -
-
The
Latest Mets stunner: “If
(Jerry) Manuel goes, the blood letting will be massive, says one
industry source, who indicated the coaching staff will be dismissed, as
well. The only possible exception would be hitting instructor Howard
Johnson, whose ties to David Wright have, until now, granted him
immunity from front office scrutiny.” - Bob Klapisch, The Record of
Wright
has
struck
out
38
percent
of
the
time
this
season
(60
Ks
for
157
ABs).
He is second in NL in that dubious category; Mark Reynolds of
the D-backs is first (62 for 156).
Here
is
what
a
Red
Sox
non-player
told
the
Globe’s
Nick
Cafardo
about
the
team’s
take
on
Hanley
Ramirez
(whom
the
Sox
traded
to
the
Marlins
in
the Josh Beckett/Mike Lowell deal) :
“We
had
to
get
on
him
all
the
time
about
that
(loafing)…Unfortunately,
what
happened
here
in
Boston
is
that
Manny
Ramirez
took the kid under his
wing, and while Manny helped him as a hitter, he also took up some of
Manny’s more unflattering aspects, like not hustling at times. Hanley
is
a
terrific
player
who
will
have
a
long
career
and
be
very
successful.
We always felt immaturity was an issue
that he would eventually grow out of. But maybe it
hasn’t quite taken hold yet.’’
- o -
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to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 5/22/10)
An Imperfect
Press Tracks Player Errors in Both Fields
Here’s an easy one: What do Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez and Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal have in common? Yes, they both committed on-field blunders – Ramirez by loafing after a ball he kicked into the outfield, Blumenthal by exaggerating in speeches the military service he did during the Vietnam War. But those mistakes were minor compared to the follow-up error both made: In refusing to apologize - in effect, saying what they did was not worthy of attention, they triggered an anti-stonewalling frenzy. Few miscues spur media relentlessness more than when a prominent player caught screwing up says “I don’t know what the fuss is about.”
The Marlins finally prevailed upon Ramirez to do the expected thing – say he was sorry to each of his teammates. And Blumenthal took responsibility, if not apologizing, for misspeaking. Both players have been tarnished: Super-star Ramirez is already being called the “non-Jeter;” Blumenthal, running for the U.S. Senate, has given his Republican opponent enough campaign ammunition to turn a sure thing into a neck-and-neck race.
Baseball and
politics can be unforgiving games, as is journalism. Media
in
the
The Times keyed
its expose last Tuesday to a speech Blumenthal gave in March 2008.
The story quoted him as saying “We have learned something
important since the days that I served in
But the campaign of Blumenthal’s Republican opponent Linda McMahon originally claimed to have fed the story to The Times. And, despite a retraction, there’s little reason to doubt that was so; it’s the way the campaign game is played. All of this suggests that, at the very least, The Times - currently touting its investigative reporting in advertisements - has done some misrepresenting itself.
Here is a
follow-up to Perfect Pitch partner Bob Sullivan’s dismissal of the
Rasmussen polls in the previous Nub. It’s from the
UK Guardian blog posted by Michael Tomasky: “Look at …
Rasmussen's results on the generic Dem-Rep ballot question vs. everyone
else. You'll see two things:
1. The majority of other polls show a Dem advantage, while every single
Ras poll for the last 10 months has shown a GOP edge.
2. Ras has polled almost as often itself as all other pollsters
combined. In other words, Ras leans Republican, and
- this is the crucial point - since it goes in the field so much more
often, it pushes the aggregate numbers in the GOP direction.”
- - -
The two big stories at the start of inter-league play: the Dodgers and the Rays. LA has won 10 of 11, playing much of the time without its best hitter Andre Ethier. The Rays demonstrated to the Yankees this week that their best-by-far MLB record is no fluke. Meanwhile, back in the NL, the Reds have established themselves as a genuine wild card threat – that’s if they don’t outrun St.Louis in their division. What else? Don’t look now, but the AL West is fast becoming a two-team race between the Rangers and Angels.
Managerial
Plank: The consensus on the East Coast is that
either Dave Trembley or Jerry Manuel will be the first casualty of
2010. Since there were higher hopes in
The two managers
who took over new teams in 2010 – Brad Mills in
How bad are things with the Astros? Here is
the take of the Houston Chronicle’s Richard Justice: “It’s time to
see the Astros for what they are. That is, they’re going to lose 100
games and be remembered as one of the worst teams in franchise history.”
Correction: Charlie Rangel’s
campaign fund-raiser at Citi Field is scheduled for tomorrow, Sunday,
not yesterday, as reported here earlier in the week. The
spate
of
the
Congressman’s
supporters
should
help
boost
attendance
figures,
something
the
hurting
Mets
will
certainly
welcome.
- o -
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 5/20/10)
Whose Side Are the National Pastimes On?
Just as fans are showing with their feet that they don’t feel baseball cares enough about keeping them happy, so signs - including some key election returns Tuesday - say that plain citizens have no sense government is on their side.
The fans see
that, although the baseball season is still young, those in charge of
underachieving teams are impatient. Lou Piniella
says his high-priced Cubbies aren’t producing; there is talk of White
Sox stars being traded away, and similar rumbling has started in
In the world
beyond baseball, the excitement has been far from fan-pleasing: The
mine safety failure linked to the deaths of 25 in
Warren is cautiously optimistic - she told the BBC - that Congress will be able to overcome the din on its playing field caused by the “noise” of powerful lobbyists’ - the “talk, talk, talk” that makes it difficult for legislators to hear what the public is saying. It is up to Team Obama - especially the skipper - to clear away the noise, permitting the people to recognize in government its traditional role as friend. So that when the question arises “Whose side is it on?” the answer will no longer be in doubt.
- - -
It took a long while for Alex Rodriguez to win over NY fans. But after his game-tying two-run homer against the Red Sox Monday night, the doubts about him have disappeared. Joe Girardi gave a good reason afterward why that’s the case:
“He’s
a
weapon.
Every time he steps up to the plate,
everyone is in scoring position.’’
A team that wins almost half (10 of 23) of its games in the last at-bat
has to be taken seriously. That’s the Cincinnati
Reds, touted in pre-season on MLB-TV as a team to watch. The
other
night
on
the
same
channel,
Dan
Plesac
said
he
considers
Word Play: If words betray attitude, as they often do, ESPN’s Adam
Rubin doesn’t care much for Mets COO Jeff Wilpon (from whom he sought
advice about a job in baseball last year). The
basis for that surmise? A single word in the
following account by Rubin of Wilpon’s surprise visit to
Jerry Manuel apparently shares doubts expressed here about Howard
Johnson’s effectiveness as Mets hitting coach. SI’s
Jon Heyman says he heard that Manuel wanted to bring back the team’s
ex- hitting coach Rick Down, but was turned down, at least in part
because HoHo is “entrenched” in Down’s former job. A
problem,
almost
surely,
but
not
as
big
for
the
Mets
as
that
of
ownership
entrenchment.
- o -
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Comments to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome,
as are subscription requests. Previous Nubs can be
found by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 5/18/10)
The Ollie
Perez Factor in the Political Field
The most credible poll available - attendance figures - has confirmed what we all know: the Mets don’t have what it takes to draw fans. After 22 home games, the team registered the largest attendance decline in the majors.
More conventional polls – done by mainly by telephone - show political fans to be unhappy with Team Obama. Where floundering $36 million pitcher Ollie Perez is the poster boy of the Mets’ poor organizational judgment, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the skipper’s economic coach Larry Summers epitomize what the public dislikes about the O-Team. Poll participants identify the “economy” as the main reason they may well vote Republican this November. But underlying that view is the broad resentment of bank-bailout architects Geithner and Summers. Most striking about the resentment is its expression by fans in both left and right fields.
The Mets have finally removed Perez from their rotation. But it may be too late for fans forced to endure the team’s fruitlessly sticking with him since the start of last season. Geithner and Summers will eventually leave Team Obama, but the skipper has indicated he will let it be on their terms. Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter says in his new book “The Promise” that had Barack been more managerial with the pair and insisted they attach strings to the bailout, “he might have pre-empted a brewing populist revolt.”
Follow-up to
previous Nub on polling and
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”Nevertheless,
this
does
not
mean
that
the
results
in
Lots of batting averages soared over the weekend. But the prize for the biggest gain among regulars goes to Jorge Posada. Counting Thursday’s game against the Twins, Posada went eight-for-11, lifting his BA 44 points from .282 to .326. Detroit's Magglio Ordonez didn’t do badly, either, going 10-for-17, including Thursday. That amounted to a 37-point gain, from .276 to .313.
On MLB-TV the other night, the subject was the rigors of travel as a
major leaguer. Barry Larkin and Harold Reynolds
were two of the former players who agreed
Congressman Charlie Rangel is holding a re-election campaign
fund-raiser at Citi Field Friday night. When his
office notified us, we suggested he try somehow to distance himself
from the Mets, who have let their fans down.
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(Posted: 5/15/10)
Politics and
Baseball Mixing It Up in
How much
political clout does baseball have with the public-at-large?
To judge by what has happened in
Possibly
emboldened by the poll results, Bud Selig announced, in effect,
Thursday that baseball has no plans to move the 2011 All-Star game
scheduled for
The corporate media and polling firms are an effective double-play
combination: in
The skewing caused by the misperceptions slips into poll results
published daily. Those results amplified in press reports nationally
will make it difficult for non-corporate baseball – the players and
fans – to make a difference in the anti-immigration rhubarb. There
is
a
slim
hope
of
effective
baseball-based
action,
however.
Embodied in San Diego Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, it
rests on the possibility that Latino All-Star players like Albert
Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Mariano Rivera, Felix Hernandez, etc. will
follow his lead and boycott the game in
By the numbers: The nationality
breakdown of the 27 percent of Latino players in the majors, as
reported by MLB:
-
- -
Ahead 4-3 in the
seventh inning of the Twins-Yankees game last night, Ron Gardenhire
elected to walk Mark Teixeira to load the bases with one out.
He chose to have reliever Mark Guerrier pitch Alex Rodriguez.
“Has Gardenhire checked the match-ups?” asked YES’s Michael Kay.
“A-Rod has gone for four-for-six against Guerrier, including two
home runs.” Moments later, A-Rod hit a grand slam to set up the Yanks’
8-4 victory.
Ollie Perez only
walked three men in his latest outing, but it lasted only 3.1 innings.
The rest of his line: seven runs, nine hits, four home runs.
Omar Minaya has not wanted Jerry Manuel to give up on his
embarrassing $36 million investment. But after
Ollie’s performance in
Tough loss for the Reds who could have jumped ahead of the Cardinals in
the NL Central last night. St.Louis had a 4-0 lead
after five innings, but come-from-behind
SI’s Joe
Posnanski on the mistake
On WCBS Radio, John Sterling quoted Rangers GM Jon Daniels on the
Angels’ slow start in the AL West: “Mike Scioscia
is playing rope-a-dope with us.”
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(Posted: 5/13/10)
The Scotus and Baseball Scouting Game
USA Today asked veteran Florida Marlins scout
Mickey White how the job of birddog has changed between the time he
started out decades ago and now. His answer:
“We are
completely inundated with information (without) the ability to discern
between good information and disinformation.”
White watched in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s as the scouting process changed from sight-based evaluation to sabermetrics; that is, from recommending a player for what eyeballing him says he can become, to a review of his stats which tell what he has done. As the evolving technology helped statistical records expand, the info available on young players multiplied. So, amid myriad positive and negative reports, it’s become more challenging for baseball people to get a clear picture of a prospect’s potential.
Scouts in the political game face a similar
challenge in sizing up Supreme Court prospect Elena Kagan. Skipper
Obama
decided
he
wanted
to
add
her
to
the
court
lineup
after
watching
her
play
at
the
“Kagan is…
an accommodator. Like Obama, she is a consensus
builder, not a hard-line activist: She’s pro-abortion rights but also
pro-death penalty; she hates DADT (‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’), but has
expressed support for the Defense of Marriage Act…”
That is the stance of a switch-hitter who prefers to bat from the left side of the plate. Kagan doesn’t inside-out or pull the ball but likes to hit straight away. Her tendency is to choke up on the handle rather than swing for the fences. Kagan’s practice of playing a careful game frustrates many observers, but it should hinder opponents from calling her out when she takes her turn under the Senate dome. Ron Klain, assistant to the skipper’s top coach Joe Biden, confirmed that she’d be watching her step: "You will see before the committee that she walks that line in a very appropriate way. She will be forthcoming with the committee. It will be a robust and engaging conversation about the law, but she will obviously also respect the conventions about how far a nominee should or shouldn’t go in answering about specific legal questions."
Opponents are expected to try to drive her off the plate because she’s never had the challenge of judicial playing experience. She’ll hang in and get a hit, say supporters, and come around to score.
- - -
ESPN’s Buster Olney notes that David Wright
is on a pace to strike out well over 200 times this season, compared to
140 last year. Here is what he says is what
happened: “It's as if all
National League teams now are working from the same book when pitching
to David Wright. Early in a game, or early in a
count, pitchers are busting him inside with fastballs to knock him off
the plate, to make him uncomfortable. And then they spin breaking balls
away, or come back inside with fastballs.
“Clearly, he is not comfortable at the plate; scouts are noticing that
he is flinching at breaking pitches, a tendency that they believe
started after Wright was beaned last summer in a game against the
Giants.”
MLB apparently feels there’s enough substance
to complaints the Phillies bullpen coach is stealing signs that they
have put umpires on “full alert” to watch for it happening. The
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(Posted: 5/11/10)
Eco-Ball
Reality: It’s Better to be an Angel Than a Greek
Snap quiz: What
do the LA Angels and the state of
MLB-TV’s Bob Costas and the Times’ Paul Krugman unknowingly set up the connection late last week.
While doing
play-by-play of an Angels-Red Sox game, Costas mused about the plight
of the two teams. The Angels were doing much worse
than the .500-playing Red Sox, he noted, having lost six straight and
falling six games under .500. But of the two you
knew, he said, that the Angels would get back into the pennant race.
The Sox’s future was problematic. The differing outlook resulted
from where the two teams were playing in the baseball universe:
In his column,
Krugman pointed out that
Although many
Californians may consider themselves anti-government, their state will
ride out the bad stretch thanks to aid from what they perceive as the
enemy. Krugman elaborates: “Much of the money
spent in
“What this means…is
that California’s budget woes won’t keep the state from sharing in a
broader U.S. economic recovery…If Greece had its own currency, it could
try to engineer such a recovery by devaluing that currency, increasing
its export competitiveness. But
A worrisome
caveat: Unless or until European Union nations make good their promise
of hundreds of billions in aid, the danger persists that
- - -
ESPN’s Orel Hersheiser noted Sunday night that the Yankees could weather a rash of injuries better than most teams “because they can afford to have major leaguers on the bench…Randy Winn could be playing regularly almost anywhere.”
Stat city: After the weekend, three teams – the Tigers, Yankees and Twins –
accounted for
the top six places in the
Someone had to take the fall for the performance of the last-place (in the AL West) Mariners. Just before the team broke an eight-game losing streak Sunday, it fired hitting coach Alan Cockrell.
In that context, one hates to point fingers, but…After Mets hitters struck out a total of 23 times over Saturday and Sunday – that is, the Ks amounted to more than a third of their 60 outs – we were reminded of the record of the team’s batting coach: Howard Johnson fanned well over 20 percent of the time during his 14 years in the bigs. We considered the memorably wild-swinging HoJo an odd choice for the job of teaching people like David Wright how to cut down on his swings and misses. It seems odder than ever these days.
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(Posted: 5/8/10)
Barack and the Other Black Center Fielders
When the names of young African-American center fielders are reeled off – Michael Bourn, Dexter Fowler, Curtis Granderson, Austin Jackson, Matt Kemp, Cameron Maybin, Andrew McCutchen, Denard Span. – there’s an obvious political-field equivalent: the heavily scouted skipper Barack Obama.
Center fielders, we know, have to range to their left and right as well as cover the broad swath in the middle of the outfield. The reliability of their performance is taken for granted; they wouldn’t be there if they weren’t adroit. On the rare occasions when we hear about them they’ve screwed up.
Unlike Carlos Beltran, say, who had to cover expanses of left and right field when Daniel Murphy and Fernando Tatis were stationed there with him last season, Obama does well to steer clear of drifting from his regular position. He has disappointed liberals and intensified the hostility of conservatives when swinging far in either opposite direction. (He managed to move both ways on health care reform and coastal drilling, antagonizing left and right.)
We know from the skipper’s record book that in center is where he has always wanted to be. He’s beleaguered even there now because of the laid-back game he plays faced with political long balls: oil pollution, curbs on Wall Street, domestic terrorism, etc. His cautious approach in fielding the barrage has brought forth boos from the press box. Discussing David Remnick’s “The Bridge” in the NY Review of Books, Joseph Lelyfeld notes how the skipper set himself up for ever-broader opposition:
“The very qualities of
thoughtfulness and patience that made Obama’s election seem such a
hopeful harbinger now make him vulnerable to charges of weakness from
both flanks of the political divide…And in the short term at least, it
doesn’t play conspicuously well in the media echo chamber, which is
always spoiling for a fight, doesn’t reward prudence, and has no time
for ambiguity.”
The good center fielders know how to adjust to new challenges. Democrats know the urgency of the answer to this question: Is the skipper, so at home in his position, up to making the adjustment?
- - -
Stat city: It’s been no contest so far between the Yanks and Red Sox in the AL Leaders category. Going into Friday night, Robinson Cano was third in hitting with a .362 and tied for third in HRs with nine. A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte and C.C. Sabathia were fifth, sixth and 11th among the top 20 in the league’s ERA category. The lone Red Sox player on either list: Clay Buchholz, 14th in ERA.
The Giants, backed by the division’s best starting threesome, are asserting themselves early in the NL West. As the weekend opened, SF had won nine of 12 and inched into first ahead of the Padres. The Giants’ 17-10 record put them on a 102-60 pace. The three-game series with the Mets will be their only regular-season appearance in NY. Tim Lincecum pitches Sunday. The Mets will be spared having to face Barry Zito and Matt Cain.
One reason SF’s cross-bay rival
From the e-mailbag: “I'm tired of all of
this grousing about the Yankee payroll. For almost
50 years the Mets have had access to the same fan base as the Yankees.
By extension they have had access to the same financing from
that fan base. In fact, their payroll has been in the top five of all
major league teams for much of the last ten years. Yet, what do they
have to show for it?” – Gary M,
“I don't remember your
being so critical when the Yanks were not doing too well even given
they had the same leadership (Cashman & the Steinbrenners) and lots
of money.” - Earl R,
- o -
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(Posted: 5/6/10)
Targeting the
Wall Street of Baseball, the Yankees of Finance
Why is it that, in the field of financial reform, the status of the Yankees comes to a baseball fan’s mind? It might be because the Yanks are the Wall Street of the sport. Or that both the mayor of NYC and the NY governor could have been speaking of the NYYs when they recently defended Wall Street. Said Mayor Bloomberg: Wall Street accounts for “40 percent” of the city’s tax proceeds. Said Governor David Paterson: Wall Street accounts for “22 percent” of state revenue.
Banks and investment firms around the country exert similar financial clout in their bailiwicks. We know the Yanks, meanwhile, are the only team extant to pay a luxury tax to help other franchises; and, furthermore, they contribute the most to baseball’s separate revenue-sharing arrangement. Under the circumstances, why shouldn’t we be happy to let the Yankees and Wall Street alone?
There is the question of fairness, some people say. But we know how far-fetched it is to think a fair financial playing field will ever be laid out in baseball. It may be more likely to happen on Wall Street. Newsweek columnist Ezra Klein explains why:
“The
market's
rules
are
these:
you
make
as
much
money
as
you
can
without
actually
going
to
jail.
This
is
a
world
in
which
people
are
applauded
for ‘blowing up the customer’—that is to say, offloading a crap product
on a dim investor. But it's not the world the rest
of us live in. And if Wall Street doesn't realize
that quick, financial regulation might turn out
very badly for them…
“This brings us to a word that's very important to most people but not
very important to Wall Street: fairness… The (bank) bailout might have
been necessary to save our economy, but all of it is deeply unfair.
Americans were punished for Wall Street's sins and they want
reform that will bring this industry more into line with their
values…As partial owners and continual backstoppers, they want to
remake the business into something they feel comfortable insuring.
Fair's fair. “
The
skipper is shifting his feet as he stands at the plate now on this very
issue. Gestures aside, no one knows for sure what
his final stance will be.
- - -
Fair-Guess Future Divisional Winners (after first month of season): AL East: Yanks and Rays (one gets wild card); AL Central: ? AL West: ? NL East: Phillies; NL Central: Cardinals; NL West: ? NL Wild Card: ?
Is it premature to presume that four of eight playoff spots will be filled by teams thus tabbed? We think not. (Sorry about that, Red Sox fans.)
The Sox are said
to
More on Johnny Damon: In 16 years in the bigs, he has been on the DL a grand total of once. (Per MLB-TV)
Stat city:
Two off-the-radar names in the eastern half of the country are
among league leaders in separate categories.
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(Posted: 5/4/10)
On Baseball
Going to Bat Against
What are the
chances of baseball intervening in the rhubarb over
So, we should be
able to dismiss talk of shifting next year’s All-Star game away from
But, if the
Arizona Diamondbacks take a hit because people stay away from their
games, both at home and away - that is, if one of the brotherhood of
owners is winged economically – then baseball may well go to bat
against the law. Straight-talking White Sox manager
Ozzie Guillen gave Bud Selig and co. a populist rationale for such a
move: “This country could not
survive without…the Latinos. They cannot live
without us. A lot of (Americans)…( a)re very
lazy. They want to be on the computer and sending
e-mail, and we do the hard work…to make this country better.”
You’d find little argument with that in our major cities. But people in smaller communities seem to feel differently, according to polls.
Team Obama has the clout to chase the law from the field, but it needs both major political clubs to come together to use its power. Team GOP is playing a hard-nosed game, which National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein says is putting it and everyone at risk:
“The hardening…position
could
expose
the
GOP
to
long-term
political
danger.
Although
Hispanics are now one-sixth of the
- - -
Re: The Night the Magic Stopped: For Mets fans, the final game of the first series with the Phillies, so freighted with significance, started so well and ended so badly. But the outcome had this benefit: it should have disabused the fans of even thinking their team could compete with the defending NL champions. They can relax now, and, if they are wise, resist dreaming another impossible dream: winning the wild card.
The Globe’s Nick
Cafardo noted the other day the three-team, multi-player deal in which
the Tigers sent Curtis Granderson to the Yankees for Austin Jackson has
worked out well for Detroit.
A month into the
season, only one of six divisions has daylight between its first-and
second-place teams: it’s the NL Central, with the Cardinals five games
ahead of the runner-up Cubs, after last night’s victory over
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(Posted: 5/1/10)
Pitching
Populism in Politics and at the Yankees
“Everybody hates the Yankees,” Skipper Obama said (in so many words) at the White House the other day. (After a sassy Yankee exec told him that, as a White Sox fan, he was as close to the World Series trophy as he could hope to get.)
The skipper was
responding to an expression of arrogance that non-pinstripe fans
associate with the Bombers. It was, in effect, a
populist response to the privileged status the Yanks have attained
owing, in large part, to money. Attentive fans
know, for example, that the Yankees can outbid any other team seeking
the services of Carl Crawford after his
Progressives wonder why Obama doesn’t pitch the same populist fireballs at Team GOP for its Yankees-like traits: a fan base that is well-off, a policy of preventing the opposition from taking positive action. In the health care reform game, we’ve seen the GOP-ers stop enactment of a public option, just as in the financial regs contest they may well succeed in keeping a consumer protection initiative off the field.
The skipper has made warm-up tosses aimed at calling attention to the elitism Team GOP represents. But American Prospect’s Bob Kuttner says Barack can score with the public if he emulates Harry Truman, who was in the same pickle more than half-a-century ago:
“Populism turned out to be winning politics
for Truman, not because it was cheap demagoguery but because there were
real differences between the parties and major public issues at stake
whose resolution one way or the other would benefit different classes
of voters. Billionaire Warren Buffett once quipped
that there is class warfare in
“To be a conservative Republican is to believe that markets function
just fine, people mostly get what they deserve, and government
typically screws things up. To be a liberal
Democrat is to believe that market forces are often cruel and
inefficient; that the powerful take advantage of the powerless; and
that there are whole areas of economic life, from health care to
employment, where we need activist government. Obama
needs
to
be
more
ideological,
in
the
best
sense
of
the
word.”
A familiar argument, yes; but Dems are waiting to see if the follow-through will be another half-swing by the skipper?
- - -
ERA Leaders: Let’s see, there’s the
Mets’ Mike Pelfrey (0.69),
The Red Sox have recalled 40-year-old Alan Embree from Triple-A
Pawtucket. Embree hadn’t been in the minors in
almost 20 years. He told the Globe’s Amalie
Benjamin that the experience “invigorated” him, but it wasn’t easy: “Pitching
in
the
cold,
pitching
with
different
baseballs,
flat
mounds
—
not
the
best
situation
to
pitch
in.
You
find
out
how
spoiled
you
are
up
here.
“You do learn a new appreciation… The facilities aren’t quite as nice,
training room’s not quite as nice, food’s not quite as nice. You can go
down the list. The travel. I was probably the only
guy in that (International) league this year that will have used a
heating pad on a bus.’’
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April 2010 Archive
(Posted: 4/29/10)
Team Obama and Baseball Seen as Turning
Off Young People
The youthquake behind recent Gallup Poll results suggesting dismay with political business-as-usual surely resonated with Team Obama. The young-oriented message should shake baseball, too, after a reminder of how badly its business looks with reforms buried back in the clubhouse.
The poll showed that young people have lost interest in voting Democratic, clearly because they’ve seen very little change they can believe in. As to baseball, the digital-savvy younger generation can only scorn a sport that refuses to enter the technetronic age and rid itself of crucially erroneous umpiring calls.
There have been many amazingly bad umpiring
calls already this season, but few, if any, could match the one in the
Braves-Cardinals game the other night. An