the_nub.html
Posted 1/29/08)
Former Yankee Chuck Knoblauch is
causing a flap in Washington
the way he
did on the ballfield a decade ago. Most
of us remember when, in 1999, the Gold Glove second baseman suddenly
couldn’t
make the throw to first, baffling fans and forcing Joe Torre to move
him to the
outfield.
Now Knoblauch, because of a subpoena to
testify in the House
illegal drugs investigation, has called attention to Congressional
inaction on
far more important matters. Columnist
Glenn Greenwald noted on Salon that, while Knoblauch was being
pressured
to
appear Feb.13, top White House staffers Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers
have been
allowed to ignore subpoenas to testify in the U.S. attorneys scandal. And that’s only part of the disgraceful
story, says Greenwald:
“Consider
the entire panoply of Bush
abuses over the last seven years -- from illegal domestic spying to
torture and
rendition and black CIA sites and the FBI's illegal use of National
Security
Letters -- and there have been virtually no investigation of anything.
And the
few times Congress has purported to do so, they have made matters
worse, not
better, by making clear that they will do nothing if their subpoenas
are
ignored, thereby affirmatively creating the incentive for any rational
executive official with something to hide to ignore them.”
The subpoenas to Bolten and Miers
were issued last July. When they
failed to respond, the Democrats
responded vigorously: Our Charlie Schumer said the administration is
"hastening
a constitutional crisis," and California
Rep. Henry Waxman said the
position
"makes a mockery of the ideal that no one is above the law."
No sign of
either Bolten or Miers relenting, or Congress pressing them to
testify. The subpoena to
Knoblauch
was withdrawn yesterday when he agreed to cooperate with the House
drugs investigation and appear at the hearing
two weeks
from tomorrow.
Perfect Pitch pollster Bob Sullivan on
what to look for as
crunch time approaches in the Clinton-Obama race: “Females,
rather than under-30’s
or seniors, are the demographic to watch.
Hillary has women; her problem is she’s beginning to lose them.”
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How bad a winter has it been for the Mets? Newsday
columnist Wallace Matthews laid it out
for the team’s fans the other day:
“Last
year, about 3.8 million of you paid your way into Shea,
expecting to cash in on the guarantee that was plastered right on top
of the
dugouts: "Your season has come." If anything close to that number
returns this year, then the Mets' fan base is either incredibly
understanding
or understandably numb…The Mets will be back in business with roughly
the same
cast of characters, the same set of built-in excuses, the same big talk
and the
same small expectations.”
It
says here Matthews is being too generous: the cast of
Mets characters is inferior to what it was last year owing to the
subtractions
of Tom Glavine, Paul LoDuca and Lastings Millidge.
And you can be sure the “same big talk” will
generate delusionary great expectations,
as so often happens at spring training time.
Based on 2007 payroll figures, the
Dodgers, Mets, Seattle
Mariners, Giants and White Sox were the teams spending more than $100
million
that failed to reach the playoffs. Of
the total 10 teams to spend over $100 million (including the Yanks who
spent a
record $218.3 millon), five – the NYY’s, the Red Sox, Cubs, Angels and
Phils got
a final-eight return on their investments.
Cleveland, Colorado
and Arizona
were three low-budget teams (in the $50-60 million range) to make the
playoffs.
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Other ballgames dept:
Why pro football coverage prompts sports-page rage in
non-fanatic fans -
15 pages of Super Bowl hype in Sunday’s Daily News and 11 yesterday. All that puffery for a single game a week
away! And nowhere, in any NYC paper, a
substantive
story on what’s happened to the New Jersey Nets (the Knicks and Isaiah
have been done to death). Is
it
really the end of the Jason Kidd era? Is
the absence of the injured Nenad Kristic the
key reason for the team’s tailspin? Or
are the Nets (like the Mets) just no longer a playoff-caliber team?
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome. Previous Nubs can be found
by scrolling below.)
(Posted: 1/25/08)
A
baseball fan’s name association while watching Barack
Obama battle Hillary Clinton’s offensive barrage the other night: Ryan
Braun. The rookie Milwaukee third baseman hit 34
homers, batted
.324 and drove in 97 runs in two-thirds of a season last year. But averaging an error every four games,
Braun gave back with his glove a big chunk of the runs he produced with
his
bat.
Obama, we know, scores big as an
oratorical hitter, but when
playing defense, he gives back much of the advantage he’s gained. The New York Observer’s Steve Kornacki
describes the differing Baracks as “Big Speech Obama” and “Debate
Obama.” Kornacki
identified a telling moment in Monday’s debate when Barack couldn’t
handle one
of Hillary’s hot potatoes:
“(Clinton) rapidly
reeled off… a seemingly thorough accounting of Obama’s history on Iraq,
conceding
up front that ’we are not in any way saying that you didn’t oppose the
war. You
did. You gave a great speech in 2002
saying you opposed the war in Iraq.’
But then, she said, that speech was
removed from Obama’s web site in 2003, and that in 2004 he was
proclaiming ‘that
he agreed with President Bush in his prosecution of the war’ and that
over and
over as a senator he’s voted to fund the war.
“You
can imagine Big Speech Obama having a
field day in this situation. Was Hillary
Clinton, the same woman who has refused to apologize for helping to
send the
nation into a disastrous war, actually accusing someone else of not
being
straight about his voting record? But he
squandered opening after opening to defuse her attacks and to turn the
tables
on her…”
Clearly, if Obama is to
stay competitive with Hillary to
the end, he has to tighten his “Debate” defense and make sure it works
in
one-on-one with reporters, as well.
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Incidentally, the Brewers have had enough of Braun at the
hot corner. They are shifting him to the
outfield this season. His replacement
will be Bill Hall, who played in Milwaukee’s 2007
outfield.
Tom Verducci re-introduces
the (Curt) Schilling Theory in
his Sports Illustrated column this week:
“Schilling
last March
correctly predicted, in theory, the winner of the American League East
when he
said, ’The rotation that makes the most starts wins the division. It's that simple.’ Boston's
projected five-man rotation made 140 starts, tops in the division; the
Red Sox
won the division. The Yankees' season-opening rotation made 105 starts.
“In 2006 it was New York that won the
battle over Boston
for most starts by its top five starters, 125-107 -- and also won the
division”.
It’s
a long way between now and next October, but, on paper, a
possible/likely
rotation of Josh Beckett, Schilling, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Wakefield
and Jon
Lester figures to make more starts than one that will possibly/probably
consist
of Chien-Ming Wang, Andy Pettitte, Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain and
Ian
Kennedy.
Hughes,
Chamberlain and Kennedy evoke memories of another highly touted trio –
the
Mets’ Jason Isringhausen, Bill Pulsipher and Paul Wilson.
In 1996, their first full season in the majors,
the three were expected to pitch the Mets at least into playoff
contention. Instead, Isringhausen and
Wilson together went 11-26; Pulsipher injured his elbow and never made
it out
of spring training. Oh, yes,
Isringhausen and Wilson both suffered shoulder injuries before the
season was
over. The obvious caveat: Never expect
too much of newcomers, “can’t-miss” labels notwithstanding.
Another
obvious point: the Schilling Theory offers little comfort to Mets fans,
who
must contemplate a rotation that includes the fragile duo of Pedro
Martinez and
Orlando Hernandez, along with John Maine, Oliver Perez and Mike Pelfrey.
Three
weeks from today - Feb.15 - the Mets start spring training. The Yanks will have started 24 hours earlier,
on Valentine’s Day.
- o -
(The Nub is a team effort skippered by
Dick
Starkey. Comments to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome. Previous Nubs can be found by
scrolling
below.)
(Posted 1/22/08)
George W. Bush may have perfected the
art of looking the
other way during his five years as a baseball team owner.
It was on his watch as managing general
partner of the Texas Rangers that
disgruntled players blindsided his and all major league franchises by
walking
off the field. Their strike, you may
remember, brought the 1994 season to a premature end.
Now, on an international field in which
life-or-death issues
are in play, Bush is trying to manage a peace agreement while
resolutely
ignoring a key group of players who must be involved if peace is to be
reached. The adversaries, Israel and Palestine,
have been engaged in a deadly game for decades.
But Bush has only been dealing with one of two Palestinian
teams, Fatah,
while supporting Israel
in putting the squeeze on the other, defiant-but-democratically-elected
Hamas.
Last month, Israel
rejected a Hamas truce offer aimed at halting a prolonged mutual
battering. The NY Times reported the
deterioration since
then in these terms: “Israelhas declared Gaza,
which is run by Hamas, a ‘hostile entity’ and has tried to persuade its
leaders
to stop rocket fire by reducing supplies of gasoline, diesel fuel and
electricity…” The UN says the cutoff of Gaza’s
“lifeline” has caused a “humanitarian crisis”, affecting the area’s 1.4
million
people.
It is in disregard of this field of
misery that Bush seeks
to establish peace. Former Times
correspondent Chris Hedges says that, without involving Hamas, the
chances are
nil:
“As Bush basks in the
glow of his
own fantasy, the suffering in Gaza…continues
to fuel widespread anger and rage… There is open revolt. Opinion
polls show that two-thirds of
Palestinians, and three-fourths of Israelis, do not believe Bush can
affect
events in the Palestinian territories.” - TruthDig.com
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Still more on baseball’s only non-drugs-related, running hot
stove story: Whither Johan Santana? Here
is a Boston
perspective on where the Yanks fit into the Santana puzzle, from the
Globe’s
Nick Cafardo:
“The
Yankees want to go with their young
pitchers – at least Brian Cashman does - but some experts don't see how
having
Joba Chamberlain, Philip Hughes, and Ian Kennedy in the rotation could
work,
considering that most young pitchers can't go more than 160-170
innings. The
Yankees are willing to give up the exciting Melky Cabrera, Hughes, and
another
prospect, but not Kennedy. In the end,
though, they may succumb to the pressure of needing to do something. “
The Red Sox, we know, are
feeling no pressure beyond a strong desire to keep Santana away from
the
Yankees. Boston has offered the Twins either
Jon
Lester or Jacoby Ellsbury plus Coco Crisp and prospects.
Boston
is rooting hard for the Mets, who are trying to win Santana with
mirrors - that
is, a batch of minor leaguers.
So, it’s
the manic football
Giants versus the machine-like Pats in the Super Bowl.
Remember the axiom “Never bet against General
Motors, Notre Dame or the New York Yankees”?
In the revised version, it says here only one name fits,
replacing the
previous three: the New England Patriots.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome. Previous Nubs can be found
by scrolling below.)
(Posted 1/18/08)
Today would have been the 70th
birthday of the
man most responsible for the political pressure to reform that baseball
is now feeling. In Curt Flood’s day,
working conditions
rather than illegal drugs were the issue.
A principled black athlete in the Muhammad Ali tradition, Flood
challenged baseball’s right to treat him and other players like private
property. The heroism he displayed four
decades ago during his long legal fight to overturn the reserve clause
– under
which teams controlled the professional careers of their players - was
never
appreciated by fellow players or the public.
To press his case, with union help, all
the way to U.S.
Supreme Court, Flood had to give up his livelihood.
A man from a modest Oakland,
CA
background, he could have earned almost $100,000 with the Phillies in
1970. His decision to sit out that season
and the
next left him nearly destitute before the case reached the High Court
in
1972. When the justices upheld baseball’s
monopoly – but set the stage for historic reform - Flood was reduced to
a life
on 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.
And when Flood died of cancer – 11
years ago this 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 last year.
Snyder gave up his legal career to tell Curt’s story in a moving
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.”
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To some, Dennis Kucinich deserves plaudits for remaining in
the Democratic presidential race despite infinitesimal poll ratings and
a
recent snub from MSNBC and a Nevada
court. Kucinich clearly wants to keep a
progressive agenda in the discussion that also involves front-runners
Hillary
Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards. What’s puzzling is his
antipathy
toward the candidate who most sounds like him, the populist Edwards. Kucinich endorsed Obama rather than
Edwards
in Iowa. And Wednesday, he spent much of his time on Pacifica’s “Democracy Now” with Amy Goodman,
attacking
Edwards for his connection with a New York hedge fund.
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Which team among the Yanks, Red Sox and Mets has the edge in
getting Johan Santana from the Twins? It
says here the Yanks’ offer headed by Phil Hughes and Melky Cabrera
trumps Boston’s
would-be deal
involving Jon Lester and Coco Crisp. If Minnesota is truly eager to trade Santana before
the
season starts, it need look no further than the Bronx. Funny, how the deal we suspect the Mets
floated – of five middlin’ prospects for Santana - has fallen off the
speculation charts.
For frostbelt pro football fanatics, it
doesn’t get any
better than this Sunday: two conference championship games, both in the
elements. The feature attraction, of
course, will be on the Wisconsin tundra Sunday night – the Giants at Green Bay. The winner – it says here – will play New
England amid the hype and hot weather of Phoenix.
- o -
(The Nub is a team effort skippered by Dick Starkey. Comments are
welcome at dickstar@aol.com. Previous Nubs can be viewed by
scrolling below.)
(Posted 1/15/08)
Most baseball fans don’t vote – surveys
show them to be
patriotic but anti-political. Pollsters
generally categorize the minority who do as “beer track” voters; they
have a
different stance from the less numerous “wine track” team.
All this, says National Journal’s Ron
Brownstein, is good
news for Hillary Clinton and reason for Barack Obama to pull up his
socks. Brownstein explains the terrain
this way:
“Most of the contested
Democratic
presidential races since 1968 have come down to one contender each from
the
"wine" and "beer" tracks. The beer track candidate has
typically attracted economically strained voters without college
degrees who
tend to be somewhat more conservative on social and foreign-policy
issues; the
wine track contender has assembled a coalition centered on better-off,
college-educated voters with fewer material concerns and more-liberal
social
and foreign-policy views….
In the Granite State,
Clinton…beat
(Obama) by double digits among women and Democrats, and by 8 percentage
points
among voters without college degrees. She defeated him soundly among
seniors in
both states.
If
Clinton can
maintain that coalition, it should favor her in many states between the
coasts
where college graduates constitute only a minority of the Democratic
electorate,
such as Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, which vote on
February 5.”
The numbers may not back up Barack’s
hopes, but Salon
columnist Garrison Keillor is doing what he can to help.
Describing the male reaction to a woman
leaving a men’s room stall at a crowded Manhattan
movie theatre, Keillor made this oblique pitch for Obama:
“I came
down the hallway crowded with about 57 openly
disgruntled New York women, seething, muttering, glaring at the men
sweeping
past them, and I strolled into our clubroom as the interloper loped
past me on
her way out, and the coolness of the male patrons was interesting…men
smiled,
went about their business, zipped up, washed their hands, and went off
to
dinner as if nothing had happened.
“The
country wants change. Here's how it happens. People talk it
to death for decades and then somebody crosses the line and suddenly
the line
doesn't exist anymore. Men would not
accept women in management and then, lo and behold -- Women in
Management!
Accepted. (Thump.) The country is not going to elect a black man
president
until one day it does and we all wake up the next morning and go to
work and
that's that.”
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If you were Omar Minaya, would you
trade Carlos Gomez, Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey. Delos
Guerra and Fernando Martinez. for Johan Santana? A
no-brainer, right? The Mets now figure to
finish no better than
third in the Eastern Division. Santana could turn them into a contender
again. Well, according to press reports,
that is supposed to be the deal Minnesota
is willing to make. The alleged sticking
point: The Mets don’t want to part with Martinez.
It says
here this is a far-fetched
flyer of a story launched by the Mets in hopes of showing there is
still life
in the currently moribund franchise. If nothing else, the spinning
fungo
enables the team to trot out names that say the team’s farm system has
produced
something. Consider these
2007 stats: Gomez batted .232
with the Mets; Humber and Mulvey went 11-9 with Triple-A New Orleans
and
Double-A Binghamton, respectively; Guerra was 2-6 with Class A
St.Lucie, and the
allegedly untouchable Martinez hit 271
at Binghamton. The numbers suggest there’s not a true blue
chipper in the bunch. If you pull off
that deal, Omar, all - parting ways with LoDuca and Millidge for nobody
of
consequence - is forgiven.
-
o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome. Previous Nubs can be found
by scrolling below.)
(Posted
1/11/08)
In our national pastime, we know - from
the film “A League
of Our Own” - that “baseball
players don’t cry.” In the
political field, that
dictum doesn’t apply. Dating back to Ed
Muskie and beyond, presidential players have shown eye-misting emotion.
The media love traces of tears; the play
given
the Maine Dem’s sniffles over press references to Mrs. Muskie all but
ended his
title quest in the 1972 season. On the
other hand, the play given Hillary Clinton’s lament in the latest
playoff round
certainly shifted the 2008 presidential-race momentum to her advantage.
“She laughs, she cries;
she’s
almost human.” Behind
that tongue-in-cheek comment by an
Upper West Side Edwards supporter is a widespread perception of Hillary
that ought
to be changed - it says here - if she is to keep winning.
From early in her 2000 Senate campaign – see “Hillary Better
Start Talking, Fast” (Newsday, 9/14/99, Scouting
Reports, perfectpitcher.org) - she has nixed letting people
see her
human side. She wanted – so the
speculation
went – to show that she could play in the hard-swinging men’s league. She failed to appreciate that many people –
men as well as women – consider a female just as good a player at any
position as
a male. Moreover, Hillary never seemed
to understand the importance of being Derek Jeter-esque - likeable as
well as
admired. Whether she goes all the way may
depend on her ability to continue letting us see behind her face mask.
“Ask where hope can
lead, but ask
not for specifics.” That
variation on a cartoon caption in Wednesday’s Daily News sums up the
skepticism
about Barack Obama’s chances of making it over the long haul. That he talks a good game - at least, an
inspiring one - is a given, as is his Jeter-like-ness (see Nub of
4/5/07). But until Barack adds
bread-and-butter
pitches to his rhetorical repertoire, he risks falling out of the race. Furthermore, he ought not mistake the cheers
of young people for scoring column numbers.
College students raise the volume, but they don’t vote, except
to a
less-than-anticipated degree (out-of-state residency being partly
responsible).
John Edwards apparently has hope of his own - that
Hillary
and Barack cut each other down, leaving a hole on the left side of the
field through
which he can hit cleanly at corporate targets.
Edwards’ luckiest break so far is that his former running mate
endorsed
somebody else.
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Piling-on-the-Mets dept:
The other day, the NYM’s signed four pitchers and five position
players
to minor league contracts, inviting all nine to the major league camp. The signings dramatize the shallowness of
organizational depth. Consider these
stats: the best record last year among the newly signed pitchers was
3-4,
registered by Joselo Diaz for the Yokohama Bay Stars of the Japanese
League. Among the hitters, the best
average was the .276, turned in by veteran Fernando Tatis at Triple-A
New
Orleans. Happy Martin Luther King Day,
Willie Randolph.
Less meaningful ball-playing notes: The
4:30p Sunday game
between the football Giants and Dallas
certainly has local appeal. But Saturday
offers two frostbelt features – Seattle
at Green Bay in late afternoon; Jacksonville
at New England in the evening. The indoor San Diego-Indianapolis game early
Sunday afternoon is, from our bring-on-the-elements perspective, not
worth
mentioning.
There’s a light ahead: pitchers and
catchers just a little
over a month away.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome. Previous Nubs can be found
by scrolling below.)
(Politics and
baseball – 1/8/08)
“It’s a
50-inning game.”
“A home run in the first doesn’t
win a nine-inning game.”
“It’s like spring training in
baseball – nobody pays attention to the results.”
The number of baseball references -
mostly from losers in the
presidential playoffs’ Iowa
round – underscored the obvious: the media’s practice of treating
political
primaries like a sporting event. The
Nation’s Eric Alterman. writing about the press’s preoccupation with
who’s
ahead rather than what he or she proposes to do, says the media cares
about
substance but only in a scorekeeping sort of way:
“The only
reason that issues matter…(i)s to what degree they
accord… political advantage.”
Barack
Obama’s scoring edge could be as evanescent as the
edge a ballteam gets from a single previous victory.
If a surprise upset of Team O occurs in
today’s NH game, it could change everything in the media’s eyes. Obama can be said to head the “Idealist”
team in the presidential race, Hillary the “Pragmatist” and John
Edwards the “Populist”
squads. Obama is a pitcher, not a
hitter. He has a mesmerizing delivery
that is crowd-pleasing and seems to tie-up opponents.
Whether that pitching gift, strong on inspirational
dazzle but short on nitty-gritty stuff, can lead to sustained success
is the
key question about Team O. If Barack’s
approach betrays lack of depth over the long haul, he and his team
could fade much
as the depth-deprived Mets did in a different race.
Hillary will avoid swinging from the
heels; she’ll be steady
and pragmatic, with a predictable policy stance that should reassure
many spectators. NY’s junior senator may
not hit a home run,
but she could win in the end, thanks to disciplined AB’s and a good
organization.
Edwards has to aim for the seats,
hoping that his hard swings
against corporate influence, economic unfairness, etc. connect with Dem
fans. He needs an exciting rally to
energize his supporters
and help him remain in contention. His
gas-house-gang
style of play hasn’t put up the numbers so far.
With each day it remains runs behind, Team E becomes more and
more of a
long shot.
How strongly does Perfect
Pitch pollster Bob Sullivan feel
about what’s happened to Edwards? “John
McCain is the favored choice of the corporate media,”
he says, “and he’s all over the
press here and in New
Hampshire. Contrast
that to what THEY are doing to Edwards. After
coming in second, Edwards virtually
does not exist in the media despite his extraordinary nosing out of
Hillary, who
spent $6 million in Iowa,
compared to his $1.2 million.”
As for
Obama, Sullivan points out that, not long ago,
massive numbers of Americans made clear their enthusiasm for an
African-American leader they could admire without reservation. The occasion: When Colin Powell toured the
country in connection with his autobiography “My American Journey.” That was in 1995, six years before Powell
joined the Bush Administration. A year
ago, Sullivan predicted the Democrats would nominate either the first
possible woman
or African-American president.
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You might be surprised to learn who are likely
rooting for
the Mets - despite their lack of depth and lamentable farm system - to
win the
John Santana sweepstakes. Peter Gammons
put it this way in the Boston Globe:
“There are
days when I really
believe that the Red Sox and Yankees wake up hoping somehow the Mets
can find 4
or 5 good prospects in the organization
and make the trade, but right now, that's highly unlikely.”
Turns out the Mets may have
been fortunate in not giving up their
few trading chips to get Dan Haren from Oakland. A
scout whose job it is to assess the
potential of players who may be on the market compares Haren (now with Arizona) unfavorably to Baltimore’s Erik Bedard:
"Bedard
has the ability to ascend to the top of the list; I
don't think Dan Haren does. I
don't
think Dan Haren is a No. 1 starter. I
think he hit his peak at the All-Star break."
- quoted by Newsday’s David Lennon
Now that deep
winter has arrived (the mercury notwithstanding), isn’t it good to know
this is
the last of three non-baseball months before pitchers and catchers
prepare to
report in Florida and Arizona?
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome. Previous Nubs can be found
by scrolling below.)
(politics and baseball, etc. – 1/4/08)
The counterfeit excitement
steroids has injected into
baseball is a pale reflection of what guns have done lethally to
American life. As the sport’s owners and
players looked the
other way when illegal drugs began skewing competitive levels on the
field, so,
we know too well, the nation’s political players ignored the horror of
the
legal and illegal spread of firearms.
The presidential playoffs in Iowa showed how
far the country is from
dealing with the plague of guns. There
was precious little discussion of gun violence during the campaign that
ended
yesterday (and no word on candidates’ responses to the mayoral gun
policy
questionnaire). Only after the massacre
at Virginia Tech last April did the issue come to bat in the Democratic
field
for more than a few seconds at a time.
The candidates called for better enforcement of existing
regulations. Joe Biden nailed the reason
gun control proposals are seldom delivered by him and fellow Dem
players: They can be an electoral
“liability,” he said,
meaning the gun lobby has the financial weapons to hurt the candidacies
of
those who want to curb the spread of firearms.
How wary office-holders are of
confronting the gun lobby was
driven home last week: Congress passed an alleged gun control law that
actually
provides money for would-be gun owners with histories of mental illness
to sue
for the right to carry firearms. The law
also broadens background checks for gun buyers, which makes anti-gun
groups
almost as happy as the National Rifle Association.
Why has the gun control side been so badly routed in this contest? Columbia professor Steven Cohen has the most
cogent explanation: "It's a
tough political issue,” he says,
“because the people who favor regulating guns don't feel as
intensely as the people who own guns, If
you are someone who is against (the spread of guns), your opposition is
not as
strong, unless you are someone who has been a victim of crime."
Which leads to the grim question: How
many deaths
will it take to provoke enough outrage to force meaningful gun control
legislation?
-
-
-
Have you noticed how anti-Red Sox intensity has grown in the NY area
since Boston
replaced the Yanks
as baseball’s top diamond dog? Even Mets
fans with only a splinter of NY chauvinism in their attitudinal bat
racks have
had to face this reality: being anti-Yanks because they spend more than
anyone
else and always win is no longer either accurate or a valid reason to
back free-spending,
out-of-town upstarts.
Can Yankee fans
find consolation anywhere? Maybe. Let’s look at things from a Boston
fan’s standpoint: As of now the Red Sox
are shoo-in’s to make the 2008 AL
playoffs, at worst as the wild-card team.
With the Patriots and Celtics both sure bets to contend for NFL
and NBA championships,
Boston
fans are
in an enviable position. But perhaps
not, says Salon’s Steve Almond:
“When
your teams win -- when all of them are suddenly,
terrifyingly unbeatable -- you are left with a confusing dividend: the
unwelcome realization that your life is no better than it was before.
You are simply
one more jock wannabe who sneaks off to a bar to worship physically
gifted
millionaires for a few hours, then returns home to the same dull and
intractable problems.”
Unless you’re
a
football Giants fan, the only playoff game worth a look this weekend –
it says
here – is the Jaguar-Steelers game Saturday night.
It will be played in possible rain or snow in
Pittsburgh
on a
field that often hosts “telegenic if not pristine game(s)” (according
to the NY
Times). The other three matchups -
Giants at Tampa Bay, Washington
at Seattle, and Tennessee
at San Diego
- will
be sunbelt or dome events and not nearly as much fun for non-fans to
watch from
a warm living room.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey.
Comments
to dickstar@aol.com
are welcome. Previous Nubs can be found
by scrolling below.)
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