the_nub_dec2009.html
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-19th 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
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome, as are subscription requests.
Previous Nubs can be found by scrolling below.)
(`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.
-
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: 12/12/09)
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.
-
-
-
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
-
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: 12/8/09)
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
-
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: 12/5/09)
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.
-
- -
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 10th. 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.
- 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: 12/1/09)
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.
- -
-
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.
- 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.)
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