Fans Love the Slugging Game in Both Fields

(Posted: 5/18/12; e-mail update 5/19)

NY Times righthander David Brooks pitched the idea of “fundamentals” in a political column this week.  He said Team Obama was hurting in the fundamentals department – the electoral game basics dealing with the economy and attitudes toward government.  Most fans are unhappy with the O-team’s stance on both those categories of play.

The first baseball fundamental we learned – one that Brooks disregards politically – is “keeping your eye on the ball.” It applies to both hitting and fielding.  If practiced with discipline, focusing hard enables a player to “see the ball well” and helps his team win.  Brooks says the skipper’s personal appeal has more than compensated for his lack of fundamentals.  That clearly overlooks fan support for the ball on which he’s kept his eye: the image of a slugging leader.  To the boos of lefties, Obama has flaunted his power stroke, ordering: the killing of bin Laden as well as the assassination of suspected terrorists, the increase in drone attacks that take innocent lives, the rendition of detainees denied due process, the shutting down of democratic teams abroad that obstruct his club’s interests.  He comes across as one tough, crowd-pleasing skipper.   

 Comments Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi: “Obama is doing things… extralegal(ly)…that would have liberals marching in the streets if they’d been done by (George W.) Bush.”

WashPost’s Ezra Klein sees the skipper scoring up the middle with a different set of fundamentals: “The primary (ones) are these: Obama is the incumbent. The economy is growing at a moderate pace. There’s no serious third-party challenge. We’re not losing massive numbers of soldiers in a foreign war.  And when you look at those fundamentals, the reality is this: Incumbent presidents very, very rarely lose under those conditions…Since 1948, only three incumbent presidents have lost reelection campaigns…(among them) Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush (who) both ran in very bad economies.”  

The skipper’s effective execution of both types of fundamentals is, to use Taibbi’s apt words about the Bush/Obama continuity, “kind of a bummer, when you think about it.”                                             

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Stat City:  The top team when combining the MLB’s hitting, pitching and fielding categories: the Rangers, by far.  Texas is first in hitting, third in pitching and fifth in fielding.  That’s a total numerical rating of nine, with three (first in all categories) the top mark.  The Dodgers are a distant second, with a rating of 18; they’re second in pitching, eighth in hitting and fielding.   The Yankees are an impressive third in fielding, fifth in hitting, but 23d in pitching, the Red Sox  first in fielding, third in hitting, but 28^th in pitching.  The Mets are 25^th in pitching, 22d in fielding, but a surprising sixth in hitting.

Inside Story:  Why the Reds traded Josh Hamilton to the Rangers (for Edinson Volquez) in 2007.  There were two things, writes Cincinnati Enquirer’s Paul Daugherty:  “Thing One was that Hamilton was not popular among his teammates, who resented the coddling he got and the media attention he received, especially on the road.  Hamilton’s comeback from a four-year absence due to drug problems was well documented. The extent to which it brought him favorable treatment was less well known…Far more important was the conclusion reached by the team’s medical staff that Hamilton’s durability would always be an issue.  And that his potential for relapse would make him unreliable.”  

Durability remains an issue as Hamilton approaches free agency.  If he can stay healthy the rest of the season, we know the Rangers will have a difficult time matching the offers he’ll receive from a few of the wealthier teams.
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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, and only they can be addressed by the skipper.  Previous Nubs may be found by scrolling below.)

by Dick Starkey on May 18th, 2012 Leave a Comment »

All-But-Certain Outcomes Looming in Both Fields?

(Posted:  5/14/12; e-mail update 5/15)

Even this early in the season, the wild card standings tell a lot about where the 2012 pennant races are going.  Three of the top five teams in both the NL and AL are from the Eastern Division.  Combine that with a look at the regular standings and this reality emerges: the Rangers can’t miss making the playoffs, one way or the other.  Each of the Eastern Divisions will have at least two teams, possibly three, in the post-season.  A lot can happen, of course, but it will likely be tough for half of the 30 teams to maintain fan interest beyond early summer.

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, for one, believes a similar situation exists on the political field in the presidential race.  Here is how he puts it:

“We’re getting stories now about how this election is closer than you’d think, how Obama is in for a “ tight race” or a “fierce fight” with Romney, and how the Republican challenger is “closing in” to a “statistical dead heat.” They’re going to say this, and they may even have numbers to back it up, like (last) week’s Gallup poll showing Obama with just a two-point lead.  But I think it’s a mirage.

“The people who work for the wire services and the news networks are physically incapable of writing sentences like, ’This election is…over.’ They are required, if not by law then by neurological reflex, to describe every presidential campaign as ‘fierce’ and ‘drawn-out’ and ‘hotly-contested.’ But this campaign, relatively speaking, will not be fierce or hotly contested.  Instead it’ll be disappointing, embarrassing, and over very quickly.”

Taibbi may be right about the corporate media, but his electoral view does not sync with that of the majority of political press box observers.
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The Bottom Line…on Andy Pettitte’s return performance: the Yankees – as Nick Swisher put it – “got (their) boy back.”  Pettitte’s yielding of seven hits in six innings would be a winning effort behind the Yank offense more often than not.  For the moment, Joe Girardi doesn’t have to look for a fifth starter.

 The Biggest Hurt:  The Dodgers will miss the newly injured Matt Kemp for a week or so; the Red Sox, minus their injured center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury, have done no better than 11-14 since his departure with a damaged shoulder.  But we suspect the team with the biggest DL challenge is Tampa Bay, which has no way of compensating for the loss of Evan Longoria, their best hitter by far.  The Rays have managed to play .500 ball (6-6) since Longoria hurt his hamstring May lst.  But if the star third baseman is out until late June, as projected, Tampa Bay figures to have much ground to make up to return to the top of the AL East.

Fortified:  The Nationals have played .500 ball (3-3) since Jayson Werth went down a week ago with a broken wrist. Bryce Harper is filling in more than adequately for Werth.  A remarkable aspect of the Nats’ breakout this season is worth repeating: they have scored nearly half their victories – 10 of 21 – by one run.

Cruz-ial Call.  Terry Francona, on ESPN, with bases loaded, Nelson Cruz at bat in third inning of Angels-Rangers game Sunday night:  When Jered Weaver fell behind 2-and-0, Francona said to viewers “You’re going to see a healthy swing.”  On the next pitch, Cruz hit a game-changing grand slam.

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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, and only they can be addressed by the skipper.  Previous Nubs may be found by scrolling below.)

by Dick Starkey on May 14th, 2012 Leave a Comment »

The Money Game: Dodgers and Team Obama

(Posted:  5/11/12; e-mail update 5/12)

Snap Quiz: Why are the LA Dodgers a model for Team Obama?

No, it’s not just because the Dodgers are surprise leaders in the NL West, or are one of the most racially mixed teams in the majors (with a roster that is 20-percent African-American).  It’s because the team, with new ownership, has the money to buy the help Don Mattingly may need to sustain its playoff run.  The White Sox fan in the White House suddenly faces an opponent as surprisingly formidable as the Dodgers have turned out to be.  Once Team GOP’s bloodletting primary ended, Mitt Romney’s poll numbers rose dramatically; he’s now in a virtual tie for the swinger vote with Skipper Obama.

The National Journal’s Jeff Kraushmaar included some key stats in a report that is a wake-up call for the skipper’s fans:   

“This presidential election is coming down to two immutable facts… President Obama will be running for a second term under a stagnant economy, and his two most significant legislative accomplishments—health care reform and a job-goosing stimulus—remain deeply unpopular. It doesn’t take a professional pundit to recognize that’s a very tough ticket for reelection.  Three most recent national polls…underscore how tough a reelection campaign Obama faces and why it’s fair to call him an underdog at this point.  He’s stuck at 47 percent against Mitt Romney in all three surveys, with the small slice of undecided voters tilting against the president.  His job approval ranges from 45 to 48 percent  Those numbers are hardly devastating, but given today’s polarized electorate, they’re not encouraging either.”

Romney and his Citizens United-approved PACs will more than match Team Obama’s campaign media offense.  And the corporate pressbox partisans – Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Wall Street Journal, etc. – will reinforce the paid brush-backing of the skipper.  Obama has every right to feel, along with Chisox skipper Robin Ventura, that winning their respective races won’t be easy.

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What We Know (or think we do): The Dodgers and Rangers, five games ahead in their respective divisions, are dominant with almost 20 percent of the season gone.  The Marlins’ surge, makes clear that the NL East will offer the most arresting regular-season donnybrook: four of five teams have the talent to go all the way.  The Mets, who have played exceptionally until now, don’t have the qualified reinforcements to compete over the long term.

Courtesy:  A prime Dodger asset, masterful broadcaster Vin Scully, calling ex-Met Angel Pagan by his seldom correctly pronounced first name: “Ahn-hel.”

Streakers  (five or more decisions):  Mets +5, D-backs -5.

The Two Joshes: “The Josh Hamilton who hit four home runs Tuesday night is a player the Texas Rangers would love to sign long term…(But, he is also) the recovering addict who twice suffered embarrassing public relapses that, coupled with a deep injury history, muddy any prognosis of long-term viability… Whereas questions about how they would age accompanied Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder’s forays into the open market last offseason, Hamilton’s case is more complicated, his past hovering over his present.  And it’s what makes the time between now and when he signs his next contract so fascinating.“ – Jeff Passan, Yahoo Sports

On MLB-TV the other night, Hamilton told SI’s Tom Verducci he would play next season “where God wants me to be.”  He said he felt a strong bond with the Rangers, but “we’ll take (thoughts about his next contract) a day at a time.”  When Verducci kept pursuing his plan for the future, Hamilton said “You’ve asked that same question three times.” 

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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, and only they can be addressed by the skipper.  Previous Nubs may be found by scrolling below.)

by Dick Starkey on May 11th, 2012 Leave a Comment »

Could Staying Cool Be Crucial in National Political Playoff

(Posted: 5/4/12; e-mail update 5/5)

On BBC America the other night, a press box observer in our home ballpark noted that Mitt Romney was “pivoting” on a number of issues – immigration, health care, etc.  We thought of Ian Kinsler on second, taking a throw from Michael Young at third, and firing the ball to first, in time to catch a Blue Jay runner.  Kinsler had to shift his feet – pivot behind the bag – to complete what was a double play. 

Romney and his Team GOP will likely play the pivogame throughout the long playoff series against Skipper Obama and his team.  He will bounce from one position to another and bank on fan inattentiveness.  Romney’s stance suggests a belief that his supporters and many swingers care most about Mitt’s offense – the effectiveness of his team’s tough anti-government scoring ability.

Team Obama has played a disappointingly station-to-station game over the past three-plus years; with few exceptions, it has followed the game plan of his predecessor as skipper.  If Obama continues to play the safe, go-along game, it will be because his team believes offense-minded Romney is more likely than he to become error-prone under pressure. 

California’s Skipper Jerry Brown, who went to bat three times in national division series – 1976, ’80 and ’92 – agrees with that game plan.  Brown  told CBS’s Bob Schieffer he thought that, rather than policy differences, the key to playoff victory this year would be a team leader keeping his composure.  Brown has little doubt which side can claim the advantage in that regard:

“I’ve never seen a– a cooler, more reasoned, intelligent candidate, leader than Obama. This man under pressure shows a lot of grace and a lot of thoughtfulness, and that’s going to serve him well because I’ve been in these races. And under pressure, you know, somebody can blow or make a mistake or say something stupid and that often is the race. So I’d say Obama has the– has the strength to make it all the way.”  

A feel-good pitch before the games begin in earnest.

 Re the Assassination of Osama bin Laden: “Morality is irrelevant when it comes to running a state. ..A leader should be willing to perform evil acts when it becomes necessary to maintain the security of the state.”  – Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (paraphrased in Writer’s Almanac)

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Don’t Cry (Too Hard) for the Yankees:  Emergency backup to lost closer Mariano Rivera is David Robertson – ERA 0.00 in 11 innings, 18 strikeouts, three walks.  John Smoltz said (presciently) on MLB-TV last week Robertson was ready to succeed Rivera.  Rafael Soriano can easily replace Robertson as set-up man.

Streakers (at least 5+-) Tampa Bay +5, Seattle – 6

Where Bryce Harper is Now:  “Harper is…between possibilities. Within weeks he could be establishing himself in the major leagues permanently, or he could be back in Class AAA, where the Nats’ “developmental plan” projected him for much of this year.  In fairly short order, he could be on the way to true stardom in one to three years with comparisons to household names that stuck in the big time at 19 and emerged full-blown at 20 or 21 as elite players.” – Tom Boswell, Washington Post

It’s Not Yet Over for Omar: “My body doesn’t feel the aches and pains, like ‘Oh, damn, I have to get up and go to the ballpark.’ I feel excited about (it).  Maybe not every day, because there are some days you’re going to be sore.  But I still feel I want to be there.  I want to compete.” – 45-year-old Omar Vizquel of the Blue Jays

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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, and only they can be addressed by the skipper.  Previous Nubs may be found by scrolling below.)

by Dick Starkey on May 4th, 2012 Leave a Comment »

How the Economic Slump Ended on the Ball Field

(Posted: 4/30/12; e-mail 5/1/12)

During the Tigers-Yankees game Friday night, former Yank Paul O’Neill, doing color on YES, talked about a tactic of his last manager Joe Torre: “Joe would have a hitter who was struggling,” he said, “bat in the number two hole.  Joe knew he’d get something to hit because the pitcher didn’t want to face the number three hitter with a man on base.” The strategy worked as a slump-snapper, O’Neill said.

Torre was on the bench last week, celebrating the man who helped him and his fellow ballplayers snap their long economic slump.  It began to come to an end in 1966, when the players hired Marvin Miller to run their union.  Miller, now 95, was honored at NYU (he declined to travel to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, where the event was originally to be held) to mark the 40^th anniversary of a successful 1972 players strike.

 By then Miller had helped double the players’ minimum wage – from $6.000 to $12,000 and the average salary from $19,000 to $34,000.  Now (in ’72), the players, overruling Miller and general counsel Richard Moss, voted to strike for increased pensions and salary arbitration, which they won.  Today, the minimum is just under a half-million, the average salary more than $3 million.

Miller, with much of his old passion, decried opposition to the minimum wage in many parts of the U.S.  He said, despite the owners’ warnings of economic doom, major league baseball prospered, almost doubling in size after the minimum was regularly raised. He said fears expressed by business interests that jobs would be lost if states raised the federal minimum wage from $7.65 an hour have never been corroborated statistically. Only nine of 50 states have enacted higher than the federal minimum: Washington $9.04, Oregon $8.80, Vermont $8.46, Connecticut, Illinois, Nevada $8.25; California, Massachusetts $8.00; Alaska $7.65.  Conspicuous by its absence: the vaunted Empire State, New York. 

P.S.  The Players Union almost blew the chance to hire Miller.  He turned the job down when they proposed Richard Nixon to be his general counsel. 

Relevant History Lesson: “May Day (as we know it) started here (in 1886 and) became an international day in support of American workers who were being subjected to brutal violence and  judicial punishment. Today, the struggle continues to celebrate May Day not as a ‘law day’, as defined by political leaders, but as a day whose meaning is decided by the people, a day rooted in organizing and working for a better future for the whole of society.” – Noam Chomsky, Zuccotti Park Press

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April Illusionists?  Dodgers, 16-6, Orioles, 14-8; Jose Altuve, Astros, .373 in 21 games; ex-Met Chris Capuano, Dodgers, 3-0, 2.76 ERA.

Travel Advisor:  The Rays’ Joe Maddon, on packing for a three-day road trip –  “I’m hoping everybody just brings their little carry-on luggage. One pair of jeans, three shirts, some socks, and those who wear underwear bring underwear.  And your toiletries. … As we move forward into this century,  I think minimalism is going to become a more popular concept.”  – quoted by ChiTrib’s Phil Rogers

Where Has the Bucs’ Offense Gone? – “We’re not on any milk cartons yet.” – Pirates Manager Clint Hurdle                                   

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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, and only they can be addressed by the skipper.  Previous Nubs may be found by scrolling below.)

by Dick Starkey on April 30th, 2012 Leave a Comment »

Pinch-Hitting for Politics: Religion and Baseball

(Posted: 4/27/12; e-mail update 4/28)

“Why don’t you write about baseball and religion instead of politics?”  Thus an e-mailed message from a reader this past week, influenced, perhaps, by the title of an NYU course “Baseball as a Road to God.”  Taught by the school’s President John Sexton – a onetime Dodger, now a Yankee fan – the course received front-page attention in the NY Times.  Sexton sees baseball as a source of the “specialness” of our lives, through its gift of causing us to “live more slowly,” and “watch more keenly.”

For many of us, baseball is indeed a form of worship, of revering – and watching – icons  like Detek Jeter or Dustin Pedroia at their altar, otherwise known as home plate. (We do it slowly, because we know from Chipper Jones that when you see the game unfolding slowly, you’re at your best.)  We respect the sport’s rituals, honor its traditions, study its texts, relive its miraculous moments: Mookie Wilson’s hit that eluded Billy Buckner in the ’86 World Series and Aaron Boone’s 11^th-inning home run in the seventh game of the 2003 ALCS epitomize the sport’s specialness. 

Most of all, baseball lets us be part of a community, a fellowship filled with benign fanatics. We remember that when NYC had a competitive NL team, the city was divided between fanatical Mets and Yankees fans; decades earlier, it was the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees.  With that three-team backdrop, Philip Roth contributed to the scripture of the game.  He wrote in his novel “Portnoy’s Complaint” about how one can get by in baseball, as in life.  His fictional teen-age character said he wasn’t a particularly good ballplayer, but “I knew how to conduct myself as a center fielder.”  A recollection of  Brooklyn Dodger legend Pete Reiser is part of the same positional text:  “The sweetest memory is of the kid, standing in the green grass of center field, with the winning runs on base, saying ‘hit it to me, hit it to me!”   (Quoted by baseball historian Donald Honig)

The game, the green grass, the sweetness of memory: blessings we can credit to the secular religion of baseball.   

Political Pinch-Hitting:  What are we to make of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s suggestion that Iran may be exporting state-sponsored terrorism into South America?  Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, record book in hand, offers this answer: 

“The U.S., not Iran…has a long and demonstrated history of ’expanding its circle of influence in’ — and exporting Terrorism to — Latin America, including American support for Nicaraguan contras, El Salvadoran death squads, Brazilian military dictatorial rule, a Chilean authoritarian coup aimed at democratically elected leaders, Colombian human rights abusers, and so much else (including support of a right-wing coup in Honduras). Of course, the notion that the U.S. has the exclusive right to dominate North and South America is almost as old as the country itself, but still: for the U.S. to accuse anyone else of exporting Terrorism to Latin America is really a remarkable feat of propaganda.”

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Ranger-Man: Supplemental stats that reinforce the impressiveness of Yu Darvish’s shutout performance against the Yanks Tuesday night: 82 of 119 pitches thrown for strikes; speed differential – mid-‘90s to 69 mph.  Kenny Singleton, doing color for the Yanks on YES, was moved to say about the Rangers’ new ace “Yu the Man!”

Burdened: “(Albert)  Pujols sa(ys) he has a permanent chip on his shoulder, but he called the $240 million contract  ’an extra chip.’  So far, (after 19  homerless games) in terms of power, he has worn that extra chip like an anchor.” – Jeff Miller, Orange County Register

The Integrity Factor: “Michael Weiner, the stubbornly logical executive director of the Players Association, said last week that the steroid guys should be in the Hall, despite taking advantage of the rules.  I don’t disagree but I can’t vote for them as long as the ballot I’m given by the Hall says that I am to consider the character, sportsmanship and integrity of players.  Steroids were an assault on the integrity of the game, and players knew they were playing fast and loose when they used them.” – Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune

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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, and only they can be addressed by the skipper.  Previous Nubs may be found by scrolling below.)

by Dick Starkey on April 27th, 2012 Leave a Comment »

Economic Reality: Baseball a ‘Privileged’ Sport

(Posted: 4/23/12; e-mail update 4/24)

Baseball as a reflection of the real world:  Six decades ago, Joe D, Willie and The Thumper were paying an 87-percent tax rate on the $100,000 or more they were making as baseball’s high earners.  Today, the sport’s scores of multi-millionaires are paying 35 percent on their earnings, almost two-thirds less than DiMaggio, Mays and Ted Williams.

David Levine, a federal tax policy expert and big-league investor, went over the record book with the Wash Post’s Ezra Klein: “John F. Kennedy brought the top tax rate down to 70 percent. Ronald Reagan brought it to 50 percent, and then to 28 percent. I was making seven figures,  They lowered my marginal tax rate to 28 percent. And the median American, he was paying a 15 percent marginal tax plus his payroll taxes plus the employer’s share of his payroll taxes, which comes out of his income. So he was paying, all in all, about 27.9 percent. And I was paying 28 percent.”   Levine noted that George Bush the First and Bill Clinton raised the rate to 39.6 percent before Bush the Second cut it back to the current 35 percent level.  Klein described him as “offended” by the statistical inequities throughout the rundown.  

The trickle-down impact of Team USA’s anti-tax offense – giving it the lowest rate in the league of major industrial nations – has led, we know, to cuts in a broad range of popular programs.  Among pastimes affected: baseball.  People who monitor the effects on young ballplayers from low-income, largely African-American families confirm the problem.  “One reason blacks are not coming into baseball in large numbers anymore,” a knowledgable Nubbite  e-mailed, “is that few college baseball programs offer full scholarships to athletes in that sport.  Since even half-cost of a college education is prohibitively expensive, baseball on campus has become a privileged sport.” The writer  noted a similar problem at the high school level: many gifted players can’t afford to play in competitive “travel” leagues because of the need to take summer jobs.

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Break Up the Nats?  The Washington Nationals have demonstrated they are more than competitive this season.  SI’s Tom Verducci sums up why:

 “The Nationals don’t have their leading power bat from last year (Mike Morse) nor their power-hitting phenom (Bryce Harper) and it matters not one bit because Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, Gio Gonzalez, Edwin Jackson and Ross Detwiler — all between 23 and 28 years old — have come together at the right time, a time when there simply isn’t enough offense around the league to match up against their pure stuff. The Nationals look like a legitimate contender in the NL East.”

Thoughts While Watching Saturday Carnage at Fenway:  “Freddy Garcia may not be around with the Yanks much longer.”  “How about that?  Felix Doubront is a solid Sox starter.”  “Fans who have had no sympathy for Bobby Valentine must feel sorry for him now.”

Injurious Situations:  The Sox, playing without closer Andrew Bailey, MVP runner-up  Jacoby Ellsbury, and potential sparkplug Carl Crawford (not to mention Daisuke Matsuzaka), have reason to be struggling.  But their plight is no worse than that of the tailspinning D-backs, who have lost their outfield stars Justin Upton and Chris Young, as well as number 2 starter Daniel Hudson.  Honorable mention: the Phillies, waiting for Ryan Howard and Chase Utley to heal, and now also without the services of Cliff Lee.  

A Central Oddity:  As of this last week of April, five of six NL Central teams are below .500.  The exception: the defending World Champion Cardinals, 11-5.

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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, and only they can be addressed by the skipper.  Previous Nubs may be found by scrolling below.)

by Dick Starkey on April 23rd, 2012 Leave a Comment »

Obama and the Legacies of Jackie Robinson

Posted: 4/20/12; e-mail update 4/21)

Seldom Acknowledged: What we owe Jackie Robinson 65 years after he broke in with the Brooklyn Dodgers – a recognition that African-Americans with mainstream advantages could match whites in occupational potential. It went beyond his athletic achievement.  When Jackie spoke, white audiences heard someone speaking as they did, a far cry from the way blacks were presented in condescending Hollywood movies.

Jackie, a member of Team GOP after his playing days, prepared the field for the baseball-fan national skipper elected in 2008.  Jackie’s sideline involvement helped generate the interest of blacks in politics.  Although a slow process, it culminated in a 95 percent black vote for the skipper in 2008.    

That upbeat story in reverse is playing out on the ballfield.  American blacks comprise only eight percent of major league players, less than a third of the percentage recorded  four decades ago.  A similar decline is notable among African-American fans, who these days make up only nine percent of MLB attendance.  Behind those stats:  the Michael Jordan factor, along with lack of baseball space and school teams in urban black areas.  Young athletic blacks wanted to emulate Michael, sport’s mega-idol, who achieved stardom in pro basketball (before dabbling in double-A baseball).

The scouting of foreign-born players, most from Latin America, has impinged on black recruitment.  MLB teams beat the bushes in places where good non-sports jobs are few and baseball played all-year-round.  Nearly 30 percent of major leaguers come from abroad.   And, according to USA Today’s Bob Nightingale, there were 30 more Dominicans on MLB rosters than the total of all American blacks. Furthermore, 25 percent of the blacks are on three of the 30 teams, the Yankees, Angels and Dodgers.

Baseball is still more than 60 percent white, but that percentage shrinks with the steady increase of Latinos, mainly, but of Asian players as well.  A demographic game-change is also occurring on the political field.  Only 43 percent of whites voted for the skipper in 2008, compared to two-thirds of Latino voters and 95 percent of African-Americans.  The fear among Team Obama members is that both groups will have less incentive to vote for the skipper a second time around (considering that the true jobless rate among blacks  approaches 25 percent); the percentages may remain the same, but the number who vote in each group much – and perhaps decisively – reduced.

A corresponding fear is that the few whites, reluctant to admit to themselves their anti-black bias who voted for the skipper in ’08, won’t do it again; they will find in the soft economy an excuse to vote against the black president.

E-Mailbag:  Author Murray Polner, of Great Neck, remembers the late Al Campanis, who scouted Jackie Robinson for Branch Rickey.  Campanis was forced out of baseball in disgrace because of what he said in a national TV interview:  that many people felt blacks didn’t have the “necessities” to fill top baseball jobs.  It was a verbal slip for which he paid a painful price.  Polner writes about it, at http://hnn.us/articles/145723.html.

Patricia Sitkin wrote from Linden, CA to defend Ozzie Guillen’s favorable remarks about Fidel Castro: “I wish Havana had two newspapers and no political prisoners, but I admire the excellent education system there and the remarkable elimination of grinding poverty; Cuban kids are the best nurtured I have seen in Latin America…Must I pay a fine or lose a job for saying so?” Ozzie said Tuesday night that he spoke “from the bottom of (his) heart” about Fidel and was just as sincere when he said he regretted saying what he did.

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Good Ones Doing Well:  Early in the season, good things are happening to players widely considered good guys. Case in point: Jamie Moyer, now the oldest pitcher – at 49.4 years – to win a major league game.  Then there’s soon-to-be-38 Derek Jeter, batting 373, with four home runs.  And how about Carlos Beltran, at .333, with five homers?  Or David Wright, hitting .500 so far?   Best of all, maybe, is the comeback from concussion of Justin Morneau, who this week hit three HRs at Yankee Stadium, giving him four for the season. 

Bad Decision on Bartolo?  The Yankees may wish they had held on to Bartolo Colon.  The 38-year-old veteran has won three of our starts for Oakland, walking only two in 27-and-a-third innings.  Wednesday night, on his way to blanking the Angels, Colon threw a probable record of 38-straight strikes.  Stats on that category only go back to ’88; Tim Wakefield’s 30-straight strikes, thrown with the Sox, was the previous (incomplete) record.

Promising Time:  The Giants say they’ve assured Tim Lincecum and Buster Posey – through their agents – that they will soon be offered long-term big bucks commensurate to the deals made with Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner.  Whether the offers will be attractive enough is a big question, especially with regard to Lincecum, who could be a free agent after the 2014 season.

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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, and only they can be addressed by the skipper.  Previous Nubs may be found by scrolling below.)

by Dick Starkey on April 20th, 2012 Leave a Comment »

The Painkilling Need in Politics and Baseball

(Posted: 4/17/12; e-mail 4/18)

Some baseball fans will recognize this play unfolding in their heads at brooding overnight moments: the urge to figure out a lineup of a favorite team, one that will both maximize the offense and free the mind from pre-dawn fretfulness.  It is a fan-friendly antidote, a painkiller in use the way legal-but-potentially harmful drugs are used by ballplayers. 

A seven-reporter NY Times team targeted an anti-inflammatory drug called Toradol in a front-page piece published Saturday.  Despite worries of medical experts about the drug’s long-term effects, Toradol has become the “go-to-elixir” of pro ballplayers.  Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey, who took Toradol injections last season to help heal an injured foot, was the only one of several players willing to speak about the drug.  “It’s (not) a panacea,” he said, “but it helps you get where you have to go.”

Lefty political fans – and some switch-hitters, too – know where Team USA has to go to get the country back into a winning economic game: a more realistic tax policy.  They also so know chances of that happening are aggravatingly slim.  Economics ace Ezra Klein explains, via Bloomberg.com, why that’s so:

 “Tiresome debates obscure the near-consensus in Washington on taxes: Republicans don’t want to raise taxes on anyone, and Democrats don’t want to raise taxes on almost anyone. The argument between the two parties rages over that sliver of territory between “anyone” and “almost anyone.”… There are currently at least two irresponsible tax pledges governing Washington. The first is Grover Norquist’s now- infamous pledge that keeps Republicans from ever raising taxes on anyone, for any reason, at any time. But Democrats have their own pledge: President Barack Obama’s promise never to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. That’s 98 percent of the country. “

An example of why the political game requires painkiller.  The basic ailment: party politics, which seeks, first, to win a team edge, only secondarily to serve injured fans in a helpful way.

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 What We Know…two weeks into the season:  The absence of injured legitimate closers means the Red Sox and Giants will have to find something extra to vindicate their top-tier status as the season progresses.  Andrew Bailey should be back with the Sox sometime this summer, but SF’s Brian Wilson is done until next year.  The teams are mirror images of each other: Boston has plenty of hitting (even without Jacoby Ellsbury for awhile) but their starting pitching is semi-shaky; the Giants, we know, have strong pitching but their offense is anemic.  The three most solid teams so far: Rangers, Tigers and Yankees.  Honorable mention: the surprising (9-1) Dodgers.

Coastal Conflict:  The talk in California: the Dodgers, with the infusion of new-owner money, will soon become “Yankees West”.  LA Times-man Bill Shaikin says there are conflicting signs about whether that will happen: “The creative tension between (Magic) Johnson and incoming Dodgers president Stan Kasten should be fascinating to watch. Johnson said he would have courted  Albert Pujols if his group could have bought the Dodgers sooner; Kasten is a player development guy who has reminded friends he was no longer president of the Washington Nationals when that team handed $126 million to Jayson Werth.”

Advice to Hitters…from someone who ought to know:  “You can’t take two close pitches in a row (and expect to get back-to-back calls).  Umpires are not going to let you get away with that.”  - John Smoltz, on TBS coverage of Rays – Red Sox

No Advice Needed:  Roberto Ortiz’s line over the weekend as Red Sox bats exploded against the Rays: 9-for-13, .692; eight RBIs, one HR.

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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey.  Comments to dickstar@aol.com are welcome, and only they can be addressed by the skipper.  Previous Nubs may be found by scrolling below.)

by Dick Starkey on April 16th, 2012 Leave a Comment »

Ozzie and the Provocative Overlap of Politics and Baseball

(Posted: 4/13/12; e-mail update 4/14)

We love Ozzie Guillen because he has a habit of straying – with baseball – on to the political field.  By telling Time Magazine he “respects” Fidel Castro, Ozzie outraged Cuban-Americans, whose families were part of the island’s one percent when he and his revolution took over in 1959.  Many of the privileged fled to Miami, where the Guillen-led Marlins have just started playing in a brand new public-subsidized ballpark.

The uproar – getting Ozzie a five-game suspension –  gives us a chance to look at the record book of Team USA’s contest with Cuba under Skipper Castro.  Fidel’s overthrow of Fulgencio Batista was cautiously cheered by our team until it became clear the new jefe did not want to play under yanqui rules.  Castro’s lefty reforms triggered the exodus, and the dream of the exiled families that one day they would return to their homeland.

Team USA has supported that dream, both in a war-like way, and through an economic embargo designed to set up a double play: imposing hardship and stirring up unrest on the island.  Fidel’s turn to Team USSR for material and military aid fueled our brush-back game for 30 years, until the fall of Communism in 1989.  Although Moscow’s influence is gone and Cuba no longer an offensive threat, our bench-jockeying persists.  Why?  The political clout of the people who want Ozzie sent to the showers in disgrace.

We know Guillen had to mend his Florida fences because of that clout and the risk fans would stay away from Marlins games.  But Ozzie, his apologies notwithstanding, is not alone in admiring Fidel. The onetime sandlot pitcher long ago entered the Cooperstown of world game-changers.  He earned that place for his role as liberator, but also for giving his people basic needs: free health care and education, affordable housing, all the baseball they could possibly want. And although he denied them political freedom, Fidel gave them, above all, independence from the mega- power team in the big ballpark across the strait.

Personal Note:  Two members of the Nub team visited Cuba a total of four times while Fidel was still in charge.  What we saw was a population 99/9 percent poor by our standards.  Nobody’s happy with the lack of either plentiful food or consumer goods.  And many young people were openly impatient for change that would brighten their futures.  But an older taxi driver seemed to speak for the mainstream 99.9.  “Before Fidel,” he said, “most of us were peasants without anything.  Now it is much better.” 

Thank you, Ozzie, from bringing the subject out on to the field.   

P.S.  The Nation’s Dave Zirin notes “the rather glaring irony that the politicians, sports commentators and Cuban exiles want to show their love of freedom by taking Guillen’s job for the crime of exercising free speech.”  Particularly apoplectic on that score was Fox’s Ken Rosenthal, who called for Ozzie to be suspended for a month because of his “unthinkable…beyond the pale” remarks.

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Sorry, Brandon Phillips:  “There’s a debate…about whether (Robinson) Cano, (Dustin) Pedroia, or (Ian) Kinsler is the best second baseman in the game right now, but Cano is the only one with the ability to test the market prior to 2015.  Kinsler’s extension — with the option included it could be worth up to $80 million over six years — has set the bar.  Cano’s next contract is all but guaranteed to clear it.  A rough starting point would be something around $100 million over seven years.  Such a deal would take Cano through his age-37 season (Kinsler’s option is for his age-36 season) and saddle the Yankees with yet another burdensome contract in its later years.  Still, given the lack of availability of… alternatives and the Yankees’ ever-present win-now mandate, New York won’t have a choice.”  - Cliff Corcoran, SI

No Thanks:  Terry Francona, on why he won’t take part in the Fenway Park centennial celebration next Friday: “Somebody went out of their way to make me look pretty bad.  It’s a shame.  I’m sure they’ll have a great event and I was part of a lot of that stuff there, but I just can’t go back there and start hugging people and stuff without feeling a little bit hypocritical…They’re probably better off going forth and leaving me out of it.’’

The above quoted by The Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy, who reminds us it was a story citing unnamed club sources that undermined Francona.  The story suggested that Terry’s use of pain medication could have contributed to the 2011 collapse.

Guillen Guess-Game:  “By suspending Guillen for five days, and publicly supporting him…the Marlins bought themselves time to lobby for forgiveness. The key is what happens in (owner Jeffrey) Loria’s meetings with Cuban-American leaders as well as on the streets outside Marlins Park…before next Tuesday’s game against the Cubs, which is set to be Guillen’s return.” – Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune

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(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey. Requests for e-mail updates and comments to dickstar@aol.com are welcome.  Only e-mailed comments can be fielded by the skipper.  Previous Nubs may be found by scrolling below.)

by Dick Starkey on April 13th, 2012 Leave a Comment »