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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.”

                                                                                         - Boston Globe

(Posted: 1/25/11)

 

Baseball and the High Court: Final Score Is Not Game’s End

 

The man whose sacrifice freed baseball players from a form of servitude would have been 73 this week.   Curt Flood’s name should rank with that of Jackie Robinson.  As a pioneering black major leaguer, Jackie faced prejudice, even hatred, in the fight for racial justice.  Flood fought a long, less dramatic battle for economic justice, and, when it was won, could not benefit from the victory.

 

Flood took his case, challenging the Cardinals’ right to trade him to another team and city, to the Supreme Court in 1972.  The Court turned Flood away, upholding baseball’s power to treat players like private property.  Much like their reaction to the High Court’s Citizens United ruling a year ago, some of the media attacked the ’72 decision as a victory for corporate rights over human rights.  The outcry, also voiced in Congress, eventually forced baseball to negotiate player-liberating reforms that led to the free-agent system.

 

Are similar reforms possible now in reaction to Citizens United?  With Team GOP in control of Congress, it’s a long shot.  But strong public support for legislation that would require corporations to show how they spend money on elections could rally enough bipartisan backing for such a “people’s” initiative.  Still another remote, but not unreal, possibility: passage of a law setting up a public financing system that would give clout to small donors.  The system in NYC is a model of what could happen nationwide.  The city matches small donations at a 6-1 ratio, making grass-roots fundraising competitive in importance to the seeking of corporate money.

 

If nothing else, greater disclosure and public financing could become potent populist   issues in the 2012 election.  

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Aftermath:  Back to Flood, who sat out the 1970 season (for which he would have earned almost $100,000) and the one in ’71 while his case moved slowly to the Supreme Court.  Without a paying job, he was nearly destitute when the legal game ended.  Flood wound up scrimping, drinking, suffering a series of marital breakups and experiencing always a sense of ostracism from the game he loved.  He couldn’t get employment with a team or even with the players union, which had financed the case. 

 

And when, at 59, Flood died of cancer – 14 years ago last Sunday – not a single active player attended his funeral.  Union reps David Cone and Tom Glavine issued a prepared statement instead, acknowledging the loss.  Brad Snyder, a Washington, D.C. lawyer, paid proper tribute to Flood.  Snyder sidelined his legal career to tell Curt’s story in a moving 2006 book called “A Well-Paid Slave.”  This is how the book ends:

 

“(Jackie) Robinson and Flood took professional athletes on an incredible journey – from racial desegregation to well-paid slavery to being free and extremely well paid.  Robinson started the revolution by putting on a uniform.  Flood finished it by taking his off.”

                                    -     -     -

Warmth for the Rays and A’s:  The Rays may have slipped as AL East title threats with the departures of Carl Crawford, Rafael Soriano, Matt Garza, Carlos Pena, etc., but they still rank high in one way in Boston, NY and elsewhere.  Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez may both be over the hill, but the excitement they bring gives the Rays at least as much fan appeal as they had with their former stars.  And, since it’s always fun for NYY fans to see old friend Hideki Matsui, the A’s should be more welcome than usual at the Stadium this year.

 

A Minnesota Chill Ahead?  The Twins as a rule are more efficient than colorful.  This season their effectiveness will depend in large part on the contributions of two returning convalescents: Justin Morneau and Joe Nathan.  The Twins were content to keep two other key performers this post-season, re-signing Carl Pavano and Nathan.  But they lost relievers Jesse Crain to the White Sox and Matt Guerrier to the Dodgers, so they could wind up skating on thin Minnesota ice.  

                                   

The Mets, we know, have their Morneau-medical-equivalent in Jason Bay.  Justin and Jason, both Canadians from British Columbia, are returning after suffering concussions. Morneau had an infield-impact incident, Bay collided with an outfield wall.  Both profess to be healthy again.  Comparing their play will be an interesting statistical sidelight this season.

                                   - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted:1/22/11)

 

Fans on Both Fields Hoping for a ‘Flip-Flop’

 

“Success is winning…All of us do better when we win.”   

 

Words of our feisty VP, Joe Biden, the man from Delaware?  Close (geographically): It was NJ-born Stan Kasten who had a weakness for winning; we know him as former president of the Atlanta Braves and, lately, of the Washington Nationals. Kasten had a long streak of successful seasons with the Braves, but his Nats finished last in five of six seasons in the NL East.  He thinks that lower-tier status is about to change for the Nationals, the Marlins, and even the Mets.  It won’t happen this season.  But Kasten said on MLB-TV the other night that 2012 could be a “flip-flop” season when age catches up to the Phillies and Braves, and the Nats, Marlins, and yes, the Mets, take the upper places in the division.

 

The suggestion may sound more hopeful than realistic, but the record book shows (one World Series title and 14 straight division wins in Atlanta) Kasten has earned the right to be taken seriously.  If nothing else, his words provide many baseball fans in the east with reason to believe their teams won’t remain also-rans much longer.  Lefty political fans should be so lucky.  Rallying cries to reverse the right-shift of the elective money-ball game have been strident and unpersuasive.  A softer pitch by The Nation’s William Greider offers quiet encouragement:

 

“I heard a grassroots leader on the radio explain that basically the Tea Party people ‘want government that works for them.’  Don’t we all?  In the next few years, both parties will try to define this sentiment.  If they adhere to the corporate agenda, they are bound to get into trouble, and the ranks of insurgent citizens will grow.”       

 

The power of the news and entertainment media to distract, discourage and sedate may expose Greider’s contingent game plan as wishful thinking.  For the moment, it is hard to imagine Americans focused enough to react to what they see as injustice; focused, for example, as are the Tunisians today.

                                      

Changing (Political) Times:  “We must not balance our budget on the backs of the poor.”  - NY Governor Mario Cuomo, 1983

 

“(Democrats)… argued that vital health-care and education spending (on which the poor are largely dependent) would be lost if the $4 billion-plus in annual revenues produced by the ‘millionaire's tax’ is allowed to expire at the end of the year…(NY Governor Andrew) Cuomo told the lawmakers he's determined to pass a rare on-time budget (with no tax hikes), and won't let a fight over the tax prevent it.”

                                                                                                                                                                - NY Post, January 20, 2011      

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Larry Bowa’s Batbag of Insights:  “Manny Ramirez would be worth picking up as a DH; he can still hit, but he’s lost his power.”  “The pitcher that has matured the most is Matt Cain.  He now is as tough as they come.”  “I’m picking the Oakland A’s to win their division.  They have so much pitching, and their offense has gotten better.”  “I look far down south to find the team I like in the National League East: The Marlins.  They’ve got a good young team.  When that kid (Mike) Stanton hits the ball, it makes a different sound.”  (As unpacked on MLB-TV) 

 

The Other Side of Mariano: Asked earlier in the week to choose the “most intimidating” active player, three baseball newsmen came up with three different names: Roy Halladay, Andrew Pujols and Mariano Rivera.  Peter Gammons, who chose Rivera, told of Mo facing Shea Hillenbrand in Boston on a night after Hillenbrand had hit a decisive home run off him. “Mariano threw two pitches that whizzed behind Hillenbrand’s back.  He’s not as easygoing as he looks.”

 

Big Deal One Year Later:  How happy is Jim Leyland a year later with the deal that brought the Tigers Austin Jackson and Phil Coke for Curtis Granderson?  Well, Jackson has established himself as one of the league’s best centerfielders and leadoff men.  And Leyland mentions reliever Coke in the same breath with ace Justin Verlander and other top starter Max Scherzer. “We have a good team,” he says, “(but the key will be if) it’s the healthiest…(We must) keep Verlander, Scherzer and Coke…healthy."  A sure sign the ex-Yank has an important part to play in Leyland’s plans.  

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 (The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

(Posted: 1/18/11)

 

Playing Ball and Politics: It Takes More Than Ego

 

“You’ve got to ac-cen-tu-ate the positive,” goes the old song, “e-lim-i-nate the negative…”  With pitchers and catchers less than a month away, that upbeat approach is certainly appropriate.  The thought occurred in connection with baseball’s Jermaine Dye and then, unlikely as it may seem, with the U.S. Congressional team.  The word “ego”, often used to explain why veteran Congressional players resist retirement, was used on MLB-TV to suggest it was a self-involved stance that prevented Dye from accepting a contract and playing ball last year.  

 

As seen from objective eyes in the press box, neither charge makes it to first base.  Habit and power-related perks may prompt our House reps to overstay their time on the field, But their egos are surely eroded by the grind their job entails.  Ezra Klein clarified the true picture in the Washington Post:

 

“Serving in Congress is actually a sort of crummy life: You live in a small apartment, you spend most of your time missing your family, you're constantly in airports, and when you do get home you barely have time to see your kids because you're running to meet with constituents. It's a grind. And -- this is where (we) overestimate politicians -- you're not that important. No one cares about the speech you just gave or the amendments you just proposed. The media generally doesn't pay attention unless you become part of a controversy, or say something dumb.  You have to do what your leadership tells you. You get yelled at a lot.  Most of the people who stick with the job stick with it because they believe they're doing some good in the world.”

 

Jermaine Dye likely thought he could do some team good and had proved it for a decade-and-a-half with the Braves, Athletics, Royals and, especially, with the White Sox (with whom – from ‘05 to ‘09 - he led AL outfielders in HRs and was runner-up in RBIs).  When the Sox let him go during the ’09 post-season, he figured to be a coveted member of the 2010 free-agent class.  But after a year in which Dye earned $11.5 million, he was only offered a bench-level slot with the Cubs for $3 million.  Since he considered the offer disrespectful and didn’t need the money, Dye made his decision to skip the seven-month grind.  Now, soon to be 37, he hopes to return, with a diminished, clearly ego-free, demand: he’ll only sign a major-league contract.  Chances are a team that needs an extra bat will bring him aboard before the season starts.  

Lob Lofted from Left (Political) Field:  “We have not focused at all on how the militarized rhetoric on the right is tightly connected to our national failure to enact the gun regulations that might have saved lives in Arizona.  Suggestions that (Obama’s) presidency is illegitimate are essential to the core rationale for resisting any restrictions on firearms. The conversation of American conservatism is being shaped by the assumptions of the gun lobby to a much greater degree than mainstream conservatives should wish.” – E.J. Dionne, Washington Post

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 A’s Getting Serious:  With the addition of a strong setup man in Brian Fuentes, the Oakland A’s have all but assured that the AL West will be a three-team race, not just a battle between the Rangers and Angels.  The A’s have a formidable rotation headed by Trevor Cahill, 18-8 in ’10,  Gio Gonzalez, 15-9, and Dallas (no-hit) Braden, 11-14.  Fuentes joins another late-inning man, the newly signed (former Ray) Grant Balfour, in the bullpen.  Andrew Bailey, one of the majors’ best, is the closer.  Oakland still needs more offensive punch, but deals for three oufielders, David DeJesus, Josh Willingham and Hideki Matsui (formerly of KC, the Nationals and Angels) will give the team a power-charge.                              

An AL East Surprise?  The division with the strongest potential for a two-team race - the AL East – has two teams other than the Red Sox and Yankees worth watching.  A superior group of starters could keep Tampa Bay in the competition, and a glance at the 28 players named 2010 Triple- and Double-A All Stars (as listed by Baseball America) indicates a fourth team could surprise.  The Blue Jays placed four farmhands on the list, meaning touted young reinforcements may be ready to help the team (that just signed reliever Jon Rauch) before the season is far gone.  No other team had more than two total on the two rosters.   

                                          - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 1/15/11)

 

Angels, Yanks and Jerry Brown Play Budget-Conscious Game

 

The California Angels and the Yankees are the two most prominent teams that haven’t been themselves this post-season.  Each has done little –Rafael Soriano to the Yanks notwithstanding - of the hot-stove dealing that has been their usual game. Owner Arte Moreno’s team has been “un-Angel”-like because he says he’s trying to maintain his ballpark’s general admission price of $19, lowest in the majors.  The “un-Yankee”-like pinstripers want to tighten their budgetary discipline.  Whatever the reason, the restraint is good news for fans in general, if not for supporters of both teams.

 

There’s even better news on the political field if you watch from the left field grandstand.  California governor Jerry Brown wants to give the people a chance to vote for a tax hike to lessen the severity of necessary cuts in public services.  It’s a way of avoiding the “taxes-are-off-the-table” game of most elected officials.  In this case, members of Brown’s legislative state team are expected to agree to put the hot potato on the ballot.  Meanwhile, in similarly hard-hit Illinois, legislators have done the unthinkable – voted a 67-percent rise in the personal income tax (and a 37-percent business-tax increase) to help keep the state fiscally in play.  Dem Skipper Pat Quinn will happily sign the hikes into law.

 

The contrast in supposedly progressive NY is striking: the state’s new Skipper Andrew Cuomo is pitching hard for tax breaks for property owners and for the wealthy; a cap would prevent any rise in the rate imposed on owners, and a temporary tax on high-income people would be allowed to expire, the state’s urgent need for revenue notwithstanding.  Team NY, which has prided itself on leadership, is now an also-ran in the 50-state gutsy-comeback competition.

 

The Yankees, by allowing the hyperactive Red Sox to make them title underdogs in the AL East, will surely attract something rare in their franchise history: sympathetic outside-NY support.  Fielding virtually the team that lost to Texas in the ALDS sets up a challenging – and broadened fan-involved – season.  Of course, chances of the Yanks standing pat, post-Soriano, are far from a sure thing.  For the moment, they can congratulate themselves on adding a formidable set-up man to Mariano Rivera in 2011 and 2012, and a closer in 2013, if Mo decides to retire.  

 

The Type-A Tradeoff:  Soriano makes the Yanks’ loss of Kerry Wood more than bearable.  The deal’s one negative is Rafael’’s status as one of three Type A free agents who rejected an arbitration offer (his from the Rays).  That means the Yanks must yield its first amateur draft pick to Tampa Bay.  Budget-conscious teams are becoming more and more reluctant to give up such highly regarded and (usually) low-salaried prospects.  Nevertheless, Soriano’s fellow Rays reliefer Grant Balfour, who is in the same category, has finally been signed - by the A’s.  Carl Pavano, third of the group, is expected to be re-signed soon by the Twins.

                                

Others in Slow Signing Lane:  The grapevine consensus is that Johnny Damon will sign with the Rays, he giving them a discount because they play near his Florida home.  There’s no such agreement on where veteran sluggers Vladimir Guerrero and Manny Ramirez will wind up.  Jim Thome, unsigned until late this week, is going back to the Twins.

 

A month from today, pitchers and catchers report at the Yankees camp in Tampa/St.Petersburg and the Red Sox camp at Fort Myers.  The Mets will welcome their battery-mates to Port St.Lucie two days later, on February 17.  Yes, it won’t be long now.

 

The Other Outdoor Sport:  Recalling the Nub rule about NFL football: It is legitimate for baseball fans to focus on pro games when they are played in December and January in open-air, frost-belt stadiums, the match-ups preferably involving cold-weather teams.  The divisional playoff games today and tomorrow make for attractive viewing within the rule: six of eight are frost-belt teams, three of four home fields are frost-belt sites.  The Packers-Falcons game will be played tonight in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.  It would be miss-able, except that a Green Bay win is so important: it would insure elimination of sterile, studio-like conditions next week.  The dome alternative, if all goes well: we can count on watching from our living rooms a week from tomorrow as both conference title games unfold in the frost belt. 

 

One other thing: Owing to its excess of hype and usual antiseptic venue, the Super Bowl - it says here - is eminently worth ignoring.                                
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 1/11/11)

 

For Mets and Team Obama: ‘It Is What It Is’

 

Mets fans and those of several other teams will surely be spared falsely optimistic slogans this year: Remember “The Magic is Back”, “Your Season Has Come” and last year’s “We Believe in Comebacks”?  The slogan this year should be “Patience.”  Similarly, political progressives, once avid fans of Team Obama, know enough now not to expect any swing to the left by the skipper.  “It Is What It Is,” could be the O-team’s sign.

 

Casting a cool look over both fields, we can see, however grudgingly, some merit to what each team is doing.  We imagine new Mets GM Sandy Alderson telling Jeff Wilpon “I’d rather do nothing than pick players off the scrap heap.  We don’t have the money or the depth to compete this season.  No use trying to fool anybody about it.”  Credit for honesty is one dividend of the approach; a surprise performance by the un-puffed team could be another.  In any event, making this a spin-free season might sway fans who stay away to return as believers next year.

 

Most lefty Team Obama fans who have been booing the skipper for hitting to the right are reconciled to cheering for him next year.  If they didn’t realize how lacking in clout they were, Salon’s Glenn Greenwald provides a primer on the dynamics of their unrequited support:

“Telling politicians that you will do everything possible to work for their re-election no matter how much they scorn you, ignore your political priorities, and trample on your political values is a guaranteed ticket to irrelevance and impotence.  Any self-interested, rational politician… will ignore those who behave this way every time and instead care only about those whose support is conditional.  And they're well-advised to do exactly that. 

“It is probably the case that a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Democratic base contributed to the Democrats' defeat in the 2010 midterm election.  But what Obama cares about is getting re-elected in 2012, and he knows full well that…(early in) that  year…most of the progressives who are now continuously complaining about him will be at the front of the line waving their Obama banners.”

                                

Amid the familiar rundown of the O-team’s game plan: the troubling sense that what’s happening on the Congressional diamond is secondary to the skipper – like the Mets’ season this year compared to 2012.

                                   

The Anger Market:  On the most troubling development in the national bailiwick - the shooting in Arizona - lefty Paul Krugman had this delivery: “ Citizens of other democracies may marvel at the American psyche, at the way efforts by mildly liberal presidents to expand health coverage are met with cries of tyranny and talk of armed resistance.  Still, that’s what happens whenever a Democrat occupies the White House, and there’s a market for anyone willing to stoke that anger.”

From the Brady Center Against Gun Violence (as reported in Salon): “10 states regulate assault weapons.  In California, for example, (Jared) Loughner could not have legally purchased a gun with a high-capacity magazine.  Arizona, though, has among the weakest gun laws in the nation.  Even if folks had seen Loughner with the gun walking up to the congresswoman, it was perfectly legal until he started firing"

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About Time?  ESPN’s Buster Olney says he’s heard the Mets may well be ready to dump both Luis Castillo and Ollie Perez before the season starts; that is, sacrifice more than $18 million in paid-for services to rid the team of what have been two festering sores.

 

More from Bowa: Larry Bowa, quoted here last time, has been an asset playing a fill-in role with MLB-TV.  He predicted the other night that outfielder Dexter Fowler would have a breakout year with the Rockies.  Bowa also joined regulars Harold Reynolds and Mitch Williams in picking Colorado to win the NL West. He said the Giants probably won’t repeat their 2010 success, in part, because they’ll be at a defensive disadvantage with Miguel Tejada at short and Pat Burrell in left.

 

Nobody Asked Us, But…we offer this free advice as MLB viewers:  Reynolds is being given too much face-time; he flirts with an “I-know-it-all” attitude that can grate. Mitch Williams risks being similarly obtrusive.  Occasional visitors like savvy ex-pros Bowa and Ron Gant don’t get sufficient time to take verbal swings.

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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 1/8/11)

The Audacity of Truth-Telling About Your Own Team

 

Although Americans have a right to speak out, people in politics and baseball risk punishment for saying what they think…if it’s about teammates.  Ask central Florida’s Bronx-born Congressman (until this week) Alan Grayson, or former Dodgers third-base coach Larry Bowa.  Grayson, one of the last of the slugging liberals in public life, lamented what he called his (Democratic) party’s “strategy of appeasement” leading up to the midterm election.  He received lukewarm campaign support from his parent club, many of whose members said publicly they thought he was off-base – one even said Grayson’s remarks made him “cringe” - in the way he attacked both his own team and opponents.

 

A replay of a classic Grayson inside pitch:  “We as a party have spent the last six months-- the greatest minds of our party dwelling on the question, the unbelievably consuming question of how to get Olympia Snowe to vote for health care reform…Olympia Snowe has no…power…(She) represents a state with one half of one percent of America's population…America cares about health care…not…about process.”

 

Bowa lost his job with the Dodgers not long after taking team center fielder Matt Kemp to task - publicly - for lackadaisical play.  He told the Globe’s Nick Cafardo why he did what he did:

“If you can’t tell a player that he should be running out ground balls and how to play the game the right way, then why are you coaching?  You can get someone off the street to be their friend.  Sometimes you pay a price for being honest.

“He’s a five-tool player, but he’d bring you five tools on Monday and sometimes one tool on Tuesday. This kid can do anything he wants in this game. He’s got tremendous ability.  He’s not a bad kid.  It just looked like he had other things on his mind…Some people call (what I did) ‘old school.’  I just call it playing baseball the right way.  I’ve put on the uniform and played the hardest I could for as long as I could.  That’s all I ever asked of anyone else.’’

New manager Don Mattingly replaced Bowa with former KC manager Trey Hillman.  Bowa still hasn’t found a baseball job for this season.  Grayson, who lost big in the GOP landslide, hopes to back on the field in 2012.  It would be reassuring if Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs were cut loose from Team Obama in D.C. because of their bench-jockeying of Dem liberals.  But we know that, unlike the publicly demoted Grayson, both Rahm and Gibbs are still close to the skipper.

 

Pressbox Takes a Double-Hit: In NY’s journalistic ballpark, two of the area’s three remaining birddog reporters have, like Grayson and Bowa, moved on.  The Village Voice sent veteran columnist Wayne Barrett packing for what it said was financial reasons.  Barrett’s equally admirable Voice teammate Tom Robbins quit in solidarity with Wayne.  The third member of the invaluable triumvirate, Jim Dwyer, is on leave from the NY Times.  For the moment - pending wrap-up Voice work by Robbins and start-up deliveries by Barrett for his new team The Nation Institute - we’re destitute of the kind of digging reportage that trio provided.

 

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Bowa Being Bowa:  Larry Bowa on MLB-TV the other night (ingratiating himself with the Rangers front office): “In that ballpark, they didn’t need another hitter (Adrian Beltre).  I would’ve gotten the team a stud pitcher…Moving Michael Young from third base; that’s not showing him the respect he deserves.”

 

On the Nationals signing Adam LaRoche:  “I love (former first baseman) Adam Dunn.  But, especially when you have a young infield, you need someone who can catch the ball wherever it is thrown.  The young guys hate to make errors, so if the first baseman doesn’t give them confidence, they aim the ball instead of just letting loose.”

 

Could Guillen Be a-Goner? The stage whispers in Chicago say White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen must “win or go home.”  Ozzie’s contract ends this season unless an option for 2012 kicks in.  But that will only happen if this year’s team wins the AL Central.  It’s a challenge Guillen may not be able to meet for two reasons: the Twins and Tigers.  The whispers further note that Ozzie is tight with Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria; he presumably could have the manager’s job in Florida if the Marlins were to miss the playoffs  with the White Sox. 

 

Cubs Getting a Rotation Upgrade:  On paper they don’t look as strong as the Reds or Cardinals, but the Cubs are getting there:  They’re sending five minor leaguers to the Rays for Matt Garza, who will join Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Demptser and probably Randy Wells as the Cubbies’ top four starters.  The NL Central might have a three-team playoff race after all.  

                                       - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 1/4/11)

 

Can Skipper Cuomo Be NY’s Buck Showalter?

 

The political mantra to “Do more with less” has clearly been adopted by some baseball teams: the minimally active Mets and a few other clubs - the Mariners and Twins come to mind (as, to a lesser extent, do the Yanks). The Mets’ almost-silent post-season forces fans to accept on faith that the nearly intact fourth-place team of 2010 will return to contention this year.  A real leap.

 

Faith will be needed in the political grandstand, as well.  Most state skippers around the country, including Team NY’s Andrew Cuomo, will have to settle for a promise to “do their best with lots less.”  Before becoming NY skipper 28 years ago, Mario Cuomo, Andrew’s father, told his assembled team “We’re not here for glory, but to help people.”  A struggling economy prevented him from being more than marginally successful in preventing cuts to social services, like Medicaid, that penalized the poor.  Skipper Andrew can hardly hope to match his father in that regard; not at a time when revenue is down requiring spending cuts and the need for compensating tax increases has been sent to the showers.

 

Indeed, pending an emergency swing at the state’s fiscal dropoff, the new governor’s only specific policy stance so far (other than the salary freeze for state workers and top-team pay cuts) is to cap property taxes to help the struggling middle class.  He surely knows that will leave less for society’s  scuffling players.  So the challenge will be all the greater to keep his pledge to “rebuild government” and get people - the poor in particular - to believe in it again.  If, despite the financial hole, Skipper Andrew can rally team NYS and its dejected fans, as Buck Showalter did with the Orioles, he will be a shoo-in for state manager of the year.

                                      -     -     -

What We Know in the post-season so far:  The Red Sox and Brewers have vaulted from non-playoff status in 2010 to serious contenders this season.  The Sox are favored by many to win it all; the Brewers must duke it out with the Reds and, possibly, the Cardinals.  The Phillies have solidified their dominance in the NL East and beyond with the addition of Cliff Lee.  The Nationals are poised to leap-frog the Mets, who are doing a variation of the Knicks’ vain “waiting for Lebron” number of last season.  The Yankees have held their dealing fire until now; it will be a major non-explosion if they do nothing big the rest of the winter.  ESPN’s Wallace Matthews says the team’s dealing activity depends on the play-or-not decision to be made (possibly this week) by Andy Pettitte.  He quotes a Yanks exec to that effect:

 

"Starter, reliever, a bat, it depends on what's out there.  But we gotta know what Andy is gonna do first.''

 

Humorist Dave Barry’s review of the year in the Miami Herald: “2010 was (not) all bad.  There were bright spots.  The Yankees did not even get into the World Series.”

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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests.  Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted 1/1/11)

 

Skipper Urged to Execute a Steal from Fantasy Baseball

 

How do lefty fans rate Skipper Obama’s first full year in office?  At a street corner confab on the subject the other day, one said “I wish he had been as direct in support of progressive issues as he was in his rooting for the White Sox.”  Unlike the pale-Sox who faded at the end of the season, the skipper finished strong.   Nontheless, he was an also-ran when compared by knowledgable fans to the handful of recent effective presidents.  Lyndon Johnson was one, Bill Clinton another (but just barely – liberals still have reservations about him).  Ronald Reagan is the most recent all-star skipper, hailed by many Dems, including Obama himself.

 

What made former Cubs announcer “Dutch” Reagan the all-star that Obama so far is not?  Neal Gabler fielded that one in The American Prospect and threw a strike from the left side of the field:

 

“Obama may have misunderstood how the presidency has evolved since the days of Ronald Reagan so that Obama's very conception of the office is outmoded. Obama still thinks that the way to achieve his goals is to come up with the right policy and to build political support for it with logical argument.  He doesn't understand the extent to which one of the primary functions of the presidency is emotive: to provide a sense of psychological comfort to the nation that, once accomplished, might well lead to legislative achievements -- may, in fact, be the best route to those achievements -- but can also be an end in itself.  People want a president who makes them feel good…

 

“Reagan was able to find a metaphor that reshaped the entire institution of the presidency to the point where his successors could ignore his conception at their peril.  For him, the presidency was no bully pulpit, living room, salon, or fraternity.  Nor was it the college lectern that Obama seems to think it is from which he can calmly and rationally explain his policies.  It was a darkened theater in which Reagan could project a movie about the country's desires and dreams -- an American fantasy.”

 

Fantasy baseball league participants know how good putting together a dream team makes them feel.  Imagine, the skipper could say, how great it would - will - be to have a Team America that is will-balanced, prosperous and strong; a team that looks much like the revamped Red Sox.  It just might work.  

                              -     -     -

Many Away Games for Team USA:  Bad as baseball may be with its seventh-inning patriotic blather, the “honoring America” routine can’t match the NFL’s militaristic fervor.  The Giants-Packers game Sunday included a hailing on nationwide TV of “our armed forces in 175 countries.”  Only 17 more to go (according to the UN) before Team USA has the world covered.

 

Looking a Half-Year Ahead:  Joe Sheehan, who earned his creds with Baseball Prospectus, runs down a list of big-name players who may well be dealt next July, before the inter-league trade deadline.  His list in SI includes players likely to belong to teams that will be out of the running by early- or mid-summer.  Mets Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran head the list.  But an eye-opening name is Chris Carpenter, which suggests that in some quarters the Cardinals are expected to be non-contenders this year.

 

Two Reasons KC Will be More Fun to Watch in 2011:  Melky Cabrera and Jeff Franceour comprising two-thirds of the team’s outfield.

 

December 26

A baseball bat.
A deck of cards.
A science kit.
A racing car.
A catcher's mitt.
that's my list
of everything
that Santa Claus
forgot to bring.

           - Kenn Nesbitt, from “The Aliens Have Landed in Our School”  (Meadowbrook Press)

 

Let’s wish January, the post-season’s last non-baseball month, God’s speed.

                            -  o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

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December 2010 Archive

 

(Posted: 12/21/10)

 

A Tale of Two Alleged ‘Evil Empires’

 

Thirty-six years ago this month George Steinbrenner lit the free-agent tinder that made the hot-stove season blaze.  He outbid Padres owner Ray Kroc for the services of Oakland’s Jim “Catfish” Hunter.  His agreement to pay Hunter $3.35 million over five years sparked the salary spiral that renews itself every off-season.  Steinbrenner soon added Reggie Jackson to the Yanks, paying him even more.  Before long, fellow owners were complaining that upstart George had overheated the free-agent market and needed to cool down his spending habit.  “Moderation,” they pleaded.  We know Steinbrenner’s response – long before his Yanks were called the “Evil Empire”; it contained this message: moderation is not the American game.  Not in baseball, and certainly not in politics.

 

The tax bill passed last week illustrates the extreme way the political game is played today.  Promoted as a “compromise” because it provided additional jobless benefits, the bill was a major victory for resolute players on the right.  They went to bat for the wealthy and fouled off repeated lefty pitches to get them to broaden their stance.  Rolling Stone southpaw Matt Taibbi expressed the frustration of fans along the third-base line:

 

“This tax deal…is the result of a relatively small group of already-filthy rich people successfully lobbying an even smaller group of morally spineless politicians to shift an ever-bigger share of society’s burdens to the lower and (what’s left of the) middle classes.”    

 

“Moderate your rhetoric,” the righthanders reply.  “We are not the political ‘Evil Empire.’ The majority of Americans are on our side; polls show the percentage of spread-the-wealth fans shrinking as 2012 approaches.” Under the circumstances, the Democrats should be realistic, says Team GOP, whether they’re in a moderating mode or not.  Many lefty commentators agree.  Here is the UK Guardian’s Michael Tomasky about the country’s conciliating skipper: “I can't really blame the president for not being liberal enough…I do, however, blame him for being in denial about the nature of his opposition. They want to destroy him.  He still seems to think he can seduce them.”

 

If Obama does change signals and tries to force the GOP into a more moderate stance, he’ll need help from teammate Harry Reid.  McClatchy papers report that the Senate skipper has been flummoxd by more than 100 opposition “filibusters” this session, nearly all of which effectively blocked Dem-supported legislation.  Yet none actually took place; Team GOP only had to threaten to filibuster to have its way with Reid.  McClatchy further reports that last week’s nine-hour effort by Vermont’s Independent Senator Bernie Sanders was the first real filibuster since 1992.       

                           -     -     -

Solidifiers:  The body-building term “bulking up” comes to mind when thinking of the Red Sox this post-season.  The addition of weighty Bobby Jenks and compact Dan Wheeler to Boston’s relief corps after Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford joined the offense reinforces the Sox’s status as AL gorilla going into 2011.  Both pitchers are highly credentialed journeymen, Jenks excelling as White Sox closer for much of the decade, ex-Met Wheeler a reliable middle-inning man with the Astros and Rays.  

 

Travel Talk:  The Sox’s departing third baseman Adrian Beltre looks to be a sure bet to land in Anaheim with the Angels (just as sure as the wager that Cliff Lee would wind up with the Yankees).  Both Carl Pavano and Vladimir Guerrero are holding out for three-year contracts, which neither of their latest teams, the Twins and Rangers, seems disposed to give them.                                 

 

Add Zack Greinke to the Brewers to our list of favorite post-season deals; the others: Victor Martinez to the Tigers, Jayson Werth to the Nationals, and Kerry Wood to the Cubs.  What we liked: None of the four wound up with either of the persistently dominating Red Sox, Yankees or Phillies.

                         

Mystery Man:  Orlando Hudson has bounced to a fourth team in four years; he’s signed with the Padres after playing a more-than-respectable second base for the Twins (for whom he scored 80 runs in 129 games).  Hudson put in a solid year with the Dodgers before the Twins, and was with the D-backs before the LAD’s.  He has just turned 33 and is considered a good teammate as well as a better-than-average infielder.  It could be he tends to price himself out of the market (it happened when he was with Arizona).  The Padres are paying him $11.5 million for two years, which means he should stop bouncing for awhile.

                                - o -

 

(More of The Nub, a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey,

can be found at perfectpitcher.org) 

 

The Nub is taking an end-of-the-year road trip to Red Sox Nation to sample the post-season euphoria of Sox fans.

Back in time for 2011.  Happy Holiday.

 

(Posted: 12/18/10)

 

‘The Jewish Kid’ and the President Who Knew Baseball

 

Richard Nixon, the comeback player of the year in the 1968 presidential race, is back with us, thanks to newly released tapes of comments he made as skipper.  Nixon frequently attended Mets games during his post-presidential years as a New Yorker.  “I don’t know a lot about politics,” he said during that period, “but I do know a lot about baseball.”

 

Nixon surely knew that the super-baseball star of the sixties was Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers.  From 1961 until his retirement in 1966, Koufax won 111 games, averaging close to 300 strikeouts a season.  Koufax was Jewish. “Aggressive” and “able” were two of the words Nixon used to describe Jews on the tapes.  Koufax fit that description:

 

…Leo Durocher—
the great manager of the Giants—
was asked about the best pitcher
he ever saw.

Without hesitation, he replied,
"The Jewish Kid," meaning
Sandy Koufax: a leftie
with a fastball like a falcon
snatching a dove from the sky;

a curve so wicked, sluggers
cringed to barely glimpse
it screaming at their heads,
before it dropped away,
at the last, perilous instant. 

- From “The Jewish Kid”, by Robert Cooperman

 

Arthritis forced Koufax to retire when he was 30.  The Watergate scandal - resulting from a break-in he ordered at Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972 - forced Nixon to resign as skipper in 1974.  As seen from today, he was not a bad president: he pursued the Vietnam war too long before bringing it to a close in ’73.  But he re-established relations with China after more than a quarter of a century, and he proposed a comprehensive health insurance plan to provide protection for the millions who could not afford coverage.  Watergate and a competing plan proposed by Senator Edward Kennedy sent health care reform to the showers in the mid-‘70s…where it may return if five of the nine High Court umpires thumb ObamaCare from the game.  

                         -     -     -

Love Conquers Loot:  Cliff Lee never hid his affection for the Phillies.  When the Phils traded him to the Mariners after the 2009 season, he said he was “shocked” and sorry to leave. “They do a lot of things right,” he said then (in an interview replayed on MLB-TV).  Family comfort in Philly was clearly another factor.  John Smoltz (also on MLB) says of course liking your teammates and respecting the organization influence a player’s deciding where he wants to go: “You gotta go to work, you want to have fun.”

                            

First it was Joe Mauer who took less than he had to last year to re-sign with his home-town Twins.  Now it is Lee, who has signed for less than his market value to return to his preferred season-long home. Kerry Wood is another one; he chose less money than the White Sox offered to sign with his old team, the Cubs. Could it be a trend?  We’ll see, when Albert Pujols’ contract with the Cardinals ends after next season.   

 

It’s official: Sports Illustrated identifies two “badly run” top (financial) tier teams.  The Mets, unsurprisingly, are one.  The Cubs are keeping them company.  The Mets have a longer streak of bad management than the Cubs, who made the playoffs in 2003, ’07 and ’08, and competed with the Cardinals for NL Central dominance for much of the decade.  The Mets, attentive fans know, were run erratically by GM Steve Phillips in the pre-Jeff Wilpon era, even when they went to the World Series in 2000.                                     - o -

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(Posted: 12/14/10; updated)

 

How Expansionism Made an Impact in Baseball and Warfare

 

In a few days, baseball historians will celebrate the birthday of Branch Rickey, who broke the sport’s color line, and once ran the Brooklyn Dodgers.  He was born 128 years ago next Monday.  In addition to the signing of Jackie Robinson, Rickey is remembered for being the first to see the value of an extensive farm system.  The Mets are one of several teams who could use someone like him today.  Rickey made it his mission to collect “players with youth, speed and strength of arm” and provide minor league teams on which they could develop.  He set up his system for the St.Louis Cardinals in 1919 and the rest of the baseball world hurry to try to catch up. 

 

Rickey’s farm empire soon included hundreds of players – the Cardinals owned all the teams in two leagues and had affiliates elsewhere.  Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis - the baseball “Czar” - put an end to the expansionism, limiting the Cards (and other clubs) to one team in each minor league.  Limits, we know, are seldom popular with Americans in any field.  The question many fans of the political game are asking today is when will Team USA’s military expansionism be stopped?  Where Rickey controlled a dozen or more teams at one time, the U.S. today has close to 750 bases in 120 countries, not counting many under our indirect control but formally run by local governments.  Said Chalmers Johnson in “Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Empire” – “If there were an honest count, the actual size of our military empire would probably top 1,000 different bases overseas, but no one -- possibly not even the Pentagon -- knows the exact number for sure.”

 

Inevitably, this broad-based imperial force becomes involved in armed conflicts in the Muslim world - and elsewhere - that Team USA seems to know nothing about.  The McClatchy news team disclosed this week that our military “provided Saudi Arabia with satellite imagery to help direct air strikes against Shiite rebels…Collaborated with Algerian forces in 2006 and 2007 to capture militants allegedly bound for Iraq… Killed a militant Islamist leader in a 2008 air strike in Somalia.”

 

James Traub provides this further example in Foreign Policy magazine: “Cables printed by the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar...disclose that in 2008 Lebanon asked to have American spy planes conduct surveillance of Hezbollah at a time when the Shiite group threatened to overrun the state.  But the Lebanese people would have been shocked to hear of (the) operation… and the revelation has already produced an outcry.”

 

For Islamic insurgents, those secretive games, which continue today, confirm their belief that Team USA is at war with nationalist movements everywhere in the Muslim world.  Experts agree the incidents help rally support for Al Quaida and anti-U.S, sentiment throughout Islam.

                                -     -     -

Buyers’ Market:  Grant Balfour, Jesse Crain, Octavio Dotel, Kyle Farnsworth, Pedro Feliciano, Frank Francisco, Brian Fuentes, Matt Guerrier, Trevor Hoffman, Bobby Jenks, Hideki Okajima, Arthur Rhodes, Rafael Soriano, Kerry Wood: Those are only some of the free-agent relievers still unsigned for next season.  The market is soft because so many familiar names are available.  Soriano will get the most lucrative deal, and Wood shouldn’t do badly, either…especially if he re-signs with the Yankees.

 

Given that array of available talent, Mets fans can ask why their team elected to sign D.J. Carrasco, a 33-year-old right-hander who has been with four teams in six seasons and recorded a career ERA of only 4.31?   The (likely) answer: His annual salary up to now has never reached the $1 million mark.

 

A Perhaps Premature Look Ahead:  As of now, we can anticipate two-team playoff races in four of the six divisions: AL East, Red Sox and Yankees; AL West, Rangers and Angels; NL Central, Reds and Cardinals; NL West, Giants and Dodgers.  The three-team exceptions: AL Central, where the Twins, White Sox and Tigers figure again to be fighting it out, and the NL East, where the Phillies - Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt notwithstanding - may well face a challenge from both the Braves and Marlins.

 

Stat Lesson:  Why is “innings” the most important pitching number?  David Cone suggested the obvious on YES some time ago - it’s a number that (if high) identifies work horses, pitchers whom managers can rely on to rest a tired staff.   On MLB-TV the other night, Joe Magrane amplified the point: “The innings total tells you whether the manager has confidence in a pitcher – doesn’t yank him at the first sign of trouble.” 

 

                                - o -

 

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

(Posted: 12/11/10)

 

Carl Crawford, Julian Assange and the Dark Side

 

We’ve talked before about the dark side of the jubilation when a wealthy MLB franchise adds a super-star to an already star-studded lineup: dismay on the part of fans of lower-income clubs in the division who know their teams can no longer  be competitive.  That dismay inevitably turns into apathy by the time the season is half-over.  The Red Sox’s signing of Carl Crawford on top of the trade for Adrian Gonzalez underscores the relevance of that reality.  How can the comparatively undermanned Rays, Blue Jays, or Orioles hope to keep fan interest alive with the majors’ two mega-powers (the Yanks’ signing of Cliff Lee is now a foregone conclusion) playing in the same division?  

 

The inevitable apathy brought on by baseball’s insensitivity to so many of its fans exists in the political field, as well.  The emergence of Wiki-Leak-ed documents reinforced the awareness among some observers of our political-inattentiveness problem.  Embarrassingly, it was Russia’s major newspaper Pravda that made the connection:

“What WikiLeaks has done is make people understand why so many Americans are politically apathetic … After all, the evils committed by those in power can be suffocating, and the sense of powerlessness that erupts can be paralyzing, especially when … government evildoers almost always get away with their crimes. …”

Daniel Ellsberg’s Website, which quoted the Pravda observation, went to bat afterward calling for apathy’s end:

“The American people should be outraged that their government has transformed a nation with a reputation for freedom, justice, tolerance and respect for human rights into a backwater that revels in its criminality, cover-ups, injustices and hypocrisies.  Odd, isn’t it, that it takes…Pravda… to drive home the point that the Obama administration is on the wrong side of history.  Most of our own media are demanding that WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange be hunted down — with some of the more bloodthirsty politicians calling for his murder.  The corporate-and-government dominated media are apprehensive over the challenge that WikiLeaks presents.”

Worth remembering: Assange, who should be cheered as journalistic hero (he and his colleagues perform the newspeople tasks of doing articles on what they have learned) founded WikiLeaks to offer transparency about what was happening in Team USA’s two misguided wars.  The message of much of the predominant reaction to that service is this: “You have no right, because WE DON’T WANT TO KNOW.”

                                        -     -     -

The New Superiority? “Gonzalez and Crawford join Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis as players heading into their prime years. Likewise Jacoby Ellsbury, who at 27 is hoping to put behind him a season lost to injuries. The Yankees have young veterans in Robinson Cano, Mark Teixeira, and Brett Gardner.

“But the Yankees seem to be getting old fast. Alex Rodriguez, 35, has a hip condition that may not get any better.  Derek Jeter will be 37 in June.  And the 41-year-old Mariano Rivera, though still at the top of his game, is at the stage of his career where his skills could slip in a hurry.”  - Nick Cafardo, Boston Globe

Heard at the GM’s Meeting (via MLB-TV): Buck Showalter on the deal that brought D-backs third baseman Mark Reynolds, the majors’ strikeout leader, to the Orioles for two relievers – “We believe he had the worst season he’ll ever have, and he would’ve led our club in four (positive) categories, including HRs (32) and RBIs (85)…We did our research: he fields well, and he doesn’t clog the bases.”   

Kenny Williams (White Sox GM):  “I don’t want anybody else but Ozzie (Guillen) to manage our club while I’m around…(But) we want people who want to be here.  When we heard talk of Ozzie willing to go to Miami (to manage the Marlins), we went down that road.”

Tony La Russa:  “I’m sure Albert (Pujols) will be staying with us long-term.  Whatever the money, they’ll get the contract done…Already after his rookie year in 2001, I said he was the best ballplayer I had ever seen.”

Most amusing press release of the week (The Mets, on the lawsuit seeking money from the Wilpons in connection with the Madoff investment scandal): “Regardless of the outcome of these discussions, we want to emphasize that the New York Mets will have all the necessary financial and operational resources to fully compete and win. That is our commitment to our fans and to New York.”

                                         - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 12/7/10)

 

WikiLeaks, the Mets and Team Obama

 

What does WikiLeaks say about Bernie Madoff’s impact on the Mets?  The team’s front-office silence this hot-stove season prompts that hypothetical question.  Fans have never gotten a straight story about Fred Wilpon’s bad (or was it good?) investment with Madoff: the decline in the Mets’ payroll this year allegedly had nothing to do with Bernie’s scam.  But there was no other explanation for the unwillingness to do the needed spending to compete with the Phillies and Braves.

 

One can imagine a leaked communication in which Wilpon instructed son Jeff to “Stonewall about why we’re not spending as much as usual.  Let them think it’s because I’m pissed - which I am - about the $18 million going to pay Ollie Perez and Luis Castillo.”  Wilpon surely knew the cover story would be a tough sell, but the issue was too trivial to warrant a serious challenge.  At the other extreme was Team Obama’s blatant attempt to cover up its support of a right-wing coup in Honduras last June that everyone, including the skipper’s ambassador, knew was illegal.   

 

A WikiLeak-ed U.S. Embassy cable at the time said “There is no doubt that (the removal of President Manuel Zelaya) constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch…There is equally no doubt Roberto Micheletti’s assumption of power was illegitimate.”  Other leaked information clarified why the O-Team pretended the situation was too murky to intervene: the U.S. feared Zelaya’s plans for reform would push Honduras to the left, making it a less reliable ally.

 

Team Bush had been implicated in coup-attempts in Venezuela in 2002 and Bolivia in 2008 and the O-Team in Ecuador this year.  The skipper’s stance so far is the same as his predecessor’s, favoring business/elite over populist leadership.  That makes it another in a series of bad calls by a man who had given hope to progressives here and in Latin America.   WikiLeaks has made clear why the hope now is all but gone.

                           -     -     -           

Sizzling Stove: Everyone agrees that Jayson Werth’s seven-year, $126 million deal with the Nationals will inflate the market value of many free agents this post-season.  But what about the impact on the Nationals?  It is significant, and not all positive, as the Wash Post’s Adam Kilgore points out:

 

“The specter of Werth's contract will hang over the Nationals for the better part of the next decade, and not only as they hope Werth stays productive to the tune of $18 million a year as he nears his 40th birthday.  Before Ryan Zimmerman hits free agency after  2013, the Nationals will need to try to sign him to a long-term contract extension.  Zimmerman has proven to be even more valuable than Werth the past couple years, and then there's the fact that he's a homegrown fan favorite who tends to always do the right thing -- Washington's Jeter.  If Werth got $126 million, just imagine what Zimmerman could command.

“And then comes 2017, when Stephen Strasburg hits free agency…”

 The Red Sox are reportedly giving Adrian Gonzalez close to Mark Teixeira-type money ($180 million for eight years) in a seven-year deal.  Although the Sox gave up three good prospects, they held on to Jacoby Ellsbury, which means, from a fans’s standpoint, they did well. (SD fans, not so well.) The Gonzalez and Werth signings leave Adrian Beltre , Carl Crawford and Cliff Lee as the three most attractive unsigned free agents.  Where will they wind up? How’s this for a guess? Lee to the Yankees (natch), Crawford to the Angels, and Beltre to somewhere (where he may have to settle for less than the offer he spurned from Oakland).

 

No guessing about the Mets: Since the team has little money to spend this off-season, it may be the only club in the majors with an already predictable 2011 starting lineup.  Here is a likely way manager Terry Collins could bat his position players: Jose Reyes, ss, Angel Pagan, cf, Carlos Beltran, rf, David Wright, 3b. Jason Bay, lf, Ike Davis, 1b, Josh Thole, c, Luis Castillo, 2b.  As Collins has said, the sustained health of these starters is key to the team’s (problematic) competitiveness next season.  The 2011 Yankees lineup, on the other hand, will almost certainly have a new face or two.  One interesting question: Will Joe Girardi keep Derek Jeter at leadoff, or batting second, or even down in the order?                                                

                             

The Reds' refreshingly candid Joey Votto on the influence on him of Troy Tulowitzki’s seven-year deal with the Rockies: “When Tulowitzki signed that…contract… I was blown away.  I can’t imagine seeing myself (several) years from now saying: ’I want to be here.’ It’s an overwhelming thing to ask a young person like myself and say: ’Here’s a lot of money be happy with this (for a long period).’  Deal with it.”

 

                          - o -

 

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'

(Posted: 12/4/10)

 

The Distracted Focus on Both Baseball and Politics

 

Some of us remember the first time we went to the ballpark expecting to watch pre-game batting practice only to get an unwelcome surprise: a giant electronic scoreboard imposing its videos, flashing lights, rock music, etc., all seemingly designed to distract attention from the activity on the field.  We know how dramatically the distractions have multiplied since then: the theme parks… Angel Stadium in Anaheim, the Mall-parks in NYC and elsewhere, replete with high-end emporia, upscale boutiques and fancy restaurants.  The baseball-watching experience becomes secondary in such a busy-ness setting.

 

Interest in politics has taken a hit because of distractions more miniaturized but much more powerful.  Social networking, with its Facebook, Twitter, etc., and their fraternal hand-held gadgets, is a small-ball game played in a cybernetic mega-diamond.  F-Team Skipper Mark Zuckerberg has laid down seven playing guidelines.  He expects his club to connect with the team’s many fans by reaching out in a way that is seamless, informal, immediate, personal, simple, minimal and short.

 

That style of play clashed with the disciplined approach celebrated by social strategist Marshal McLuhan. He said a savvy outlook became possible for players as well as fans with the long-ago arrival of the printing press.  Attentiveness to politics – and substance, in general – existed thanks to print until the mass-market coming of television in the middle of the last century.  Author Neal Gabler recalled on his LA Times scorecard how the new ballgame unfolded:

 

“Writing scarcely 20 years after McLuhan, in 1985, Neil Postman, in his path-breaking book ’Amusing Ourselves to Death,’ saw the handwriting — or rather the images — on the wall.  He lamented the demise of print under the onslaught of the visual, thanks largely to television.  Like McLuhan, Postman felt that print culture helped create thought that was rational, ordered and engaging, and he blamed TV for making us mindless.  Print not only welcomed ideas, it was essential to them. Television not only repelled ideas, it was inimical to them.

 

“One wonders what Postman — who died the same year Facebook's precursor went online — would have thought of Zuckerberg's Revolution.  Facebook is still typographically dependent.  Its messages are basically printed notes.  But contradicting Postman, these bits of print are no more hospitable to real ideas than the television culture Postman reviled.”

 

Social networking is obviously not the only reason our politics has become so skewed – money and the corporate media are a big part of the game.  But since members of our younger generations are playing the Facebook-type game so avidly, the prospect of a return to rationality must be considered remote.

                              -     -     -

The Gratitude Game: Last year, the Yankees thanked two of their World Series stars Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon by letting them slip away to the Angels and Tigers, respectively. This year, it’s the Giants, who couldn’t have succeeded the Yanks as champions without the heroics of Juan Uribe and Edgar Renteria.  SF has let Uribe go to the Dodgers (on a three-year deal) and made clear to Renteria there’s no room for him now.  The Giants so far have replaced the two with (almost) 37-year-old Miguel Tejada, a message, perhaps, that they think shut-down pitching lessens the need for tight defense.

 

Puzzlement:  The Yankees decided not to tender Dustin Moseley, 4-4 last season and 12-11 in his five-year career with the Angels and Yanks.  At the same time, they re-signed Sergio Mitre, 0-3 and 13-29 over seven seasons with the Cubs, Marlins and Yanks.  Both are righthanders, Mitre is 30, Moseley 29.  Mitre comes cheap (just under a million), Moseley would get a few mil more than Sergio via arbitration, but still…Even more baffling: the Mets letting Hisanori Takahashi - 10-6, and eight-for-eight in saves – go…to the Angels, who’ve signed him for two seasons at a little over $2.5 million per.  We know the Mets are counting their pennies, but that seems counterproductively frugal.

 

Backstop Banter: On MLB-TV the other night, the subject was the most attractive free-agent catcher in a year when many are available.  Joe Magrane said he would choose Miguel Olivo, who played with the Rockies.  Mitch Williams picked A.J. Piercynszki, who could have been leaving the White Sox, but didn't.  “I like Benjy Molina,” said Matt Vasgersian, of the oldest Molina brother who played with both the Giants and Rangers last season.

                                 - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

November 2010 Archive

(Posted: 11/30/10)

 

Coming Soon? We’re Number Two!

 

The awards to Canadian Joey Votto and Venezuelan Felix Hernandez – NL MVP and AL Cy Young honors - meant half of the four top 2012 individual prizes went to non-U.S.-born players. (Dominican Albert Pujols and Venezuelan Miguel Cabrera were runners-up.)  The trend toward dominance in “our” sport by foreign competitors became noticeable when twice-champion Japan made an also-ran of Team USA in the World Baseball Classics.  The Japanese defeated Cuba in the 2006 final and South Korea in 2009.

 

What’s going on?  A half-century ago, legendary Boston Celtic Bob Cousy predicted that, within a few years NBA starting fives, would be all black.  Why? Because in his (dated) words: “Negro boys are hungry.”  The hunger for sports-connected money has attracted young Latino players to pro baseball in the north; together with Asians, Australians, Canadians, etc., they comprise close to a third of all major leaguers.  The primacy of U.S.-born players remains, but their place is under increasing challenge.

 

The situation on the ball field mirrors that in global finance.  National Journal scorekeeper Ronald Brownstein reviews what happened to bring about the power shift:

“For decades after World War II, the global order revolved around American influence… But neither it nor any other competitor will likely match that influence in the coming decades. ‘Although our 'gravitational pull' is still strong, it is not so strong that others orbit around us,’ political scientists Steven Weber and Bruce Jentleson write in their dazzling recent book, The End of Arrogance… ‘Most [world leaders] no longer believe that the alternative to a U.S. world order is chaos.’

“George W. Bush responded to this shifting alignment by more forcefully insisting on American primacy… He offered a vision of American power unconstrained by international institutions or consensus that undoubtedly made a mark.  But it also left the U.S. isolated, and it demonstrated in Iraq not the length but the limits of our ability to unilaterally reshape the world.  Obama has presented an alternative vision of the U.S...still the leader, but one that leads by guiding others to operate in harmony. That approach has produced some clear successes, such as a ‘reset’ relationship with Russia and a tenuous but still functioning international consensus on how to stabilize Afghanistan and contain Iran.  But it's also painfully clear that not even this approach can entirely bend the world to American designs.”

P.S.  A frustrating rally-killer as Team USA tries to protect its lead in the global game: divisive political plays at home.  Partisanship with a deep toe-hold casts crippling doubt on Skipper Obama’s ability to win support for what he wants his and other teams to do.  Add to that the consensus pressbox verdict on what the latest WikiLeaks signals have done: “Diminish (worldwide) trust in Washington.”

                                 -     -     -

A Clint-Can Thesis: Predictions are easy to make and risk-free – who will remember if they don’t prove correct? – so let’s just call this a hunch:  Clint Hurdle will have the Pirates playing near-.500 ball, or better.  He has two young blue blue-chippers to build around: center fielder Andrew McCutchen and third baseman Pedro Alvarez.  Hurdle proved in 2007 he could work magic with a young team, leading the raw Colorado Rockies to an impossible dream – the World Series.  

Progress Report:  From Boston comes word on the Mets’ Daniel Murphy, relayed by the Globe’s Nick Cafardo: “The second base experiment with Murphy is a work-in-progress but ‘heading in the right direction,’’ according to a scout who spent a lot of time watching Murphy in the Dominican the past two weeks. ‘He’s a good enough athlete where he can pull it off,’’ said the scout, ‘but it will take time just to learn all the nuances of the position. I can see their thinking. He can hit. A sound player. This would be a nice conversion [from 1B/OF] for them at a position they need help at’.’’

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(Posted: 11/27/10)

 

Advice to Skippers in Both Fields: Never Be Nice

 

Snap quiz:  What two things do former Dodgers and Giants Skipper Leo Durocher and financier George Soros have in common?  Answer:(1) Baseball - Soros (along with partners) tried to buy the Washington Nationals in 2005.

 (2) More importantly, the two share a disdain for players who don’t go all-out to win.  It was Durocher who made it into Bartlett’s Quotations by saying “Nice guys finish last.” Leo was talking about opposing manager Mel Ott and his (1940s) Giants.    Soros had another skipper in mind when he recently expressed impatience about what he implied was timid leadership.

 

“I am used to fighting losing battles,” Soros said to a roomful of wealthy Democratic donors last week, “but I don’t like losing without a fight.”  He hinted that if Skipper Obama doesn’t challenge his hit-to-right opponents more aggressively, the donors should consider other options on the political playing field.  “If this president can’t do what we need,” Soros was quoted as saying, “it is time to start looking somewhere else.”  

 

Soros’s pitch was only one of a series of high, hard ones thrown at the skipper in the past several weeks from lefties like Frank Rich, E.J. Dionne, Bob Kuttner, Michael Tomasky, Paul Krugman, etc.  Potential erosion of media support is one thing, erosion of serious cash another: It can get a leader’s attention.  We’ll see.

 

“Give me some scratching, diving, hungry ballplayers who come to kill you…That’s the kind of guy(s) I want playing for me.” – Leo Durocher in “Nice Guys Finish Last” (Simon and Schuster)

                           -     -     -

The New Skipper.  First impressions of Terry Collins (as interviewed on MLB-TV):  Deer-in-headlights eyes, jumpy responder (understandable under circumstances); he is no smooth Jerry Manuel.  But he spared us a “We-have-a-winning-team now” spin-attempt.  He said Mets could win if the regulars stayed healthy.  A big “if.”, and therefore a fair assessment.  Not a bad start.

 

Former pitchers Dan Plesac and Mitch Williams agreed after the interview that neither Collins (nor any manager) could keep a team together and playing good baseball.  “You need a team leader, a position player, not a pitcher, to do the policing job.”  Plesac said he thought David Wright would be the logical one to step up for the Mets.  Williams, who played under Collins at Houston, said he hoped Collins had “learned something about communicating with the players,” since skippering the Astros a decade-and-a-half ago.  “He didn’t know how to do it then.  He better know now if he’s going to last.”

 

Restless Nation: News that Victor Martinez has jumped to the Tigers (for a $50 million four-year deal) may be a welcome sign to Jason Varitek that he’ll be back playing in Boston in 2011, but it has made Sox fans unhappy.  Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy speaks for them:

“Why are the Sox acting like they are a small-market team? They sell out every game. They have the second-highest-priced tickets in baseball. Their payroll is exceeded only by the Yankees’.  And now they won’t pay the going rate for their starting catcher?  How often do the Yankees lose a player they want to keep?”

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(Posted: 11/23/10)

 

Jeter and Bloomberg Differ on Term Limits

 

Who can blame Derek Jeter for opposing term limits?  He wants to decide how many more seasons he’ll continue to play; he doesn’t want the Yankees to set a cutoff point that forces him into early retirement. 

 

Derek will not get his way, as did Mike Bloomberg in the political field.  We remember that Mayor Mike managed to circumvent the will of his bosses – the voters – by using his financial clout on 29 City Council members; they helped him brush aside the two-term limit to which he (and they) were committed. 

 

The moral: money can make good things happen for whoever can put it to use.  The Yankees will get a couple of reasonably good more years out of Jeter and pay him, perhaps, for four.  It won’t be a bad deal for either side.

 

After the voters this month said a third time that a two-term limit was what they wanted, Bloomberg gave in: Two terms are right, he said, adding that his power pitch to get a third term was needed because of the city’s shaky economic shape.  Put another way, he and his financial savvy were indispensable.  Only with lots of dollars behind your delivery can you sell a play like that.

 

Dollars and an easily spun media: The Nation’s tough lefty Alexander Cockburn pitched this high, hard one on that double play and its effect on Team USA – “The corporate press is unanimous…President Obama must ‘move to the center.’  Onto the butcher block must go entitlements – Medicare, Social Security.  The sky darkens with vultures eager to pick the people’s bones.”

 

The limits question now:  Can Team Obama shelve its self-imposed punch-and-judy offense and swing hard to outscore the hitting-to-right opposition?

                                  -     -     -

Tough Time for Terry: The guess here is that the Mets now have a serviceable interim manager - Terry Collins is unlikely to lead the team into the promised playoffs-land.  By the time Sandy Alderson et al rebuild the Mets into a contender, Collins will have suffered the fate of unfairly unappreciated Jerry Manuel.  The Mets have few studs and little money to spend on strong reinforcements.  A new-era trend to watch: the percentage of Latinos signed now that Omar Minaya is gone.

 

P.S.  Only five of 17 Mets managers since 1962 (including a few brief-tenured interims) finished with winning records: Gil Hodges, Davey Johnson, Bud Harrelson, Bobby Valentine and Willie Randolph.  Hodges and Johnson skippered the Mets’ only world championship teams – 1969 and 1986.

 

Here’s to the ‘Man’: In the week Stan Musial (whom Brooklyn Dodger fans dubbed “Stan the Man”) turned 90, let us repeat this tribute that another baseball immortal, Ty Cobb, paid long ago to the recently named recipient of a Presidential Medal of Freedom:

 

“No man has ever been a perfect ballplayer.  Stan Musial, however, is the closest thing to being perfect in the game…I’ve seen greater hitters and greater runners and greater fielders, but he puts them all together like no one else…He’s my kind of ball player.”  - Life Magazine, March 17, 1952

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(11/20/10)

 

Dual Strategic Dilemma: Go With Pragmatic Change or Tradition?

 

What are we to make of the likelihood – given the support of Bud Selig and most GMs – that baseball will add two wild card teams to the playoffs?  We have opposing views: Bad - it cheapens the achievement of making the post-season. Good - it’s a sign the sport is loosening traditional ties and becoming pragmatic.

 

A former sandlot pitcher in Venezuela – Hugo Chavez – hopes the Yanqui  team will follow baseball’s lead and look more realistically at what is happening in much of Latin America.  The countries that are hitting to left with Chavez – like Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Paraguay, Nicaragua, etc. – are playing a catch-up game;  they’re doing it with democratically elected skippers after decades of military/elitist rule.  In most of the last century, Team USA saw Latino southpaw swings as a security risk and a signal to take the field in defense of its bailiwick in the north.

 

Today, two decades after the Soviet Union went to the showers, there is no reason, Chavez and fellow leftist leaders say, for Team Obama to continue to play hardball.  Socialism is not a threat to U.S. security as Communism was perceived to be.  The Us-against-Them tradition that persists today, they say, seems based on a resolve to protect remaining U.S. corporate interests in the region. The stance is abetted by an anti-socialist yanqui media that sees populism south of the border as a threat to Americans’ “way of life.” 

 

The constant anti-left pitches delivered by our corporate press are now almost a source of amusement in Latin America.  Said Ecuadorian Skipper Rafael Correa not long ago: “If they (the U.S. media) say something good about me, I’ll know I’m in trouble.”  Correa and progressives on both continents trust it is lack of peripheral vision at the policy plate rather than focused hostility that prompts the O-Team to go on playing the traditional game. Whether that is only wishful thinking we’ll learn in the second half of the skipper’s four-year season.

                         -     -     -

Playoffs-Plus - The Bad and Good:  The AL-NL imbalance will attract added criticism when more than a third of the AL’s 14 teams qualify for the post-season compared to just over 30 percent of the 16 in the other league.  The probable March start to the season forced by the new format could at last lead to a regular schedule of warm(er)-site early games and (it is hoped) an end to blizzard-caused postponements in northern climes. 

 

What?  “Melvin said he believes the Mets already have the talent to be a playoff contender, needing simply to rebuild their confidence and stay healthy.” – David Walstein, NY Times.  If that ingratiatingly unrealistic assessment doesn’t prompt Sandy Alderson, et al, to disqualify Bob Melvin from managerial consideration, they ought to retire from the evaluation game.

 

Familiar Sound:  “(Mike Quade)…inherits the worst situation in terms of the Cubs' roster and payroll flexibility since Don Baylor took over for Jim Riggleman 11 seasons ago.” – Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune                     

 

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(Posted: 11/16/10)

 

Strategic Decisions Being Readied in Both Fields

 

The debate on MLB-TV the other night – Would teams with roughly the same player and dollar assets be better advised to seek to sign gold-glover Carl Crawford or slugger Jayson Werth as free agents?

 

The related debate developing in the Democratic Party: Would it be better to revert to Howard Dean’s swing-for-the-fences 50-state electoral strategy, or stick to Rahm Emanuel’s more targeted small-ball approach to scoring with the voters?

 

Dean’s go-for-broke offense won big (31 House and six Senate seats) for the Dem team in 2006, Emanuel’s hit-in-the-holes game – played within a modified 50-state approach – managed to add eight House and seven Senate seats in 2008.  We know what happened to the Rahm-game this year – the likely 63-seat loss. That economy-fed disaster has led to the current discussion about which of the approaches to follow in 2012.    

 

Dean’s stance has been that competing in 50 states gives the Dem team a chance to scratch out, if not victories, close calls in red states.  Even a string of losses, he says, serves to establish the party as a player, a fact that could pay off in the long run.  Emanuel believes in taking what you can get now where you have a shot, and not expending resources in looking beyond the immediate game.  That opportunistic approach produced a victory for Senators Michael Bennet in Colorado and Patty Murray in Washington, two of the few genuine swing states left after the November 2 rout.

 

Of the two strategies, the 50-state offense needs upset victories to remain viable, wins that, in turn, depend on Dem candidates benefiting from the back-and-forth shift in voter sentiment we’ve witnessed twice in four years.  Skipper Obama clearly must help generate a third such shift - buttressed by a probable mix of both approaches - if he is to win re-election in 2012.

 

‘If’ Time:  Player shifts in the other national pastime could determine where Crawford and Werth (and other free agents) sign for next year and beyond.  If the Red Sox trade Jacoby Ellsbury (for Adrian Gonzalez?), they would likely look to replace his speed, defense and moderate power with Crawford.  If the HR-challenged Mets succeed in sending Carlos Beltran elsewhere, they could well decide to make a strong bid for Werth and his opposite-field sock.  The White Sox could be determined bidders for Werth, as well, if Paul Konerko leaves, as rumored, for the Diamondbacks.  Adding to the muddle: the consensus destination of Crawford is Anaheim and the (LA) Angels.  The obvious walkoff verdict: Well-heeled teams will pay at above-market rates to sign free agents that best fill their holes.  And the Yankees are 29-1 favorites to latch on to Cliff Lee.  

 

Uh, Oh: It’s unfair to Terry Collins for the Mets to announce that Jeff Wilpon supports his candidacy for the manager’s job.  The last thing the team’s fans want is for the boss’s son to have an influence on the personnel moves made by new GM Sandy Alderson.  Wilpon’s track record - beginning with Art Howe - suggests the Mets should have learned the lesson that Jeff must be distanced from decision-making stories, as much as possible.  Now, if Collins gets the job, he’ll have the label of a Wilpon-man to live down.

 

Familiar Faces: Former Met J.J. Putz is among the attractive free-agent relief pitchers.  He appeared in 60 games for the White Sox last season as a setup man/part-time closer.  His stats: 7-5, 2.83, 65 Ks and 15 walks in 54 innings.  Putz will be 34 next season, a few months before another prime righty setup/closer free agent, Kerry Wood.  He will probably come cheaper than Wood, whose total stats with the Indians and Yankees were less impressive than J.J.’s.  Wood went 3-4, 3.13, 49, 29 in 46 innings (47 games).

 

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(Posted: 11/13/10)

 

NY’s Skipper-Elect Under Pressure in His Own Dugout

 

Willie Randolph and Jerry Manual are both out of work.  Willie may now regret his publicized suspicions that bench coach Manual undercut him in 2008 before succeeding Randolph as manager.  He sees that Manual was undercut himself - by a poor front office that didn’t provide the players he needed to be competitive.

Manual, a Latino, was closer to the Spanish-speaking players than Willie. He saw himself as a stand-in for Willie, communicating for the good of the team.  Whether Jerry had a hidden agenda we can only guess; it is irrelevant now.

 

NY’s Skipper-elect Andrew Cuomo and his veteran Dem teammate Congressman Jerry Nadler are causing political clubhouse static similar to what occurred with the 2008 Mets. Nadler went to bat for the lefty Working Families Party, using robotic phone calls to urge voters to use the WFP, not the Democratic ballot line. The roughly 138,000 WFP votes were cast for Cuomo on Election Day. But the idea was to demonstrate the party’s vote-getting clout, and - in Nadler’s words - “send a message” to Andrew.  The WFP has endorsed the skipper-elect’s playbook to freeze public employee salaries, cap property taxes and reduce state spending.  But implicit in the message is “Don’t go too far in cutting programs beneficial to working people; you may need our support, and votes, next time at the plate.”

 

Many on the Dem team are outraged, as Willie Randolph was, by what they consider a betrayal by dugout insiders.  As one Manhattan District Leader put it: “For the voters reading (praise for WFP’s progressive policies) from respected Democratic elected and party officials, the message is clear: Democrats do not fight for the issues and values that matter.  Democrats do not care about good jobs, clean environment, better schools and public transportation.  How many disparaging (messages) from Democratic officials do you think Democratic voters can read before they begin to believe them?”

 

Cuomo has kept away from the rhubarb this early in the post-election game. His state is not the only one with a WFP challenge.  Six others – Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Delaware, South Carolina and Oregon – have WFP teams edging on to the Dem playing field.

                              -     -    -

One Way of Looking at It: “If you watched the ALCS even casually it wasn't hard to see that Derek Jeter looked closer to 46 than 36 compared to Elvis Andrus as a shortstop.  That's not a knock on Jeter but simply praise for Andrus' eye-popping range and athleticism.” – John Harper, Daily News

Reads like a knock to us, John. 

 

Indeed, the endless speculation about how much Jeter will, and should, receive in his next contract erodes his superstar standing and hurts the Yankees’ reputation for “class”, as well.  The media have interest in making a cliffhanger out of what the Yanks offer and how their longtime superstar responds.  But any prolonging of the negotiation will serve to amplify negatives about Derek’s diminished skills, undeserved golden glove, etc. and the Yankees’ stated unwillingness to overpay their living legend of a shortstop.  Getting the deal done pronto is the way to control any further damage.  

Light at Last: If Jeff Wilpon hired Sandy Alderson, J.P. Ricciardi and Paul DePodesta for the Mets’ front office because – in Peter Gammons’ words – “he was tired of being pictured as the man manipulating chaos behind the curtain”, good for him.  That was the case, and the curtain was transparent.  This is the first hopeful sign the boss’s son has given Mets fans since Omar’s signing of Johan Santana nearly three years ago.

 

Cactus Report:  The college slugger the Seattle Mariners drafted last year right behind Steven Strasburg - infielder Dustin Ackley - has warmed up the Arizona Fall League.  Ackley is batting .444, with four HRs and 17 RBIs in 16 games for the Peoria Javelinas.  Minnesota’s fleet farmhand Ben Revere is batting .330 and has stolen 11 bases in 23 games for another Peoria team, the Saguaros

 

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(Posted: 11/9/10)

 

Latinos Making Presence Felt in Both Pastimes

 

Worth remembering: the World Series began two weeks ago with Latinos constituting eight of 16 position players in Rangers and Giants starting lineups.  Each team had four – the Rangers, Elvis Andrus, Vladimir Guerrero, Nelson Cruz and Benjy Molina, the Giants, Andres Torres, Freddy Sanchez, Juan Uribe and Edgar Renteria.  (Sanchez was the only U.S.-born member of the group.) 

 

Those regulars plus key pitchers on both teams – Feliz,  Ogando and Rapada of the Rangers, Jonathan Sanchez, Casilla, Lopez, Mota, Ramirez and Romo, of the Giants – underscore the booming importance of Latinos in the making of winning MLB teams. Latinos are also playing a decisive role on the electoral field, mainly  in support of Democratic candidates.  Latino voters, along with other minorities, helped provide the difference in the few cliffhanger Senate races where D-team players prevailed last Tuesday.  National Journal scorekeeper Ronald Brownstein reviewed the details:

“In California and Colorado, strong showings among minorities and college-educated women allowed Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Michael Bennet to prevail despite a surge toward their Republican opponents among other white voters, especially blue-collar white men and women, who are hurting economically and disillusioned with Obama.

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s surprisingly substantial victory in Nevada also showed how, in places with the right demography, the new Democratic coalition can still prevail. Republican Sharron Angle captured the white vote by a resounding 53 percent to 41 percent. But Reid overcame that advantage with a big turnout among African-Americans and especially Latinos, who were mobilized by an exhaustive campaign from the powerful Culinary Workers Union that represents employees along the Las Vegas strip.  Angle inadvertently assisted the mobilizing with a race-baiting ad attacking illegal immigrants.  In the end, Hispanics voted for Reid by 2-to-1 and cast just under 1-in-6 Nevada ballots, more than even Reid’s team anticipated…Sen. Patty Murray…in Washington (also has) this coalition to thank.”

On the opposite side of the field, Latinos in Nevada crossed party lines to help elect Republican Brian Sandoval, one of their own, governor.  They were also instrumental in electing many more members of Team GOP than Dems in diverse contests in the East.

                      -     -     -

Mind Game:  The Yankees sent this psychological message to other teams with the call to Cliff Lee’s rep at the start of the free-agent signing period: “We’re ready to spend whatever it takes to get Lee.  Don’t involve us and yourselves in a bidding war.  Neither of us will win that war, but you know we will win the battle for Lee in the end.”

 

More on the 2010 Champions: “There wasn't another team in the playoffs that wouldn't have wanted (Barry Zito) on its postseason roster.  That's how strong the Giants' pitching staff is.  (Matt) Cain is the only member of the starting rotation (Tim Lincecum, Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner and Zito) who isn't under control for at least three more years, and he signed an extension last spring that takes him through 2012.” – Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune

 

Among the surprising non-tendering decisions this off-season: the Diamondbacks’ snubbing of first baseman Adam LaRoche.  He hit 25 HRs and had 100 RBIs this season. His $6 million per salary is far from exorbitant. The D-backs also declined to pick up options of two ex-Mets, Aaron Heilman and Mike Hampton. Arizona hopes to bring Hampton back under current team-acceptable terms.  He didn’t yield a run in 10 September appearances after being recalled from Triple-A Reno.  It was Hampton, some remember, who pitched the NLCS clinching game the last time – in 2000 – the Mets made the World Series.  Before the game, reporters asked if he was ready to face the Cardinals: “Give me the ball,” he said.

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(Posted: 11/6/10)

 

The Politics of Regretting the Early End of Baseball

 

One reason to regret that the Rangers didn’t extend the Series at least to a sixth game: it would have provided a distraction from the election returns and their dreary significance.  As it is, we can revel in the success of what were five exciting games, ending in a silver slipper for the Cinderella Giants.

 

The Series introduced in a sustained way – to those of us in the East, anyway – emerging young stars like Buster Posey, Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, and the already emerged likes of Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain.  And what fun to see 34-year-old Edgar Renteria assume the role played by Hideki Matsui in last year’s classic:  Heroes from Colombia (Renteria) and Japan validating the adjective “World” in the Series.

 

We considered the staging of the Series near-perfect; the single smudge the pathetic display of superfluous patriotism.  Requiring fans, players, TV audience, etc. to “honor America” in the middle of the seventh after participating earlier in the national anthem is an embarrassment: it signals insecurity rather than pride.

 

The insistence on our national preeminence is particularly problematic at election time, when much less than half of our eligible voters make the effort to take their turn at the polls.  Michael Kinsley, who consistently hits to left-center, swung away on that point in The Politico:

“The theory that Americans are better than everybody else is endorsed by an overwhelming majority of U.S. voters and approximately 100 percent of all U.S. politicians, although there is less and less evidence to support it. A recent Yahoo poll (and I resist the obvious joke here) found that 75 percent of Americans believe that the United States is “the greatest country in the world.” Does any other electorate demand such constant reassurance about how wonderful it is — and how wise? Having spent a month to a couple of years and many millions of dollars…to snooker voters, politicians  will (now) declare that they put their faith in ‘the fundamental wisdom of the American people.’

“Not me. Democracy requires me to respect the results of the elections.  It doesn’t require me to agree with them or to admire the process by which voters made up their minds.  In my view, anyone who voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008 and now… support(ed) some tea party madwoman for senator has a bit of explaining to do.”

                                   -     -     -

Baseball Commish Bud Selig will have a lot of explaining to do if he oversees the addition of two wild card teams to the current eight-team playoff arrangement.  Basketball and hockey have debased the interest-value of their playoffs through a numerical overload of qualifiers.  It’s hard enough, even for baseball addicts, to focus on the four match-ups at the start of each post-season.   Don’t let the owners go for the easy buck, Bud, and spoil the more-than-acceptable system in place.

 

So Far, So Good:  It’s disorienting to find ourselves saying something positive about the Mets.  But the hiring of former Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi to assist new GM Sandy Alderson is an encouraging development.  Ricciardi played a major role in putting together Toronto’s impressive core of young pitchers through trades and farm-system development.  If given both the authority and freedom to exercise his recruiting skills, Ricciardi can make the Wilpons’ investment in him pay off handsomely.

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(Posted: 11/2/10)

 

“Mistakes” Mar a Baseball Game and Dem Election Effort 

 

“We all make mistakes,” said Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga.  His calm response to the bad call that deprived him of a no-hitter last June won him the first “Prize for Sanity” at Jon Stewart’s march for political moderation Saturday.  The statement may well sum up the lesson of today’s election returns.  Mistakes committed by voters who go with Team GOP, we know, will have resulted in part from Team Obama’s bobbled defense of its record.   

 

Galarraga accepted the prize on a video taken at his home in Venezuela. He refrained from making a pitch on behalf of his country and its president.  It wouldn’t have been in keeping with the way the moderation game was played.  Fans know that Stewart treats politics like a humorous game, to the left of moderate, but not on Saturday.  He and Comedy-Channel teammate Stephen Colbert kept their deliveries at the massive rally non-partisan. They did, however, throw high, hard ones at a group target: broadcast news.  The pair reserved their brush-back heaters for cable-TV and network news channels, as well as National Public Radio.  All, they said, duck away from important issues, preferring to peddle provocative pap.

 

Although not an election game-changer, the pair’s on-target fastballs froze into relief the dual corporate influence on today’s midterm contests: limitless campaign cash to conservative candidates, the paid-for radical-right video messages amplified by a complaisant corporate mainstream media.  In the words of a Stewart “reporter” at the rally, the skewed playing field is the scene of a “little game called America.”

                       

The Making of a non-Ballpark Wave:  “It’s one of the characteristics of a wave -- you have a lot of people voting for anybody who is not associated with the ‘in’s’ even sometimes knowing that they are voting for a flawed candidate.  The assumption is we’re sending a message, and if the only way to send a message is to vote for a flawed candidate, I will go ahead and do it.” – Gary Jacobson, U. of California (San Diego) congressional election specialist, quoted in National Journal.

                                   -     -     -

Right Idea:  With two out, men on second and third in the seventh inning of a 0-0 game last night, Tim McCarver said Rangers manager Ron Washington should walk Edgar Renteria and take his chances with Aaron Rowand.  Washington let Cliff Lee pitch to Renteria, who hit the three-run homer that eventually made the Giants world champions.

 

Accolade:  McCarver, a former catcher (of course) on SF’s Buster Posey: “I’ve never seen a catcher with an arm like his.  His throws to second base have no loop.”

 

The Diplomat:  New Mets GM Sandy Alderson did mostly straight-talking at his intro news conference.  He did exaggerate the quality of the team’s farm system, saying it was middle-of-the-pack level.  Baseball America and other monitoring entities place the Mets’ in the bottom third of the 30 systems evaluated.  More important was Jeff Wilpon’s acknowledgment that investing in hoped-for star power at the expense of systemic depth was the wrong approach.  Bottom line: something we already knew - the 2011 team cannot be a playoff contender given existing financial constraints.   

 

Literary Note:  Author Philip Roth, whose fictional alter-ego was not particularly good as a high school player, but “knew how to conduct (himself) as a center fielder” (“Portnoy’s Complaint”), is a Mickey Mantle fan.  The NY Times Book Review reported Sunday that “Roth once watched Sandy Koufax strike out Mantle multiple times in a World Series game – ‘What a day for literature!’ he later recalled…(Roth) also gave Mantle a cameo of sorts in ‘Goodbye Columbus.’  ‘Are we going to have Mickey Mantle for dinner?’ Brenda Patimkin asks in one scene.  ‘When the Yankees win, we set an extra place for Mickey Mantle’.”

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October 2010 Archive

(Posted: 10/30/10)

 

Couple of Key Players Under Pressure at Crunch-Time

 

Tale of two embattled lefties: Cliff Lee and Russ Feingold.  Both key players in separate fields, both carrying the hopes of their teams in contests with much at stake.  Super-star Lee’s plunge to earth in the Series opener against the Giants  shook up the once-confident (now 0-2) Rangers,  the sudden fall coinciding with the last innings of the long descent of Wisconsin’s Senator Feingold against GOP challenger Ron Johnson.

 

Feingold, an unapologetic three-term liberal, is a Dems’ weathervane candidate, the always-focused Lee his equivalent with the Rangers.  Cliff will get a chance to stabilize his team Monday (assuming there’s a fifth game). By the same day, Election eve, Feingold will have had to cut down Johnson’s estimated six-point polling lead.  Pressbox observers believe that, if Feingold pulls out a victory Tuesday, it will augur well broadly, and his team will likely keep its edge in the Senate.  Should he lose, they agree, the results in purple Wisconsin could signal a big score nationally for Team GOP. 

 

Feingold is hoping to counter multi-millionaire Johnson’s better-financed campaign with a massive get-out-the-vote effort.  That’s not a good sign for the Dem team: everyone in politics knows money in hand usually outscores grass-roots-based hope.  The outlook for Lee’s team is brighter.  The Rangers know their ace will be available to pitch late-inning relief should there be a seventh game three days after his Monday start.  They know further that, from now on, Lee will have an added incentive to excel: he’ll be auditioning for the many teams eager to sign him later this fall as a free agent.

                            -     -     -

“If a major league hitter knows a fastball is coming,” said Tim McCarver Thursday night, “it’s like batting practice.”  That’s what happened in the Giants’ eighth inning of game 2.  After a Buster Posey two-out single, Rangers relievers Derek Holland and Art Lowe combined to walk in two runs.  A few pitches later, Edgar Renteria sat on a Lowe heater and singled to drive in two runs.  Michael Kirkman replaced Lowe and served fastballs that pinch-hitter Aaron Rowand hit for a triple and Andres Torres for a double.  The relievers’ implosion in professional baseball’s ultimate showcase was clearly an embarrassment to the sport as well as to the Rangers.

 

The politically correct side to root for in the Series?  It’s not as easy as it seems. Dave Zirin tells us why this week in The Nation:

 

“Seems pretty cut and dry for the political sports fan: you line up with
either San Fran or Bush Country, right? But even though it would be
great to see Dubya cry if the Rangers lose, people should resist easy
political labels for either team. The field manager for the Rangers is
Ron Washington, who could become the second African-American manager in
baseball history to lead a team to championship glory. Washington must
be as surprised as anyone to be in the World Series, let alone
employed. To the credit of the Rangers organization, they kept
Washington at the helm even after the 57-year-old manager failed a drug
test during the 2009 season and then admitted this Spring that his
drug of choice was cocaine…

 

“Also, for those sneering at the red-state owners box in Texas, remember
that the Giants ownership team is hardly the Grateful Dead.  In addition
to being the consigliere for the Microsoft Mafia, Bill Neukom's team
has gobbled $80 million in public financing for park upgrades and
untold millions in tax exemptions…Nope, there are no easy labels in this
series: just two teams looking to make their mark on baseball history
and two fan bases desperately waiting to exhale. I can't wait.”

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(Posted: 10/28/10)

 

Waiting for a Baseball-Like Miracle on the Electoral Field

 

The odds-on 2010 World Series – Yankees versus Phillies.  Few fans, at least here in the East, would have dreamed that neither would qualify for the biggest of baseball shows.  We said in a blog at the outset of the post-season that only three of the eight playoff teams had a shot at the Series – the Rangers were our outside possibility.       

 

The Yankees, the richest, most talent-laden team in the AL, and the Phillies, one of the two wealthiest, and by far the most formidable team in the NL, were a match seemingly labeled “inevitable”.  The expectations are familiar heading into the political big show this Tuesday: Team GOP is odds-on to regain control of the House, and given a chance to pull an upset in the Senate contest, as the Rangers did in the playoffs.

 

The Giants, this year’s “miracle” team so far, are the model the Dems would like to emulate.  SF trailed the Padres virtually all season but kept grinding as SD sputtered in the stretch.  Team GOP is not sputtering, but, however belatedly, Skipper Obama is rallying Dem fans, or trying to.  New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg, one of those fans, likens the Skipper’s and the Dems’ situation to that when Franklin Roosevelt faced the Great Depression three years after the stock market crash of October 24, 1929.  Hertzberg calls the collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008 a “rough equivalent” of the ’29 crash.  He says the difference between FDR’s three-year lead-in to his economic challenge and Obama’s third-of-a year warm-up to his has been crucial in putting a Dem defeat on deck:

“Obama is no more to blame for the Great Recession than F.D.R. was for the Great Depression.  But the longest and deepest mass suffering has occurred with Obama in the White House and Democrats holding a majority in (if not always in control of) our two national legislatures.  That—more than tea parties, more than Fox News, more than the scores of millions of anonymous corporate dollars poured into negative campaign advertising courtesy of five Justices of the Supreme Court—is why, next Tuesday, the Republican Party is overwhelmingly likely to retake the House of Representatives outright and, at the very least, to augment its share of seats in the Senate enough to make its veto power absolute…

“President Obama and the Democrats kept the Great Recession from becoming a second Great Depression. But the presence of pain is more keenly felt than the absence of agony.”

If Democrats have a single reason to cling to hope, it is this: polls show that up to a third of potential voters are undecided.  Should those fence-sitters break for the Dems, the skipper and his team could get their long-shot miracle.
                                 -     -     -

Humanizers: The Giants performed this minor miracle in the World Series opener last night: they showed that Cliff Lee was human.  Lee, who was yanked after yielding five runs in four-and-two-thirds inning, couldn’t believe what happened himself.  He was shown shaking his head in the dugout moments before the Giants broke the game open.

If East Coasters are taking the Rangers-Giants Series hard, imagine how fans are feeling in Southern California, where the Angels and Dodgers have been dominant for so many years?  LA Times columnist Bill Dwyre rubs it in to local fans, albeit, empathetically:

 

“Hey, L.A. baseball fans. We didn't see this one coming, did we?...The San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers are in the World Series.  It was supposed to be the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies again.  We could have lived with that.  We could just ignore the whole thing and chalk it up to another East Coast conspiracy.

”We could scoff at the Yankees for buying more postseason glory and further ruining whatever pretense there once was of competitive balance in the major leagues.  And we could nod grudging respect toward the Phillies and…theorize that had (ex-LAD) Jayson Werth not been hit on the wrist…the Dodgers would have kept him…and this Phillies' run might never have happened.

“We  wonder what kind of TV ratings the Giants-Rangers series will bring, especially since the entire L.A. market is likely to hit the off button on the remote.  It's Lakers season now, so we can rationalize our indifference.  (But) if we are honest, we would admit this is painful.”

                               

Primer: What are Mets fans to think of the choice of Sandy Alderson to be next GM?  They should wait until he appoints a manager before thinking anything.  If he defers to the Wilpons and names Wally Backman, he’s not the strong off-field leader the fans and the team need.  Nothing against Backman; he’d probably make a good skipper.  But appointing him would send a message: the bumblers still have interfering rights, which they intend to exercise.

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(Posted: 10/26/10)

The Stats We Are Spared by Baseball and Team USA

 

We in the national grandstand learned the other day about suppressed stats that could challenge our acceptance of the status quo on the military battlefield.  The situation on the baseball field, although nothing like a life-and-death matter, cries out for similar exposure.

 

A missed umpiring call on a bunt that went foul set up the decisive Phillies rally in game 5 of their series with the Giants.  A day later, a missed call of a hit batsman (Nick Swisher), led to a run that enabled the Yankees to tie the Rangers in game 6 of their series.

 

Just as the military has resisted even acknowledging the existence of civilian- death numbers in Iraq, so baseball will not tell us the percentage of umpiring bad calls on close plays each season.  Surely, they have such stats; video replays are televised routinely of all close calls.  It’s time we hear how bad – or good – the umpiring truly is, verified by the technology baseball refuses to use on a regular basis.  Based on what we’ve seen in the last two post-seasons, it would be surprising for umpiring to get more than “B” grade on controversial calls – 80 percent of them found to be correct, 20 percent depressingly wrong.  With full disclosure of the stats, fans would likely conclude that baseball’s continued resistance to a broadened use of replays in umpiring is unacceptable.

 

It was WikiLeaks that divulged the existence of the stats in Iraq documenting what is euphemistically known as “collateral damage.”  Here is the basic way the UK’s  Daily Telegraph told the story, quoting the London-based team that has been monitoring civilian deaths:

 

“The latest batch of military documents released by WikiLeaks…shows that the U.S. military kept detailed records of Iraqi fatalities—even though the military denied their existence—and that many were never included in the tally. The logs show 109,032 deaths between January 2004 and last December, including 66,000 civilians…These, together with new information on combatant deaths contained in the logs, will bring the recorded death toll since March 2003 to over 150,000, roughly 80 percent of whom were civilians.”

Then there is this from yesterday’s UK Guardian: A report of "fresh evidence that US soldiers handed over detainees to a notorious Iraqi torture squad has emerged in army logs published by WikiLeaks."

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald wrote an unplanned companion piece in advance of the WikiLeaks revelations, putting the stance of Team USA’s opponents into perspective:

 

“The United States is a country with a massive military and nuclear stockpile, that invaded and has occupied two Muslim countries for almost a full decade, that regularly bombs and drones several others, that currently is threatening to attack one of the largest Muslim countries in the world, that imposed a sanctions regime that killed hundreds of thousands of Muslim children, that slaughters innocent people on a virtually daily basis, that (for decades) has interfered in and controlled countries around the world…that has spent decades arming and protecting every Israeli war with its Muslim neighbors and enabling a four-decade-long brutal occupation, and that erected a worldwide regime of torture, abduction and lawless detention, much of which still endures. Those are just facts.  (Yet)…we all agree to sit around and point over there -- hey, can you believe those primitive Muslims and how violent and extremist they are.”

                                   -     -     -

Deprivation: When the Rangers and Giants meet in SF tomorrow, it will be only the fourth time in the last 19 match-ups (in the two decades since 1991) that an East Coast team will not be involved in the World Series.  The Giants played in one of the two non-EC series in this decade – losing to the Angels in 2002.  The Cardinals played, and beat, the Tigers in 2006.  The Yankees have been in seven Series since ’91, the Braves in five, the Phillies three, the Red Sox  two.

 

Fearless Prediction: The big loser this year will be neither the Rangers, Giants (nor Yanks, Phillies).  It will be Fox-TV.  Ratings will certainly be far down in the populace East, where even rabid viewers will feel free to tune out when games drag on toward midnight.

                                

Sidelined Stars: If you didn’t notice a remarkable aspect of Skipper Bruce Bochy’s leadership of the Giants, it was this:  At crunch-time this season, Bochy had no compunction about sitting big names like Aaron Rowand, Edgar Renteria, Pablo Sandoval, etc. and using the likes of Andres Torres, Juan Uribe and Mike Fontenot instead.  Although injuries factored into his lineup decisions, Bochy

 made clear he was using the players in whom he had most confidence, based on performance, not salaries.  Of course, he couldn’t have done it without GM Brian Sabean’s support.                                 

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(Posted: 10/22/10, 6p, updated 12:01, 10/23/10)

 

The ‘More with Less’ Pitch Popular on Both Fields

 

The promise to “do more with less” is a political pitch designed to score with voters when times are hard.  When team owners try it out with the baseball public, fans are understandably leery.  As with public services, few teams improve when the payroll goes down.   Nolan Ryan, front-office skipper of the Texas Rangers, is the equivalent of a politician who keeps his promises.  He cut his team’s payroll from the $68 to $55 million between seasons, placing it just above the low-income Athletics, Padres and Pirates on the MLB’s financial batting order. 

 

While the Rangers made do with much less (even after dealing for Cliff Lee at mid-season), their fellow playoff finalists, the Yankees, Phillies and Giants, added substantially to their payrolls.  The Phillies took on $28 million more, the Giants $15 mil and the top-ranked Yankees, $5 million, to put them $44 million ahead of the second-place Red Sox.

 

Hard times in the country and an effective rally by conservatives have made the demand that government do more with less popular in the national political ballpark.  That the rally advances the interests of the wealthy while stranding most Americans is lost on voters, as is the concept it represents, that of economic inequality.  Washington Post scorekeeper Steven Pearlstein has monitored the setback the country is suffering:

“Income inequality has eroded any sense that we are all in this together (as well as) the political consensus necessary for effective government.  There can be no better proof of that proposition than the current election cycle in which the last of the moderates are being driven from the political process and the most likely prospect is for years of… political gridlock…(Inequality) is the unspoken issue that underlies all the others. Without a sense of shared prosperity, there can be no prosperity.”

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich amplified the message in a subsequent turn at bat: 

“An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top; a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy; and a public becoming increasingly angry and cynical about a government that's raising its taxes, reducing its services, and unable to get it back to work.  We're losing our democracy to a different system.  It's called plutocracy.”    

                                 -     -     -

Something Missing: When the Yankees’ tying run in the fifth inning last night was tainted by (yet another) missed umpiring call – on a pitch that hit Nick Swisher called a wild pitch – there was a sense that the Yanks needed all the breaks they could get to beat the Rangers.  They didn’t have their usual aura of dominance – Phil Hughes couldn’t provide it, and the absence of Mark Teixeira left the lineup diminished.  Meanwhile, the Rangers confirmed that they are a team with sock and a sound rotation even without the great Cliff Lee.    

“That’s the most important bunt in the history of the Philadelphia Phillies,” said Tim McCarver on Fox (with perhaps pardonable hyperbole) Thursday night.  He was talking about Roy Halladay’s bunt with two on in the third inning that went foul but was called fair.  It triggered a wild sequence that included an aborted pickoff at third base when Pablo Sandoval missed the bag with his foot and Halladay not running to first.  Sandoval threw Halladay out, but the missed double-play led to two Phillies runs, Shane Victorino having followed with a liner that Aubrey Huff couldn’t handle at first for a crucial error.  Those two runs were the difference in the Phils’ 4-2 victory.

The Phillies are expecting their late-season “magic” (Jimmy Rollins’s term) to propel them to wins in games 6 and 7, with help from Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels.  The scrappy Giants hope that Jonathan Sanchez and, if needed in a game 7, Matt Cain, can neutralize Phillies pitching and quiet Phillies bats.   

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(Posted: 10/21/10)

 

The Hypocrisy Game in Both Ballparks

 

Many anti-Yankees fans in the NY area agree there is a limit to how begrudging they can be of the pinstripers’ enviable success.  That limit was reached Tuesday night when the Rangers rolled to the victory that gave them a (short-lived) 3-1 lead in the pennant playoff series.  The possibility of a World Series devoid of a NY team couldn’t help but bring new fans into the Yankee fold, no matter how transitory the support.  The conversion, a welcome form of chauvinism to some Yankee fans, is disdained as rank hypocrisy by others.  “Hate us one minute, then root for us the next: that doesn’t jibe.” 

 

 Whatever its baseball-related intensity level, the hypocritical game is played on a sustained basis in the political field, especially in games involving foreign teams, like Iran:

“Iran's intelligence minister confirmed on Wednesday that two U.S. citizens detained for more than a year will face trial, news reports said…Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters on Tuesday that she had heard Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal would be tried on November 6 but she still hoped they would be released.”

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald paired this comment with the ensuing news report: “It's high time we teach those Iranians about democracy and freedom.  All civilized people know that this is how a Free and Democratic Nation treats foreign detainees.":

“The Obama administration has decided to continue to imprison without trials nearly 50 detainees at the Guantánamo Bay military prison in Cuba because a high-level task force has concluded that they are too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release, an administration official said on Thursday.”

Given the expanded worldwide “secret war” operations, recently announced by the skipper’s front office, we’re fortunate the Iranians aren’t playing Team USA’s type of war game.

                              -     -     -

Baseball’s misfortune - from a financial standpoint - is that a Rangers-Phillies/Giants World Series would not have nearly the drawing power as would a Yankees-Phillies/Giants match-up.   Either way, the absence of John Smoltz in the Fox broadcast booth will be a loss for viewing fans.  Smoltz and his TBS teammates Ernie Johnson and Ron Darling have done a terrific job during the AL playoffs.  It seemed redundant to have both ex-pitchers handling color to Johnson’s play-by-play.  But it worked, once they got used to playing off each other.  Darling, now a veteran in the booth, let comparative newcomer Smoltz establish himself as insightful in a fresh, spontaneous way.  On Tuesday night, for example, after explaining why an “in-the-dirt” pitch made sense to an impatient hitter, Smoltz watched the pitch repeated, and said simply “Why not?”

 

Who would have thought the Giants, led last night by rookie Buster Posey, would push the Phillies to within a game of elimination, and be closer to the World Series than their counterpart underdog, the Rangers?  A Rangers-Giants Series?  Their fans are saying “Why not?”                                         

                        

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(Posted: 10/19/10)

 

Little Fun in Games Played Now on Either Field

 

Autumnal thoughts about the passage of joy from both pastimes:

 

Even after the Rangers’ rebound in game 2 and onesided win in game 3 behind Cliff Lee, the Yankees’ come-from-behind win in the ALCS opener seemed to confirm their status as the superior team in their league (at least).  While delighting pinstripe fans, the Yanks’ constant dominance discourages dreamers of a more equal competitive playing field. (“Of all the games played this season,” said Red Sox fan Jonathan Schwartz on WNYC, “that was the most disappointing.”) For the time being, the Rangers are proving to be more than competitive, but everyone knows it won't be easy for them to bring joy to many by taking two more from the eruptible Bombers.

 

“Who is this Carl Paladino?,” asks the e-mail of a European friend. “Is he a crackpot?” The short answer: he deserves minimal attention, having disqualified himself through word and deed as a serious candidate for NY state skipper.  The same is true of Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and other long-shot candidates around the country making headlines with their wild rhetorical pitches. “There aren't many more lines of taste and decorum left to be crossed,” notes the UK Guardian’s Michael Tomasky. “ It's taking a lot of the fun out of politics. Yes, politics was once fun.  Dirty, corrupt, et cetera, but also fun in its way.  Now…hatred is (spewed) every day. Depressing, really.”

 

It is a given that joylessness prevails in Pittsburgh, where the Pirates plod through a long series of losing seasons.  But what about the North Side of Chicago, where big things were expected of the big-market Cubs?  Fans there could smile, but only late in the season, after Mike Quade replaced Lou Piniella.

 

And what is the “enthusiasm gap” plaguing Team Obama and the Democrats but dismay over the inability to mount a Yankees-like comeback against the cash-flush party of no?  The related, almost-constant gridlock in Congress elicits a verbal shrug from too many fans on the left: “When the right takes contol, they’ll be blamed for what’s not happening.”  That’s more than discouragement; it’s a cover for despair.

 

Finally, the fun dissipated in Flushing by the mismanaged Mets.  For once-loyal fans, stolen summers that can’t be reclaimed.  With more ahead.

                             

Lob from Left Field on economic-inequality fallout:  “Divorce rates are a…reliable indicator of financial distress, as marriage counselors report that a high proportion of couples they see are experiencing significant financial problems…Another footprint of financial distress is long commute times, because families who are short on cash often try to make ends meet by moving to where housing is cheaper — in many cases, farther from work…  The middle-class squeeze has also reduced voters’ willingness to support even basic public services.  Rich and poor alike endure crumbling roads, weak bridges (and) an unreliable rail system.” – Cornell U. Prof. Robert Frank (in NY Times)                                                                                                          

                                -     -     -

Reliable, and Placidly So:  When Placido Polanco knocked in Roy Oswalt with the third Phillies run en route to the 6-1 victory Sunday night, Fox broadcaster Joe Buck paid tribute:  “When you need that kind of a hit, you can’t have a better man at the plate than Polanco.  You know he’ll get his bat on the ball.”  With a lineup of Victorino, Utley, Polanco, Howard, Werth, Rollins, Ibanez and Ruiz, the Phils almost match the Yanks with their hole-free batting order.  As widely predicted, the Giants, with their good pitching, just don’t measure up offensively to the defending NL champions. 

In SI, Tom Verducci notes that the Giants have played 13 straight games without scoring more than four runs.  He avoids saying that SF third baseman Mike Fontenot is choking under the playoff pressure – rather, he is playing “with a painfully noticeable lack of confidence.”  Bruce Bochy has indicated, according to Verducci, that Pablo Sandoval will replace Fontenot, and Aaron Rowand will go to center field in place of Andres Torres, who has struck out in eight of 11 ABs.   

                                  - o -

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(Posted: 10/16/10)

 

In the Money: Cliff Lee and Team GOP

 

Cliff Lee doesn’t say so, but he’s probably a tax-averse Republican.  Most major leaguers are.  Lee has this in common with Team GOP election candidates: big money has either arrived, or is on its way.  Observers agree that Lee can demand, and receive, at least as much as C.C. Sabathia: $24 million a year for the better part of the next decade. (He probably can’t match A-Rod’s $33 million per, however.)

 

For the GOP, the final campaign money figure won’t be in for awhile, if ever, But, counting the unlimited amounts contributed by outside groups like the Chamber of Commerce, an estimated hundreds of millions of newly allowed dollars are promoting Repub contests across the country.  Except for comparatively minimal help from labor unions, the Dems have no similar access to big bucks.

 

Thus, in the political fund-raising game, it is no contest.  The UK Guardian’s D.C.-based Michael Tomasky speaks for not enough of us when he says:

 

“Most voters don't care.  But I care, and you ought to as well, unless you think it's a good idea that a few mega-rich corporate titans can give a few million bucks to a group that has to disclose almost nothing and run ads attacking candidate X that say nothing about their real agenda for the country.”

 

It’s a pitch that can’t be thrown too often: The impact of money on the election outcome is a threat, not only to the Democrats, but – in Skipper Obama’s words – “to democracy.”  How big a threat we’ll know soon after Election Day.

 

Baseball people know Lee could single-handedly turn some teams into a championship threat.  The Yankees can win without him, but, as he pitched the other night, many of us visualized pinstripes on his Rangers uniform.  Does anyone believe the Yanks can’t have Lee in the off-season if they want him?  Although there will likely be a bidding war for his services, we know there’s only one team - a consistent winner - that won’t be outbid.

 

The ever-expanding role of money, we see, is changing both pastimes, upsetting the traditional traces of equilibrium.  A corollary threat in politics is the reported emergence this year of the largest number ever of self-funded candidates, nearly all Republican.  Could that mean future electoral contests will be mainly games for the rich?  If so, would the change be part of a prolonged slump or permanent condition?  Crucial questions as playoff time approaches.

                              -     -     -

“Oh, my” said one of the TBS announcers when Kerry Wood picked Ian Kinsler  off first with none out in the bottom of the eighth inning last night.  The Yankees offense had just forced a bullpen implosion to score five runs and take a 6-5 lead.  The pickoff with none out ended the Rangers hopes in the first game of the ALDS.  Texas fans can only hope their team’s shell shock will not carry over.  The Yanks, we know, have a way of making sure it does. 

Minority View? Going into last night's game, MLB-TV’s Billy Ripken cast an emphatic vote the other night for the Rangers to beat the Yankees for the AL pennant.  He based his argument on Texas’s success against Mariano Rivera this season.  Mariano is 0-2 for the year against Ron Washington’s team.  “Mariano doesn’t bother them like he does other teams,” said Ripken.  “They’re confident he can be had.”(P.S. Mariano got the save last night.)

 

Why Mets Fans Should (Continue to) Worry:  Jeff Wilpon’s hiring track record is flawed by repeated rookie mistakes.  He allows personal rapport, rather than hardnosed assessment, to influence his decisions.  Jeff took on Art Howe as manager in 2002 because the un-dynamic Howe interviewed well.  Then he gave new buddy Omar Minaya, architect of the 2007 team collapse, a three-year  contract extension despite evidence that  GM Omar had outlived his usefulness. We won’t talk about his appointment of other-crony Howard Johnson to be  batting coach in 2008.  The record does not instill confidence as Jeff meets and assesses a series of GM applicants.

Follow-up:  Here is Newsday’s David Lennon reporting on Sandy Alderson’s interview for the GM job:  “The big question…is how the older and more established Alderson would fit in the organization’s current decision-making hierarchy… As someone accustomed to running his own show to a certain degree, Alderson would have to adjust to being only one voice in a front office headed by principal owner Fred Wilpon , chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon and president Saul Katz… Alderson wants to be a general manager again, and Bud Selig no doubt would like to help out his friend, Fred Wilpon, in stabilizing the Mets.  But the Wilpons do not seem flexible in how they run their franchise.”

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(Posted: 10/14/10)

 

Political Omen Favors Giants in Match-up with Phillies

 

Ever since the media’s linkage of the surprise victory of the “Miracle Mets” of 1969 and that of progressive John Lindsay as NYC mayor, baseball and liberal elective politics connect this time of year. At least, that’s the lefty conceit. The NL pennant race has come down to two non-NY teams.  But both the Giants and Phillies are from Democratic states, so the linking tradition lives on. 

 

SF and the Phils both have terrific pitching but slumping hitters.  The contests for senate and governor in both home states have featured a lot of hard hitting.  If the pre-election stats so far contain a baseball omen, it is that the Giants, linked to liberal Dem candidates, have better pennant prospects than the favored Phils in the NLCS.  

 

Why should that be?  In blue-state Pennsylvania, the left-of-center Dems, like the Phillies on their field, had an edge going into the political playoffs.  But, exploiting an error-prone economy, Team GOP’s Pat Toomey and Tom Corbett are ahead of Joe Sestak and Dan Onorato in the battle for open senate and gubernatorial seats, respectively.  Toomey is up by seven points, Corbett 10 in consensus polling scorecards.

 

In blue-state California, the favored Dems are showing the underdog Giants how to win.  A double victory could come despite the economy on the political field and economic inequality - fewer big-bucks players - on the diamond.  Incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer leads Carly Fiorina by five points and former Governor Jerry Brown has a six-point consensus margin over Meg Whitman with three weeks of play left.

 

The Phils and Giants finished their separate division series each with woeful team BA’s of .212.  The averages of Jimmy Rollins (.091) and Placido Polanco (.111) should cause Charlie Manuel particular concern.  Bruce Bochy has Jose Uribe at .071, and Freddy Sanchez and Andres Torres at .111 to worry about.

 

Cliffhanger:  Cliff Lee is scheduled to pitch Sunday.  Trouble is, his Rangers won’t be playing Sunday.  The ALCS, pitting Texas against the Yankees, opens Friday night in Arlington, with games Saturday there, then three at the Stadium starting Monday.  Ron Washington has to decide whether to use Lee Saturday, on three days rest, or Monday, on five.  Saturday is the more likely; it would insure Lee’s availability for another start.  There’s little doubt he would want to pitch sooner rather than later.

 

Lee’s teammate Ian Kinsler describes the pitcher’s competitiveness, even in a game of chess: “He whups me pretty good, and he’s not scared to let me know.  I mean, first move, he’s dominating me.  That’s just how he rolls.”

 

Farm News: The Yankees and Pirates shared the highest number of blue-chip prospects in Baseball America’s Top 20 list for the International League.  Each had three; catcher Jesus Montero, pitcher Ivan Nova and infielder Eduardo Nunez were the designated Yank farmhands from Scranton-Wilkes-Barre.  The three Pirates prospects on the list were third baseman Pedro Alvarez, pitcher Brad Lincoln and outfielder Jose Tabata from Indianapolis.  The Indians, Rays, Reds, Orioles and White Sox, each had two players on the list.  The Mets had none.  The player at the top of the list: catcher Carlos Santana of the Columbus Clippers, who played later in the season (until injured) with the Indians.   

 

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(Posted: 10/12/10)

 

Yankees and Team GOP: More Than Just a Money Game

 

The hard-hitting Chicago lefty Saul Alinsky used to say that, on the political field, “organized people” can beat “organized money.”  The Yankees are proving, with productive players as well as money, such a strategy doesn’t work in baseball. The Twins, with a new ballpark generating more revenue, became a big-market team this season.  They were able to trade for big-time relievers Matt Capps and Brian Fuentes at mid-summer.  Even with the season-ending concussion of Justin Morneau, the Twins’ personnel raised expectations going into the playoffs.  Their feeble showing against the Yanks has triggered uncharacteristic grumbling among Minnesota’s fans and media.

 

Were he still alive, Alinsky, the legendary community organizer, could serve as a valuable bench coach for Skipper Obama.  Long before this point in the midterm electoral contest, he would have had the skipper challenging Team GOP’s proposed double-switch – cutting the safety net for low-income people while at the same time cutting taxes on the wealthy that help pay for the net.  As early as 1971, Alinsky was warning progressives “If we don’t communicate with the…(working class), if we don’t encourage them to (join) us, they will move to the right.”

 

Team Obama is trying belatedly to reach those blue-collar players.  But the economy, the much-publicized “enthusiasm gap” and organized – mainly, corporate – money make the challenge as tough as that facing playoff teams positioned to face the Yankees.  An Associated Press scorecard shows how big a money lead Team GOP has taken, thanks to the unlimited outside dollars corporate supporters can now throw into the game:

 

“The (Dem) party, led by the Democratic National Committee, has outraised the Republican Party and is mounting advertising and get-out-the vote campaigns in key battlegrounds.  But Republicans have countered (via the High Court’s Citizens United ruling) with a vast array of allied groups operating outside the national party that are raising money without the legal limits imposed on the parties and the candidates.  Those groups are outspending their Democratic-leaning counterparts by about 6-1.”

As of now, clearly, the smart money is on organized money. The Dems need a huge populist rally to change the predicted outcome.

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Optical Illusion:  No matter what the numbers show, we’re in a three-team playoff for the World Series.  The Yankees and Phillies have been on a collision course from the outset.  The Rangers or Rays may somehow careen into the picture, nudging the Yanks out.  No way, barring an upset in the natural order, will the Giants sidetrack the Phils in a best-of-seven drag-race.

TBS Tidbits: John Smoltz (Twins-Yankees):  “When a team falls behind, everybody can get tight.  It’s happened to the Twins.  They’re waiting for someone to break through and light a spark.”

Buck Martinez’s (Rays-Rangers) description of a pitch that moves off the plate but is called a strike: a “strike-to-ball breaking ball.”  Martinez on whether Evan Longoria’s 10-day layoff at the end of the season would hurt his timing at bat:  “Definitely.  It will take time for him to get used to hitting breaking balls again.  Fast balls won’t be a problem.”

It has to be said: TBS short-changed fans by failing to add an ex-ballplayer to the Reds-Phillies broadcasting team of Brian Anderson and Joe Simpson.  Anderson and Simpson were fine, but their offerings could have been tastier seasoned with insights from someone like ex-pitcher/White Sox color-man Steve Stone, or even Keith Hernandez.  

Intriguing caption (for Mets fans) to shot of Cincinnati’s Walt Jocketty during Reds-Phillies game: “General Manager/VP Operations”.  If the Mets gave their new GM similar dual authority, it would reassure fans that the Wilpons were distanced from key decisions regarding the team’s future.  Jeff Wilpon, we know, is the current VP for ops.  

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(Posted: 10/9/10)

 

Roy Halladay, George Bush and the Missing Game Plans

 

Roy Halladay’s no-hitter this week coincided with the anniversary of George Bush’s launching of our war in Afghanistan nine years ago.  The two events became linked in another way (at least by some of us) with the use of the phrase “game plan.”  Bush’s plan - aimed at sending Osama bin Laden to the showers - included “careful targeting” of aerial attacks in the hope of avoiding “war with the Afghani people.”   The plan envisaged a long war that we would permit to end only when we had achieved “victory…for the cause of freedom.”

 

There appeared to be no game plan beyond using “every necessary weapon of war” to win.  The extra innings under way in Afghanistan and Pakistan attest to the ineffectiveness of those weapons in a rugged, third-world setting.  Osama has gotten away and the Taliban remain, stronger than ever. More tellingly, the dragged-out war testifies to a flawed strategy that has led the thousands of civilian deaths – many caused by drone attacks.  So much for the concept of “careful targeting.”  In the words of a retired major general – John Batiste – “We rushed to war without designating…a main effort “ – that is, a specific, achievable goal, a realistic game plan.

 

The Baseball Connection: The early pre-Roy-Halladay Phillies finished 12 games behind the Mets in 2006, the year the NYM’s season ended in the seventh game of the NLCS.  The Phillies, less wealthy than the Mets, focused on stocking their farm system; they developed blue-chip prospects, many of whom they were able to deal for the likes of Cliff Lee, Brad Lidge, and, of course, Halladay and Roy Oswalt.  The Mets, meanwhile, gave player-development a low priority, depending mainly on the signing of name free agents – the prospects-for-Johan-Santana-trade was a rare exception.  Former Met and current SNY broadcaster Ron Darling gave NY Times-man Stuart Miller his analysis of the Mets’ mismanagement:

“What they need is a game plan….They need to teach smart baseball and good defense so when (minor leaguers) get to the big leagues, (they) know what is expected….Right now the Mets (have a choice): try to build a perennial winner in a few years (with their prospects), or…try to piecemeal it together, trying to find the elixir in the free-agent market.”

In pairing Darling with John Smoltz as color men in the Yankees-Twins series, TBS has put together a dazzling package.  The two ex-pitchers were tentative at first, getting to know each other’s moves.  But soon, helped by excellent play-by-play man Ernie Johnson, the pair pitched in perfect synch. Darling let Smoltz say more, but contributed as much.  Both agreed that Andy Pettitte’s performance Thursday night was his best ever, given the suspense about his health and the importance of the game to his team. On umpiring calls, Smoltz told Johnson he would want to see replays of controversial plays whenever decisive runs were involved, but only then.  Darling said he thought an “eye-in-the-sky” system – an ex-umpire at a replay monitor in the press box – would be preferable; a ruling would be made on any close and challenged call.  Johnson went along with Darling’s view. 

Smoltz on pitching to Lance Berkman: “You don’t want to see him lay the bat down after hitting a ball.  That means it’s going a long way.”

TBS’s other pairings have been well chosen, too.  Here is Buck Martinez (doing Rangers-Rays color) on free-swinging Vladimir Guerrero: “If the ball’s coming at him, it’s in play.”  Martinez’s play-by-play partner Don Orsillo prefaced a Rangers home run on a pitcher’s count with a prescient comment: “(James) Shields is in harm’s way.”

The savvy Bob Brenly, doing Atlanta-Giants color with Dick Stockton, on the Braves: “Bobby Cox has gotten good pitching, but he’s had problems with the team’s defense.” The Braves made two errors in the 1-0 loss to the Giants Thursday night. The single run scored when third baseman Omar Infante couldn’t handle a ground ball; it skipped by him, letting Buster Posey score from second.         

When the Reds fell apart last night, making four key errors in the Phillies’ come-from-behind victory, Brian Anderson and Joe Simpson did their usual solid, unobtrusive job.  They were similarly effective in describing the Halladay no-hitter.  TBS has made a clean broadcasting sweep of the four playoff series.  

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(Posted: 10/07/10)

 

It’s Playoff Time in Baseball, Crunch-Time in Politics

 

Scary lineups:

 

Playoff all-stars: Jimmy Rollins, ss; Carl Crawford, lf;  Joey Votto, 1B;  Josh Hamilton, cf; Alex Rodriguez, 3b; Joe Mauer, c; Robinson Cano, 2b; Vladimir Guerrero, dh; Delmon Young, rf, C.C. Sabathia, p (starter); Mariano Rivera, p (closer).

 

Team GOP free agents:  Scientists who deny man-made climate change; Economists who support tax-cuts for the rich; Strategists who justify wars of choice; Lawyers willing to defend torture; Journalists who slant the political news in deference to the people who pay them.

 

An obvious distinction: the baseball lineup is “would-be” scary: the squad won’t be playing together.  The diverse GOP outfit (put together with the guidance of Paul Krugman) is working as a loosely knit team to win on the electoral field three-and-a-half weeks from now.

 

Two views from the left field pressbox on how that political contest will turn out:

 

Perspective 1: “The midtems are boring—boring because everyone knows, in broad strokes, what’s going to happen. The media love to imagine that some brilliant, last-minute White House strategy can save the Democrats, but in moments like this—when the public loathes Washington and Washington is controlled by one party—consultants’ tricks don’t matter. The latest pipe dream is that voters will punish the GOP for having nominated extremist weirdos like Christine O’Donnell.  Really?

 

 “In 1994, the good people of Idaho elected Congress(wo)man Helen Chenoweth, who warned that black helicopters, sent by the federal government, were menacing her state’s ranchers.  In Galveston, Texas, voters elected a formerly homeless man.  When voters are determined to punish anyone associated with political power, hailing from the political, and even social, fringe, isn’t a liability; it’s an asset.”  - Peter Beinart, The Daily Beast

 

Perspective 2: “More evidence th(at)…the Republican wave has crested, and a new dynamic in election 2010 has taken hold.   New Rasmussen and Washington Post polls each show a 7 point swing towards the Democrats in the national Congressional Generic in the past few weeks…This movement tracks similar movement seen in other polls released over the past few days, indicating that the Democrats have made substantial improvement in their position over the past month…

 

There is a clear understanding now in the political class that things have changed, but the big hedge is still on.  In the lead Washington Post story on their new poll, the 7 point Democratic gain was ’modest,’ and the 6 point Republican lead ‘significant.’…That…  shows how fundamentally invested much of DC's political class is in the September version of this story which had Democrats losing the House…and big Republican gains were already ‘baked in the cake’." - Simon Rosenberg, NDN (progressive think tank)

 

The outcome - one way or the other - will likely depend on how effective pro-GOP corporate dollars (the brunt of the estimated $5 billion to be spent in the series of contests) - will ultimately be.

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Talk About Scary: How formidable are the Phillies?  Roy Halladay threw his no-hitter yesterday against the NL’s best hitting team; a walk provided the Reds with their only base-runner.  The Phils look like the team that led the majors in wins (97).    

Cliff Note: Cliff Lee proved he belonged on our hypothetical all-star team with his dominance over the Rays yesterday afternoon.  Buck Martinez on TBS said the way the Rangers handled Tampa Bay ace David Price had to drain the Rays psychologically. They know if the series goes more than three games, they’ll be facing Lee again.

 

Getting To Be a Habit: The Yankees had 48 come-from-behind victories this season.  The 49^th last night over the Twins may have been the most important.  It sent a message: “We’ve dominated you for the last few seasons and don’t think we’re going to stop now.”

A Thought About the Mets Mess:  If he would take it, Bobby Valentine would not be a bad choice for GM – yes, GM; he wouldn’t brook interference from Jeff Wilpon.  The Mets could then name Wally Backman manager and save some of the money Fred Wilpon lost to Bernie Madoff. 

 

Another Thought:  Jerry Manuel was a solid Mets manager, just not a transformative one, a la Buck Showalter.  Manuel got no help from the front office.  He pleaded through the media, last year and this, for aggressive deal-making that would provide reinforcements for his motley roster.  He was told to carry on with what he had and somehow make it all come out right.  Manuel could have been the right man had he not taken over at the wrong time.

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(Posted: 10/5/10)

 

Obama Hits Wall Street While Mets Whack Omar and Manuel

 

The investment fund player who the other day said Skipper Obama “came at me with a baseball bat” had nothing on Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya, whacked by the Mets this weekend through the media instead of man-to-man.

 

The skipper told multi-millionaire blue-chipper Anthony Scaramucci that he and fellow Wall Street players had “beat up on” Main Street people.  Scaramucci had tried to defend the many on Wall Street who were being blamed for the actions of a “few bad apples”.  Obama’s response was certainly unsympathetic, but he did it face-to-face on the TV program “Investing in America.”

 

The Mets leaked the decision to let their manager go and consign their GM to the Limbo list.  Sports Illustrated ran the story late Friday.  Art Howe and Willie Randolph, Manuel’s predecessors, lost their jobs in similar tawdry fashion.

The Mets can now change the subject from how bad their team was to whom they expect to turn the franchise around.  It will be an off-season stressing the promise of change – through hirings and name-player signings.  But a needed miraculous comeback next season is unlikely, no matter what the changes.

 

Obama can talk tough, but he can’t bring substantive change, either, to the financial field..  The recently passed legislation by his teammates, the Dem-dominated Congress didn’t do the job, as scorer Joe Nocera noted from the NY Times pressbox:

 

“The big banks aren’t being broken up, the way they were in the 1930s.  Bankers aren’t being hauled off to jail.  No serious effort has been made to rein in executive compensation – or even to claw back millions of dollars in bonuses that were based on what turned out to be illusory profits.  Most of the financial practices and products that brought us to the brink remain legal under the new Dodd-Frank legislation.”

 

Too-big-to-fail is among the financial plays that have not been thumbed from the game.  On the other hand, there will be more umpiring of efforts to clear the field for too-big-to-fail. Still, the pressbox consensus is this: Ttaxpayers have every reason to resent the “reforms” that permit Wall Street to hold on to its privileges.

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Searching for Cinderella: A non-fan friend wondered aloud yesterday if the playoffs had a “Cinderella team?”  We said there were three of eight – “everyone but the Phillies in the National League.”  In winning the NL Central over the Cardinals and Cubs, the Reds qualified as an “almost Cinderella” during the regular season.  The Phillies may therefore have their hands full in advancing to the NLCS, but advance they should.

 

The Reds are the only one of the playoff teams to finish first in their league in two of three main categories – hitting and fielding.  The Giants led the NL in pitching.  In the AL, the Rangers and Twins led in hitting and fielding, respectively, the Rays in pitching.  If it is true that pitching counts in a short series especially, the Giants and Rays will be worth particular attention.

 

The Yankees, playing at cruise-control through September, apparently achieved the best possible match-up: meeting the Twins just in time to miss the return of Justin Morneau.  Except Morneau won’t be coming back later in the playoffs, after all.  The Twins only want him back at spring-training time.  More immediately, although Minnesota has home-park advantage in the best-of-five ALDS, the Yanks have shown they’re not intimidated by Target Field: they took two of three from the Twins there, and four of six overall.

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(Posted: 10/2/10)

 

Why Ballclubs and Team Obama Should Play Hard to the End

 

Baseball fans recognize the empty feeling when their team falls out of contention.  Some experience it early in the season, watching players who have lost their competitive spark.  For most fans, the experience becomes familiar now as the many also-ran teams hold rookie tryouts rather than play hard with their best lineups.  Checking box scores for all-star performers takes patience, name players with hiccups having been shut down.  What are essentially Triple-A games played in virtually vacant ballparks convey a sad end-of-regular-season image.   In competing for attention with football, baseball shouldn’t have fans saying “Couldn’t they at least try?”     

 

Team Obama has taken repeated hits for lack of intensity as the electoral season moves into its final month.  One of the hitters - Greg Sargent, writing in the Washington Post – suggests why the O-team should have been more responsive to lefty critics and less cautious in its game plan:

 

“They (the critics) are not merely griping because the White House failed to be as left wing as they would have liked on the public option or the big banks.  They are making the case that fighting harder for liberal priorities -- even if that battle is hopeless in some cases -- is better politics for Democrats overall, because it might leave Dems with an energized base heading into the midterms.

“From this group's point of view, it entirely misses the point when Obama supporters respond by saying: ‘Shut up, Obama got all he could, all you're doing is demoralizing Dems with your nonstop criticism.’

“Their argument is that laying down markers on core liberal priorities has a way of expanding  the field of what's politically possible.  And even if expanding that field was never realistic, they argue, Obama would be in a better position anyway if he'd fought more visibly for those core priorities, because rank and file Dems would know what it is they should go out and vote for on Election Day. These critics are rejecting the ingrained Beltway notion that you should never fight for something when you might lose.”  

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Uphill Fight Falls Short: “Adrian Gonzalez is batting .416 with runners in scoring position,” said Dick Enberg (on MLB-TV) during the crucial Cubs-Padres game Thursday.  “That’s far and away the best average in the majors.”  Gonzalez came to bat in the sixth inning of a 0-0 game with men on first and second and none out.  It would be the Padres’ best - and only - opportunity to keep the team’s playoff hopes realistically alive.  Gonzalez grounded into a double play, setting the stage for the Cubs’ 1-0 victory, their third in four games in San Diego.

 

Cubs interim manager Mike Quade was not considered a serious candidate to succeed Lou Piniella on a permanent basis when he replaced Lou in mid-August.    Ryne Sandberg, Joe Girardi, Joe Torre, Bobby Valentine – those were the names of real candidates.  But the Cubs have played .647 ball (22-12) under Quade and he has become a serious contender to run the team in 2011.  It hasn’t hurt him that the players are among his boosters.  Said Ryan Dempster the other night:

 

"I hope he's managing us next year because he deserves it.  He has done everything they've asked, and everyone in here really likes him."

 

Asked what he thought of the endorsement, Quade showed he knew about diplomacy as well as managing: "I try and stay away from that," he said. "As long as my relationship with them is good, and I think it is, then I…stick to …what I have to do."

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September 2010 Archive

(Posted: 9/30/10)

 

Needed on Both Fields: A Gloom-Chasing Miracle

 

A month ago, a part-owner of the Milwaukee Brewers invited us to join him at Citi Field this week to see his team play the Mets.  We declined with thanks, confessing to insufficient interest.  When rain coincided with the start of the series, we thought of how doubly gloomy it would be to watch the out-of-it Mets and Brews under lowering skies. 

 

Worse yet, of course, is the thought of what lies ahead for the NYMs: a mediocre roster, unproductive farm system, dysfunctional front office and shorter-than-usual money supply.  It adds up - even with drastic off-season personnel changes - to a series of rebuilding years. 

 

The appropriateness of the gloom is felt by many players and fans on the left side of the political field.  Among them: the UK Guardian’s Washington-based ace Michael Tomasky, who delivered this sobering outlook on one of the rainy days.

 

“It may well be that the Reagan and Dubya years were just warm-up acts, and that the conservative movement has yet to behold its triumph. The amount of money corporate titans can now pump into politics, the level of activism, the utter inability of the media to call lies lies, the weakness of the Democrats…we may be in for a 40-year descent, until there is no Social Security and there are no environmental regulations and so on and so on, and it'll take a couple of generations for Americans to see the grim effects of that kind of country and decide that pension security and regulation weren't such horrible ideas after all, and America will have to spend 20 years, from about 2050 to 2070, rebuilding an apparatus of state that was built a century before but dismantled.”

 

Tomasky’s stint was a long-view follow-up to the message pitched by National Journal control artist Ronald Brownstein in the previous Nub.  Brownstein laid down the middle the immediate plans of Team GOP’s extremist Senate candidates: to swing out against not only what Team Obama has done, but also to challenge “the legacies of Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt.”

 

The latest in a series of warnings to Democrats to put on their rally caps and get likeminded voters to do the same in advance of electoral playoff day, November 2.  Will it take a miracle for such a rally to occur?

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Speculation Time: Our best guesstimate of playoff pairings in advance of the season’s final weekend: AL – Rangers at Rays, Yanks at Twins.  NL – Reds at Phils, Braves at Giants.  For us, the absence of Red Sox and Dodgers takes some of the zest out of the mix. And, speaking of gloom, how sad that midnight struck for the Cinderella Padres in the last week of the regular season.

 

Although the cusp-of-wild-card Braves have swept the Marlins, the Padres aren’t out of the playoff picture yet.  But SD Times-Union columnist Nick Canepa says local fans are avoiding disappointment by staying home: “This is a team that should be loved, and I wonder why it hasn’t been, why the franchise will draw only 200,000 more fans this year (around 2.1 million) than it did in 2009…In 42 seasons of Padres existence, this has been their most amazing ballclub, a $41-million wonder, a baseball equivalent of loaves and fishes and the Red Sea parting.

“But, for whatever reasons — the economy hitting at the Mendoza Line may be part of it…San Diegans have treated The Little Team That Could more like The Little Team That Might But We Don’t Think It Can So Let’s Wait And See If It Can.”

Ever Say Die: If baseball had an annual deadhead prize, this year’s would go to the Mets by a mile.  Until Tuesday night, when they rallied in the ninth to win,4-3, the Mets had been a remarkable 0-67 when trailing after eight innings.

 

                                - o -

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(Posted: 9/28/10)

 

Political Symbolism Adding Buzz to Baseball’s Post-Season

 

Politicizing the playoffs.

 

In recent election years, the Democratic team found positive omens in the identity of the World Series winners. In 2006, the Cardinals, from then-bluish-purple Missouri, signaled the Dems regaining control of Congress. In 2008, the Phillies, from blue Pennsylvania, presaged Obama's presidential victory. 

 

Percentage-wise, the early and middle innings of the 2010 contest have produced few positive signs for the D-team.  The red-state Rangers, Rays and (purplish)Reds match the blue Phillies, Yankees and Twins as playoff sure things.  The Braves, from red-state Georgia, look to be a good bet for NL wild card, neutralizing the likely blue-California NL West winner, the Giants or Padres.

 

The one recent source of hope for the Dems has been the fading of the red-state Colorado Rockies from the playoff mix.  Colorado is symbolically significant because of its Team GOP's Senate candidate Ken Buck. A dynamic former prosecutor, Buck poses a strong threat to Dem incumbent Michael Bennet.  The National Journal's Ronald Browstein says Buck has been the top-of-rotation pitcher of a rousing GOP message.  It's a message the call-as-he-sees-it Brownstein says the Dems must take seriously or risk a more far-reaching defeat than even their pessimists fear:

 

Buck encapsulate(s) the energy, confidence, and revolutionary zeal crackling through the huge class of GOP Senate challengers now approaching the Capitol from all points on the map.  In red, blue, and purple states alike, Republicans this year have nominated deeply conservative candidates such as Buck who vow to unravel much of what President Obama and the Democratic Congress have constructed over the past two years -- and then march on to challenge the legacies of Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt.  Polls today suggest that many of them will get the chance to try.

Unless Democrats can recover lost ground, it appears likely that the 2010 elections will produce the biggest crop of freshman Republican senators since the 11 who arrived in 1994, and possibly even the 16 who were part of Ronald Reagan's landslide in 1980. Across a wide range of issues, the potential GOP Senate class of 2010 leans right even when compared with those earlier groups -- some contenders hold positions on the far frontier of modern American politics. Next year could bring to Washington the most consistently, and even militantly, conservative class of new senators in at least the past half-century.

The D-team can, thus, thank a member of the Colorado red-state roster for sounding the GOP rallying cry that is also a wake-up call for the Dems . And they can hope the Rockies don't wake up in time to join red-state teams competing for the role of World Series champion...and omen.

                          -     -     -

What We Know in the last week of the season:  The Marlins, Cubs and D-backs are enviable also-rans, playing very meaningful games in this final week of the regular season.  Each can do fatal damage in the NL West and wild card races.  The Marlins, playing in Atlanta without injured studs Josh Johnson and Harley Ramirez, could compromise the Braves’ wild card hopes by contriving to win two of three games.  Last night, with a Triple-A lineup, they came up short, losing in 11 innings, 2-1.  The Cubs can complicate the Padres’ two-lane itinerary to either playoff destination by taking two of four in San Diego. They took the opener from the Pods last night, 1-0. The D-backs can flummox the Giants, by taking two of three in San Francisco, starting tonight.  In the best of possible baseball worlds, the Padres and Giants will be close enough this weekend to make their wind-up series decisive while the Braves are in a similar situation against the Phils at home.

 

Reading Between the Lines: Man Making Pitch to be Mets GM:  “While he could be a candidate for the Mets GM job if the Wilpon family reassigns Omar Minaya, (former D-backs GM Josh) Byrnes said, ‘My background is in pro and amateur scouting, which is the foundation of any organization, and that’s where I would have interest.’ Byrnes’s advice was sought by a few teams at the trade deadline, and he was able to provide input.” – Nick Cafardo in Boston Globe

 

Signing the 40-year-old Byrnes as GM would be good news on one level – signaling overdue emphasis on developing a productive farm system, but bad news on another: Byrnes does not have the stature to demand, and receive, autonomy from Jeff Wilpon.  To be effective, the new GM must be free to run the show without Wilpon’s kibitzing.

 

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(9/25-26/10)

 

Some Baseball Advice for NY’s Would-Be Skipper

 

Andrew Cuomo, son of a former professional ball player, could learn from one of the game’s great combatants.  Cuomo, we know, has a Carl Paladino problem.  Paladino, Team GOP’s candidate for NY skipper, throws verbal bean balls: a sure-fire way to bring a roar from the crowd.  The press loves Paladino for his entertainment value.  Cuomo can’t match Paladino as an entertainer, nor should he try.  His goal should be to develop a lighter, less tightly wound approach.  He can do that by emulating the one MLB skipper with an open rhetorical stance: White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. 

 

Ozzie is a master at redirecting media attention when it strays from him and his team.  Unlike his fellow skippers, he avoids clichés and says what’s on his mind.  A Guillen sampler: “You know what's tough; when I'm driving here and I think, 'God, I have to be myself today  and I don't feel like it, ... I have to show up… put a smile on my face and…joke around when I'm dying inside.’ That's not easy.” /“I don't want to talk about how I feel about my team because I might say something…my team don't want to hear.”/“I never, ever said we were going to win this thing easy.”

 

Cuomo could note that Guillen wastes little time bantering about opponents; he airs his feelings and focuses on his own and his team’s performances.   The media know Ozzie can occasionally say something embarrassing.  That’s an added reason why he keeps them and the fans laughing (while causing Agita to owner Jerry Reinsdorf and GM Kenny Williams.).

 

Andrew can’t be expected to do what his power-hitting father did, swatting away criticism with humor.  But he can relax, discard his anger and be more of a happy warrior.  He has a lot to be happy about: his record as AG attests to his successful playing of hardball as a savvy, resilient political major leaguer.  His Buffalo-based opponent, by contrast, is a rookie, fresh from the minors. Cuomo knows most rookies fade as the season progresses, a process he can assist by engaging Paladino playfully. “Tell that Triple-A jerk to start throwing strikes.”

                              -     -     -

Guessing Who Gets the Wild Card: Charlie Manuel may well turn out to be the NL’s wild-card decider.  His Phillies play the Braves in a season-windup series next weekend.  By then the Phils should have clinched their playoff berth.  If Manuel decides to rest his Halladay-Oswalt-Hamels big three and other regulars, the Braves will have a big edge in the WL race.  They play three with the last-place Nationals away and three at home with the hurting Marlins before the Phils come for the Atlanta close-out.

The Padres and Giants, meanwhile, will be finishing with each other in SF and the suddenly crumbling Rockies wrapping up with the Cardinals in St.Louis.

 

As of now, the NL playoff lineup looks to be Phils, Reds, Giants and Braves (with the Padres an outside possibility), while the Yanks, Twins, Rangers and Rays are the all-but-certain AL foursome.

 

Skipper of the Year?  SI’s Joe Posnanski has a nomination: “I think Ron Gardenhire is the best manager in baseball.  I think that not based on what we see but what we can’t see.  I base this not on what I think a manager should do but on success.  I base this not on individual moves but on the basis that the Twins are there on top one more time.

“Someone close to the Twins…insists that the Twins win DESPITE Gardy, not BECAUSE of Gardy.  And you know what? It could be true.  But you know what else? They sure do keep on winning despite him.  So if nothing else, Gardy is the best I’ve ever seen at minimizing the damage he can cause and keeping his own deficiencies from ruining the story. It’s a lesson all of us could probably learn.
                               - o -

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(Posted: 9/23/10)

 

Teed-Off Parties Making Presence Felt in Both Pastimes

 

A baseball T-party. 

 

It’s been happening the last few nights at Citizens Bank Park, Phillies fans waving towels to urge on the playoff-bound home team.

 

In NYC, we’ve had the equivalent of a baseball-provoking tea party.  Resentment toward the Mets has flared in the form of empty seats at Citi Field.  Meanwhile, the vehemence of noisy negative feeling toward those running the team matches that expressed at political tea parties.  One example (from a Nubbite): “To call the Wilpons ‘clueless’ is to insult people who are legitimately harmless.”

 

The success of the Yankees, of course, has raised the intensity of the Metsian tea-thing.  Envious Mets fans have always rooted against the cross-town rivals.  But a second year of seeing their team mired in their own Queens quicksand while the Yanks speed toward a second straight World Series has triggered the nationally familiar outrage.

 

“What can you expect,” say the anti-Yankee complainers, “they have the money to make good things happen.”  National tea party fans and players are focused on money, too – the size of Team Obama’s treasury, which they want to see cut back.  Mainly, though, they resent the O-team’s power to set America’s agenda.  Author and political scientist Frances Fox Piven is wary of the tea party agenda:

 

“It is a media concoction, an expression of white nationalism, a cry of resentment, and so on.  But it also reflects a well-funded campaign by the right that singles out (anti-poverty, union and environmental) groups…to disable not only the left… but the Democratic Party.”

One respected pressbox observer - the Times’ free-agent polling expert Nate Silver - sees the upstart tea-party style of play as potentially effective during the electoral season: “The tea party…may help (the GOP)  facilitate large electoral gains...in November in spite of a party brand which is badly damaged.  Although it may have done harm to Republicans in a few specific races, like Delaware, this may be outweighed by the good it has done them elsewhere in the country.”   Two signs of tea-party effectiveness, according to Silver: Sharon Angle and Ron Johnson running neck-and-neck races with Dem incumbents Harry Reid and Russ Feingold in Nevada and Wisconsin.  Angle is a regular on the tea-party team, Johnson a player who got into the game because of the party.

                                          -     -     -

It will be surprising if the Yanks do not make the Series, and equally so if their opponent is not the Phillies, clearly the class of the NL.  Mets fans, meanwhile, have the departures of Jerry Manuel and (likely) Omar Minaya to look forward to.  That will leave underqualified Jeff Wilpon (aka “The Mets”) to choose a new manager.  The last one he chose (seconded by Jim Duquette) was Art Howe, the first in a long series of bad decisions. (Minaya was prime chooser of unfortunate Willie Randolph.)

Former owner Peter O’Malley says Frank McCourt should sell the Dodgers for the good of the franchise.  That’s an urgent matter, but no more so than the need for new ownership in Queens if the Mets are to retrieve the support of their fan base.

Hide the Scoreboard: The bane of teams still in the pennant race this late in the season is scoreboard-watching. Padres manager Bud Black told Orange County Register columnist Mark Whicker what can be done to deal with the problem: “Make sure you're farther east than the team against whom you are ‘racing.’  That way, your score goes up first.  And since peeking at the scoreboard is unavoidable in most places, do so.  Just keep it to yourself.  ‘If you're in the cage, you take a swing, look at the board, then swing, look at the board,’ said Black…’Guys don't talk about it.’…

“Right around the sixth inning Tuesday night, the board flashed an ‘F’  beside the Giants 1, Cubs 0 score.  By then the Padres were too absorbed in their own (winning game against LA) to care.”                                                                                                                                                                                               - o -

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(Posted: 9/21/10)

 

Baseball and Politics Get Religion

 

Baseball and the Jewish Day of Atonement: could any two subjects be more dissimilar?  The Atonement game plan last Saturday included traditional pitches for art, science, music and intellectual striving – but, strangely, not for baseball.  That omission didn’t stop about a dozen Jewish players in the MLB - including Ryan Braun, Kevin Youklis, Brad Ausmas, Ian Kinsler, Scott Feldman, Jason Marquis, Gabe Kapler, John Grabow, Ike Davis, and Danny Valencia - from playing the game well enough to earn a good living. 

 

The Atonement message to them - and to those of us who aren’t living badly:  play hard but don’t spike others to reach third base and beyond.  The political relevance needs no belaboring: the anti-government team on the right side of the diamond is pitching to get the deficit reduced and taxes cut.  That strategy means fewer public services and social programs for people who have to struggle more than most of us.  It amounts to what the Atonement message calls “exploitation” of the other.        

 

Cornell U. Prof. Robert Frank takes a simple pragmatic swing against the exploitation embedded in our unlevel economic playing field.  His remedy - progressive tax reform now: “Tax systems that transfer income from rich to poor...reflect the costs and benefits of different rungs on the social ladder.  They help make stable, diverse societies possible.”  Times southpaw Paul Krugman puts a sting in his delivery: “If you want to find real political rage…you’ll find it…among the very privileged,  people who don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes, or their health insurance, but who are outraged, outraged, at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes.”

Lob from Left Field about an effort to counter extremist rage in our society:

 

“I think Jon Stewart is one of the most incisive and effective commentators in the country, and he reaches an audience that would otherwise be politically disengaged.  I don't have any objection if he really wants to hold a rally (Oct.30) in favor of rhetorical moderation, and it's also fine if, as seems to be the case, he's eager to target rhetorical excesses on both the left and right in order to demonstrate his non-ideological centrism.  But the example he chose to prove that the left is guilty, too -- the proposition that Bush is a ’war criminal’ -- is an extremely poor one given that the General in charge of formally investigating detainee abuse (Maj.Gen. Antonio Taguba) has declared this to be the case….(Thus,) the claim has ample basis, and it's deeply irresponsible to try to declare this discussion off-limits, or lump it in with a whole slew of baseless right-wing accusatory rhetoric, in order to establish one's centrist bona fides.”  - Glenn Greenwald, Salon

                              -     -     -

What We Know after the weekend: Fresh from extending their wild card lead by a game-and-a-half - to two-and-a-half games – over the embattled Padres, the Braves look poised to win the NL wild card if the can split their last six games with the Phillies.  Following the current series at Citizens Bank Park, Atlanta has three away with the Nationals, then three at home with the Marlins before closing out the season hosting the same Phils on October 1, 2 and 3. 

 

The Giants have a tougher sked – three away with the Cubs, who are 17-7 under new manager Mike Quade, then three with the Rockies in Denver, before finishing at home against the Diamondbacks and Padres.  Having lost three of four to the Cardinals, the Pods now must play four games with the same Cubs at home after a perilous three-day stop in LA against the Dodgers.  The Reds will follow the Cubs into San Diego, meaning the Padres will be lucky if they still have a shot during a season-ending three games with the Giants in SF.   The Rockies have three in Arizona with the D-backs, then they’ll meet the Giants and Dodgers for six last games at home.  The season for them will likely to come down to their four final games.  Where?  Alas for the Rockies, in St.Louis, against the Cardinals.  

 

Lots of nail-biting baseball ahead.  Too bad for those of us in the East that most of the key games will be played in Western and Mountain time zones.

                             - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

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(Posted: 9/17-18/10)

 

Does Anyone in Either Field Play by the Rules?

 

A candidate for NY state skipper who “does not play by the usual rules.”  So?   A Yankees captain who play-acts to deceive umpires about being hit by a pitch. Wait a minute.

 

Carl Paladino, Team GOP’s wild swinger, is playing a familiar political game – doing what it takes to win, even if it means outrageous bench-jockeying and unsportsmanlike behavior, in general.  But Derek Jeter swiveling out of character, which he did against the Rays Wednesday night, was a different story.  Remember, he pretended a pitch that struck the knob of his bat hit him in the wrist.  Watching Jeter pirouette in apparent pain and then seeing a replay show clearly what happened was somehow jarring.  “Gamesmanship,” YES broadcaster Kenny Singleton called it.  Many of us, perhaps naively, didn’t think Derek played the game that way.  He has always been an authentic stand-up guy, the antithesis of an actor.

 

Paladino warns that his spikes-high attempt to cut Andrew Cuomo down “won’t be clean.”  He knows the press likes the Gas House Gang game and welcomes any sign that a front-running team is flummoxed, aced with a challenge.  The Buffalo multi-millionaire will get broad state and national coverage with his provocative approach.  His verbal aim for the fences could make for a lively campaign and, at the same time, make the AG a better candidate.  Paladino has already targeted Andrew’s air of entitlement, his dependence on staff to insulate him from the people.  We shouldn’t be surprised if, thanks to his opponent, Cuomo adopts a new, regular-guy stance as the contest moves through its early innings.         

 

Chances are television, which benefits “hot” performers for a short while, could in time make Paladino a victim of over-exposure.  By the middle innings, the video replays may well confirm signs of his unreadiness for high political office.  In the other field, we know Jeter’s willingness to let his integrity be tainted for the team would have been unnecessary had baseball done the inevitable: initiate a full-scale use of the technology to help umpires get calls right.

                                 -     -     -    

Lob from Left Field: “In case anyone thought Obama was starting to ‘’get’ that America wants a president who will stand up to the economic royalists and do the right thing, White House insiders indicated Wednesday night that he has decided against appointing Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Instead, Obama is expected to appoint the hero of reformers to an advisory post where she will report to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner…(reportedly) a behind-the-scenes opponent of her appointment.” – John Nichols, The Nation

                                         -     -     -

And Then There Were…You may have noticed that Central Division races in both leagues all but ended Wednesday night: that’s when the Reds and Twins both moved eight games ahead of the Cardinals and Twins, respectively, with 16 and 17 games left.  Then there’s the NL East, where the Phillies took a commanding three-game lead over the Braves, commanding because the Phils have Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels at the top of their rotation.  As of mid-Friday, the Braves were tied for the wild card lead with the Giants, one of three teams - the Padres and Rockies are others - involved in the most competitive division race, the NL West.  The AL East, we know, is in a class by itself – both the Rays and Yanks assured of no worse than a wild-card berth and therefore as concerned with putting together the best possible playoff roster as of winning the division.

 

The Mets, buried in the NL East and under all kinds of criticism for mismanagement, received an additional jab the other night from SNY’s Bobby Ojeda.  The Mets front office, Ojeda said, did Carlos Beltran and the team a “disservice” by rushing Beltran back into action after he only played in rehab games at the Class A level.  “They should have had him play in Triple-A.  There’s too big a difference between Class A and the big leagues, the ball moves differently…”  Ojeda said bridging that gap slowed Beltran’s return to form, “which he is only rounding into now.”      

                                      - o -

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v

(Posted: 9/16/10)

 

What We Shouldn’t Believe in Both Pastimes

 

The lies we tell ourselves: “The best part about baseball is that, theoretically, a game can go on forever.”  “We were perfectly justified in attacking Afghanistan soon after 9/11.”

 

Rabid fans or not, we know ballgames can go on too long.  There’s just so much energy we can devote to watching inning after inning of little happening.  And over in the political ballpark, anyone who remembers our massive response to Osama’s presence in Afghanistan knows it alienated much of the populace there, costing countless innocent lives.  And it failed in its main mission: to get the man behind anti-U.S. terrorism.

 

The New Yorker’s Roger Angell summed up the problem of overlong games when he wrote about a 20-inning affair he covered some years ago:  “All around me in our section I could see the same look of resignation and boredom and pleasure that now showed on my own face, I knew — the look of longtime fans who understand that one can never leave a very long close game, no matter how much inconvenience and exasperation it imposes on us.  The difficulty of baseball is imperious.”

 

It is a sobering fact that our Mideast wars, dating from nine years ago, have become sources of “resignation and boredom” here at home. The late historian Howard Zinn anticipated the malaise that would result from the war game in Afghanistan.  This is what he wrote (in The Progressive) in December 2001 soon after Team USA’s first hit:

“Voices across the political spectrum, including many on the left, have described this as a ‘just war.’  One longtime advocate of peace, Richard Falk, wrote in The Nation that this is ‘the first truly just war since World War II.’   Robert Kuttner, another consistent supporter of social justice, declared in The American Prospect that only people on the extreme left could believe this is not a just war.

“I have puzzled over this. How can a war be truly just when it involves the daily killing of civilians, when it causes hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children to leave their homes to escape the bombs, when it may not find those who planned the September 11 attacks, and when it will multiply the ranks of people who are angry enough at this country to become terrorists themselves?  This war amounts to a gross violation of human rights, and it will produce the exact opposite of what is wanted: It will not end terrorism; it will proliferate terrorism.”

The description of what lay ahead sounds depressingly familiar nine years later.

                             -     -     -

The Long View:  When Joe Girardi shrugged in the 10^th inning, some of the fun went out of the Yanks-Rays fight for first Monday night.  Chad Gaudin had issued a two-out walk to load the bases in the 0-0 game.  He seemed shaky and in need of help from someone more reliable, say Marian Rivera or even David Robertson.  Instead, Girardi responded to a questioning signal with a gesture that spoke volumes: it said “Let’s see if Gaudin has what it takes to make the playoff roster.”  When Joe called on Sergio Mitre to pitch the 11^th (and ultimately yield the winning home run), his September strategy was clear – make this a tryout-camp period for marginal players who might, or might not, be useful in the post-season.  Whether the Yanks win the division or settle for the wild card is of secondary importance. (“Losing the battle but winning the war,” David Eiland calls it.) That obviously diminishes the attractiveness of once-“crucial” games.

 

As of now, the AL wild-card team will draw the Twins in the first playoff round, the AL Division winner with the best W-L record (i.e., the Yanks or Rays) will meet the Rangers.  The prospect of facing Cliff Lee perhaps twice in a best-of-five series could make playing Texas the more daunting challenge.

                      

Rare Time for Torre:  How does consistent playoff manager Joe Torre feel with his team the Dodgers out of the pennant race?  He “hate(s) to say it,” but “it’s relaxing.” Torre added this, in a conversation with Giants writers in SF: “We're in a position now that other clubs have been…against us.  We're trying to impact the pennant race by playing havoc with the teams that are in it.  That's our job."  Ten of the LAD’s last 16 games are with the three NL West contenders.  They’ll play one final game with the Giants tonight (Thurs.), three with the Padres next week, and six with the Rockies – three this weekend and three the last week of the season.  Joe will have lots of havoc-causing possibilities.
                  - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

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(Posted: 9/14/10)

 

The Bane of Overkill in Baseball and Politics

 

Thoughts triggered by a call-up rookie stealing home the other day to give the Rockies a big win over the Reds:  

 

First, there’s the oft-cited disparity of money – a team like the Yankees able to afford a $200 million payroll, while small-market teams feel they must make do spending a quarter of that amount.  Then, at the end of the season, there’s a player disparity – some teams willing to strip their farm teams on September 1 while others take a more conservative approach.  Baseball is hurting itself, just as our political system is, by allowing for overkill on the part of one group at the expense of another.

 

In politics, a Supreme Court ruling in 1976 started to skew that playing field.  The decision in Buckley v. Valeo that the use of money in elections was free speech gave wealthy players a big edge over the middlin’ ones.  Then, this year, we remember that the High Court in the Citizens United case gave the big biz machine the right to wield as much financial clout as it wants in electoral campaigns.  That further shifted power to the already advantaged on the right side of the political diamond.  Skipper Obama and the Dem team in Congress talked of a legislative rally to blunt the impact of the decision.

 

In promising to lead it, the skipper threw a warning pitch. “Special interests and their lobbyists”, he said, would have “more power (than they already had) in Washington while undermining the influence of average Americans.” That top-heavy power prevails.  There’s been no sustained action to neutralize it since the presidential pitch last January.  The uneven level of the political playing field remains as the Election Day playoffs approach.

 

SI’s Tom Verducci details the unevenness caused by baseball’s late-season roster-expansion policy, which he wants modified, if not eliminated:

 

“Beginning Sept. 1, teams can call up as many players as they wish from their 40-man roster. What all year was 25-vs.-25 becomes 33-vs.-29 or 35-vs.-32 or . . . you get the point.  It's illogical…Multiple catchers, pinch-runners, left-handed relievers, etc. change how the game is played and managed…Baseball needs to end this folly of teams playing with different sized rosters at the most important part of the year.”

                                -     -     -

What We Know after the weekend:  Three teams - and only three - have a lock on making the playoffs: the Yanks, Rays and Rangers.  Let’s consider the five other MLB post-season spots up for grabs because it (1) enhances broad interest, and (2) recalls the Phillies, trailing the Mets by seven games in the last two-and-a-half weeks of 2007.  With three weeks left now, we’ll make seven games as of Monday the outside number in which a team is still in division contention. On that basis, the Braves, Phillies, Reds, Cardinals, Padres, Giants and Rockies are in the NL hunt.  The other AL teams that have a shot under Nub rules: the Twins and White Sox.  The NL wild card race is closed to all but the seven division contenders; the AL wild card race, owing to the leads established by Yanks and Rays, is closed.  Period.

   
A Realistic Mets-Rescue Scenario?  The hiring of a GM with stature, smarts, and, most of all, the gumption to quit when Jeff Wilpon meddles (as he did once Omar Minaya began to misfire).   A Kevin Towers-type would be a good choice because, unlike Omar, he would presumably focus as much on the farm system as the main club.  That focus could insure whoever the new manager is would have player-ready backup when needed.  The new GM’s ‘must’ attribute can’t be over-emphasized: it’s the willingness to walk away from the clueless Wilpons.

                          - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

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(Posted: 9/11/10)

 

How Baseball and Most of Us Feel About Our Wars

 

Raise your hand if, after hearing the reason, you reproach Luis Castillo for skipping the Mets’ visit to Walter Reed Army hospital the other day.  Castillo said he was squeamish about seeing soldiers who had lost their limbs “fight(ing) for us.”  What he could have added: the fact that the vets had suffered their severe injuries in a questionable cause made it even harder to visit them.

 

No major league baseball players have done what pro football’s Pat Tillman did – sign up to serve (and give his life) in Afghanistan.  MLB owners make a big thing of “God Bless America”/Support Our Troops ceremonies.  But, in general, baseball has reflected the attitudes of those of us who follow the Mideast wars from our safe distance:   We wish that bloodletting - and the men and women with broken bodies - would go away. Castillo’s less-than-stellar play for big bucks is dismaying, but for his squeamishness in this case, we don’t blame him a bit.

 

Coincidentally, this related message arrived from Mets legend Ron Swoboda in New Orleans: “(Here’s) a theory on sticking our military noses in faraway places...most recently in the Middle East.  ‘The visiting team always loses’."

                            

Post-Labor Day Lob from Left Field (3): We’ve been watching organized Labor lose here at home for more than a half-a-century.  Insufficiently noticed is what it has cost us in economic security and quality of life.  In France this week, Labor displayed its enduring clout, mobilizing millions to march as part of a day-long strike to protest against proposed cuts in social security.  Behind the strike - which paralyzed public transportation - was a principle, now virtually unknown here, of worker solidarity.  Nationale solidarite is a first principle of the French Code of Social Security.  It used to be an American union value - the sense that each should look out for the interests of all - when Labor was strong after World War II; strong enough to win contracts that, in Barack Obama’s words “spread the wealth around.”  And that strength gave us, as E.J. Dionne remembered in the Washington Post, “A broad middle class with spending power to keep the economy moving,  creat(ing) a virtuous cycle of low joblessness and high wages...We miss labor's influence more than (we realize)." 

                             -     -     -

Shaky Investment: Fans hoping the Padres will make the playoffs for underdog-admiring reasons, need a reality-check.  It comes in the form of the Pods’ homestretch schedule.  The NL West leaders had 23 games remaining, as of their  meeting last night with the Giants.  Four of the six teams they’ll be playing - the Rockies, Cardinals and Reds as well as SF - are fighting for playoff berths, too.  After three more key Petco Park games with the second-place Giants, San Diego will play seven possibly decisive away games.  The opponents: the Rockies for the first three, and the Cardinals for a four-game series. Following those depleting tests, the Padres will return to California to play three with the Dodgers in LA.  Then, they’ll contest seven home-season-ending games with the Reds and Cubs.  Finally, if they’ve managed to play better-than-.500 ball up to that point, the team will finish with what well may be a do-or-die three-game series against the Giants at SF.  The Padres will need prayers as well as good pitching to pull off their miracle.

 

Unlike the Padres, the Reds, the NL’s other Cinderella team, have a favorable schedule on paper to help them to the finish line.  Five of the six teams Cincy will play in its last 21 games have sub-500 records.  Among the five, however, are the Houston Astros, who have been the NL’s winningest team since the All-Star break.  The Reds have six games left with the Astros, as well as the three in SD with the Padres.  Another Reds-advantage: the rival Cardinals have eight of their last 23 games with the Padres and Rockies and a makeup game away with the pesky Marlins to complicate their come-from-behind effort in the NL Central.

 

Question That Answers Itself: “It is tempting,” says Chicago Trib’s Phil Rogers, “to see if Joe Girardi really wants to leave the Yankees to come home to the Midwest.  He has proven himself as a solid big-league manager and is in almost every way a safer bet than (Ryne)Sandberg.  But will he really leave the Yankees?”

                                - o -

(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

(Posted: 9/9/10)

 

Rangel, Derek and Retiring With ‘Dignity’

 

The careers of Charlie Rangel and Derek Jeter have reached differing but related crossroads.  Their playing time in Congress and with the Yankees is coming to an end.  How they are facing the dramatic professional change in their lives – in Jeter’s case, how he will face it – provides a field day for spectators of the two pastimes.

 

Rangel is 80, long past retirement age, except for political players who have swung with power in their day.  They’ll cling to vestiges of that power even if ethical lapses prompt teammates and, yes, his skipper to suggest it’s time to leave the game.  Rangel will let his long-time Harlem-district fans decide whether to keep him in the Congressional lineup and hope he performs in his field as well as White Sox super-veteran Omar Vizquel does in his.  Because none of Charlie’s primary opponents - with the possible exception of Times-endorsed Joyce Johnson - shows enough strength so far to overcome the status his longevity has conferred, Rangel will likely be swinging away for two more years.

 

Jeter, now an “old” shortstop of 36, has status going for himself, as well – the status of a living, playing baseball immortal.  He may no longer hit with the power he once had, or field with his range of a few years ago.  But the power of his presence in pinstripes accumulated during a consistently competitive decade and a half means he will be allowed to decide how long to stay where he is.  And at what mutually agreeable price.  The guess here is that an intervening injury in the next few years will make it possible for Derek to assume a lesser role; and to do it with the “dignity” Rangel is denying himself. 

State Senator Eric Schneiderman seems to be the front-runner in the contest to become NY AG.  But Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has earned the affection - and maybe even the votes - of many baseball fans.  It was Brodsky, virtually alone among pols, who challenged the hundreds of millions in public subsidies for the new Yankee Stadium.  And Brodsky said bluntly in a candidates debate what we all have known: “The Mets stink.”

Post-Labor Day Lob from Left Field (2): “When unions represented over 33 percent of all private workers in the 1940s (instead of 7 percent now), they drove wage increases for everyone -- non-union firms had to compete for good workers.  Now, unions struggle just to defend their members' wages and benefits… Unions face constant attacks from corporations and conservatives. The most recent campaign -- designed as always to divide workers from one another -- assails the pay and particularly the pensions of public employees. Why should they have pensions, when many workers have lost theirs and get, at best, a retirement savings plan at work? In fact, in a civilized society, we would ask the reverse question. How do we create pensions -- beyond Social Security -- for workers across the economy…?"  - Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation

                          -     -     -

Lucky Westerners: Oh, to live on the West Coast, watching from up-close the three-team division race involving the Padres, Giants and Rockies.  The Giants have the pitching, the Rockies the come-from-behind tradition, the Padres the impetus that being an underdog miracle team gives them.  All three, we know, are competing in a separate five-team race with the Phillies and Braves for the league wild card.  Is this fun, or what?

More on Derek: As indicated here the other day, we see the most telling sign of Jeter’s apparent decline in the way he looks at the plate – a little less sure and comfortable than in previous years.  His occasional lunging at pitches out of the strike zone is particularly un-Jeter-like.  Derek is hitting .262 (five for his last 36), more than 50 points below his career BA and more than 70 points under what he batted last year.   He has grounded into more double plays - 20 - than any other Yankee or any other regular MLB shortstop.  On the other hand, Derek has made among the fewest errors - six - of regular MLB shortstops.

 

Coach Minaya:  Reports that the Mets have Omar Minaya flying coach in this lame-duck phase of the team’s season suggest that the GM may at last be on the way out.  Wholesale changes will surely be made, but we know nothing substantive will change until Fred Wilpon either sells the club or finds other work for the key exec out of his depth, son Jeff.  

 

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(Posted: 9/7/10)

 

‘Big Stick’ Offense Is No Longer Working

 

A hundred years ago this week, “big stick” became a Team USA rallying cry, thanks to a scrappy Dustin Pedroia-like assistant skipper named Teddy Roosevelt.  The idea then behind the strategy of going for the long ball in tight situations was this: our war-clubs would warn European teams away from trying to bring minor-league Latin American clubs into their farm systems.  The stance has remained a staple of the U.S. team’s performance through the seasons.  It worked through much of the last century as the Yanquis moved to insure that teams like Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Venezuela, etc. stayed affiliated with them.

 

The string of big-stick military successes ended farther afield – in Vietnam - as the hit-and-run game proved effective against us.  That was years after baseball’s “murderer’s row” era gave way to the pitching/running “small ball” game dominated by the likes of Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Davy Lopes, Lou Brock and Ricky Henderson.  Today, Al-Quaida and the Taliban are forcing Team USA to play military small ball.  The big stick can still be useful as a backdrop to peace talks – something Israeli Skipper Benjamin Netanyahu is suggesting as he meets with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.  But in day-to-day game action, it is guerrilla-like squeeze plays and stolen bases that win most often.

 

Baseball stats make the case clearly on that field.  Toronto is first in home runs and slugging, but 23d of 30 in overall offensive efficiency.  Well over 40 percent of the big-stick Blue Jays hits have gone for extra bases.  AL Central-leading Minnesota, which finished first in batting efficiency, did it making do with singles; more than 70 percent of all their hits have been for one base.  The Jays have managed to play better-than-.500 ball in a tough division.  Their top HR-hitting counterpart in the NL, the D-backs, are last in their division and have the league’s next-to-worst W-L record.

 

Teddy Roosevelt’s call for Team USA to “speak softly” but maintain “a pitch of the highest” military preparedness has been honored to excess for some fans in left field.  Activists organized by United for Peace and Justice are planning a march on Washington October 2 to dramatize demands to put away the big stick: stop war-making and cut military spending.  The UFPJ team can be reached at www.unitedforpeace.org

                          

Post-Labor Day Lob from Left Field: “I look forward to a Labor Day where every worker has a job, every worker has a pension, every worker has paid vacations, and every worker has the health care to enjoy life.   My opponents call that France. I call it America, an America (we can be proud of).” – Rep. Alan Grayson, D, FL.

                           -     -     -

What We Know after the Labor Day weekend:  The NL West is now a three-team race; it looks as though the Padres will be hard put to stave off the Giants, and both may be overrun by the Rockies.  The Reds may be letting the Cardinals – now six games behind - back into NL Central contention.  The Braves and Phillies both must turn it on in the NL East or risk having one of them go home as   the wild card falls to a West team.  The White Sox have made clear they’re ready to stay mano-a-mano with the Twins in the AL Central.  The Rangers and Rays look playoff-safe despite tailspins, but they have begun causing their fans Agita.

 

The Showalter Factor: Although Buck Showalter's late-season leadership has given a shot in the arm to Baltimore (as well as all of baseball), he likely represents bad news to managers of underachieving teams.  The chances of skippers like Jerry Manuel, Ken Macha and Cito Gaston being re-signed for 2011 have to be considered slim; after all, owners are surely thinking their present managers couldn't do for the Mets, Brewers and Blue Jays, respectively, what Showalter did for the Orioles - overseeing the winning 20 of 34 games since early last month.  Let’s find someone else, preferably with Buck-like credentials.

 

Caveat: A part-owner of the Brewers told us over the weekend he doubted that Macha would be let go, despite the team's disappointing season. "The front office doesn't blame Macha for how the players he was given performed," said the official, not himself a decision-maker.    

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(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 Gallup’s scoring history.

Those figures could change after Skipper Obama’s Iraq pitch is factored in to the polling. But for the moment recriminations are rife in the political field as well as in baseball.   Salon’s lefty fireballer Glenn Greenwald, in a head-hunting mode, low-bridged both the opposition and his own party with this nasty pitch:

“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 St. Petersburg crystallized what has been obvious to the rest of the baseball world since the injuries started piling up in July.

“The Yankees and Rays are on 99-win paces. They are in a great race and have no reason to let up.  Boston’s quixotic quest to get into the race has been a figment of our imaginations….The 2010 season is over.  You can have some fun booing new White Sox designated hitter Manny Ramirez this weekend… but we can finally stop torturing ourselves about the summer of heat and hurt when the Red Sox never really had a chance.”

                             -     -     -

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 San Diego is that the CW about the Padres was right – they were playing over their head and due to come back to earth.  It could be happening just as the homestretch starts.

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The Nub will be off this weekend, returning on Tuesday.

 

August 2010 Archive

(Posted: 8/31/10)

 

 An Opening for Cuba and a Reds Closer

    

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 USA is preparing to ease travel restrictions to Cuba, spurring talk of a baseball free-trade agreement.  It would permit players like Chapman to come to the U.S. with Havana's blessing and permit them to return home, no longer considered exiles.

 

Cuba's illegal emigres love the material advantages of life in the states - especially if they are well-paid ballplayers - but, understandably, they miss their families, their cultural roots. Chapman, like all the exiles, is averse to talking Cuban-American politics; his closer-like stats speak the baseball language he prefers: 125 strikeouts in 95 innings (52 walks), 9-6 W-L, 3.57 ERA.  Oh, yes, and a BA of .400 (four for 10).

 

It is understandable, too, that our view of Cuba has been shaped by the years of bad publicity heaped on Team Castro. But, particularly in light of the health care debate underway here, the comments of Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder are worth recalling.  Kidder visited Cuba with now-UN health specialist, Dr.Paul Farmer, "the (American) who would cure the world," for his book about Farmer "Mountains Beyond Mountains":

 

"Cuba had pulled off something difficult...first-rate public health, equally distributed, in spite of severely limited resources.  I just wondered what price in political freedom its people paid for the achievement.  But I understood that Farmer would frame the question differently, and ask what price most people would be willing to pay for freedom from illness and premature death."   

 

It’s a question that pertains to the plight of poor people – whether benched in places like Cuba, Venezuela, or in many parts of the U.S. - and therefore, we know, seldom allowed to come to bat in our media bailiwick.

                    -     -     -

What We Know after the weekend: 
A Braves/Phils, Yanks/Rays division/wild card tandem looks increasingly likely.  The Braves scored their 40^th 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 bounce back from being swept by the Astros.  And the defending champs have the two Roys -  Halladay and Oswalt – to lead them to the post-season kingdom.  In losing their fourth straight for the first time, the Padres may at last be showing the vulnerability expected of them by skeptics.  The Rockies could overtake the runner-up Giants with a sweep of their current three-game series.  The Pads are hoping neither team sweeps, giving them space to regroup.

 

“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, Oakland knows it must do no worse than split four with the Yankees if the distant second-place A’s are to cling to AL West contention.  The Reds, in a strong position vis-à-vis the stumbling Cardinals, hope Chapman will step up and add to their edge.       

 

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 USA in Education League

 

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 USA, competing in the world education league, that has tumbled in most dramatic fashion.

 

The MLB standings attest to the also-ran status of the eight clubs listed above.  And polls identifying America’s most popular spectator and participant sports have baseball finishing second to football in one, and second to basketball in the other.  Globally, an overriding blow to national pride can be found in the educational attainment standings:  Team USA, once number one among 36 developed nations, is now 12^th.  Canada, South Korea, Russia, Japan and New Zealand comprise the top five of the rankings – based on percentage of college degrees among the 25-34 age group.    

 

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 U.S. team far out of first in their attainment league.  Baseball has been unwilling or unable to match pro football in areas of, among others, team parity and use of technology; thus the fall to second place as a watched sport.  But, based on numbers of blacktop/sandlot players, baseball finishes second to football’s fourth, and just behind basketball in participation rankings.   

 

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 USA’s educational losing streak.  Socialism anybody?

                           -     -     -

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 Toronto while Tampa Bay took two of three from the Angels.  The Braves lost three to the Rockies, but still moved a half game up (to three) on the Phillies, who lost four to the upstart Astros.  The White Sox, winners of two of three from the Orioles, picked up a game-and-a-half on the Twins, who lost three of four to the Rangers.  Minnesota’s lead in the AL Central is now three-and-a-half games.  Cincinnati lost of two of three to the Giants but still gained a half-game on the Cardinals, who lost two of three to the Pirates and another to the Nats. The Reds lead the Cards in the NL Central by four games.  The Rangers added a game-and-a-half and a half-game to their margins over the Angels and Athletics.  Texas leads Oakland by eight-and-a-half games.  The Padres started the week six games ahead of the Giants, which is where they are late Friday afternoon.  Everybody up to date?

 

Bull Durham Redux: On MLB-TV Thursday night, color-man John Smoltz spotted the Twins’ Denard Span talking to himself in the batter’s box.  “He’s telling himself to expect a fastball,” said Smoltz.  Sure enough, a close-up showed Span’s lips moving on each pitch, obviously prompting himself on what to wait for.  The system worked: Span went two-for-five.  As for Smoltz, he batted a thousand as a commentator.

 

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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 Sweden this week - the charge was withdrawn – and he said he suspected Pentagon “dirty tricks” at work. 

 

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 America's policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Those policies are at a critical stage, and these documents may very well underscore the (urgency)…needed to get the policy right.”

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 Houston Has Meant: “It's been tremendous getting to work with Jeff Bagwell.  He has such a presence.  Everyone listens to him intently.  He's brought some swagger back to the Astros.  He works tirelessly on my swing, and perhaps best of all is his preparation.  What I've learned from him is how to prepare against each pitcher to try to know what pitch I want to hit.  Hitting is all about getting a good pitch to hit and doing something with it, and Baggy has taught me a ton in a short period of time."  (Rookie Chris Johnson to MLB-TV’s Peter Gammons.)

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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(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 a NL exec to the Globe's Nick Cafardo).  And in politics, we know how hard it is to acknowledge that high-priced strategic plays have ended badly.  We had an example of that last week.

 

First, a quick look at a few of the pricey players who haven't matched what teams saw as their potential.  Jayson Bay ($8.625 million/BA .259, HR 6) is the major new example in Mets-land, where Luis Castillo $6.25 mil/.238) and, especially, Oliver Perez ($12 mil/0-4, ERA 6.70) are familiar sad stories.  Elsewhere, Chone Figgins ($8.5 mil/.247) has been a huge disappointment to the Mariners, and the Astros had no problem letting their veteran slugger Lance Berkman ($7.5 mil/.245, HR 13) go.  Aaron Rowand ($13.6 mil/.239) brought his glove but not his bat to SF this season, and Kevin Millwood ($12 mil/2-14) misplaced his usual number of wins when he moved to the Orioles. Yankee fans know it took Curtis Granderson ($5.5 mil/.246, HR 13) until mid-August to start contributing to his new team. 

 

Team USA tried to put a tough-job-well-done face on the partial troop pull-out in Iraq last week.  But Robert Fisk, scouting for the UK Independent in Iraq much of the last seven years, produced a scorecard that tells it as it was: 

 

“The millions of American soldiers who  passed through Iraq have brought the Iraqis a plague.  From Afghanistan…they brought the infection of al-Qa'ida.  They brought the disease of civil war.  They injected Iraq with corruption on a grand scale.  They stamped the seal of torture on Abu Ghraib - a worthy successor to the same prison under Saddam's vile rule…

 

“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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(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 Detroit on the line.  He hit into a bases-loaded, game-ending double play.  But that was less telling than Derek’s lunging across the plate and fouling off what would have been ball four.  The sureness, so characteristic of the skipper and Jeter, was gone in both at-bats. 

 

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 AL player at his position.  Jeter shares that unwanted distinction with Juan Uribe of the Giants.

                     

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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(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 Colorado on the basis of the Rockies’ late-comeback history.

 

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 Texas gave up a two-run lead in a 6-4 loss to the Rays.  Williams singled out center fielder Julio Borbon for vainly trying for a shoestring catch that turned a single into a run-scoring extra-base hit.  He noted, too, that on another key play, shortstop Elvis Andrus lunged for a ground ball that eluded him, then lay where he landed.  “He should have gotten up and covered second base,” said Williams.  The message to manager Ron Washington: get your fielding coaches to work.

 

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 Minnesota’s offense.  Jason Bay experienced a delayed concussion after colliding with an outfield wall on July 23.  Bay is unlikely to return to the Mets before Morneau resumes playing for the Twins; Bay’s absence, however, has meant little to a team going nowhere.  Both cases highlight how cautiously that particular injury is being treated by MLB.  Here is how Jeff Passan put it on Yahoo Sports: “After years of neglect due to ignorance, professional sports organizations are beginning to recognize that concussions – in simple terms, the brain rattling against the skull; more technically, the premature death of brain cells from trauma – are not only a threat to players’  health but the sports themselves.”

 .

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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(Posted: 8/17/10)

 

The ‘Selfish Game’ in the Minors and in America

 

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 USA had a common goal.

 

Some years before 9/11, a French president predicted that Americans would soon change their stance and emulate Europe's embrace of what he called "social cohesion" - public programs and services (and yes, sizable taxes) helping to bring people together.  We know we've swung the other way since then; and, in the eyes of many, Team USA is playing itself back into the minor leagues.

                     -     -     -

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 Oakland was important because the White Sox were dropping two of three at home against the Tigers amid signs Ozzie Guillen’s bullpen is worn down.  The Padres made credible their intention to stick around in the NL West by taking two of three from the Giants.  They’ve won seven of nine games with second-place SF so far this season.  The Reds’ sweep of the Marlins was a message to the Cardinals: we have the resilience to stay with you all the way.

 

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 (Roy) Halladay's caliber (and Halladay was in very good form) but the lack of defense speaks of something much deeper problems with the entire (Mets) organization.  It seems that no one can keep…focus(ed for a full nine innings…

 

“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 (Bergen,NJ) Record suggested last week that Jeff Wilpon relieve Omar Minaya as GM and make him a super-scout.  The boss’s son could do something similar with his buddy Howard Johnson, who never should have been hitting coach in the first place.

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(Posted: 8/13-14/10)

 

Missing: Baseball Fans and Political Sense in Florida

 

“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 Florida?” – in the late summer of 2010.   Frank’s progressive pitch was that GOP- leaning Kansans logically should be hitting left, not right, to advance their economic interests.  The similar baseball argument is that Marlins and, especially, Rays fans should be filling the local ballparks in an effort to advance the fortunes of their competitive teams. 

 

Despite Frank’s effective populist delivery, Kansas gave John McCain a 57-41 margin over Barack Obama in 2008.  (In 2004, George Bush beat John Kerry, 62-37.)  The Marlins share the bottom of MLB attendance with Cleveland, averaging

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 Kansas and suggest to baseball fans that Florida has skewed its priorities. More time at the ballpark(s) might have cleared Floridians’ heads and kept them from making such bad judgments as: playing and losing the sub-prime mortgage game in record numbers, and allowing the state’s lawmakers to legalize the carrying of concealed weapons.

 

Florida’s most alarming bad decision, though, is a recent one: the state’s front office has raised tuition 15 percent at public colleges after a 17-percent hike the previous year.  That’s a 32-percent increase over two years.   Michael Tomasky swung hard against the move in the UK Guardian: “It's just impossible to think that squeezing…thousands (of students) out of a college education (which is to say, out of a lifetime of advancement, taxpaying, making contributions to society etc.) is a good idea. And yet, the few hundred people who are charged with the making of public policy in Florida, from Charlie Crist on down, just did it.”

 

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 6^th.   

 

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.  San Diego had the majors’ next-to-lowest opening-day payroll - $37.7 million (compared to the Pirates’ $34.9 million). The Rangers were at $55.2 before their mid-season acquisitions, including Cliff Lee.

                              -     -     -

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, Manhattan

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(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 Cincinnati Monday, two games behind the Reds.  It was a chance for Cincy to show who’s boss in the NL Central.  Instead, the Cards swept into first by a game, winning by decisive 7-3, 8-4, 6-1 scores. 

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 Nationals Park have introduced the sport's two nightmares - arm problems and early-career wear-and-tear - to our drama.”

Stat City snap quiz:  One player in each league is in the top five in BA, HR and RBIs.  Who are they?  A - Miguel Cabrera, Tigers; Andrew Pujols, Cardinals.  A Met leads both leagues in one fielding category.  Who is he and what is the category?  A - Jeff Francoeur, with nine outfield assists. 

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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.  Baltimore may be only a long outfield throw from the White House, but Orioles fans are behaving much as did onetime supporters of the skipper in Washington, DC.

 

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 Baltimore.  “The O's started playing better the moment Showalter put on the uniform, writes Sun columnist Peter Schmuck, “and no one in the clubhouse calls it a coincidence. .. He appears to have dug something out of this team that his immediate predecessors could not — a heightened sense of self-esteem.”

 

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 Texas.  But the book also says Showalter believed strongly that he knew it all and brooked no second-guessing: George Steinbrenner fired him in ’95 when he refused to remove one of his coaches. 

 

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 AL West - is there an almost-sure winner.  And the Rangers wouldn’t even be that if the Angels, not the A’s, were in second place.  The Yankees, after their four-game split with the Red Sox, are even surer than the Rangers to qualify for a playoff spot.  The Rays’ five-game losing streak, including a stunning sweep by Toronto, suggests Tampa Bay may not be in the Yanks’ class, after all...especially with two of their starters hurting.  En route to dropping two of three to the D-backs, the NL West-leading Padres got a big assist from the Braves, who took the series from the second-place Giants.  Can the Padres keep fending off their three pursuers?  Will the surging Reds keep the pressure on the Cardinals? Who could pick a favorite as between the White Sox and Twins in the super-exciting AL Central?

Those are the big questions whose answers we can guess at, but know not.

                               - o -

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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 Iraq, memorable other examples.) All in all, the worst aspect of Chuck’s play: his disappearance in the crucial-debate clutch. 

 

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.”

                              -     -     -

Stat City: Santana’s vital signs are all troubling – 8-6 and 3.20, his worst W-L and ERA as a Met; his strikeouts, only 105 in 154 innings dramatically down, his walks slightly up, etc.  Mike Pelfrey, second in the rotation to Santana, has been even more horrendous than Johan since late June (the last time Pelfrey won).  He’s now 10-6, 4.16, with only 77 strikeouts in 129 innings and 50 walks.   

 

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 Texas at Oakland.  A sweep by the A’s would get them back into the division mix, five-and-a-half games behind the Rangers.

 

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.  

                         -     -     -

Deadline Dividends: Daniel Hudson, traded from the White Sox to the D-backs, and Ted Lilly, from the Cubs to the Dodgers, have had the biggest positive impact on their new teams so far.  Hudson, we remember, limited the Mets to one run in eight innings on Sunday, Lilly held the Padres one run in seven innings Tuesday night.  Ryan Ludwick, from the Cardinals, got a decisive hit in the Padres’ one-run victory over the Marlins Sunday…as did former Royal Rich Ankiel for the Braves against the Mets Monday night.

 

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 trade deadline ended Saturday.  He was talking about his team's inability to reinforce its lineup through a meaningful deal.  Aside from the Sox, rich teams like the Yankees got richer through deadline trades; poorer teams - the Astros, D-backs, etc. - got poorer, except in the prospects they received for name players.  The empty feeling understandably extends to many fans.

 

At mid-summer deadline time, especially, there is a striking correspondence between baseball's worsening imbalance and the economic inequality plaguing people in our national ballpark.  Checking the record book for his London-based front office, a Financial Times scout reviewed our money gap this way:

 

"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 low-budget teams doing well - the Rays making the World Series in 2008, the Padres leading the NL West this late in the 2010 season.  But rich, big-market teams reach the playoffs consistently; poorer, small-market teams make them seldom: that’s a reality everyone knows.

 

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 Cincinnati and Miami this season.  But it’s always unfair to some teams, season after season.  Another thing all fans should boo: the policy of allowing teams to expand rosters on September 1.  Why should more changes that could give one competing team an edge over another be permitted during the homestretch month?  There are no good answers: most fans know that; they recognize, too, that most media people like the skewing arrangements – they’re newsy.

                         -     -     -

July Deal Game-Changers:  Joining the Rangers’ Cliff Lee in the difference-maker category, at least, potentially, are Ryan Ludwick and Miguel Tejada.  They give the Padres much needed offense.  None of those traded overall is in Lee’s class, a sure change agent – not Roy Oswalt, nor Matt Capps.

 

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: San Diego knows it must win to fend off the surging Giants, the LADs to avoid slipping out of competitive range in the four-team NL West battle.  Series of the half-week: Twins-Rays at the Trop.  The best news for Mets fans is the grapevine suggestion that the team’s unwillingness to spend is connected to Madoff-related litigation.  And that the festering financial problem could prompt Fred Wilpon to sell the team.  Too good to be possible?  Probably, but it does provide dream-fodder for NYM fans, who have nothing else to sustain them this season.

 

E-mail from New Orleans – footnote to a previous Nub item on Fernando Tatis and his 1999 feat: “Here's one more factoid on the two grand slams in one inning hit by Fernando Tatis when he was a Cardinal.  Tatis hit both off Chan Ho Park and in 2007...Tatis and Park were both teammates on the New Orleans Zephyrs.” 

                                                                                                           - 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 Chicago is that the Cubs won’t let heir-apparent Ryne Sandberg replace outgoing Lou Piniella next season because he hasn’t experienced managerial failure at the big-league level.

 

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 Pakistan, and possibly beyond.  Casualties will steadily mount.  No one can predict when the inevitable moment will come, but it will come, when the last Americans are lifted by helicopter off an embassy rooftop, and the Afghans, Pakistanis, Indians, Tajiks and others at last are left to reconstruct their own world.”    

 

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 Germany’s Der Spiegel disseminated the material at length, as he had hoped.  The NY Times disappointed him, he said:   “The paper checked with the White House before it published (a comparatively brief version).  That’s not the independent journalism Americans deserve.” (Assange spoke from London.  He said colleague Seymour Hersh warned when he was in the U.S. that the government was looking for him.)

                          -     -     -

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 Rockies to rejoin what is now a three-team NL West race.  A deadline pickup by either team could be the decider in the Reds-Cardinals NL Central struggle.     

 

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 Phoenix), but they know they must win the series, at least, to stanch leaking attendance.  The Braves-Reds, Dodgers-Giants, Marlins-Padres are three exciting weekend matchups in the NL.  And let’s not forget Tigers-Red Sox in the AL. Deadline deals to the side, it’s a great time of year!

 

 

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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 10^th season - offers a striking history lesson.

 

Through much of the last century, the Japanese were treated like outcasts in the U.S. – little better than animals after Pearl Harbor.  In time, Americans learned to tolerate, then appreciate the Japanese for the qualities - industriousness, self-discipline, etc. - that are now so evident.

 

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 Staten Island into a mosque, and, most recently, outrage over a projected Islamic community center two blocks from ground zero.  To paraphrase NY Timesman Clyde Haberman, fear of people unfairly hit with a wartime-enemies label “almost never strikes out.”

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 America you can build a church or synagogue anywhere you want, but not a mosque. That fits perfectly with his recruiting pitch — that America has declared war on Islam. And bin Laden would thrill to the claim that a mosque near ground zero dishonors the victims of 9/11, because (it says) that the attacks really were, as he claims, a valid expression of Islam.”

                              -     -    -

It’s a rare year, we know, when Ichiro isn’t leading in some department.  This season, as usual, he’s first in the AL in runs; he’s led in that category after six of nine seasons and in BA twice.  He’s never batted below .300, and has a career average of .331.  What else? An MVP twice, Ichiro has been an All-Star in all 10 of his years with the Mariners. The biggest disappointment connected with him: fans in the East don’t get to follow closely one of the few great active players.

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 Rockies, with seven straight losses.  The Phils are now poised to challenge the Braves in the NL East without rushing into a trade-deadline deal (don’t think the return of Placido Polanco hasn’t already made a huge difference).  They have enough hitting - especially with Chase Utley due back around Labor Day - to overcome spotty back-of-rotation pitching.  The Rockies need to add right-handed punch to their lineup, but with 300-hitting Troy Tulowitzki newly returned from the DL, they may sit tight.  Their division, the NL West, is a perfect storm of momentum-shifts. (Check out the Giants, currently on a 16-4 tear, and the Dodgers, losers of six straight before winning five of their last six).

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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                                                                                                     - Bill Moyers

 

(Posted: 7/27/10)

 

Where Has Baseball Attendance and the U.S. Economy Gone?

Observers told baseball to cheer up last year - that box office receipts could be worse.  So baseball cheered up...and, sure enough, attendance got worse.  Experts

said Team USA's economy could only improve after last year's recession.  But we know that it, too, went south.

 

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.

 

America's economic inequality is, the experts say, highest in the world among industrial nations, as high now as it was in 1928, before the Depression.  Among the causes: loss of union membership and, with it, Labor’s political clout; also a steady trimming of efforts to grade, if not even, the economic playing field through government services and social programs. 

 

Baseball, we know, began upscaling its product in response to growing attendance - and player salaries - in the late nineties.  “What the market will bear,” was the watch-word.  For 19 of 30 teams this season the market has been bear, and bare.  (Attendance in Cleveland has taken the second hardest hit – down 252,000  after 45 games.)  Free-market capitalism became the globally cheered winner over socialism when the final cold-war score was tallied.  Team USA soon exchanged a liberal democratic uniform for one labeled “market democracy.”  NYU political scientist Tony Judt says (in NY Review of Books) that making the move was a huge collective mistake:

 

“Our contemporary faith in “the market” rigorously tracks…the unquestioning belief in necessity, progress, and History… So Europe’s leaders today (“necessarily”) scuttle into budgetary austerity to appease ’the markets.’   But ’the market’…is just an abstraction…It has its true believers…who may privately doubt the claims of the dogma but see no alternative to preaching it; and its victims, many of whom… proudly proclaim the virtues of a doctrine whose benefits they will never see…

“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 US economy and we need to help them grow”, or do they "have too much power, hurt the middle class, and government needs to keep them in check".  The score in that one: 55-37, corporations over government.  The poll certainly served one purpose, a sobering one: it blew away the remote chance of irrational O-Team exuberance. 
                          -     -     -

The new pitch the Mets hope fans will buy is that, in the “weak” NL East, anything is possible.  But Atlanta has the best W-L record in the NL, and the third best in the majors.  The Braves are far from weak, and there’s little doubt the defending league champion Phillies will be heard from before long.  The Phils, we know, have a legitimate shot at the wild card.  Mets fans can relax: their team lacks spirit, clutch hitting, reliable relievers and number 2 starter.  Their only concern now should be completion of a futile, attendance-minded deal wherein the Mets give up prospects for a “name” journeyman.  Time for fans to accept that their hopes, if not expectations, were unrealistic.

 

Who After Lou? The expectation in much of Chicago is that Ryne Sandberg will succeed Lou Piniella as Cubs manager.  The ChiTrib’s Phil Rogers doesn’t think so.  He notes that Cubs GM Jim Hendry said the new skipper “would not be a short-term guy.”

 

“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 Chicago next season, but as a member of the coaching staff, not the manager.”

 

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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(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 Washington.  That influence succeeded in persuading Team Dems to play small ball instead of swinging for the fences on  finreg.

 

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 Houston’s Roy Oswalt soon to put the team back on playoff track.

 

As of early last night, the Carlos Beltran-reinforced Mets had averaged two runs a game since the All-Star break.  The team is 20^th 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.

                                - o -

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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 AL, the Mets, Phillies, Marlins, Cardinals, Reds, Padres, Rockies, Giants and Dodgers in the NL.  Four of those teams, obviously, will finish first in their divisions.  The other dozen could still be in the wild-card playoff race a month from now.  Barring dramatic deals, the Mets and Marlins figure to have dropped out by then. That will still leave 14 of 30 teams to watch (16, counting Atlanta and the NYYs) as the homestretch approaches.  Did we talk about predictability earlier?  This number of second-half contenders many of us did not foresee.   

 

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 Afghanistan.  Boston U. historian Andrew Bacevich went to bat in the New Republic to express the discouragement:

 

“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 Washington, Americans see a cool, dispassionate, calculating president whose administration lacks a moral core.  For prosecution exhibit number one, we need look no further than the meandering course of Obama’s war, its casualties and costs mounting without discernible purpose.”

 

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, Rockies and Padres, and you have 15 teams with realistic playoff chances.  It’s an irony that former Mets Billy Wagner and J.J. Putz are key reasons for the Braves and White Sox success – Wagner as Atlanta’s long-needed stopper, Putz as Ozzie Guillen’s reliable (1.54 ERA) late-innings man.  Had Omar Minaya held on to either late last year, the Mets might be a 16^th playoff possibility.

 

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 Cincinnati and Texas have given fans a surprising reward for their support.  The Rangers have “the scariest lineup in the American League,” said Chisox play-by-play man Hawk Harrelson during the Angels-White Sox game Thursday.  And the Reds, with 27 come-from-behind wins, embody the term “resilience.”

 

Another surprise: Kansas City sneaking back into the AL Central picture.  The Royals have won eight of 10 entering the weekend and moved to within eight games of first place.   New manager Ned Yost, take a bow.

                        

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 Tampa Bay or the Red Sox.  At some point a similar crucial playoff looms between Teams Obama and Scotus – that is, between the White House and the Supreme Court.

 

The Yankees are the only AL team diversely talented enough to have avoided a prolonged - more than three-game - losing streak.  Team Obama hasn’t been so lucky – the oil spill only the latest of a series of setbacks that can be traced to hard-nosed GOP opposition and sluggish play by Dem affiliates in Congress.  The skipper is still hopeful his extended team will regroup and rally in an effort to regulate corporations, banks, health insurers and the energy industry.  But the O-Team is playing come-from-behind baseball.  And in what will be the political equivalent of a series of ninth innings, it will be facing a judicial equivalent of Mariano Rivera, - Chief Justice John Roberts and the 5-4 conservative High Court.

 

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 New Orleans ruled Obama had overstepped his authority by ordering a six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

”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: Houston’s Michael Bourn with eight.   Five have seven assists: the Rays’ Carl Crawford, the Tigers’ Magglio Ordonez, the Mets’ Jeff Francoeur, the D-backs’ Gerardo Parra, the Giants’ Nate Schierholtz.

                              - o -

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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 Cincinnati's Jonny Gomes.  Issues-oriented Adrian Gonzalez of the Padres has said he will not play in the All-Star game next year in Phoenix if Arizona does not relax its strict immigration law.

 

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 USA, battling to make the world a better place, is cherished by many Americans.  They don’t know their history, current as well as past.  The late, left-hitting historian Howard Zinn gave them a lesson on the holiday not long ago:

“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 Iraq civilians.  And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture…

“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 Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.   And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence.

“…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 AL, three-and-a-half over the Angels in their division. Fans of the Blue Jays don’t know what hit their team over the past two weeks – Toronto has dropped 10-and-a-half games behind the Yanks and Rays in the AL East.

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 AL, behind Miguel Cabrera, 71, and Vlademir Guerrero, 70.  Toronto may be in a funk, but the Jays have the AL’s leading home run hitter in Jose Bautista, 21, with teammate Vernon Wells not far behind, with 19 HRs.

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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 Iraq, the home-field advantage on waterboarding kicked in.  The NY Times stopped using or implying the term torture in 141 of 143 journalistic at-bats, the LA Times in 60 of 63.  Team WSJ referred to torture only once in 63 turns.

 

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 USA when it gets the signal from Washington:

“(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 Afghanistan to Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings (and others) is this: the general assumed that Hastings would give him home-field advantage and voluntarily refrain from quoting his revealing remarks. Reporters’ willingness to go along with the game is a sad indictment of a once-proud profession.  

                            -     -     -            

The Mets, Rangers and Yankees are thriving at home almost as much as the Braves.  The NYMs and Texas both are 28-12 in their ballparks, the Yanks, entering last night’s game, were 26-12.  What makes the Yankees so impressive: among the four top home-cookin’, they were the only one going into the weekend with a winning away-from-home record, 23-18.

 

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 Atlanta appears to own a clear field to the NL East title.  P.S.  The chances of the NL East getting a wild card spot have diminished considerably. 

 

On Cliff Lee: Surprising unofficial word out of Seattle this week is that the Mariners would be interested in dealing Cliff Lee for the Mets’ Angel Pagan, catcher Josh Thole and a minor-league pitcher (Jenrry Mejia?)  Omar Minaya did a miraculous job in trading for Johan Santana and giving away little – only Carlos Gomez of the four prospects sent to the Twins is in the majors, and he’s a part-timer with the Brewers.  But Lee would be another in a series of big names – Santana, Bay, etc. – who could not lead the Mets to the playoffs absent good players in the minors ready to reinforce in an emergency.  The Mets’ flair for fading in the homestretch has had to do with an empty farm system.  If reason prevails (a big if), that should change now, and Lee left to go elsewhere, preferably to the other league or another NL division.  

 

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 Atlanta: 5-1, 1.15 ERA, with 16 saves in 18 tries, and 49 strikeouts in 31 innings.  J.J. Putz is 4-2, 1.86 as eighth-inning man with the White Sox.  He has 34 Ks in 29 innings, and two saves out of three attempts.

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June 2010 Archive      

(Posted: 7/1/10)

 

Team Obama and the U.S. Losing Streak in Latin America

 

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 Venezuela.  Still, Guillen admires both Fidel and Hugo for their toughness in the face of powerful (Yanqui) opposition. It’s the way Guillen has had to run his team, defying attacks from GM Kenny Williams and Chisox fans.  The White Sox, touted as an AL Central team to beat, fell 11 games under .500 the second week of June; fans called for Ozzie’s impeachment and Williams seemed prepared to concede the season and begin selling off his manager’s best players..  Then Ozzie led the team to 15 wins in 16 games – 11 straight.  The White Sox zoomed close to the top, rebuilding support as it revised its approach to playing the game.

 

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 U.S. in the region, a prolonged slump that began in Ozzie’s country eight years ago.  Robert Naiman reviewed the record book in the UK Guardian:

“On April 13, 2002, an event occurred…which was as world-historical for South America as the fall of the Berlin Wall was for Eastern Europe: a U.S.-backed coup against the democratically-elected government of Venezuela collapsed.  The Bush Administration's efforts to promote the coup failed, in the face of popular resistance in Venezuela, and diplomatic resistance in the region.

“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 U.S. institutions.”

So far, Team Obama has blown away any hope that, Guillen-like, it would change the Bush approach in Latin America.  A year ago this week it supported a right-wing coup in Honduras, and around the same time arranged to establish U.S. bases in Venezuela’s right-field neighbor, Colombia.  The skipper in the White House seems to be testing how long a losing streak can last.

                                             -     -     -

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 Queens last summer.

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 USA

 

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 USA found out after the recent crash its perceived place in the global financial league of nations: at Double-A level.  Super-scout Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, did the bird-dogging that placed the world military power where it belonged in the securities field.  His most sobering discovery: that the finance industry has taken control of our government instead of the other way around.

 

In his report, published in the latest Atlantic, Johnson reminds us that our team triggered the crash by playing an error-filled minor-league brand of money-ball: “Financiers …played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse.  More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive.  The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.”     

 

Johnson says Team USA fell under the thrall of gashouse-gang financial play over the past decade when “the attitude took hold that what was good for Wall Street was good for the country. The banking-and-securities industry has become one of the top contributors to political campaigns, but at the peak of its influence, it did not have to buy favors the way, for example, the tobacco companies or military contractors might have to.  Instead, it benefited from the fact that Washington insiders already believed that large financial institutions and free-flowing capital markets were crucial to America’s position in the world.”

 

America is scrambling to reestablish the standing it relinquished in the rout of 2008-09, Johnson says.  Meanwhile, U.S. taxpayers are being penalized for misuse of the capital, just as Astros, Orioles and Pirates fans have been hurt by their teams’ unrewarding transactions and unproductive investments in player development.  LA Dodger fans have a different gripe: their team’s 2-8 inter-league record could be partially blamed on a schedule that has them meeting the Angels (six times), Tigers, Red Sox and, as of tomorrow, the Yankees.

                             -     -     -

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), Boston has the best record in the majors since April 20.  Jon Lester, John Lackey and Clay Buchholz are 14-4 in the last 22 games.  Each worked six innings or more in 21 of those games.

 

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 USA Hit Out Toward the Income Gap?

 

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 Washington.  Democratic majorities have supported th(e) great shift in the tax burden every step of the way.”  

 

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 AL.  The Braves were the only NL team to win three inter-league games, beating KC. 

 

The Rays had been atop their division since April 22, but they’ve won only 10 of the last 25 games.  Boston’s sweep of the Dodgers enabled the Padres to sneak back into first in the NL West by a game-and-a-half over the Giants and two games over LA.  The Rangers galloped four-and-a-half games ahead of the LA Angels in the AL West with their dispatch of the Astros.

 

The Inter-league won-loss record was 42-42 after the first weekend.  Since then AL teams have gone on a spree.  The tally was AL 92, NL 76 after Sunday night.

 

On ESPN’s Sunday night game, Boston’s Mike Cameron failed to run out a pop fly that could have resulted in the Dodgers deliberately dropping the ball and turning a double play.  The four men in the broadcast booth – Jon Miller, Joe Morgan, Orel Hersheiser and Curt Schilling – acknowledged that Cameron was in a depressing slump but refused to cut him slack:  “All teammates ask is that you give the impression of hustling,” Hersheiser said.  “You can’t be expected to hustle all the time (something Morgan noted), but you can give 80 percent.”    

 

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.”

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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 Andrew, NY’s probable next governor, didn’t play ball. And he comes from a progressive tradition that deplores economic inequality.  It’s a surprise, then, to discover he’s rejected membership on a team pitching for a tax code that socks it to the under-assessed rich.  Most press box observers have given young Cuomo a free pass: he makes positive news almost daily with his bearing down as state attorney general against alleged wrongdoers in and outside government.

 

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 (published program)….notes…that the state and local tax burden falls heaviest on the middle class, is kindest to the rich (those earning between $33,000 and $56,000 pay 12 percent of their income in New York taxes, while those earning more than $3 million pay 9.4 percent).  Yet he…never discusses how he will attack economic inequality in his program.

 

“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 New York.  Whatever his game plan, Andrew does take after his fiscally conservative father.  When, many years ago, we suggested a progressive tax hike as a way of dealing with a budget crisis, Governor Mario was incredulous: “I can’t believe you said that,” he said.  “If you believe in more taxes, you’re the only one in the state who feels that way.”

                       -     -     -

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 AL, the Mets, Rockies and Giants in the NL.  The Yankees earned top billing by moving into a first-place tie with the Rays, who lost two of three to the Marlins.  June 13 could be remembered as the day the clicking NYYs reached the top to stay.  The Angels demonstrated that the façade of Dodger dominance in the NL West could be dented.  That the Astros, Pirates and Orioles were swept was unsurprising; Toronto’s loss of three to the Rockies, however, was surely a psychological jolt to Jays fans.   The Mariners salvaged what could have been a life-preserving victory over the Padres Sunday.  Being swept might have started a plank-walking process rumored to be imminent in Seattle.                                  

 

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.

 

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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 USA and the Need for Heroes

 

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 Cliffside Park, NJ, who wondered if the (presumed) drop in steroid use has led to an erosion of baseball’s offensive numbers?  A stat check over the past five years showed no such falloff, but did suggest why baseball was short on position-player heroes.  Of the four players who led in at least three of the 15 separate-league categories (BA, HR, RBI) between 2005 and 2009, two, Alex Rodriquez and David Ortiz, have been tainted by substance-abuse charges. Joe Mauer and Ryan Howard are the two who cleanly earned their pedestals.  Albert Pujols is a third; he only finished first in one category – HRs in 2009 – but he made the top five in a total of 10 categories throughout the five years.

 

It was Rolf, of Manhattan, who said wars waged at long distance would be unpopular, having left no room on the field for heroics.  The wars would still be waged, he said, probably in the name of freedom, but to insure that this country’s material needs are met.  Charlie Rangel identified the major need as a three-letter word:  O-I-L.  News services, meanwhile, are reporting that Team USA is allowing Iranian oil into our bailiwick through non-American companies like Royal Dutch Shell and, yes, BP.  The O-Team does not want to prohibit oil exports from Iran lest it trigger a shortage and escalating fuel prices   Protecting a way of life is the highest priority.       

                        -     -     -

Why Reds could well be for real:  As weekend began, more than a third of Cincinnati’s victories - 12 of 35 – had been pulled out in a last at-bat.  And Dusty Baker has a deeper rotation than the Cardinals’ Rudy La Russa.

 

Praise for the Padres:  After splitting their six games with San Diego, the Mets had nothing but admiration for Padre pitching, particularly the relievers: “(Theirs) is the best bullpen in baseball,” said Jeff Francoeur. “They’re going to be tough to beat…I’m not going to miss seeing those guys the rest of the season.”  Added Jason Bay: “They’re by far the best staff… we’ve seen…(Their)bullpen shortens the game considerably.”

 

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: Baltimore, Kansas City, Cleveland, Seattle, Houston, Pittsburgh and Arizona: Those are teams perceived to be ready to sell off their player-assets for the right price in prospects and, perhaps, dollars.  The Astros’ Roy Oswalt, the Orioles’ Kevin Millwood and, lately, the Mariners’ Cliff Lee are the most-mentioned sales items.  One more tailspin and the White Sox could join the sellers’ list.  

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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 Mideast.

 

“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 New Orleans, Swoboda, now a local TV baseball color commentator, said the sport’s decision-makers cannot ignore for long that “cameras catch everything at a ballgame.” Pictures of crucial mistakes, he added, “will be shown everywhere.”  He implied the potential embarrassment would speed the game’s adoption of the new technology.

 

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 Nevada, whose weapon obliterates lives half a world away, is a psychological mutant.  The technically ingenious Pentagon has set devils loose here, without regard for ultimate consequence — either to drone victims, drone victimizers, or a drone-infested world.” 

 

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 Vietnam’.”  On the possibility the “miracle” could happen: “(Catcher) Jerry Grote said he had known we could do it as early as spring training.  I wish somebody had told me…(First baseman) Donn Clendenon knew.  He asked to be traded from the Pirates and picked us as the team he wanted to go to.  He said he thought early on we could win it all.”  (Clendenon was ’69 Series MVP.) “Hardly anybody knew that (manager) Gil Hodges was an ex-Marine who had fought in the Pacific.  It wasn’t something he’d talk about.”

                   

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 Gulf of Mexico and at the same time let drilling continue; that is, he wants the government to respond simultaneously to his state’s environmental and economic needs.  Of the skipper’s moratorium on deep-sea oil exploration, Jindal wrote this to the White House: "The last thing we need is to enact public policies that will certainly destroy thousands of existing jobs.”

 

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 U.S. pledge to avoid the killing of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan while using pilot-less drone attack planes incapable of discriminating between the innocent and the enemy.  Many in the mainstream sports media treat possible use video replays as the equivalent of a drone attack on the umpiring human element and baseball in general.  This pitch from Globe ace Nick Cafardo is typical:

“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.”    

Baseball will always need on-field umpires focusing up close on plays in and around the bases.  If allowing managers, say, two replay challenges of particularly close calls, and that insures getting most of them right, why not let baseball enter the 21st century?  

                                -     -     -

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 Florida won from them late last month); the Angels swept the Mariners to move a half-game out of first in the AL West.  Braves shortstop Yunel Escobar went nine-for-14, a .644 average, in Atlanta’s four-game series split with the Dodgers.  Escobar’s BA jumped from .217 to .252 over those four days.

 

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 Toronto manager Cito Gaston.  With the score tied 2-2 and men on second and third in the top of the eighth, Gaston let Jason Frasor pitch to dangerous Robinson Cano instead of purposely putting him on first.  Cano drove in the decisive runs in the 4-3 victory. 

 

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.                       

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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 USA - the government – was responsible for returning the Gulf to what it was.  Obama fans can hope his slowness to take charge – seen by many as a characteristic failing – will not do him and his Dem team permanent harm.  But lefty supporter Jim Hightower is unsympathetic, and vehemently so:

“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 USA’s challenge to do a better clean-up job than BP will be watched worldwide, especially by anti-government spectators.

 

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 Atlanta Braves in the NL East.  Their remaining games with the Dodgers will be the most notable in the majors through Sunday.  The Rays-Rangers matchup of two first-place teams warrants extra attention, as well.  That’s especially true since the LA Angels seem ready to try to push aside both Texas and Oakland at the top of the AL West. 

 

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 Cuba.

 

If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught the American people, including baseball fans, anything,  it is that the rationales for these wars are questionable.  Polls confirm the substantial lack of support for them in much of the country.  To expect baseball to amplify that widespread doubt would be unrealistic.  But asking for a different, less militaristic emphasis is surely appropriate. 

 

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 U.S.  For Memorial Day, Washington Post-man E.J. Dionne advanced that particular Perrett thesis: “(World War II) sharply reduced ‘barriers to social and economic equality which had stood for decades.’  It was a time when ‘a genuine middle-class nation came into existence’; when ‘access to higher education became genuinely democratic for the first time’; when ‘the modern civil rights movement began’; and when ‘the only basic redistribution of national income in American history occurred’."   

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 Cincinnati to match.  But the Reds have character to go with their resiliency, so they might just remain a surprising team into September.

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.     

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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.”  Utah’s Bob Bennett and Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter are two sitting senators – one a Republican, the other a Democrat – already rejected by team members.  Persistent reports from Florida say that Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria wants to say goodbye to fourth-year manager Fredi Gonzalez so he can bring change for the better, change embodied by Bobby Valentine.  (And we know the tenure of three-year incumbent Dave Trembley in Baltimore is day-to-day.)

 

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 Florida falls too far behind the Phillies.

 

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 Kentucky.) Equally important, the base in both parties -- reinforced by activist groups like the liberal MoveOn.org and the conservative Club for Growth -- appears to have grown increasingly intolerant of defection and insistent on lockstep loyalty, especially on big issues.”   

 

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.”

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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 Israel against Islamic teams, many first-stringers are now opting for small ball rather than the power game.  One former pro-Israel hard-hitter, CUNY Prof Peter Beinart, altered his stance, appealing to other players to follow his lead.  Beinart explained why he thought the new offensive strategy makes sense in the latest edition of the NY Review of Books:

 

“Yes, Israel faces threats from Hezbollah and Hamas. Yes, Israelis understandably worry about a nuclear Iran.  But the dilemmas you face when you possess dozens or hundreds of nuclear weapons, and your adversary, however despicable, may acquire one, are not the dilemmas of the Warsaw Ghetto.,. Israel's Independence Proclamation…promised that the Jewish state "will be based on the precepts of liberty, justice and peace taught by the Hebrew prophets."… The best way to memorialize the history of Jewish suffering is through the ethical use of Jewish power.”

How has the belligerent use of such power by Team Netanyahu affected Beinart’s U.S. teammates?  “You might think (it) would occasion substantial public concern,” he says, “among the leaders of organized Jewry.  You would be wrong.  In Israel itself, voices from the left and even center, warn in increasingly urgent tones about the threats to Israeli democracy…But in the United States, groups like AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee)…patrol public discourse, scolding people who contradict their vision of Israel as a state in which all leaders cherish democracy and yearn for peace.”

Of course, a similar charge can be leveled against most of the expanded roster of Team USA, that is, most of us.  While imagining ourselves to be peace-loving and justice-seeking, too many Americans have countenanced aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The baseline goal of that bloodshed was revealingly described by George Bush: defending “our way of life.”

                          -     -     -

The Oakland A’s had a spectacular inter-league weekend, yielding a single run in their three-game sweep of the Giants.  The A’s were the only team to sweep.  The Red Sox didn’t do badly, taking two of three from the Phils, beating Roy Halladay and riding a one-hitter from Daisuke Matsuzaka in the process.  According to MLB-TV, the Phillies are a remarkable 4-17 against AL opponents in their home park.  Which league dominated over the weekend?  Neither: final W-L tally, 21-21.

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 New Jersey

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 -

 (The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

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 Florida area and the NY Times made bobbles of their own in covering the two stories.  Ramirez was said to have “lost respect” for manager Freddi Gonzales after Gonzales yanked him from the game for not hustling.  In fact, it was a reporter who asked if Ramirez had “lost respect” for his manager.  “A bit,” the player replied. 

 

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 Vietnam.”  It failed to note that, earlier in the speech, the AG said he “served in the military during the Vietnam era.”  Asked about that by Greg Sargent, who blogs for the Washington Post, a Times spokesperson was unresponsive.  She did say the paper stood by its story based on “reporting (that) uncovered Mr. Blumenthal’s…pattern of misleading his constituents.”

 

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 Baltimore than in Mets-land, Trembley, whose team has the worst record in the majors, should have to walk before Manuel.  Out West, it would seem Arizona’s languishing in last in its NL division would make A.J. Hinch vulnerable.  But the fact that he is operating without injured ace Brandon Webb has surely earned him some slack.

 

The two managers who took over new teams in 2010 – Brad Mills in Houston and Manny Acta in Cleveland – have had a tough time.  The Astros own the worst record in the NL, and Cleveland was last in the AL Central entering the weekend.  The Chicago media, meanwhile, have given up on the White Sox, assigning most of the blame to GM Kenny Williams and not Ozzie Guillen.

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 -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

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 Milwaukee.  We know that soon low-budget teams falling out of contention – the Pirates? Astros? - will exchange pricey name players – Zach Duke? Roy Oswalt? - for unexciting (for the most part) prospects.   

 

In the world beyond baseball, the excitement has been far from fan-pleasing: The mine safety failure linked to the deaths of 25 in West Virginia and the lack of enforcement that led to the cataclysmic oil spill in the Gulf are two recent examples of government neglect of the people’s interests.  Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor who is umpiring the Congressional financial reform game, hopes to see the end to a series of shoddy plays permitted by government.  Among the blunders: a regulatory system favoring the “very rich and powerful”; a tax code that ignores the fact that “99 percent” of the nation’s enterprises are small businesses (with 10 or fewer employees); the “tricks and traps” that lie in wait for credit-card users; the calculated “complexity” of banking contracts designed to inflate profits. 

 

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 Toronto, not the Red Sox, part of a three-team – Rays, Yanks, Jays – pecking order in the AL East.

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 Atlanta Monday: "’I didn't come here to fire anybody guys…,’ Wilpon said while draped over a dugout railing and speaking with the media.”  “Draped over?” That’s slouchy, the way the Mets are being run.  By whom? By Jeff, the boss’s son. 

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 -                                                                                                        
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  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 Arizona – from Perfect Pitch pollster Bob Sullivan:  “Certain pollsters…make their poll results serve a point of view. The key method is to slant their questionnaire.  The sequencing of questions, the wording…and the stacking of choices all can induce a…desired result.  These are subtle influences not easily detected by outsiders which include the press as well as the public.  With this kind of manipulation a sample does not have to be dishonest but you will get skewed results anyway.  You only have to shade the results by a few percentages to get what you want. Rasmussen is one of the polls I never pay attention to.
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”Nevertheless, this does not mean that the results in Arizona are wrong.  It may well be that this community (and many others) will tend to put what it considers its security before the civil rights of others. The size (70%) of the majority (for the anti-immigration law) does look suspect; perhaps the majority is only 60% or 55%, but the moral lesson is not changed.”

                                 -     -     -

                         

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 Seattle was the worst place to play if you didn’t like time on the road: “two-and-half hours by air to the nearest away location, Oakland.”  Still, the schedule this season gives the LA Angels the most traveling distance, 50,000 miles.

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.

                            - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 5/15/10)

 

Politics and Baseball Mixing It Up in Arizona

 

How much political clout does baseball have with the public-at-large?  To judge by what has happened in Arizona after passage of the anti-immigration law, very little.  We know that late last month Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick came out against the law and the players union did the same.  A poll of state residents taken some days after the joint announcement showed how influential it was: 70 percent of Arizonans said they were fans of the law.

 

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 Phoenix a year from July.  Selig did not address the question directly; he talked of baseball’s pride in its “diversity” and indicated the MLB had no need to involve itself in state matters. 

The corporate media and polling firms are an effective double-play combination: in Arizona, at the same time baseball took its stance, the state’s most influential newspaper the Arizona Republic blamed the federal government for forcing the state into its position.  The fallout from such a blast feeds into polling results.  Then the results trigger further negative public reactions.  Some years ago, the U. of Maryland’s Program on International Policy tracked factually mistaken replies of poll participants and found this connection: “The frequency of these misperceptions varies significantly according to individuals' primary source of news.  Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions, while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch PBS are significantly less likely.”

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 Phoenix next year.  The boycott threat might just move the MLB to join with other economically important interests to persuade Arizona to push the replay button on its anti-immigration hit.  If it happens – a big if – it will be a rare instance of baseball’s involvement on the left side of the political field.

By the numbers: The nationality breakdown of the 27 percent of Latino players in the majors, as reported by MLB: Dominican Republic 86; Venezuela 58; Puerto Rico 21; Mexico 12.

                                                 -    -    -        

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 Florida last night, the entire Mets brain trust should agree on one word connected with Perez: Enough.

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 Cincinnati almost pulled even, falling short by a run, 4-3. The Cards’ lead is now a game-and-a-half.

SI’s Joe Posnanski on the mistake Kansas City made in hiring Trey Hillman, who had no big league experience of any kind, to be its manager (Hillman was fired Thursday): “Things that seem like good ideas from the outside often are terrible ideas on the inside. Hillman did not understand the politics of a big league clubhouse. He did not understand that his success in Japan did not impress Major League baseball players. He did not understand that nobody was going to just give him respect.  Sparky Anderson, was known by his players as a “Minor League(r)”…and he came to earn respect with his intensity and his loyalty and by being right an awful lot.”

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.”

 

                                                - o -

 (The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

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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 University of Chicago and on his team in Washington.  But aside from that, the record book on Kagan is a mixed bag of information.  Alternet’s Scotus scout Byard Duncan compiled this report:

 

“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 Rockies filed the complaint after the first game of their series with the Phils this week.  The evidence MLB found in an investigation was “inconclusive”, a spokesman said.

                                 - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(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 California have in common?

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: Boston had Tampa Bay and the Yankees to deal with in the tough AL East.  The Angels were in the AL’s comparatively weak four-team division out West.

 

In his column, Krugman pointed out that California, part of an international economic league, had a plight of its own along with a struggling member of the circuit’s European division, Greece.  Both have experienced disastrous fiscal losing streaks.  But Greece, like the Red Sox, is in the more challenging situation of the two.  Lacking a divisional commissioner’s office – that is, a central government - from whom it can seek help, Athens has a grim fight on its hands.

 

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 California comes from Washington, not Sacramento.  State funding may be slashed, but Medicare reimbursements, Social Security checks, and payments to defense contractors will keep coming.

 

“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 Greece is on the euro.”   

 

A worrisome caveat: Unless or until European Union nations make good their promise of hundreds of billions in aid, the danger persists that Greece’s debt problem, now going global, can cut down the recovery rally here. 

                             -     -     -                   

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 AL batting race with two each on the list.

Detroit’s Austin Jackson and Miguel Cabrera were one and two, the Yanks’ Robinson Cano and Bret Gardner three and four, and the Twins’ Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau five and six.

 

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.

                          - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(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 Oakland is fighting for top spot in the AL West: closer Andrew Bailey.  Counting carryover from 2009, Bailey has saved 26 games in 26 tries and logged 20-and-two-thirds scoreless innings.  

 

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, Princeton, NJ

 

“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, Manhattan

                       - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(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 miss Jason Bay in their lineup.  But Bay has misplaced his power stroke (1 HR) with the Mets and looks lost at the plate, as he did yesterday – two Ks in an 0-for-4 day - in the loss to the Reds.  His BA is a dreary .238.  On the faintly brighter side, Bay has surprised local fans by running well and always hustling on the basepaths.

 

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.  Houston center fielder Michael Bourn has the most outfield assists - five - in either league.  And the Mariners’ Doug Fister leads the AL in ERA with a 1.29 over 35 innings.

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(Posted: 5/4/10)

 

On Baseball Going to Bat Against Arizona’s Anti-Latino Law

 

What are the chances of baseball intervening in the rhubarb over Arizona’s new immigration law?  Based on the record of the sport’s attitude toward the little guy, the answer should be no chance.  We know the history of owners trying to keep players under their financial thumbs.  In the early ‘50s Branch Rickey summed up the attitude when he accused the would-be players union of having “avowed communist tendencies.”  And still today, reports from the region say poor young campesinos, recruited to try out for our pro teams in Latin America, are introduced to a better life, then sent back to poverty when they fail to measure up. 

 

So, we should be able to dismiss talk of shifting next year’s All-Star game away from Arizona, or of teams refusing to use spring training sites in the state.  Or even of the players union taking aggressive action in support of the Latino players representing 27 percent of major-league rosters.  (Prosperous athletes, the union can reason, are unlikely to be affected by the new law.) 

 

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 U.S. population, they constitute one-fifth of all 10-year-olds and one-fourth of 1-year-olds.  The larger threat is to America's social cohesion.  Democrats, with their own divisions, can't reform the immigration system alone.  Either both parties will accept that responsibility or the nation will likely suffer through years of sharpening social division symbolized by the escalating battle over Arizona.”

 

               -     -     -

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.  Jackson has “outperformed” Granderson (now on the DL); that was the word used.  It doesn’t do justice to the BA disparity between the two.  After going three-for-five last night (including a double and triple), Jackson was batting .377 after 26 games compared to Granderson’s .225 after 23.  Granderson has hit two home runs to Jackson’s one; Jackson leads in stolen bases 5-4 and RBIs 8-7.

 

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 Philadelphia.

 

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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 Tampa Bay contract runs out this season.

 

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 America, ‘but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.’  It is astonishing how the commentators who cluck about the perils of mentioning class routinely ignore endemic class warfare from the top…

“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), Rockies’ Ubaldo Jimenez (0.79) and Wade LeBlanc.  Who?  LeBlanc is a 26-year-old lefthander with the San Diego Padres.  He has given up only a single earned run in three starts.  His ERA: 0.82.  Livan Hernandez is next with 0.87.  Then comes Nelson Liriano, the top AL pitcher in the list, with 0.93. 

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.

 

Gallup found that, among 18-to-29 year-olds – the group most favorably disposed to Democrats – only 23 percent of those surveyed were keen to vote in this year’s midterm election.  Some 32 percent of the youngish-to-middle-age 30-49 group likely to back Team GOP said they were raring to vote.  On Monday, a concerned Skipper Obama called on African-Americans, Latinos and women, as well as young people, to rally behind the Dem lineup nationwide as they did behind him in 2008.  He’s hoping his team’s partisan pitch for financial reform and sensible immigration laws will signal an end to playing small ball with the Repubs.

 

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 Atlanta rally was aborted when an out was called on the front end of what would be a double play.  But the camera showed second baseman Skip Schumacher 10 feet from the bag when he threw on to first.  The MLB-TV team agreed the call was carrying the “neighborhood play” too far.   They said a few words in support of video replays before launching a collective defense of umpires: owing to the new technology, they said, umpires have to work under extreme pressure, being scrutinized much more closely than they were 30 years ago.  It sounded as though they were on front-office message, another sign that change in the umpiring aspect of the game will not be coming soon.

 

We’ll know how seriously the streaking Mets should be taken after the three-game weekend set at Philadelphia.  Whatever the outcome, Mets fans can rejoice in the thought of meaningful games in May.  Until the nine-victory, 10-game home stand, such games didn’t look too likely.  

 

Joe Torre, asked by SNY’s Kevin Burkhardt how he would like to remembered 10 years from now:  “For fairness.  Guys wanted to play for me because they knew I was fair.”

 

Johnny Damon spent the first week of the season with his new team batting .177 (3-for-23).  He’s now the Tigers’ second leading hitter among regulars (after Miguel Cabrera).

Going into last night’s game with the Twins, Damon was batting .329 (24-for-73).

 

Orioles manager Dave Trembley knows he can’t last if his worst-in-the-majors last-place - team doesn’t start winning with some consistency.  So he apparently figures he has nothing to lose by expressing frustration about what’s been happening.  Asked in an interview shown on TV about his porous bullpen, he gave this remarkable answer: "There is no closer right now for me.  Who wants it?  Somebody take it.  There is no setup guy. Who wants it?  Somebody take it."  Alfredo Simon, just up from Triple-A Norfolk, looks like the closer.  For now. 

 

Coincidental or cause-related? Both the Phils and the Dodgers have gone into mini-tailspins since Jimmy Rollins and Manny Ramirez went on the DL.

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(Posted: 4/27/10)

 

When Political and Baseball Fans Call for Action

 

In politics and baseball, as with most pastimes, the people in charge know how to respond to public demands for action when the pressure is on: if you can’t act, appear to do SOMETHING.  Current examples in both fields have to do with competitive balance.

Team Obama worries that Iran is seeking nuclear balance in the Middle East, a move much of the world expects the U.S. to stop.  The baseball commissioner worries that  persistent fan discontent over the lack of competitive balance in the sport requires a response.

 

International Herald Trib bench jockey William Pfaff sees something ominously familiar in the way Team Obama is responding to Iran’s game:

 

“Robert Gates is reported to have sent a secret letter to…Obama last January reviewing the military options available if diplomacy…fail(s) to produce the desired halt in Iran’s effort, if that is what it is, to build a nuclear deterrent.  If Iran does pursue a nuclear capability…it is to deter attack.  Precisely the same objection exists to theories of Iranian aggression as to those lies put forward in 2002-2003 about Iraq posing a nuclear menace to the world.

”Once more the threat is a polemical invention, intended to frighten American, Israeli (and European) voters, and prompt a preemptive attack on Iran. The reason Mr. Gates reports his uncertainties to the president is that he too recognizes that the conflict with Iran is constructed from fictions – which, as with the lies about Iraq, may turn into another war, whose consequences are sure to be worse for all concerned than the (earlier) fiasco.”

 

How far Team Obama is prepared to go - after this retroactive something - will depend, in part, on whether the skipper considers real or fictional the Iranian nuclear threat feared by Israel.  Israel’s supporters in the U.S. are pitching hard to keep the skipper focused on that possible threat.

 

In baseball, Bud Selig put together a practice-hitting front-office group and asked it to take swings at improving balance among mlb teams.  (Improve it, that is, without touching the financial disparities.)  Uncomfortable in the clutch situation, the group launched the idea of a “floating” option for teams.  The plan would allow particular clubs to switch divisions for a season or more.  Small-market but formidable Tampa Bay, for instance, could replace a rebuilding team like Cleveland in the AL Central.  The Rays, thus, would avoid having to contend with the Yankees and the Red Sox while the  Indians could theoretically benefit at the box office from more frequent AL East games with the Yanks and Red Sox.  

 

That resulting pop-up seemed to be an out before it left the pitcher’s hand.  But the effort was dutifully reported by the media: it therefore amounted to something.  And as yet, it has not been officially ruled a non-starter.

 

Tim Wakefield has become a non-starter with the Red Sox.  Tito Francona took the veteran knuckleballer out of the rotation when Daisuke Matsuzaka returned to the team from the DL.  It’s been hard for Wakefield to hide his unhappiness with the move, which leaves him in limbo.  Francona: “This is not us turning him into a reliever.  This is putting him in the bullpen until he starts again.  I think we feel…he’s the guy who can handle this.”  Francona’s pitch would have been more persuasive had he said “we hope he can handle this.”

 

The Sox have other obvious problems.  Victor Martinez threw out one of three steal-attempting Orioles over the weekend.  That modest achievement was worth a celebration.  Going into tonight’s game against Toronto, Martinez and his backup Jason Varitek had allowed 40 steals out of 42 tries.   Backup Mets catcher Henry Blanco, meanwhile, has caught four of four would-be thieves.

 

The Mets are playing the Dodgers and Phillies this week, which may well mean they will be sub-500 again by Saturday night.  But their achievement of exceeding .500, as of Sunday night, was notable.  We confess that we never thought it would happen.  Jerry Manuel deserves much credit, Omar Minaya and Jeff Wilpon some.  The Mets may exceed our expectations and turn out to be a .500 team, after all.

 

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(Posted: 4/24/10)

 

A Twin Search for the Elusive Even Playing Field

 

Incumbent legislators in NY state are like fans of the incumbent World Series champions: they surely believe in the idea of an even playing field, but not as it pertains to their privileged turf.

 

A team headed by former NYC Mayor Ed Koch and including former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Governor Mario Cuomo wants the legislators to swing behind a change in the setup of their political ballparks, the districts that have given them home-field advantage in the electoral game.   The rearranging sought by Team Koch would be done by unaffiliated outsiders instead of legislative players themselves.  If done right, this new redistricting stance would end the practice of laying out a field tailored to the hitting team.  With that accomplished,  the goal of the even playing field would be within reach.

 

Team Koch has already enlisted the support of three key GOP players, candidates for governor Rick Lazio, Steve Levy and Carl Paladino, and of the likely Dem choice Andrew Cuomo.  The legislators have not yet come to the plate. If they stay in the dugout it’s because they like a practice that, in the words of Citizens Union Skipper Dick Dadey, “allows the legislators to choose their voters before the voters choose them.”

 

Most Yankee followers would choose to describe themselves as baseball fans first.  But they contradict that claim when they duck away from the recurring pitch for reform of a system that gives their team a huge edge over its competitors.  The latest report from Forbes magazine has the Yankees taking in more than $170 million more than their nearest revenue-stream competitor, the Mets, and $285 million more than their nearest on-field competitor, the Rays.

 

SI’s Joe Posnanski runs down the ramifications of the Yankees’ financial edge:

“The Yankees' revenue stream is so enormous, it will give them a gigantic competitive advantage that should make them the favorites to win every... single... year. True, they won't win every single year because of baseball's quirks…. (But) since the 1994-95 strike, the New York Yankees have won 57.9% of their games -- that's 94 wins per year. That's the most in baseball -- more even than the Atlanta Braves, who were so dominant for so long. The Yankees have won 100 games five times. They have made the playoffs every year but one. They have won the toughest division in baseball 11 of the 15 seasons. They have won five World Series and two other pennants…”     

 

Yankee fans are to be envied for their team’s success  – baseball gives them comfort while it gives Mets fans Agita.  But for the fair-minded among them there is a downside – the awareness that their team is winning as much because of money as for merit.

 

Stat city: One reason the Washington Nats are off to a better-than-expected start is that, for the moment, they have baseball’s most successful closer.  He’s Matt Capps, who, going into last night’s game, had saved seven of seven – all but one of the team’s victory total (8).   

 

Shortly before spring training, MLB-TV’s Dan Plesac evaluated five free agent pitchers still available at the time.  He picked one from among the group - Pedro Martinez, Joel Piniero, Ben Sheets, John Smoltz and Jarrod Washburn – as most worth signing:  It was Piniero, who has a 2-1, 1.77 ERA with the Angels after 20 innings of work.  His strikeout-to-walk ratio is 13-3.  Sheets is not doing badly for Oakland – 1-1, 2.74 after 23 innings.  But his K-BB ratio is awful, 12-13.                        

 

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(Posted: 4/22/10)

 

‘Perfect Storms’ Sweeping Baseball and Political Fields

 

“Perfect storm” has become an all-purpose phrase applicable to baseball and politics as well as meteorology.  We know it means something like hitting into a triple play – the term first used to describe three storm fronts forming a powerful nor’easter in 1991 that snuffed out lives and homes along the east coast.

 

Despite sporadic signs of clearing, Mets fans think a perfect storm has hit their team.  One, Keith Weber of Manhattan, surely spoke for a million or so when he e-mailed this message about the team: “ Let me check my list for this long Met season…Bad owner, check.  Bad GM, check.  Last place, check.  Meaningless season, check.  This might the earliest date in over 40 years I have given up even caring about the Mets.  Thank you…Wilpons for letting this happen.”

 

Over on the political field, there it was again – a Pew Research Center sounding found that Team Obama is facing a “perfect storm” of public hostility.  The discontent expresses itself as distrust of government, having mainly to do with the economy.  Only 22 percent of people questioned look upon government favorably – “among the lowest measures (according to Pew) in more than half a century.”

 

The National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein says leading liberal players worry that the skipper has lost control of the economic contest with Team GOP: “The(y) fear the White House is suffering from what could be called a ’narrative gap.’  By which they mean that the White House has inadvertently allowed Republicans to shift public discontent from business to government by not working more doggedly to link President George W. Bush's anti-regulation, tax-cutting policies not only to the 2008 meltdown but also to the economy's meager performance over his entire tenure.  
 

Brownstein says the skipper is insufficiently aggressive at executing what a Yale professor calls "’the authority to repudiate’…the effort,  employed by…Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, to build support by portraying their agenda as the remedy for their predecessors' failures.”

 

The hope among fans is that the skipper will start a repudiation rally when he steps to the plate at Cooper Union today.

                     -     -     -

Fans exhaling early-season blahs in Boston, Chicago and, yes, New York, should know that, comparatively, they have nothing to complain about. Compared to what? This perfect storm-damaged franchise: “The hole already is starting to look too deep. The season looks like it's over, and it has barely begun.” – Baltimore Sun (re the Orioles)

                           

Injuries: they are “part of baseball,” as the saying goes.  Their impact, we know, depends on the depth of the team affected.  A club like the Phillies can absorb a few weeks’ loss of Jimmy Rollins.  Some teams, however – like the Orioles, who have lost Brian Roberts and Miguel Tejada - don’t have capable replacements when a key player goes down.  Mets TV announcer Gary Cohen flagged the case of Giants center fielder Aaron Rowand, put on the DL after suffering facial fractures last Friday night when hit by Dodgers pitcher Vincente Padilla.  “I feel bad for the Giants,” Cohen said.  “They are going to miss Rowand’s bat.” Without Rowand in the lineup, SF lost three in a row this week, 2-1, 3-2, and 1-0, before yesterday’s game in San Diego.  

 

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(Posted: 4/20/10)

 

Yanks, Phils and Team GOP Showing Competitive Confidence

 

Slow-starters in both pastimes have a hopeful saying this time of year - “It’s a long season.”  The Yankees, Phillies and Republicans can respond with a smug smile.  The numbers in wins and losses on one field, and polling results on the other, give all three  confidence they can stay ahead for the long haul. 

 

Seldom have two favored teams demonstrated their superiority so convincingly so early as the Yanks and Phils have done in the past two weeks.  Who doubts that they will win their respective divisions?  Team GOP needs to add at least 40 members to its Congressional lineup in the fall to win control of the House.  Few press-box observers would bet against that happening.  One of the most respected of that group - Charlie Cook – suspects the Repubs will win but doesn’t see it as a Yankees-and Phillies-like sure thing:

“Combining its own race-by-race calculations with the results of national polls, The Cook Political Report officially projects a Republican gain of 30 to 40 seats. I suspect that the GOP will do even better if the trend over the past seven months continues…

“The views of other experts vary… Most political scientists who have weighed in tend to think that Democrats will suffer serious losses but retain control. Analysts who look at individual races and then add ’macro’ national dynamics to the mix, however, largely expect Democrats to have real trouble hanging on.”

Cook says that, if it loses, the Democratic team can find solace in the likelihood that Skipper Obama himself will benefit from having to share power with the opposition: he will then be able to share the blame for plays that backfire, which should give him a cold-comfort edge in the 2012 presidential contest.   

For awhile many of us wouldn’t have been surprised to see the Yankees remain in first place in the AL East for the rest of the season.  But Tampa Bay’s seven-game winning streak - on the road, yet (in Toronto and Boston) - have put a stop to that line of thought.  The surge has propelled the Rays a half-game ahead of the Yanks.  And TB’s 10-3 record is for the moment best in the majors.

“Home plate is on roller skates”: That’s what players say, according to ESPN’s Orel Hersheiser, when the umpire calling balls and strikes is inconsistent.  In the third inning of the Rays-Red Sox game yesterday, Angel Campos called Ben Zobrist out after two of John Lackey’s pitches were clearly way outside of the plate.  When, on a 3-and-1 pitch,  Zobrist tossed his bat aside and started for first, NESN’s Jerry Remy warned that “umpires hate that.”  Zobrist couldn’t hear him, of course, and when he did it again, Campos flashed strike three.  Two batters later, Carlos Pena walked when Campos called ball four on virtually the same pitch that was strike three with Zobrist at the plate.   

The so-far short season has sent attendance-shock-waves through front offices in Baltimore, Cleveland and Toronto.  The Orioles, Indians and Blue Jays, one-two-three in AL attendance in the mid-nineties, all drew the smallest crowds in the history of their ballparks last week dating from 1992 (Camden Yards), 1994 (Jacobs Field/now Progessive Field) and 1989 (Skydome/now Rogers Centre).  SI’s Tom Verducci says the poor turnouts were “a cold reminder that the halo effect of a beautiful new ballpark, like the smell of a new car, is not a lasting one.”  We may be treated to a fast fade of the halo over Citi Field if the Mets’ fortunes don’t experience a dramatic revival.

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(Posted: 4/17/10)

 

Inequality in NYC Exists for Ball Teams as Well as People

 

New York City, a microcosm of the economic extremes roiling the nation, now offers a case-study of inequality – financial and otherwise – affecting its two baseball teams.  Latest payroll estimates, published by the clearinghouse for mlb contracts (Cot’s), show that the Yankees are spending $87 million more than the Mets this season - $213 mil to $126 mil.  While the Yanks have added $12 mil to their payroll compared to ’09, the Mets spent $23 mil less on player salaries than they did last year.  It’s the widest payroll disparity ever between the two teams.

 

Economic inequality in the U.S., more severe now after the banking crisis, persists despite the obvious need for a changed approach.  One reason for the inertia: the sense among players on the right – like more than half the Tea Party supporters surveyed by NY Times/CBS pollsters – that Team Obama is pitching to help the poor rather than the middle class or rich.  But the brush-back of one class by another is contributing to the unrest we sense around us.  NYU-based historian Tony Judt sees it as a symptom of an “age of insecurity…Insecurity breeds fear.  And fear - fear of change, fear of decline, fear of strangers and an unfamiliar world - is corroding the trust and interdependence on which civil societies rest.”

 

Although Judt does not allude to them by name, he wonders why there are no Tea Parties of the left.  Pointing out the holes in right field and then doing nothing about them, he says, won’t trigger a successful left rally: “The irresponsible rhetorical grandstanding of decades past,” he notes, “did not (get the job done).”

 

Intimidated by the Yankees’ willingness to spend for baseball’s big name players, the Mets tried to match them in such signings.  They emphasized the need to have proven stars in the lineup, but in their spending sacrificed the resources needed to pay for a solid supporting cast.  Thus, $100 million of the current $126 mil payroll goes for eight players – Johan Santana, Carlos Beltran, Frankie Rodriguez, Oliver Perez, David Wright, Jason Bay, Jose Reyes and Luis Castillo.  That leaves most of the other 17 playing for scraps.  Is it any wonder their quality is marginal?  Maybe we can’t blame all of the Mets’ revenue fallout on Bernie Madoff, but it went somewhere other than into the team.

 

On a YES Yankees telecast the other day, Al Leiter got in a puzzling plug for a former team of his, the Toronto Blue Jays.  Noting the Jays’ fast start in the AL East, he said the three-team deal in which they sent Roy Halladay to the Phillies for prospects was working out well for Toronto.  Except that only one of the prospects – pitcher Brandon Morrow, who came from Seattle – is on the Jays’ roster.  And, going into the weekend, his ERA was 12.00 and record 0-1 after two games.  It is true that pitchers like Ricky Romero and Shawn Marcum may be ready to flourish outside Halladay’s shadow.  But so far lefty newcomer Dana Eveland, picked up from Oakland in February, has been the Jays’ surprise standout – 2-0, 1:35 ERA.      

 

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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 4/15/10)

 

Who in the U.S. Likes Taxes?  Well, Some Teams Do

 

As with many Americans, there is unhappiness on this tax day in baseball.  Owners of small- and middle-market teams are complaining – not about a sport-related tax they, in theory, are obliged to pay, but about the money they’re supposed to receive from the big-spending teams. The levy in question - the competitive-balance, or luxury tax – has yielded disappointingly little to the Pittsburgh Pirates, Florida Marlins, etc.

 

Polls indicate anti-tax sentiment in the country grows stronger every year. A recent Rasmussen survey found that 66 percent of those questioned felt  Americans are overtaxed (81 percent of Republicans felt that way).  The conservative argument that the government’s taking of people’s money is confiscatory – “you’ve earned it have a right to spend it as you see fit” – has simplistic appeal.  The twist in baseball is that smaller-market teams believe their comparatively modest revenues justify they’re getting luxury tax money from several big-market teams, not just the Yankees. 

 

As it is, this year only the Yanks will go over the $170 million threshold established for luxury tax purposes. (The NYYs have paid $175 mil in lux taxes over the seven years of the system’s existence; the Red Sox paid a total of $14 mil over four years of that period; Detroit and the LA Angels paid minimal amounts only once.) The Yankees payroll now is $206 million.  The Red Sox ($162 mil), Cubs (146 mil), and Phillies ($142 mil) are among big-market teams that will be spared tax-paying, which some would-be recipients consider unfair.

 

Globe op-ed columnist James Carroll does not believe the poll-driven wisdom that people see taxes as unfair.  The resentment he says is simply a temporary reflex: 

 

“Many officials mistake our mid-April grimace for a signal that the broad citizenry has itself broken faith with the principle of commonwealth. It is not true. We may dislike the tax bite, but we loathe the destruction of civic pillars and the deliberate unraveling of safety nets.  Citizens long for leaders who will remind us that what we do this week has nobility in it. And if we have to do more of it — pay higher taxes — so that teachers and librarians, and those they serve, are not humiliated but enriched, we will.”

 

Whether more big-market mlb teams will agree to a lower luxury tax threshold possibly requiring them to chip in should be tested next year.  That’s when terms of a new arrangement are to be worked out.  Baseball’s Exec VP Rob Manfred says that, given the economy, he thinks the small-market teams have a persuasive argument.

 

The warm greeting Hideki Matsui received from the Yanks on his return to NY should be duplicated when the team’s other departed ’09 hero Johnny Damon comes back as a member of the Tigers.  But that won’t happen until August 16, Detroit’s first and only visit to the Stadium.  Damon’s gotten off to a slow start with his new team; his batting average after stroking two hits in yesterday’s game with KC was .194.  Steve Rosenberg of the Detroit Free Press suspected before opening day that Johnny D might be in for a rough season.  Here is how he put it: “One of these years, Damon won’t be able to fix his problems… and…make up for his weak arm with hustle and smarts. This could be that year.”   (“If it’s not,” he added,”Detroit will love Damon”, as they did in NY, Boston, Oakland and Kansas City.)

 

                           - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 4/13/10)

 

Barack Became National Skipper as Baseball Was Regaining Blacks

 

Coincidental with the emergence of Barack Obama as a serious presidential contender, the number of blacks in baseball rose from a low of 8 percent in 2007 back into double digits, now about 10 pct. (The percentage of blacks in MLB was 17 percent in 1997). Braves rookie Jason Heyward is the 2010 poster boy of the resurgence, but interest among blacks – and recruitment of them - began to rebound, thanks to the arrival of African-American standouts several years earlier.

 

Skipper Obama has certainly been a source of pride for blacks and people of color generally.  But polls indicate his gaining of broad acceptance has been as slow and sporadic in the political field as the backing and filling of blacks in baseball.  Signs of racist attitudes among tea-party participants suggest that the president and his leadership are a long way from winning over opponents in the South. 

 

A sampling of that opposition – dating from November 2008 - was provided the other day by Michael Tomasky of the UK Guardian. He checked the white vote (through exit polls) for Obama in four northern states, including Massachusetts, where he won with over 50 percent of the vote and in four conservative non-southern red states, including Arizona, where he lost but scored in the 40-percent range.  In three deep-South states, the white-vote percentages for Obama were dramatically different, attesting to the apparent persistence of anti-black bias:

 

Alabama, 10%

Mississippi, 11%

Louisiana, 14%

 

It is clear that, if those numbers have moved in the last year-and-a-half, the trend has been away from the skipper and his team.

                             

Among the young black baseball standouts who triggered the turnaround in the sport:  Jimmy Rollins, who debuted at shortstop with the Phillies a decade ago.  C.C. Sabathia came along next, joining the Indians in 2001 (and going 17-5 in his rookie year); Carl Crawford was called up by Tampa Bay in 2002.  Curtis Granderson started with Detroit in 2004.  Slugging first basemen Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder had back-to-back coming-out years in 2004 and 2005 with the Phillies and Brewers.  Adam Jones broke in with Seattle in 2006.  For the Upton boys, B.J. and Justin, ’04 and 2007 marked the respective starts of their major league careers, with Tampa Bay and Arizona.  Derek Jeter was reaching his peak, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey, Jr. and Frank Thomas nearing the end of their years of stardom when the new African-American generation took the field.

 

Back on the political field, there is some question – even among supporters – about the staying power of Obama as national skipper.  Author Gary Wills, who shifted from batting right to left early in his career, has urged Barack to stop his centrist compromising and take the strong, unpopular stands – like leaving Afghanistan – that risk making him a one-term president.  Here is how Wills put it in his review of a book on Obama (David Remnick’s “The Bridge” ) in the Sunday NY Times:

 

“(Obama) may have…believ(ed) that his election could of itself usher in a post-racial, post-partisan, post-red-state and blue-state era.  That is a change no one should ever have believed in.  The price of winningness can be losing; and that, in this scary time, is enough to break the heart of hope.”

                                -     -     -

Stat City:  At the end of the first weekend of the baseball season, Rollins had the best BA - .391 (nine for 23) among African-American players.  Curtis Granderson of the Yanks, Milwaukee’s Rickie Weeks, and Torii Hunter of the Angels were tied for second going into last night at .348 (eight for 23).  Blue Jay Vernon Wells (of the rookie class of ’99), was tied for the home run lead with three others who had hit four, including Albert Pujols (until Pujols hit his fifth yesterday afternoon). 

 

The overall batting leaders after the weekend were Atlanta’s Martin Prado, .542 (13 for 24), Edgar Renteria of the Giants, .524 (11 for 21) and Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera, .522 (12 for 23).  The National League had the two top strikeout leaders – familiar names Roy Halladay of the Phils and Tim Lincecum of the Giants, both with 17 ks.

                            - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted 4/10/10)

Baseball, Hedge Funds and the Futile Search for Fairness

 

“Stop whining,” said Yankees president Randy Levine to the Milwaukee Brewers owner who complained about the financial inequities in baseball.

 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Rupert Murdoch (in effect) when asked at the National Press Club about the political bias of Fox News.  “We have both sides…Democrats and Republicans.”

 

Both statements, dismissive of the dream of fairness, have gone essentially unchallenged.

The Yankees’ team payroll for 2010 is $125 million more than that of the Brewers ($206  to $81 mil).  The Yanks are spending $44 million more than their nearest moneyed competitor, the Red Sox ($162 mil).

 

Murdoch is said to be worth $4 billion, Fox News an estimated $700 million-a-year net.   Rupert’s inability to think of the name of any Fox Democrat was considered minimally newsworthy.  Like banks that are too big to fail, Murdoch is too big in wealth and political/communications power to be publicly embarrassed.

 

That Murdoch could buy and sell everyone at the Press Club made it easy for him to avoid a rhubarb.  That the star-splashed Yankees lineup attracts fans in other cities, spreading box-office largesse, inhibits any needed effort to even the sport’s playing field.  SI’s Frank Deford is the latest to underscore the urgency of that need:

 

“Come on, let's admit it. Baseball is the national pastime only if hedge funds are the national livelihood. If one needs proof, a British survey just revealed that the Yankees pay their players, on average, more than any other team in the world. Even more significant: The Bronx Bombers are the only MLB team in the top dozen. Baseball law really does allow the Yankees to be in a league of their own.”  

 

Just as the Yankees have the Red Sox for distant company, Murdoch has NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg as a power-hitting teammate on his billionaire’s team.  Bloomberg, we know, was able to buy a second re-election, using his wealth to override the anti-third-term wishes of the city’s voters.

 

There may be no hope – especially given the recent Supreme Court decision expanding the reach of corporate money in elections – of reforming the country’s skewed political system.  In baseball, however, there is reason for less fatalism: although far-fetched, the Yankees could hit hard times and lose some of their financial edge just as the Mets have done - the suddenly strapped NYM’s dropped from second to fifth in payroll this year (down $15 million, from $149 in ’09 to $134 mil in ’10) and saw the value of their franchise fall as well.  A twin killing, executed by mismanagement and (as rumor has it) Fred Wilpon playing with Bernie Madoff.

                             -     -     -

As the season entered its first weekend, only one of 30 teams had avoided defeat: the Giants, with a 3-0 record.  Playing its home opener against Atlanta yesterday, SF had an extra advantage: the Braves did not get their usual rest, having flown west for a day game after a night game at home.  The Braves wanted to play the Cubs at night, knowing it would mean putting up with the short turnaround.  Tim Hudson was sent west early and proved to be sharp enough to lead his team to a win.  But Billy Wagner blew a two-run lead in the ninth, and the Giants won, 5-4, to go 4-0 in the 13th.    

 

In a rare, talkative moment at a racetrack near Pittsburgh, Manny Ramirez said he thought the Giants (not the Rockies) would be the team his Dodgers would have to beat in the NL West.  No surprise on the city Manny said he hated most: Boston.

 

During the Cubs-Braves game on the MLB Network Thursday night, viewers were reminded that, owing to injuries, Lou Piniella was only able to field his first-string lineup for three games in 2009.  Nevertheless, the team stayed close to the Cardinals until the end, finishing second in the NL Central with an 83-78 record.  We remember that the Mets, much noisier about their injury jinx, could only manage a fourth-place 70-92 mark. And, by the way, does anyone believe the return of Jose Reyes today and Carlos Beltran in a few weeks will lift the Mets into NL East contention?  Not a chance, with a rotation of Johan and the four non-Santanas – John, Jonathan, Mike and Oliver.

                                      - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 4/8/10)

 

Hot Media Air Afflicting Baseball and the Military Game

 

As spring training neared an end, someone asked MLB-TV’s Matt Vasgersian about the challenge of filling time talking about pre-season baseball.  “It’s a lot of hot air,” he said, adding “you try to minimize it.”

 

After almost a decade of war, the American people should be aware of the toxic air being emitted from war zones by U.S. journalists embedded with our troops.  Like their sports-writing counterparts on the baseball beat, our media people abroad hype the home team whenever possible.  We saw how it happened in the pre-embedded days of 2001 when the mainstream press cheered Bush’s war on Afghanistan; they cheered while losing sight of the object of the game: capturing Osama bin Laden.  The much more shocking media performance – the blind wave-like support for the invasion of Iraq – brought disgrace to the NY Times, Washington Post and the TV networks for failing to see the whole field instead of just our side of it. 

 

The verdict in baseball coverage is business as usual rather than disgrace.  Peter Gammons, a legitimate baseball-writing superstar, shills for the sport, but has the skill to do it persuasively.  Typical of his approach is this take on the new season: “Somehow, no matter what leaks out about the steroids era… every April baseball renews itself.  (Derek) Jeter vs. Josh Beckett.  Again.”

 

The man who heads the Arabian-peninsula-based news team whose straight-talking has alienated the U.S. military, wants a different type of new season in the Mideast.  Al-Jazeera skipper Wahdah Khanfar says Team Obama must revise its game plan.  He spoke with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman:

 

“We in the Arab world are between…two (leadership generations)… The Obama administration should embrace this transformation. They should not take sides…against the people or with this party (or government)…We look at America as a superpower, and we expect (it)…not…to support one party (against another).

 

“Taliban influence is growing… And I think (it)…is changing, learning, developing…Direct dialogue between the Americans and Taliban is necessary, because…they are there.  And they represent…tribes (and) cultures.  You cannot eliminate them…Bombing and killing will always increase the anger and frustration against the Americans, and it will always…favor (the) Taliban or… any other movement in the Middle East.”

                          -     -     -

It’s much too early to gloat, but the Giants have reason to celebrate the start of the top three members of their rotation: Tim Lincecum, Barry Zito and Matt Cain gave up a total of one run in 18 innings against Houston.  Lincecum went seven scoreless innings Monday, Zito six on Tuesday.  Cain had yielded the single run after five innings yesterday, before he tired in the sixth.  SF won to complete an away-from-home sweep.

 

Michael Kay and Kenny Singleton were second-guessing Joe Girardi Tuesday night about starting Marcus Thames in left field instead of Brett Gardner.  “Thames isn’t known for his fielding,” said Kay.  “And what is Gardner supposed to think? He was told he’d be the regular left fielder.”  Later, when a pop fly dropped in beyond short stop in front of Thames, Singleton said “Gardner probably would have had it.” 

 

NYC-based statman Scott Swanay, the Fantasy Baseball Sherpa, has weighed in with his predictions for the season.  Swanay has had a high BA - never less than .500 - in previous years’ division picks.  His surprise selection this year is Milwaukee to win the NL wild card, joining the Phillies, Cardinals and Dodgers.  In the AL, Scott’s choice of the White Sox may surprise some.  Otherwise, he goes with broad-based favorites the Yanks, Red Sox (wild card) and Angels.  We’ll report back on his 2010 BA at the end of the season.    

                           - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 4/6/10)

 

Of Barack and Derek and a Third Birthday

 

With the two players still prominent, we offer a still-pertinent re-play on this, our third anniversary post:  Team Nub’s lead-off item, dating from April 5, 2007 (the last presidential pre-primary period) :

 

“If Barack Obama regains his early campaign momentum, one reason is likely to be the Derek Jeter factor.  That Barack and Jeter share similar multi-cultural backgrounds will surely seep into the broader voter consciousness as the baseball season unfolds.  The racial comparison will likely lead many even casual observers of the sport to connect Jeter’s attributes with those of Obama.  Jeter has earned the admiration of fans throughout the country and world for his skills and conduct.  Obama can benefit from a transfer of that admiration if he handles himself in the political field with the same unruffled assurance that Jeter exhibits when he steps to the plate or corrals a difficult ground ball.”   

 

There were no polls confirming that the Jeter factor came into play in Obama’s rally.  But we know that, Derek-like, he found a way to win. A little more than a year into his stint as skipper, Barack’s composure has been ruffled by bench-jockeying opponents.  Nevertheless, he seems to be developing a Yankee-captain-like confidence in running his team and the country.  As his tenure approaches middle innings, we can hope he will concentrate on his team’s play abroad, the questionable military-related decisions for which he is responsible in the Middle East and Latin America.  

 

Derek, in a much-lesser league than Barack, has maintained a focus that enabled him to keep his personal life and political views (if any) private.  That intensity has helped him keep his professional skills sharp.  (He’s batting .400 so far after one game.) The expectations that his play would show signs of age as he approached 35 last season, are all but absent this year.  Andy Pettitte, who has been watching Jeter for years as a teammate, told ESPN why there is no slippage in one aspect of the Yankee captain’s game: "Derek is the best. I can honestly say I've never seen him give away an at-bat. Never. Not any."   And here is Rangers scout Tom Giordano on Jeter’s defense (as told to the Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy): “You’ve got to take the whole ballplayer… Last year they said Jeter was slowing down. Well, sure, his arm in the hole is not what it used to be, but I’ll still take him every time.”

 

Everyone agrees that Obama’s main challenge now is the economy.  On Sunday, the 42d anniversary of Martin Luther King, Junior’s assassination, King’s 1967 speech linking the economy and war was memorialized on public TV and at church services.  The speech, connecting the “poor” – described more often now as “jobless” – and Vietnam contained a message relevant today that the president might do well to heed:

“I come…tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation…A few years ago there was a shining moment… It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor… There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings.  Then came the (military) buildup…and I watched…a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor… so long as (such) adventures continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.”

                         -     -     -

Predictions abound as the season starts.  In the six divisions only one team seems to be the unanimous choice of acknowledged experts.  The Phillies in the NL East.  All dozen or so regulars or semi-regulars on to MLB-TV picked the Phils.  On an MLB panel the other night, Harold Reynolds predicted the addition of closer Billy Wagner would be the key to making Atlanta a threat to the Phils.  Bobby Valentine, a new addition at ESPN, wasn’t shy about looking ahead to season’s end: he said the Cubs would meet Tampa Bay in the World Series.

First impressions: Although the Yanks have more fire power than the Red Sox, the two teams seem even in starting pitching and defense.  And the Sox have a decided edge in relief pitching.  So it will be fun watching those two well-matched teams go at it into the fall.  Early test-time: The Yanks go to Tampa Bay after Boston, then come home to open against the Angels next week. 

Times columnist George Vecsey called the Mets “irrelevant” on Sunday. We’ll wait until late spring or early summer to use that term here.  In the meantime, the positive for the Mets is the absence of pressure: there are no great expectations -  any sustained winning they do will be a pleasant surprise.

                             - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 4/3/10)

 

Bracing for a Cruel Baseball and Political Month

 

April – a cause for celebration for many of us, but a potentially cruel month for particular baseball and political teams.  Fans in Seattle, Arizona and Cincinnati can’t be happy that exciting starters Cliff Lee, Brandon Webb and Aroldis Chapman won’t be on hand to begin the season.  And Team Obama, with so much else at the plate, must defend against a sustained right-wing rally aimed at sending the health reform law to the disabled list.

 

The Mets, whose second, third and fourth starters have run-yielding disabilities, must make do without their best position player Carlos Beltran until May. Team GOP, which hopes a pitch to repeal health reform leads to a win in November, could have to settle for less, too, from its game plan.  Harvard Med School author/prof Atul Gawande says repeal of the entire law is “unlikely”: “No one,” he says, “is going to force children with pre-existing conditions back off their parents’ health plans.” 

 

The alternative GOP strategy, Gawande says (in the New Yorker) is “to strip out the critical but less…appealing elements of reform – (the provision)…of subsidies to make sure that (uncovered individuals) can afford policies; (the imposition) of significant new taxes on household incomes over $250,000 – thereby gut(ting) coverage for the uninsured.”

 

Team Obama surely knows that the alternative strategy could work.  A recent Gallup poll found that by a 53-40 (percent) score, respondents considered the Dems’ reconciliation process in passing health reform an abuse of power.  Self-described independents registered 58 percent support for the abuse charge.

Lefty Greg Sargent, who delivers a Plum Line blog daily, looked behind the results and produced this logical explanation: “Th(ey) suggest…the claim by …conservatives that Dems were going to ‘ram’ the bill through Congress via dictatorial fiat really succeeded in riling people up — even though Republicans repeatedly used the reconciliation tactic themselves to pass ambitious legislation.”

The poll results thus reinforce a suspicion that the familiar “nation of sheep” charge is not all that far-fetched.  The charge is especially credible, given that Fox News is an influential guardian of the sheep in question. Added reason why the coming season will be a time of challenge for the O-Team.      

                           -     -     -

At least four top-rated division teams face bullpen challenges: the Phillies have lost closer Brad Lidge to injury for a few weeks, Huston Street is out indefinitely with the Rockies.  The Cardinals plan to let Ryan Franklin do their closing, even though he has no strikeout pitch.  And the Twins, having lost Joe Nathan for the season, are resorting to closer-by-committee.

 

Few teams can match the Mets for overall pitching disarray.  SNY’s Gary Cohen noted Thursday that John Maine finished the pre-season with an 8.4 ERA.  “That is emblematic,” he said, “of the entire rotation.”  Well, not quite: Johan Santana finished at 6.75 after being knocked around by the Class AAA Memphis Cardinals the other day.  Santana, the surgically treated ace, showed nothing this spring; he did seem healthy, however.  And the Mets can only hope he reverts to pre-surgical form when he opens the season against Florida Monday. 

 

Oliver Perez, high man in salary, has the highest ERA – 8.66.  His $12 million take is nearly a third of the Mets’ entire ($38 million) rotation payroll.  We can guess that bill prompted Jeff Wilpon to veto bidding for upper-tier free agents.  And we can presume that, owing to the shaky pitching staff, the Mets will have to produce a miracle to get the fast start Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel may need to keep their jobs.

 

A key figure in the Yankees-Red Sox opener tomorrow night, and to Boston’s season, is David Ortiz.  The Globe’s Nick Cafardo says scouts have “questioned whether (Ortiz) will return to prominence… In a lineup that could have some frustrating hitters like (Adrian) Beltre and Mike Cameron, Ortiz can’t be one of them if this team is to be successful.”

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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

March 2010 Archive

(Posted: 3/27/10)

 

A Winning Month for Baseball and Team Obama

 

March, the month of promise, will be missed by baseball fans: Stephen Strasburg, confirming his super-phenom status; Jason Heyward emerging as Atlanta’s new Chipper Jones, Curtis Granderson the Yankees’ new energizer, and new veteran Jose Reyes returning to provide the Mets with early hope.

 

For Team Obama and its roster of Democrats , March marked the end of a long losing streak, and, perhaps, more confident play as the season unfolds.  The game-changer, of course, was health reform.  Globe columnist James Carroll sees its enactment as both a lesson and season-enhancer:  “To remember that there are cycles in every realm — economic cycles, political cycles, even news cycles — is to refuse to allow present conditions of discouragement the permanence they presume to claim.  Spring overrides winter, and that rule of time has meaning across experience…News from Washington shows that the glass of American will to reform the nation is at least half full.  Naysayers are the party of winter.”

 

At least one respected observer (SI’s Joe Posnanski) tabbed Cincinnati as a “hot” pre-season choice to stir up things in its (NL Central) division.  But that was before Aroldis Chapman, the Cuban pitching phenom, came down with a bad back.  For the moment, the Reds are lukewarm, but far from cold.  MLB Network’s Barry Larkin predicted the other night that second baseman Brandon Phillips and first baseman Joey Votto would both be “30-30 studs” on a team that can expect Scott Rolen and Jay Bruce to provide additional punch.  Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang are the team’s solid top-of-rotation starters.

 

Before Wednesday, the NY Times had been lukewarm in its opposition to the market-oriented, anti-social attitude that had swept the country and Congress over the past 40-plus years.  That changed with the lead story on the paper’s front page by David Leonhardt. “The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday,” he said in his lead paragraph, “is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising(in the 1970’s).  Over most of that period, government policy and market forces have been moving in the same direction, both increasing inequality…Nearly every major aspect of the health bill pushes in the other direction.”

 

In mid-windup, Leonhardt cautiously looked ahead: “Much about health reform remains unknown.  Maybe it will deliver Congress to the Republicans this fall, or maybe it will help the Democrats keep power…But the ways in which the bill attacks the inequality of the Reagan era — whether you love them or hate them — will probably be around for a long time.”

                                   -     -     -

Buried under the phenom stories are sagas like that of 37-year-old Garret Anderson, trying to catch on with the Dodgers.  He made $12.6 million two years ago with the Angels, $2.5 mil last year with the Braves.  He’ll make $550,000 if he makes the LAD team.  Anderson told Orange Country Register columnist Mark Whicker he was “not quite ready to walk away.”  Still waiting, so far in vain, for a walk-on this season: Jermaine Dye, Jarrod Washburn, Pedro Martinez, among other former phenoms.

 

Five-tool player Garrison Keillor - humorist, novelist, radio host, singer, political commentator – is among Twins fans looking forward to the opening of the team’s new outdoor ballpark Target Field.  The Twins will host the Cardinals there next Friday in a pre-season game scheduled to begin at 5:10.  It may be a little warmer for official opening day, April 12, when Minnesota will play Boston.  Keillor hopes to be there:

“We Minnesotans have been watching baseball in a basement for 28 years, under a fabric dome on a plastic field designed for football, and come April, we'll be sitting in sunlight, or under the stars, with the handsome towers of downtown Minneapolis just beyond center field, and we'll mill on the great concourse just behind the loge seats and eyeball the game while ordering a steak sandwich or an old-fashioned Schweigert hot dog. Hallelujah. Wowser.

“That this beauty was accomplished through public financing -- $392 million of the $544 million total paid through a sales tax approved by the Legislature -- is some sort of triumph, and to an old Democrat like me, who believes that government can indeed do some good things right and is not a blight upon the land, this ballpark is an enormous pleasure,..And so I(‘m) head(ing) to my favorite medical clinic to make sure I…live until Opening Day.”

                           - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments

to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 

Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

(Posted: 3/23/10)

 

Girardi and Cuomo: the ‘Must-Win’ Boys

 

As intense as the the pressure to win it all was on Joe Girardi last year, it’s nothing like what he’ll be under this season.  Only in NY’s political field is there a heavier - and more pressurized - favorite: AG Andrew Cuomo is considered such a hard-hitting shoo-in for governor, the Republicans competing to run against him are seen as comparative minor leaguers; Rick Lazio and Steve Levy have yet to prove they belong in the same ballpark with Andrew.  

 

In addition to an overwhelming media consensus, Las Vegas oddsmakers rate the Yanks 17-10 to win the AL pennant and 7-2 favorites to repeat as World Series champions.  No other team is close.  Girardi dismisses the pressure as a constant in his job   He is more fortunate than Cuomo in that there are respected dissenters to his team’s top ranking.  Andrew has the pressure of having to overcome the foregone-conclusion approach to his candidacy; example: an article by Azi Paybarah in last week’s NY Observer entitled “Can Andrew Cuomo Stay on Top?” The question had to do, not with Cuomo’s candidacy, but with his inevitable role as governor:

 

“Andrew Cuomo has done very well politically, as attorney general, by holding himself apart from the Albany muck. Soon, barring a serious career reversal, he’ll be in it.  What happens then? Will the capital’s notorious dysfunction and defiantly reform-proof Legislature have the same toxic effect on his approval ratings as it had on Eliot Spitzer’s and David Paterson’s?

 

“Can a Governor Cuomo be…”

 

Nearly everyone agrees Cuomo cannot be beaten by either Lazio of Levy.  A tested electoral player, Andrew won’t give either an opening through rookie mistakes.  But there’s a long-shot chance he can be upset by the Scott Brown syndrome.  It was Levy who invoked Brown’s surprise victory in the special Bay State election to succeed Senator Ted Kennedy.  A broad Brown-like protest vote aimed at punishing the Democrats for their error-prone performance in Albany over the last few years could upend Cuomo.  The NY Dems’ 3-2 voter-registration lead over Team GOP makes it more of an uphill challenge than ever, but Scott was at a similar disadvantage in Massachusetts.  In the end, Lazio or Levy’s biggest obstacle is likely to be an inability to match Cuomo’s money-raising pitch.

 

Nate Silver, stat man for Baseball Prospectus, sees simultaneous physical decline as the Yankees’ Achilles heel this year.  He notes that the Yanks’ homegrown “core four” of Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera have an age average of 38.  Silver says his research indicates all four should experience a production falloff this year.  As cited by the Village Voice’s Allen Barra, here are the Silver stats:

 

“Jeter from a 2009 batting average of .334 to .286 this year, a drop in home runs from 18 to 11, and in stolen bases from 30 to 10. Posada from a .285 BA to .263, home runs from 22 to 12. Pettitte from 14-8 and an ERA of 4.06 to 10-11 and 4.70. Scariest of all, Rivera from 44 saves to 22, and and ERA the moves from 1.76 to 3.53.

 

Of course, even should that worst-case scenario develop, the talent-rich Yanks have  in C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson, etc. the passel of younger players whose contributions can keep Girardi’s stress level under control.

 

On MLB-TV the other night, SI’s Tom Verducci noted an overlooked Yankee advantage over most other teams:  the financial ability, not only to sign top free agents, but to hold on to core players like Jeter, Rivera, et al.  Oakland, for example, had to trade away three core pitching stars, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito, because it couldn’t afford to meet their ascendent salary levels.

 

MLB panelists seldom say a discouraging word about anyone in baseball, incessant hype being the cable network’s built-in handicap.  So, it was refreshing when former Cleveland GM John Hart looked over possible replacements to the Twins’ injured closer Joe Nathan.  After reviewing the list of relievers already on the Minnesota roster – Jon Rauch, Mark Guerrier, Jose Mijares, Jesse Crain, etc. – Hart said “Ron Gardenhire should tell (GM) Bill Smith to start calling around and get him someone from another team.”  

 

Except for Minnesotans, no one’s happier than non-NY fans that Joe Mauer has signed an eight-year-$184 million deal with the Twins.  Here is a typical comment, this by Dave Sheinin in the Washington Post: “We all tend to get cynical about the ugly business side of baseball. I'm as guilty as anyone of putting economics first.  But sometimes it's nice to remember how good we all have it. There's baseball in Washington. And Joe Mauer won't be in pinstripes any time soon.”

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(Posted: 3/20/10)

 

If the hit-and-run play involving “crisis” and “opportunity” can be executed successfully, baseball and Team Obama each have a chance to score in separate challenges facing them.  Baseball reopened the bad-calls crisis last week when it announced the firing of three supervisors of the umpires who made the calls during the 2009 playoffs.  The O-team had a crisis thrown at it by Israel – the announcement of a plan to expand settlements in East Jerusalem against U.S. wishes.  The housing plan brushed back our hopes of reopening peace talks between Team Netanyahu and the Palestinians. 

The three umpiring supervisors were clearly let go in response to the growing media insistence on minimizing through technology the chance of human error skewing the outcome of a game.   Although the three super-umps penalized did not make the most glaring calls, they helped select the umpires who did; that would be Phil Cuzzi and Tim McClelland, who butchered plays in the ALCS.  The  jobs of both were spared, presumably because of union protection.

Protection is a key issue pushing Skipper Obama to confront Benjamin Netanyahu on the settlements; the protection the president seeks is a political safeguard for American forces in the region.  Foreign Policy magazine reported recently that both Joint Chiefs Chair Admiral Mike Mullen and Army central commander General David Petraeus gave the same message to the skipper: “Israel’s intransigence could cost American lives.”  They were referring to the animosity of the Muslim world toward us and our troops because of our unwavering support for their main adversary.

 

The chief obstacle to expanding baseball’s use of instant replay – it’s now only employed on controversial home-run calls – is Commissioner Bud Selig.  If he doesn’t succumb soon to the mounting pressure, his retirement in two years will almost certainly signal the sensible change – replays of all controversial plays – most fans want to see. The change in Skipper Obama’s stance toward Team Netanyahu is occurring haltingly, no surprise given the clout of pro-Israel lobbies in Washington.  But Mark Perry, author of the Foreign Policy article citing Mullen and Petraeus, says the highly respected admiral and general have brought a new level of influence to the game:

"There are important and powerful lobbies in America: the NRA, the American Medical Association, the lawyers -- and the Israeli lobby.  But no lobby is as important, or as powerful, as the U.S. military."           
                                        -     -     -

Rotation Reliables:  A couple of years ago, Curt Schilling called attention to a baseball axiom validated by the record book: Most teams reaching the post-season do so because their starting rotations stay healthy and pitch in more games than rival staffs do.

SI’s Jon Heyman checked out the starting fives of the 30 teams this year and concluded that one had the deepest, most reliable rotation.  No, it wasn’t the Yankees or the Red Sox, but the LA Angels.  Mike Scioscia boasts a still impressive one-through-five, despite the absence of John Lackey:  Jered Weaver, Ervin Santana, Joe Saunders, Scott Kazmir and Joel Piniero.       

 

The Yankees have a reliable foursome in C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte and Javier Vazquez, but the fifth slot likely to go to Joba Chamberlain is iffy.  The White Sox boast an almost equally a solid starting quartet of Mark Buehrle, Jack Peavy, John Danks and Gavin Floyd.  Heyman rates only three Red Sox starters as reliable -  Josh Beckett, Lackey and Jon Lester.  The Mariners win the top- twosome prize with Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee; the Cardinals’ duo of Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright are deemed a close second; the Diamondbacks’  Brandon Webb and Dan Haren (once Webb returns from the DL sometime next month) and the Phillies’ Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels runner-ups. 

 

There are lots of outstanding individual starters – Zack Greinke , Tim Lincecum, Johan Santana (who had a second spotty outing yesterday), Josh Johnson, Tommy Hanson, etc.  But unless they are reliably reinforced, their teams - according to the Schilling formula - will not get far.                          

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(Posted: 3/16/10)

 

High-Flying Banks and Yanks Causing Anti-NY Resentment

 

If you’re a Yankee fan, you’ve got to like the consensus 2010 baseball predictions: they show the Yankees winning the AL East, and make the defending World Series champions a good bet to repeat.  If you’re a New York City fan, you might be pleased to hear that the Apple has moved into first place in the world banking/financial center league.

 

On the other hand…anti-NYC people now have two reasons to resent the city for the clout money helps give it:  The Yanks can – and do – outspend all other teams in collecting free-agent talent (often conveniently overlooked: they’re good, as well, in developing homegrown players).   NY-based banking outfits have spurred the city to overtake – and tie – the London team as financial leader by swinging for the seats.  Bank Team NY can still play a wide-open game while their UK opponents must now take a more cautious, consumer-friendly approach.

 

The latest 2010 baseball projection comes from a mathematical model devised by a college professor that has had a high rate of accuracy over the past decade.  It predicts this season’s competitive races in five mlb divisions: the Phillies, Cardinals and Dodgers projected to win in the NL, with the Braves taking the wild card, and an unpredictable scramble foreseen in the AL West.  But in the AL East, the model says the Yanks should “blow away” the competition. (Sorry about that, Red Sox and Rays, although one of you, the model says, should win the AL wild card.)

The success of the NY banking team attests to how little the financial playing field in the U.S. has changed since the sub-prime housing market collapse.  Stephen Beard, reporting from London on a UK survey for public radio’s Marketplace program, says that, unlike their American counterparts, British banks have taken a hit that has them thinking small ball: “It's fears about tax and regulation. The survey was carried out shortly after the U.K. government raised the top rate of income tax to 50 percent and slapped a 50 percent tax on bankers' bonuses.  And there's been a lot of… banker bashing by the government here.  More…than in the U.S.”

The baseball math model produced its findings before injury put Minnesota’s star reliever Joe Nathan down, perhaps for the season   So its prediction that the Twins will prevail again in the AL Central is shaky.  Similarly precarious is NYC’s standing atop the financial league.  Why?  The public radio reporter explains it this way: “New York could slip in the next survey (because of) President Obama's proposed curbs on certain banking activities.  A spokesman for the city of London…said that we seem to be taking turns ’shooting ourselves in the foot’."

An indication why, for most of us, banking is in another ballpark.

                              -     -     -

How about the NY team in a different league – and organizational universe – from the Yankees?  A clue to the 2010 outlook for the Mets can be found in these two quotations: 

Jerry Manuel, June 2009:  “If we can stay around .500 until the All-Star break when our regulars come back, we’ll be all right.”

Omar Minaya, March 2010: "We need to play good baseball and fight through the first couple of months, and by July, we could be a pretty interesting team."

Then there is this bit of truth-telling from Keith Hernandez, during Cardinals-Mets game on SNY yesterday:  “(Johan) Santana can’t pitch every day.  The Met still aren’t sure  how good their numbers two, three, four and five guys are going to be.”

Spring training has been comfortably uneventful so far for most teams, but not all.  Here is how we see the season’s three stories with most impact-potential:

1 – The Twins’ diminished playoff chances owing to Nathan’s injury; 2 – The likelihood of a slow D-backs’ start with ace Brandon Webb on the DL;  3 – Ditto the Mets, who’ll have Jose Reyes joining Carlos Beltran on the sidelines in the early going. 

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(Posted: 3/13/10)

 

The Chancy Expectations Game in Baseball and Politics

 

It’s early, too early to be nervous, but…Johan Santana looked like a humpty in his first pro game since surgery.  And Jason Bay has been horrid, taking his awkward hacks in the early going.  In Team Obama time, it’s not quite so early: the team has had more than a year to work out the kinks.  Yet most of the touted star players - beginning with the skipper - have yet to live up to their billing.  Tim Geithner and Larry Summers are two of the obviously tarnished stars on the O-Team, but Attorney General Eric Holder has lost some early glitter as well.

Joe Biden, reputedly a wild swinger, has tightened his stance.  His warning in Jerusalem the other day that Israel’s renewed settlement activity was “undermin(ing) the trust” it had earned in the U.S, enhanced the VP’s status as a player.  Steve Clemons, who pitches for the Washington Note, suggests that Skipper Obama sent Biden to see if he could succeed where other teammates (including occasional call-up George Mitchell) have failed to get the ball rolling in the Mideast: “Of all Obama's senior level cabinet members and advisers, Biden has exceeded expectations and performed better than virtually any other member of the team in generating ideas and pushing the policy needle…

“Rahm Emanuel… and Obama tried hard to kick-start an arrangement that would get some sizzle by forcing the Israelis to stop all new settlement construction in the Occupied Territories. That did not work out so well.   Hillary Clinton… General Jim Jones, the national security adviser, Robert Gates… and (Mitchell) have been giving the Israel-Palestine portfolio a lot of time and have made many a trip to the region.  Nothing much has happened as of yet…”

The cover story out of Jerusalem was that right-side players on Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition team made the new-settlements announcement without Skipper Ben’s knowledge.  The International Herald Tribune’s William Pfaff doesn’t buy it: “The Obama administration perversely continues to encourage Israeli belligerence through its failure to react to (such) calculated insolence…This deliberate humiliation of the…administration is undoubtedly intended to reinforce the Israeli prime minister’s domestic political position…”

 

Despite Israel’s latest defiance on settlements (which has benched peace talks with the Palestinians, yet again), Team Obama has given a pass to the possibility of withholding aid to the Netanyahu government. 

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No use belaboring the obvious – that the Mets’ overall health again looks shaky.  Santana’s elbow may be fine, but will his arm have its pre-surgical zip? Jose Reyes’ thyroid problem could compromise his level of play after keeping him sidelined for several weeks; Kelvim Escobar will almost certainly start the season on the DL with Carlos Beltran, etc.  But the team in first place in the health-problems league is Minnesota: the possibility that super-closer Joe Nathan will be shut down for much, if not all, of the season, is a mortal blow to the AL Central’s defending champions.  You have to like Ron Gardenhire’s response: “Obviously we(‘ll have to find someone)…No one’s going to cry for us.”

 

There is serious talk in Minnesota now of the Twins trading possibly unaffordable Joe Mauer for, among other things, a top-flight reliever to replace Nathan.  Would a Mauer-for-Mariano deal tempt the Yanks (assuming Rivera would agree to go to Minnesota)?  Given their respective ages (almost 27 compared to 40), it would have to.  But a lot can still happen - Nathan may be able to pitch, after all; Mauer may decide to re-up with the Twins for less than he can make elsewhere - before the Twins offer their all-star catcher to anybody.

 

Tony La Russa may have been thinking of the Nathan situation when he gave this baseball-simplified lesson to the Globe’s Bob Ryan:  “I really had little idea about pitching, but from (Dave Duncan) I learned that the first thing you need to do as a ball club was stop the other team.”

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(Posted: 3/9/10)

 

Dem Fans and Many in Baseball Becoming Reconciled to Defeat

 

“Mets’ High Hopes Always Fade Fast,” said a NY Post headline the other day.  “What high hopes?” would be a legitimate rejoinder.  We know that Mets fans, like those of the Astros, Brewers, Jays, Nats, Orioles, Padres, Pirates, Reds, Royals, etc., should have reconciled themselves before now (hype-hopes, notwithstanding) to a long season of non-contention.

 

Dem fans are wondering if they, too, should concede that Skipper Obama and his team are out of the running on health care reform.  It is by no means clear that the Obama-ites will stage a health-reform rally to score in the part of the Congressional game called reconciliation.   

 

Reconciliation, a set play dating from 1974, allows bills to be revised and adjusted if the effort is designed to cut costs.  Team GOP says the Dems would be off-base by resorting to reconciliation; it’s “little-used,” and “controversial,” they say, and would be a discredit to the team using it.

 

But a one-two punch of Paul Blumenthal, swinging for the Sunlight Foundation, and NY Times-produced stats showed that the r-game has been used in the Senate 15 times since 1980.  Nearly two-thirds of those times, the plays were triggered by Team GOP.  Why the Democrats don’t make more of this record is a mystery (unless it has something to do with campaign contributions).  UK Guardian lefty Michael Tomasky fires away in frustration, including some name-calling in his pitch: “I can write (the history of reconciliation), which is all well and good.  But modest suggestion: How about, y'know, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer and other Democratic senators saying it?”

 

As many of his NY constituents have noticed, Schumer seems to disappear from the field when crunch issues, like those challenging corporate interests, are in play.  On the other hand, if an initiative doesn’t have a chance, like health reform’s public option, “Where’s Charlie?” is loudly front and center.

                         

                           -     -     -

How would you like to be Omar Minaya, hanging by a thread with the Mets, after reading this assessment of the deal he orchestrated with the Mariners and Indians before last season?  The Globe’s Nick Cafardo focuses his critique on ex-Indian Franklin Gutierrez; Omar knows that’s cold comfort for Fred and Jeff Wilpon.  Here’s Cafardo’s take:

 

“Seattle put a nickel in the slot machine and hit the jackpot in that Dec. 11, 2008, three-team deal that brought Gutierrez from the Indians, plus outfielder Endy Chavez, lefthanded pitcher Jason Vargas, reliever Aaron Heilman (later flipped for pitcher Garrett Olson), first baseman Mike Carp, outfielder Ezequiel Carrera, and pitcher Maikel Cleto from the Mets.  In exchange, Seattle sent J.J. Putz, reliever Sean Green, and outfielder Jeremy Reed to the Mets, plus infielder Luis Valbuena to the Indians. How’s the deal working out? Gutierrez may be the best center fielder in the game; Cleto is one of the hardest throwers in the Mariners’ system; Carrera hit .337 in Double A to win a batting title last season and is in major league camp; Olson and Vargas are contending for the fifth starter job. The guys Seattle gave away have fizzled, with Putz having elbow issues last season.”

 

More unsettling news for Minaya from the Chi Tribune’s Phil Rogers: “The Cubs shrug off the Mets' late signing of reliever Kiko Calero. They were close to adding him to a thin bullpen but backed off after thoroughly exploring the health of his arm. He could be this year's J.J. Putz for the Mets — minus the horribly one-sided trade that obtained Putz from the Mariners.”                                 

 

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(Posted: 3/6/10)

 

Will Team Obama Heed Bunning’s Warning Pitch?

 

Jim Bunning was known as a chin-music pitcher, who warned batters early not to ignore his sizzling signal and try to crowd the plate.  Through the years as he went from a Hall of Fame baseball career to the political game in Kentucky - including two-and-a-half decades in the House and Senate - Bunning has remained an aggressive competitor.  His latest pitch contained a warning to Skipper Obama and his Dem team that their money-ball game was a losing one.  

 

Bunning made headlines by refusing to give a pass to the Senate’s stopgap extension of unemployment benefits.   He hung in there against criticism from members of his own GOP team and the Dems.  The media understandably played up his hard-headedness, but   there was more than that to Bunning’s game.  Just as he opposed the quick-pitch bank bailout, which caused the deficit to spiral without bringing relief to plain people, he wanted to insure a more controlled - and responsible - delivery of jobless benefits.  In true conservative fashion, he demanded to know where the money was coming from (a pitch he finally gave up on).

 

Lefty hitter Robert Scheer (of TruthDig.com) says the role of the bailout was overlooked in the criticism of Bunning: “The senator was made to look the dangerous fool in media accounts while many of those who enabled the financial catastrophe continue to be treated as reasonable experts after being rewarded for their folly with the highest posts in both the Bush and Obama administrations…(The bailout) is the same issue that carried Texas Gov. Rick Perry to victory Tuesday in his state's Republican gubernatorial primary, in which he defeated U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in part because of her support of the bank bailout.  As with the January defeat of the Democratic candidate in the Massachusetts election for a U.S. Senate seat, the message from voters (burned in by Bunning) is loud and clear: the political establishment cares only about the fat cats and not the people who are hurting.”

A familiar mainstream message from the right side of the diamond that Skipper Obama and the Dem team would do well to heed.

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The Mets front office has endured many damaging lessons over the last few years. NY Postman Joel Sherman suggests those lessons have gone unheeded.  He says the recent fingerpointing at ex-VP Tony Bernazard is the tipoff: “Scapegoating the recently dismissed is an art form around the Mets.  It was not long ago when everything that had gone wrong was Steve Phillips’ fault or Jim Duquette’s or Art Howe’s or . . .

“Fred Wilpon showed up earlier in this camp to say the baseball operations department picked the players who tanked in 2009, not ownership. Of course, ownership hired all the executives who picked players, including Bernazard.  That lack of accountability is so 2009, and makes me wonder if it already has bled into 2010.  Are we nearing when Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel will get the Bernazard treatment, losing their jobs and being blamed for everything wrong as a shield against ownership ever taking full responsibility for how this franchise operates?”

The spring training hype is hard to bear in these early weeks before injuries begin cropping up and reality starts to set in.  Future stars are in the pre-fizzle stage, emerging everywhere.  (One, however, Jason Heyward of the Braves, seen on SNY the other day, looks to be authentic.)  Two veteran players recently signed by the Dodgers and Mets are worth noting in a positive vein despite our abhorrence of the seasonal oversell: Garret Anderson figures to be an asset to the Dodgers as a reserve outfielder.  He put up respectable stats with the Braves last year - .268, 13 HRs, 61 RBIs in 135 games.  Kiko Calero pitched well in relief for the ’09 Marlins – 2-2, 1.95 ERA, striking out 69 in 60 innings while walking only 30.  It will be a surprise if he doesn’t bolster the Mets’ bullpen.

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(Posted: 3/2/10)

 

Hidden Deals Are Hurting Both National Pastimes

 

Back-room deals are the bane of baseball and politics.  Ball fans continue to puzzle over why in one division – the NL Central – teams have a 16 percent chance of winning, while in the AL West they have a 25 percent chance?  Many Americans wonder why, despite the apparent decision of the Dem team to swing out alone in support of health care reform, the public option seems to have no chance of winning enactment in Congress.

 

The answer in both cases: front-office arrangements made without consulting fans in the respective fields.  To avoid complicating the six-division scheduling process, baseball’s decision-makers agreed among themselves to saddle the NL Central with six teams, and the AL West with only four.  The idea of shifting an NLC team like Houston to the ALW, which would have numerically equalized all six divisions, was called back before getting to bat. 

 

In a much more crucial play, Team Obama apparently sacrificed the public option last summer to advance the interest of the insurance industry in the health reform effort.  Firedoglake.com fireballer Jane Hamsher tossed this sizzler at the home team: “The idea that the (Democrats woul)d even try to pass (the bill) using reconciliation without a public option, after months of insisting they couldn’t include a public option because gosh darn it there just weren’t 60 votes in the Senate, is insane…

 

“The public option is substantially more popular than the Senate/White House bill.  Now that only 50 votes are needed, there is no good argument to be made for even trying to pass a bill without one — it’s simply a way to pay off Rahm Emanuel’s back room deals.”

 

Even avid supporters concede that the public option is of symbolic rather than substantive importance.  It would set up federal-supported competition to the insurance companies but be available only to a miniscule fraction of the national client pool.  Nevertheless, a public option would be a spikehold in what has been an exploitative private fiefdom.

 

The LA Angels have dominated the three other teams in the AL West the way insurance outfits have controlled the national health care field.  The Angels were division winners in five of the last six years, and they won a world championship in 2002.  A fifth team would not immediately change the balance of power, but it would let air into, and enliven, what has been a constricted division.

                               -     -     -

Chad Moeller, who has played with seven teams as a backup catcher (mostly) over a 10-year career, has a future as author of an inside-baseball book.  How do we know?  Timesman Tyler Kepner picked Moeller’s brain at the Orioles’ Florida training camp and elicited interesting takes on pitchers Chad has caught. Here is some of the chatter:

 

Brandon Webb (D-backs): “I was always amazed at what (he) could make a (fast)ball do.  He’d say ‘I just grabbed the ball like this. It just does it.’  I’m like, ‘Seriously, Brandon, that ball’s dropping a foot and a half.’…  You’d watch other guys do it, and they’d get this cute little cut, he does it and it has more break than his curveball.”

 

Curt Schilling:  “Curt wanted information.  If I saw something, he wanted to know it.  From the first day on he respected my opinion, and for a catcher, that was outstanding.  He expected a lot out of you… but it was fun…He wanted someone who cared as much about what happened…as he did.”

 

Mariano Rivera (Yankees):  “Easiest guy I’ve ever caught.  You know where the ball’s going to be every time.  And it’s just amazing that everybody knows what’s coming and nobody’s going to square it up.  He’s thrown the same

pitch over and over, and nobody’s done anything with it yet.”

 

Add to our list of ex-NY players – Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, Billy Wagner – we miss:  Melky Cabrera (now, like Wagner, with the Braves), J.J. Putz (White Sox).

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February 2010 Archive

 

(Posted: 2/27/10)

 

Billy Beane’s and Team Obama’s ‘Revenue Stream’ Problem

 

<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->Before he persuaded oft-injured Ben Sheets to take $10 million to sign with the A’s, GM Billy Beane wondered “if anyone wants to play here (in Oakland).”  His grubby ballpark is no bargain, but it’s the team’s budget – about a third of what the Yankees can afford in payroll – that keeps free agents away.
Skipper Obama and his Democratic team are facing a similar problem on the political field: the Dems are losing key players like Evan Bayh and seeing their fan base erode, in part, because government doesn’t have the financial (or promotional) clout it once had.  And that has hurt performance at all playing levels.
For Billy Beane and core Democrats, and for the good of baseball and government, the team approach has long been seen as the way the game should be played.  On the other side of the field, team owners and most Republicans have successfully argued that we individuals should be in the catbird seat, entitled to keep what we’ve earned.  Thus baseball, the quintessential family sport, cannot get agreement to make all teams competitive for the benefit of fans, young and old.  And government has to resort to small ball to improve the well-being of its national family.

Earlier this week, NY Times slugger Paul Krugman swung out against the squeeze-play strategy employed on the political diamond: “Rather than propos(e) unpopular spending cuts, Republicans…push through popular tax cuts with the deliberate intention of worsening the government’s fiscal position.  Spending cuts (are) then sold as a necessity…the only way to eliminate a…budget deficit.”   How far toward the right-field corner has the game turned?  Well, according to the IRS, the country’s top 400 earners in 2007 - averaging about $345 million – paid 16.6 percent in income taxes.  That compares with a tax rate of 91 percent  paid by top earners in the 1950’s.   It was a rare period of broad affluence, with few complaints in the political field about the Eisenhower-era economy.  Baseball fans then had more reason to be unhappy about inequality than they are today: the Yankees played in eight of the decade’s 10 World Series, winning six of them!

<!--[endif]-->

Team Obama would like to see the top tax rate curve sharply upward.  But it’s a tough pitch to make: any talk of investment in, or a “revenue stream” to provide public services and other improvements – another name for taxes – is sent to the showers, by many Dems as well as Repubs..

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Seven players in the Tampa Bay farm system were among Baseball America’s 100 top prospects list.  The Cubs had the second most numerous prospects on the list, with five. The Yankees only placed two, but catcher Jesus Montero was number four overall.  The Mets had four, but all from the lower half of the list.  Three Red Sox prospects made the “top” category, as did three from Oakland affiliates.  Touted outfielder Jason Heyward, from the Atlanta system, was tabbed as the number one overall comer.

 

SI’s Joe Posnanski loves spring training because of the hype associated with it.  The KC Royals have provided him with this early puff of what he considers unreality:

 

“They're trying to make (Kyle) Farnsworth into a starter…It's the perfect spring training story.  Farnsworth comes into camp with a brand new change-up -- and the Royals are AMAZED by how advanced that change-up looks. ‘I couldn't believe it,’ pitching coach Bob McClure says.  Farnsworth comes into camp enthused -- he LOVES the opportunity to start again for the first time in 10 years. And the Royals talk on and on about how this makes perfect sense.  Farnsworth still has the great arm! He might be reborn as a starter!

 

“Of course, it has about a 1.3% chance of working -- that's on the high end. Kyle Farnsworth will be a 34-year-old pitcher with a career (4.47) ERA+ and a strong tendency to not get people out when he's throwing 98 mph -- hard to see how he's going to get people out throwing 92.

 

“But it's February.  It's spring training.  It's that time to hope for the impossible.  And, so, I love this story.  Can Kyle Farnsworth become a successful starter?  Hey, crazier things have happened! Though, I must admit, none immediately comes to mind.”

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(Posted 2/23/10)

Bracing for Bad Calls by Judicial as Well as Baseball Umpires

It’s the 25^th-anniversary season of the worst umpiring call in baseball history.  The “safe” call by Don Denkinger in the bottom of the ninth of the sixth game of the 1985 Cardinals-Royals World Series helped change the final outcome:  Instead of St.Louis winning in six games – the Cards were ahead 1-0 when the blown call occurred – the Royals went on to win in seven.

No one ever accused Denkinger of being involved in a fix, but judicial umpires - elected judges in districts throughout the country - will surely not be so lucky.  A recent Supreme Court ruling by a 5-4 score opens the judicial field to possible corruption: it gives corporate teams the right to support candidates for the bench, putting those teams in position to get the robed umpires on their side.  As for the judges, if they win thanks to the clout of business cash, they’ll be on the spot: should they decide cases favorably for their well-heeled benefactors, how could the public not suspect a fix?  More crucially, the infamous 5-4 decision compromises the cause of justice.  That’s a call no one can dispute.

As scrutinized on Bill Moyers Journal last weekend, the case in question, known as Citizens United, constituted a drastic departure from the High Court’s normal practice of following precedent.  The player widely believed to have started the activist ball rolling was the Chief Justice himself John Roberts.  It was the same Roberts who at his confirmation hearing four-and-a-half years ago renounced judicial activism in baseball terms: "I'm just like a baseball umpire,” he said. “I don't make the rules, I just call balls and strikes.  “Nobody ever went to the game to see the umpire,” Roberts added. “Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath.”

An expert scorekeeper of High Court games, author and New Yorker staffer Jeffrey Toobin predicts that pitch by Roberts “will live in infamy…I think (he believes) that…entire areas of the law…need to be changed…fixed and…improved.”  The chief justice “is acting more like (a)…baseball (czar) than an umpire,” Toobin noted on the Moyers Journal. 

Who is going to stop Roberts and his core teammates from driving such decisive hits to extreme right field?  Congress hopes for the moment that proposed legislation requiring full disclosure of corporate and labor contributors will lessen the impact of the Citizens United ruling.  But the effect of such a law on low-visibility judicial contests will surely be minimal.  Or, in the disquieting words of scorekeeper Toobin: “Judicial elections are really a national scandal that few people… know about.”   Perhaps, thanks to Moyers, a few more know now, and the word will get around.

The mini-scandal of bad baseball calls - like the many made during the 2009 playoffs (and exposed by TV replays) - is at last being addressed by the commissioner’s office.  In time, baseball will use the available technology to correct most, if not all, human-error calls.  The key question: for how many more seasons will the umpires successfully resist official challenges to their blunders?
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Nub-bites:

It says here the signing of Johnny Damon edges the Tigers on to the top layer of the AL Central mix.  We know JD’s alternate name is“W-i-n-n-e-r.”

Damon is one of several active ex-NY players we wish were still on local rosters: Hideki Matsui is another, Billy Wagner a third.  We suspect the investments made in that trio by the Tigers, Angels and Braves will pay off handsomely.

The Red Sox seem to be overly hopeful of what Mike Cameron can add to the team.  At 37, Cameron can’t be much of an improvement – if any – over Jacoby Ellsbury in center field.  And Mike hasn’t repaired the mechanics that have made him a strikeout machine:  he has k’d in well over 30 percent of his career AB’s.  Last year with Milwaukee, Cameron whiffed more than a third of the time.

The news from Mets owner Fred Wilpon’s press conference in Florida came in two catergories: bad and worse.  The bad: he didn’t say a word about the club’s most glaring issue – its unproductive farm system.  Worse:  The boss repeated his plan to keep the team in the family and not sell.  That means Mets fans must adjust to the idea of Jeff Wilpon running things for the foreseeable future.  Of course, if the Wilpons won’t move on, the fans can.  And that could well begin to happen this season.
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 2/20/10)

Will NY Skipper Paterson Be Forced to Join Delgado on Retired List?

At the end of a news-sparse 12-day road trip, we asked security people at the San Juan, PR airport about Carlos Delgado.  Had the ex-Met found a team that wanted him?  No, we were told; the consensus was “He’s going to retire.”  On arriving home, we found the NY Times doing its best to nudge another veteran, local political player David Paterson, into retirement. 

Three Times pitchers yesterday delivered a three-column front-pager whose 59 paragraphs covered an entire inside page (along with two photos, one of which low-bridged the state skipper) about how “remote” the NY governor has become.  Two days earlier, you may remember, there was a more egregious play: the paper filled four of six columns at the top of its first page with a vaguely sinister-looking photo of Paterson and a “confidant.” The story below the pic ran 54 columns with a jump to an inside page and involved six reporters; it examined in minute detail the checkered background of the confidential aide, David Johnson. There was more than enough to suggest questionable judgment on Paterson’s part and to further send reeling the skipper’s already slim hopes of digging in as governor.  

As attentive political fans know, the stories mattered little; the photos – four all told, two of which showed Paterson in an unfavorable light - drove home the anti-incumbent message.  The Old Gray Lzdy has come a long way from the days she shunned tabloid journalism.  Whatever their validity, the bean ball aimded at Paterson by the Times seemed to connect to a more and more undisciplined media game.  A prominent ex-state legislator warned at a meeting in Manhattan Thursday night of a bad outcome. "We are becoming," he said, "a propaganda society."

Delgado has plenty of company on the free-agent remainder list.  Former Met teammate and recent Phillies starter Pedro Martinez is among still-available pitchers, as are John Smoltz and Jarrod Washburn; all can presumably be had at bargain rates.  Brett Tomko and Chan Ho Park are two other marginally successful ’09 pitchers looking for work. Position players of note still unsigned include outfielders Jermaine Dye, Garret Anderson, and Rocco Baldelli; first baseman Hank Blalock; infielders Joe Crede, Rich Aureilia and Nomar Garciaparra, and catcher Rod Barajas. All those, and the most prominent - and potentially expensive - available prize of the bunch: Johnny Damon.

                                          -     -     -

             SI’s Joe Posnanski says what we all know, that the Phillies are the best team in the NL.  As for the AL, here is a take that tickles – his on the Yankees: “Loaded.  And loaded.  And on top of that: Loaded.  Take last year's team -- maybe the best team of the decade -- and add Curtis Granderson and Javier Vazquez.  Did I say loaded?”

How is baseball doing in Puerto Rico?  This distanced first-hand report contains a clue: more than a dozen lighted, diamond-studded ballparks sparkled the other night in San Juan (as seen from above).
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(Posted: 2/2/10)

Laid-Back Mets and Team Obama Looking for Leadership

After a season of Mets’ misreadings – the amount needed for a number 2 starter, first-string catcher, etc. – the team (but not the rest of us) could find solace in a remarkable strategic bobble by the people’s skipper.  President Obama confessed to Time magazine that he had “overestimated” his ability to persuade the Israelis and Palestinians to play ball together.  The admission suggests lack of focus on a crucial game.  It preceded the part of the skipper’s State of the Union pep talk in which he distinguished between “good short-term politics” and “leadership.”

The Mets likely blew their chances for minimal competitiveness when, with nobody taking charge, they let Randy Wolf, Joel Piniero and Bengie Molina get away.  We know they did complete a good (for the moment), multi-year corporate play when they signed Jason Bay.  If someone in the front office – Omar Minaya, Jeff Wilpon, someone – had focused on the farm system, the Mets might not be so poorly positioned for the 2010 season.

When the skipper contrasted Team GOP’s short-term political game to leadership, he left the ball over the plate.  On the foreign affairs field, he not only failed to be leaderly when Team Netanyahu took liberties in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, he allowed a right-wing outfit to overthrow a democratically elected president in Honduras.  Barack was nowhere in sight as those plays unfolded.  Back on his home turf, the skipper’s unwillingness to replace oft-booed economic coaches Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Ben Bernanke suggests that, Mets-like, Team Obama has no bench. “We Believe in Comebacks,” the poignant new Mets slogan, thus applies to Team Obama.  We suggest this hopeful variation: “A Comeback You Can Believe In”.
                      -     -     -
How about misreadings between the Yankees and Johnny Damon?  The Globe’s Bob Ryan almost wishes they had gotten together on a contract. Almost: “The…divorce is a tremendously welcome development in the rivalry.  (It) is, without question, the most foolish split in recent baseball history.  The farther Johnny Damon is from the Yankees, the better things will be for the Red Sox and their fans.  The Yankees need Johnny Damon and Johnny Damon needs the Yankees.  They may think they'll be just fine with Nick (Ming Vase) Johnson replacing Damon in the No. 2 spot in the batting order, but that's a laughable delusion. Yes, Johnson is an OBP guy.  But he ain't Johnny Damon, who had developed a swing for the new Yankee Stadium that guaranteed him 20-25 homers as long as he remained a Yankee or turned 45, whichever came first.

“But what exactly is the matter with Damon? Does he think he will ever again be able to bat in a comparable batting order in which he hits behind Derek Jeter and in front of Mark Teixeira and A-Rod?... Hey, that's New York's problem. The Yankees cannot be as good a team with Nick Johnson and Brett Gardner as they would have been with Johnny Damon and Johnny Damon.”

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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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The Nub will be away on a road trip, returning for pitchers and catchers. 

    

January 2010 Archive

(Posted: 1/30/10)

High Court Backs a Hit at Hillary as it Did a Swing Against Flood

The names of Hillary Clinton and baseball hero Curt Flood will be linked forever, thanks to seismic Supreme Court decisions – one last week, the other 38 years ago.  The court’s 5-4 decision in the “Hillary: The Movie” case liberated corporations from the need to curb money spent on political candidates.  By a 5-3 count, the court refused, in the 1972 “Flood v. Kuhn” case, to free players from baseball’s reserve clause.  That clause, an anti-trust law exception, made the players team property, denying them the right to sell their services on the open market.

Flood would have turned 72 last week, reason enough to remember him and his historic case.  But first, a between-innings…
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Lob from Left Field on a subject the Skipper avoided Wednesday night:

“When (Obama) became president, there can hardly have been any American holder of public office who did not understand that the United States had either to tell the Palestinians to give up the two-states solution (and prepare for emigration or apartheid), or to inform Benjamin Netanyahu that it was all over for the settlements, and that if he wished to continue to be Washington’s best friend he must sign, on the spot, that long-negotiated two-states draft agreement…  President Obama’s failure has astonished the international public and left in despair those Americans who can scarcely believe that a whole year has been irresponsibly wasted.”  –William Pfaff, International Herald Tribune
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Repercussions of the Flood decision led within a few years to free agency for players.  Whether there will be unintended consequences of the Hillary ruling remains to be seen. The skipper made clear Wednesday night that he hopes so.  Chairman Barney Frank of the House Finance Committee suggested on MSNBC a few days earlier that Congress might well require corporations to seek shareholders’ permission before spending what is their - the investors’ - money on candidates.

The corporations can thank the conservative corporate team that made the Hillary movie for insisting it was a documentary and not a partisan political vehicle subject to campaign finance laws.  The team believed in its case, as Flood did in his.  Although Flood lost, his willingness to fight to end what he called “well-paid slavery” made millionaires out of a great many major league ballplayers who came after him.  As for Flood himself…

To press his case, with union help, he had to give up his livelihood.  A black man from a modest Oakland, CA background, he could have earned almost $100,000 with the Phillies in 1970 had he agreed to a trade from the Cardinals.  His decision to sit out that season and the next left him nearly destitute before the case reached the High Court in ‘72.  When the justices upheld baseball’s monopoly,  Flood was reduced to a life on, sometimes over, the edge.  For sacrificing to secure economic justice for ballplayers, something he himself could never hope to benefit from, Flood wound up scrimping, drinking, suffering a series of marital breakups and experiencing always the sense of ostracism from the game he loved.  He couldn’t get a steady job with a team or even with the players union. 

When we asked the great former players union chief Marvin Miller about the poor treatment Flood received in his last years - he died in 1997 at the age of 59 – Miller disputed that the union didn’t do enough.  The evidence – as set forth in lawyer/author Brad Snyder’s meticulously researched “A Well-Paid Slave” (Plume Books) – indicates otherwise.  The union helped Flood wage his legal fight, but it failed to get its members still active in the game to publicly support him.  The players he had fought for seemed afraid to be associated with the man their bosses deplored as a troublemaker.  Not a single one agreed to testify in the reserve-clause case.

Those same owners have been generous in celebrating the professional lives of the likes of Jackie Robinson and Ted Williams, players who had been their property.  The players union has yet to insist that mlb do right by Flood, the man who completed the baseball revolution that started when Robinson put on a uniform.  Flood finished it – in the words of Brad Snyder – “by taking his off.”

Not the Mets Again!  Last week it was Joel Piniero and Bengie Molina, this week the Mets lost Ben Sheets and Jon Garland.  Well, there’s still Eric Bedard, John Smoltz and Jarrod Washburn among free-agent pitchers Jeff Wilpon could settle for.  The boss’s son is being blamed for not dealing promptly for the best available players.  We can hear him saying “You’d be slow to move, too, if your GM had committed a total of $18 million this season alone for Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo.”  The obvious reason GM Omar Minaya hasn’t been moved…out…is that his three-year contract worth about $6 million has just kicked in.  A further sign money is short: Fernando Tatis is back

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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 1/26/10)

Team GOP Now Like the Yankees, Only More So

By midsummer last season, 40 percent of major league teams had no realistic chance to make the playoffs.  By midsummer this electoral season, the Democrats will be lucky if only 40 percent of their Congressional candidates are clearly on their way to defeat.

Money is making the difference in both fields, now more than ever.  The Yankees have three of the seven best-paid players in baseball – Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, and Derek Jeter – and four other “have” teams, the Mets, Red Sox, Dodgers and Cardinals, employ the others (Jason Bay, John Lackey, Manny Rodriguez and Matt Holliday).  It will be no surprise if, owing to top-heaviness, baseball attendance drops this season for a second year in a row. 

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for the top-heavy corporate hitters like Exxon-Mobil, Wal-Mart, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and General Electric (Fortune 500’s first five) to spend the candidates they support to victory.  The nine-judge team, by a 5-4 margin, said corporate lineups have a free-speech right to hit with as many dollars as they want behind selected players.  The danger of the decision resulting in a damaging political double play - a rise in one-sided contests and a decline in voter participation - is real.

The newly allowed money will give Team GOP a Yanks-like edge in adding to its Congressional roster.  Fans in the left field see decisive support for players with an anti-government agenda skewing the electoral field.  Fans in right field, like the NY Times’ David Brooks, don’t like the ruling for a different reason.   Here is the pitch Brooks delivered on the PBS Newshour:

“I think it is a bad decision. I do -- I think it will have a poisonous effect on political atmosphere…What do corporations want when they go to Washington?...  They want to crush small businesses who are hoping to compete with them by erecting regulatory hurdles.  So, I think they will use that money to try to essentially hurt small business, who don't have lobbyists, don't have money to spend.”   

So the news may be particularly good for the Wal-Marts in the influence game, and bad for Mom-and-Pop teams.

In baseball, the outlook remains bleak for the Mom-and-Pop equivalents in small markets, and the hopes for broader competition.  Peter Gammons laid out aspects of the problem on the MLB Network: “The economy in Cleveland is stagnating the Indians' energetic organization.  Major League Baseball is gravely concerned about the future of the Rays, who last year realized little bump from their 2008 run.  A respected organization industry-wide, the Rays are stuck in a (bad) ballpark and location....  Pittsburgh is trying to be aggressive in the domestic and foreign talent pools, spending the money to get top scouts and development people, but has yet to show progress. MLB still isn't certain that the Marlins' new facility will make Miami a viable baseball market.”

Doubts about the long-term viability of Jason Bay continue to emanate from Red Sox Nation.  After Bay told a Boston broadcaster last week that the Sox wanted to include too many medical provisions in the four-year contract he rejected, questions resurfaced about his suspect shoulder and knees.  Team doctor Thomas Gill didn’t like what he saw during tests of the outfielder.  The Globe’s Nick Cafardo notes the doctor’s track record: “Gill is the same doctor who after looking over Pedro Martinez’s medical history advised the Sox that, based on what he saw, Martinez would likely break down and have a major shoulder issue.  Well, about 1 1/2 years into his contract with the Mets - the same Mets who have signed off on Bay’s issues - guess what happened?”

Other ballgames:  The run-up to the Jets-Colts game reminded us of the run-up to Iraq: pro-Jets media hype - like the pro-war hysteria - out of control. This enemy had a WMD – Peyton Manning.  The result of the Vikes-Saints game seemed foreordained when it went to overtime.  Joe Buck and Troy Aikman noted often that Brett Favre had taken many hard hits.  What they didn’t say was the obvious: By overtime, the 40-year-old Favre had to be exhausted.
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 1/23/10)

Baseball and Politics Need ‘Fannies in the Seats’

Had Barack Obama heeded George Steinbrenner, his first year as skipper might have been different.  “You measure the value of a ballplayer,” Steinbrenner said years ago, “by how many fannies he puts in the seats.”

In his pre-skipper days, Obama flashed his spikes on the political basepaths and swung for the fences.  The excitement he brought to the field energized fans, attracting them – and their fannies - in huge numbers. Then, as of a year ago, the skipper decided a new strategy was needed: he elected to play small ball with his team, an offense featuring sacrifices, safety squeezes – cautious ways to gain a scoring edge.  The result: game at a near-standstill, owing both to Team Obama’s caution and the hardball defense of the other side.  Meanwhile, the once-cheering fans in left field slipped away; it was not the type of game the pre-skipper led them to believe he’d play. 

From a political standpoint, the game is only in the bottom of the third inning.  The skipper’s task now, observers on the left agree, is to return to what brought him early success – winning the fannies back with a tough, hard-hitting game that takes out GOP opponents who get in the way.  The first order of business: a pep talk.  Lefty tactician William Greider, of the Nation, suggests what the skipper should say:

“Obama's turn-around speech would declare--honestly--that he misjudged the situation.  The damage is far worse than he originally realized. Some deeper structural changes are required.  The political opposition is more than ever blindly resistant… But now Obama can promise to govern nose-to-nose against the political forces blocking everything he attempts. He may not prevail, he concedes. But he is going to throw himself at them and he asks the people to join him in the fight.”

That Obama had hard-nosed Paul Volcker and not Tim Geithner with him Thursday when he took on the big banks reinforced the sense that the skipper has already adopted a tougher political stance.  If he carries through, he could recapture the magnetic you-can-believe aura that surrounded him in spring training a short while ago.  His fans did believe and were sure he would bring dramatic change when the season started.   His challenge now is to prove, however belatedly, that they weren’t wrong.  The fannies wait in the wings and fingers are crossed.
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The Mets front office must have thought its mishandling of the Carlos Beltran-surgery story was as bad as week could get.  That was last week; Omar Minaya and Jeff Wilpon learned this week that they waited too long to sign two of the last free agents with more than marginal value – catcher  Bengie Molina and pitcher Joel Piniero.  The pair were snapped up by the Giants and Angels, respectively.  That leaves the Mets without a credible catcher or capable number two starter.  They are adding a decent backup to Beltran in Gary Matthews, Jr., obtained from the Angels.  But pitching and catching is the pressing need.  We’re betting the team’s crack PR man Jay Horwitz will contrive to generate interest despite the roster shortcomings.  Whether his work will lure a sufficient number of fans to the Citi Field seats is another story. 
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(Posted: 1/19/10)

The Missing Player on NY’s Progressive Political Team

Branch Rickey, the man who desegregated baseball, called them “anesthetic” players.  They were name players who had stopped producing but still made teams feel good having them in the lineup.  Rickey would get rid of those players just before or soon after they fell into the feel-good-but stage of their careers.  New York state has had an anesthetic political player on the U.S. Senate team since 1999.  Chuck Schumer will run for a third term this year on a record of having talked a good game, but…

Chuck, a supposed lefty, has disappeared in the game to make Wall Street more accountable to taxpayers.  Some see a connection between that absence and his fund-raising scorecard: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Schumer’s been on the receiving end of more than $2 million in contributions from financial, insurance and real estate industries during his current term.  Chuck did go to bat for private equity and hedge-fund firms before the housing bubble burst, however.  He came out swinging against the proposed closing of a multi-billion-dollar tax loophole those firms enjoyed.  Thanks, in great part to Schumer, it’s a perk they are still benefiting from. 

It was Chuck, we remember, who saw in the Team Bush appointment of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general a positive step, and sponsored the candidacy of another torture-supporter, Michael Mukasey, as Homeland Security chief.  And how can anyone forget Schumer’s support of war-powers for Bush and his silence on the decision to invade Iraq and its disastrous aftermath?

In fairness, NY’s senior senator has been an effective party insider, an astute national campaign organizer.  And he has said the right things on health care reform and the need for a public option.  But you’ll be hard put in checking his website to find any stances on tough issues: announcements of grants, programs, proposed legislation and calls for improved security, yes.  His ability to take safe stands, say the right things and attract media coverage have all but assured his re-election.  But New York progressives expect better.  To them, despite his flair, Schumer remains an overrated, anesthetic player whose performance deserves to be constantly scrutinized and challenged.
                        -     -     -
The hot stove baseball season has been dotted with deals involving post-anesthetic players – those who have demonstrated that they’ve declined from even their feel-good,  unproductive days.  Two former Mets are in that category – lefty Bruce Chen, now with Kansas City, has been with 10 teams since 1998.  He’s 36-43 since he broke in, and was 1-6 last season with KC.  Chen will be 33 in June.  Righty reliever Luis Ayala will only be 29 this season, but he’s bounced among six teams since 2003, including the Dodgers, who just signed him.  He was 1-5 with Minnesota and Florida last year, 29-39 overall.  His career ERA: 3.67, high for a reliever.   

Sports Illustrated’s Tim Marchman believes the Reds made a risky six-year, $30-million investment in untried Cuban-exile fireballer Arnoldis Chapman.  But that doesn’t mean he thinks Cincinnati fans are being shortchanged: “For all (my reservations), I love this deal.  I love that the Reds are laying marks on real talent rather than squandering $5 million on Kyle Farnsworth or someone like him.  I love that Reds fans are (rightly) so excited about this.  I love that Chapman can finally start thinking about the best players in the world rather than worrying about money.  Mostly I love that it was the Reds, rather than the Yankees or Angels, who signed him.”

Farnsworth, another post-anesthetic type, will be returning to Kansas City after an injury-marred ’09 season.  He pitched in only 41 games (compared to his usual 60’s or 70’s) and had a 1-5 record with an ERA of 4.58.
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(Posted: 1/16/10)

A Guilt-Tinged Cheer for ‘Game Change’

We were among the (apparently) few fans turned off by the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa race for the mlb home run record late in 1998. And the steroid suspicions were only part of the story.  It was infuriating at the time that no one seemed to care about the pennant races; you couldn’t get game-day team scores, only whether Mark or Sammy hit one.

We wish we felt the same dismay over another tainted distraction, this in the political field.  The book “Game Change”, another example of the media’s failure to keep its eye on the ball, sucked us in; its mix of cheap head-hunting and dirty take-outs too tasty to ignore. There’s nothing like petty sideline action to take a fan’s mind off what’s really going on in the political game. 

The media made it easy for fans and non-fans alike to become mesmerized by the mano-a-mano heroics of McGwire and Sosa. But the account of a pre-game warmup to a key political one-on-one contest in “Game Change” received surprisingly minimum play.    Co-author John Heileman talked of the incident the other night while defending the book to Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert.  He said the disclosure that, in 2006, Majority Leader Harry Reid urged then-freshman Senator Barack Obama to challenge Hillary Clinton for the presidency was an important historical footnote.  In retrospect, it does suggest the depth and strength of the party’s desire to find an alternative to Hillary in 2008. 

Still, most of the book is bush-league stuff, says Salon’s Glenn Greenwald.  He says those of us seduced by “Game Change” fail to see its demeaning significance:

“The real value of a book like this lies in the opportunity it presents for Washington's elite class to distract themselves and everyone else from the oozing corruption, destruction, decaying and pillaging going on -- that these same Washington denizens have long enabled.  With some important exceptions, that is the primary purpose of establishment journalism generally.  Even better, the book lets our media and political elite -- and then the public generally -- feel good about themselves by morally condemning the trashy exploits of Rielle Hunter and the egoistic hypocrisies of the (now) irrelevant John and Elizabeth Edwards.”

Point driven home.  Also true: the book offers political fans a ballpark-full of guilty pleasures.
                           -     -     -
We know that the Mets, as constituted, were going nowhere with or without Carlos Beltran early in the season.  His absence while recovering from knee surgery may affect  attendance and make it a bit harder for the team to achieve third place in the NL East.

The injury could also jeopardize Beltran’s earning potential when his Mets contract runs out after next season.  At 34 then, with brittleness in his history, he’ll be unlikely to get the $17 million-per deal he received from the Mets five years ago.  What else did we see confirmed in the Beltran rhubarb?  That the Mets front-office is in much worse disarray than the team.

Post-season deals may have left baseball with potential adjustments in divisional balance, but there’s been little in the way of true “game change.”  As we’ve noted, the Yankees and Red Sox figure to repeat in the AL East, the Phillies and Cardinals ditto in the NL East, Central.  The Mariners, with recruits Cliff Lee and Chone Figgins, come as close as any team to possessing a roster of potential game-changers.  The NL West mix, as we saw last time, can be expected to include the Giants, the AL Central the usual three (or more) - team donnybrook.   The outlook, all and all, is for a 2010 season devoid of  upstart-caused drama.  Old money will play a major role, as usual. That won’t stop us from poring over the daily box scores.

Extra-Inning Lob from Left Field:  “If you care about fiscal responsibility, you have to favor raising taxes.  But whose taxes? The truth is that we've had a large income and wealth shift in the United  States, in favor of not just the rich in general but the financial sector in particular.  We are overtaxing wage and salary income relative to investment income, and overtaxing the manufacturing and service sectors relative to the financial industry.  It's why Warren Buffett has said he's taxed at a lower rate than his receptionist.

“Moving the tax burden toward the financial sector is thus a matter of both justice and political necessity.  The best thing that could happen to Obama would be for him to have a fight or two with Wall Street and the big banks on behalf of balancing the budget.  It is precisely the way to shake off both ends of the (charge he is a) Wall Street Liberal.” – E.J. Dionne, New Republic
                           - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 1/12/10)

Who Will Be NY State’s Designated Political Hitter?

Get ready for baseball metaphors as NY state politics approaches a meaningful moment this May.  That’s when the Democratic team will decide whether to let David Paterson  stay on as its designated hitter in the contest for governor or send its player with better stats, Andrew Cuomo, to the plate instead. 

If Cuomo goes to bat, it apparently will only be after Steve Levy, up from Suffolk County, takes his swings in the on-deck circle opposite Paterson.  Levy is seen as less a threat to David than a buffer for Andrew: Cuomo needs cover if he is to go against a black teammate for the second time in eight years. Dems know their strategic game plan could change between now and May: Paterson, who had been struggling, is starting to make contact.  If he can get a crowd- (and media-) pleasing streak going - and put up some numbers - he could still take his place at the top of his team’s electoral lineup.

That’s a big “if.”  But Paterson has finally benefited from a few lucky plays.  First, Rudy Giuliani let a chance go by and left the GOP field to less formidable Rick Lazio.  Then the legislative players below David in the order persisted in dismaying fans with their error-prone behavior.  The result: David’s swing has smoothed out and he’s pitching better than he has in a long time.  He knows he’ll have to keep it up to turn back Andrew, the state’s all-star.                 
                           -     -     -
All-stars switching teams have provided hot stove highlights so far. With pitchers and catchers just a month away, it’s time to assess the possible changes in divisional balance as a result of star-sprinkled post-season transactions.   In two of six divisions – both in the West - there could be new big guys on the block.  The Mariners, by adding Cliff Lee to a rotation headed by Felix Hernandez, plus Chone Figgins and (to a lesser extent) Casey Kotchman, are likely to be competitive with the Angels. The LAAs lost Figgins and John Lackey while adding only Hideki Matsui. The Rangers, meanwhile reinforced by Rich Harden and Vladimir Guerrero, can’t be counted out. The Giants, with reserve strength already on hand(see below), picked up the versatile Mark DeRosa, just one more complement to a strong rotation headed by Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and Barry Zito.  The Dodgers and Rockies, who have stood virtually still, could be overtaken this time around.

Boston’s key acquisitions – John Lackey, Marco Scutaro, Adrian Beltre and Mike Cameron – almost assure that the Sox will be battling the Yankees and new pinstripers   Curtis Granderson, Javier Vazquez and Nick Johnson, again in 2010.  Tampa Bay has the best young depth in baseball (see below again), so the Rays are long shots to make the AL East a three-team roundelay.  The Phils, with Roy Halladay, are sure-shots in the NL East.  In signing Matt Holliday, the Cardinals solidified their status as favorites in the NL Central.  The AL Central, minimally affected by deals, should be up for Tigers/Twins/White Sox grabs.

From the E-mailbag:  “You write (in the previous Nub) that Wilpon Jr. has screwed up. But can you or anyone tell us what, exactly, he does?” M. Polner, Great Neck, NY

Jeff Wilpon is the Mets’ chief operating officer.  He is in charge of how his owner-father’s money is spent.  As such, he is the team’s day-to-day decision-maker.  A measure of how short-sighted his (and Omar Minaya’s) investment in the Mets’ scouting and player-development operations has been can be found on the list of players and affiliates in minor league all star teams of the past three seasons.  Those teams are composed of 18 position players and 10 pitchers, primarily from the triple- and double-A levels, listed by Baseball America.  Of the total of 84 players selected in ’07, ’08, and ’09, the Mets had one – Ike Davis, named backup first baseman on the most recent team.  The Tampa Bay Rays had eight, the Giants six, the Yankees and Dodgers five each.  The Mets finished 28^th of 30 in cumulative minor league standings, just ahead of the Reds and Astros.  Yet, as we know, Wilpon and his people invested less than any of the other 29 teams in amateur-draft prospects. 
                            - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 1/9/10)

Fantasy League 2010 - Politics as Well as Baseball

Most of us are not good at keeping New Year’s resolutions, but we make them anyway.  What we’re good at is suggesting what others should resolve to do.  There’s no shortage of such nudging in baseball and politics this year, most of them pitches to front-office decision-makers that key people be cut.  Frank Coonelly and Fred Wilpon, presidents of the Pirates and Mets, have been ducking away from a barrage of fan frustration about the way their teams are being run.  And the man who runs Team USA has taken a lot of chin music for holding on to two unpopular players.

 Lefty economics ace Bob Kuttner let fly at Barack Obama in the Huffington Post.  His pitch about the skipper’s need to rectify his bad roster choices is as much a warning as a nudge:

“The path that Obama is on, unless he alters it fast, will lead to prolonged economic stagnation and Republican champagne next November.  If you think a lunatic-fringe Republican party is any protection, look at the blowout victory of Pat Robertson protégé Bob McConnell in the Virginia governor's race two months ago.  And this in a blue-trending state….What will it take for Obama to recover his footing?  Some key personnel changes might be a start.  As investigative reporters did deeper into the mess that Larry Summers made of Harvard's finances, you have to be thankful that the man isn't running the nation's economy (oh, whoops, he is.)  Summers reinforces all of Obama's conservative instincts and none of his progressive ones.

“Tim Geithner, who was in charge of relations with Congress for Obama as the House deliberated the financial reform bill, weighed in mostly on the wrong side.  If Obama is truly to signal a change of course and mean it, one constructive sign would be replacements for Summers and Geithner.”

Geithner and Summers are, of course, familiar players on progressives’ wish-they-were-released lineup.  We could add the names of the skipper’s center-right fielder, his Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel, and his extreme-right-fielder, the State Department’s Assistant for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon, a Bush holdover.

Yesterday in the Times, Paul Krugman launched this follow-up laser to colleague Kuttner’s warning blast:  “There’s a populist rage building…and President Obama’s kid-gloves treatment of the bankers has put Democrats on the wrong side of this rage.  If Congressional Democrats don’t (get) tough…with the banks in the months ahead, they will pay a big price in November.”

Pirates fans have given Coonelly’s choice for GM Neal Huntington almost two-and-a-half years to, if not turn the small-market franchise around, at least offer them reason for hope.  That hasn’t happened.  Over the last two seasons, he has traded away, among others, Xavier Nady, Damaso Marte, Jason Bay, Nate McLouth, Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson.  And, not long ago, he failed to re-sign closer Matt Capps, who was snapped up by the Nationals.  The prospects (mainly) that

Huntington received in return have so far failed to jell.  Pittsburgh, which has had a record 17 straight losing seasons, figures to add an 18^th this year.  No wonder there’s a clamor among Bucs fans for Coonelly to hunt for a replacement for Huntington.

Mets fans know it is unrealistic to think Fred Wilpon will acknowledge son Jeff has screwed up the franchise and deserves to be fired.  But many of them know, too, that if they stay away from Citi Field in numbers this unpromising season, Fred might relent.  It is clear that only with on-the-job trainee Jeff Wilpon sent away can the Mets develop an efficient operation and return as serious playoff contenders.

Jason Bay said “This is where I want to be”; he never said he was “happy” to be joining the Mets and leaving the Red Sox.  Who can blame him for ambivalence?  The Sox-Mets comparison is odious.  Boston, by adding John Lackey, Adrian Beltre, Mike Cameron and Marco Scutaro have assured 2010 competitiveness with the Yankees.  That’s good news for everyone, including Yankee fans, who revel in the exciting rivalry.  The Mets?  They’ll spend more than the Sox and be…respectable.
                                - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to are welcome,
as are subscription requests.  Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

    

 

 (Posted: 1/5/10)

Can Baseball Ease Our Tense Political Game With Venezuela?

Two years ago, the Venezuelan ambassador in Washington pointed out that Americans and his countrymen had much in common – including a love of baseball.  Relations between the two nations, he said – at least as far as people were concerned – should be friendly, not adversarial.   

A front-page story about baseball and Venezuela in the NY Times the other day shows why it is so hard to end the negativity felt on this side of the field: political bias intervenes.  The story tells of Buddy Bailey, a 52-year-old Virginia mountain boy who is one of the winningest managers in the history of the Venezuelan professional baseball league.  Bailey’s Aragua Tigers won five championships in the last eight years.  

The story notes that Bailey is lionized by many fans and has won the admiration of Venezuela’s skipper Hugo Chavez.  Skipper Bailey has nothing bad to say about the host country.  But the Timesman refers disapprovingly to Chavez “nationalizing foreign-owned companies and expelling some Americans.”  And at a time when spreading sexual violence - little mentioned in our media -  is shaming our ally Colombia, the NYT story alludes to “soaring levels of violent crime” in Venezuela.

Crime in Caracas, says the story, has “eclipsed” the prominence of “gas guzzlers and shopping malls”, pre-nationalization features of “the largest postwar American expatriate community in the world.”  Now, it adds, “so many values have been turned on their head” in Venezuela.  It is true that “Chavez’s socialist-inspired revolution” has spawned many problems while it focuses on improving the lives of the poor.  The middle class is feeling pinched and the wealthy resent the economic hit they’re taking. There is unrest, yes, and crime. But the Times, the Washington Post and our other major papers have yet to examine Venezuela’s new values in a balanced way.  Nor have they weighed the rights and wrongs of the obvious reason for our skittishness: Venezuela’s control over its own coveted natural resource, oil. 

The sense here is that little positive will happen until Team Obama signals a change in the game plan it inherited: a plan that included in 2002 abetting an anti-Chavez coup. Team Bush at that moment made a second mistake: it approvingly acknowledged Hugo’s ouster, then watched his supporters return him to power.      

Baseball fans shrug at the off-field maneuvering.  They care about the Venezuelans they know: Johan Santana, Felix Hernandez, Carlos Zambrano, Victor Martinez, Bobby Abreu, Marco Scutaro, Francisco Rodriguez, Ozzie Guillen, etc.  Baseball, nevertheless, may have a political role to play: it is the link that, at the very least, can keep the countries from moving farther apart.
                              -     -     -
The Daily News’ Mark Feinsand reports that Orlando (El Duque) Hernandez, who last played in the majors in 2007 for the Mets, is also pitching in Venezuela now. His team: the Margarita Bravos.  He’s doing all right, if not lights-out; Feinsand has El Duque’s stats: “In seven games (six starts) in Venezuela, Duque was 1-2 with a 3.27 ERA. He allowed 29 hits and 13 runs (12 earned) in 33 innings while striking out 27 and walking 15.  He gave up two homers.  Last year, he was 2-0 in eight games for Oklahoma of the Pacific Coast League. Don’t know if he wants to get back to the majors, but he sure does like pitching, eh?”   Hernandez is believed to be 43, but that may be off by a few years.

While our focus has been on the roster-filling of teams in the east, like the Red Sox and Mets, there’s been a big personnel story in LA, involving the Dodgers.  Orange County Register columnist Mark Whicker ticks off the team’s many contractual challenges: “All the (Dodgers) have to do is deal with (arbitration-eligibles) Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, Jonathan Broxton, Russell Martin, George Sherrill, Hong-Chih Kuo and Chad Billingsley. Whatever happens, the Dodgers will have to make this lineup play better than last year's did in the second half, because San Francisco and Colorado are coming – and, maybe, Arizona, with Edwin Jackson backing up Dan Haren and Brandon Webb in the rotation. These are the problems you face when your franchise winds up on the DL (Divorce List).”

A Bank-Shrinking Game Plan (first espoused on CNN by Arianna Huffington): “When I recently told a few friends that my wife, Joy, and I had decided to close our little account at Bank of America and move our money to a local bank that has behaved more responsibly, I was amazed at the response. Religious leaders… around the country called to say that they, too, were ready to take their money out of the big banks that have shown such shameful morality and instead invest according to their values, by putting money into more local and community-based institutions.

“So we've decided not just to remove our own money, but to invite other Christians, Jews and Muslims to do the same. Already we are hearing reports of whole congregations… from California to New York City, deciding to transfer their funds to local banks and credit unions. The banks say they are ’too big to fail.’  So let's make them smaller.  We might finally get Wall Street's attention.” – Jim Wallis, Sojourners Magazine (in the Washington Post)
                                - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 1/2/10)

Enough of Seventh-Inning-Stretch Patriotism

Just over 60 years ago, Jackie Robinson had a dilemma many of us face today: Do we embrace or reject the patriotism forced upon us by both national policies and the national pastime?  Because he was a baseball star who broke the game’s color barrier, Robinson was asked to refute before Congress what had been said by Paul Robeson, the great actor, singer, All American football player and anti-war activist.  Robeson, an African-American like Robinson, had questioned black loyalty to a racist society.  To many that was a fiercely unpatriotic sentiment.

Robinson agreed to go to bat, but he did so from both sides of the plate:  he said blacks would fight for America in a war because of their investment in the country’s welfare.  But that stance, he said, did not “change the truth of (Robeson’s) charges” of racial injustice.

It is hard for many baseball fans to feel benignly about the seventh-inning-stretch patriotism imposed since early in the decade at Yankee Stadium and other ballparks – “God Bless America” and God help our fighting men and women abroad.  Major League Baseball has thrown in with Team USA’s foreign policies for well over a century – for the complete war-related record book, see “The Empire Strikes Out”, by Robert Elias (The New Press).

If we disregard its militaristic aspect (or try to), there is another take on the flag-waving game that connects to what Robinson said about our investment in our nation and the sport.  It was expressed back in the ‘70’s in an essay by author Philip Roth entitled “My Baseball Years.”  Roth recalled being the last man cut from tryouts for his high school baseball team in New Jersey:

“Playing baseball was not what the Jewish boys of our lower-middle-class neighborhood were expected to do in later life to make a living.  Had I been cut from the high school itself…there would have been hell to pay in my house, and much confusion…As it was, my family took my chagrin in stride.  They probably would have been shocked if I made the team.

“Maybe I would have been too.  Surely it would have put me on a somewhat different footing with this game that I loved with all my heart, not simply for the fun of playing it, but for the mythic…dimension that it gave to an American boy’s life – particularly to one whose grandparents hardly spoke English.  For someone whose roots in America were…, only inches deep and had no experience, such as a Catholic child might, of an awesome hierarchy…baseball was a kind of secular church that reached into every class and region of the nation and bound millions upon millions of us together in common concerns…Baseball made me understand what patriotism was about, at its best.”

Whether the baseball brand is patriotism at its best or worst, it is surely time to say of the intrusive stars-and-stripes stretch: “Enough.”
                      -     -     -
On MLB-TV the other night, Dan Plesac, who pitched for 18 years in the major with six different clubs, rated five of the most interesting free-agent hurlers still on the market: Joel Piniero, Ben Sheets, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Jon Garland.  He said if he were a GM, he would sign only one of the five without reservation: Piniero.  “He learned a lot in St.Louis,” Plesac said.  “He’s strong and a good bet to give you innings.” Plesac said Martinez might be worth signing for half a season and Smoltz for bullpen duty.  He said there were too many questions concerning Sheets’ health and about how much Garland has left.

We hate it when working-stiff sports writers presume to tell teams how to spend millions of their dollars.  But we can’t resist suggesting to the Mets a solution to their first-base problem: Xavier Nady, who played first as well as the outfield when he joined the Mets before 2006 (in a deal with SD for Mike Cameron). We’d guess that Nady, who has been overlooked so far, could be snapped up for a reasonable $5 million or so per season.

On cue, the Mets have signed the big-ticket player selected to lure their understandably glum fans to Citi Field next season.  Jason Bay might help do that; he doesn’t add enough to the team, however, to lift it above third place in the NL East.  Meaningful games in mid-August may make for respectable total attendance figures.                   

January is here with what we know is its major attribute - the last between-seasons month without baseball.            
                       - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

December 2009 Archive

(Posted: 12/22/09)

A Healthy Triple Play in the Offing

A former key player on the NY State Democratic team reminded a group of fans the other night that the Dems could be about to complete a political triple play.  He was talking about the health care game and cautioning that extra innings lie ahead before the final out signaling (modest) success is made.  The triple play: from FDR (social security) to LBJ (medicare) to BHO (health care reform).

If the Mets lineup experiences health reform, we know modest success is all the team – and their fans – can hope for in 2010.  The Mets so far have been “monitoring”, “looking at”, “interested in” free agents and players potentially available through trade.  But the lack of significant Mets deal-making has been a source of bafflement here and beyond NY.

The compromising done by the Dem team in the Senate in an effort to get the health reform bill baffled observers and dismayed progressives.  Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson takes a Nubbian approach in his comment, quoting Casey Stengel’s 1962 lament about the Mets: “Can’t anybody here play this game?” He says Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman and Mary Landrieu know how to play on the political field.  “The Republican leaders in both the House and the Senate can play, too.  At this point, 11 months since Obama took office, it's striking how successful Republicans have been in presenting a united front against virtually everything the president and the Democratic congressional majorities are trying to do…”

Team GOP, abetted by many Dem progressives, has thrown rhetorical bean balls at the compromise reform lineup that includes:

1.  Ending denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
2. Ending denial of coverage because of catastrophic illness.
3. Ending insurers' dumping of some beneficiaries for technical reasons
4. Preventing insurers from varying rates regionally and demographically
5. Ending lifetime caps that limit what insurers must pay
6. Ending annual caps on what insurers must pay
7. Requiring insurers to pay more for preventive care and immunizations
8. Keeping young adults on parents' insurance plans into their mid-20s.
9. Banning coverage discrimination against employers based on salary 

It is hard to see how an argument that says such a lineup, which at the very least gets the ball into play, deserves to be sent back to the bushes.  In any event, here is Paul Krugman’s take on his NY Times blog: “The health care bill…represents a rejection of the view that the solution for all problems is to cut some taxes and remove some regulations.  In that sense, what’s happening now,  for all the disappointment it represents for progressives, is a historic moment.”

Everybody’s beating up on the Mets this hot stove season – it is not only happening here.  We’ve said that if the Mets stayed in tip-top health last year they could not have beaten the Phillies.  That applies more than ever this coming season.  MLB.com’s Marty Noble, a Mets beat veteran, minces no words about the 2010 outlook:

“The Mets need to upgrade, no question. But if they do upgrade, and Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Johan Santana and the other patients aren't healthy, the Mets aren't going to contend anyway.  So, the idea is to enter the season, thinking -- hoping -- health no longer is an issue.  And if it's not, I'd expect the team that won 70 games last season to win at least 81 games in 2010.

“That won't put them on the Phillies' level.   I'm not sure (Jason) Bay would, either.  The Phillies are an exceptional team.”

One of the few brighteners on a dreary hot-stove baseball week: Chicago Tribune columnist Phil Rogers’ take on the Cubs’ Milton Bradley for Mariners’ Carlos Silva deal:   ”It's a trade of one of the worst Cubs ever for the best batting practice pitcher in the game.”
                      - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

The Nub  is off on a holiday road trip.  Back next week.  Merry Christmas everybody. 

 

(Posted: 12/19/09)

The ‘Truth’ in Afghanistan and at Citi Field    

Artie (Dutch) Schopenhauer died in Germany as baseball was gaining popularity in the mid-19^th century.  But before he went, Artie developed a pitch that caught on with thinking political fans as well as those in sports arenas.  Truth, he said, is often ridiculed at first, then denied, finally accepted as obvious.

Fans who booed opening day of a “good war” against Afghanistan in 2002 were ridiculed for saying a small-ball strategy aimed at tagging out Osama bin-Laden would have sufficed.  The pro-war majority went into denial when Osama slipped away from our heavy-hitting pursuit.  Now, it can be argued that the truth about that war, despite hopeful words by generals and the commander-in-chief, is obvious.  Ask the British and the Russians, from whose experience we might have learned, and check the record book on how Alexander the Great’s team made out on the Afghan diamond.

For the relevance of Schopenhauer’s sizzler on the comparatively banal field of baseball, we don’t have to look further than Mets-land.  Pessimism about the future of the Mets, shrugged off when voiced several years ago, should have been taken seriously.  That’s clearer today than it has been in a long time.

Thomas Johnson, professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA and Chris Mason, a former foreign service officer in Afghanistan, wrote a sharp, quasi-insiders rejoinder to Skipper Obama’s troop buildup plan.  Here is the way they put it in Foreign Policy magazine:

“Obama is one of the most intelligent men ever to hold the U.S. presidency.  But no intelligent person could really believe that adding 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, a country four times larger than Vietnam, for a year or two, following the same game plan that has resulted in dismal failure there for the past eight years, could possibly have any impact on the outcome of the conflict.  The only conclusion one can reach from the president's speech…is that the administration has made a difficult but pragmatic decision: The war in Afghanistan is unwinnable, and the president's second term and progressive domestic agenda cannot be sacrificed to a lost cause the way that President Lyndon B. Johnson's was for Vietnam. The result of that calculation was what we heard on Dec. 1: platitudes about commitment and a just cause; historical amnesia; and a continuation of the exact  same failed policies that got the United States into this mess back in 2001.”

Former Mets co-owner Nelson Doubleday warned, while memories of the 2000 World Series appearance lingered, that major trouble lay ahead with the boss’s son Jeff Wilpon  taking over the team in 2003.  After firing GM Steve Phillips in June of ‘03 and naming Jim Duquette interim GM, the young Wilpon signed off on the trade of star pitching prospect Scott Kazmir to Tampa Bay for Victor Zambrano, a more experienced pitcher who flopped.  The move presaged a pattern of placing known quantities on the big team’s roster while losing focus on the farm system.  As we know, the pattern insured that the Mets would field name regulars – who even got them into the NLCS in ’06; but, overall, the lack of investment in player development (the Johan Santana deal in ’07, notwithstanding) has left the team hurting for competent replacements when multiple injuries intervene, as they did at Citi Field last season.  The Phillies, for one, don’t have that problem.

Can any fans be happier than those in Philadelphia these days?  Roy Halladay locked up until the middle of the next decade…and all that offense.  Nobody figures to come close to the Phils in the NL East.  But Mariners fans have more to be happy about: With Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee at the top of the rotation, and Chone Figgins reinforcing Ichiro at the top of the order, Seattle has a real shot at winning the AL West.  And, if everything goes right, the M’s could get into the World Series for the first time in the team’s history.  That possibility, however remote, is a cause for mega-rejoicing.  Too bad former Met Endy Chavez won’t be part of the fun.  The Mariners have let him go.  Mets fans - remembering the effort he gave the team in ’06 -’08 - surely hope Endy stays healthy and continues to be an asset wherever he plays.   

Nobody asked us, but…If the elite free-agent choice for the Mets comes down to either Jason Bay, $75 million for five years, or Johnny Damon, $39 million for three, we’d take Damon.  The Mets need a sustaining spark, not a Reyes-like hot and cold one.  Damon could be that.  In a normal free-agent year, Bay would be an upper-middle-level selection, not in the elite class.  And certainly not a spark.
                               - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(`12/15/09)

The Celebrity Game in Our National Pastimes

Liberals like to think Barack Obama became an international icon and Nobel Peace Prize winner because he wasn’t George Bush.  That may be part of the story, but we know he gained automatic celebrity status as the new skipper of Team USA.  And we know how important that status is in baseball and all fields here at home: A-Rod and Derek Jeter are household names far outside Yankee-land; Tiger Woods gets regular front-page play in the NY Times for his off-course activities.

The president (and his first lady) gladly cooperated in the non-political puffery.  He knew his personal popularity could come in handy if poll numbers began plummeting.  Apolitical fans tend to stay loyal to people they put on a pedestal.  The Mets hope they can benefit from the same behavior on the part of their fans.  What both skipper Obama and Jeff Wilpon need now is something to distract supporters from the rough economic and strategic patches their teams are going through.  Celebrity could fill the bill in each case.  Here’s what Stuart Rosenberg, columnist for the Capital Hill newspaper Roll Call, said some time ago about Barack’s status:

“(Since he has attracted a) deeper emotional commitment than many politicians receive…he could retain his popularity - and, with it, political clout on Capitol Hill - because of his (and his family's) celebrity coverage and appeal.”

Or the emotional commitment may be explained in a related way, as columnist Glenn Greenwald did on Salon over the weekend: “(Much) reaction to Obama is dominated by (a) view of him as an inspiring, kind, sophisticated, soothing and mature intellectual.  These are personality types bolstered with sophisticated marketing techniques, not policies, governing approaches or ideologies.”

The Mets know they must attract a name player - one with celebrity potential - if they are to stem the erosion of fan support caused by last year’s revealing collapse.  The Phillies’ in-process deal for Roy Halladay only underlines what the Mets are up against. How critical is their situation (if anyone has missed its reality) can be gleaned from comments made on WEEI, Boston by the MLB Network’s new analyst Peter Gammons.  He used the Mets to reassure Red Sox fans that things could be worse:

“You could be in some markets where people just go, huh, who cares?  The New York Mets have made themselves that way.  The Mets are running around announcing that they have made offers to Jason Bay and now (NY Post’s) Joel Sherman is saying that it is to make sure that people believe that they are actually trying.  That is not what people want to hear.”

Bay, offered $60 million for four years by the Sox, is now unlikely to wind up in Boston because of the expense of the pending John Lackey deal.  So the Mets seem to have a genuine shot at signing him.  The one caveat: if another team offers Bay close to what the Mets agree to pay, he might take the lower number to avoid involvement with a dysfunctional franchise.  The suspicion here - before the Lackey-to-Fenway development - was that the closest thing to a celebrity playing for the Citi Field home team would be old friend Carlos Delgado.  That still may be a good guess.    
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(Posted: 12/12/09)

What to Do About Dominance of Yankees and Democrats?

Whaddaya know?  The Yankees have added a still-young, stud centerfielder who can hit with power, run like a rabbit, etc.  And, get this: the rap against Curtis Granderson in Detroit was that he wore himself down with his community involvement.  He tried to get everybody interested in the city and in the Tigers.

Getting more of the NYC public involved in the political game was coincidentally the aim of a confab held at St.Francis College in Brooklyn this week.  A group of unofficial players in the pol-field discussed the pros and cons of a distant equivalent to baseball’s trade and free-agent transactions.  The hot potato, chosen by veteran exec Frank Macchiarolla and pitched by rookie author Frank Barry (“The Scandal of Reform”):  nonpartisan elections.

We know it wasn’t money alone that permitted the Yanks to add Granderson to their world-champion lineup; they had to develop tradable young players like Ian Kennedy and Austin Jackson.  Nor is money the only issue that should dominate the political debate.  Fans of nonpartisan balloting see it as an all-fields drive for reform, for bringing more balance to the electoral system, much as many fans want baseball’s wealth imbalance reformed.

Nonpartisan balloting would surely make elections more competitive, just as something like financial parity would do the same for pennant races.  Those are both hard sells in NYC, where the Democrats and Yankees have long been dominant in their respective fields.  Fans of the nonpartisan approach say it deserves consideration because the Dems have been able to take their vote-gathering power for granted.  And that has led to shoddy performances - incumbent apathy, irregularities, misconduct, corruption.  Under the nonpartisan game rules, candidates would run without party labels; there would be no primaries – the two top vote-getters would compete in a decisive runoff.  Much unfamiliar excitement could result, and maybe even a boost in voter interest. 

That the present systems hold back talented young players in both fields is well known; the rule in both party politics and baseball is that, no matter how ready you are for the show, you “wait your turn.”  The frequent result in politics is that young talent leaves the game.  If the competition were nonpartisan, they could stay and run - turn or no turn.

Just as money - teams with lots don’t want to give up their advantage - is the stumbling block to baseball parity, so in an inverse way does it contribute to clogging acceptance of the nonparty game: the liberal Dem left worries that the conservative Repub right will recruit wealthy candidates; that Bloomberg-like, they will use their personal fortunes to gain a winning edge in the newly competitive races.  And if that happens, the left fears issues like living wage and affordable housing will be replaced by calls for tax cuts and spending curbs.  The confab group’s conclusion: Only when common ground is reached on such issues does non-partisan reform have a prayer of getting to bat. 
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The groans over the Granderson deal are being heard throughout the AL East, especially in New England.  The Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy worries that the deal, coupled with a lack of Sox upgrade fervor, signals a grim season ahead for The Nation:  “The Yankees blew past the Red Sox in 2009 and New York just got better. Granderson is an All-Star leadoff hitter, a defensive artist in center field, and a 30-home run guy in his prime.  Meanwhile, the Sox are standing still and holding the line on their four-year offer for Bay.  If Bay winds up in New York, Anaheim, or Seattle, the Sox are going to have to deal with Scott Boras for Holliday.  Or do nothing and remind us that the kids will be available to help in 2012…”

The Mets are near the top of teams that can ill afford to do nothing.  Desperation to bring fans back to Citi Field figures to drive them to sign at least one of the three elite free agents – Jason Bay, Matt Holliday and John Lackey.  It says here they would need all three to compete with the Phillies, who have premium prospects as well as Cliff Lee, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, etc.  Two of the three would assure Metsian “meaningful games” late in the season.  If they blow the budget on a single name player – the most likely scenario - fuhgedaboudit.

Our Less-Than-Nobel Laureate: “Obama puts a pretty, intellectual, liberal face on some ugly and decidedly illiberal polices.  Just as George Bush's Christian-based moralizing let conservatives feel good about America regardless of what it does, Obama's complex and elegiac rhetoric lets many liberals do the same…(The neocon consensus:) ”If even this Democratic President, beloved by liberals, announces to the world that we have the unilateral right to wage war and that doing so creates Peace and crushes Evil, and does so at a Nobel Peace Prize ceremony of all places, doesn't that end the argument for good?”  - Glenn Greenwald, Salon
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(Posted: 12/8/09)

A Jason Bay/David Paterson Snap Quiz

What do NY Governor David Paterson and Red Sox left fielder Jason Bay have in common?   If you follow our two national pastimes, the answer is easy:  Both are looking for the best possible deals as they take their next professional step.  For Bay it’s about money; he declined a four-year, $60 million offer from the Sox to see if he could do better as a free agent.  For Paterson it’s about pride; he refuses to remove himself from the 2010 gubernatorial contest absent an offer that provides prestige and minimal loss of face.

We’ve long been fans of Paterson (with whom we worked briefly) so we regret   foreseeing his withdrawal from the gubernatorial field.  But, with poll numbers persistently down and Andrew Cuomo on deck, even diehards must face that inevitability.  Let’s look at David’s options: Team Obama owes him for, among other things, the obvious slights inflicted by the skipper during visits to NY.  And the state Democratic team let Paterson down by allowing loud party whispers to ease him toward the showers.  Those brush-backs should earn David a purposeful pass to another status-filled position.

The Red Sox owe Bay nothing after the four-year offer, but they need him - or a reasonable facsimile - to keep pace with what their Nation considers the Evil Empire.  The Yankees could snap him up the way they did Johnny Damon four years ago. But the guess here is that Bay will not attract a more generous non-Sox offer; the new defense metrics showing him to be sub-par as an outfielder undermine his bargaining position.  Team Obama could dangle a deputy AG job in DC for David’s consideration; he has DA office experience.  And local Dems could hope a state judgeship would satisfy him.  But if the stubborn Paterson waits them out, fouling off pitches long enough, he should get a fat one in the zone. Neither Cuomo nor the party would want Andrew competing in a primary against another African-American for governor, as he did Carl McCall in 2002. The obvious play is to make room on the federal bench for NY’s underappreciated skipper.

The Mets could certainly use Bay but the team’s many as-yet-unfilled holes make him unaffordable.  Their hot-stove dealings got off to an inauspicious start.  While the Sox, Phils, Braves and Mariners signed top-tier players Marco Scutaro, Placido Polanco, Billy Wagner and Chone Figgins, the Mets went the cull route, lining up catchers Henry Blanco and Chris Coste.  For their fans, the trend so far is disturbingly familiar.

Joe Girardi stayed with Brian Bruney after his stuff as a reliever became suspect. Joe Torre did the same with Scott Proctor two years ago.  When they finally felt enough was enough, the Yanks shipped Proctor in-season to the LA Dodgers.  Bruney they kept until yesterday, when he became a National.

Pearl Harbor day lob from left field on America’s wartime morality: “The intensity of (the 12/7/41) shock was rooted less in Japanese chicanery than in America’s race-based assumption of technical and martial superiority.  As for morality, the Japanese attack was aimed against genuine military targets. The US revenge attack, a bombing raid led by Jimmy Doolittle on Tokyo some months later, was aimed purely at civilians.”  - James Carroll, Boston Globe
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(Posted: 12/5/09)

Did Obama Do a Jeter and Come Through on Afghanistan?

Barack and Derek: linked by many baseball fans for their similar bi-racial backgrounds and the classy way they carry themselves.  Tuesday night at West Point, Skipper Obama came to rhetorical bat in the clutch.  Would he come through on Afghanistan the way Jeter so often does when the game is on the line?

Our scorecard shows the president connected in some ways, looked clumsy in others.  He turned on the pitches of skeptics early, driving off their arguments against the troop buildup.  “We must keep the pressure on al-Quaeda,” he said; “and to do that we must increase the stability…of our partners in the region.”  Doubts as to whether he was locked in disappeared when the skipper launched another key hit: “We know that al-Quaida… seek(s) nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe they want to use them.”

Barack was vintage Derek when he inside-out-ed a hit to right announcing the build-up, then pulled the ball to left, decreeing the 18-month deadline.  His performance lost its edge, however, when it took on a cloying Yankee Stadium-like “Honor America” tone.  He invoked “freedom” and “liberty” four times, the equivalent of hitting cheap-buzz laser fouls on inside pitches.   And, although he spoke of our “values” as the “moral source of America’s authority” and referred to the influence of our “moral suasion,” he never acknowledged the deaths of countless innocent people for which we are morally responsible.  Indeed, when Katie Couric asked CBS correspondent Mandy Clark in Afghanistan the reaction there to the speech, her first words were: “The people here worry about civilian casualties.  More troops mean more casualties.”

Not bad, skipper, but not quite up to the Jeter standard.
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It will be a surprise if there isn’t just a two-team contest to add the Jays’ Roy Halladay this winter:  the Yankees and Red Sox will likely go mano-a-mano to deal for the Toronto ace.  A Yankee front four in 2010 consisting of  Halladay, C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte would reinforce the Bombers’ already existing dominance in their division, league and all of mlb.  The Sox must make a desperate effort to stop that from happening.  But principal owner John Henry seems to be bracing for the worst.  He’s calling for a heavier tax than already exists on teams like the Yankees that are willing to spend more than $200 million a year on player payroll.  Halladay is due $16 million this coming year.  He is expected to command a five-year-deal paying him close to $120 million after 2010.  Sure sounds like he’ll be working for those Yankee dollars.

The Mets’ maligned farm system produced two of the Arizona Fall League’s top 10 prospects as selected by Baseball America: pitcher Jenrry Mejia and first baseman Ike Davis.  Mejia, a 20-year-old righthander,  finished sixth on the list despite an indifferent 1-3 W-L record and an ERA of 12.56.  He struck out 16 in 14.1 innings during which he walked 13.  Davis, who batted .341, finished 10^th.  Nationals prospect Stephen Strasburg led the list, which included no other team with more than one player.

Baseball America was less complimentary to the Mets in it farm-system overview, calling the system thin and putting it in the lower half of its 30-team rankings.  The five top-ranked systems: Rangers, Rays, Giants, Phillies, Indians.  The Yankees and Red Sox were in the second – “best of the rest” – level in the top half of the rankings. 
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(Posted: 12/1/09)

To Rebuild or Rejigger: Choice Facing Political and Ball Teams

Political teams, like those in baseball, face a tough choice after a losing season: should they stay the course (intent on making changes for the better) or recognize the need to rebuild.  Staying the course is the more tempting of the two; it entails tweaking rather than turnover.  Team Obama, which inherited the White House franchise, seems inclined to play the Mets’ game:  to upgrade rather than discard components of the previous disaster.

Just as the Mets believe that Johan Santana, Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran plus well-chosen additions will insure competitiveness and fan-support, so Team Obama clearly thinks following Team Bush’s approach to war-making and civil liberties will keep voters rooting for the players now in charge.

As the skipper prepares to announce both the latest troop buildup in and ultimate exit from Afghanistan, he knows he’s following a familiar play-book: For more than a half-century, Team USA leaders have bowed to pressure from the militants in the national grandstand.  We must fight, those fans said, to “save” China, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, etc., and, now, Afghanistan.  Most men in the dugout doubted the validity of the war-making argument, but they knew going along could achieve at least one important save – keeping their team on the field. 

Power-hitting historian Gary Wills, writing in the NY Review of Books, reminds us of the successive team record on foreign playing fields.  It leads to a tough choice of his own concerning Skipper Obama:

“I am told by people I respect that Barack Obama cannot pull out of both Iraq and Afghanistan without becoming a one-term president. I think that may be true. The charges from various quarters would be toxic—that he was weak, unpatriotic, sacrificing the sacrifices that have been made, betraying our dead, throwing away all former investments in lives and treasure. All that would indeed be brought against him, and he could have little defense in the quarters where such charges would originate.

“These are the arguments that have kept us in losing efforts before. They are the ones that made presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon pass on to their successors in the presidency the draining and self-lacerating Vietnam War. They are the arguments that made President George W. Bush pass on two wars to his successor.

“I have great hopes for the Obama presidency, even in his first term, and especially if he could have two terms to realize the exciting new things he aspires to do in the White House. But I would rather see him a one-term president than have him pass on another unwinnable war to the person who will follow him in office.”

If Skipper Obama’s double clutch on Afghanistan tonight is dismaying to fans in left field, imagine how they feel about his reversed stance on Honduras.  After swinging out early against the coup that overthrew lefty leader Manuel Zelaya, he switched to the other side:  While most of Latin America has refused to recognize the weekend election of a rightist Honduran businessman, Team Obama says it will accept the result and lock in its swing accordingly.  One happy observer: GOP player Jim DeMint, who took credit for the change in a press statement that said - "Senator secures commitment for U.S. to back Nov. 29 elections even if Zelaya is not reinstated."  The White House has let the statement stand.
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The just-completed Arizona Fall League, which in ’08 helped catapult Tommy Hanson to Atlanta’s starting rotation, was a good showcase this year for two Yankee prospects: outfielder Colin Curtis and third baseman Brandon Laird.  Curtis hit .397, second best in the league; he showed some power, too, swatting five home runs in 20 games.  Laird batted .333 and was in the running for MVP, won by Oakland’s outfield prospect Grant Desme, the HR leader with 11.  The Mets’ first-base hopeful Ike Davis hit .341 with four HRs.  The Nationals’ mega-bonus-baby Stephen Strasburg led the league in wins, going 4-1.  He struck out 26 in 19 innings; his ERA, however, was an underwhelming 4.26.  Another positive note: Baseball America says Strasburg and White Sox reliever prospect Sergio Santos had the best fastballs in the league.  

Baseball fans who, like the Nub, enjoy meaningful frostbelt NFL games in the late-season open air, have little to look forward to this year.  Three and probably all four of the NFC division winners will be sunbelt or dome teams – Dallas remains on the bubble in the east.  In the AFC, two of the four leading teams are sunbelt/domers.  Indianapolis is earning home-dome advantage throughout the playoffs, as is New Orleans in the NFC.  It looks as though games in Foxborough, MA and Cincinnati, hosted by the Patriots and Bengals, will be the only “football-as-it-should-be-played” post-season contests that appeal to us marginal, cozy living-room spectators.  Of course, the game between the Cowboys and the still-alive Giants at the Meadowlands this Sunday is one of a few pre-playoff matchups that could make for worthwhile viewing.
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November 2009 Archive

(Posted: 11/21/09)

Will Dems and Mets be Caught in 2010 Twin-Killing?

At a non-political gathering the other night, a prominent player on the NY Congressional team talked about the outlook for the Democrats in 2010.  “It’s going to be tough,” he said, to maintain control of the House.  The event was held not far from Citi Field.  The thought occurred that ’10 could be a twin-killing year for Dems who happen to be Mets fans.

Early hot-stove stats compiled by Congressional (Pew Research) scorekeepers say 67 of 435 districts will be truly competitive next Election Day.  If the Republicans win 41 of them (minus upsets elsewhere), they will retrieve control of the House.  On the Senate side, the game-time outlook is murky; much will depend on Skipper Obama’s approval rating, which is hovering now around 50 percent.  Should O-rating remain close to that level, the Senate Dems will almost certainly see their 58-40-2 margin reduced by a few seats, but not enough to lose their majority.

The Mets, we know, are a consensus pick to finish fourth in the five-team NL East.  The addition of a Joel Piniero-type starter will not change that estimate.  Nor will adding another bat.  Jeff Wilpon is clearly in charge, and remembering his pre-Obama track record – among other things, the hiring of Art Howe, whom he called the ideal choice for manager – there is scant reason for optimism.

The donut weighing down all Democrats, of course, is the economy.  Chances of a reversal of the jobs losing streak changing the election dynamics are dim. In GOP/swing districts like NY’s Nassau County, where Dem Tom Suozzi (a former client) had won two terms as county exec, the swing back to the red team could be wide and strong. Compounding the malaise among voters is the disparity between the masses and those who appear to be entitled.  Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes in Salon why the stats of the disparity are so frustrating: “How can the stock market hit new highs at the same time unemployment is hitting new highs? Simple. The market is up because corporate earnings are up. Corporate earnings are up because companies are cutting costs.  And the biggest single cost they’re cutting is their payrolls. So they let people go and, presto, their balance sheets look better and their stock prices rise.”
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For Congressional Dems the issue is whether they’ll retain an edge, however reduced, or lose their majority.  For the Mets, it is whether they can maintain enough marginal competitiveness to keep fans coming to Citi Field.  There is no question now of the team winning its division.  One familiar reason: lack of the type of farm system that (pre-Jeff Wilpon) produced Jose Reyes and David Wright.  Fernando Martinez, until recently the system’s lone standout prospect, has lost his luster:  Marty Noble, of mlb.com, reminds us of why: “(Martinez) is merely 21, but the injuries that have interrupted his development and his unremarkable performance in his first big league tour have raised questions... Right now, Martinez is closer to becoming another Alex Escobar than an Alex Rodriguez.”

How badly do the Red Sox want Jason Bay to re-sign with them?  Badly enough to badmouth him as soon as he opted for free agency.  The team’s message amplified through the media:  No NL team should want Bay; he lacks range as a left fielder and can be most effective used alternately as a DH.  Furthermore, he is “not someone you can build a team around.”  Who knew?

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The Nub will be on a road trip for the next week, returning a week from Tuesday.  Happy Thanksgiving to all.

 

(Posted: 11/17/09)

Skipper Obama’s Problem With Tough Pitches

“I almost wish Bush were still president,” said a front-office team member. “Then I could still be hopeful.   Now the political problems seem as immutable as the Yankees’ advantages in baseball.”

 The sentiment is a familiar one to people watching along the left-field line.  Skipper Obama can make great statements, but he ducks away from tough pitches instead of taking his cuts.  Those pitches, thrown by right-handers, are promoted by the corporate media and therefore popular with the public.  Let’s run down the consistently baffling assortment:

The high, hard one: Wars are something Team USA must wage.  It’s a dirty job - in Afghanistan, Iraq, and maybe Iran – but if we don’t fight, we’ll be perceived as giving in to terrorism and undercut our stance as the world’s clean-up hitter.

The keep-away pitch: Defense - that is, war- spending must never be questioned.  Deficit ballhawks can warn about the perils of aggressive social investment, but complaints about huge arms deals should be confined to the clubhouse.

Bread and butter delivery: Big-bank privileges and Wall Street prosperity are what market democracy is all about.  Going to bat for a less-tilted way to keep the economy in play risks ejection from the game. 

Brush-back:  Progressive taxation as a possible remedy for much of our financial losing streak is a non-starter.  Mere mention of the t-word can get a major player sent to the political minors.

Rules-breaking spitball:  In the name of “safety and security,” some right-handers say that, unlike several countries around the world, we dare not allow terrorist trials in the U.S.  Salon slugger Glenn Greenwald exposes the “cowardice” of pitchers who take that approach: “(They)insist,,,that we must ignore the Constitution in order to stay alive:  the exact antithesis of the core value on which the nation was founded…It is...as pure a surrender to the terrorists as it gets.” 

We know the Yankees will never have to surrender their financial edge; the players union  won’t accept any management proposal that would cut into members’ earnings.  And would it be fair to blame them for that?

It would not be a radical change, but Brewers GM Bob Melvin thinks the way to mitigate the disparity between the “have” and “have-not” teams could be through the player draft:  “The draft has to be fixed,” he says, so that teams willing to spend the most money don’t  wind up with the best players.  Which is what happens because small-market teams seldom bother drafting the best, who are in a position to demand - and receive - top dollar.  Melvin and his management colleagues believe - hope - some kind of curbs on signing payments can be established in the next labor agreement in 2012.      
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Desert stars:  The Nationals, Marlins and Oakland A’s are three teams surely watching the Arizona Fall League with satisfaction.  As of yesterday’s stats, the Nats’ high-priced first draft pick Stephen Strasburg led the league in wins (4-1) and had struck out 23 in 19 innings.  Marlins’ outfielder prospect Bryan Petersen leads the league in hitting (.422) and Oakland’s slugging outfield farmhand Grant Desme has hit 11 home runs in 24 games; no one else in the league is close to double-digit HRs. 

The Yanks have a promising hitter in outfielder Colin Curtis, batting .388 after 17 games.  Mets first-baseman prospect Ike Davis had a .319 BA with four home runs after 17 games.  The Red Sox must be pleased with the progress of shortstop Jose Iglesias, the Cuban defector to whom they gave a $6 million signing bonus not long ago.  Defense is Iglesias’ forte, but he was batting .295 after 16 games.
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(Posted: 11/14/09)

The Unpredictable Pastimes – Politics and Baseball

Non-Yankee baseball fans can find solace in the nine-year gap between Bronx-Bomber championships.  Big money doesn’t always buy World Series titles; unpredictability is an important part of baseball’s appeal.

Politics, we know, is even more volatile than our national pastime - look at what happened in the recent election: despite a popular president, Team GOP, playing in a bad economy, won two major contests and a passel of minor ones.  At the same time, little-noticed scoreboards in two states showed how unpredictable the political game can be.  In Maine and Washington, amid household-budget losing streaks, voters defeated efforts to limit the amount of tax money their states could ask of them.  The margin was 60-40 in Maine, 57-43 in Washington.  Talk about “you never know”, many anti-tax-limit voters in Maine showed they could pull to right by also defeating a gay-marriage proposal.

Washington Post-man E.J. Dionne noted that the anti-tax attempt was “part of a laboratory experiment pushed by the Beltway Right.”  The outcome therefore was something progressives could point to and possibly build on.  He adds, though, that leadership is needed, which raises a familiar question: “Will President Obama and his party take the lesson and go on offense against the simple-minded anti-government screeds now getting so much play?”

Experienced official scorers are calling Team Obama’s swinging bunt concerning its Afghan ambassador a hit; that is, the handout (disguised as a leak) describing the envoy’s doubts about a troop buildup advances the running story cleanly and provides protection for the skipper.  Fans will not now be shocked when Barack pulls back from giving General Stanley McChrystal the large number of additional armed players he requested.  Or if the “leak” does produce an outcry, Team Obama can change its strategy accordingly.    

The cheer expressed here for ratings-beleaguered CNN had scarcely subsided when the cable network’s Wolf Blitzer made the support a source of embarrassment.  Here is how Blitzer asked Nidal Hasan’s military lawyer – Ret.Col John Galligan – about his taking the case involving the Fort Hood massacre:

BLITZER: “A lot of folks, when they heard I was interviewing you, they asked me how could a retired U.S. military officer, a full colonel, go ahead and represent someone accused of mass murder? And I want you to explain to our viewers why you're doing this.”

GALLIGAN: “Wolf, I will tell you what I have told consistently anyone who asks that same question, and that is…I fully appreciate the importance of ensuring that everybody has a fair trial.” 

He might have added “And you should, too, Wolf.” 

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Although nothing happened at mlb’s post-season meeting in Chicago, Mets fans rest assured their team will make at least one big-ticket signing before too long.  Jeff Wilpon and Omar Minaya must do something to distract from the suddenly non-competitive state of the franchise.  Marty Noble, who covered the Mets for years with Newsday and now does it for MLB.com, tells it like it is:

“My sense of the situation it is that the final standings in the National League East accurately represent the relative strengths of the 2009 teams and are likely to serve the purpose for the 2010 season -- even if the Mets acquire a quality starting pitcher. Adding a power hitter who plays the outfield well… and a quality starter would close the gap.

“But the catching situation is an enormous issue that seemingly has been camouflaged by the need for pitching and power.”

Time to talk about the marginal-interest sports of baseball fans, specifically today, pro football.  Our recommended focus each year is on frost-belt football played outdoors in December and particularly in the January playoffs. (So much fun to watch from a warm living room.) We therefore hope the Eagles or Giants overtake Dallas in the NFC East, and will root for either in upcoming games.  And we want the Patriots and the (barely contending) Jets to maintain their respective leads over Miami in the AFC East.  We’d like to see the Broncos fend off the charging San Diegoans.  And in the AFC North, where the Bengals, Steelers and Ravens are fighting it out, may the best team win.   
                       - o -
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(Posted: 11/10/09)

Is It Good to Have the Yanks and Team Obama Playing Their Game?

Last swings (for now) on a thoroughly scuffed subject:

What does it mean that the Yankees can outbid any other team for ballplayers they want?  There’s a politically correct answer, we believe, that connects to the way Team Obama plays its game.

“You can't root for the Yankees regretting their spending of money,” says JM, of Nyack, in the e-mailbag. “There is a long arc from Babe Ruth to Johnny Mize to Catfish Hunter down to the present day.  It's never the spending, but only the spending for trash that burdens our souls.”

Then there is this from GM, of Princeton, NJ:  “What folks forget is that most owners are rich.  It's the fan base that allows the Yankees to spend and know that they are going to recoup their money.”

To sum up the above: The Yankees are fortunate to have a huge fan base – it’s the good hand they were dealt.  That they spend freely the massive amounts of money they take in is something they’ve always done, which we should learn to live with. 

Implied is “Life is unfair”, a fact wealthy teams like the Yanks can take in stride.  But not everyone.  Most fans would like to see something approaching an even playing field.  Much of the third world resents Team Obama because, like the Yanks, it can afford to do whatever it wants.  What nearly everybody abroad and at home seeks is fairness.  Americans resent the O-team’s “soft-touch approach to Wall Street” (Paul Krugman’s phrase) which has enriched a few players while most others struggle.  People in the Middle East deplore the skipper’s check-swing toward the expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestine; in Latin America, they’re booing Obama’s inaction over the  rhubarb in Honduras.    

The reluctance of Obama to push for change, to seek a righting of imbalances, has (again in Krugman’s phrase) “seemed to many like a betrayal of their ideals.”  The ideal of greater fairness in baseball is more elusive than in politics because the head man Bud Selig is in even a bigger slump than Obama.  No change is imminent.  Kansas City Star columnist Joe Posnanski, frustrated as anyone, explains why:

“A. Everyone knows the Yankees spend much more money than any other team to win games.
B.  Because everyone knows it, people have been complaining about it for many years.
C.  Because people have complained about it for many years, everybody is sick of hearing about it.
D.  Because everyone is sick of hearing about it, nobody really listens.
E.  Because nobody really listens, people don’t talk about the Yankees spending much more money than any other team to win games….

“The Yankees have a pat hand…(Nevertheless) many of us keep (watching) because we love baseball and there’s enough randomness in the game itself and enough volatility in the playoffs to distract us from the lunacy of having the game so ridiculously tilted toward one team.”

A modest proposal for ending the lunacy - split the Yankees into two teams, the way you split an overvalued stock: creation of, let’s say, the NY Clippers would help the AL establish 16-team balance with the NL and again make NYC the three-team town it was before the Dodgers and Giants abandoned it. (No charge for the consultation.)
                          - o -
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(Posted: 11/7/09)

Did Loser to Team Mike Care as Much as the Phillies?

In an election-week verbal pepper game, a friend hit out at the Bloomberg/Yankees connection made in the previous Nub.  He said he hoped, that in relating wealthy Team Bloomberg to the Yanks, we weren’t implying Billy Thompson was like the Phillies: “Unlike the Phillies,” he said, “Thompson didn’t want it badly enough.”

Thompson, a zero on the personal scoreboard of most New Yorkers, surely wanted to win badly, but he didn’t have the financial clout to do so; he couldn’t transform himself through TV and other paid media into someone for whom the public could cheer.  Bloomberg was a zero when he first ran in 2001.  His money made him a visible player, and a winning one.

The danger now, we know, is that another moneyed candidate could come along in 2013 and replicate Mayor Mike’s success.  Then, once in office, he might demonstrate to the public what son-of-money Jeff Wilpon has shown Mets fans: he doesn’t have what it takes to run the franchise.  The fans can stay away from baseball games; the public must stick it out for four years with a bad mayor. 

Bloomberg will be a good mayor, as Thompson might well have been had Team Obama saw fit to go to bat for him.  Obama has been letting his fans down on a number of plays – as he and we have been hearing for some time.  Washington Postman E.J. Dionne takes a warning post-election hack at the skipper and his coaches.  He sees “a spirit far different than the buoyant confidence Barack Obama inspired a year ago.  And the Obama change-agents, particularly the young, were notably absent from the voting booths this week.  In Virginia, a state Obama carried comfortably last year, a majority of those who showed up to vote on Tuesday said they had backed John McCain. This much more Republican electorate produced a GOP landslide all the way down the Virginia ballot.

“That is the fact from this week that Democrats would be fools to ignore. It's not a resurgent right wing that should trouble Obama's party.  Indeed, the stronger the right's role in shaping the Republican message, the harder it will be for middle-of-the-road voters to use the Republicans to express their discontent.  But for the moment, the thrill is gone from politics, and that is very dangerous for the mainstream progressive movement that Obama promised to build.”
                             -     -     -
The on-the-job training of Jeff Wilpon as in-loco-parentis boss of the Mets began six years ago. Shortly before then, former co-owner Nelson Doubleday told the Newark Star-Ledger he saw trouble brewing for the team: “Mr. Jeff Wilpon has decided that he’s going to learn how to run a baseball team and take over at the end of the year… Run for the hills, boys.  I think…baseball people will bail… Jeff sits there by himself like he’s King Tut waiting for his camel.”

In fact, Jeff brought in baseball people – Bill Singer and Al Goldis – to serve as special assistants to new GM Jim Duquette.  That too-many-cooks experiment ended badly – all three were gone in short order, with Omar Minaya taking over as GM at the end of 2004.  Now Jeff is talking about a repeat of the debacle, assistants for Omar, who has lost the player-moves autonomy promised when he took the job. 

How do fans outside Yankee-land feel about the Bombers’ WS victory?  Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty gives us an idea:

“The Yankees have missed the postseason exactly once since 1993.  Apparently, their front office has been nothing but wise since then.  I'm sure Carl Pavano thinks they're brilliant.

“Care about the Cincinnati Reds or don't.  Fact is, if you follow the sport -- and are somewhere in the vast part of America that doesn't care about the Red Sox, Yankees and Mets -- you need to be concerned about a competitive imbalance that allows one team to spend $200 million on players and another in the same business to spend $40 million.”

More, pro and con, about the political correctness of “imbalance” in the next Nub.
                   - o -
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(11/5/09)

Did Wealth Make Yanks and Team Mike Failure-Proof?

Is it fair to say the Yankees, like Mike Bloomberg, were “too big to fail”?  The answer has to be “yes,” but with a safety-squeeze qualification: Had either the Yanks or Team Mike tripped over their moneyed advantage; had internal rivalries or jealousies developed among well-paid teammates, or had outside events - serious accidents, injuries illnesses or political corruption - intervened, then bigness could not have spared them failure.

Both succeeded - the Yanks to a world championship, Bloomberg to a third mayoral term  - because they put their money to effective use: the Yankees spent multi-millions extra to outbid opponents for C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira.  Team Mike used the $100 million-plus self-financed campaign to shift the public’s focus from the mayor’s devious term-limits play to his two-term record of on-field performance.  Few, if any bumps slowed either franchise. 

Polls and media consensus suggest that for both outfits fan support was ambivalent: voters resented Bloomberg’s “Who’s-your-daddy?” rule while approving the way he ran the city. The many dispassionate Yankee rooters regretted the team’s willingness to spend to make the competitive field as uneven in its favor as it felt was necessary to win. 

The election results only underscore the price Mayor Mike will pay for his win: an erosion of the good will New Yorkers felt for him because of what they considered his trustworthiness.  He now deserves little more trust than most politicians.  And the skepticism is likely to show in the way the once-supportive media treat him. (“No Longer Invincible,” was the 11/4 Times’ quick-pitch headline about the mayor ) Yankee-hating, which had subsided throughout much of baseball since the team’s last World Series appearance in 2003, will now surely regain widespread fervor. 

The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg sums up what the public and “daddy” Bloomberg have let themselves in for over the next four years:  We gave him a third term “sullenly,” he says, “knowing that while it probably won’t measure up to his first two…it’ll probably be good enough…But then what?  Will we have forgotten how to govern ourselves?” file:///C:/Users/dickstar/Downloads/Documents/PerfectPitch%20blog/the_nub.html     

The UK Guardian’s Michael Tomasky picks up on Hertzberg’s idea, seeing Bloomberg’s  victory more as a grudging coronation than re-election: “New York City, once the greatest city of the 20th century, will carry on for the foreseeable future being the greatest city of the 15th.”

                  -     -     -                    
Auld Lang Syne:  One hates to see the season end.  But the finale had a lot going for it, especially if you were Yankee fan.  SI’s Tom Verducci put it this way:
“In Game 6 we (got) the next best thing to a Game 7, in every way. Pedro pitching against the Yankees for the 40th time. Pettitte pitching in a postseason game for the 40th time. The World Series decided…at Yankee Stadium (old and new) for the 17th time.  It's like a great bedtime story to a child.  Tell me again, because it never gets old.”

It was a heartbreaking bedtime story for Phillies fans, who got a taste of what Mets fans went through when Pedro pitched for their team.  Tim McCarver said at the start that Pedro had no fast ball.  And just before Hideki Matsui knocked in his third and fourth runs, Joe Buck said “Pedro’s not fooling Matsui.”

Shortly before game 6 started, Fox promoted two sitcoms, promising they would be on tonight.  Not a word about the possibility of a seventh game.

Now the hot-stove guessing game can begin:  Will or won’t the Yanks re-sign Matsui?  After Hideki’s clutch WS performance, there’s no question how most Yankee fans feel.               

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(Posted: 11/3/09)

Ballparks as Bloomberg-Aided Business Centers

Stadium designers know that new ballparks must be bigger than the old to accommodate neither a larger playing field nor greater seating capacity.  What teams want in their new digs is a swath of additional commercial space.  That the restaurants, clothing stores, souvenir shops, etc. are built-in threats to local businesses is too bad: baseball has an anti-communitarian streak evident in many new-ballpark cities, but especially in New York.

We know that the Yankees, abetted by Team Bloomberg, have received $360 million in tax relief and subsidies as well as chunks of precious parkland for their new stadium.  The Mets completed a lesser deal with city but have also made out quite well on the taxpayers’ cuff.   All this should be taken into account as NYC voters go to the polls today.

The Voice’s Tom Robbins and Wayne Barrett, the Times’s Jim Dwyer and the Daily News’ Juan Gonzales and Errol Louis are among the few journalists who have kept the mayor’s record in perspective.  Time constraints have made TV news people less conscientious.  Lingering in the TV ballpark, our pitching for CNN last time prompted a couple of differing e-mailbag at-bats:

“You are certainly right about the need for an old fashioned, which is to say, relatively objective news source, but CNN has not been that for years.” - Carol Ann Rinzler, Manhattan

“That was a good piece about CNN neutrality.” - Richard Bruner, Budapest

In truth, we based much of our CNN assessment on its foreign coverage, which may explain the disparity of opinion.

Down-the-middle hitting machine Ronald Brownstein (National Journal) summarizes in two crisp swings the major-party strategies as the political game heads into 2010:

“Democrats are wagering that they can sell Americans on a sweeping and in some ways unprecedented expansion of government's reach to confront both…immediate …and… long-term challenges.”

“The fundamental bet that Republicans are placing this year (is) that they can regain power by riding a public backlash against government overreach.”

Two early tests today of how the strategy is working: In gov elections in New Jersey and Virginia, polls indicate a tie - Dem Jon Corzine winning in NJ, Repub Bob McDonnell in Virginia.  Both franchises are sure to declare overall victory.  Margins may be the key to which spin makes more sense. 
                                 -     -    -
It’s Not Over Yet, But…In retrospect, Charlie Manuel tipped us off to his starting-pitcher problems and the disadvantage under which the Phils were playing.  His choice of Pedro Martinez to pitch the second WS game said clearly he had lost confidence in Cole Hamels.  Having no starter with “lights-out” potential after Cliff Lee meant the Phils were overmatched against C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte.  The team could hit a ton, but so could the Yanks.  Victory for the NYYs was - is - therefore predictable.  But we’re not saying it here; at least, not this time. 

Mariano Rivera was generous in imparting his cut-fastball “one pitch” secret the other day.  The Boston Herald’s Sean McAdam took down what he said:  “I started throwing the cutter in 1997 and since then, it has been one pitch, yes.  But it does a lot of things.  It doesn’t go in the same direction always, and it’s not always in the same spot.

“Before, I used to just try to go inside, inside, inside and occasionally I went outside.  Now I use the whole plate. I use the outside corner, the inside corner and up and down. When you make those adjustments, the hitters will tell you if you have to make any (further) adjustments… But that’s what I’ve done, I’m using the whole plate.”

Not exactly news, perhaps.  But when a great one talks about his craft, he or she is worth quoting.

                                - o -
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October 2009 Archive

(Posted 10/31/09)

Why We Should Care More About CNN Than the Mets

The Mets and CNN both finished fourth in their respective divisions. As ominous for NYM fans as the team’s decline may seem, it’s not in the same league as the last-place finish of centrist CNN in the cable news standings.

Why should we care about CNN’s fall behind Fox, NBC and HLN, when the Metsies ended 25^th out of 30 in W-L percentage this season?  That’s a real downer!  The cable news game is easy to shrug off: Teams Fox and MSNBC at the top, one hitting consistently to right, the other to left; HLN settling for squibby headlines.  So what?  Here’s the nub of the matter: CNN is the only team in the league that hits up the middle.  If fans have lost interest in that kind of un-slanted swing, it confirms the broader, off-field reality: most spectators cheer the approach to hitting they agree with – resulting in drives that hug either foul line – and not the reliable straightaway stroke that CNN still offers (however imperfectly).

In the journalistic game it’s called objectivity.  A hint as to why that all-sides tradition is important can be found in hundreds of record books.  One at hand, “The Penguin History of the Second World War” recalls how Swiss radio, “with its built-in reputation for neutral impartiality,” kept Europeans from being cut off, providing information that helped them survive the hardships of German occupation.  While unconcerned about a similar threat in our ballpark, we should worry about being cut off ourselves from the instructive benefits of the news game as it should be played.

The trend away from down-the-middle reportage coincides with the relentless cutback in newsgathering teams and players.  Village Voice slugger Tom Robbins says diminishing rosters and less competition generally have left many significant stories uncovered.  The failure is especially unfortunate, he says, in the run-up to NYC’s mayoral election:

“The big story late lafile:///C:/Users/dickstar/Downloads/Documents/PerfectPitch%20blog/the_nub.htmlst week was the stunning court ruling on the illegal Stuyvesant Town rent hikes.  But you'd never know from the coverage that Bloomberg had praised the original deal cut by landlord Tishman-Speyer (headed by one of his strongest allies).  Or that his top aides had scotched a plan to keep Stuy Town affordable.”

Off-field performances that should be considered as part of Election Day decision-making.
                                 -     -     -
In the sixth inning Thursday night, Joe Buck was guilty of a surprising oversight.  He said Pedro Martinez would be facing the heart of the Yankee batting order, emphasizing only the challenges posed by Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez.  “Don’t forget Hideki,” one viewer (at least) said to the TV screen.  Matsui has been as timely a hitter as anyone in the NYY lineup.  Hideki’s home run may have caught Buck by surprise, but not fans who follow the team daily. 

Insiders are saying Matsui will play next season only if the Yankees offer to re-sign him, or, failing that, Seattle gives him a chance to play with his idol Ichiro Suzuki.  It’s not our money, so we say the Yanks should re-snap him up. 

Has anyone else noticed how the Yankees’ omnipresent HR potential means a game can be drained of sustained excitement at any moment?  The tension builds with men on base and reaches a peak when a clutch pitcher-batter faceoff unfolds.  Home runs - especially solo shots - are often anti-climactic.   Heresy? Maybe, but it was certainly true in game 2.
                              - o -
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(Posted: 10/29/09)

Baseball and Politics Both Distancing Young People

“Descent into mediocrity” is how the Boston Globe describes the plight of the Mets and the team’s outlook for 2010.  It’s what happens to any organization that doesn’t give  priority to planning.  The political system is like the Mets – and, from a broader perspective, like all of baseball: it invests little in attracting the young. 

The signs of anything but a youthquake in the 2010 midterm elections should come as no surprise.  The reality of entrenched incumbency – and little responsiveness in Washington - has replaced the anything-can-happen excitement of the presidential campaign. That’s part of the turnoff.  Then there is the deadening role of money.  Most campaign money, we know, goes for political TV spots.  And we certainly know that TV and the money baseball gets for broadcast rights is key to the sport’s less-than-fan-friendly image. 

What’s to be done?  Nothing will change politically, says Times lefty Bob Herbert, “without a big effort from an active citizenry, and that means a citizenry fired with a sense of mission and the belief that their actions…can make a profound difference.”

Herbert is asking for the equivalent of a walkoff home run against Mariano Rivera in a seventh World Series game.  The down economy and what one NY political scientist has called the “crisis of democracy” have left people, old as well as young, too discouraged to activate themselves.

If there’s a squib of hope for a return to popular political action, it clings to health reform, and the potential fallout from its many innings in Congress.  An eventual law that includes an opt-out public option could prompt electeds in some states to say “no thanks.”  If a stance that pits a state against health care affordability doesn’t reawaken activism in those affected, nothing will.

The e-mailbag contains this pertinent message re baseball’s poor health: “The final game with the Angels ended about midnight on a school night.  So kids should not have stayed up to watch.  Then I thought, what if the game was on earlier?  Do I really want my 10-year-old watching Cialis and Viagra commercials during a baseball game, along with the beer commercials which aren't much better?” – Frank S, Manhattan

Does anyone think anything will budge Bud Selig and team owners from permitting post-season schedules that yield the most TV money possible?  Does anyone think an appeal based on the need to cultivate future generations of fans would work?  For that to happen, we know, would be the equivalent of a seventh-game walkoff against Mariano, this one ending in a grand slam.
                                   -     -     -
On a night when Cliff Lee and Chase Utley would be the dominating forces, the Yankees earlier got the World Series off to an inauspicious start.  Their usual super-patriotic excess marred the pre-game activities (and, later, the seventh inning “God Bless America” break).  Then leadoff man Derek Jeter set the tone against Lee, striking out and looking bad doing it.  A rare lapse by the captain, who singled doubled and singled again later in the losing cause. 

Many Mets fans thought Omar Minaya did one thing right early last season: he resisted re-signing Pedro Martinez, who was clearly over the hill.  Well, make that one thing minus one: Pedro, we know, bounced back in unbelievable fashion for the Phillies.  Those who doubted that his successful comeback was real were surely persuaded otherwise when he blanked the Dodgers for seven innings in game two of the NLDS.  Pedro will give the doubters another chance tonight.  Meanwhile, Yankee fans have reason to be unsure about Pedro’s mound opponent:  A,J. Burnett brings the threat of unsteadiness with him every time he toes the rubber.  It will be an entertainingly unpredictable match-up. 

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(Posted 10/27/09)

Cracks Causing Problems for Mayor Mike and the New Stadium

Cracks in the concrete at Yankee Stadium and in the façade of Mike Bloomberg:  coincidental setbacks on the eve of the World Series and the cusp of the mayoral end-game.   Mike’s team was responsible for the poor job done on the Stadium’s pedestrian ramps, not the skipper himself.  He suffered self-inflicted damage when he hit into a political twin-killing: letting Rudy Giuliani play dirty on the campaign basepaths and setting up Detroit for a verbal spiking of his own.

The Yankees say the ramp cracks may be an embarrassment, but only a “cosmetic” problem; big-show balladeer Leonard Cohen says it better: “There is a crack, a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.”  Bloomberg can’t dismiss the race-related mischief that darkened his campaign when Giuliani pitched to a Jewish group in Brooklyn the idea that only Mike - and not his black opponent - can insure community peace.  The mayor could have retrieved the situation by calling Rudy off-base; instead, he kept the fear-centered rally going at the expense of Detroit.  Mike warned that the Yankees’ home city could become another Tigers-town, historically hit by racial as well as economic woes.

Even Bloomberg backers are wondering why?  Why the race game on top of negative TV shots?.  He is outspending Billy Thompson 10-1; his record campaign payroll is the political equivalent of what the Yankees spend to outdo all other major league teams.   But unlike the Yankees, who must pay a luxury tax to provide financial aid to low-payroll competitors, Mike faces no such penalty.  (See “The Big Kids Play With Corked Bats” at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091109/rosenthal in this week’s Nation).   If the Yanks had dealt for Cliff Lee or Matt Holliday while still well ahead last season, it would have been seen as either overkill or desperation.  So it is with Team Bloomberg.  Whatever the reason, the mayor’s latest plays hardly do him or his team credit.
                                   -     -     -
A dream World Series for some, a nightmare match-up for others.  Imagine how anti-Yankee Mets fans feel: the big guy on the NY block is nearly back on top.  A horrendous thought.  On the other hand, the Phillies are so smug in their anti-Mets superiority.  A pox on them, too.  One thing we suspect: If Bud Selig could choose, he’d want the Yafile:///C:/Users/dickstar/Downloads/Documents/PerfectPitch%20blog/the_nub.htmlnkees to win to defend against talk of a Phillies dynasty.  Better to be able to boast of (even a dubious) parity and a different champion each year.

Did anybody else notice the trace of tension in the usually relaxed face of Derek Jeter Sunday night?  It was most noticeable at the plate, but Derek seemed up-tight in the field as well.  If the playoff pressure is getting to Jeter, then none of us is safe from everyday stress.  Derek, we know, is the model for cool.

The around-midnight finish of Sunday night’s game and the prospect of more of the same during the Series inevitably prompts recriminations in the media.  Bill Dwyre wrote this lament in the LA Times:

“A telling conversation last year during the World Series with Fox President Ed Goren.  The conversation was about the good old days when they played the World Series during the day, when kids could watch, when there was a sense of connection to baseball's vintage time.

”Goren told the reporter that he was amenable, that he could see the attraction to that.  He also said that it was his understanding that Commissioner Bud Selig kind of liked that thought.  Of course, Goren told the reporter, day games get much lower ratings than night games, so Fox would certainly have to reduce the rights fees it pays to MLB.

”We all know how that day-game-for-the-kids turned out.”
                              - o -
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(Posted: 10/24/09)

No Fault to Find with Fox Baseball Coverage and Joe Buck

After the series of stunning missed calls by umpires in Anaheim this week, Fox’s Joe Buck asked Joe Girardi what he thought about them:  They were “odd,” Girardi said. “A politic answer,” said Buck.

Fox is fortunate to have Buck, who pitches down the middle, on its team.  That’s especially true at a time when its prime affiliate Fox Cable News has been accused by Team Obama of excessive hitting to right.  Fans like Fox’s bias so it has every reason to stay with its swing, just as MSNBC can justify its pulling to left.  What’s useful - it says here - about the Obama-ignited rhubarb is its instructional value.  Most, but not all, cable-TV watchers, know they’re getting propaganda curves mixed in with straight informational fast balls.   For a small percentage of those fans, however, the built-in bias will be news.  They will have learned that to get straight-down-the-middle reporting they must look elsewhere. 

We’ve mentioned before how difficult it is to find truly objective reportage - that is, coverage of all sides of an issue - in our corporate media.  The McClatchy chain is a previously cited straight-hitting source.  The National Journal is another.  The broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC pass muster while being far from perfect.  The same goes for National Public Radio. 

Entertainment value, we know, long ago replaced newsworthiness on TV.  That applies to ESPN, whose mission is to sell sports and not examine its underside.  We’re talking about stories like the charging of unconscionable ticket prices or the exploitation of young Latin American ballplayers, cast aside if they don’t qualify as genuine prospects.

Since we can’t pretend to pitch down the middle every game, we have a first-hand report on Fox Cable News to toss out this time, dating from its early days more than a decade ago.  A lefty non-roster member of the team - and hopeful then of guiding it to straightaway coverage - we noticed that the bias consisted, mainly, of the choice of stories rather than their content: a small anti-government protest would be covered, for example, rather than delivery of aid to drought-distressed areas. There were minor instances of wording bias, as well: a reporter doing an anniversary piece on Senator Joe McCarthy would be instructed to list the “good things” the senator had done to balance out the bad.   

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald has a more up-to-date description of what Fox is doing that distinguishes it from conventional news teams: “Fox has taken on a political role that is very rare… for a large American news organization.  Its news coverage is not merely biased or opinionated; there'd be nothing unusual about that.  Instead, it is a major participant -- the leading participant -- in organizing, promoting and fueling protests, including street protests, against the government… Fox has every right to do that, but the pretense that it is a news organization is ludicrous.”                                                                                                                                                                               

                              -     -     -
In retrospect, “ludicrous” is an apt word to describe the once-widely held opinion that the Mets could have competed successfully against the Phillies had they not lost their “core” to injuries.  Not only did the Phils have a tough core of their own, they had a more solid bench plus three attractive prospects to deal for Cliff Lee, the clinching piece to their World Series-bound team.

Back to Joe Buck, who may one day have a candy bar named after him - (remember the “Reggie”(Jackson) bar?  When his Fox sidekick Tim McCarver said he didn’t want expanded replay coverage slowing down baseball as we’ve known it, Buck said “What did it take to see the bad call on Swisher leaving third base (in game 4), six seconds?”

The replay procedure in pro football is too cumbersome and time-consuming, he said. But with a supervisory umpire watching “from upstairs”, the controversial calls could be reversed or confirmed without disrupting the flow of the game.  From his lips to Bud Selig’s ears.

Had he been listening to McCarver in the seventh inning Thursday, Mike Scioscia would have known better than to replace starter John Lackey with two out and two men on base. “Lackey’s the best he’s got,” said McCarver when Buck wondered if the change was about to take place.  “I think he’ll be around for awhile.”  After inserting Darren Oliver, Scioscia watched a 4-0 lead turn into a 6-4 deficit.  Second-guessers would have given Scioscia a Girardi-like searing (see game 4) had his team not fought back.

Although they might have preferred a victory, Yankees fans couldn’t have minded the defeat Thursday too much.  It set up tonight’s sixth game at the Stadium, a bonus.  And there’s always C.C Sabathia waiting to pitch the seventh, if necessary.
                            - o -
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(Posted 10/22/09)

Betrayals Bedeviling Baseball and Barack Fans

Pittsburgh fans must enjoy the Pirates-like bind Team Obama is experiencing.  Both outfits – the Bucs and the Barack-ites - have betrayed their supporters in separate financial plays, and failed to rectify the way the game has gone. 

The political betrayal, played out appropriately in Pittsburgh last month (at the Group of 20 Summit), concerns Goldman Sachs and other money-making teams responsible for the trilliona lost in the worldwide economic collapse.  The question addressed: what to do about them?  The baseball betrayal concerns the Pirates’ reluctance to invest in top prospects the comparatively paltry $110 million in luxury tax money it has collected as a small-market team.  And what to do about that?

The Summit agreements call for tighter regulation over the financial teams, their deal- making, and the pay and bonuses they give their top players.  Pirates fans are urging Commissioner Bud Selig to force the team’s owners to use luxury-tax money to be more competitive.

The Summit promises sounded good until last Sunday, when Team Obama’s PR man David Axelrod appeared on ABC-TV with host George Stephanopoulos.  He was asked about the tighter regulations being imposed on Goldman Sachs:

“Well… first of all, we have… limited sway other than moral suasion with some of these -- a lot of these institutions.”

STEPHANOPOULOS:  “They are getting an awful lot of money from the Fed.”

AXELROD:  “They ought to think through what they're doing, and they ought to understand that, a year ago, a lot of these institutions were teetering on the brink.  The United States government and taxpayers came to their defense. They have responsibilities. They ought to meet those responsibilities.”

The scorebook shows three “oughts” in four sentences.  It indicates this final outcome: “moral suasion” making noise but producing “ought.”

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, Democrat of Ohio, sees one thing that Skipper Obama can do – a move that would dispel some of the disillusionment with him and his team: get rid of Treasury Department albatrosses Tim Geithner and Larry Summers.  Here is how she put it in response to a direct question from Bill Moyers on his “Journal”: 

BILL MOYERS: “Should Geithner be fired? And Summers be fired?”

MARCY KAPTUR: “I don't think that any individuals who had their hands on creating this mess should be in charge of cleaning it up.  I honestly don't think they're capable of it.”

The special inspector general of the bank bailouts program yesterday reinforced criticism of how it was handled.  The IG said the favored treatment to Goldman Sachs and eight others and the failure to make banks accountable for how they used bailout money has fed anti-government sentiment in the U.S.   Is it any wonder the latest Washington Post/Pew poll shows the national percentage of self-described conservatives at 38 percent compared to 23 percent for liberals?

Since the record book indicates Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig doesn’t even try to exert moral suasion on team owners, Pirates owner Robert Nutting must act on his own, undertaking a spending initiative if the Bucs are to respond to the fans’ clamor.  He has the added incentive, presumably, of wishing to end his team’s record-long series of 17 straight losing seasons.
                                 -     -     -
After Jayson Werth hit a three-run homer off Vincente Padilla in the first inning last night, the Phillies - in Ron Darling’s phrase - “never looked back” on their way to the NL pennant-clinching victory.  The Phillies had too much offense for the Dodgers, no surprise.  The surprise was the effectiveness of their much-maligned bullpen.  The expected Phils-Yankees World Series matchup should feature offensive fireworks  of a highly explosive order.

More on betrayals:  If ever an umpire’s call betrayed the need for replay overrule, we know it was Tim McClelland’s on Nick Swisher’s tag-up at third base in the fifth inning of Yanks-LA game 4.  McClelland ruled that Swisher had left third before Torii Hunter made a catch in center.  But Tim McCarver pointed out during a replay what viewers could see clearly: McClelland was watching Hunter, not Swisher, when the play occurred.  Obvious lesson: umpires can’t be expected to see two things at once.      

And another on betrayals - this of us ticket-buyers - from the Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy:  “I’ll never understand why it’s OK for (teams) to go into business with companies that sell tickets at elevated prices.  I realize this is tapping into the ‘secondary market,’ but didn’t we used to call that ‘scalping’?”

How optimistic are Angels fans that they can bounce back to win the ALCS?  LA Timesman Bill Dwyre gives us a good (already partially outdated) idea:  “The World Series will open in the American League city (next Tuesday).  If it matches the Dodgers and the Angels, Tom Lasorda will be changing water into wine at home plate at the Big A.”

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(Posted: 10/20/09)

Team USA Is Slipping but Still Resented Like the Yanks

Too late in the season to even fantasize about “Breaking up the Yankees”.  But pinstripe fever in NY notwithstanding, most baseball fans want to see the Yanks stopped in their title-seeking tracks.  That’s just the numerical reality.  It’s not only partisans of Angels, Phillies and Dodgers who have championship hopes; we’ve noted how followers of the 26 other teams with lower payrolls resent the Yankees for the wealth and power they possess.

So it is on the international field.  Polls show that, while people around the world feel a sense of hope associated with Team Obama’s leadership, they don’t like what they see as America’s superiority complex.  The Yankees certified their leadership by winning more regular-season games, hitting more home runs, getting more RBIs, scoring more runs than any other team.  Our non-baseball stats hardly qualify us as a world league leader.

Once we led the league in making things; we’re now down in eighth place.  Team USA is lower than that when it comes to the measurement of economic playing fields.  Only Mexico and Turkey have wider holes separating the struggling and the well-off.  We’re in 13^th place in the affordability-of-education standings.  How about the comfort level – the quality of life – of people in our coast-to-coast ballpark?  We’re 15^th, far behind such “socialistic” teams as Canada, France and Norway.  As to our slot in the quality-of- health-care stats, don’t ask:  we’re 37^th, according to the World Health Organization.     

You get the picture:  the days of “We’re number one” - except in war-related competition - are long gone.  That has been true for the Yankees since 2000.  The Angels, Phils and Dodgers – and non-NYY fans – want it still to be case early next month.    
                                    -     -     -
When Alex Rodriguez ignored a stop sign at third base in ALCS game one and barreled home into Angels catcher Jeff Mathis, Fox’s Tim McCarver made this interesting observation: “In a play like that the runner tags himself out.  The umpire can’t tell if the catcher actually touches him with the ball.  But if the catcher still has the ball after impact, the umpire will call the runner out.”  In game two, McCarver remained puzzlingly silent when Derek Jeter was called out at the end of a key Angels double-play.  Joe Buck said Jeter looked safe, and re-plays showed that clearly to be the case. McCarver said, in effect, “no comment.”  Mathis, incidentally, made three crucial blocks of wild pitches after he entered yesterday’s game three, then later hit a leadoff double in the 11^th before scoring the winning run.  “He’s quite a player,” said McCarver.

They admire Jeter on the West Coast as much as we do on the East.  His home run and late rally-killing cutoff play yesterday reinforced that admiration.  LA Times-man Bill Shaikin elicited these comments about Jeter from baseball people who’ve watched him closely:

“He’s clutch.  He likes this time of year.” – Larry Bowa
“The game doesn’t speed up for him.” – Joe Torre
“(He has an) extraordinary ability to take a deep breath and deliver rather than yield to a rapid heartbeat in October.”  - gist of baseball execs’ comments summarized by Shaikin
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(Posted: 10/17/09)

Is There Politics-Like Dishonesty in Baseball?

From the e-mailbag: re prevalence of bad calls in baseball and politics -

“I think there’s a problem with your analogy of bad calls by the umpires and Team Bush (“What to Do About Bad Calls on Both Fields” at perfectpitcher.org).  I assume that the umpires are making honest mistakes.  By contrast, Cheney/Bush were not interested in ‘making the right call.’  They wanted to go to war, so the game was rigged, and the wrong call was not an accident.”  - Frank S, Manhattan.

We can only hope reports that complaining players risk being penalized for “showing up” umpires are exaggerated…as, we hope, is the implication that some bad calls on the ballfield are not totally honest.

The situation is different on the political field.  It can be argued that then-Skipper Bush made an “honest mistake” in justifying the intervention in Iraq.  He believed Team USA could run things better in Iraq and the region than those who live there.  He saw his lie about WMDs as a necessary step to achieving a worthwhile goal and therefore (in his eyes) morally acceptable.  Lyndon Johnson did the same in 1964 when he used two fraudulent Gulf of Tonkin incidents to put us on a war footing in Southeast Asia.

Team Obama, like its predecessor, clearly believes in its right - if not to intervene militarily, then to tell other teams to shape up to our satisfaction (“Clinton Urges Russia to Open Its Political System”- NY Times headline Thursday).  We’re telling the military outfit in Guinea that we want a stop to the post-coup violence there.  And the coup government in Honduras is hearing - however sporadically - about our discomfort with the situation there.

Author Neal Gabler, writing in the Boston Globe, sees a “greatest-country-in-the-world” and “last-best-hope-of-mankind” syndrome at work.  It’s a worrisome self-delusion, he says, particularly at play in our away-from-home record:

 “A country that believes it is the greatest in the world is also less likely to be constrained by that world. One could argue that the Iraq war was a direct result of a sense of national infallibility.  So was our willingness to torture, our reluctance to admit our mistakes in Afghanistan, our culpability in the global recession, and our foot-dragging on global warming. Such a nation is also less likely to introspect or to strive for true greatness because it believes its greatness has already arrived.

“There is something bizarre about (such) a country…but that describes America today.”
                                 -     -     -
“Bizarre” is an apt description of post-season baseball, being played in 40-degree temperatures at night and important games starting at times that insure the finish will come long after many fans have gone to bed.  Our first Phillies-LA game-watcher gave up in the bottom of the eighth, minutes before midnight Thursday.  It was an exciting game, flattened out by the TBS broadcast team. Ron Darling and Buck Martinez are two solid color men, but each makes the other redundant.  Given the media flak he has taken, the choice of Chip Caray to do play-by-play is odd, if not bizarre,       

Darling uttered the best line in the second Phillies-LA game.  He said Pedro Martinez (seven shutout innings) made Dodger hitters appear to be were “teetering on a boat in stormy weather.” That’s how Pedro’s teammate Chase Utley looked trying to complete double plays in both games.  He threw balls away twice with runners bearing down on him.  Yesterday, the error set up the Dodgers’ come-from-behind 2-1 victory.

When the first inning of the Angels-Yankees series produced a Derek Jeter leadoff single, an A-Rod RBI, and shockingly sloppy play by LA, the tone was set for game one.  C.C. Sabathia made sure there was no Angelic dissonance.  “The Yankees are acting like they expect to win,” said Fox play-by-play man Joe Buck.  “Yes, they are,” said Tim McCarver, “like the Yankees of the late ‘90s.”

A mystery connected to the Mets’ descent into moribund-ity is the case of hitting coach Howard Johnson.  Remembered as one of the team’s most undisciplined batsman in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Howard is now hailed for his effective hitting instruction.  The 2009 team BA was .270, sixth in the majors, but the Mets finished a distant last in HRs, and 24^th in RBIs and runs.  The Johnson case is relevant because of the availability of the widely respected Rudy Jaramillo, who declined a contract renewal as hitting coach of the Rangers.

Jaramillo’s name, brought up by Michael Kay on ESPN radio, led to a discussion of the Mets’ front-office situation.  Kay said to guest/colleague Peter Gammons that Mets GM Omar Minaya likes Jaramillo.  Gammons’ response: “Omar isn’t the general manager, Jeff Wilpon is…Omar’s the one out there to take the heat.”  When Jeff signed Minaya in 2004, he agreed – or so he said – to give Omar total control over baseball decisions; no meddling.  Amid the dismal Mets’ outlook, the most discouraging development is the return of “decider” Jeff Wilpon.  

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(Posted: 10/15/09)

‘Socialism’s’ Non-Threat to Baseball and the Political System

Why are we surprised when someone like Twins manager Ron Gardenhire makes no mention of the uneven playing field his team has to compete on with the mega-payroll Yankees?  Or why little is said in the political arena about the abyss between the privileged and the plain people in our society? 

Gardenhire is a players’ manager in more ways than one.  He knows the big-spending Yankees inflate player salaries beyond New York.  So he would never complain about the inequality baseball allows.  On the political diamond, the hint by an elected player that the economic groundskeepers have given one team an edge over another - would earn him the label “socialist.”

Yet, as a franchise that seeks to broaden the economic baselines, socialism should be attractive to the tens of millions of struggling Americans.  That it still has a bad name in this down economy attests to the clout of the corporate media, which believes as much in capitalism as Gardenhire does in ultra-free-market baseball.

In fairness, there’s another reason why our rampant - and selectively risk-free - enterprise system goes largely unchallenged.  “The Other America” author and home-grown socialist Michael Harrington explained the paradox a half-century ago: “Tell a typical poor person that the deck is stacked in favor of the rich, he won’t say we’ve got to change  the system.  He’ll say ‘How do I get to be rich?’” 

Coincidentally, there’s a connection that can be made between the soft education system this lack of awareness suggests and the 2009 Mets: “A stunning lack of fundamentals” says MLB.com’s Marty Noble about the team.  He adds: “flawed performance and lack of concentration (is) seemingly…tolerated.”
                                -     -     -
Nubby oddsmakers make the Yankees an even bet to emerge from the final four with the World Series championship.  We wouldn’t take the numerically attractive bet against the Yanks for five major reasons:  (in alphabetical order) Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira.  In the NLCS, the edge goes to the Dodgers because of Philadelphia’s shaky relief corps.  But we wouldn’t bet against the Phillies, either.

Although much is being made of Chone Figgins’ potential to cause the Yankees serious problems in ALCS, LA Times-man Mike DiGiovanna notes a consistent Figgins slump in the playoffs: “As productive and disruptive as he has been in seven big league seasons, including a superb 2009 in which he hit .298 with a .395 on-base percentage, 114 runs, 101 walks and 42 stolen bases, Figgins hasn't been much of a factor in the postseason.

”In 29 games in nine playoff series since 2002, Figgins is batting .182 (18 for 99) with a .214 on-base percentage, 11 runs, four stolen bases, five runs batted in, 32 strikeouts and only three walks….For the Angels to beat the powerful Yankees in the best-of-seven ALCS and advance to the World Series, they're going to need Figgins to provide more of a spark.

’"I know I need to get on base,’ Figgins said after Tuesday's workout in Angel Stadium. ‘I will get on base’.”   Obviously, a lot will rest on whether he makes good on the promise.

At a political meeting he hosted last night at St.Francis College, Nubbite Frank Macchiarola was asked by us to add something about baseball to the agenda.  He said Italian-Americans had something special to celebrate going into the Columbus Day weekend: “Five of the eight playoff teams had Italian-American managers – Terry Francona (Red Sox), Joe Girardi (Yankees), Tony La Russa (Cardinals), Mike Scioscia (Angels) and Joe Torre (Dodgers).  That’s never happened before.”  

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(Posted: 10/13/09)

What To Do About Bad Calls on Both Fields

Bad calls are the curse of baseball.  They’ve tarnished the playoffs as they often do Team USA’s political standoffs.  Detroit lost a chance to win its division-deciding one-game matchup with Minnesota when an umpire failed, in a bases-loaded situation, to see that a pitch brushed Brandon Inge’s uniform.  The other night, the Twins could have evened the ALDS series with the Yankees if an umpire hadn’t incorrectly called a fair Joe Mauer line drive foul.  Then Sunday night in Denver, a missed call by the home plate umpire in the ninth inning set the stage for a Phillies victory.

Bad calls after 9/11 – the decisions to wage an anti-Osama conventional war in Afghanistan, and to justify invading Iraq because of non-existent nuclear weapons – have, we know, skewed our national priorities and caused tens of thousands of deaths.      

Baseball, thanks to technology, has a sure-fire remedy at hand.  A supervising umpire could monitor the game with the help of TV re-plays.  When the televised picture shows a bad call, he or she can overrule it.  As it is, umpires on the field don’t see the re-plays until after the game.  In all the above-cited cases, after seeing the brushed uniform and fair ball replays, the umpires conceded too late the errors made.  “We all make mistakes,” was - is - the genetic rationale, an unacceptable one considering that crucial mistakes can be avoided.  If the playoff umpiring lapses don’t prompt Bud Selig to budge on the tech second-opinion issue, nothing will.

In the political field, where the stakes have a life-and-death seriousness, there is no technology that can rectify a mistaken - or misleading - call.  The only weapon the public has is responsible challenge.  The only entities that can mount such a challenge are news organizations.  Internet outfits offer minimal help because they deliver mainly opinion.  It’s on-the-spot news-gathering that is needed.  That leaves us dependent upon fast-disappearing newspapers.  We know that nearly all of them abdicated the challenging role in 2002 and 2003, cheering every war-run-up pitch tossed by Team Bush.   A tenuous hope now is that at least some outfits learned from their mistakes.  We must support the few good ones, like the McClatchy media chain - an admirable exception to the cheerleading outlets. And we must hope that McClatchy and a possibly reformed NY Times will still be around when the next major bad call occurs.     
                                 -     -     -
Pennant race finales:  Depending on LCS results, we know we could have a Turnpike Series on the northeast corridor, or a Freeway Series in the LA area.  Or a mix and match.  Jorge Posada may be the key - one way or the other - as the Yanks try to beat down the energizer Angels.   

Ron Gardenhire summarized the Twins’ sweep by the Yankees with “We had our chances.”  Then he paid this tribute to the Yanks:  “That’s a great baseball team over there.  You have to tip your hat to them…They’ve got the whole deal, and some of the classiest players in the league out on the field.  A lot of things are  said about their payroll and all that stuff.  But the bottom line is they’re great baseball players and they deserve the money they make.”

Boston Herald columnist Steve Buckley referenced the Mets (of ’86) indirectly when he wrote this epitaph to the Sox’s playoff elimination:

“The Red Sox are going home because they couldn’t touch Angels starters John Lackey and Jered Weaver in Games 1 and 2, respectively. They are going home because Jon Lester didn’t have great stuff in Game 1 and Josh Beckett petered out in Game 2. They are going home because, with Halloween approaching, Jonathan Papelbon has already decided he’s going to the party as Calvin Schiraldi.”

sbuckley@bostonherald.com

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(Posted: 10/10/09)

Tales of Baseball and Political Slippage

Two men who have slipped off pedestals built with public acclaim in baseball and politics:  Manny Ramirez, once a feared slugger, now a serviceable hitter with LA Dodgers, and Mike Bloomberg, once widely, now grudgingly respected as NYC mayor. 

The thread linking their decline in stature: loss of trust.  Manny overstayed his stormy eight-year sojourn in Boston last July when he benched himself with the Red Sox in an obvious protest against a plan to renew his contract at less than what he thought he was worth. Then, after a brilliant end-of-2008 season with the LA Dodgers (.396 BA, 17 HR over two months), he failed a drug test early this year and was suspended for 50 games.  He finished this season with only a .290 BA and 19 HR over four months.   In retrospect, that same 2008 was anything but a brilliant year for Mayor Mike.  Although previously renouncing any thought of seeking a third term, Bloomberg quietly changed his mind.  And when a poll showed the public would vote against an extension in a referendum, he conspired to get approval through 29 compliant members of the City Council.

In 2004, Manny was the Sox’s World Series MVP and could have been elected mayor of Boston.  Mayor Mike had not yet become involved in his one major political mistake, the West Side Stadium/Olympics bid debacle.  Polls showed the public liked him mainly for his trustworthiness; financially independent, he could be - and was - a straight shooter who did what he thought was right.  There is no such illusion now: Joyce Purnick’s “Mike Bloomberg – Money, Power, Politics” reviews the secret machinations cited above, putting the devious Mike into perspective.

Manny could break out any moment, but so far he has been a shell of himself in the Cardinals-Dodgers NLDS: a .125 BA - one hit in eight at-bats - and no rbi’s.

                           -     -     -
Joe Torre’s Dodgers and his former team are on track to meet in the series – and won’t that be something?   But the anticipated curtain-raiser between the Yanks and Red Sox is not on schedule.  The Sox have some serious sustained winning to do if we are to have a climactic drama before the season’s championship culmination.

While the Yankees are stealing most sports page space, we shouldn’t neglect the Mets.  Newsday’s Wallace Matthews has these thoughts on where blame should be placed for the disaster of 2009:

“The Mets' problems begin and end with accountability, and that begins and ends with ownership.  The Wilpons have yet to take real responsibility for anything, from building the wrong ballpark to overvaluing their tickets to overrating their team's vaunted ‘core.’  Really, the Mets are rotten to their core, which extends deeper than the clubhouse. Still, the men responsible for it all speak no truth and pay no consequences. No one of any importance pays for Jeff Wilpon's mistakes.

“No one but the…fans.”

TBS playoff broadcasting teams have provided a nice change from their ESPN counterparts.  It may be the effect of season-long over-familiarity, but most ESPNers have an annoying self-assurance about their baseball savvy.  They’d be better off more sensitive to their viewers, who know almost as much as they.  The star of the TBS galaxy is Bob Brenly, doing color in the Cardinals-Dodgers series.  Brenly, currently a Cubs broadcaster who managed the World Series champion Diamondbacks in 2001, and was a Giants catcher for most of the 80’s, gives you the goods: “Furcal wants a fast ball; he doesn’t like breaking stuff.”  “Catchers have a rule: with a three-and-two count, never signal for a high breaking ball.”

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(Posted: 10/8/09)

Why It Is Easy to Root Against the Yanks and Bloomberg

Unless you’re a bred-in-file:///C:/Users/dickstar/Downloads/Documents/PerfectPitch%20blog/the_nub.htmlfile:///C:/Users/dickstar/Downloads/Documents/PerfectPitch%20blog/the_nub.htmlthe-bone backer of the Bronx Bombers, it’s easy to be Yankees-averse.  No one likes to see big spenders winning because they have more money than the next guy.  That applies not only to the NYYs, but to NY’s mayor as well.  The Yanks have a $201 million payroll, three-quarters of a million more than the Red Sox and better than three times as much as the Twins, whom they’re playing in the ALDS.  Mayor Bloomberg, we know, has spent $65 million on his re-election campaign compared to $3.8 million doled out by opponent Billy Thompson’s campaign.

Bloomberg has been a good skipper; among other things, he has gone to bat for bicycle lanes and pedestrian malls and against the plagues of guns and smoking.  Had he not used his financial clout to override the will of the people on term limits, he would – it says here – deserve fan support. 

The Yankees fielded a dream team; their dream season left them so dominant it reminded everyone of the uneven playing field Steinbrenner money had made.  But, unlike Mayor Mike, the Yankees merit the backing of all New Yorkers – at least, that’s how we feel.  Red Sox Nation will line up solidly behind Boston, Minnesota fans behind the Twins, LA fans behind the Angels and Dodgers, etc.  The unwritten baseball code permits – even requires – regional chauvinism in the post-season.  And NY pro-tem boosters will be in a no-lose situation: if the Yanks fall by the wayside, they can revert to their true state of fandom and not feel too bad.

Whether or not you feel bad for David Letterman, this from the e-mailbag is a reminder that his plight is comparatively small-ball stuff:   “The Mets are the John Edwards of baseball: lose, lose, lose.  Can’t think of a politician who embodies the Yankees.  Can you?” – Keith W, Manhattan  

John Edwards got caught off base and made the further mistake of challenging the call.  Andrew Cuomo, like the Yankees, has kept his eye on the ball and won’t let well-meaning distractions - like “What’s next?” - lead him to lose focus. 

The events that caused high-flying Edwards to tumble and Andrew to rise from the post-2002 cellar point up the obvious:  politics, like baseball, is a topsy-turvy game over the long run.  John Edwards’ first mistake may have been – like the Mets – losing sight of the value of a solid underpinning.  Leaving the Senate team after one term to seek the top job in Washington left Edwards unhampered by official restraints.  Unconstrained, he strayed from the game’s baselines, and eventually was sent down.  Andrew ground out a comeback through a series of barnstorming appearances wherever political fans gathered.  His discipline has brought him to the clean-up position, where he now goes to bat - like the Bronx Bombers - at the top of his game.
                            -     -     -             
Win or (probably) lose, the Minnesota Twins have done a remarkable job making the playoffs with a team largely composed of no-names.  On TBS Tuesday night, Ron Darling said he asked Ron Gardenhire about the particular skills of the likes of Nick Punto and Matt Tolbert.  Gardenhire wouldn’t get specific, but his answer captured the character of the team:  “They’re ballplayers,” he said.  Of the Yankees, the Twins manager said: “Say what you like about their money, they do things the right way.”

In a best-of-five series, it’s quality starting pitching that counts:  Cliff Lee and C.C. Sabathia confirmed that conventional wisdom in the playoff openers against the Rockies and Twins.  In LA, pitching depth was the key; the Dodgers had it.

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(Posted: 10/6/09)

Investments  Paying Off in Baseball and Politics

Pre-playoffs consensus: The Yankees are the dominant team among the final eight, and, barring a stumble against the Red Sox, should go all the way.  The Steinbrenners insured the Bombers’ dominance, it turns out, when they invested mega-millions in Mark Teixeira, C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.  In the political field, the insurance industry seems to have assured a favorable – i.e., non-threatening – health care reform bill by investing heavily in, among others, the 23 members of the Senate Finance Committee.  We gave you the standings in the health-related – largely pharmaceutical – league last time.  Here is how contributions line up in the insurance league both in 2008 and from a player-career standpoint, the Dems team first:

Senator			2008 Insurance Sector	Career Insurance Sector
MAX BAUCUS (D-MT)			$285,850.00	$1,170,313.00
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV (D-WV)			$107,874.00	$394,074.00
KENT CONRAD (D-ND)			$56,650.00	$821,187.00
JEFF BINGAMAN (D-NM)			$1,500.00	$160,875.00
JOHN F. KERRY (D-MA)			$90,250.00	$1,397,367.00
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN (D-AR)			$49,500.00	$440,033.00
RON WYDEN (D-OR)			$45,999.00	$229,173.00
CHARLES E. SCHUMER (D-NY)			$3,000.00	$946,400.00
DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI)			$40,800.00	$246,750.00
MARIA CANTWELL (D-WA)			$12,300.00	$80,850.00
BILL NELSON (D-FL)			$22,500.00	$520,016.00
ROBERT MENENDEZ (D-NJ)			$67,450.00	$458,679.00
THOMAS CARPER (D-DE)			$28,700.00	$447,984.00

 

Senator			2008 Insurance Sector	Career Insurance Sector
CHUCK GRASSLEY (IA)			$72,200.00	$858,224.00
ORRIN G. HATCH (UT)			$24,880.00	$659,307.00
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE (ME)			$5,000.00	$408,490.00
JON KYL (AZ)			$2,000.00	$533,044.00
JIM BUNNING (KY)			$45,100.00	$769,016.00
MIKE CRAPO (ID)			$63,750.00	$360,932.00
PAT ROBERTS (KS)			$157,900.00	$296,342.00
JOHN ENSIGN (NV)			$19,150.00	$580,690.00
MIKE ENZI (WY)			$84,250.00	$240,953.00
JOHN CORNYN (TX)			$289,069.00	$568,253.00

 Progressive columnist Murray Kempton said it all, shortly before he died a dozen years ago:  “When I was a young reporter elected officials responded to their constituents.  Now I am an old reporter and elected officials respond to their contributors.”

Why is the way the Senate Finance team swings so important to the future of health care reform game?  Because Skipper Obama made cost the key to what he would consider an acceptable bill.  The Nation’s Alexander Coburn recalled the scene last month when Barack went to bat before a Congressional audience on behalf of fiscal austerity: “The president reached the apex of lunatic effrontery when he caused the assembled legislators to leap to their feet in stormy applause by pledging that ‘I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits.’   This is the same president, these are the same legislators, who are committing billions in red ink for the war in Afghanistan and the continued U.S. presence in Iraq,”

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The Mets haven’t disclosed the depth of the hole in their ’09 attendance numbers.  But those figures – whatever they turn out to be – have them bracing for a lean 2010: witness announcement of reduced seat prices of as much as 20 percent in some categories.  

Newsday’s Ken Davidoff is among the first to say the inevitable – that Jerry Manuel should have managed his  miserable team better and wouldn’t be missed were the Mets to fire him before next season: “Although no one would be so foolish as to blame Manuel for the team's stunning rash of injuries and appalling lack of roster depth, that doesn't mean he gets a free pass, either…The Mets…lost 41 of their last 59 games, a woeful .305 percentage. That can't be attributed solely to a talent disadvantage.  That screams, ‘White flag’…

“This is a tough business. The Mets owe Manuel nothing.  On the other hand, they owe their fans everything.  Is Manuel everything you've always wanted?  If he is, then, to be blunt, your standards are too low.
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(Posted: 10/1/09)

How Much Is Matt Holliday and Health Care Worth?

The man who owns the St.Louis Cardinals says he’s ready to spend whatever it takes to keep Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday together on the team.  “We need them both so we’ll find the money,” was the gist of his message to the fans.  On the other hand, Barack Obama, the man who runs Team USA, says this about an indispensable cog in his operation, “I will not accept a health care bill that costs more than $900 billion over 10 years.”

Boss Bill DeWitt will have to fork over a total of more than $50 million a year to satisfy St.Louis’s two offensive stars.  “No way he can afford it,” say rival owners.  DeWitt apparently calculates value differently.  If Skipper Obama checks the record book, he’ll find how a predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, handled the signing of another expensive indispensable, Medicare, a half-century ago.  When told by a key House chairman that the program was costing too much, he replied “I’ll take care of (the money)…400 million’s not going (to stop us) when it’s for health.”  Obama’s $900 billion 10-year- ceiling figure for health care reform is only a little more than Team USA spends on defense in a single year.  That type of disparity existed in Johnson’s day; he kept it in mind when pondering his budget in the mid-60’s.  LBJ told his Vice President Hubert Humphrey “I’ll spend (whatever) goddam money (is needed).  I may cut back some tanks.  But not on health.”   

(Quotations from “The Heart of Power: Health and Power in the Oval Office.” – David Blumenthal and James Morrone)

Pujols is signed through the 2011 season so DeWitt can concentrate on locking up Holliday.  Obama can’t wait if he wants to assure passage of a meaningful health care reform bill.  He has to rally his would-be Congressional allies, as LBJ famously did – “Lyndon told me to,” explained a senator who switched from opposing to voting for Medicare.”
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How potent is the Pujols/Holliday punch in the Cardinals’ lineup? After last night, they’d combined for 60 home runs (Pujols 47 in 156 games, Holliday 13 in 56 games) and 167 RBI’s (a remarkable 51 for Holliday).  Pujols’ BA was .330, Holliday’s .350.

Wednesday was close to playoff-clarifying night.  The Tigers are now gearing up to meet the Yankees in the best-of-five next week.   The Rockies ditto, probably against the Phillies, while the Cardinals and Dodgers play in the other bracket.  We’ve known for a couple of days that the Red Sox and Angels will square off in the other AL first-round series.

Tiger tales (told chronologically):  Minnesota’s rookie righthander Brian Duensing tamed Detroit a week and a half ago, yielding no runs, four hits in 6.1 innings.  Yet on Tuesday night Jim Leyland sent the same lineup that had done little against Duensing back against him again.  Bert Blyleven who covers the Twins for Fox in Minnesota explained why (on MLB-TV): “Leyland’s  a smart manager: he  knows that lineup has seen Duensing and will be ready for him this time.”  The Tigers reached Duensing for five runs on seven hits in four-and-two-thirds innings as they scored a crucial first win in the second of two games.   ESPN’s Rick Sutcliffe foresaw the hit that would break open last night’s near-decisive game.  With the score 4-2 Tigers in the bottom of the sixth, he said before Magglio Ordonez hit his base-clearing double: “This game will be all but over if (Carl) Pavano keeps pitching up in the zone.”

Leyland, on how he wanted the team to prepare for that important game: “I tell them to go to Wendy’s, do whatever they want.  Say a prayer? (maybe).  Have a meeting? (no)”
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September 2009 Archive

(Posted 9/29/09)

Unwelcome Changes Affecting Team Obama and Mets

Just as a season of stinging reversals has dismayed future-oriented Mets fans, so worrisome off-field changes are affecting the play of Team Obama.

Cracks in the Mets' big-ticket-player facade exposed widespread organizational rot. Hopes of a new positive start were dashed when oft-disengaged owner Fred Wilpon said he intends to keep control of the club and leave son Jeff in charge.  Jeff Wilpon is overseeing removal but not (so far) replacement of people connected with the team's farm-system failure.  Un-replaced is the departed staffers’ boss, GM Omar Minaya.  The Mets will enter the off-season with holes everywhere.

 Skipper Obama has most of his squad in place, but the rules of the managerial game have changed owing to power plays that occurred before and post-9/11.  Historian Gary Wills traces in the NY Review of Books the changes and their effect on the skipper and his team:

“Some were dismayed to see how quickly the Obama people grabbed at the powers, the secrecy, the unaccountability that had led Bush into such opprobrium…(But) it should come as no surprise that turning around the huge secret empire built by the National Security State is a hard,  perhaps impossible, task.  After most of the wars in US history there was a return to the constitutional condition of the pre-war world.  But after those wars there was no lasting institutional security apparatus of the sort that was laboriously assembled in the 1940s and 1950s…

“On January 25, 2002, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales signed a memo written by David Addington that called the Geneva Conventions ‘quaint’ and ‘obsolete.’ Perhaps, in the nuclear era, the Constitution has become quaint and obsolete….(Today),  we are all, as citizens, asked to salute our commander in chief.   Any president, wanting leverage to accomplish his goals, must find it hard to give up the aura of war chief, the mystery and majesty that have accrued to him with control of the Bomb.”

Amid the burgeoning shambles last month, the Mets could have been expected to act aggressively in the 2009 draft.  Instead, they spent less money than any other club in the effort to sign players in the first 10 rounds.  And they failed to sign two highly rated, early-selection pitchers.  Nevertheless, fans can be confident the bright façade will be back next spring and maybe it will remain in place a few months longer than it did this year.

Gary Wills is somewhat less confident in change for the better transforming the National Security State.  “It may be too late to return to (the) ideals (of the Constitution),” he says, “but the effort should be made.”
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Looking at the schedule, it’s hard not to foresee the Braves (now only two games behind) overtaking the Rockies in the next six games and perhaps setting up a one-game NL wild card playoff.  While  Colorado must play three with Milwaukee at home and three with the Dodgers away.  Atlanta finishes playing two more with the Marlins and four with division doormat Washington, all at home.

Minnesota needs a sweep to win at least three of its current four games against the Tigers to set up a possible one-game playoff with Detroit.  The Twins will almost certainly face Zack Greinke at the start of a final weekend series at home against KC.  The Tigers, meanwhile, will close at home against the White Sox, who have Jake Peavy but no one of Greinke’s caliber.

Stat city: Although considered a good bet for the Cy Young Award, Greinke only places  sixth on the mlb’s list of effective starting pitchers.  The top five (in order): Roy Halladay, C.C. Sabathia, Adam Wainwright, Felix Hernandez and Justin Verlander.
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(Posted 9/26/09)

Nitpicking Look at the Baseball and Political Playoffs

Playoff time: in baseball, at the end of next week; in two NY citywide runoffs, this Tuesday.  How do we handicap the competitions? 

In baseball, it’s little unrecorded things – errors of omission like failures to cover a base, back up a play or hit a cutoff man – that separate good players from the rest. The same can be true in politics.  That’s how we’re judging the public advocate and comptroller races.

PA:  Former Public Advocate Mark Green, running for NYC’s political comeback-of-the-year award, failed to cover his own base in 2001.  That’s when he supported a proposal to have Mayor Rudy Giuliani stay on the job for three additional months in the aftermath of 9/11.  We believe the other night Green should have backed up on calling the new ballparks positive additions to the city; he might at least have questioned the handing over of parkland to make room for the new Stadium.  Bill de Blasio neglected to run a positive campaign, hammering Green for, among other things, supporting the more-of-Giuliani plan and for accepting campaign money from his real estate-rich brother.  We like that de Blasio led a fight (with John Liu) against Mike Bloomberg’s third-term power grab, but it’s hard to forgive him for a bit of outlandishness: saying that Betsy Gotbaum was a better public advocate than Green.

Either will be a good PA. We give the edge to Green (a former client), owing to overzealous play on the part of de Blasio. 

Comptroller: David Yassky left his own base in 2006 to run in a neighboring minority district for the Congressional seat being vacated by Major Owens.  Before that he failed to follow through in a tentative at-bat for the Brooklyn DA’s office.  Yassky was all over the field; he then allowed himself to get out of position on the mayor’s extended term-limits maneuver, moving from an early opposition stance to a vote of support.  His opponent John Liu matches him in do-whatever-it-takes ambition.  Liu really wanted to run for public advocate but switched to the comptroller race when Green entered the PA contest.  Thus (unlike Yassky) Liu signaled a lack of fire about the prospect of playing the game of audits.  But, in general, both have been effective Council members and match up well. 

Liu gets our vote because of the elevated political status his victory would give to the Asian community, but, mainly, because Yassky neglected to stand his ground on Mayor Mike’s term-limits play.
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Despite the late-August addition of Scott Kazmir, the Angels have erred in not doing more to solidify their pitching.  The LAA staff ranks 22d out of 30 in pitching stats; through Thursday the team had given up as many ERs and more hits than the miserable Mets.  The Dodgers, Cardinals and Phillies, in that order, have the best pitching records going into the NL playoffs; the Red Sox, Tigers and Yankees are lined up, stat-wise, in the AL. 

Switching from errors of omission to the other kind, the team leading the majors in the fewest-errors category is the still-in-contention Minnesota Twins.  Going into last night’s action the Twins had committed only 68 miscues in 152 games.  The Washington Nats, at the other end of the category, had just under twice as many.  Right behind the Twins was a surprise team: the Pirates with 68 errors in 151 games.

The deal that brought Adam LaRoche from Boston to Atlanta for Casey Kotchman is one reason the Braves are still in the NL wild-card game.  Amalie Benjamin had comparative details in yesterday’s Globe: “ In 47 games with the Braves (46 starts), LaRoche has a .355 batting average, 12 home runs, 36 RBIs, and a 1.048 OPS.  Kotchman, meanwhile, has played in 29 games for the Sox, starting for the 13th time last night. With a 2-for-4 night in the Red Sox’ 10-3 win, he raised his batting average to .239, 1 home run, 7 RBIs…(And) Kotchman has gone 0 for 9 this season off the bench.”
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(Posted: 9/24/09)

Bad News Developing for Barack’s Team and War

The White Sox and Afghanistan: Skipper Barack clings to the hope that both the team and the military campaign he supports will pull out victories.  In one case - the Chisox – the hope has all but been blown away.  That his war game in Afghanistan will end well is doubtful.  But whether the game should be played at all is a question that rallies fans on both sides.

The early post-mortems in Chicago say a “passive” offense doomed the White Sox season.  Manager Ozzie Guillen said his hitters showed “no fire.”  A tell-tale sign of passivity is the inability of teams to sweep their opponents.  The Chisox were plagued by letdowns after taking the first two (or three) games of a series.

Polls say the American public is passive at best about pursuing the war in Afghanistan.  How skeptics feel was well expressed the other day by the International Herald Tribune’s William Pfaff:  “On Afghanistan, there seems to be no coherent reason or vision as to why we are there.  To ’catch’ Osama bin Laden, ten years after his crime?  But you don’t have to take control of a country of 250 thousand square miles and 3l million people in order to catch a terrorist leader. (Especially when it is taken for granted that he actually is in Pakistan.) You don’t have to take it upon yourself to solve Afghanistan’s internal social problems or to ‘defeat’ (how, no one knows) the Taliban military, political and religious uprising in the country.  What has that really to do with Americans?”

The equally lefty Michael Tomasky, of the UK Guardian, stresses fundamentals in what amounts to an answer from the other side of the field: “In the United States’ history as a world power, it has been attacked on its mainland soil exactly once.  Neither mighty Russia nor powerful China nor Nazi Germany nor Imperial Japan managed to hit the American continent. Only one foreign entity…did: al-Quaida, clearly and directly aided and abetted by the then-government of Afghanistan.

“How do you justify running the risk of letting the only people who have ever successfully attacked the American mainland regain power? That they could attack again is not merely theoretical.  It happened.  So it could happen again.” 

The president clearly agrees with the Tomasky view.  He has termed Afghanistan a “war of necessity” but has begun hedging on a response to his military commander’s call for more combat troops.  The New Yorker’s George Packer, who hits down the middle, suspects skipper Barack would regret making too big a commitment.  Packer visited Afghanistan with Our Man in the region Richard Holbrooke (about whom he did a long, puff piece).  This laser of his could be the walkoff comment on the situation:  “Now there is a strong possibility that (last month’s) stolen election will leave (shifty, unpopular President Hamid) Karzai in power for five more years, at the very moment that Obama (would have to commit) to send thousands…perhaps(to) die, on behalf of the Afghan government.”   Unthinkable?  We’ll see soon enough.
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KC’s Zack Greinke, on the difficulty of maintaining a low - 2.08 - ERA: “It’s kind of like watching Joe Mauer hit, where he’ll get a hit [in a game] and his batting average will go down.  You’re like, ‘That’s unbelievable’.” (quoted by the Globe’s Adam Kilgore)

The suddenly inarticulate Terry Francona on Greinke’s 5-1, two-hitter against the Red Sox Tuesday night: “Man. that’s . . . he had everything.  That’s, that’s, that’s . . . that’s impressive.’’

Who said: “Overall, we lacked depth. When we had to reach down ... (it wasn't there)." 
Although it sounds Metsian, the speaker (quoted by SI's Jon Heyman) was not Omar Minaya, but Brewers GM Doug Melvin.
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(Posted: 9/22/09)

Remembering Irving Kristol’s Gift to Baseball Fans

A parting game of pepper in honor of Irving Kristol, who died the other day at 89.  It was Kristol, the neoconservative ace, who struck out oracular baseball writers, sparing many of us the sense of being sporting simpletons.

At a long-ago televised panel discussion on the media and literature, Kristol said newspaper readers had to accept the reliability of reports from abroad, places and situations they knew nothing about.  But, he said, “when a baseball fan turns to the sports page, he usually knows as much as the writer.”

That reality took awhile to sink in, but the tone in sports reportage and opinion gradually changed as writers like Jim Murray, Peter Gammons,  Robert Lipsyte and Tom Boswell did in their own way what Red Smith had started – treating the fans as equals, and with a sense of humor, to boot.

Kristol, who began his career in left field, then moved to right, eventually became a rare breed of political pitcher. a lighthearted neocon.  He described his right-of-center delivery this way: “It is hopeful, not lugubrious; forward-looking, not nostalgic; and its general tone is cheerful, not grim or dyspeptic."   Few, if any, of his teammates have followed that lead, nor is there much cheer to be found on the left.  Where are you when we need you, William F. Buckley?  Thanks for trying, Michael Moore.
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With the Red Sox surging and the Yankees sputtering - and a three-game series between the two on tap in a few days - the wild-card Sox are thinking the unthinkable: overtaking the Yanks.   Jason Bay put it this way to the Globe’s Adam Kilgore: “’You want to be that team that’s hot at the right time.  It’s not always the best team that wins.  It’s the best team at the time.  Right now, we’re on a pretty good roll.’’

If regular-season road records are useful playoff indicators, Phillies fans have reason to be confident, Tigers fans much less so.  The Phils, at 45-29, have the best road record in either league.  Detroit has registered an abysmal 31-44.   Although the AL will have home-team advantage in the World Series, the stats suggest that the Phils, if they make it, will not be at a disadvantage.

Lob from the green grass of center field: "Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race."  - H.G. Wells
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(Posted: 9/17/09)

Cuban Ballplayers ‘Si,’ Cuba ‘No’

 How striking: the same week the NY Times celebrated Cuban slugger Kendry Morales, Team Obama announced it was extending the anti-Castro embargo to prevent people like the Angels first baseman from coming here legally.

Morales had to risk his life, sailing to Florida from his home island in 2004.  That was 15 years after the end of the Cold War, the end of the alliance between Fidel Castro’s regime and the former Soviet Union.  Although Cuba no longer represented a threat to U.S. security, it could only hope to play ball with Team USA if it introduced democracy to the island.  That is, the first Bush Administration arrogated to itself the right to tell a sovereign state how it wanted things done.  Among those things: “free” elections.

Cuba sees our elections as giving the candidate with most money the “freedom” to win.

Some things have changed 19 years later: Team Obama has eased travel and financial restrictions between the two countries.  But Skipper Barack has parroted Bush I and II in demanding “democratic reforms” in Cuba before the decades-old “trading-with-the-enemy” embargo would be lifted and diplomatic relations could be normalized.

Morales has come close to achieving normal production as a replacement to Mark Teixeira.  Mega-star Mark hit 13 home runs in 54 games with the Angels last year (after being traded from Atlanta); Morales has hit 30 HRs in 137 games and has 98 RBIs, not far off Teixeira’s ’08 pace.

In relations with other Latin American states, Obama has followed the spike marks of George Bush II: adversarial – if not hostile – to leftist Venezuela and Bolivia.  We’ve made clear we don’t like the way Hugo Chavez or Evo Morales are running their countries.  At the same time, like Bush, we are friendly to right-wing Colombia and, meanwhile, patient with the rightists after their June 28 coup in Honduras. “Change we can believe in?”  More like “Barely perceptible change that tests our willingness to believe.”

Lots of Congressional impatience with ACORN, the community organizing group caught in a compromising position by conservative sting teams.  The House has voted to end federal funding - $3.1 million a year – to the group.  Salon’s Glenn Greenwald puts the events into perspective: “Nobody is apologizing for (ACORN) or suggesting that they've done nothing wrong.  Any group that large will have individuals in it who do bad things.  The issue is one of  proportion.  If someone ostensibly opposes government waste and unfairness in tax policy yet spends most of their time focusing on a tiny group that helps the poor and receives a miniscule amount of government money -- all while ignoring or even revering the enormous, omnipotent industries which eat up trillions in taxpayer waste and dwarf the impact of ACORN by many, many magnitudes -- then any rational person would question what the real motives are. “
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The Phillies have inched past the Cardinals, setting up for the moment a St.Louis-LA Dodgers playoff first round while the Phils get the wild-card opponent, probably the Rockies.   Philadelphia plays seven of its last 10 on the road – two more at Atlanta, then two at Florida and three at Milwaukee before finishing with three at home against Houston.  The Cards play eight of their last 10 away; after completing two more at home against the Cubs, St.Louis goes to Houston and Colorado for three each and Cincinnati for two.  If the Phillies have the edge, it’s because of their one extra home game and the fact that the Cardinals will be playing the team with the strongest incentive, the wild card-leading Rockies.

Stat city:  Detroit’s Justin Verlander not only leads the AL in strikeouts with 239 in 210 innings, he’s also caught 13 runners trying to steal, tops in both leagues.  SF’s Tim Lincecum remains the majors’ strikeout king, with 244 in 207 innings.  Incidentally, Tigers catcher Gerald Laird has far and away the best backstop caught-stealing pct: 42.4.

The Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan on a subject close to our hearts: “September means expanded rosters, a form of peculiar madness unique to baseball. Major League Baseball is the only one of our primary team sports in which there is one set of parameters for the first five-plus months and a different set of parameters in the final month, when, presumably, the most important games of the season are played.”

Ryan solicited the support of Sox manager Tito Francona who said this about the expanded-September-roster rule: “I’m against it I think we’ve gotten to the point where we need an amendment to the rule.  We play all year under one set of rules, and when we get to Sept. 1, it’s vastly different.’’
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(Posted 9/17/09)

Losing Teams in Baseball and Politics Urged to ‘Get Serious’

Bobby Ojeda had an 18-5 record with the world champion 1986 Mets; James Carroll won a National (non-fiction) Book Award in 1996 for the war-related “American Requiem”.  Both offered similar advice this week, in Ojeda’s case, to his former team, in Carroll’s, to our non-fiction-writer president.  What they said in short was “get serious.”

Ojeda, an SNY analyst, said the Mets looked unfocused to him as far back as spring training, and he doubted their ability to make the playoffs even when they were at full strength.  Carroll, writing in the Boston Globe, said the president allowed himself to become distracted by foreign war-making when his focus should have been at home:

“The scale of President Obama’s military mistake is becoming clear exactly as the moment of his greatest opportunity to improve American life has arrived. The tragedy, as with Lyndon Johnson, will be the destruction of his proposed social transformation by his simultaneous opting for war, as his core supporters among liberals and Democrats feel bound to oppose him. The day after Obama’s unifying speech on health reform, Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, sent a foreboding warning on Afghanistan, ahead of an all but certain request from the Pentagon for a major escalation there.  The storm cloud (of a standoff) approaches.”

The storm cloud already shadowing the 2010 Mets - a fragile front line and no real prospects - can be tracked at length between seasons.  Ojeda’s recollection of the Mets “having fun” instead of working hard at Port St.Lucie last spring is a reminder of the hype Gary Cohen and the SNY crew imposed upon fans then: the team’s “new spirit”, “fresh start”, “no-nonsense attitude”, etc. 

As if Team Obama doesn’t have with health care and Afghanistan enough challenges, the aftermath of last year’s bank bailouts has refused to leave the field.  NY Times slugger Gretchen Morgenson reminds us of an ongoing regulation scandal:  “Senior regulators who stood idly by for years as financial firms built their houses of cards have been rewarded with even bigger jobs…Those in the public sector ask us to believe that regulators who snoozed during the credit bubble will be alert…when the next mania begins.”

Morgenson quotes Edward Kane, finance prof at Boston College on how the regulators and those supposedly being scrutinized are playing ball:  “We’ve got a very comfortable equilibrium here where Wall Street praises the authorities and the authorities give Wall Street…what it wants and they hope that the public…doesn’t understand.

“…You keep reading about how wonderful it is that we didn’t have a Great Depression.  Well, if they can sell that point of view, then nothing will change.”
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What’s left of regular-season baseball fun is in the West, where the Rockies and Giants are dealing for the NL wild card.  But the re-emergence of Daisuke Matsuzaka – six shutout innings against the Angels Tuesday night – gives AL East fans something to look forward to.  The Red Sox now have the pitching to give them a definite edge over the Angels in the first playoff round.  The Tigers don’t match up with the Yankees.  Ergo, while acknowledging how unpredictable baseball can be, it’s fair to say a Sox-Yanks ALC series appears likely.  And won’t that be fun!

Comparisons, we know, can hurt.  While the Mets wonder where they are going to find their future stars – certainly not in the system – the Braves have produced a young ace in Tommy Hanson (10-3) and are bringing along an outfielder, Jason Heyward, whom Baseball America has just been named Minor League Player of the Year. 
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(Posted 9/15/09)

Batting Practice for Today’s NYC Balloting

Nobody asked, but here is how we see the field in today’s NYC-wide Dem Primary:

Of the 10 players - Tony Avella (running for mayor), Billy Thompson (mayor), Melinda Katz,  John Liu,  David Weprin, and David Yassky (comptroller),  Bill de Blasio, Eric Gioia, Mark Green and Norman Siegel (public advocate) – only one has a sustained positive connection to baseball: Stormin’ Norman.

Siegel twice filed legal challenges to Team Bloomberg’s plan to hand public baseball fields on Randalls Island over to private schools. And he has supported local opposition to terms under which the new Yankee Stadium was built.  We’re voting for Siegel, a former client, for more than baseball-related activism: he has been the unelected people’s advocate for well over a decade and can be counted on to keep the mayor honest during the next four years.  Norman, a rabid Mets fan, is up against it in his race just as his favorite team is in its.  But his supporters can cling to the mantra of the NY Lottery: “You never know.”  Polls suggest that Green (another former client) and de Blasio are pre-game leaders into today’s crucial PA contest.  We give Green the edge over de Blasio, owing to the latter’s hilarious contention (along with Gioia) that Betsy Gotbaum was a better public advocate than Mark had been from 1994 through 2001.

Speaker Christine Quinn told us last fall that she was “proud” of the Council vote in support of the Yankee Stadium deal that carved away 22 acres of ballfield-dotted public parkland.  None of the seven Council members running for the various offices today spoke out against that deal.  Nevertheless, we favor feisty underdog Avella over current Comptroller Thompson for the mayoral nomination.  We prefer Liu over Weprin among the comptroller candidates because he is a leader of the under-represented Asian community.  As we’ve said before, there isn’t bad candidate among the 10.   But Katz and Yassky lost any chance for our support by going to bat for Bloomberg’s push for term-limits extension without a referendum.
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Regular-season newsworthiness?  Yes, even though eight mlb teams - Yanks, Red Sox, Tigers, Angels, Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers, Rockies - are virtual playoff locks, there are a couple of marginally interesting cliffhangers to watch over the final two weeks.  By taking three of four from the Mets over the weekend while the Cardinals were losing three to the Braves, the Phillies moved to within a game of St.Louis (as of early last night).  Should the Phils pass the Cards in W-L pct., they will get to play the (likely) wild-card Rockies while Tony LaRussa’s squad will draw the Dodgers in the first round.   The Rocks, of course, still have an outside chance of catching LA for the division title.  That about sums up the quasi-interesting developments.

Stat city:  If it is true that starting pitchers consider number of innings their most important statistic (a David Cone contention), then baseball’s three leading starters, as of now, are: C.C. Sabathia, 213.1, Roy Halladay, 208.0 and Adam Wainwright, 205.0.  Halladay leads the AL in another important stat – fewest walks allowed.  He’s given up only 1.25 passes per nine innings.  The Cards’ Joel Piniero leads both leagues in the fewest walks category – 1.04 per nine over a total of 190 innings.  Arizona’s Dan Haren is third overall – 1.39 per nine over 201.1 innings.  The presence of Wainwright and Piniero on these below-the-radar lists of leaders points up the strength of St.Louis pitching, headed by ace Chris Carpenter.     
                                      - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted: 9/12/09)

The Concession Game in Baseball and Politics

For some of us, the usual baseball homestretch excitement began to dissipate on August 29.  That day the wild-card-contending Tampa Bay Rays traded their erstwhile ace Scott Kazmir to the LA Angels.  A month-and-a-half earlier, Team Obama’s dugout coach  Rahm Emanuel took the suspense out of the health-care-reform contest by signalling that his skipper would pitch around the public option threat.

Then, Wednesday night, Obama waved away the threat, saying the public option was something that could, not must, be part of the reform package and, anyway, it would only be available to the uninsured, less than five percent of the new program’s potential enrollees.  Thus did the skipper dash the early high hopes of fans in left field.  Last spring they thought creation of a public program “to keep insurance companies honest” was a realistic goal.

When the Rays let Kazmir go they had a valid shot at the playoffs, positioned only four-and-a-half games behind the AL card-leading Red Sox.  Since then Tampa Bay had lost 10 of 12 games (before last night) and reduced the number of “meaningful” AL races to a single one – that  between the Sox and Texas for the fourth playoff spot.  The betrayal of the Rays’ fan base that the deal – for two prospects – represents is an additional argument for mlb to institute a rules change to stop rich teams from getting richer at the expense of poorer ones during the season.  In the interest of greater fairness to fans, there should be - it says here (yet again) - a freeze on team rosters at season’s start or shortly thereafter.

In fairness to Obama, his overall pitch for the need for health reform was effective.  Washington Post super-sub Tom Shales described the president’s late-in-speech persuasiveness in terms of baseball offense: “Quoting from a letter that (Ted) Kennedy had written and that he had asked to be read after his death, Obama hit one out of the park…

“The letter was in part an…assault on partisanship in a time of deep crisis, and Obama's point was that Kennedy, no matter how political an animal he was, knew when it was time to put differences aside and stop bickering.  If we don't, Obama said, then ‘we lose something essential about ourselves’ and about ’the character of our country’."

Shales said that at-bat “most likely touched a chord with millions watching.” Indeed, polls showed that a substantial number of previously skeptical fans swung their support behind Team Obama’s initiative.
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Although the Dodgers’ at-the-wire deals for Jon Garland and Jim Thome will give them a stronger playoff roster, the new pitcher and pinch-hitter may not provide enough of a boost to stop destiny’s team the Rockies from winning the division.  The reward to either NL West winner will be a first-round rendezvous with the defending world champion Phillies.  The Dodgers have taken four of six from the Phils this season, the Rocks have lost four of six to the champs but that was before they went on their latest high.

If you’re a fan of one of the 20-odd teams out of the playoff race, the Washington Post’s Tom Boswell offers this tepid consolation - his listing of potentially available free agent pitchers this winter:  “It's a huge class. People like (Braden) Looper would be at the bottom of it.  Somebody like Randy Wolf in the middle. They were available last winter, signed for one year and are available again. Some of the 'names' have club options for (20)10, so it's hard to say exactly which ones end up on the market. But it will be a ton of them. (My rough) list  includes: Jason Marquis, Looper, Garland (club option), Rich Harden, Livan (Hernandez), Tim Hudson (club option), John Lackey, Cliff Lee, Kevin Milwood, Brett Myers, Vicente Padilla, Brad Penny, Joel Piniero, John Smoltz, Carl Pavano, Jarrod Washburn, Brandon Webb (team option), Todd Wellemeyer, Wolf."

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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey. Comments
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August 2009 Archive

(Posted: 8/29/09)

NY’s Paterson and Cubs’ Bradley Must Get Off Political DL List

A few days after NY state skipper David Paterson complained about racial attitudes in the media (a charge he later sought to withdraw), Cubs right fielder Milton Bradley talked about the racism he confronts daily on and off the field.   That the media in NY and Chicago played the stories big suggests there was at least a squib of truth in what Paterson and Bradley were saying.

But what each could not acknowledge was another influential factor in their respective mistreatment stories: time on the disabled list.  Paterson’s physical disability - his near-blindness - has been a life-long burden; Bradley’s major league career, dating from 2000, has been marred by various injuries and long DL stints.  More significantly, the governor and the ballplayer have been hurt by word and deed that placed them on what could be called a political DL list.  Paterson went on the list, where he remains, because of his mishandling of his appointment of Hillary Clinton’s replacement in the Senate.  He dragged out the process by which Carolyn Kennedy was bypassed in favor of Kirsten Gillibrand.  A series of temper tantrums along with incendiary remarks earned Bradley his place on the political DL and a bad-guy reputation. 

Although sidelined with an early-season groin pull, Bradley has played in more 80 percent of Cubs games.  He’s hitting .262 with only 11 home runs, but his uncharacteristic durability almost vindicates the three-year, $30 million contract the Cubs gave him over the winter.  If Paterson is to get a new contract as NY governor, he’ll have to keep his frustrations in check, as must Bradley, and produce at a much higher level in his field than the Cubs right fielder is in his.

If we had Bradley’s ear, we would recommend his saying to the media how pleased he is with the way Lou Piniella has used him: “I’ve been able to stay healthy and I’m grateful."  More than just a positive pitch, Paterson has to switch from whiny-ness to expressing confidence. As a Mets fan, David might want to paraphrase manager Davey Johnson’s prescient statement before the 1986 pennant race:  “I intend not only to win next year, but to dominate.”                         
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A week ago, all Mets fans had left was Billy Wagner.  To know the electric, irrepressible, outspoken reliever was still on the team gave them reason to keep following the NY Bisons.  The departure of Wagner to the Red Sox reinforces the growing sense of the Mets’ financial desperation.  The Globe’s Tony Massarotti uses the Wagner deal to note indirectly the difference in spending attitudes between the Sox and the Mets: “So why did the Sox make this move? Because even with 5 miles per hour shaved from his fastball, Wagner still throws harder than the majority of lefthanded relievers in the major leagues.  Because he gives the Red Sox another potential weapon.  Because the Red Sox are a big-market team that can spend $3.5 million on a player for six weeks of service and be none the worse for wear.”                                

Fearless end-of-August playoff projections:  AL - Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, Angels.   (Caveats: the AL Central is always unpredictable.)  NL - Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers, Rockies.  (Caveats:  Braves and Marlins have outside chance should either surge while Rocks and Giants stumble.)
                                      - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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The Nub is off on a road trip, returning late Labor Day week.

 

(Posted: 8/27/09)

Reason to be Glad Ben and Omar Are Staying On?

Proposition: We should be grateful for the week’s two big re-appointments, one by the president, the other by the boss of the Mets.  Grateful?  Many progressives deplore Barack Obama’s decision to keep Ben Bernanke on as chair of the Fed.  And most Mets fans believe Omar Minaya has earned a pink slip as the bedraggled team’s GM.  So, it won’t be easy, but let’s see if we can find a rationale for the prop:

The record book does not make a positive case for Bernanke: it shows him going from Princeton to the Fed’s Board of Governors in ’02, then moving in ’05 to George Bush’s   Council of Economic Advisors, before finally taking over as Fed skipper a year later.  If anyone was positioned to puncture the housing bubble early, it was he.  Similarly, Minaya must have seen the lack of a safety net for the Mets, if his high-priced “core” players went down.  If he did, he clearly didn’t do anything about it.

But there are strong cases to be made for both re-appointees: Economist and policy research executive Dean Baker concedes that, “serious issues of unnecessary secrecy and failed regulation” notwithstanding,” Bernanke “moved very effectively in the last year to prevent the collapse of the financial system.”   Paul Krugman is even stronger in his endorsement: “Bernanke has done a good job in the crisis — he’s been far more aggressive and creative than almost anyone else would have been in his place.”

For many of us, however, the most compelling argument for each of the decisions was the probable alternative.  Instead of Bernanke, the new Fed chair could have been Larry Summers – he, who with Tim Geithner and Hank Paulson, was a key behind-the-scenes player in the bank bailout.  The way that game ended has reinforced popular mistrust of government evident in the health care reform rhubarb. 

If Minaya didn’t return to the Mets, the team’s fans would probably have gotten assistant GM John Ricco in his place.  Ricco, mentioned here earlier this month, is an administrator.  The real player-signing power would belong to Jeff Wilpon, whom the fans have seen in action long enough to say: “No thanks.  We’ll stay with Omar.”

Joe Girardi stayed with the bunt to his regret Tuesday night.  The Yanks had rallied from 10-5 to score four runs against the Rangers in the ninth.  With men on first and second and none out, Joe asked Nick Swisher to lay one down, advancing the runners to second and third.  Swisher fouled one off, then popped out to third.  Channel 9’s camera showed Joe’s reaction: he stormed up and down the dugout as if Swisher’s failure - only the first out - had cost the game.  Could Girardi be carrying a crystal ball?  Melky Cabrera hit a liner to shortstop Elvis Andrus, who caught both the fly and pinch-runner Jerry Hariston before he could get back to second.  Game over: Texas 10, NY 9.  Melky allowed himself a tight grin.  Girardi wasn’t smiling.   

If misery loves company, Mets fans can find kindred spirits in Chicago.  Cubs fans never dreamed their defending Central Division champions (with a $135.1 million payroll just under that of the Mets) would be fading from the playoff race as they have been this month.  Carol Slezak of the Sun-Times voices a familiar frustration in this critique of Lou Piniella’s Teddy Bears:

“For the umpteenth time in recent history, the Cubs have lost their way. They've spent most of this season making excuses for their poor play.  Yes, they've been hit hard by injuries. But it's always something…. The Cubs have spent a lot of money…but they've often spent it unwisely, throwing it at the wrong guys and hoping for a miracle…If the Cubs have had a plan, it has been indecipherable to most of us. But then, it's tough to build a championship team through free agency, and the Cubs' minor-league system has long been…threadbare.  How does this happen, when teams restock their system every year? Are the Cubs drafting the wrong guys, or are they failing to develop players properly, or both? If (new owner Tom)Ricketts hopes to build a team that can contend on an annual basis, he'll have to overhaul the entire scouting and minor-league operations. That's no easy task.  But it would be money well spent.”
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 8/25/09)

The Obama-Jeter Connection Redux

Nub-worthy news items:

“_______TEAM LACKING MOST OF TOP PLAYERS”

The front-page headline in yesterday’s NY Times could have been about the Mets.  But the team in question was Obama’s.   Both roster-light outfits are losing ground, the Mets in the standings, Team Obama in the polls.

"OBAMA HOSTS JETER AT HIS VACATION RETREAT"

In the first Nub nearly two-and-a-half years ago, we suggested that candidate Obama could benefit from the similar multi-cultural background he shares with much admired Derek Jeter.   Now it’s an association with Jeter’s dazzling comeback that could help the struggling president.  Remember how Derek was considered to be over the hill by many after a slow early-season start?  Today he embodies, as Barack would like to, the knack of champions to bounce back when things are going badly.  Team Obama surely wants a photo of the two together at Martha’s Vineyard to hint at the possibility of a game-changing turn-around.

Paul Krugman on the possibly decisive moment of Obama’s performance:  “It’s hard to avoid the sense that a crucial opportunity is being missed, that we’re at what  should be a turning point but are failing to make the turn.”    

The Mets missed their turn long ago.  More sobering than their present plight is the outlook for 2010.  In the words of the Daily News’ Adam Rubin:  “The (team) will have several holes to fill with limited dollars…The Mets have no (ready) minor leaguers…leaving them entirely dependent on free agents and trades to fill any voids.”

How far has the Mets’ returning GM Omar Minaya’s stock fallen?  Allegedly given full autonomy over baseball decisions when hired in ’04, he now says he’d have manager Jerry Manuel return, too, “if given the choice.”
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Why such a Colorado Rockies high?  Because the NL wild card-leading Rocks believe a legitimate ace has emerged in their pitching staff.  Twenty-five-year-old Ubaldo Jiminez outdueled SF’s super-ace Tim Linceum Sunday to win his fifth straight this month   He has a1.63 ERA over those starts, and an arsenal that includes a 99 mph fastball. 

A performance that pleased Red Sox Nation and almost everybody in baseball Sunday:   The one turned in by John Smoltz who blanked the Padres for five innings.  A fine, fresh start for the Cardinals’ 42-year-old future Hall-of-Famer. 

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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Post: 8/22/09)

Harvard Prof: Stop Bean-Balling in Baseball and at Israel

Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz is known neither as a baseball fan nor for his progressive politics.  True, he’s a resident of Red Sox Nation.  But he’s more easily identified as a hard-liner on Israel-Palestine, a harsh critic of Jimmy Carter, and an accessory to the firing of a Jewish prof at DePaul U., who, like Carter, differed with Dershowitz on that deadly Middle-Eastern game.

Dershowitz believes the rash of bean-balling that has marred ballgames this season is potentially deadly in its own right.  He – like many of us – think the commissioner, owners and players are ignoring the danger of serious injury (as they did to the plague of drugs).  If the practice is allowed to continue, Dershowitz wrote in the Boston Globe this week…“Someone will be maimed or killed, despite the presence of helmets. The time has come for Major League Baseball to ban the bean ball. The only way to do this is for baseball to adopt a zero tolerance policy and to impose draconian sanctions not only on pitchers who throw at the heads of batters but, more importantly, on the managers who instruct them to do so.”     

Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci reinforced the message soon after the Mets’ David Wright was beaned: “A vigilante culture has taken root in which teams are retaliating even when it was obvious that a pitcher wasn't trying to hit a batter…It's time to knock off the punkish stuff in which every hit by pitch becomes a challenge to your manhood. One of the most dangerous eras in baseball history could become even more dangerous.”

Resistance to change that characterizes baseball exists, we know, in every field.  Many, if not most, Americans cling to the idea that the private sector must play its long-assumed major role in our health care system.  Brooklyn/Queens Congressman Anthony Weiner challenged that belief in a much-discussed appearance on MSNBC earlier this week.  He noted that insurance companies serve no direct delivery-of-services purpose.  Host Joe Scarborough was taken aback:

JS:  It sounds like you’re saying you think there is no need for us to have private insurance in health care.
AW: I’ve asked you three times. What is their value? What are they bringing to the deal?
JS: Again… I’m astounded by your question. It sounds like you’re suggesting that there’s no need to have a country that’s run on free market principles.
AW: Time out.  Let’s focus on one thing at a time. This isn’t a commodity, Joe.  Health care isn’t a commodity.
JS: You’re saying that health care is different than everything else.

Scarborough’s observation is the nub of the matter: Americans do not understand, as do people of most advanced nations, that health care is a right rather than a profit center.  And upholding – supporting – the rights of its citizens is a basic role of government. Until people comprehend that distinction, true reform will clearly not happen.
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Thoughts re the Mets spending several million less than the 29 other teams on first 10-rounders in the draft:  1) It suggests the rumors of Fred Wilpon having lost $700 million in the Madoff scam were right on; 2) That Rudy Terrasas (Rudy who?), not Omar Minaya had to take the fall before the media, suggests that Omar either asked to be spared any more Agita, or he is indeed on the way out.

An article by the Globe’s Tony Massarotti that compares young talent on the Yankees and Red Sox can be read as an unexpressed indictment of the Mets:

“Take a good look at the first-place Yankees this weekend. From Robinson Cano to Phil Hughes to Joba Chamberlain to Melky Cabrera, they have the kind of home-grown talent that makes them far more competitive with the Red Sox in that area than most anyone ever acknowledges…

“‘I just can’t get…concerned with that, because if something special is going to happen, you have to have a little bit of everything,’’ general manager Brian Cashman said when asked if the Yankees get enough credit for their player development.  ‘I just don’t pay attention to it.  I do know that we have a lot of good young talent.  I don’t think we have the best farm system in baseball, but I do think we have one of the better ones’.’’
                                - o -
(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.  Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

(Posted: 8/20/09)

Can Lefty Health Reformers Stage a Ninth-Inning Rally?

The Yankees and opponents of real health care reform are winning (something we discussed last time).  But neither the baseball nor the political game is over: If the Yanks don’t make it to the Series, they’ll be losers, and a ninth-inning rally could give true health reformers a walk-off win.

Yankees history supports the long-shot thesis that dissident underdogs can pull out a come-from-behind victory.   In 1976, the Yanks had arranged to take over 32 acres of Macombs Dam Park as part of a remodeling of the Stadium.  But local protesters on opening day that year caught the eye of Walter Cronkite.  CBS ran the story of the would-be land grab, which stopped it…until the Yankees got their way 30 years later.

How is that history relevant to the health reform contest playing out today?  Coverage by the media can add decisive clout to whichever side makes the stronger showing.  If the the team pitching for the public option could mobilize some of its millions of players to march in support of that reform, it would be difficult for the mainstream press to ignore.    

“In the end,” wrote Skipper Obama in the mainstream-est of papers, The Times, “this isn’t about politics.  This is about people’s lives and livelihoods.”  He didn’t say what we all know – that it is mostly about money: the billions at stake for scores of HMOs, insurance and drug companies.  The slugging radical Saul Alinsky said the way organized money can be outscored is through organized people. 

Mobilizing the kind of massive rally whose numbers would send a compelling message to Congress requires a clutch hitter to come to the plate.  The Web is awash with urgings for someone, some group, to get busy.  Robert Reich, for example, called Tuesday for a march on behalf of the public option, adding, according to The Politico, that “While he said organizing was not his strength, he would be prepared to assist.”  

Ralph Nader would surely take part in a rally along with Reich, but he doubts it will happen, in part, because young people are no longer interested:  “This is the third television generation,” he told Truthdig’s Chris Hedges. “They have grown up watching screens. They have not gone to rallies. Those are history now. They hear their parents and grandparents talk about marches and rallies. They have little toys and gizmos that they hold in their hands. They have no idea of any public protest or activity.  It is a tapestry of passivity.”       

Nader could well have meant those words as a challenge…to the old as well as the young:  All of us on the public-option team must be willing to line up together in DC, where the nation is sure to see.

Back to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium’s checkered history:  The Village Voice’s Tom Robbins connects the beginning and end of three decades this way: “(Among those) leading the (1976) protest were Gil Gerena-Valentin, who was soon elected city councilman, and a community and labor activist named José Rivera, also destined to become a Bronx political force.

“It took another 30 years, but in 2006, Macombs Dam was finally plowed under after Rivera, then the leader of the Bronx Democratic party, reached an agreement with Bloomberg and the Yankees on the new stadium.  In exchange, the team generously agreed to pay $800,000 annually to Bronx civic causes.”
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Baseball’s most glamorous name this week belongs to someone who has never played in the majors.  He’s San Diego State pitcher Stephen Strasburg, signed for $15.1 million plus incentives by the Washington Nationals.  The signing has excited the nation’s capital and Washington Post’s Tom Boswell:

“Strasburg has put the Nats squarely on baseball's map, on the list of can't-miss attractions in the game that must be seen.  Does he really throw 100 to 102 mph with command? Or is that partly scouts' mythology?  Is his 93-mph slider really his best pitch, so sharp it actually seems to hit something in midair and deflect? And is Mike Rizzo, the Nats acting general manager, correct when he says what sets Strasburg apart is not just his stuff but ‘a fierceness’?”

Baseball America calls the Mets one of the amateur-player draft’s biggest “losers” along  with Tampa Bay, Toronto and Texas.  The magazine identifies  the five top “winners” as Washington, KC, Colorado, Baltimore, Detroit.   Here is BA’s take on the Mets’ latest “nothing-close-to-aggressive” misplay: “While the cross-town Yankees spend money like nobody's business in the draft, the Mets toe the line. Sure, they paid top pick Steve Matz (a second-rounder) an above-slot bonus, as he got $895,000, almost $400,000 more than the recommended slot.  That's a Mets rarity…The(y)…failed to sign their fifth- and sixth-rounders, and only had two players—Matz and 13th-round pick Zach Dotson, a Georgia prep lefty signed for $500,000—who signed for as much as the Yankees gave their 44th-round pick.  No large-revenue team uses its money less in the draft than the Mets.”
                                    - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 8/18/09)

The Difference Winning Makes?  Ask the Yankees and Obama

Winning changes everything: baseball fans know that better than anybody.  The opposite is true, too – in politics as well as baseball.  Ask the fans of Team Obama, worried about a losing streak.

At the season’s start, we remember, the Yankees were tarnished by negative stories about the financing of their new ballpark, how the land-grab penalized the community, and the park’s inflated ticket prices. .  Then there were the A-Rod drug-taking revelations, the frequent early losses and unseemly rash of stadium home runs.

What thrilled many Obama supporters at his season’s start was how he and his team were restoring America’s winning image in the world.  That perception has taken hits…in Latin America, Asia and, owing to the faltering health care reform effort, in parts of Europe.      

Today, the Yanks are leading the majors in winning percentage, attendance, and a tangible aura, that of overall dominance.  The Stadium is the place to be, or, remotely, watching Joe Girardi’s juggernaut on YES.  The young Steinbrenners, so patronized by the media last winter, look for the moment like (older) boy geniuses.  

Meanwhile, news that an anti-government offensive has apparently balked a key component of Obama’s health care reform pitch - the public option - means the president will get watered-down reform, at best.  The likelihood of such a compromise when the U.S. clearly needs drastic system overhaul astonishes the British. The UK Independent’s Guy Adams described how urgent the need is through his report on the one-week offer of free medical and dental care in a Los Angeles suburb last week:

"They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury.  Some of these Americans had walked miles simply to have their blood pressure checked, some had slept in their cars in the hope of getting an eye-test or a mammogram,  others had brought their children for immunizations that could end up saving their life.  In the week that Britain's National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an 'evil and Orwellian' example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California… provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system."

That the program was run by a humane outfit called Remote Area Medical, which often offers services in underdeveloped countries, is not lost on the Brits.  It only underlines how bad things are health-wise for many Americans and how badly hurt Team Obama will be if real health reform is not achieved.       
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We mentioned last week Orel Hersheiser’s suggestion that some players might see their numbers go into free-fall concurrent with baseball’s latest crackdown on drug use.  The Globe’s Nick Cafardo spotted two-plus examples almost immediately without speculating whether having to play drug-free was responsible for the declines in performance:

“Chris Young, CF, Diamondbacks - There are a lot of guys in Young’s boat this year - guys who were once good (J.J. Hardy) but are having inexplicably bad seasons. The first rookie in major league history with 32 homers and 27 steals in 2007, Young was optioned to Triple A Reno after hitting .194 with 7 homers and 28 RBIs in 103 games this year. Arizona has him signed through 2013, with an $11 million option in 2014. Yikes.”

“Bill Hall, INF, Brewers - Designated for assignment, the versatile Hall has had a terrible season after hitting 35 homers in 2006, but might be a nice piece for a contending team. He can play multiple positions, steal a base, and add some pop. Hall, owed $10.5 million by the Brewers, is still only 29 years old. While Milwaukee GM Doug Melvin was talking trade, teams may wait until Hall clears waivers rather than absorb the money.”

Among notable playoff-related weekend results: the Rays ending a five-game losing streak by taking two of three from the Blue Jays.  That bounce-back kept Tampa Bay in the wild card hunt, three games behind Boston and (going into of last night’s Minnesota-Texas game) three-and-a-half behind the Rangers.  The Cardinals sweeping San Diego while the Cubs took two of three from the Pirates.  St.Louis thus stretched its lead in the NL Central to five games over Chicago…pending the Cards’ game with the Dodgers in LA last night.

The Red Sox will know if they are slipping into critical condition after their next six games: they face Ricky Romero and Roy Halladay in the first two of three games at Toronto beginning tonight, then three against the Yankees at Fenway.
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 8/15/09)

Hope for Team Paterson as We Forget the Mets

Earlier this month, a regular reader suggested a connection between David Paterson and the Mets:  both needed to “go on a tear”, he said, to avoid falling out of their respective races.  Since then Paterson has been running in place while the Mets have plummeted out of wild-card sight.  The governor may not have surged but he’s held his own; the Mets, on the other field, have looked so bad there’s now talk of GM Omar Minaya losing his job before a three-year-contract extension kicks in.

We can’t resist re-offering free advice to the team still in the game:  Paterson can surge by playing “small ball.”  He’s an engaging and effective conversational partner going one-on-one with people.  He’s got to do that with members of the media.  We believe getting up close and personal will stop, or, at least, slow down the print and on-air head-hunting.  That plus competent handling of the state’s challenges should have a positive effect on the polling scorecard.  A note on road trips: Governors go nowhere without an entourage.  Paterson would do well to cut the size of his travel team to a minimum; too many dugout coaches distract the public’s focus from where it belongs.

If the governor were operating on a Yankees instead of a Marlins budget, he could commission a national TV spot depicting him as someone who has attained political leadership despite disability.  On that score, New Yorkers have much to admire in their chief executive and should be so reminded through paid media. Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo doesn’t have to be reminded that, as AG, he is in the catbird seat.  He can decline to participate in pushing out Paterson in 2010, buoyed by the prospect of four more years of adding to his public approval:  His “I’ll look into it” works magic in calming popular fury over the latest hustle or outrage.  The gov has no such power.   

While Paterson is comparatively new as NY’s skipper, Minaya has overstayed his time with the NYMs.  His excuse for placing minimal emphasis on the Mets’ minor leaguers has been “New Yorkers want big names.”  He should have realized, as Brian Cashman does, that New Yorkers want it both ways – big ticket players AND promising prospects.

Omar’s strategy - fielding a star-studded first string with waiver-wire, bargain-basement backups - provided no insurance against key injuries.  He should be let go.  Our guess is that, because of budgetary considerations, Minaya will be granted a year to reverse the team’s fortunes.  And, given the alternative suggested by the News’ Adam Rubin - Assistant GM John Ricco, an administrative type, taking over for Omar and depending on the player-evaluations of “deputies” - Minaya remaining would be preferable.

For Mets fans, the most preferable scenario would be a sale of the club by Fred Wilpon.  His judgment-challenged son Jeff has been complicit in - indeed the instigator of - many of the team’s bad moves since 2000: the hirings of Art Howe as manager, of Jim Duquette as (short-leashed) GM, of Tony Bernazard as vp for player development, yes, and of Minaya.  In each case, Jeff Wilpon allowed personal relationships to influence personnel decisions.  Given such an error-prone history, it’s clear that for the Mets to turn things around, a clean house - starting with the sweeping out of the Wilpons - is in order.   Fans should hope it happens in their lifetimes.

Updating a stat noted by NY Postman Kevin Kernan (and tinkering with his text): “(Going into last night’s games) the difference between the Yankees and Mets (was)…this, the Yankees ha(d) hit 109 more home runs than the Mets this season. That's insane.”

It may be equally insane to say the Yanks, Angels, Phils and Dodgers are sure division winners.  But since that’s the consensus of attentive observers, we can, by hard-nosed count, identify 10 teams in the wild-card race, including respective Central Division leaders Detroit and St.Louis.  The AL has four – Red Sox, Rangers and Rays, as well as the Tigers.  The NL: Rockies, Cardinals, Giants, Marlins, Braves and Cubs.

Do the words of Mike Lowell (quoted by the Globe’s Nick Cafardo) constitute a Red Sox white flag vis-à-vis the Yankees?  “We have to be realistic about things, given where we are right now. We’d love to be in first place and watch the Yankees battling for the wild card, but that’s not what’s happening…”   Answer: yes…but the concession is only good until the teams tangle again, beginning next Friday at Fenway.

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(Posted: 8/13/09)

How Team Goldman and the Red Sox Got their Edge

In an ideal world there would be an even playing field - perfect fairness in baseball, politics, finance…life.   In the real world, we know, everybody’s looking for an edge.  Disclosures over the past week suggest that, in separate games, the Red Sox and Goldman Sachs benefited from unfairness in a way their corporate competitors did not.

We remember in George Mitchell’s ’07 report listing 104 players alleged to have taken performance-enhancement drugs, that he did not mention the since-identified Manny Ramirez or David Ortiz.  The Red Sox, for whom Mitchell had worked, got a pass, while Yankees Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte were named.  Mitchell has denied giving the Sox favorable treatment, just as former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson - through his bench coach – denies arranging a financial edge for Team Goldman during frequent pre-bailout confabs with its skipper.

What’s clear at a minimum from the published work of NY Timespeople Gretchen Morgenson and Don Van Natta is that Paulson cut ethical corners in his generous dealings with Goldman (whose survival depended on the rescue of mega-client AIG).  Furthermore, that an air of desperation surrounded the phone calls between the two former teammates.   

Paulson’s deals cost us taxpayers well over a hundred billion dollars, much of which we’re not expected to get back.  Yet, even lefty slugger Paul Krugman has joined a lineup minimizing what Paulson and successor Tim Geithner have wrought. “Without (the badly handled) bailouts, Krugman says, “things would have been much worse.” 

Baseball has gone the bailout minimalists one better.  A united front of the players union, the commissioner’s office and the Red Sox supports Ortiz’s claim of ignorance of buying what were allegedly banned substances over the counter.  “Allegedly” was an operative word at the Saturday news conference:  The validity of the charges against players on the Mitchell and a separate government list, as well as against Ortiz, was questioned.  Amid the “sludge” - Gordon Edes’ word (on Yahoo Sports) - baseball’s goal seemed to be to trivialize the game’s recent doping history.

Detroit’s Jim Leyland says “nobody cares” among the fans.  ESPN’s Orel Hersheiser suggests that fans will care about some players – those whose performances deteriorate drastically from what they were during the steroids era.  

Then there are the few players whose careers take a sudden upward turn.  Toronto’s Marco Scutaro is a prime current example.  His last four seasons – three with Oakland, one with the Blue Jays, his BA’s were .247, .266, .260, and 267.  This year, playing regularly at shortstop for Cito Gaston, Scutaro is batting .296 and, going into yesterday’s game, led the AL in hitting on an 0-and-2 count - .423, 11 for 26.      

Lob from Left Field…unloaded by former NY Timesman Chris Hedges, who refuses to avert his gaze from the game Team Obama is playing:  

“The American empire has not altered under Barack Obama.  It kills as brutally and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under George W. Bush.  It steals from the U.S. treasury to enrich the corporate elite as rapaciously.  It will not give us universal health care, abolish the Bush secrecy laws, end torture or ‘extraordinary rendition,’ restore habeas corpus or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of citizens. It will not push through significant environmental reform, regulate Wall Street or end our relationship with private contractors that provide mercenary armies to fight our imperial wars and produce useless and costly weapons systems…If we have not learned by now that the system is broken, that as citizens we do not matter to our political elite, that we live in a corporate state…we are in serious trouble.”  (Truthdig.org)

The NL’s wild card-contending Giants have serious scheduling trouble – 16 games in September against the Phillies, Dodgers, Rockies and Cubs.  Talk about an edge: the Rockies, vying with SF for the WC lead, open September with 13 games against the Mets, Diamondbacks, Reds and Padres.
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted 8/11/09)

NYC Vote This Fall Could Produce a Political Ichiro

Just as Ichiro Suzuki quickly became the first Asian position player to achieve stardom in the majors, so John Liu is seeking to gain political stardom.  He's pitching to become the first Asian to win city-wide office in New York. 

Ichiro, we know, is Japanese and has been playing for nearly a decade with theSeattle Mariners.  Liu is Chinese and has represented Flushing in the Council for eight years  When Ichiro led the league in batting and won both MVP and Rookie-of-the-Year awards in 2001, he triggered an influx of Asian players who would supplement pitchers like Hideki Nomo and Hideki Irabu, already established U.S. performers.  Liu could be making a similar impact in NYC politics.

Liu is one of a strong four-player Democratic field in the contest for comptroller.  His opponents are three fellow Council members - Melinda Katz, David Weprin and David Yassky.  Liu and Weprin rejected legislation backed by heavy hitters Mike Bloomberg and Christine Quinn to extend term limits…and do it in defiance of the voters’ twice-expressed preference.  Katz and Yassky played ball.

For those of us who believe one's position on anti-democratic power plays to be decisive, the choice between the two nay-ers and yea-ers is clear.  Liu has an edge over Weprin, it says here, because he, more than his fellow Queens competitor, is pounding away on the baseline issue.   “It’s about upholding the fundamental basis of our law and democracy,” he said when the legislation came to a vote.  And that has been his out pitch throughout the campaign.  .

Liu is not a perfect candidate.  He has an opportunistic streak displayed when he switched his candidacy to comptroller from the race for public advocate.  He made that side-step move right after Mark Green entered the PA field.  His supporters called it pragmatism.  Despite that hitch in his delivery, Liu serves as an important model for the Asian community, a Chinese Ichiro, potentially - in a political major league.
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Going into last night’s games, Ichiro was hitting .363, two points behind Minnesota’s Joe Mauer in the mlb batting race.  Ichiro led both leagues in hits with 165, Mauer had 120.  The NL batting leader was Florida’s Hanley Ramirez, at .348.

“How do you deal with this bad stretch of injuries?” Sox manager Terry Francona was asked by Fox’s Joe Buck during the game with the Yankees Saturday.  By “not feeling sorry for ourselves,” Tito answered.  A far cry from the “Oh, woe is us,” heard on at least one team with injury problems.

Nineteen of 30 teams are still within single digits of division leads, meaning they remain in playoff consideration.  Fans of the two NY teams are excitement-deprived: the Yanks appear a lock, the Mets locked out, as far as post-season play is concerned.  The NL West boasts three (of five ) teams in the hunt – the league-leading Dodgers and the two top wild card competitors, the Giants and Rockies.  Four of six teams in the NL Central are still in the scramble for the league’s final four.
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 8/8/09)

Bad Calls in Baseball and Off-Field Contests

The other night, a bad umpiring call at the Trop almost cost Tampa Bay a victory over the Red Sox.  Everybody - on MLB.com, anyway - agreed that a runner who reached home safely had passed third base before a ball went out of play.  The umpires said the tie-breaking run did not count, the player had to return to third.  (The Rays eventually won, 4-2, on an Evan Longoria HR in the 13^th)

“It’s baseball’s dirty little secret,” said a neighbor who is also a fan.  “How many really bad calls there are.”  The Henry Gates-James Crowley confrontation in Cambridge was clearly a bad call, a simultaneous one: both players overreacting in a stressful situation.  The good that will come from that bad episode – a heightened awareness on the part of police of reflexive racial profiling, and a new public appreciation of the  pressures police feel when facing challenged citizens who turn hostile – will make things better for everybody.  But the tech revolution is reason to believe police-public interaction will be even better - more restrained - in the future.

In baseball, a zone evaluation system has improved judgment-accuracy around home plate.  Under the system, umpires’ balls-and-strikes calls are camera-monitored in the 30 major-league parks.  The monitoring is on the way to eliminating the wide variations in umpiring calls that once existed.  And the video-replay policy of double-checking controversial home run “boundary” calls has been successful enough to remain in place.   The crew chief, not a team manager, decides whether replays are needed.  Growing tech use will make for fewer and fewer bad calls and, perhaps eventually, fewer and fewer umpires.

Police work will surely remain a growth employment field.  But the widening use of miniature cameras, like those on cell-phones, will help protect the public against overzealous police behavior.  That salutary trend began when a witness with a video camera recorded the beating of Rodney King by LAPD officers in 1991.  Such equipment has obviously come a long way since then.

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The pennant races still have a long way to go.  But, as of the start of the second week of the next-to-last month of the season, there look to be three sure-things in the eight-team playoff picture: the Yankees, Angels and Dodgers.  The temporary absence of Jason Bay has probably made the Red Sox seem shakier than they are.  But the playoff-qualifying challenge they face - fending off the surging Rays while hoping the Rangers fade – is a big one.   That’s especially true since the Sox have eight more games with the Yanks, while the Rays have only three.  

When the Braves vetoed in mid-spring letting Tom Glavine try a comeback with them, he said he would consider making another attempt - perhaps somewhere else - next year.  John Smoltz’s comeback experience with the Sox should prompt Glavine, who will be 44 next March, to hang it up for good.  Here is how a scout summed up Smoltz’s plight to the Boston Herald’s Sean McAdam: “He has to keep that fastball off the middle of the plate, because it’s straight with no movement, and he can’t do it.  The slider actually is pretty good, but they’re feasting on that fastball.”  Smoltz’s future, if he has any with the Sox, would seem to be spotting that slider often while pitching out of the bullpen.

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(Posted 8/6/09)

NY’s Governor Can Learn from the God of Batting

 “I’m seeing the ball good,” is how hot hitters like to explain why they’re going so well. 

 That phrase came to mind at a recent gathering of NY political friends who were talking about the governor.  “Part of David Paterson’s problem,” someone said, “is that he can’t make eye-contact.”

The remark – more proposition than statement - prompted a quick response. “That’s exactly right,” said a nationally prominent former office-holder.  “And I don’t know if he can do anything about it.” 

Slumping hitters talk to coaches, look at tapes, take extra BP.  Paterson is legally blind.  Yet he does have partial sight in his right eye.  He has many political problems beside the physical one.  But he has to do what he can – consult with experts, check the tapes - to communicate in something approaching a personal, eye-to-eye way.  Why?  It’s almost impossible to establish rapport with members of the media, or with voters, if you can’t seem to be focusing, at least briefly, on each of them.  “I couldn’t tell if I had his ear,” a staffer was quoted as saying about the governor.  Such a sense of elusiveness is inevitably reflected in the polls

Paterson could learn from the man who was Japan’s first baseball superstar. Tetsuharu Kawakami, a contemporary of Ted Williams, was renowned for his constant practice and intense focus.  Called the God of Batting, he said he paid such close attention at the plate   he could “see the pitch stop.”  His disability notwithstanding, Team NY’s manager must work to pay Kawakami-like attention to everyone on the field.  Along with an in-charge message, he must attain what performers describe as “just the other side of intimacy.”

When we worked briefly with Paterson in the mid-90’s, he was concerned about the need for practice, for getting more comfortable at what was his plate – the speechmaking podium.  He worried that his visual disability was making him too reticent to speak publicly.  He planned to do something about that communications problem then.  It would be surprising if, during Andrew Cuomo’s much publicized “waiting game”, Paterson isn’t taking his practice hacks now, with eye-contact on a comeback rally.    
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Baseball America’s Jim Callis identifies what he considers the “most puzzling” of the July 31 deadline deals: “The Reds' decision to trade two quality arms (Zack Stewart, Josh Roenicke) to the Blue Jays for Scott Rolen.  Cincinnati isn't in the playoff hunt and Rolen is in the midst of just his second healthy and productive season in the last five.  He's an upgrade over Edwin Encarnacion, who also went to Toronto, but Rolen makes $11 million next year and the Reds will miss Stewart and Roenicke.” 

Callis cites two other puzzlers - he says the Indians should have resisted dealing Cliff Lee to the Phillies and Victor Martinez to the Red Sox:  “Lee ($9 million) and Martinez ($7 million) both had very reasonable club options for 2010, and saving $16 million isn't going to make the Indians major players for off-season free agents and trades. The American League Central lacks anything close to a powerhouse, so Cleveland could have contended for a division title next year with Lee and Martinez.

And while it was a buyer's market, the Indians sent Lee to the Phillies and Martinez to the Red Sox without getting any of either club's premium young players…Justin Masterson (however) could be a No. 3 starter after he transitions back from relieving for the Red Sox.”

Stat city: the majors’ top three pitchers, according to mlb.com, have a surprise in the number 1 spot.  Toronto’s Roy Halladay is second on the list, the Giants’ Tim Linecum third – no surprises there.  Ahead of those two super aces is Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals.  Wainwright is 12-7, with a 2.79 ERA.  That he’s rated as tops is a statistical anomaly as well as a surprise: Halladay is 11-5, 2.75; Linecum has the gaudiest stats – 12-3, 2.18, with a majors-leading 191 strikeouts in 22 games.
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 8/4/09)

Yanquis and Baseball Are Creating Pariahs

In the aftermath of baseball’s mad deadline-trade melee, one thing is clear: the game’s powers-that-be have made pariahs out of small-market teams that collect luxury-tax subsidies, then exploit the chance to unload big-ticket players.  Meanwhile, in the international political league, the world power is making pariahs out of many states that accept its military aid, then play an anti-populist game in their bailiwick.

The people who run the Pittsburgh Pirates were already being booed for trading away most of their high-salaried players when the team’s subsidy figures emerged over the weekend.  A former Bucs’ PR director told the Globe’s Nick Cafardo that, in addition to receiving a reported $27 million in subsidies from big-spending teams, the Pirates took in another $36 million in shared-TV money.  All that before the season started.

The USA is pouring thousands of troops and hundreds of millions of dollars into Latin America, an under-reported region, to stop the rally toward what the Pentagon has called “radical populism.”  The two main home bases for this offensive are Honduras and Colombia, where military training and anti-drug-trafficking are official reasons for our armed presence.  In Honduras, Team Obama’s acquiescence in the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya is becoming clearer every day.  The State Department has declined to follow up Barack’s strong words of support for Zelaya with action.  A Democracy Now report from the Honduran capital said Zelaya’s approval of a hike in the minimum wage helped trigger the coup.  The report suggested that the United Fruit Company, now called Chiquita, played a major role in the upheaval.  In Colombia, Team Obama’s decision to send U.S. military personnel to three airfields and two naval bases has heightened tensions along the Venezuelan border.  A veteran Latin American observer sees the move as more than what it’s supposed to be - a warning to drug dealers:

“It’s a signal to the rest of the region that the United States is going to be using military means in order to address not just drug trafficking…(but) to support…counterinsurgency and to carry out (unspecified) operations in the region.”   (John Lindsay-Poland on Democracy Now)

We can’t expect that anti-populist signal to be noted by our mainstream media, which have chosen their side: Yanqui and business interests wherever in Latin American they can still be encouraged.
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The Pirates may be on their way to a 17^th straight losing season, but, depleted roster and all, they are still trying.  The same cannot be said of the Baltimore Orioles.  The O’s have lost 12 of 16 since the All-Star break, managing only a single win in nine games against the division-rival Red Sox and Yanks.  Baltimore did do something constructive before the trade deadline…for the Dodgers.  Sending George Sherrill to LA shores up Joe Torre’s bullpen at a time when relievers tend to get worn down.

Couldn’t say it better:  “If I were Czar of Baseball you’d come out of spring training with your team, and that would be your team, other than what you’d produce from your farm system. That would stop this nonsense in which the rich get richer, which is generally what happens in these matters.” – Bob Ryan, Boston Globe

“It was the sickening desperation of it all, the feeders feasting on the helpless.  Baseball totally has lost its vision.”  - Nick Canepa, San Diego Union-Tribune

A measure of the aridity of the Mets farm system can be found in the identity of stopgap pitchers called up from triple-A.  Remember Jose Lima (0-4) in 2006?  Jason Vargas (0-1, ERA 12.19 in two games) in 2007?  Nelson Figueroa, thrown into the breach last night, is the latest bad penny.  He has filled the emergency role – in mediocre fashion (3-4) – throughout 2008 and now.
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(Posted: 8/1/09)

The Differing Small-Market Blues in Baseball and Politics

You’re a Pittsburgh Pirates fan.  Your small-market team has been up against it – a record-tying number of 16 straight losing seasons.  But this year was going to be different: the Bucs finished April above .500, and it looked as though ownership’s promise that better days were at hand would be realized.

Another small-market team of six U.S. senators - from Iowa, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and Iowa - are involved in a game of health care reform.  They’ve promised fans to put together a bipartisan bill that will insure healthier days ahead for all Americans.

Until June, Pirates GM Neal Huntington rejected the term “rebuilding” in connection with the team.  But early that month, he traded returning All-Star centerfielder Nate McLouth to the Braves and Eric Hinske to the Yankees, then earlier this week dealt current All-Star second baseman Freddy Sanchez to the Giants and former All-Star Jack Wilson (plus pitcher Ian Snell) to Seattle. And Thursday, he sent prize lefty reliever John Grabow and former lefty starter Tom Gorzelanny to the Cubs.  All those established players (plus Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett, dealt to the Nats) went in exchange for prospects or suspects like Lastings Millidge and Joel Hanrahan.  The Pirates are now all but certain to set a new consecutive- losing-season record.

If Pirates fans feel betrayed, imagine how Americans hopeful of meaningful health care reform feel: the small-market sextet of three so-called “centrist” Dems and Repubs have tossed away two key progressive proposals: the public option that would provide government-run competition to private health insurance programs, and the income surtax on high earners to help pay for the reforms.

 So we have two disparate small-market effects: In baseball, the big-market teams dominate low-budget clubs like the Pirates, picking off their high-priced stars and leaving small-market fans frustrated. In Congressional politics, it’s the small-market veteran players from mostly rural states who are in a position to snuff out progressive rallies; they apparently will get to decide what kind of health care reform Americans – most from larger states with sizeable urban populations – are to receive.

The center-right has seized on the costs of proposed substantive changes in our health care system to signal stop.  Meanwhile, defense spending rises with little complaint from both sides of the Congressional playing field.  Chalmers Johnson, author of  “Sorrows of Empire,” has some eye-opening stats on our world-wide military investments:

“According to the 2008 official Pentagon inventory of our military bases around the world, our empire consists of 865 facilities in more than 40 countries and overseas U.S. territories. We deploy over 190,000 troops in 46 countries and territories. In just one such country, Japan, at the end of March 2008, we still had 99,295 people connected to U.S. military forces living and working there -- 49,364 members of our armed services, 45,753 dependent family members, and 4,178 civilian employees. Some 13,975 of these were crowded into the small island of Okinawa, the largest concentration of foreign troops anywhere in Japan.

“These massive concentrations of American military power outside the United States are not needed for our defense. They are, if anything, a prime contributor to our numerous conflicts with other countries. They are also unimaginably expensive.  According to Anita Dancs, an analyst for the website Foreign Policy in Focus, the United States spends approximately $250 billion each year maintaining its global military presence. The sole purpose of this is to give us hegemony -- that is, control or dominance -- over as many nations on the planet as possible

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The Nub has never liked the non-waiver deadline deals that occur each season and, in general, benefit the wealthier teams while consigning the less wealthy to wait another year.  Nevertheless, key trades that have been completed require acknowledgment.  We rate them this way:

Super-clinchers – Cliff Lee (Indians) to the Phillies, George Sherrill (Orioles) to the Dodgers  (both teams seemed to be division winners anyway).

Possible clinchers – Jarrod Washburn (Mariners) to Tigers, Freddy Sanchez (Pirates) to the Giants,Victor Martinez to Red Sox (SF is now a valid wild card threat, Sox have solidified their wild card status, at least). 

Anything can happen – Mark DeRosa (Indians and Julio Lugo (Red Sox) to Cardinals; John Grabow (Pirates) to Cubs  (Both teams now look to have an edge on Brewers in NL Central).               

Staying alive – Orlando Cabrera (A’s) to Twins.  (Minnesota not conceding AL Central)            

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July 2009 Archive

(Posted: 7/30/09)

The More-of-the-Same Mets and Team USA

The story of two skippers: Last February, Jerry Manuel began his first full season leading the Mets; a month earlier, Barack Obama began his first season directing Team USA.  Both talked of change in the way their teams would be run.  Yet both have operated  much as their predecessors did.

Manuel sent his stars out day after day - true, he had no bench – but he clearly wore down Carlos Beltran, who made warning noises about his aches throughout the spring.  Carlos Delgado and Jose Reyes were a different matter, but in retrospect they certainly could have used rest, something Willie Randolph didn’t give them, either.  Obama used Bush-like bank bailouts to deal with the sub-prime mortgage crisis and has kept most anti-terrorism tactics in place (including the possibility of torture at rendition sites); more pressingly, his games in Afghanistan and vis-à-vis Russia and Latin America look to be taken from George W’s foreign-policy playbook. 

Manuel can blame boss of personnel Omar Minaya for his predicament.  Who can skipper Obama blame when dugout coach Joe Biden makes a provocative pledge to support the adversarial states on Russia’s borders?  Or when Hillary Clinton calls ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya “reckless” for trying to return to his country and now is unwilling to refer to what happened to him as a coup?

Is it owing to Bill Gates that Team Obama is sending 21,000 more troops into a contest that looks as dubious as the one in Iraq?  That would be Afghanistan, at the top of the A-list of Barack’s bobbles.  How misguided is the situation there?  International Herald Tribune’s William Pfaff offers this perspective:

“The growing opinion in Europe is that Afghanistan is the United
States’s ‘new Vietnam.’  The truth is that it is worse than Vietnam.
In Vietnam the United States had a clearly identified enemy,
supported by a responsible Communist state in North Vietnam with its
government in Hanoi…

“Unlike the Viet Cong, the Taliban are not a disciplined force
acting under some government’s orders, and have neither the intention
nor means to attack anybody outside Central Asia. They are motivated
by nationalism, today focused against the United States, and by a
desire to propagate their form of Islam.

”In that respect it’s a war of ideas, which the United States has no
theory about how to ’win.’ There is no way to make the Taliban
surrender. At most they will temporarily fade away when U.S. and
NATO forces begin to fade away, and fight again another day. There
is no Taliban government to bomb. And there is no way to ‘make’
Afghanistan a democratic ally of the United States. The ‘no’s’ have it.”

Early in his first season it was fair to attribute Obama’s errors to inexperience or to having too many balls in the air.  It is fair now to hold him accountable on foreign policy/anti-terrorism, as the mainstream media seems reluctant to do.

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Nobody asked us, but…Amid their complaints about Dice-K and his criticisms of their training regimen, the Red Sox can’t resist latching on to many teams’ preferred (but insubstantial) explanation for certain disappointing performances this year: participation in the World Baseball Classic (WBC).   We  repeat  our fervent hope that the quadrennial classis is here to stay.

The Phils’ deal for Cleveland’s Cliff Lee should put to rest any delirious thoughts that the Mets might have been competitive with the defending champs, even if their core regulars had remained healthy.  

Of all the crackling media responses to the Mets’ Bernazard-firing circus, Newsday’s Wallace Matthews generated the most sparks.  Here is part of what he wrote:

“(The Mets) are the only group currently known to harbor not one but two people who actually claim to have liked and respected Tony Bernazard.  Unfortunately for those who care about the club those two would be Jeff Wilpon and Omar Minaya.  And they appear to be the only individuals in major league baseball who (didn’t know) that Bernazard is a foul-mouthed, ill-tempered little cuss with a Napoleon complex and two last-place minor league clubs on his resume.

“Mets fans your future is secure.  Jeff Wilpon and Omar Minaya are a matched set, equal in ignorance, arrogance, incompetence and vindictiveness.  And as long as they remain together – the idiot son of the rich owner and clueless general manager content to serve as his dummy – the Mets will continue to stink out their shiny new ballpark.

And they will remain together, because what other respected baseball man would work for a cipher like the Son of Wilponstein?”
                               - o -

The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted 7/28/09)

The High Price of One Pitcher and Many Medications

The names Stephen Strasburg and Jim DeMint made the mainstream media lineup last week.  Most of us know Strasburg is the pitching phenom from San Diego Statewho has been drafted by the Washington Nationals.  DeMint is the Republican Senatorfrom South Carolina who has drafted himself to pitch against health care reform.

Strasburg could command a $15 million bonus - a record for a college player - to sign with the Nats.  The reward DeMint seeks is credit for leading a Conservative effort in a game seen as crucial to Team Obama's hopes for season-long success. Money, much more than $15 million, has a position to play in the health care contest, as well.

 The implications of money in both encounters are staggering. Observers like Allen Barra in the Wall Street Journal suggest that, if Strasburg gets close to his asking price, ticket and food prices will inevitably rise at the Nationals' ballpark. Here's the way Barra puts it:

 "Sportswriters and radio guys delight in reminding fans that every time a team acquires an expensive player the cost of everything goes up. But that's just not the way economics works.  It certainly seems as if ... prices...go up after they sign that new guy or build that new ballpark (always with a large chunk of taxpayer money).  But that isn't because the owners of sports team are greedy. They are greedy, but that's not the point.

"The point is that prices go up because the owners think that's what you're willing to pay.  If you are willing to pay, the price stays high. If you aren't -- or at least if enough of you aren't -- then the price will come back down.  It's that simple."

We know that what's simple in the current health care field is the lack of clout we consumers possess over prices; drug companies know that we'll be willing to pay whatever they charge for a simple reason: the prescribed medication is likely to be essential to our well-being, even our life.  Only in the rare cases when a generic alternative is available do we have a choice.  Congress has decreed that not even the government can buy cheap drugs from Canada for domestic distribution.

DeMint has gone to bat for the idea that scoring political runs against Obama is more important than, in effect, whether we can more easily keep from feeling sick.  He believes that by stretching out the game, his side, helped by insurance and drug-industry positioning, will make a twin killing – keeping excellent health care as it is, for the Stephen Strasburgs, and denying the president even a modest policy win.  Fans have between now and the end of the season to get into the game, or sit back and see how it turns out.   
                                    -     -     -
Nobody seemed to like Mets player-development VP Tony Bernazard except Jeff Wilpon.  GM Omar Minaya can’t like his departure, however.  Now Omar alone is on the spot for the team’s moribund farm system.  Bernazard joins a rogues gallery of ex-Met execs that includes Al Goldis and Bill Singer, whom Wilpon hired as special assistants after the Mets lost 95 games in 2003.  The pair were supposed to evaluate young talent, but left in short order, however, with little recruited talent to show.  Bernazard stuck around, but had the same result.

How should Sox fans feel about their team’s domination of the Yankees, who are beating everybody else in sight?  Newsday’s Wallace Matthews says Red Sox Nation has a special reason to be grateful:  “Of all the improbable things that have happened in this baseball season…nothing seems quite so unlikely as the Yankees going 0-for-8 against the Red Sox, by a combined score of 55-31…(It turns out that) by losing those games, the Yankees are keeping the Red Sox in the race.  Measured against the rest of baseball, there is no question which is the better team.”

A numbers squeeze after dealing for Adam LaRoche forced the Red Sox to release reserve outfielder/first baseman Mark Kotsay.  The Mets could have signed him cheaply over the winter as protection against injuries.  As it is, there’s little chance Kotsay would  accept an offer from the Mets now…not with contenders in both leagues surely on his trail.

The Yankees may not regret letting Bobby Abreu get away last winter, but the LA Angels are happy they signed him (and at a bargain rate, at that).  The Globe’s Nick Cafardo and Bill Chuck explain why with these stats:  “Abreu has stolen at least 20 bases for 11 straight years, the longest streak of any active player. Rickey Henderson holds the record with 23. When Abreu hits his 250th home run (he has 248) he will join Bonds, Craig Biggio, Joe Morgan, Henderson, and Willie Mays as the only players in major league history with 250 homers, 2,000 hits, 1,000 runs, 1,000 RBIs, 1,000 walks, and 300 stolen bases.”
                              -  o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 7/25/09)

Who Turned Off the Political and Pennant-Race Heat?

New Yorkers should be glued to deep-summer dogfights in politics and baseball; it’s a local-election year, after all, and a fever-hot time for pennant races.

Not this year.  The incredible shrinking Mets have sunk out of the sight while the Yankees and Mayor Bloomberg appear to be sure bets in their respective contests
Money – the mayor’s willingness to spend tens of millions to make his case, and the Yanks’ big-ticket purchases of key players who are performing as hoped – have taken the suspense out of the summer for many of us.  Oh, the Red Sox are still a factor, but there’s little doubt the Yanks will make the playoffs, at least.

The doldrums extend to the field in Washington, where the health care reform game is being played badly from a spectator’s standpoint.  Fans down the left-field line saw single-payer absent from the starting lineup.  They thought public option - a competitive government-run entrant - would get into the game, but there was a sign at Skipper Obama’s news conference Wednesday night that wasn’t happening, either.

Public option disappeared from the field of discussion early this month when Obama’s bench coach Rahm Emanuel reportedly said importing cheap drugs from Canada would NOT be part of the final health care package.  Not one of the 10 mainstream media people scheduled to be in the skipper’s starting news conference lineup slapped out a public-option question.  The issue would have gone unaddressed had McClatchy’s Steve Thomma not raised it without being called on. 

While paying lip-service to the public option’s potential, the president sent a signal that improved “insurance regulation” would be a compromise substitute for what he earlier hoped would be a government plan “to help keep the insurance companies honest.”  In hinting at the compromise, Obama was, in effect, acknowledging the resistance of Congressional centrists like House Democrat Charlie Melancon of Louisiana, who fears that public option would become a “big government entitlement program.”  Then there is Republican Senator Olympia Snow of Maine who says she would only vote for the public option “as a last resort.”  The option looks as dead as the Mets and passage of a watered-down reform bill as slow to happen as infield grass to grow.

The health care presser scorecard showed a significant stat: the president threw out the word “deficit” 16 times.  He mentioned inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit from the Bush Administration and said he “understands why the American people are queasy about the huge deficits.”  Deficits linked to defense spending maybe.  But polls say deficits that help pay for quality health care would be more than acceptable to most Americans.
                                       -     -     -
Two months ago, when the Houston Astros were 18-25, owner Drayton McLane had to fend off queries about the possible firing of manager Cecil Cooper.  Since then the Astros have gone 31-19 (as of the start of last night’s game) and are contending both for the NL Central and Wild Card leads.  The Astros and Wild-Card-leading Colorado Rockies are the team comeback stories of the year so far.

 At the other end of the field…the talk around the Mets is that volatile player-development VP Tony Bernazard will survive his series of embarrassing incidents because of his close ties to Jeff Wilpon, boss Fred’s son.  It was Jeff who thought Art Howe was the perfect choice to succeed Bobby Valentine as manager early in the decade, and that he and newly named GM Jim Duquette could run the team despite minimal experience.  It all led to a disastrous few years.  If Fred Wilpon leaves decision-making power to Jeff, there may be a lot more disaster in store.

How badly have the streaking Yankees spooked Red Sox Nation?  The Globe’s Nick Cafardo gives us a clue on the subject of the Yanks” apparent disinterest in dealing for Roy Halladay:  “The louder the Yankees scream they won’t give up the franchise for Halladay, the more you think they’re in it.”

Health again: The story the other day about the high incidence of cellphone-related highway deaths surely influenced this riff by Salon’s Garrison Keillor:

“I call up my mother while driving, which is exciting for her since she is 94 and remembers when phones were attached to the wall and you talked on them while standing still. ‘Is that safe?’ she says.

“No, it's not, but neither is life itself. Animal fats, ultraviolet rays, unknown persons trying to get you to carry things aboard an aircraft, Argentine women trying to lure you down to Buenos Aires -- it's a minefield out there. “
                                    - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 7/23/09)

Yanks Exemplify Team USA’s Money-Is-Power Offense

The AP says Yanks head man Hal Steinbrenner is “interested” in the availability of Toronto ace Roy Halladay.  “If we need something,” Steinbrenner is quoted as saying, “we look at all possibilities.”   The Yankees don’t need Halladay to make the playoffs; he would be icing on their already expensive ($206 million) cake.  But they have the resources, everybody knows, to get the best pitcher in baseball, if they want him.

That the Yankees are rich is hardly news.  What’s more apparent now is how their money has isolated them from every team in the AL, maybe even including the Red Sox.  It’s an isolation found in the non-baseball world among investment bankers and too-big-to-fail corporate executives.   The drive to acquire rather than share wealth, the latter a brief post-World War II phenomena, began to make headway soon after George Steinbrenner took control of the Yankees in the early 70’s.  International Herald Tribune columnist William Pfaff tracks how the rich-getting-richer trend started:

“At some point a consensus emerged…on a new business model. This demanded
abandonment of the social concerns previously expected from business, and

demanded from corporations the highest possible profits.

”It advocated minimal taxation and (reduced) political regulation, so as to produce the highest stockholder earnings possible.  It said that a rationally perfected industrial economy must be based on maximized pursuit of self-interest, and would then automatically bring the greatest possible efficiency and return.”

Afield these days, the Yankees are certainly getting a great efficiency and return on their investment.  They’re attracting fewer customers than expected to their new ballpark.  But what business isn’t experiencing similar disappointment?  More broadly, minimal taxation and less political regulation seem to have led Team USA into, among other things, an impasse on health care reform.

Lob from Left Field:  “How has it come to pass that the most powerful (and most self-confident) nation in the world now seems helpless? The short answer is that political action is a function of political will - the public's more than the politicians' - and that ours has been steadily sapped. Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff, has said that crisis creates opportunity, but he is only partly right. Crisis creates pain.  It is the pain that creates the opportunity.

“The New Deal, that great spasm of political initiative, arose out of a national agony: 25 percent of Americans were unemployed, and with absolutely no safety net to catch them. There is plenty of agony now, but it is not as deep nor as wide, in part because of the programs of the New Deal, including unemployment insurance.  President Roosevelt had the advantage of an angry citizenry who wanted him to do anything to rescue them. Obama has the disadvantage of a passive citizenry that, frankly, may never hurt enough to demand what might finally cure what ails them.”  - Neal Gabler in Boston Globe

Speaking of helplessness, the Mets are in a money-enforced bind: they can’t fire Omar Minaya because he has three years coming on a pricey new contract.  Owner Fred Wilpon can’t fire son Jeff – well, he could, and probably should.  But Jeff does serve a useful purpose: his persistent bad judgment as VP, operations (like overextending Omar) distracts attention from the man ultimately responsible for the current mess, his father.

Then there is the case of Tony Bernazard, who, as player-development exec, has every right to feel insecure, his and Omar’s farm system being an ongoing grim joke.  But to allow his anxieties to surface in the forms of a reported yelling outburst at Citi Field and a fisticuff threat against Double-A farmhands speaks of instability.  Only a dysfunctional club could keep someone like that - who has proved unproductive at his job anyway - around.     

Terry Francona talked to the Globe’s Amalie Benjamin about a member of the Yankees he’d obviously like to have back.  The context was the Red Sox search for a competent lead-off hitter:  “The first hitter of the game, you’re the first guy seeing somebody… you don’t want (him) to…swing at the first pitch, make an out, then everybody’s like, ‘Hey, how’s his breaking ball?’ and then you don’t know.  Johnny Damon was the best.  He’d come back and give you a whole scouting report because he usually saw about 10 pitches.  It does help.”

Stat city: Caught-stealing leaders among catchers (as of game-time yesterday):  Detroit’s Gerald Laird, 44 pct., Philadelphia’s Carlos Ruiz, 36.6 pct.  Holds leaders among relief pitchers: Carlos Marmol, Cubs, 21; Bobby Seay, Detroit, 20; Jeremy Affeldt, Giants, 20.

E-Mailbag:  Thanks to Jimmy O’H, of Woodhaven, Queens for catching an error in the Nub before last.  He caught us in a vapor-lock, calling M.Mussina “Mark” instead of “Mike.”  Letting that one get by really stung.

                     - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

 

(Posted 7/21/09)

The Fibbing Game in Baseball and Politics

Baseball fans are familiar with the fibbing that goes on through the season - teams say an injured star has “tweaked his hamstring” and is  "day to day" when he winds up on the 60-day DL; a pitcher is said to be sidelined because of "mechanical problems" when he's really a head case.

 In politics, fibbing can become a serious matter, an original bobble stretched into an outright lie.  And that lie can be an effort to conceal a dubious policy that
undercuts Team USA's standing in the international league.  We're seeing such a chain of errors play out in Latin America, thanks to early misplays committed as a deadly game unfolded in Honduras.

This country's mainstream media pays scant attention to Latin America, where long-standing U.S. policy has been business-sympathetic, favorable to the privileged and mistrustful of any populist trends.  When Team Obama took the field there seemed reason to hope it would join a lineup hitting in a different direction, a lineup that includes Brazil, Argentina and Chile as well as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay and Nicaragua.  Then came our stance on the contest in Honduras.  An article in the UK Guardian by Mark Weisbrot scored the series of fibs-turned-lies pitched by Team Obama:

"When the coup occurred on 28 June, the first statement that came out of the White House was a major blunder.  Although the US and international press gave Obama a pass, the diplomatic community could hardly help noticing that the White House issued the only official statement in the world that didn't have a bad word to say about the coup when it happened.

"This position shifted as events moved forward, and Obama himself even went so far as to say: "We believe that the coup was not legal and that President (Manuel) Zelaya remains the president of Honduras." But then his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, seemed to contradict him. Twice she was asked by the press whether restoring the democratic order in Honduras meant restoring the elected president, and twice she declined to answer...Others in the administration (appear to) be content to let the coup government stall out the remaining months of Zelaya's term."

Team Obama has been hitting from both sides of the plate during the ongoing stall in talks between Zelaya and the coup-installed government about his possible return to power.  Obama, on the one hand, has cut back military aid to Honduras; on the other, he has permitted continued training of Honduran officers at what was formerly known as the (hard-right) School for the Americas in Georgia.
                                    -     -     -
Daily News columnist Mike Lupica is playing catch-up on the Mets’ story.  Here’s his take on that organizational disgrace: “The Mets had American Legion players behind their stars when their stars went down.  And…they don't seem to have any future replacements coming over the hill from the farm system.  (Why that's so is) what the owners need to be asking Omar Minaya, their general manager.   The injuries to the big guys are completely out of Minaya's control.  Their replacements, however, are hardly out of his control.   His farm system isn't out of his control.  His scouts aren't…

“If …the last two Septembers d(id)n't happen the way they d(id)…everybody (would be) willing to cut Minaya some slack.   Only the Mets…went down two straight (times) and there is no grace period for Minaya anymore.”

Amid the Mets’ self-pitying sobs about their long injury list, the LA Angels provide a reminder that good teams overcome DL adversity.  The Angels have had to play much of the season without two top starters Kelvim Escobar and Ervin Santana. They’ve seen their most formidable slugger Vladimir Guerrero spend separate stretches on the DL, where he is now with the Angels’ star centerfielder Torii Hunter.  Yet the LAAs shed few tears for themselves; they hang tough instead, and find a way with capable subs to reach their familiar place atop the AL West.

Stat city:  David Cone says the most important mound statistic is IP (innings pitched).  On that basis, Dan Haren of the Arizona D-backs has doubly excelled so far this season.  He leads the major in IP - 138 in 19 games - and ERA, 1.96.  Oh, yes, Haren is third in strikeouts (137) behind Tim Linecum of the Giants (159) and Detroit’s Justin Verlander (155).     

                                - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted 9/11/09)

Fantasy-League Action on the Political Field

You’re Joe Girardi and you have a fantastic dilemma: Mike Mussina wants to un-retire and he’s ready to fill in for injured starter Chien-Ming Wang.  But Phil Hughes is ready, too, after a successful stint in the bullpen.  Who does Joe go with – the veteran whose brilliant career may earn him a trip to Cooperstown, or the comparative newcomer who has shown so much promise?  

This playful scenario came to mind after sitting in the stands at a late-week renewal of the Democratic Public Advocate campaign.  The four candidates in the liveliest of the three citywide primary contests – Council members Bill de Blasio and Eric Gioia, former Public Advocate Mark Green and civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel - met at the CUNY Graduate bailiwick under the auspices of Manhattan Media.

De Blasio, assuming the here-assigned Hughes role, challenged Green’s readiness to return to the diamond: he had been away too long. “Why were you silent on important city matters over the past eight years,” de Blasio said, looking at Mark, “why weren’t you involved?” The veteran reminded the journeyman of what he had accomplished over 11 years as a public player – pitching with success against racial profiling, the targeting of tobacco advertising to children, etc. - while the younger man was on the sidelines.  “I’ve been Bill de Blasio, out of public office; that is, I’ve been what you were then.”

The signs at this stage of the game put the early-innings squabble into perspective:  they suggest Green (Mussina) to be the front-runner, with de Blasio (Hughes) his closest pursuer.  But the voters, who will preempt Girardi, could decide to go for different types of talent – a political Jonathan Papelbon, for example, embodied by the energetic Gioia, or the reliable stopper Trevor Hoffman, who is a baseball equivalent of Siegel.  It’s been clear from the start that any of the four will make an excellent on-deck hitter to the mayor. 

The scoreboard on primary day, September 15, will have to show the winner with at least 40 percent of the vote.  Otherwise, there’ll be a two-team playoff over the following week to 10 days (the final outcome keeping the baseball connection by coinciding with the final week of the regular season).
                                -     -     -
We reported last time that, according to Baseball America, the Giants and Rangers each have two potentially “high impact” farmhands ready to move up to the majors for the homestretch.  The mag has published an expanded list of top 25 prospects.  Only one team has as many as three: Tampa Bay.  The Giants and Rangers, each with two top prospects, have plenty of company – the Braves, Marlins, Indians, Orioles and Phillies.  One player from the Yankees’ system made the list: Triple-A catcher Jesus Montero, ranked third overall.  Surprisingly, the Red Sox and Dodgers were blanked; unsurprisingly, so were the Mets.

Reasons for (non-Mets) fans in the northeast to feel upbeat as the post-All-Star season gets crunchy:  A three-way battle for two playoff spots involving the Yanks, Red Sox and defending league champion Rays in the AL East.  A very possible WS rendezvous with the Dodgers in late October.   Lots of fun ahead while NYM fans are spared their usual sad September song.

                               - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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 The Nub, taking its customary All-Star break, will return a week from Tuesday.

(Posted: 7/9/09)

Don’t Say the Mets Are Quitting Like Sarah Palin

Let’s play pepper around the E-mailbag:  “Some say Sarah Palin was not a good sport to quit her job.  But maybe the Mets should consider the idea.  Oh, sorry – they already have.”  - Keith W., Manhattan

Palin is resigning as governor, apparently for opportunistic reasons.  She’s quitting because she has political potential – or so she believes – that can better be exploited as a free agent.  The Mets have no potential – “They have nothing in their system,” a scout was quoted as saying Monday in the Daily News.  It’s a talent-less team that isn’t quitting, just trying in vain.

“Do you perceive a tension between your disapproval of Mayor Bloomberg’s legal term -limits extension and that of the erstwhile president of Honduras who sought an extra term entirely extra-legally?” – Frank M., Fire Island

President Zelaya did not seek a third term directly.  He sought to ask the electorate if it agreed he could include the term-extension item in a referendum.  He was not going to override the wishes of the people.  It is true that the business elite had successfully stacked the courts against populist initiatives, so he probably would have lost in the end.  But his initiative was clearly not anti-democratic, as was Bloomberg's.

“Your rant about the Mets’ lack of organizational depth has gotten repetitious.  There are other teams to talk about.  – Tony K, NYU faculty

Guilty, as charged.  Before moving on, however, we’re going to turn that particular ranting role over to pinch-hitter Bill Madden of the News:

“The Mets are presently a depleted mess, plagued not only by this unfathomable rash of injuries to their most important players, but by the same inner turmoil that eventually led to Willie Randolph's demise. I'm told that assistant GM Tony Bernazard, whom Randolph found to be an intrusive influence in the clubhouse, especially with the Latin players, has been no less undermining with Jerry Manuel.  For whatever reason, Bernazard seems to have the Wilpons' ears, even more so than Minaya, and in organization meetings he's never reticent to suggest areas where the manager might be doing a better job.  I'm also told the Met high command ordered Manuel to tone down the not-so-subtle pleas for help…and his periodic candor about his team's deficiencies.”

Farm director Bernazard, shifting the blame for the mess to Manuel?  Can the Wilpons be dumb enough to swallow that?  Anything seems possible in the Queens quagmire.

Added reason to take the wild-card-leading Giants and AL West-contending Rangers seriously the rest of the season: each has two prospects on Baseball America’s top 10 list of minor leaguers considered ready to reinforce their parent teams in a “high impact” way.   The mag says the Orioles, Phils, Twins, Reds, Angels and Braves each have a single potential stud on deck.                     

                                   - o -

(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 7/7/09)

Who Cares About Steroids or Political Squeeze Plays?

Not long ago, a former top coach on Team Bloomberg suggested to us why Mayor Mike would get away with extending term limits without a public referendum.  “The people don’t care about process,” he said.  “If they care about anything, it’s performance.” Baseball fans have made clear they could care less about the test results, suspensions, etc. that are part of the sport’s drug-control process.  It’s how offenders play the game that matters.

There’s hardly any doubt Bloomberg will be re-elected despite his safety squeeze against the public will.  He has been a crowd-pleasing NYC skipper, mainly because his personal wealth gave him the perception of independence from vested interests.  That wealth is poised to win over voters in record numbers despite the dangerous precedent skipper Mike personifies: money relegating democracy to the bench.

Any sense of shame associated with steroids-using has been sent to the showers in baseball; Manny Ramirez is the latest example.  The Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy was in San Diego over the weekend to see how Manny would be received by fans and the media after his 50-game suspension.  Here’s how he described that reception, first from his fellow media people:

“Here are some of the questions Manny was asked at his comeback news conference: ’How emotional has this all been for you? . . . How tough was it for you to sit out 50 games? . . . How bad was this for you?’   The theme is obvious. Manny didn’t do anything bad. Something bad was done to him and now he is overcoming the obstacles and returning to his craft.

“Fans simply love their ballplayer heroes and don’t care about steroids.   Pre-Mitchell, post-Mitchell, Andrea Mitchell, it doesn’t matter. The longer this goes on, the more it seems that the only people who care about steroids are Hall of Fame voters, a handful of baseball purists, and perhaps those players who have not cheated and now feel like suckers…

“What do you say, Joe (Torre) ? Think fans care about steroids?  ‘I think people care, but they come to the park to be entertained (and that takes priority)’.’’

Bloomberg and other veteran political players may not entertain but they are constantly performing.  Their personalities become familiar; voters offer support because they know them, not because of a stance on issues.  Council Speaker Christine Quinn (with whom we worked in her pre-leadership days) exemplifies an elected official benefiting from high recognition who should have attracted negative attention: we believe she betrayed the public last year by serving as an enabler for Bloomberg on term limits.

Daily News columnist Errol Louis sees it as hopeful that Quinn apparently faces a strong challenge as she seeks a third term: “Civil rights attorney Yetta Kurland…is hammering Quinn for ramming through the law overturning term limits. ’This is not an issue of term limits, it's an issue of democracy,’ Kurland told me. ‘The people in this district feel it is a fundamental breach of public trust.’

“That's putting it mildly.  In 2007, Quinn said: ‘I am today taking a firm and final position.  I will not support the repeal or change of term limits through any mechanism, and I will oppose aggressively any attempt by anyone to make any changes in the term limits law.’  Quinn changed her tune (just) a few months later…”

                            -     -     -
During the Toronto-Yankees game on YES yesterday, Michael Kay quoted Johnny Damon on the wind currents at the new Stadium.  Damon said fly balls to left, whether hit by lefty or righty batters, veer toward center field.  That means an internal wind pushes many flies to right into a record-building number of home runs.  Kay noted that the quirks of hits to left - opposite-field flies normally curve toward the foul line - give the Yankees a home-field advantage until visiting teams figure out the Stadium’s foibles.  

A poem excerpt for Mets fans:

Avoid all tears – (but)
the world and time will
have their way
and weep we must…
                    - from “Advice to a Pregnant Daughter-in-Law” by Charles Darling

                         - o -
(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 7/2/09)

Team Obama and the Mets Performing on Replay

Someone has pushed a replay button showing two teams - one in baseball, the other in politics – performing in a throwback mode.  The 2009 Mets are playing like the 1962 Amazin’s.  That team prompted manager Casey Stengel to utter the memorable lament “Can’t anybody play this game?”  In the case of the coup that overthrew Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, Team Obama is looking suspiciously like the USA outfits of yore: teams that played ball with military juntas in Latin America whenever local right-wing fans wanted a populist skipper removed from the game.

For his part, President Obama has talked a good game, condemning what happened to the democratically elected Zelaya.  But the stance of his dugout deputies has been less persuasive: Hillary Clinton said the U.S. would not call the coup by its rightful name because that would automatically cut off our aid to Honduras.  But the leverage that aid gives us - and went unused – supports charges Team Obama was playing on the anti-Zelaya side.   Author Jeremy Scahill put it this way on Common Dreams:

“The US could have flexed its tremendous economic muscle before the coup and told the military coup plotters to stand down. The US ties to the Honduran military and political establishment run far too deep for all of this to have gone down without at least (our) tacit support.”

Unmentioned in the mainstream media, which has played up Zelaya’s dealings with Hugo Chavez (but not his corporate elite background), was a letter the Honduran president sent to Obama early in the year.  According to Nikolas Kozloff of Counterpunch, “(It) accused the U.S. of ‘interventionism’ and called on the new administration in Washington to respect the principle of non-interference in the political affairs of other nations.”

The letter may be one reason Obama did not see fit to meet with Zelaya in Washington on the eve of the ousted president’s planned return home today.  As the game unfolds, Barack will have other chances to bat as well as pitch: to swing in strong, unconditional terms in support of Zelaya’s return.  Such a decisive turn at the plate will show that, despite contrary off-field signals, Barack’s new Team USA is no longer hitting reflexively to right in Latin America.

Amid the many pre-season predictions that the Mets were playoff-bound, a few observers thought otherwise.  They pointed to, among other things, the lack of both a solid bench and capable minor-league back-ups   That meant the Mets were operating without fail-safe players serious teams need to stay in contention.  To call the current Mets a “below-average team”, as Jerry Manuel has done, hardly does justice to the team’s deficiencies.  Who could imagine that Damian Easley would be so badly missed?  With not a single sure return date for the missing regulars, on thing is sure: a long, lugubrious summer lies ahead for the Mets and their fans.  And neither a stopgap trade for someone like Nick Johnson, nor the scattered return of Reyes, Beltran, et al, figures to change that grim outlook.

Stat city:  Tim Linecum of the Giants and the Braves’ Javier Vazquez are the mlb’s top two strikeout artists (among pitchers who have thrown 100 innings or more).  Linecum has recorded 132 k’s in 114 innings, Vazquez 125 in 106.2.  The pair lead in strike-walk ratio, as well: Linecum having issued 28 passes, Vazquez only 23.  There’s a disparity in W-L department, however: Linecum is 8-2, Vazquez 5-7.

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June 2009 Archive

Posted: 6/30/09)

The Disappearance of Pitchers Pedro and Howard Dean

Howard Dean, a political newsmaker the past couple of days, and Pedro Martinez, a baseball item for several months, can relate to a show-biz story about the late Sam Levene.  A dynamite character actor decades ago, Levene was the subject late in life of a good-natured career summary:

Who is Sam Levene?
Get me Sam Levene.
Get me a young Sam Levene.
Who is Sam Levene?

We remember Howard Dean as the physician, former Vermont governor, and front-running Dem presidential candidate in 2004, who fell before a John Kerry rally. Then, as chair of the party’s national committee, Dean ran afoul of Rahm Emanuel in the strategizing of the nationwide 2008 campaign. He disappeared after the Obama election, passed over for a spot on the Barack team, just as Pedro’s name eluded mlb free-agent signing lists from pre-season until now.

Pedro and friends have helped circulate rumors that several teams – the Cubs and Rays, among them – are close to signing him for the rest of ’09.   On the other hand, an unidentified scout who watched Pedro recently said the once-great pitcher now has mid-80’s velocity and his ball is “soft.”   The rap against Dean, who let the world know he wanted to be Barack’s Health and Human Services guy, is that he challenged the wisdom of narrowing the campaign focus.  His 50-state election strategy, the skipper’s insiders said, wasted resources that could have given Team Obama a more decisive victory than the scoreboard finally showed.

Nostalgic fans are rooting for Pedro…to sign with a team other than their own.  Political progressives are cheering Dean’s fighting words about health care reform at a rally in Washington last week.  Pitching for the team Democracy for America, which wants  a strong government role in the reformed system, Dean issued a warning: “We are here; we're not going away.  We voted for change a few months ago.  We expect change.  And if we don't get it, there's going to be more change."

Not yet time to say “Who is Howard Dean?”    
                                 -     -     -
Of the four weekend sweepers - the Yanks, Rays, Angels and Rockies - one, the LAAs, vaulted into first place in its division.  The Angels and second-place Rangers are going head-to-head in Arlington.  When the three-game AL West series ends tomorrow night, we’ll have a sense of whether Texas can be taken seriously.   

How seriously do you think owner Fred Wilpon is taking the plight of the Mets?  If the Phillies don’t cooperate, the Metsies could be in such a floundering state a week from today - when the next home stand begins – that Fred will be forced to make reduced ticket prices a regular thing at Citi Field.  Who wants to pay big bucks to see the New York Bisons?  Blame for the “impy” (short for “improvident”) Mets belongs in great part to the VP for Player Development.  That’s Tony Bernazard.  The team is so sensitive to Tony’s failure to produce genuine prospects as farm director that it felt a need to find something to give him credit for: Bernazard is being mentioned with Omar Minaya as responsible for signing the latest pleasant garage-sale surprise, Fernando Nieve.     

Stat City:  The NL’s leading percentage pitcher (more than 100 innings) has flown under the radar screen.  While the AL pct. leader, Toronto’s Roy Halladay, 10-1,(.909),  has long had a high profile, Florida’s Josh Johnson, 7-1,  (.875), is only beginning to make his presence felt.  Of the top eight overall mlb pitching leaders, Johnson is the only one from the NL.
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(Posted: 6/27/09)

Smoltz Could Be Obama’s Competitive Model

If 47-year-old Barack Obama were like 42-year-old John Smoltz, he would say about meaningful health care reform, not “We can do it,” but “We will do it.”  Obama needs to get 51 Democratic senators totally committed to his team to insure success, and he must say less about obstacles while emphasizing why real reform should be inevitable.   Smoltz isn’t worried about team backup – the Red Sox have impressive supportive weapons.  He has no doubt he will get the job done, despite a slow start Thursday night. 

Obama:  “This is…when we need to fight the hardest…We can see some light along the horizon, but we’ve got a much longer journey to travel…This is when it gets hard.”

Smoltz:  “(My comeback) will be a success.  I came back with this mind-set…The end result will be that.” (quoted by the Globe’s Adam Kilgore)

Bloomberg.com’s Al Hunt calls Obama a skilled “explainer in chief…Think (Jack) Kennedy after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion , or (Ronald) Reagan after the Iran-Contra debacle.

“That’s the league this president plays in.”

But Barack has yet to bring his A-game to the show.  He’s nibbling at the corners instead of raring back and playing country hardball.  He should reach for 94 mph, as Smoltz did in his first outing.  The president’s caution has potential members of his team, and even fans, hanging back.   Smoltz, whose old boss Stan Kasten calls “the most determined and competitive human being” he’s ever met, exudes confidence that eliminates defeat as an option:  “I feel I can accomplish anything I want to accomplish…After (a few) starts, you’ll see why I feel the way I do.”

Obama might consider slipping down to Atlanta (where the Sox are playing a weekend series) for Smoltzian instruction in positive thinking and pitchin
                               -     -     -
Postscript to Smoltz’s loss to Washington Thursday night:  His opponent, 23-year-old Jordan Zimmermann, struck out the Sox’s MVP second baseman Dustin Pedroia twice.  It was the first time in 395 games Pedroia fanned more than once. Dustin paid tribute to the rookie:  “He’s got good stuff.  He’s got the stuff of a No. 1.  He’s going to be good for a long time.  He’s not afraid.  He gets after it.’’

The biggest free-agent bust of 2009?  SI’s Tim Marchman suggests the prize belongs to someone to whom Mets GM Omar Minaya paid an outrageous amount of Fred Wilpon’s money:  “The king disaster… has been left-handed pitcher Oliver Perez, who signed for three years and $36 million, walked more than a man per inning in three of his first five starts, and then went on the disabled list with a mysterious knee injury.

“Whether or not he has been the worst signing in the game, his April implosion should remind fans and executives not to expect players to be something other than what they demonstrably are.  Counted on and paid as a No. 2 starter, Perez led the league in walks last year and entered the season with a career ERA below league average.  When you sign a lousy pitcher, you get ... a lousy pitcher.”

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(Posted: 6/25/09)

The Chance of Failure in Baseball and Health Care Reform

Since even .300 hitters fail 70 percent of the time, baseball fans know what the late John Updike meant when he wrote:

“Baseball was
invented in America, where beneath
the good cheer and sly jazz the chance
of failure is everybody's right.”

                                                         - from Endpoint and Other Poems

Health care is considered a right – accessible to everyone – in other democratic societies.  Failure has marked efforts to make it that way here for the past 60 years.  The only reason we’re not batting .000 in the health care game is because Medicare and Medicaid – passed in 1965 - provide government-subsidized relief for seniors and the poor.  The health insurance lobby has already won a key pre-game contest: the debate over a possible public option (to compete with private plans) succeeded in forcing single-payer (Medicare for all) advocates off the field.  The record book suggests that, even with polls showing three-quarters of Americans support a public option, it would be unrealistic to bet against the lobby team in the big game itself.

How consistent the lobby’s clout has been was described on “Democracy Now” the other day.  Biographer D.D. Guttenplan told Amy Goodman what happened to radical journalist I.F. Stone when he went to bat for a national health program in December 1949.  Stone was a regular in the “Meet the Press” lineup at the time:

“On this particular morning…(Stone) was battling…Dr. Morris Fishbein…(then)…the most famous doctor in America…and editor of The Journal of the American Medical Association…He was the person that the medical and pharmaceutical industries put up to oppose…national health insurance.  He…coined the phrase ‘socialized medicine’…(and) described the proposals for national health insurance as a step on the road to communism.  And so, Stone said to him, ‘Dr. Fishbein, given that President Truman has already spoken out in favor of national health insurance, do you think that that makes him a dangerous communist or just a deluded fellow traveler?’

“That was the last time I.F. Stone was ever on Meet the Press, and…he wasn’t again allowed to be on national television for eighteen years.  He became a kind of disappeared person…”  

The public option may not disappear but it could be barely discernible when the final out is recorded in Congress.

                                   -     -     -
On the New England Sports Network (NESN) the other night, Josh Beckett was asked whether he could tell before a game he was not going to be sharp as usual.  His answer was strikingly candid:  “You can’t tell.  But if you go out there and, say, batters aren’t swinging at your first two pitches – well, it can make a difference.”  

Comparisons Can Be Mets-odious Dept: Sox reliever Takashi Saito said this, when asked by the Globe’s Nick Cafardo if he was surprised at how well his old team the Dodgers were doing:  “I’m not surprised at all. The guys contributing to that team were guys in the minors last year and younger guys who were just coming into their own. You’ve got (Jonathan) Broxton and (Cory) Wade and a lot of good young talent.  I think the Dodgers planned really well.  We may very well face them in the World Series, so I don’t want to say too much, but I wish them the best.”

Amid myriad signs of Mets’ farm-system impoverishment there is this: the recall of Nick Evans, who batted .093 at Triple-A Buffalo, then a lusty .276 at Double-A Binghamton. 

Joe Girardi’s enviable, Joba-like dilemma: Do I keep Phil Hughes pitching lights-out in relief, or return him to the rotation, where he could be an even bigger asset (than Chien- Ming Wang)? 

                               - o -
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(Posted: 6/18/09)

Corzine Playing Catch-up Game, Like the Mets

If Jon Corzine is a baseball fan, chances are he roots for the Yanks or the Phils.  That’s the way the ball bounces in the state he manages, New Jersey.  But Corzine these days has a lot in common with the Mets.  That is, he’s struggling in his contest with Republican challenger Chris Christie, just as the Mets are scrambling to keep pace with their division-leading main rival, the world champion Phillies.

The scoreboard shows Corzine trailing Christie, a prosecutorial slugger, by 10 polling points in a state that is 80 percent Democratic and Independent.  The Mets  trail the Phillies by three games, despite a $36 million payroll edge and the fact that it is the most valuable franchise in the NL, nearly twice as profitable as the Phils.

Corzine’s huge personal fortune helped him win election to the senate in 2000, and then to the governorship in 2005..  But his reliance on money as the big bat in his campaigns made him less reliant on players in the Dem party.  His diffidence toward the team led to defections and a deficient political farm system, something that has burdened the Mets throughout Omar Minaya’s four-plus years as GM. 

Corzine will be getting reinforcements from Team Obama, which has a big stake in keeping NJ in the Dem win column.  The Mets have no such help on the horizon.  Discomforting days lie ahead for Minaya, Player Development VP Tony Bernazard, as well as the team’s fans, and, of course, owner Fred Wilpon and son Jeff.
                                   -     -     -
The Yanks are drawing better than some of us hoped they would at their new, publicly subsidized (with dollars and parkland) stadium.  But how much better could it have been if, instead of reduced to an unsightly husk across the way, the old stadium, spruced to the max, had been saved, as was Fenway Park?   In yesterday’s Boston Globe, former Mass. governor and presidential candidate Mike Dukakis paid tribute to the people who made the decision to hold on to Fenway:

“The new ownership group understood what many native Bostonians did not - that we had a jewel of a ballpark that, with some tender loving care, could both expand the number of seats and preserve its special history and atmosphere in a way that almost no other major ballpark has been able to do.  The results have been spectacular. The cost is a fraction of what the new ballpark would have entailed, and the experience of watching a ballgame at Fenway is (more enjoyable than ever).” 

It looks as though Manny Acta, a Mets front-office favorite, will soon be the ex-manager in Washington.  Or does it?  Washington Post columnist Tom Boswell isn’t so sure:

“Whom will the Washington Nationals name as interim manager? Bench coach Jim Riggleman or Class AAA manager Tim Foli? Or will it be Bobby Valentine, now in Japan…More important, after the whole offseason search process is complete, who's the manager in '10? The baseball grapevine has good reasons why it won't be any of th(em).

"’It's going to be me,’ said Acta…He was poking his finger into his chest, his face animated with the kind of pride you know must be in him…. ‘It's going to be me,’ he repeated, not hostile but defiant.  ‘Watch.’  With that, he walked toward the field at Yankee Stadium where his Nats lost (again).”

Stat city (mlb leaders): Innings - “the most important pitching statistic”(David Cone) - Roy Halladay, Toronto, 103 (14 starts). W-L record - Halladay, 10-1.  Strikeouts – Justin Verlander, Detroit, 110 (90 innings).  Gopher balls – Kevin Millwood, Texas, 13 (99.2 innings).                       

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The Nub, on a long-weekend road trip, will be up next a week from today.

   

(Posted: 6/16/09)

There are Ballpark Possibilities in Politics, Too

“At the ballpark, anything is possible” - thank you, NYT’s Ben Shpigel - and in politics, the same is true: in NY state alone, we’ve had such recent examples as the sudden departure of Governor Eliot Spitzer, the unexpected promotion of Kirsten Gillibrand, the abrupt overthrow of the Senate Dem majority and its leader Malcolm Smith.

And, on a grander scale, how about the long-shot election of Barack Obama?  Anything seems to be possible when it involves political players.  Issues are another ballgame.  Health care reform has taken the field before with broad fan support, but been beaten badly nevertheless.  In the pressbox they’re touting this contest as crucial.  Robert Reich, writing for The American Prospect, sees two defining outcomes in the game:  whether Obama has the strength and savvy to take on one of the most formidable lobbying teams around; and, if so, whether he can eke out a public-option score as part of the victory.

Reich says Skipper Obama can’t play small ball with its public-option offense: the option  has to be “national in scale and combines its bargaining power with Medicare, and is allowed to negotiate lower drug prices and lower doctor and hospital fees.  And that's precisely what Pharma and Insurance (and the doctors) detest, for exactly the same reason.”

The UK Guardian’s Michael Tomasky brings a realistic perspective to the ballgame: “The powerful lobbies…(seem) resigned to the idea that some kind of healthcare bill will pass, so they might as well play ball and make it something they could live with. But will they stay resigned or decide they have a little fight in them after all?  I'd put money on the latter…

“It's one thing (for Team Obama) to be adroit in the first inning, which is where we are. When it counts is in the ninth inning. (This week) marks the start of an important process because Obama will clearly hope that by the time the late innings come around, he'll have toured the country and solidified public opinion behind reform.”

Based on Obama’s tentative pitch for the idea yesterday, the chances of the reform including a meaningful public-option plan are about the same as those of the Mets making it to the World Series.  Anything else apparently is possible.

                          -     -     -
Six of the 14 weekend inter-league match-ups ended in three-game sweeps.  The Colorado Rockies deserve star billing: they won their ninth, 10^th and 11^th straight against Seattle.  That ties their team record set in 2007, when they surged to a pennant and then the World Series.  Other sweepers: the Marlins over the Blue Jays, the Angels over the Padres, KC over Cincinnati, the Giants over Oakland, and Tampa Bay over the Nats.

The second-place Angels moved to within two-and-a-half games of first in the AL West, the second-place Giants to within seven and the Rockies to within 10-and-a-half in the NL West, the third-place Rays to within five in the AL East, and the third-place Marlins to within six in the NL East. (Update: Angels beat the Giants last night to move two games behind the Rangers, the Giants slipping to seven-and-a-half behind the Dodgers.)

What more could go wrong for the Mets?  Plenty:  On SNY Sunday afternoon, Mets announcers Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez noted early that Johan Santana’s velocity was topping out only at 91 mph. “He’s hittable,” they agreed.  And he has been, they might have added, over his past six starts (ERA 6.50).  Johan should bounce back, but if he doesn’t, this season for Mets fans will turn from a singular bad dream into a grand slam of a nightmare.

In that context, there is this cheery Metsian note from NY Post-man Kevin Kernan: “The Mets keep saying they are a championship-quality club, so (failing to score with bases loaded and none out) can't happen.  But everything happens to the Mets.   They are playing without their injured shortstop and first baseman and are hindered in left field. The situation at first is getting more dreadful by the day with young Daniel Murphy. He's hitting .238 with a .354 slugging average from a position that is all about slugging.  Consider that Mark Teixeira's slugging percentage is .620.  Rookie outfielder Fernando Martinez is not ready for the majors.”
                               - o -
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(Posted: 6/13/09)

The Bouncing of Black Leaders in Baseball and Politics

The other day, while interviewed by WNYC’s Leonard Lopate, Keith Hernandez confirmed the story behind the firing of Mets manager Willie Randolph a year ago this month: the team’s Latino players didn’t relate to him and wanted him gone.

On NY’s political field, we know that two Latino members of the Dem Senate majority  – Pedro Espada of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens – had similar feelings about their African-American leader Malcolm Smith.  They toppled him from power, insiders say, because he made promises to them he couldn’t keep…and billionaire Tom Golisano made it worth their while.

Little sympathy was expressed for the victims in either coup – Randolph didn’t deserve the way he was fired, said the media, but he did have it coming. Smith paid the price, according to the press, for not staying on top of things.  An argument could be made that, with Moises Alou lost for the season and closer Billy Wagner hurting and on the brink of the DL, Willie should’ve been given a fairer shake.  Or that Smith, having managed the thankless task of keeping his precarious majority together, merited a better fate than to be blindsided by big money. 

NY Times columnist Gail Collins may have been the only media voice to give the saga an against-the-grain perspective: 

“The coup was engineered, at least in part, by…Golisano…(He) spent several million dollars helping the Democrats get their precious two-vote majority.  In triumph, he traveled down from Buffalo to share his insights on how to resolve the state fiscal crisis with the new majority leader…Smith.  To Golisano’s outrage, Smith kept checking his Blackberry while his patron was talking.   This is a truly shocking story…Anybody who has been in politics for more than six minutes knows that the cardinal rule is to look interested when a rich guy is telling you his thoughts.”

Less shocking is the issue Golisano wanted to discuss:  the proposal to impose a tax on the super-wealthy like himself.   That tax has the important, if reluctant, backing of David Paterson.  The governor has merited boos for the bungled Carolyn Kennedy/Kirsten Gillibrand Senate-appointment play.  But his record on taxes, pension reform, etc. in this tough economic year would seem to be good enough to warrant a fair accounting by the media; the press could at least offer occasional positive mention. It may turn out that, like Randolph, Paterson will deserve to be fired, but he shouldn’t be subject - it says here (again) - to the piling-on way it is happening. 

                                -     -     -
Errors, injuries – all kinds of misfortune – are piling on the Mets, last night’s
heartbreaking loss to the Yanks the latest example.  The Yanks are the least of
the Mets’ worries, however…

Tim Redding’s tribute to the Phillies Thursday night - “You can’t keep that team down for long” - was a not-so-subtle acknowledgment that the Mets can’t expect to catch the defending champions this year.  The wild card is a (remote) possibility if Jerry Manuel’s hope that his decimated team can stay above .500 until his injured regulars return (dates unknown) is realized. 

Snap quiz – who said: "They deserved to (beat) us. We didn't play too well.  Of course, we're disappointed, but we can't feel sorry for ourselves. Their guys have played better than us."   Answer: Derek Jeter, although it could have been a collective Yanks/Mets statement after losing five of six to their chief rivals, the Red Sox and Phillies.

Let’s focus, before the inevitable happens, on the rejuvenated Colorado Rockies.  The Rox named former Dodgers and Pirates manager Jim Tracy to replace Clint Hurdle as skipper late last month.  As of last night’s ninth-straight win, 6-4 over the Mariners, the team, under Tracy, was 11-4, having completed an eight-game  streak…on the road!  And that’s not all: seven of the games were against the Cardinals and Brewers.  “Not easy to do,” said Tracy in an understated salute to his team.  

                                 - o -
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(Posted: 6/11/09)

Dysfunctional Describes Teams as Well as Pols

The “in” word in New York these days is “dysfunctional” – defined generally as “failure to serve an assigned purpose.”  The term seems to be hurled daily at the state government, with particular reference now to the Senate and its failure to get things done, thanks in great part to a tumultuous game of musical chairs.  But dysfunctional is finding its way into the baseball lexicon, too.  Fans of the Washington Nationals feel their team is not meeting its assigned purpose of being minimally competitive.  Then, in a separate category, there are the Mets, whose manager a year ago Willie Randolph, would soon be deposed just as abruptly as was Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith on Monday.

Much has been made of the legislative balls now in the air – same-sex marriage, mayoral oversight of NYC schools, reinforced tenants’ rights, etc.  But in the overriding won-lost columns, Dem errors give Team GOP an unexpected advantage as the battle for majority status plays out between now and the 2010 election.  That in turn could lead to a crucial reapportionment victory - control of how the state’s legislative districts are redrawn, insuring through creative demarcations that Repub vote potential is maximized.  On a managerial level, the miscues will certainly set back skipper David Paterson’s effort to dig in as a late-appearing in-charge governor.

The hits the Mets are taking in the media haven’t matched those endured by Paterson.  But the harshness is growing, despite the patchwork team’s occasional signs of life.  SI’s unforgiving Jeff Pearlman provides a tough example:

“These Mets lay down -- for everyone. They play with little gusto, and less aggressiveness. They rarely hit in the clutch, and make lackluster opposing pitchers appear to be the second coming of Steve Carlton.   When the Yankees suffer through a conga line of injuries, the organization never offers up the maladies as an excuse.  The Mets, on the other hand, all but seek out injuries to cite to the media.  If only we had Delgado.  If only we had Reyes.  If only ...

“The future has been written for the 2009 New York Mets, and it is not good.  They are modern day Jobs, all of them.  Only in this run, there is no reprieve.  A team with baseball's second-highest payroll will win, oh, 85 games and finish 10 games behind Philadelphia.  They will add someone -- Aubrey Huff? Nick Johnson? -- to the mix, sing his praises, find a groove, then sink back to reality.  They will fire their manager, trade off their prospects, talk about the new Mets, the fresh Mets, the exciting Mets.  But they're still the haunted Mets.”    

Lob from Left Field: “The (compromising posture) of the Democratic Party may have sufficed when the GOP was ascendant and the goal was restoring a Democratic majority.  But now the majority party resembles a dysfunctional family, badly in need of outside intervention.”  - William Greider in The Nation (touting citizen activism)

Although the Red Sox have dominated the Yankees so far, attentive residents of Sox Nation have no illusions about their team leaving the pinstripers behind.  The Boston Herald’s Gerry Callahan cites a key reason the Yanks will be around at the end:  “We don’t know yet if the Yankees finally bought themselves a World Series, but we know this: the Yankees bought themselves first place… primarily with one move.  After years of foolish free agent signings from Kevin Brown to Carl Pavano to Jason Giambi to Kei Igawa, (Brian) Cashman and the Yankees got one very right this year.

“Hey, they were due.  In (Mark)Teixeira, they got a 29-year-old player who hits like A-Rod but acts like Jeter,  a buttoned-down professional... unfazed by the bright lights and big expectations of New York.”

Baseball simplified, courtesy of Josh Beckett (quoted by the Globe’s Nick Cafardo):
"The whole game of baseball is predicated on the fastball, keeping it located.”

                               - o -
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(Posted: 6/9/09)

The Dissing of Paterson And the Mets

If Mets fan David Paterson watched the Phillies-Dodgers game on Fox Saturday afternoon, he surely noticed that his team received no respect from Dick Stockton and Eric Karros.   Indeed, the announcers treated the Mets in the dismissive way the NY political media treat the governor of their state.       

“The Phillies have made the playoffs the last two years,” said Stockton, “and they’re on the way to making them this year.”  “All their star players have intensity,” added Karros.  “That’s rarer than you would think.   It rubs off on the team as a whole.”  No mention of the Mets.  The NY press mentions Paterson all right, almost always with disparagement.

When the media people look ahead to the gubernatorial playoffs, they see Andrew Cuomo, like the Phillies, to be a virtual sure thing.

The similarities between the two alleged also-rans were underlined last week when the Mets lost four of five games to the struggling Pirates and Nats.  “Jerry Manuel doesn’t have the players.” was the consensus verdict on the injury-riddled team.  It was much like the media’s relentless sniping at the people Paterson depends on: “The governor doesn’t have a capable staff,” has been the mantra.

What Team Paterson has that the Mets don’t is time.  It will be mid-August before Jerry Manuel can hope to have all his stud invalids – Delgado, Reyes, Putz and maybe even Billy Wagner - back en masse.  In the Mets’ current vulnerable state, keeping the Phils from muscling them out of the picture by then will take some doing.  Paterson can fend off the muscling from his party until early next year.  In the meantime, though, he’s got to win the kind of generally positive press he attracted by vetoing the bill that would have sweetened the pension of newly hired cops and firefighters. What else?  He needs to project an image of command, something that doesn’t come easily to him.  And he could use more of the kind of pressure Charlie Rangel put on Cuomo last week.  Charlie warned Andrew, in so many words, that taking on a black Dem candidate for governor (an incumbent, yet) for a second time in eight years could compromise his political future.  So far, Cuomo’s stance says he believes time is on his side as the gubernatorial game plays out.  

The Mets will still have seven head-to-head games with the Phillies as of the second half of August (and nine with the Braves).  But for them to mean anything, the Mets probably need Omar Minaya to produce a Santana-like miracle deal…and do it soon.  If it happens, it won’t be soon enough to shore up the undermanned team for its six games beginning tonight against the Phils and Yankees.  To paraphrase a classic “Peanuts” strip, “You know what they say, Jerry Manuel, ‘Win some, lose some.’   To which Manuel replies: “That would be great.”  

The Yankees have been confirming the baseball truism that “good teams get the breaks” since Alex Rodriguez returned to the lineup a month ago.  Trailing the Rays, 3-2, in the eighth inning Sunday, the Yanks were able to tie the score when third baseman Willy Aybar made an error on a double-play ball tailored to set up a force at the plate.  The decisive run in their 4-3 victory was grounded home by Hideki Matsui, whom an umpire signaled safe at first, a call cameras showed to be wrong.  In attracting the breaks, the Yanks are taking their cue from captain Derek Jeter.  He has been the master at finding a way to get on base through errors, walks – even fluke plays that sabotage conventional outs.  On YES last week in Cleveland, Paul O’Neill noted Derek’s gift:  “Jeter’s hitting the ball well,” he said, “but he can’t make an out if he tries.”        

The Red Sox have a nice problem facing them as a backdrop to the six games they’ll play with the Yankees (starting tonight) and then the Phillies:  John Smoltz is scheduled to join the rotation next Monday, the 15^th.  That means someone has to go – and it won’t be Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Tim Wakefield or Dice-K Matsuzaka.  That apparently leaves Brad Penny, who may have a new address – the Phillies? – when Smoltz takes the mound against the Marlins.
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(Posted: 6/6/09)

A Year To Run Out Ground Balls Hard

“This is not a year to not run out ground balls.  We get a check every two weeks, and there are people who just found out they ain't getting a check.  We've got to pinch ourselves and realize how lucky we are."

     - Detroit manager Jim Leyland to his team during a series at home this week against the Red Sox (quoted by the Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy)

Leyland could have added a key reason the ball players are lucky: they have a union to represent them in dealings - on such things as free agency and salary arbitration - with team owners.  (As most of us know by now it was then-Federal District Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor who stopped the owners from seeking to emasculate the union by eliminating the decades-old collective bargaining agreement in 1995.)

Leyland was referring, mainly, to the plight of auto workers in and around the Motor City.  The bankruptcy filing, first by Chrysler, then by General Motors, brought uncertainty into the lives of thousands of employees and their families.  What will happen to holdover Chrysler workers remains murky as the legal game unfolds in the judicial ballpark.  GM employees have a clearer picture of the field in front of them; the union workers among them have no need to pinch themselves to see how comparatively lucky they are. 

Here is how the NY Times laid out the situation earlier this week:

“GM employees who are not union members do not have any job security.  The company can ask a judge for an immediate pay cut (for them) and can announce job cuts…Contracts covering members of the UAW union and other unions will remain in force unless the company asks a judge to void them…UAW members approved (contract) changes last week, and the new GM is expected to honor that contract…

“A company can also eliminate retiree health care benefits for non-union employees…” 

While in Detroit, Dan Shaughnessy reminded readers of a way of life that has disappeared with union jobs:  “In Michigan, GM was the embodiment of the American dream. You could get a job at the plant, work there your whole life, raise a raft of kids who could go to college to East Lansing and Ann Arbor, and you probably had enough left over for a summer cabin up north.”

“I hate unions,” we overheard a young working woman say not long ago, while watching coverage of a labor dispute on TV.  “I wish I had a union.”

Lob from Left Field (on Team Obama’s ties with Israel): “This is a basic lesson which most people learn in adolescence or young adulthood.  Teenagers who tell their parents that they are not compelled to comply with parental dictates are typically met with the response that this is so only if they want nothing from their parents, but as long as they seek financial support, then the parents have the right to demand certain actions in return…

“Identically, if Israel wants to be free of what it and some of its U.S. supporters call ‘interference’ from the Obama administration, that’s very easy to achieve:  Israel can stop asking for tens of billions of dollars of American taxpayer money, huge amounts of military and weapons supplies for its various wars, and unyielding American diplomatic protection at the U.N.  But as long as Israel remains dependent on the U.S…, then Obama… has the obligation to demand that Israel cease activities which harm U.S. interests.”  - Glenn Greenwald in Salon
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You’re Fred Wilpon.  Your Mets are reeling again from injuries.  Last year, it was Moises Alou and Billy Wagner, this year Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes, J.J. Putz, etc.

You know that injuries are part of the game, that good teams find players on the bench or in their system to help them stay competitive.  You could see this past week the Mets were not up to the challenge.  Your team has always been short on good back-ups, hoping instead for quick get-backs.  You have to wonder about your GM’s strategy; about his emphasis on pricey free-agent signings and deals for older players; and ask yourself, too, why Omar’s and Tony Bernazard’s farm system is so unhelpful?   You must have seen in the Houston Chronicle what a fellow owner in your situation has decided:

“(The Astros’ Drayton McLane) spoke of the importance of scouting and player development, of getting younger and of being patient.  He seemed to understand th(e)…  need to…rebuil(d), and this time he wants to do it the right way.  Yes, he sees the same things you see.”  - Richard Justice

The Rays may be defending AL champions and only five games out of first in the East (as of early last night), but in NY and Boston they’re chopped liver.  The media in both cities see the Sox and Yanks finishing in the top two spots this time.  Here’s a sample from the Boston Herald’s Michael Silverman: “The AL West-leading Rangers ar(e) at Fenway… and they will be followed by the Yankees, who figure to be neck-and-neck with the Red Sox in the AL East for quite some time.”

The almost-audible rejoinder of NYY fans: “That’s if the Sox are lucky.”
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(Posted 6/4/09)

Baseball-Like Wish List Follows Barack to Egypt

The baseball wish list probably begins in Chicago, where Cubs manager Lou Piniella yearns for an early return of injured Aramis Ramirez, his so-far irreplaceable third baseman.   But, just as every team has a wish list – the Phils would like a starter to replace Brett Myers, the Mets a reliable eighth-inning reliever, the Red Sox a rejuvenated David Ortiz, etc. – so were political teams wishful in advance of Skipper Obama’s speech in Cairo today.  Substance was on their minds.

Although the president said his pitch would be down the middle with no surprising change-ups, that didn’t stop different political team members from digging in.  They hit from every stance on both sides of the plate this week, suggesting that Barack say what they wanted to hear about U.S. foreign policy.  The Neocons hoped Obama would play hardball and reaffirm what they see as America’s mission to swing forcefully for freedom in the world.  The Realists wanted a presidential pledge to pull the string on our use of force, limiting it only to places where vital U.S. interests are at play.  The Progressive Policy Wonks would have liked the skipper to say Team USA will be more cooperative than competitive with other teams in the global league, and will send interventionism to the showers.  Isolationists, who hit to right, and Anti-Imperialists, who pull to the left, would have both been happy for a sign that Barack was prepared to leave the field; the A-I team would like all bases pulled up, the I-team just some. 

A ballbag full of left-leaning wishes, the ultimate in wishfulness, was tossed the president’s way by the International Herald Tribune’s William Pfaff:

“(Although only remotely possible,) Obama might declare in Cairo that he wished to withdraw all American forces from Muslim countries, and seeks the support of all Muslim governments to make this possible. That while he will honor guarantees given to governments in the region, (and) will pursue the authors of any attack on the United States… the objective of his government is a creative disengagement, leaving the people and political forces of the Islamic regions to settle their own affairs, with – should they wish – generous financial help from the U.S….”

The UK Independent’s Robert Fisk saw the game from a similar perspective: “ I suspect that what the Arab world wants to hear - not their leaders, of course, all of whom would like to have a spanking new US air base on their property - is that Obama will take all his soldiers out of Muslim lands and leave them alone…But for obvious reasons, Obama can’t say that.”

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Stat city oddity:  Two Zacs – Zack Greinke of KC and Zach Duke of Pittsburgh – are rated two and three on the mlb pitching effectiveness list.  Roy Halladay (9-1) is number one.  Greinke (8-1) leads the majors with a 1.10 ERA and hasn’t given up a home run in 82 innings.  CC Sabathia is sixth on the list; Johan Santana has dropped to 15^th.   SF’s Tim Lincecum leads in strikeouts with 91 in 71.2 innings.

Joe Torre said something we already knew about Jorge Posada to Yahoo Sports’ Gordon Edes the other day:  “He gets lost in the shuffle, but he’s a really good pressure player.”

Edes reminds us that “Posada played just 50 games last season because of a shoulder injury, and the Yankees missed the postseason for the first time in 13 years.”  Another reminder from Joe about a member of his old team: “You lose Alex [Rodriguez] like the Yankees did this year, you get so accustomed to the numbers he puts up that you don’t realize until he’s gone how much you miss him.”   What’s obvious now:  When A-Rod, then Jorge returned to the lineup, the Yankee offense became just plain scary.

More from Edes, on two of the NL Central’s competitors:  “Cubs GM Jim Hendry (talking about) the Cardinals: ‘Give Tony La Russa credit, but if people don’t think the (Cards) have good players, they’re nuts. They’re way better than just Albert (Pujols). Yadier Molina is a good catcher, [Ryan] Ludwick is a good player, Rick Ankiel is a good player, Chris Duncan can hit, and they got some gamers like they always do.  And their pitching is good.’ Hendry on the Central race: ’It wasn’t going to be easy even if we were healthy. We haven’t played very well.  It’ll be a dogfight.  There’s no (one saying) Cubs are going to win for sure’. ”  Surprising omissions: Brewers and Reds, both very much in the division race.

Michael Kay’s know-all banter during Yankee games on YES sometimes wears us down.  But his occasional flashes of wit help make him tolerable, as was the case the other night in Cleveland.  Seagulls had swarmed in from the lake and settled on the outfield grass.  “The gulls are shading Matsui to right,” said Kay.                   

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(Posted 6/2/09)

Yankee Lineup Is T for Tough, Nothing More

A Nub posted on May 21 included this phrase “With a lineup that has turned into Torturers Row, the Yankees…”   You won’t see such blithe reference to torture again here; not after the graphic reminder of what the practice entails as seen on Bill Moyers Journal last weekend.  The program, featuring excerpts from the documentary “Torturing Democracy,” showed in painfully vivid terms the price we as well as the victims pay for our government’s descent into barbarism.  

Most of us have experienced brief periods of excruciating pain in our lives.  We can imagine – if we try – how that pain inflicted in a sustained way must feel.  What we can’t imagine unless we see images of it is the inhumanity of people doing unspeakable things in our name.  We flinch from the subject of torture lest it prompt us to dwell on the betrayal of our values – we thought we were better than the “animals” of Nazi Germany, say - and the way the practice has corrupted so many of our fellow citizens.

Early in “Torturing Democracy” (before the temptation to flinch begins), there is this  segment, dating from late 2001/early 2002, filled with dire implications for many who were about to become victims:

“As Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda disappeared into the rugged mountains on the Afghan/Pakistan border, the Pentagon increasingly relied on bounty hunters.

“Tens of thousands of leaflets promising ’enough money to take care of your family and your village for the rest of your life’ were dropped by psychological ops teams.

(A Witness): ‘Where is Arab? Where is Arab? Where is Arab?  Thousand dollar for one Arab.  Thirty thousand,  forty thousand,  sixty thousand.’

“Any Arab in the region was at risk of being turned in as a terrorist (by local warlords).”

Colin Powell’s chief of staff, seen in the documentary, suggests roundups like that one were part of a Team Bush effort to find somebody who, in the run-up to the Iraq war, could be broken into saying there was a link between Al Quaida and Saddam Hussein. 

Team Obama has a tough sell trying to put this dark chapter in our history behind us.  Its effect on the American psyche clearly will not soon go away.
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"We're getting to the point where we're 50 games into the season.  I think the numbers start meaning something.”  - Red Sox manager Terry Francona

The numbers today say the Red Sox will fight it out with the Yanks for first in the AL East, and, barring a Rangers-Angels-or-Rays surprise, should feel confident of winning the wild card as a consolation.  The numbers say David Ortiz is still only batting .185.  But Mark Kotsay, who can play the outfield and first base, is due off the DL today, while John Smoltz should join the team around the 15^th, a potentially big boost.

"We've talked all along that we believe Chien-Ming Wang is a starter, and at some point we believe he's going to be in this rotation.  I'm not ready to say that right now. I love the way he is throwing the ball . . . “  - Joe Girardi, on the possibility Phil Hughes would be replaced in the Yankees rotation.

May Whine:  Minnesota fans hate to complain about their annually overachieving team.  But, while Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau were baseball’s two best hitters on May – with a combined BA of .386, 20 homers and 61 RBIs – the Twins only went 19-21 for the month.  The fans would rather see the team performing best, with Mauer and Morneau the secondary story.

ESPN’s Peter Gammons saluted Tigers owner Mike Ilitch last week for ignoring Bud Selig’s attempt to limit the amount paid in bonuses to highly regarded drafted amateur players.  Ilitch signed pitcher Rick Porcello out of the University of North Carolina in 2007. Porcello, only 20, won his fifth straight start last Wednesday.  He has a 1.50 ERA in those games.  Ilitch declined to be a “good citizen” (like the Mets, who went along with Selig’s approach and regretted it).  As Gammons points out, he did more than just sign Porcello: “Ilitch had to OK more than $8 million to get (Rick) to forget about a dorm room in Chapel Hill, N.C.  Ilitch…(also went) above Selig's price-fixing ’slot’ and sign(ed) Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, who in turn gave (GM Dave) Dombrowski the chips to trade for Miguel Cabrera, one of the best hitters in the game.”   The Red Sox face Porcello tonight in Detroit.
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May 2009 Archive

(Posted 5/30/09)

Political Stats Can Never Inform Like the Baseball Kind

“Statistics make baseball,” said a fan the other day.  “Why can’t the same kind of numbers make politics more popular?”

We know why:  key political stats are money-raised, poll results and, only marginally, elections won and lost.  Money and the recognition it brings plays too big a role in the election process.  When we see that Kansas City’s Zack Greinke has an 0.64 ERA to go with an 8-1 W-L record, we know he has earned his reputation for excellence.  In politics,  fund-raising ability often counts more in the won-lost column than on-the-job performance.

In baseball, talking a good game gets you nowhere; doing – that is, playing well – is how you succeed.  And the stats will confirm the level of that success.  Unlike ballplayers, politicians can score by speaking out on issues, and going to bat to reinforce words with their presence and (if feasible) votes.  Since most candidates are careful to offend as few people as possible, the ones willing to tell unpleasant truths, cast unpopular votes, and risk boos for so doing, deserve to get a favorable stat next to their name.  

One such truth-teller, a Democratic candidate for mayor, said this to Times columnist  Jim Dwyer not long ago:  “The real estate industry donates the most money to elected officials in New York and they control the agenda.”  The candidate, Queens Councilmember Tony Avella, is a long-shot because, among other things, he will not be getting real estate money after a remark like that.  But it says here he may be the better of the two choices – Comptroller Billy Thompson is the other – to play David to Mike Bloomberg’s Goliath this fall.

Why?  Because – unlike Thompson - Avella has received next to no money from any kind of corporate interest for his campaign. He’s set up, therefore, to throw chin music at the mayor about his pro-business, anti-public stance favoring the ballparks and oversized real estate projects in general.  Furthermore, as one of the handful of Council members who voted against Bloomberg’s third-term caper AND renounced taking advantage of its passage, Avella can hit at least as hard as Thompson (who also declined to go for an easy third term) at the mayor’s anti-democratic hubris.

Thompson, with roughly 3.5 million campaign dollars already on hand, compared to Avella’s $132,000, will be tough to beat in the two-man Democratic primary.  If Avella somehow does it – and Bloomberg keeps displaying his “You’re a disgrace” type of  arrogance (what he hissed at a NY Observer reporter who asked him a prickly question) – there may be a semblance of a mayoral contest ahead of us, after all.
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ESPN’s Peter Gammons saluted Tigers owner Mike Ilitch this week for ignoring Bud Selig’s attempt to limit the amount paid in bonuses to highly regarded drafted players.  Ilitch signed pitcher Rick Porcello out of the University of North Carolina, Porcello, only 20, won his fifth straight start on Wednesday.  He has a 1.50 ERA in those games.  Ilitch declined to be a “good citizen” (like the Mets, who went along with Selig and regretted it).  As Gammons points out, he did more than just sign Porcello: “Ilitch had to OK more than $8 million to get (Rick) to forget about a dorm room in Chapel Hill, N.C.  Ilitch…(also went) above Selig's price-fixing ’slot’ and sign(ed) Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, who in turn gave (GM Dave) Dombrowski the chips to trade for Miguel Cabrera, one of the best hitters in the game.”

The Mets station SNY shows itself to be a no-class operation each time it schedules a game involving the Buffalo Bisons, the team’s Triple-A farm.  Although not identified as such, the games are on tape, having been played the previous day.  A big saving from live coverage to be sure, but what a disservice to SNY viewers.

The Toronto Star’s Richard Griffin has this take on a different dubious televised-baseball practice: “’Breaking ball’ seems to be the play-by-play announcer’s way of escaping the fact that he really has no clue and can’t identify the pitch as it happens.  He may know it was slower than a fastball and from where he sits in the pressbox it looked like it changed direction. Thus the generic description ’breaking ball’ covers a host of broadcasting sins.  On TV, when they finally replay the pitch from the centre field camera, it will be the analyst seated alongside the pitch-challenged play-by-play guy that will tell you slider, curveball, slurve, splitter, change, knuckleball, cutter, or whatever else the dude may be throwing up there.”

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(Posted 5/28/09)

Familiar Change at Play in Capital Politics, Queens Baseball

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

That statement, from an Italian historical novel, was linked by The Nation this week to the early-season record of Team Obama.  Some Mets observers see the words also connecting to the strategy of team GM Omar Minaya.  Omar committed himself over the winter to keeping the “core” of his team - Reyes, Beltran, Wright, Delgado, etc. - intact while upgrading the bullpen.  With the Memorial Day milestone behind them, the media’s pre-season favorite Mets (their handling of the Nats notwithstanding) have shown themselves to be little changed from what they were last year at this time - at best, a wobbly .500-plus club.

For fans in the left field stands, Team Obama, meanwhile, has been playing no better than .500 ball, scoring rhetorical runs touting a fresh start, but giving away much on matters of substance.  The skipper’s inside-out swing is reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s.  Indeed, guided by batting coach Tim Geithner, who came up through the Clinton farm system, Barack’s hits to the opposite field in the financial game have been especially galling.  Economist Jeffrey Faux, who wrote The Nation essay, says the “pervasive influence of Wall Street” has stalled Obama’s rally for “change.”  Faux says the skipper’s bailout stance during an early at bat was locked in at the G-20 economic summit in London: 

“The first priority for the US economy…was to get the other nations to expand their economies (so they could buy from us).  Unless they do, much of the undersize US spending stimulus will be lost to an increased trade deficit.  The Europeans were disinclined.  Instead, they argued for the international regulation of finance…But Wall Street (did) not want…to be subject to international regulators who might be beyond the reach of their money and influence…If that weakened the US recovery, so be it.  The administration concurred…

“The public feathering of the corporate nest will certainly continue…The smart money understands that the revolving door of cash and people between Wall Street and Washington will protect the plutocracy.”   

The confidence the Bush 2-to-Obama play has generated on Wall Street mirrors that felt on the street 15 years ago, when Clinton succeeded the first George Bush. Then and now, the new people put in place, representing cosmetic change, insured that the status would remain quo.  

The Mets have a familiar (core-related) excuse in place – Delgado’s hip, Beltran’s knee, Reyes’ calf, etc:  injuries have blindsided the best-laid-lineup plan.  It happens to most teams.  It’s just that the Mets seem to be singularly strung out as each year’s manager scrambles to find replacements.  The option of breaking up the core and broadening the number of solid position players is a non-starter on what for the past two years have been non-playoff teams. The never-changing problem amid each fresh approach was summed up in four words yesterday by Newsday’s Ken Davidoff:  “Lack of organizational depth.”

Time will tell whether 20-year-old Fernando Martinez is ready to play regularly for Jerry Manuel’s team.  The stats tell us he can’t do much worse than the injured Ryan Church, however.  Church has hit a single home run in 125 ABs and struck out almost twice as many times as he’s walked.  Then there was that decisive missed touch of third base last week against the Dodgers.  Manuel has been on Church’s case since spring training and would clearly welcome an upgrade - even a raw one - in right field.

In the aftermath of the Memorial Day milestone, here are what look like the playoff-competitive teams in each division:  AL East – Yankees, Red Sox and Rays; AL Central – Tigers and the rest; AL West - Angels and Rangers; NL East – Phils, Mets, Braves; NL Central – Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Reds; NL West – Dodgers.  That adds up to 18 of the 30 teams still in contention.  Make it 19, if you think the Blue Jays will bounce back.  Gonna be an interesting summer.  We’ll compare this outlook with the one that emerges after July 4th.

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(Posted 5/21/09)

Jays, Team Canada Singular in Hitting and Health Care

How appropriate that the team with the most singles (and hits) in the majors comes from the country that leads the continent in single-payer health care.  A tight-knit offense stitched together with 300 singles in 44 (pre-inter-league) games has put the Toronto Blue Jays in position to lead the AL East after this, the first of three holiday-weekend milestones.  Canadian medical help has played a part in the Jays’ success; it’s been needed to assist the team in dealing with a decimated starting rotation.

President Obama has often tossed praise at the single-payer system in Canada.  But he has turned his back on the intensifying campaign for a similar program in the U.S.  The other day at a town hall meeting in New Mexico he explained to a questioner why he wouldn’t scrap the existing system and push for single-payer:

“The… problem is that we (can’t) start…from scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer-based health care.  And although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with their health care, the truth is that the vast majority of people currently get health care from their employers and you've got this system that's already in place. We don't want a huge disruption as we go into health care reform where suddenly we're trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy.

“So what I've said is, let's set up a system where if you already have health care through your employer and you're happy with it, you don't have to change doctors, you don't have to change plans -- nothing changes.  If you don't have health care or you're highly unsatisfied with your health care, then let's give you choices, let's give you options, including a public plan that you could enroll in and sign up for.  That's been my proposal.”

The key question: How soon will that pitch, however slow in delivery, reach the Congress and be put into play?
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Injuries have put the Mets in deep trouble; ask Jerry Manual.  The manager doesn’t like to be associated with a “challenging” situation for which he is not to blame.  The media-savvy Manual is politic enough to avoid pointing fingers at his superiors.  But once in awhile his annoyance with them surfaces.  “It would be nice,” he said the other day if there was some young talent in the farm system that could help him compensate for the loss of Carlos Delgado.  But there’s not.  “And whose fault is that?”Manual did not say.  But the implication was clear.  And don’t think Omar Minaya and Tony Bernazard didn’t wince when they heard what the manager said.

Good news for the Yanks and Red Sox (and maybe for still-pouting Mets fans): As reported by SI’s Jon Heyman - “Scott Kazmir ‘doesn't look healthy,’ one exec says. Instead of throwing 95 with a power slider, he's throwing 90 with a limp slider.”

Stat city: Entering last night’s games, the runaway Dodgers in the NL West led both leagues in team pitching.  The LAD’s were tops in ERA (3.64) and fewest runs yielded (158 in 42 games).  Kansas City led the AL and was second overall in pitching; the Royals showed a team ERA of 3.79 and only 24 home runs yielded in 42 games, the fewest in the majors.

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(Posted: 5/21/09)                                                            

Socialism a Bugaboo for GOP and Baseball

“I think that baseball, at its core, is the purest form of capitalism… There is no favoritism… and that's the way it should be.”  - Detroit Tigers coach Andy Van Slyke

Andy Van Slyke was a player’s player in the 80’s and 90’s – a gold glove center fielder for the Cardinals and then the Pirates who earned respect for the way he carried himself.  His conservative views – probably representative of how most major leaguers feel – are quotable because this week members of the Republican National Committee are taking a similar line in attacking the Democrats.  A resolution passed at an RNC meeting near Washington condemned what Team GOP calls the “Democrats’ march to socialism.”  .

Van Slyke made clear how he feels about our Democratic president and socialism when he said if Obama were baseball commissioner, “he might be trying to spread 25 points of batting average to somebody else so that they can have a better arbitration case.”  Most Republicans see “spreading the wealth” as socialistic; it’s what happens in their view when the government invests tax dollars in “entitlements” - safety-net programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Polls show that most Americans like the safety-net approach, whatever it’s called.  They may grumble about paying taxes but more and more of them sense that progressive taxation leads to greater fairness in society.  What they may not understand yet is the connection between taxation and happiness.  A global study has found that the people in three northern European countries - Denmark, Finland and Holland - are most content with their lives.  What they have in common says Marketwatch’s Thomas Kostigen is “some of the highest taxes in the world.

”Danes pay about two-thirds of their income in taxes. Why be so happy about that?  It all comes down to what you get in return…”  Danes are protected, Kostigen says, from every wild pitch life can throw – affecting health, job loss, family support, old age, etc. He adds what’s obvious: Danes have no doubt they’re getting – or will get – what they’ve paid for.  The contrast in the U.S. is striking, he says:  

“ Taxes in the U.S. have taken on a pejorative association because, well, we are never really quite sure of what we get in return for paying them, other than the world's biggest military.  Healthcare and other such social services aren't built into our system. That means we have to worry more about paying for things ourselves.  Worrying doesn't equate to happiness.”
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A year ago, the reeling Mets were unhappy about the loss of Moises Alou – if injury to his brittle body hadn’t ended his season, ‘twas said,  their lineup wouldn’t have such a gaping hole in it.  Now it’s another heavily counted-upon veteran – Carlos Delgado – down for what may be the season.  Again, there’s a hole with no one to fill it.  Fred Wilpon must be getting tired of the Omar Minaya/Tony Bernazard act.  Omar invests big bucks in injury-prone vets; when they break down, there’s no remotely ready replacement in Bernazard’s farm system.  So the Mets will limp along offensively and hope that their shaky front-line pitching will somehow keep them competitive.

With a lineup that has turned into Torturers Row, the Yankees are the reverse-image of the Mets.  The pinstripers may not be leading the AL East on Memorial Day, but it will be a surprise here if they’re not on top (perhaps of the entire league) July 4^th.  The NYY organization does have a concern, however: the new stadium is playing like a bandbox.  ESPN’s Buster Olney suggested calling it “Coors Field East” after the Yanks’ first HR-filled home games.  Now, he notes, 65 home runs – 34 by the Yanks – have been hit in 18 games.  By comparison, he says: “Last year, the Yankees' pitchers allowed 68 for the entire season, and the Yankees' hitters mashed 92, for a total of 160. So at (roughly) the current rate, there will be more homers hit in new Yankee Stadium by July 17 -- the first home game after the All-Star break -- than there were during the entire 2008 season in old Yankee Stadium.”

Worst part of the Mets’ collapse in LA – unless you’re a Dodger fan – is the aid they’ve given Joe Torre’s team as it runs away from the rest of the weak NL West.  Giants fans were hopeful the Mets, so hot in SF, would have the needed fire-power to cool down the Dodgers.  Early though the season is, it will be a stunner if anyone in the division catches the LAD’s now.   

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(Posted: 5/19/09)

Yanks May Be as Sure of Winning as Mike

The Yanks have taken six straight games, giving them a winning surge almost as strong as that of another team with a financial edge – the one belonging to Mike Bloomberg.  The most recent Quinnipiac poll showed the NYC mayor with a double-digit lead over announced Dem opponent Billy Thompson and quasi-candidate Anthony Weiner. 

The Yankees are clicking with key cylinders missing…but not for long.  Brian Bruney, their solid eighth-inning man, is due back from the DL tomorrow; starter Chien-Ming Wang and their backbone catcher Jorge Posada will rejoin the team in a few days.  Posada’s strong-armed fill-in Jose Molina is on deck to return by the end of the month.  If the Yanks can stay healthy - always a big if – they’re a serious threat to go all the way.

Bloomberg is more than a threat.  As of now, he’s a lock.  Although he probably didn’t need it, he got a significant boost last week when a prominent Upper West Side Democratic club declined to endorse Thompson.  The club - Three Parks - was one of  few in the city that refused to support Hillary Clinton last year.  Its choice of long, long-shot Tony Avella for the Dem mayoral nomination flashes a sign that says:  “We don’t think the party’s conventional candidates have a chance, so we might as well cheer on a principled maverick against our unprincipled anti-democratic mayor.”

At a meeting yesterday sponsored by Manhattan Media, Weiner was asked whether Thompson’s non-traction so far was building pressure on the reticent congressman to provide voters with another - perhaps more viable - alternative to the mayor?   He said he  was sensitive to the situation, but that his higher priority was to concentrate on issues coming before the House at this ”critical time for the country.”  He indicated that he would circulate petitions next month to qualify as a candidate but would probably not decide whether to run in earnest until later in the summer.  The consensus of the political observers on hand:  Bloomberg himself is the only one who, through a major error, can beat the incumbent mayor in his third-term bid – an increasingly unlikely scenario.

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Every team in both leagues has problems, but the Red Sox seem to have more than their share.  They’ve been playing without clean-up man Kevin Youklis, a hitting and fielding loss, and Dice-K Matsuzaka, their number 2 starter; both are injured, Youk with muscle strain, Dice K with arm fatigue.  Healthy players are also causing problems for the Sox.  A power slump has benched David Ortiz; then there’s the headache at shortstop, described by the Globe’s Amalie Benjamin:

“The Sox now have 11 miscues from the shortstop position, the most in the (AL and tied with the Nationals in the NL).  Shaky defense has been all too common, whether it has been (Nick) Green or Julio Lugo stationed there.  With Jed Lowrie's return from wrist surgery still probably a month away, the Sox have had to play through a black hole at that spot.  The defense at short has been questionable enough that manager Terry Francona inserted minor league journeyman Gil Velazquez for defensive purposes Saturday night, rather than put in Green with the Sox in the lead.”

Stat city:  Toronto’s Marco Scutaro (an ex-Met, by the way) leads all shortstops in fielding with a perfect 1.000 percentage – on 186 chances. Going into last night’s games,  Derek Jeter and Minnesota’s Nick Punto were tied for second in the AL with a .986 pct. – 141/143.  Colorado’s Troy Tulewitzki led in the NL with .987 – 148/150.  Philadelphia’s Jimmy Rollins was second - .985, 129/131.

San Diego’s Heath Bell and the Rangers’ Frank Francisco own perfect ERAs, Bell having given up no runs in 15 innings, Francisco none in 14.2.  KC’s Zack Greinke leads starters in ERA with an 0.60 – four runs in 60 innings.
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(Posted: 5/16/09)

Opposition Surprising Tribe and Team Obama

These days Team Obama finds itself like the highly regarded Cleveland Indians, who lead the AL Central in runs but are struggling because of surprising opposition.  The Obama-ites are 30 points ahead on the approval scoreboard but their momentum has been slowed also by a couple of stunning setbacks.  Cleveland’s opponents have made the Indians the worst AL team in earned runs yielded and worst in their division in giving up bases on balls.  Back-to-back brush-backs may stop Team Obama from digging in on two issues.  Fans surveyed are showing they don’t like skipper Barack’s stance on gun control and global warming.

The president could have seen it coming had he checked the trends in polls on those subjects taken in recent years.  A typical Gallup survey, for example, found that less than 30 percent of those polled backed a ban on handgun possession.  And a Rasmussen sampling found that only a third of respondents believed human activity was responsible for global warming.

Washington Examiner columnist Michael Barone sees the trends as a lesson to liberals, one that clearly gives him satisfaction: 

“These shifts in opinion may be responses to events that liberal elites have not deigned to notice. Forty of the 50 states now have concealed weapons laws that allow law-abiding citizens to get permits to carry guns.  Gun controllers predicted these would result in traffic shootouts and general mayhem.  They haven't.  It turns out that criminals are deterred from attacks less by gun-control laws than by the possibility that their intended victims may be armed.  As for global warming, many Americans may have noticed that temperatures actually haven't been rising over the past decade, as global warming alarmists predicted…    

“Democratic officeholders, who must live by the discipline of the ballot, have noticed. Party leaders did not press to re-enact the assault weapons ban when it expired and currently are flummoxed by (resistance to a) bill that would impose huge costs on those who use electricity.”

Electeds in cities certainly know how their constituents stand on guns.  One reason NYC’s moneyed Mayor Mike Bloomberg can expect to win liberal votes despite his anti-democratic third-term stance is his strong gun-control leadership.
                                  -     -     -
NY’s two celebrity shortstops have endured a week of sniping.  First, SI’s Tim Marchman suggested that Derek Jeter was fading as his 35^th birthday approaches.  Then the Daily News’ John Harper said, in so many words, that the Mets should recognize Jose Reyes is a “bonehead” and wasn’t going to change:  Therefore they “may have to seriously consider…whether Reyes’ penchant for costly mistakes outweighs his game-changing ability. (In the end,) trading Reyes may be the best way to remake a ballclub that leads the world in exasperating its fan base.”  Harper quotes a rival GM as saying the Mets could get an “impact hitter” or even a “front-end starter” for Reyes and then easily get a “heady” shortstop like Orlando Cabrera to give the team “what you want” in that position.

Boston has its own drama, which until last night could have been called the “Ortiz Watch.”  David Ortiz was batting .208, and had zero home runs for the season – 34 games and 130 at-bats.   Tito Francona moved the plot along when he benched Ortiz against Seattle so he could “take a deep breath.”  Next questions: How long will Papi remain out of the lineup, and, when he returns, will he still be the team’s number three hitter?

A Jeter homer, meanwhile, helped the Yanks overcome the Twins last night.  The team has been energized by the emergence of rookie Bret Gardner, who played a key defile:///C:/Users/dickstar/Downloads/Documents/PerfectPitch%20blog/the_nub.htmlfensive role Thursday night in Toronto, and had an in-the-park HR plus a triple among his three hits against Minnesota.

With the Memorial Day milestone approaching, roughly four-fifths of 30 mlb teams are statistically still in contention for division leads.  Broad competitiveness is missing in only one of the six divisions:  the NL West has devolved into a two-team race between the Dodgers and Giants.  Colorado, Arizona and San Diego are falling back into double-digit outlier-ness.  One or all of those teams could embrace the salary-dump scenario sooner than usual.  The most probable early tradee: Jake Peavy of the Padres.
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(Posted: 5/14/09)

How Field Was Cleared for Drug Use and Water Torture

Steroid use and waterboarding - two frowned-upon practices in separate fields - surfaced together in similar fashion this week.  Published reports say both the baseball-related booster agent and the anti-terrorism technique had the field cleared for them years ago.  Both practices received the blessing of shadowy influential sources, making it all but impossible to stamp them out.   

In the case of steroids, former Red Sox player Lou Merloni said that about a decade ago a doctor advised team members on how to use the muscle-enhancers properly:  "It was like teaching your teenage daughter about sex education," Merloni told the Globe’s Nick Cafardo. "The organization acknowledged that there were likely players using steroids and basically ‘if you're gonna use them, this is how you use them so you don't abuse them’.”

Merloni elaborated in a separate broadcast interview: "I'm in spring training…(at a) meeting. There's a doctor up there and he's talking about steroids…He…says, 'You know what, if you take steroids and sit on the couch all winter long, you can actually get stronger than someone who works out clean.  If you're going to take steroids, one cycle won't hurt you; abusing it will’.”

Merloni emphasized that the doctor was “in no way…encouraging us” to use steroids.  Nevertheless, it would be hard to blame players who took what the doctor said as encouragement.

The American Spectator renewed this week a defense-of-waterboarding tradition that has been prevalent in the right-wing media since the public learned several years ago that the practice was sanctioned by Team Bush.  The Spectator described waterboarding in the benign detail long used by apologists: “The New York Times… labeled it  ‘gruesome,’ ‘shocking,’ and ‘near-drowning.’  In fact, it is none of the three… In waterboarding, the ‘individual is bound securely to an inclined bench.… A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes.  Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner… (as) the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth.’  While performing this technique ‘air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds. . . (creating) the perception of drowning’."  

National Review amplified a typical, unattributed official view in a 2007 article: “Though clearly uncomfortable, waterboarding loosens lips without causing permanent physical injuries… There is nothing ‘repugnant’ about waterboarding…It is something of which every American should be proud.”

If such propaganda did not make us proud, it did prompt many of us to take a purposeful pass on the matter.  Columnist Richard Cohen referred to what he called the “hard, hard question” in the Washington Post this week: “Is it more immoral to torture than it is to fail to prevent the deaths of thousands?”
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A sore quad is just the latest sign of Derek Jeter showing his age; he’ll be 35 next month.  Sports Illustrated’s Tim Marchman includes Jeter in his list of aging stars who seem to be fading: “New York's shortstop is… starting to look crisp on the edges.  Consider this: Jeter (going into last night’s game was) hitting .273/.347/.409 on the year -- down from his career rates of .315/.386/.458. Therefore, the difference between his passable but uninspiring offense and what he usually does is 42 points of batting average. Granting that he has lots of time to raise his average, is it more likely that a 34-year-old shortstop with 14 years worth of tread on his tires is a .273 hitter or a .315 hitter?”

Among others on Marchman’s list of suspiciously slow veteran starters: David Ortiz, Jason Giambi and Brian Giles.

The first part of the headline of Tom Verducci’s latest SI column is MANNY’S SUSPENSION PROVIDES A GIANT OPPORTUNITY FOR…Verducci believes San Francisco now has a shot in the NL West.  We believe more than ever that, with the Dodgers scuffling, Manny himself will be the big winner.  When he returns in July he’ll likely be set up to replay his ’08 role as savior.  The Dodgers could probably scrape by in the weak division without him.  With him, assuming that he’ll hit close to the old-Manny level, LA could (as we’ve said before) make it to the WS.  Manny could even be in a position to opt out of his second year with the Dodgers and go elsewhere for more money.  There’s no chance - it says here - of his being treated as a pariah anymore than are Andy Pettitte or Miguel Tejada.  The only penalty ahead of Manny is one all the identified star drug-users face: no admittance to Cooperstown.  A punishment that will detract neither from glory days still to come, nor from his bank account.
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(5/12.09)

Banks, Baseball Dealing Differently With Rules Changes

“Fifty days?  Why not 500?”  If you’re a non-Manny or non-LA Dodger fan, that question may have popped out of the Ramirez pickoff.  In the same way, many of us – baseball fans or not – may be puzzling over the latest series of plays in the bank bailout game.

Why did Manny get what many consider a slap on the wrist when mlb is desperate to see the players clean up their act?   Then again, how come A-Rod, Andy Pettitte, Jason Giambi and others got off without even a slap?  And in the banking field, how is it that bailout funds, once passed around unmonitored and based it seemed on personal relationships, now are parceled out differently?

In both cases the answer is this: rules keep changing and leave many of us behind.  A year ago, when new, stricter drug rules were announced, baseball granted amnesty to people like Pettitte and, yes, Roger Clemens, who were implicated as users in the Mitchell Report.  Manny, obviously, didn’t make that cut under the new deal.  Last February, under tougher Team Obama rules, bailed-out banks had to agree, among other things, to take part in more foreclosure prevention efforts.  At least, that was the sign flashed by Tim Geithner.  A week or so ago, the Senate had a chance to lock the banks into that strategy.  Illinois Senator Dick Durbin sponsored a bill that would let desperate homeowners renegotiate their mortage payment.  The final score on that bill: 45 for the homeowners, 51 for the banks.  That is, defeat for Durbin’s initiative.

The scoreboard message: New rules or not, the banking interests will keep fouling off changes in their field.  The Manny punishment suggests that, slap or not, baseball had the spine to brush back interested insiders who surely wanted Manny to get away with being Manny.

Durbin described the bankers-being-bankers problem on Bill Moyers Journal last weekend:

“When you sit down and talk about some fundamental reform of these financial institutions… so that folks facing mortgage foreclosure have a final chance to maybe save their homes… basically the banks are going to have the last word.  It's counterintuitive. The people who brought this crisis to us are the ones that are dictating policy….The banking industry… fought me all the way…Even though the mortgage foreclosure crisis is getting progressively worse in this country, and is at the heart, I think, of our economic weakness…the banks were unwilling to step up and really participate in finding a solution…There are some leaders in this industry who really don't accept a corporate responsibility for the good of this nation.”

Durbin didn’t name names, but executives of JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have been mentioned as playing both sides of the field – expressing a willingness to compromise while letting their lobbying team rally votes in opposition to the bill.  The apparent switch-hitters: Jamie Diman, chairman and CEO of Morgan Chase; Kenny Lewis, Bank of America’s president and CEO; and John Stumpf,  CEO of Wells Fargo.

                           -     -     -
Should Mets fans be excited by the overdue sign of life in their team?  Newsday’s Wallace Matthews offers caveats, but gives a main reason why the answer is yes: “They still have some holes - there is still an infielder playing leftfield, and a guy who can't hit lefties playing right, and some problems in the bullpen, notably Sean Green, who has great potential to be the new (Aaron)Heilman - but the one hole the Mets seem to have filled is the one where their killer instinct was supposed to be.”

Stat city:  Guess who has most pitchers among the AL’s 20 strikeout/walk ratio leaders? Seattle – Eric Bedard (6), Felix Hernandez (8) and Jarrod Washburn (11).  The Red Sox and Yanks have one apiece on the list – Jon Lester (7), A.J. Burnett (18).  Minnesota’s Kevin Slowey is at the top, with 25 Ks and only two BBs.  The Cubs have three in that NL category: Ted Lilly (7), Rich Harden (16), Carlos Zambrano (17).  Florida’s Josh Johnson, with 43 Ks and six walks, is number one.  The Mets and Phillies each have one on the list – Johan Santana (4), Joe Blanton (13).

Strange skedding:  The Red Sox will come home from Seattle next Sunday, having already completed their visits to the West Coast for the regular season.  Prior to a home game Thursday night, Tampa Bay will have played 22 of its first 33 games on the road.

Detroit fans are hoping 5/11 will be the day the Tigers took the lead in the AL Central (overtaking Kansas City) for good.
                            - o -
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(Posted: 5/9/09)

‘Evil Empire’ Expanding into Politics as well as Baseball

Ask baseball fans – especially those from Red Sox Nation – to identify the Evil Empire, and we know what they’ll say.  Nearly everybody outside the pinstripe precincts of NYC hates the Yankees because of the way they spend to attract the best available players.   Turns out the Yankees have a counterpart on Wall Street; only instead of using money to attract top talent, this team - Goldman Sachs - uses its talent to attract money.

“Evil Empire” became part of the Red Sox Nation lexicon when the Yankees waited until a Sox-Rangers deal involving Alex Rodriguez was all but completed before swooping in and picking off A-Rod.   The NYYs signed Mark Teixeira the same way, bettering a Boston bid for the coveted first baseman at the 11^th hour.  The luring of Johnny Damon to New York was a lesser surprise hit, but a hit, nevertheless.

Goldman Sachs already had the players on its long-term roster with the clout to enrich the franchise:  Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Henry Paulson, etc.  And the team had an informal working agreement with the NY Fed Reserve and its Skipper Tim Geithner, who played under Rubin as a minor leaguer.   TruthDig’s Robert Scheer reminds us of something that won’t go away:  Geithner while at the Fed qualified the firm to receive $18.1 billion in bailout money.  And that under Team Bush’s Treasury Secretary Paulson, “the bailout of Wall Street was dominated by Goldman Sachs alums.”   

Now that the Yankee lineup looks (with variations) like this - Jeter, Damon, Teixeira, Rodriguez, Matsui, Cano, Swisher, Cabrera, with Posada due back before the end of the month – there may well be “Evil Empire” grumbling among overmatched opponents.  The Yanks can shrug off the resentment as they focus on making the playoffs.  Team Obama does not have that luxury.  If public outrage persists about what Wall Street wags are calling “Government Sachs,” the president may at last acknowledge a need to rid the White House of its own little evil empire in Treasury.
                                 -      -      -
The newest member of baseball’s community of banned-drug users has shaken the sport in ways that even revelations about Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and A-Rod failed to do.  Why?  Because Manny was lovable in his eccentric way…and man, could he hit!  ESPN’s Buster Olney has an insightful take on the game’s latest stain:

 “The sad part is that… crime within baseball pays in a big way, as Ramirez has demonstrated, and A-Rod and others demonstrated before him. Manny is a certified user of a banned substance, but he's going to giggle his way all the way to the bank, and he and others can continue to do so unless Major League Baseball takes what should be viewed as the last necessary step in its battle against PEDs and institute a zero-tolerance policy.

“After forcing his way out of the eight-year, $160 million deal he signed with the Red Sox -- and now, of course, all that he has accomplished will be cast into question, in the same way that the feats of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are in question -- Ramirez agreed to a two-year, $45 million deal with the Dodgers this past offseason.

“It's up to Manny whether he wants to walk away from the contract after this season, but let's just hazard an early guess on this point: There is no way he will walk away, because starting today he is an outfielder who will turn 37 later this month and now is connected with the use of performance-enhancing drugs, and no team with any sanity is going to match the money that Ramirez stands to make in the second year of his deal. If you thought Ramirez was a pariah after the way he dogged his way out of Boston, well, you ain't seen nothing yet.”

We disagree in part on the last point: Manny will be welcomed back in LA, possibly as the potential savior he was seen as last summer.  And if he hits at close to his drugged-up level, someone will propose naming a candy bar after him.                  

                               - o -
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(Posted: 5/7/09)

Ollie Perez and Obama – the Good and the Bad

Just as Mets fans are familiar with the two sides of Oliver Perez - the “Good” Ollie and the “Bad” Ollie - so political progressives now see a “Good” and “Bad” Obama.  The different sides of the president came into sharp focus as his first 100 days as skipper were evaluated.

Here is the lineup critics see resulting from decisions by the “Bad” Obama:  1 - Wall Street/Banks Bailout ($12.8 trillion); 2 - Uncurbed defense-related spending ($1 trillion);

3 - Open-ended military commitment in Iraq (indefinite long-term timetable); 4 - Expanded war in Afghanistan; 5 - Drone attacks taking innocent lives in Pakistan; 6 - Refusal to act to ease limits on labor organizing;  6 - Dismissal of single-payer health care consideration;  7 - Against prosecution of Team Bush war crimes (including torture); 8 - No to dismantling Bush secrecy laws or restoring habeas corpus.

The “Good” Obama lineup: 1 - Pledge to close Guantanamo and CIA “black sites;” 2 - Ban on use of torture; 3 - Lifting of ban on stem cell research funding; 4 - Emphasis on dealing with climate change and developing a green economy; 5 - Submitting a strong economic stimulus bill; 6 - Restored re-engagement with the world and won back respect for the U.S; 7 - Expressed willingness to engage with countries shunned by Team Bush;  8 - Declared commitment to abolishing nuclear weapons.   

The Mets finessed their “Bad” Ollie problem by consigning Perez to the bullpen as a possible prelude to sending him back to the minors.  The Nation magazine, from which the “Good” Obama lineup was compiled, suggests a similar, if partial resolution of what it agrees was a very“Bad” Obama error - the bailout:  “Selecting the (Larry) Summers/(Tim) Geithner team was a huge lost opportunity and a major misstep…(It) may (lead to) more anger in the form of right-wing populism.  But…Obama’s pragmatism and experimentation suggests that if the bank bailout doesn’t work and he’s confronted by (growing) citizen (dissatisfaction with) the Summers/Geithner approach, he may move to Plan B – or a Team B – to maintain his credibility and keep his agenda alive.”

TruthDig.org’s Chris Hedges, source of  the “Bad” Ombama lineup, may offer the simplest and most clear-cut reasons why the president, flaws and all, is generally so popular:  “(Obama) make(s) us feel good about our government…We feel hopeful.  We like our president.  We believe he is like us.”

                            -     -     -  
How badly will the Yankees miss Jorge Posada, hamstrunged out for two to three weeks? Said Michael Kay on YES:  “When A-Rod returns, he won’t be adding to the team.  He’ll just be replacing Posada…”  Jorge had been on a tear: 20 rbi’s in 23 games.  Six doubles and five HRs among his 24 hits, and a .312 BA. 

Quick pitches:  “It seems like every game is the same with them.  All of those games could have gone the other way.  And we know they're playing without A-Rod now."

- Dustin Pedroia  (to the Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy Tuesday night)

"They won’t always pitch, but…the Dodgers are a daunting team (that)…looks like they are going to hit all summer long.” – Tim Brown, Yahoo Sports

Stat city:  Going into last night’s games, former Met Heath Bell, now with the Padres, and the Cardinals’ Ryan Franklin were the two NL closers with ERA-perfect records – Bell in 10.2, Franklin 11.1 innings.  Cincinnati’s Arthur Rhodes and the Mets’ Brian Stokes are two other relievers with 0.00 ERAs – Rhodes in 10 innings, Stokes in 11.  In the AL, save leader (8) Frank Francisco of Texas, had a perfect ERA over 13.2 innings.  Non-closer Octavio Dotel of the White Sox was also perfect over 9.1 innings.

                             - o -
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(Posted: 5/5/09)

Empty Stadium Seats Attract Rare Protest Coverage

The empty seats in Yankee Stadium - bad news for the Steinbrenners - are a good sign for those of us who worry about the disappearance of mass protests from American life.  Why?  Not because of the numbers. “Mass” is a misnomer when referring to maybe the hundreds of people missing from a ballpark that holds 50,000.  Nor is it because the absentees were organized.  The ticket-holders who didn’t show were individuals, acting on their own.  Protests that count - most of them political - are orchestrated by issues-oriented groups that bring like-motivated people together to make a collective statement.

The hopeful aspect of the empty-seats story is the coverage it has received from the mainstream print media.  The press tends to dismiss demonstrations as “photo-ops” – picture stories that have little or no news-worthiness.  The visual non-demo at the Stadium is attracting sustained coverage because it’s an economic as well as a sports story.  Political protests during the Bush era didn’t have that dual appeal; yet the single issue was a compelling one: preemptive war.  The dismissive media attitude abetted Team Bush in its effort to win widespread acceptance of Iraq.

 The stadium-empty-seats syndrome threatens to become a running story at Citi Field.

A month into the season it is clear the Mets have neither the pitching nor enough timely-hitting talent to remain in contention as they are.  That NL East competitors will have problems of their own seems the team’s only hope.  The reality of the Mets’ plight could become evident as early as the next few weeks.  They come home from Atlanta to play two against the Phillies, and three with Pirates and the Braves. Then it’s off to the West Coast for seven games with the Giants and Dodgers, followed by three on Memorial Day weekend with the Red Sox at Fenway.  Burial time?  If so, stories about “Citi Cemetery” will seem doubly appropriate..

The print media buried hopes of peace activists by discouraging protests aimed at preventing the Iraq war from starting.  One example:  On October 26, 2002, five months before “shock and awe”, 200,000 marchers converged on Washington to rally against Team Bush’s pre-war buildup.  The NY Times gave the story a few perfunctory paragraphs, written in advance of the actual event.  Four days later, it acknowledged – in response to complaints - that the event was bigger and more meaningful than its coverage indicated.

When post-invasion marches received similar minimizing treatment, it gradually became clear to even the most ardent activists that their efforts were making no impact. (Another factor: the remarkable lack of prominent political and religious participants.) Historians say that for centuries wars have won broad support because people perceive them to be necessary evils.   In the U.S., from late 2002 to, roughly, 2006, the media fed that perception, in part, by trivializing the substantial visible movement for peace. 

 In 2009, this spring,, a different kind of sustained protest movement may be getting under way: against the banks for predatory treatment of struggling homeowners.  Labor unions organized demonstrations outside Bank of America offices in 75 cities last week.  And Bill Moyers Journal last week covered an ongoing anti-bank community action in Boston.  That protest is being supported by the Presbyterian Church, a possible model for other faith-based communities in the country.     
                                 -     -     -
Baseball America provided a further clue to the depth of the Mets’ problems: the magazine’s survey of performances for the month of April uncovered 20 “hot” minor league prospects.  Three each belong to the Orioles and Indians, two each to the Marlins and Braves.  Not a single member of the Mets system appeared on the list.  Then there’s the NYM affiliate from which help normally could be expected - Triple-A Buffalo.  It had won four of 22 games as of early last night.   Could that be why Director of Player Development Tony Bernazard has been keeping a low profile?   

"People are always trying to get me to say something bad about the guy, but there's nothing bad to say.”  That’s Red Sox shortstop Nick Green, talking (to the Globe’s Nick Cafardo) about Alex Rodriguez.  Green was a teammate of A-Rod’s with the Yankees and worked out with him off-season.  He has a perspective different from most seen in print these days about Alex, soon to return as Yankee third baseman: “He was a great teammate as far as I could see. I know that he really helped younger guys all the time, especially Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera.  He spent a lot of time with those guys, teaching them the game and showing them the right way to do things, just as he did with me. I think we all appreciated what he did for us…

(Off-season in Miami) "We'd work out and we'd go hitting. I'd be there in the batting cage taking my swings and I thought I was swinging the bat so well, and then he gets in there and you see him do his thing and it's just at a level you can't possibly imagine. Hitting a baseball sounds a lot different when he does it than when anybody else does it.  It's amazing to watch him.  It's not something you can really describe to people, but as a professional baseball player,  I'm in awe of what he does.”

                                   - o -
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(Posted: 5/2/09)

The Insider Game in Baseball and Political Moneyball

Baseball became an insider-run game in 1951, when mlb owners forced hyperactive A.B. “Happy” Chandler to resign as commissioner, in favor of the more compliant Ford Frick.     More than a half-century later, the nation’s fans saw U.S. Moneyball become a Wall Street-insider game when Team Obama chose Tim Geithner to be Treasury Secretary.

Chandler riled owners by trying to be as independent as predecessor Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was given unlimited clout after the 1919 Black Sox scandal.  Among other decisions, Happy made 15 owners unhappy when he overruled their attempt to stop the Dodgers from signing Jackie Robinson in 1945.

Geithner, we know, has enraged taxpayers by using their money to bail out the very  banks who hit into the current financial collapse.

The mlb owners would argue that, under Frick and his successors who played ball with them - Bill Eckert, Bowie Kuhn, Peter Ueberroth, Bart Giamatti, Francis (Fay) Vincent and Allan (Bud) Selig - the national pastime has expanded at home, caught on abroad - and flourished. Geithner believes - hopes – that his giveaway-game-plan will be similarly successful down the line. 

Meanwhile, public outrage notwithstanding, Geithner and teammate Larry Summers have received minimal razzing in the mainstream media.  Earlier this week, the NY Times did lay out Geithner’s personal ties with the people who benefited from the government handouts.  And Nobel Prize economists Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz have second-guessed the bailout strategy.   But at Wednesday night’s presidential news conference, for example, the man who signed the Geithner/Summers duo didn’t hear their names mentioned.  This was the only exchange that came within a mile of hitting the ball as it should have:  

Jonathan Weisman, Wall Street Journal:  You are currently the chief shareholder of a couple of very large mortgage giants...And I'm wondering, what kind of shareholder are you going to be? What is the government's role as the keeper of public trust ?

Obama: Well, I think our first role should be shareholders that are looking to get out. You know, I don't want to…run banks. I've got two wars I've got to run already. I've got more than enough to do.  So the sooner we can get out of that business, the better off we're going to be.  We are in unique circumstances. You had the potential collapse of the financial system, which would have decimated our economy, and so we had to step in.

As I've said before, I don't agree with every decision that was made by the previous administration when it came to (the first bailout), but the need for significant intervention was there, and it was appropriate that we moved in.

What Obama did was to finesse the bailout subject, engaging in the equivalent of fouling off pitches he didn’t want to handle.  It was an implicit defense of Geithner’s insider-influenced strategy, containing not a word of sympathy for the taxpayers burdened by that strategy.  The question the response raises: how long will the president be able to duck away from that keenly felt concern?  A separate question: Why has Congress been so complicit in the giveaways?  An answer given by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin on a Chicago radio station this week:  “The banks…are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill…And they frankly own the place.”
                                           -     -     -
A source of concern to the Red Sox is the travail of their ace Josh Beckett.  He is exhibiting the Chien-Ming Wang-type symptom – loss of location.  The Globe’s Adam Kilgore filed a face-to-face report on what Beckett is going through:  “In four starts since his Opening Day masterpiece, Beckett is 1-2 with a 9.14 ERA. His last two starts have yielded 15 runs, 20 hits, and 7 walks in 9 2/3 innings.  Beckett says he feels ’real good’ physically, and ‘that's part of the frustration… It's a lot of things. I just got to make adjustments’.”  When asked precisely what he had in mind, Beckett answered in three words:  “I don’t know.”

The Red Sox have plenty of offense to compensate for any pitching letdown, including (pre-last night’s games) the AL’s number one clutch hitter in late innings: Jason Bay (seven for 11, .636, when batting in tight games from the seventh inning on). As of early last night, the Yankees had four of the league’s top 20 close and late clutch hitters – Robinson Cano (.467), and Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada (all .429).

In the NL, prior to the Mets game, the Phillies had four of the top 25 late clutchers – Chase Utley (.714), Raul Ibanez (.583), Matt Stairs (.500) and Pedro Feliz (.429).  The Dodgers had three, including Manny Ramirez and Orlando Hudson (both at .467).  The Mets had none.

The Phillies’ Shane Victorio told NY Timesman Jack Curry that his resilient team – nine of 11 come-from-behind victories – has the “chemistry” that produces the sense “you’re never out of it.”  Jerry Manuel intends to “address” the Mets’ lack of come-from-behind confidence.  But “addressing” the need for winning chemistry is unlikely to get him anywhere..  Change is needed, and that is out of Manuel’s hands.       
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April 2009 Archive

(Posted: 4/30/09)

What Baseball and the Bailout Have in Common

Any baseball fan meeting friends from the other side of the political field knows how to avoid a verbal brawl: “How about those Mets (Yanks, Red Sox, etc.)?”  Baseball can bring opponents together, at least for the moment, providing a common base of interest.

MIT Prof. Simon Johnson says the bank bailout is playing like baseball; it has created common ground on which the left and right can stand..  Appearing on Bill Moyers Journal last weekend, Johnson, a former International Monetary Fund executive, said all of us bailout-bashers on the third-base side of the diamond have company:

“Everyone's worried about…the disproportion of power in the hands of a relatively few financial big players…You can worry about it from a left point of view. You say, ‘Well, this is just unfair and it obviously affects distribution of power and income.’  You can worry about it from a right point of view because it leads to corporate welfare.  Actually, I think everyone's opposed to corporate welfare (for) these big players.”

Johnson says the banking big guys think they’ve won, and they’re right: “They got the bailout. They got the money they needed to stay in business. They got a vast line of credit from the taxpayer…The banks have (even succeeded in getting) control of the state… Not the state control of the banks.  If the state had control of the banks, the banks wouldn't be able to turn around and say, no on your Chrysler deal and no way on modifying the rules about mortgages…”

The chances of a public outcry leading to fairer government measures are not good, says Johnson.  Why? “We're having a moment of relative clarity right now where a lot of people are agreeing. But these things pass.  

“The baseball season is upon us.”

Historical note: “(In) the Depression of 1929-31…Britain’s was the first major economy to turn the corner…(It) spen(t) on new housing, which reanimated the construction industry…In France, by contrast, governments…lent large sums to banks…and lost it.”
                      - From The Penguin History of the Second World War (reissue 1999)

                     -     -     -
From the e-mailbag, re baseball’s racist history (previous Nub): “The disgrace to MLB is the failure to honor Commisioner Albert ("Happy") Chandler's role in causing the color line to be broken.  The vote to dishonor the Dodgers' contract with Jackie Robinson was 15-to-1 with all owners -- apart from the Dodgers -- voting against.  Chandler, former Kentucky senator, overrode the racists,  He was rewarded by having his contract not renewed.  (Commisioner Kenesaw Mountain) Landis, a devout racist, denied Bill Veeck's effort purchase the Phillies in 1944 upon learning that Veeck planned to engergize the ‘Phutile’ Phillies by hiring Negro players.”
                                                                                David Schechter, Wilmette, IL

“Unwatchable,” a word easily associated with the ’08 Mets, is fast becoming applicable to the doleful ’09 edition.  Worse, the NY Post’s Kevin Kernan is already saying the unsayable about Omar Minaya’s Mets:  Kernan suggested the other day that the NY team with the second highest mlb payroll could finish the season under-.500.

Tuesday night’s TV lineup offered a perfect illustration of the fan-appeal challenge facing the Mets in their competition with the Yanks.  What attentive fan would choose to watch Livan Hernandez pitch against the Marlins rather than see young Phil Hughes take on the Tigers?  Another Omar salvage project on SNY, a prospect on YES.  Multiply that disadvantage four (non-Santana) games out of five and one could almost sympathize with the over-hyped, under-clutched Metsies.
                                      - o -
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(Posted: 4/28/09)

When Racism, Fascism Went to Bat

Observance this month of Jackie Robinson’s breakthrough 52 years ago points to a gap in baseball’s voluminous history: the racist period.  Details of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the mlb commissioner and owners to keep the pro sport segregated during its first half-century have remained unreported.  (Commish Kenesaw Mountain Landis was sometimes called the “Great White Father.”) That nothing useful could come of compiling such a report - baseball’s implicit stance – is, we know, also at the center of a political debate these days:  whether to disclose more detailed information about torture and those involved.   

International Herald Tribune columnist William Pfaff has gone to bat forcefully for disclosure. He recalls the 1935 Sinclair Lewis novel “It Can't Happen Here” which foresaw “install(ation  of) an American counterpart to the fascist dictatorships already in power in Italy and Germany.”  That turned out to be a false alarm, says Pfaff.  But:

“When ‘It’ did happen was in 2001-2008, in the Bush administration.  There was a takeover of the government by a self-willed executive power, unprecedented in American history. The president and vice president acted on a novel and legally unsupported claim to unlimited ‘wartime’ presidential and executive-branch power. The justification was an illegal, undeclared war.

”International law and American treaty obligations were defied, as were established American law on the conduct of war and the treatment of prisoners, constitutional protections, and the surveillance of citizens.   All of this occurred without meeting serious, or at least successful, Congressional or judicial challenge, with little or no objection from the national…media….

“President Obama’s unwillingness to see his first term dominated by the crimes of the Bush administration is comprehensible.   Yet there is a limit.  The…moral vacuum  created and encouraged during the Bush years is so outrageous, perverse, sadistic and nihilistic that it demands attention…”

It’s a demand that has particular resonance today, the fifth anniversary of our first seeing photos of the horrors fellow Americans perpetrated at Abu Ghraib.

Out of the lost weekend at Fenway came a sense that the Yankees will find themselves and be all right.  One reason: Hideki Matsui is healthy enough to have reclaimed his stroke.  Another: the oft-mentioned possibility that Alex Rodriguez will be back in the lineup sometime next week.  A-Rod-added punch or not, the Yanks may well have to settle for the wild card.  The Red Sox confirmed that they are extremely deep, thanks to an impressive farm system that keeps producing young arms like Hunter Jones and Michael Bowden (not to mention Jon Lester, Justin Masterson, etc.)  When Globe reporter Adam Kilgore suggested to Tito Francona that the farm system might give him the equivalent of a 14-man pitching staff, the manager said, “Or 18 or 20.”

Anyone watching the Phillies sweep the Marlins over the weekend (on MLB and TBS), coming from behind in the ninth twice, could not help but notice the contrast between the defending champions and the Mets:  the Phils exude energy, bounce and clutch hitting.  The Mets convey the opposite of resiliency - tightness under pressure.  Re: Oliver Perez – one can almost hear Fred Wilpon saying to Omar Minaya: “$36 million!  What could you have been thinking?”

Mets have lots of pitching-woes company, the LA Angels the most striking example. Three LAA starters are on the injury shelf:  None of the three - John Lackey, Ervin Santana and Kelvim Escobar – is expected back before the end of next month.  Meanwhile, the Angels are looking to sign someone from the independent Atlantic League.
                                  - o -
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(Posted: 4/25/09)

Political All-Stars Event – a Scorer’s Notes

On a political playing field the other night - a Manhattan Democratic club - baseball was served up during appearances by four pol all stars.  The occasion: an NYC public advocate candidates forum involving the four – Eric Gioia, Norman Siegel, Mark Green and Bill de Blasio.  All lefties, they comprised a formidable pitching rotation.

The night’s starter Gioia, up from the Council team out of Queens, kept everybody on his toes with a rapid-fire delivery.  The newest face among the four, he established himself as a pesky comer by defying those who run the outfit in Queens and competing successfully to make the Council roster.  That was eight years ago.  Since then Gioia has been firing away on behalf of, among others, people on food stamps and residents of the huge Queensbridge Houses project in his Woodside district.  He actually tried playing for a week while living on food stamps.  And he went to bat successfully to bring services to the project.  Gioia’s energetic style has paid off dollar-wise: he’s the most well-heeled member of the rotation.

Seconds into his pitching turn, civil liberties league veteran Siegel threw a high, hard one at the city and the Yankees.  His target: their failure to keep a pledge to local residents of the area around the new Stadium. “The people in the South Bronx want their parkland back,” he said.  Twenty-two acres of public green space was traded away as part of the stadium deal.  The community has yet to get the promised compensatory recreational parcels.  Siegel delivered the locals’ case at a demonstration protesting against the delay on the new Stadium’s opening day.  He’s also bearing down on Team Bloomberg’s plan to turn over 40 percent of playing fields on Randalls Island to 20 private schools.  “This,” the combative Siegel called out, “is who I am.”

Green, looking to win the comeback-player-of-the-year award, pitched with an easy, effortless motion.  He acknowledged the high velocity of the others in the rotation.  But, he said, where they are still prospects, “I’ve shown what I can do.”  Back in the dugout, he reviewed the record book of his stint as top man on the public advocate team from 1993 to 2001.  The info accompanying his stats detailed his forcing the tobacco industry to stop appealing to young would-be smokers.  It also noted his work in disclosing that the NYPD only penalized one in 20 officers found to have committed “substantive” offenses.  Green indicated Mayor Bloomberg could expect brush-backs from him.  He said he has many new ideas to let loose if returned to the PA team.

Closer for the night Bill de Blasio, from the Council team out of Brooklyn, impressed spectators with his confident delivery.  Less familiar to Manhattan spectators than the others, he pitched the fight he led in the Council against the extension of term-limits by legislation instead of referendum.  He said affordable housing would be his focus, as it has been.  He told of getting buzzed on a plan he had formulated for affordable housing in his Park Slope neighborhood.  “When I called (deputy mayor) Dan Doctoroff about it, he said ‘Bill, we’ll fight you to the death on this one’.”  As the game was wrapping up, de Blasio was asked if he would support the Democrat in the mayoral race.  He tossed out a spirited “Yes!” before the question was even completed.

Scorers’s note:  We’ve worked in the past with Siegel and Green and have a high regard for both.  But Gioia and de Blasio are superior candidates as well.  This is surely the season’s most interesting citywide primary race   
                                    -     -     -
It seemed to us early on that, from a pitching standpoint, Omar Minaya was like the man who jumped out the window, hoping he - and the Mets -were on the first floor.  He took the chance that his starters after Johan Santana would come around; he took it even though Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez and John Maine were clearly an iffy trio.  Now the Mets are plunging toward the basement, and, although Jerry Manuel says he’s prepared to “address” his pitching problem, his implicit message to Minaya (through the media) is:

“Get me help!”  Mark Mulder would surely be worth a shot from Manuel’s standpoint.  No Pedro Martinez, thank you.  And, please, no more Nelson Figueroa-types.   

The Washington Post’s Tom Boswell offers some D.C. perspective on Boston’s concern about David Ortiz:  “The Red Sox better hope Kevin Youklis can keep tearing it up at No. 4 because Ortiz looks like he may have gotten old fast.  Pitchers are challenging him up and in with mediocre fastballs… and dominating him”

And here is Boswell on Lastings Millidge, newly dropped to triple-A by the Nationals:  “Looks like he's a corner OF with CF power (ie., not quite enough). I think he still has trade value. That New York Hype machine takes a long time to wear off…. The main problem perhaps: Lastings loves being a big leaguer more than he enjoys the game itself. If that ever changes, he could be a fine player.”
                                   - o -
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(Posted: 4/23/09)

Baseball and Politics Differ on Looking Back

We know one reason for baseball’s popularity is its preoccupation with the past.  Fans take pride in total recall of the sport’s memorable stats and moments.  The common themes are clutch performances, excellence, even greatness.  Politics, by contrast, avoids dwelling on the - often dubious - past.  Policies and events that are error-filled, like the yanqui record in Latin America, is a pertinent example.

Skipper Obama’s polite encounter with Hugo Chavez in the Trinidad clubhouse set off a commotion in right field, in part, because the democratically-elected Venezuelan president is, for some in that field, a “dictator”, a “tyrant.”  In a typical accusation, CNN’s senior political analyst Gloria Barger complained “(Chavez) say(s) outrageous things about us.”

But what really caused a rhubarb at the Summit was the sudden presence of another player: Eduardo Galeano.  A Uruguayan who appeared in name only as the author of a book Chavez gave Obama, Galeano treaded where many Americans would prefer not to go: into the hemispheric record book.  He called his history “The Open Veins of Latin America.”

Galeano’s accounts of the U.S. “pillaging” its neighbors to the south distresses many of our political and media people.  Better to pass over purposely - they believe - names like Arbenz (of Guatemala),  Allende, and even Chavez, whom Team Bush helped depose briefly in 2002.  In a review of “Open Veins,” Salvador Allende’s cousin Isabel reminded readers of the U.S. Latin American record in the late 1900’s alone:

“It was the time of the Cold war, and the United States would not allow a leftist experiment to succeed in what Henry Kissinger called ‘its backyard.’  The Cuban revolution was enough; no other socialist project would be tolerated, even if it was the result of a democratic election.  On September 11, 1973, a Military Coup ended a century of democratic tradition in Chile and started the long reign of General Augusto Pinochet. Similar coups followed in other countries, and soon half the continent's population was living in terror.  This was a strategy designed in Washington and imposed upon the Latin American people by the economic and political forces of the right.  In every instance the military acted as mercenaries to the privileged groups in power.  Repression was organized on a large scale; torture, concentration camps, censorship, imprisonment without trial, and summary executions became common practices.  Thousands of people ‘disappeared,’  masses of exiles and refugees left their countries running for their lives…”  (Monthly Review, April 1997)

Now wonder the right attacked Obama: he accepted a record book few Americans knew existed, and fewer still want publicized.
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If Edgar Allan Poe were alive today, he could entitle a story about the 2009 Mets “The Tell-Tale Lack of Heart.”  Going into last night’s game in St.Louis, six of seven Mets defeats occurred in contests in which opponents had overtaken them.  When a lead evaporates, Jerry Manuel’s team seems to lose the spunk needed to persevere to victory.  It’s a failing the Metsies displayed a year ago as well, under Willie Randolph. 

With two-plus weeks of the season completed, we have unlikely first-place teams in three of the six divisions: Florida in the NL East, and Toronto and Seattle in the AL East and West.  But the Yanks and Red Sox are already ruffling the Jays’ feathers, so they may not remain on top much longer.  Lots of fun in store this weekend at Fenway Park, with both teams, the Sox and NYYs, getting their acts together.

The Pirates’ three-game spearing of the Marlins qualifies as the biggest early-week surprise.  Bucs starter Paul Maholm is 3-0; closer Matt Capps has five saves and hasn’t given up a run.
                               - o -
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(Posted: 4/21/09)

Fans Lament Distancing of Obama and Baseball

Q - What do many B. Obama and NY baseball fans have in common? 

 A - A sense that all is not as good as it should be in their world.

Both feel distanced; the Yankees and Mets have relegated the average fan to the far reaches of their new parks, each as much a mall as a place to play ball.  Early on, skipper Obama let coaches Tim Geithner and Larry Summers run the team; neither distinguished himself for fair play.  Barack’s Middle Eastern game plan has been as fuzzy as it is unpopular.  No one sees how competing both in Afghanistan and Iraq can end in wins.  

And, despite the skipper’s smiles and words, two change-averse Team Bush holdover advisors (Jeffrey Davidow, Thomas Shannon) are obstructing the sight of where Obama’s going in Latin America.

The Nation columnist Naomi Klein sees the need for a wider, more realistic perspective:

“A growing number of Obama enthusiasts are starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact, going to save the world if we all just hope really hard.

“This is a good thing. If the superfan culture that brought Obama to power is going to transform itself into an independent political movement, one fierce enough to produce programs capable of meeting the current crises, we are all going to have to stop hoping and start demanding…

“Hope was a fine slogan when rooting for a long-shot presidential candidate.  But as a posture toward the president of the most powerful nation on earth, it is dangerously deferential.  The task as we move forward (as Obama likes to say) is not to abandon hope but to find more appropriate homes for it…”

Klein urges small-ball activism rather than waiting for the skipper, remote in the stately white dugout, to push the buttons that make good things happen.
                              -     -     -
Sunday at the new Stadium, 9,000 no-shows.  YES camera coverage showing, mainly, on-field action and wide shots of the 43,000 in attendance.  Then, in the bottom of the seventh, during the replay interruption of the Yanks-Indians game, viewers were shown a friendly front-of-dugout chat between Joe Girardi and Derek Jeter.  In the background: rows and rows of empty premium seats.   True fans could see plainly on this perfect weekend afternoon how little the big spenders cared and how the game had moved away from what they remembered it to be.

Over at Citi Field, “Figgy” (Nelson Figueroa) - the aptly nicknamed stopgap starter for the Mets - pitched just badly enough to give Milwaukee a win.  On Sunday, filling in for Mike Pelfrey, the 34-year-old journeyman was a familiar sight - a fig leaf covering the paucity of promising talent in the Mets’ system.  Casey Fossum, Figgy’s replacement, is the latest wilted exhibit.

Newsday’s Wallace Matthews noticed swatches of empty seats at Citi as well as at the Stadium.  Here was his take in yesterday’s Newsday: “ Both ballparks were built on many of the same principles that are destroying our economy.  Both teams grotesquely, and artificially, inflated the value of their product, and did their best to create a false sense of demand by reducing capacity and trying to bully longtime fans into paying absurd new prices or risk being shut out.”    

It’s early, but two-plus weeks into the season it looks as though Joe Torre’s Dodgers, with a payroll half the size of the Yankees ($100,000 to $201,000), have as good a chance as the pinstripers (if not better) to win their division.  Prematurely speaking, the Dodgers may be the only division-winning sure thing in the MLB                                     - o -
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Will Obama Change Stance Toward Team Chavez?

Late last year, a reporter asked White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen who was the toughest man he knew.  “Fidel Castro,” he said.  “Everybody’s against him, and he still survives, has power. Still has a country behind him.  Everywhere he goes they roll out the red carpet.  I don’t admire his philosophy. I admire him.”

Guillen, a proud Venezuelan, has never claimed to be a supporter of his country’s president Hugo Chavez.  But Chavez could easily be his choice as second toughest. After all, Guillen watched as Chavez led a failed left-wing coup against a rightist Caracas  government in 1992.  Six years later, soon after release from jail, Chavez won the presidency with a campaign based on advocacy for the poor and greater public control of the country’s oil resources.  He survived a U.S.-supported right-wing coup attempt in 2002 and was re-elected to a third term in 2006, much to the distress of Team Bush.

The big question at the Latin American Summit in Trinidad/Tobago is how America’s new president will get along with Chavez, who like Castro (far from unpopular with “everybody”), has most of Latin America behind him.  Skipper Obama has called Chavez an “obstacle to progress” in the hemisphere.  NYU’s Greg Grandin, author of “Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the U.S. and the Rise of the New Imperialism,” calls that stance a mistake:

“(The) left turn that started with Chávez's 1998 election as Venezuela's president…still continues apace. Last year, after all, Paraguay elected a liberation theologian as president; and last month… the guerrilla group turned political party Ronald Reagan spent six billion dollars and 70,000 Salvadorean lives trying to defeat in the 1980s  finally came to power in El Salvador…     

“Love Chávez or hate him, he is recognized as a legitimate leader by all Latin American countries and is a close ally to many. For eight years, a Bush administration policy of driving a wedge between the rest of the region and the Venezuelan proved a dismal failure, except when it came to increasing the outflow of Washington's hemorrhaging power in the hemisphere.”  (The Nation)

The wfile:///C:/Users/dickstar/Downloads/Documents/PerfectPitch%20blog/the_nub.htmlelcome Team Obama gave the conciliatory words of Raul Castro yesterday might be a sign the president is in a let-bygones-be-bygones mood at the Latin American Summit.  But everyone recognizes that a teaming up of the U.S. and Chavez is far from a sure thing.

E-mailbag exchange: “ I agree with much of what you wrote about Castro in your latest blog.  However, I think your praise of Castro needs a little tempering.  After all, he did imprison a lot of people who disagreed with him. The ACLU probably will not give him any medals for his toleration of dissent.”  - D.Bruner, Budapest, Hungary

To: D.Bruner: “Can't defend Castro for his imprisonments, especially of gays, jailed only because of their sexual persuasion.   But, there have been no documented reports of torture.  And many, if not most, dissidents were found to have been on the CIA payroll.  Overriding post-cold-war question: Why should we be judging - even seeking to subvert - the policies of other sovereign states?”

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With nearly two weeks in the books, it’s time to take one team seriously: the Florida Marlins.  Yes, the Marlins, the team with the lowest payroll in the majors - $37 million (just $4 million more than Alex Rodriguez) - have the best record in either league.  Florida’s rotation, featuring Ricky Nolasco, Josh Johnson, Chris Volstad and Anibal Sanchez, strengthens the sense the Marlins will make the NL East a four-team race.

John Smoltz, Mark Kotsay and Julio Lugo:  that threesome working out this weekend in Fort Myers will be reinforcing the hurting Red Sox, one by one, as spring progresses.  Infielder Lugo is expected to be the first, in a week or so, outfielder/first baseman Kotsay, shortly thereafter, and pitcher Smoltz sometime in June.

The puffery for eateries at both new ballparks has been egregious.  Yesterday, it was Michael Kay and Paul O’Neil on YES, ooohing over the Mohegan Sun Bar in the new Stadium.  “How about if we go out there tomorrow?” one asked the other.  The other night, SNY’s Kevin Burkhardt stood on the terrace outside the Acela, a high-end place at Citi Field.  He explained the series of seatings, the limitations on who qualified for admission, etc.  All this while the Mets-Padres game was in progress.  On Wednesday night, when there were patches of empty grandstand seats at Citi, the cameras were directed instead at the long lines waiting for service at Shake Shack.  Looked like a good crowd was on hand.

Keith Hernandez is often fun to listen to on SNY, as well as insightful.  But occasionally he slips into questionable taste, as he did this week:  Fumbling for a name or stat, he said “I’m getting Alzheimer’s.”
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 4/16/09)

Fidel Is Still Faithful to Baseball

Fifty years ago last January, a former college baseball player led the overthrow of a Cuban dictator.  The ex-pitcher took control of the island nation, and soon turned it into a feisty Communist and Moscow-protected opponent of Team USA.  Since then, while playing David to America’s Goliath, Fidel Castro has maintained his love for America’s national pastime; he’s persisted in that affection despite US-linked terrorist acts, a military invasion and an economic embargo that has deprived his people of all but basic sustenance.  American hostility persisted for no rational foreign-policy reason after the cold war ended in 1989.

Not long ago, even the most tenacious anti-Castro exile outfit in Florida conceded what had long since been acknowledged outside of Miami: that Fidel had won the standoff with the U.S.; or, at least, the effort to bat him away had not worked.  And earlier this week, Team Obama took a first, tentative step toward normalizing relations with Cuba.

The embargo remains in place and newly permitted travel on the island will be restricted to Cuban-Americans.  But it is a start that should be welcomed by the majority of Americans who feel no animosity toward Cuba.

Fidel himself considers the step “positive” but insufficient. His only truly negative remark about the U.S. lately had to do with baseball.  The MLB-organized World Baseball Classic bracketed the Cuban team early with Japan and South Korea, the two best teams in the tournament.  He saw it as a deliberate effort to try to get rid of the Cubans before the semi-final round. 

It’s doubtful that Skipper Obama will say anything about Fidel at the Latin American Summit beginning tomorrow in Trinidad/Tobago, although he could acknowledge El Jefe’s retirement a little over a year ago.  Before he sent himself to the showers, Castro had successfully played and lasted against an impressive 10-man U.S. lineup: Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George W.B. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.  It’s unlikely the retired Fidel, soon to be 83, will outlast Obama.
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After winning their opening home game, 15-5, the Rays brought out the best in the Yankees.  Both A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte pitched into the eight inning in 7-2 and 5-4 victories.  The Yanks saw Xavier Nady go down with an injury that may keep him out for a long while.  But hot-hitting Nick Swisher is on hand to take his place. 

Misery-has-company dept:  Red Sox and Yanks are watching to see how serious is the setback of each of their Asian starters, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Chien-Ming Wang.  Dice-K was put on the DL following Tuesday night’s game in Oakland, when he left after one inning complaining of shoulder fatigue.  Chien-Ming could follow him on to the DL, although his struggle seems more mental than physical.  He has let lack of execution - he can’t get his sinker to sink - shatter his confidence.  Chien-Ming is scheduled to pitch again this weekend as Joe Girardi keeps his fingers crossed.

An E-mailbag message from NYC statman Scott Swanay, the Fantasy Baseball Sherpa, that may cheer up Mets fans.  He says when it comes to lack of solid starters, the NYMs have company:  “As down as Mets' fans might be on their team's rotation, I think they match up well with the Phillies' rotation.  Hamels is more of an injury risk than Santana,  Myers is at least as inconsistent as Ollie, I'll take Maine or Pelfrey over Moyer or Blanton…Phillies had the superior bullpen last year, but with their additions of Green, Putz, and Francisco (as well as subtractions of Heilman & Schoeneweis), the Mets have closed the gap significantly.  Phillies obviously had a big edge on offense last season, and I believe it's even greater this season… Both teams are flawed, but that's what will make for an entertaining race this summer!”
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 4/14/09)

Cubs Fans Converting to Obama?

The polling scoreboard that posts day-to-day tallies attracts most attention in the political field.  But more important is the scoreboard that tracks partisan trends over the years.  Super statman Charlie Cook, who follows those trends, has issued a report on Congressional scoring with baseball-related implications.  It suggests that, although Barack Obama is an avowed White Sox fan, he has reason to consider saying nice things about the Cubs.

Cook says a Democratic trend has developed in the Chicago suburbs, traditionally Cubs - and GOP - country.  Suburbanites in six Chi-area districts have moved toward the Dems in recent years, and Cook notes that the change corresponds to the emergence of Obama as a heavy hitter.  The GOP has made gains in a different ballpark, notably inTennessee, where the Cubs have their double-A farm team.  Cook says the Dems lost ground in Tennessee when native son Al Gore left the presidential field.  The report, based on House results collected over the past five presidential election cycles, includes, obviously, the Bush-Gore race in 2000.  It shows where the Dem-GOP game stands now, in the aftermath of the nationwide 2008 vote.

The scoreboard tracking partisan rallies gives the Dems a whopping 34-16 lead in the 50 most competitive House districts. That reflects a hint of a trend in 163 minimally competitive races.  As for the rest, Cook notes that Dems and the GOP usually split 222 “sure” seats of the lower chamber’s 435.  In a top-of-the-grandstand view, Cook’s stats give the Dems a 51.3 - 48.7 edge over the Repubs nationwide. (That happens to approximate bookmaking odds the Cubs will make it to the NL championship series.) 

Consensus day-to-day polling, by the way, gives Obama a 60 percent approval, Congress a 58 percent disapproval rating.  Still, as we’ve seen, most House incumbents are safe.
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Daniel Murphy seems safely ensconced as the Mets’ number two hitter, despite his Agita-causing on-the-job learning as a leftfielder.  His welcome presence in the lineup points up a glaring Mets absence in recent years – that of other home-grown position-player prospects.  Jose Reyes broke in six years ago this June, David Wright five years ago this July.  The dry spell since then attests to the oft-noted deficiency in the team’s player-development operation.     

On Saturday, fans tuning in the Red Sox-Angels network TV game had to make do with the reporting of Fox second-stringers Kenny (Flat) Albert and Eric Karros.  They transformed a fairly exciting matchup into a snoozer.  The only enthusiasm exhibited by Albert came when he extolled the wonders of the new Yankee Stadium, whence next Saturday’s Cleveland-Yanks game will be carried on Fox.  He was especially dynamic in his description of the stadium’s “five-star restaurant” and other amenities.  A couple of times Karros had to remind Kenny that his touting of Toronto’s lead in the AL East and Pittsburgh’s moving over .500 meant nothing. “It’s April,” Karros said, with an edge of exasperation many viewers shared

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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 4/11/09)

Bats Out for the Boys of Summers

How about that good news for the economy’s bleacher-seat people? In advance of today’s anti-bailout rallies in 50 cities, Tim Geithner said ordinary fans may get a chance to profit from the government handouts, just like Wall Street’s heavy hitters.  The game plan calls for creation of bailout funds - much like mutual funds – that would let punch-and-judy swingers invest in the toxic assets Team Obama is trying to rescue with taxpayer money.

If the plan works, the Obama-ites are clearly hopeful that the resulting positive vibes will take some of the heat off Geithner and his bailout double-play partner Larry Summers.  Both are linked in the public’s mind to a program that seems to be benefiting only those teams and players who caused the debacle in the first place.  Geithner, we know, was the ultimate Wall Street insider as skipper of the Fed Reserve team in New York.  He oversaw the trick plays that led to the subprime crisis.  Summers made those plays possible, then profited from them, as TruthDig.com’s Robert Scheer reminds us:

“Summers…(was) cut in on the loot from the loopholes in the toxic derivatives market that he pushed into law when he was Bill Clinton's treasury secretary… No one has been more persistently effective in paving the way for the financial swindles that enriched the titans of finance while impoverishing the rest of the world than the man who is now the top economic adviser to President Obama.”    

Obama reportedly told a group of Wall Street CEOs last week that “the public isn’t buying” attempts to rationalize their privileged status in the bailout ballpark.  He added - according to The Politico - “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”  Barack should know that he, personally, is the only thing between Larry and Tim - his team’s “Boys of Summers” - and a grand slam of public bashings.
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Amid predictable signs that the non-Santana part of the Mets’ rotation is shaky comes a first-hand report from SI’s Jon Heyman on starters for the Braves and Marlins: “Beyond (Derek) Lowe the Braves aren't bad… Javier Vazquez wasn’t great for the White Sox, but he's generally been better in the National League, and maybe the switch will do him good.  Throw in Jair Jurrjens and the Braves have the makings of a very nice rotation…

“The Marlins are going to be tough whenever they're throwing their top three pitchers, because Ricky Nolasco, Josh Johnson and Chris Volstad give them a great trio.”

Heyman, like many Yankee fans, suspects that the team will have to upgrade the middle of its bullpen - Jonathan Albaladejo, Phil Coke, Brian Bruney and Damaso Marte - if it is to compete successfully with the Rays and Red Sox to make the playoffs.

No sooner did Baseball Prospectus’s Joe Sheehan predict on the eve of the season that the Texas Rangers would “lead the AL in runs scored by a good margin,” than the Rangers tallied 29 runs in a three-game sweep of Cleveland.  Texas tacked on just two more in the blowout yesterday against the Tigers.  But that’s still a total of just under eight runs a game.
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 4/9/09)

The Obama-Jeter Connection

“The iconic images many of us have of (Derek) Jeter on the field are diving head first into the stands to catch a foul ball, running way out of position to make a crucial flip home, as well as the calm,  graceful, unselfish style he shows on and off the field.  Obama clearly has the calm and grace (he'd be a great two-strike hitter, too) but I think Obama still has to show some of that willingness to get dirty, get a few stitches.”
– J. Mindich, Manhattan (E-Mailbag, re 4/04 Nub)
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The “few stitches” image paints the black because of Obama’s bruise-free  involvement in policies linked to torture.  In one of his first acts in January, the new president elected not to outlaw the practice of rendition – picking up suspected terrorists and sending them to a third country for questioning.  Although he stipulated that “harsh interrogation techniques” were not to be used, there have been numerous reports of torture in rendition sites in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.  To believe such methods are being  discontinued there because of an executive order in Washington requires a long leap of faith.    

Why was the president willing to “get dirty” on the side of aggressiveness rather than restraint?  An unidentified Obama teammate explained the skipper’s stance this way: "Obviously you need to preserve some tools -- you still have to go after the bad guys."

Barack has further disappointed his fans in left field by refusing to let the law go after Team Bush’s bad guys – the ones the International Red Cross says engaged in the brutal treatment of suspects.  Team Obama’s position on that – the same as Team Bush’s:  Release of such “information…could jeopardize national security.” 

The American Civil Liberties Union accuses Obama of reneging - through the Justice Department - on a stance he took as a candidate: pledging to reform abuse of the state secrets game.  This is far from “change”, says the ACLU.  It’s the same Bush-league style of play; the skipper keeps his his distance from the field and his uniform clean.
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Jeter may have looked his vintage self, batting leadoff in Baltimore, but his Yankees seem a little tentative…at least, compared to the cocky Red Sox.  Kevin Youklis is already bemoaning a lack of consensus on where the Sox will wind up:  “Man, how can anybody,” he says, “ pick us to lose to the Cubs in the World Series?"  

Baseball Prospectus’s Joe Sheehan is prematurely bullish on the relief-bolstered NYMs: “If the Mets just play as well as they did through six innings a year ago, they'll win the NL East, because they will be much better after that…”

Says here that’s a big “if” because of the team’s soft starter-rotation underbelly: Mike Pelfrey, and Oliver Perez and John Maine, in particular.  We know what bookends Johan Santana and Livan Hernandez can and will do: Santana will win at least as many – 16 – as he did last year, and Hernandez will manage at least 12 (and lose almost as many).  But games Perez and Maine start will be up for grabs, and Pelfrey’s outings only a little less so.  Bottom line: Mets will need a hard, productive-hitting year to compensate for the softness elsewhere.
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
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(Posted: 4/7/09)

Flafile:///C:/Users/dickstar/Downloads/Documents/PerfectPitch%20blog/the_nub.htmlk-file:///C:/Users/dickstar/Downloads/Documents/PerfectPitch%20blog/the_nub.htmlCatching in Finance and Baseball

Q - What do the new Met, Gary Sheffield, and Team Obama’s still-new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, have in common?

 A – They’re both taking flak for performances – past (in Sheffield’s case) and past and present (in Geithner’s).

Geithner took a pounding on Bill Moyers Journal the other night from William Black, author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One.”  An economics and law professor at the University of Missouri, Black supported Barack Obama, but he said Geithner’s – and therefore Obama’s – bank-bailout policies are “substantively bad” and “completely lack integrity.”  Why?  Because the Treasury Secretary is letting the banks play fast and loose with taxpayers’ money:

“Geithner is…covering up.  Just like (former Treasury Secretary Henry) Paulson did before him. Geithner is publicly saying that it's going to take…$2 trillion taxpayer dollars to deal with this (financial collapse) problem.  But they're allowing all the banks to report that they're not only solvent, but fully capitalized.  Both statements can't be true.  It can't be that they need $2 trillion, because they have massive losses, and that they're fine.

“These are all people who have failed.  Paulson failed,  Geithner failed.  (He)… was one of our nation's top regulators, during the entire subprime scandal,..He took absolutely no effective action.  He may be right (to claim)that he never regulated, but his job was to regulate.  That was his mission statement…as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York…”

Black says the bank bailouts have involved outright lawbreaking; he calls inaction on the part of government a “scandal.”  There’s a reason for the inaction, says Nicholas Lemann in the New Yorker:  nationalizing instead of bailing out the banks “would drive the stock market down and increase the agita of people with 401(k) plans” plus “soften (Congressional Dem) support for (Obama) legislation.”  Therein lies a clue as to why the mainstream media can’t seem to make a coherent case for outrage over the scandal. 

Newsday’s Wallace Matthews sums up the record book on Sheffield this way: “In his 21 major-league seasons, Sheffield, 40,  has called seven clubhouses his home, and not one did he leave on friendly terms.  At every stop, he has clashed with managers, general managers and owners. He has insulted teammates, reneged on contracts and, by his own admission, deliberately made errors to force his first team, Milwaukee to trade him.

”He has ripped Latin players and players who didn't conform to his image of racial purity,  such as Derek Jeter   He couldn't get along with Joe Torre,  a man who could find common ground with Mahmoud Ahmadineiad.  And just about every place Sheff has landed, he has found occasion to level a charge of racism at somebody.”

Can Sheff make himself over for the Mets?  The team’s fans - it says here - should pray for a miracle, which is what it will take.  Still, the deal so far goes down as a good one.

Reliable NYC statman Scott Swanay, the Fantasy Baseball Sherpa, has passed along his annual regular-season predictions as games are starting to count

“AL:  Yankees, Indians (barely), and Angels win their respective divisions.  Red Sox easily secure Wild Card.  NL:  Phillies & Mets in dead heat (outcome will depend on the teams' relative health - I like the Mets' chances of staying healthier and winning the division).  Cubs and Diamondbacks win their respective divisions.  Phillies-Mets runner up will get the Wild Card as a consolation prize, edging out the Cardinals.”

The Sherpa knows we all have our own gut-estimates as to how the season-long games will end.  There will surely be comments from the Nubby cheap seats in due course.

E-Mailbag re new ball parks: “Has there been any talk of an active organized boycott of games at the new stadiums?  I tried to push my son into leading the charge but he doesn't sense the injustice yet (he may get a better appreciation as the months go by).  I can't wait to see pictures of a half filled stadium or for the opportunity to buy tickets at below face value on stubhub.” – Jeremy.M., Manhattan 

“Your article, which accurately focused on all the excesses, left out the most important fact for Yankee lovers, the big palace is still in the down home Bronx neighborhood it has always been. Our team was saved from the West Side!  See you on the #4 train. Play Ball!!!!” – Jim M, Nyack
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(The  Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments
to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, as are subscription requests. 
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)

(Posted 4/4/09)

 New Ball Parks Rate as Many Boos as Cheers

It may be wet-blanket-y to suggest - even to hope - that the dank and drizzly “opening night” at NYC’s new stadiums was an omen of financially dismal days ahead for the Yankees and Mets.  Yet, weeks of puffery notwithstanding, the ballparks have earned at least as many boos as cheers…on merit.  The record book, we know, shows hundreds of millions in public subsidies granted both private ventures, 22 acres of parkland sacrificed to make room for the stadium in the Bronx, and the deal whereby bailed-out Citigroup got its disgraced name emblazoned over the Mets’ ball yard.

Then there’s the seldom noted cultural change the new arenas represent.  NY Times columnist George Vecsey addressed it briefly in yesterday’s paper when he said the teams’ “main goal became turning ballparks into resorts, land cruises, designed for A.I.G. bonus-recipient wallets…”  Nevertheless, he added, “real fans will find a way to the ball parks, pulled by the life-affirming force of baseball coming around again in the spring.”

The latter point may prove true while the new playing fields remain an early-season novelty.  But just as forced-out residents soon stop revisiting their gentrified old neighborhoods, so regular fans are likely to resist returning to the upscale replacement of their old cheering grounds. 

The days of the spontaneous “Let’s go out to th