the_nub_jun2009.html
June 2009
Archive
Posted: 6/30/09)
The Disappearance of
Pitchers Pedro and Howard Dean
Howard Dean, a political newsmaker the
past couple of days,
and Pedro Martinez, a baseball item for several months, can relate to a
show-biz story about the late Sam Levene.
A dynamite character actor decades ago, Levene was the subject
late in life
of a good-natured career summary:
Who is Sam Levene?
Get me Sam Levene.
Get me a young Sam Levene.
Who is Sam Levene?
We
remember
Howard
Dean
as
the
physician,
former
Vermont
governor, and front-running
Dem presidential candidate in 2004, who fell before a John Kerry rally.
Then,
as chair of the party’s national committee, Dean ran afoul of Rahm
Emanuel in
the strategizing of the nationwide 2008 campaign. He disappeared after
the
Obama election, passed over for a spot on the Barack team, just as
Pedro’s name
eluded mlb free-agent signing lists from pre-season until now.
Pedro and friends have helped circulate
rumors that several
teams – the Cubs and Rays, among them – are close to signing him for
the rest
of ’09. On the other hand, an
unidentified scout who watched Pedro recently said the once-great
pitcher now
has mid-80’s velocity and his ball is “soft.”
The rap against Dean, who let the world know he wanted to be
Barack’s
Health and Human Services guy, is that he challenged the wisdom of
narrowing
the campaign focus. His 50-state
election strategy, the skipper’s insiders said, wasted resources that
could
have given Team Obama a more decisive victory than the scoreboard
finally
showed.
Nostalgic fans are rooting for Pedro…to
sign with a team
other than their own. Political
progressives are cheering Dean’s fighting words about health care
reform at a
rally in Washington
last week. Pitching for the team Democracy
for America,
which
wants a strong government role in
the reformed system, Dean issued a warning: “We are
here; we're not going away. We voted for
change a few months ago. We
expect change. And if we
don't get it, there's going to be more change."
Not yet time to say “Who is Howard Dean?”
- -
-
Of the four weekend sweepers - the Yanks, Rays, Angels and Rockies - one, the LAAs, vaulted into first
place in its
division. The Angels and second-place
Rangers are going head-to-head in Arlington. When
the
three-game
AL
West
series
ends
tomorrow
night,
we’ll
have
a
sense
of
whether
Texas
can be taken seriously.
How seriously do you think owner Fred
Wilpon is taking the
plight of the Mets? If the Phillies don’t
cooperate, the Metsies could be in such a floundering state a week from
today -
when the next home stand begins – that Fred will be forced to make
reduced
ticket prices a regular thing at Citi Field.
Who wants to pay big bucks to see the New York Bisons? Blame for the “impy” (short for “improvident”)
Mets belongs in great part to the VP for Player Development. That’s Tony Bernazard. The
team
is
so
sensitive
to
Tony’s
failure
to
produce
genuine
prospects
as
farm
director
that
it
felt
a
need
to
find
something
to
give
him
credit
for:
Bernazard
is
being
mentioned
with
Omar
Minaya
as
responsible
for
signing
the
latest
pleasant
garage-sale
surprise,
Fernando
Nieve.
Stat City: The
NL’s
leading
percentage
pitcher
(more
than
100
innings)
has
flown
under
the
radar
screen.
While the AL
pct. leader, Toronto’s Roy Halladay,
10-1,(.909),
has long had a high profile, Florida’s Josh
Johnson,
7-1, (.875), is only beginning to make
his presence felt. Of the top eight
overall mlb pitching leaders, Johnson is the only one from the NL.
-
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: 6/27/09)
Smoltz Could Be
Obama’s Competitive Model
If 47-year-old Barack Obama were like
42-year-old John
Smoltz, he would say about meaningful health care reform, not “We can
do it,”
but “We will do
it.” Obama needs to get 51 Democratic
senators totally
committed to his team to insure success, and he must say less about
obstacles
while emphasizing why real reform should be inevitable.
Smoltz isn’t worried about team backup – the
Red Sox have impressive supportive weapons.
He has no doubt he will get the job done, despite a slow start
Thursday
night.
Obama: “This
is…when
we
need
to
fight
the
hardest…We
can
see
some
light
along
the
horizon,
but
we’ve
got
a
much
longer
journey
to
travel…This
is
when
it
gets
hard.”
Smoltz: “(My
comeback)
will
be
a
success. I came back
with this mind-set…The end result will be that.” (quoted by the Globe’s
Adam
Kilgore)
Bloomberg.com’s
Al
Hunt
calls
Obama
a
skilled
“explainer
in
chief…Think
(Jack)
Kennedy
after
the
disastrous
Bay
of
Pigs
invasion
,
or
(Ronald)
Reagan
after
the
Iran-Contra
debacle.
“That’s
the league this president
plays in.”
But
Barack
has
yet
to
bring
his
A-game
to
the
show. He’s
nibbling
at the corners instead of
raring back and playing country hardball.
He should reach for 94 mph, as Smoltz did in his first outing. The president’s caution has potential members
of his team, and even fans, hanging back.
Smoltz,
whose old boss Stan Kasten calls “the most determined and competitive
human
being” he’s ever met, exudes confidence that eliminates defeat as an
option: “I feel I can accomplish
anything I want to accomplish…After (a few) starts, you’ll see why I
feel the
way I do.”
Obama might consider slipping down to Atlanta (where
the Sox
are playing a weekend series) for Smoltzian instruction in positive
thinking
and pitchin
-
- -
Postscript to Smoltz’s loss to Washington Thursday night: His opponent, 23-year-old Jordan Zimmermann,
struck out the Sox’s MVP second baseman Dustin Pedroia twice. It was the first time in 395 games Pedroia
fanned
more than once. Dustin paid tribute to the rookie:
“He’s got good stuff. He’s got
the
stuff of a No. 1. He’s going to be good
for a long time. He’s not afraid. He gets after it.’’
The biggest free-agent bust of
2009? SI’s Tim Marchman suggests the
prize belongs to someone to whom Mets GM Omar Minaya paid an outrageous
amount
of Fred Wilpon’s money: “The king
disaster… has been left-handed pitcher Oliver Perez,
who
signed
for
three
years
and
$36
million,
walked
more
than
a
man
per
inning
in
three
of
his
first
five
starts,
and
then
went
on
the
disabled
list
with
a
mysterious
knee
injury.
“Whether
or
not
he
has
been
the
worst
signing
in
the
game,
his
April
implosion
should
remind
fans
and
executives
not
to
expect
players
to
be
something
other
than
what
they
demonstrably
are.
Counted on and paid as a No. 2 starter, Perez
led the league in walks last year and entered the season with a career
ERA
below league average. When you sign a
lousy pitcher, you get ... a lousy pitcher.”
- 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: 6/25/09)
The Chance of Failure
in Baseball and Health Care Reform
Since even .300 hitters fail 70 percent
of the time,
baseball fans know what the late John Updike meant when he wrote:
“Baseball
was
invented in America,
where
beneath
the good cheer and sly jazz the chance
of failure is everybody's right.”
- from Endpoint and Other
Poems
Health care
is considered a right
– accessible to everyone – in other democratic societies. Failure has marked efforts to make it that way
here for the past 60 years. The only
reason we’re not batting .000 in the health care game is because
Medicare and
Medicaid – passed in 1965 - provide government-subsidized relief for
seniors
and the poor.
The health insurance lobby has already won a key pre-game
contest: the debate over a possible public option (to compete with
private
plans) succeeded in forcing single-payer (Medicare for all) advocates
off the
field. The record book suggests that,
even with polls showing three-quarters of Americans support a public
option, it
would be unrealistic to bet against the lobby team in the big game
itself.
How consistent the lobby’s clout has
been was described on
“Democracy Now” the other day. Biographer
D.D. Guttenplan told Amy Goodman what happened to radical journalist
I.F. Stone
when he went to bat for a national health program in December 1949. Stone was a regular in the “Meet the Press”
lineup
at the time:
“On
this
particular
morning…(Stone)
was
battling…Dr.
Morris
Fishbein…(then)…the
most
famous
doctor
in
America…and
editor
of
The Journal
of the American Medical Association…He was the
person that the medical and pharmaceutical industries put up to
oppose…national
health insurance. He…coined the phrase
‘socialized medicine’…(and) described the proposals for national health
insurance as a step on the road to communism.
And so, Stone said to him, ‘Dr. Fishbein, given that President
Truman
has already spoken out in favor of national health insurance, do you
think that
that makes him a dangerous communist or just a deluded fellow
traveler?’
“That
was
the
last
time
I.F.
Stone
was
ever
on
Meet the Press, and…he
wasn’t again allowed to be on national television for eighteen years. He became a kind of disappeared person…”
The
public
option
may
not
disappear
but
it
could
be
barely
discernible
when
the
final
out
is
recorded
in
Congress.
- -
-
On the New England Sports Network (NESN) the other night,
Josh Beckett was asked whether he could tell before a game he was not
going to
be sharp as usual. His answer was
strikingly candid: “You can’t tell. But if you go out there and, say, batters
aren’t swinging at your first two pitches – well, it can make a
difference.”
Comparisons Can Be
Mets-odious Dept: Sox reliever Takashi Saito said this, when asked
by the
Globe’s Nick Cafardo if he was surprised at how well his old team the
Dodgers
were doing: “I’m
not
surprised
at
all.
The
guys
contributing
to
that
team
were
guys
in
the
minors
last
year
and
younger
guys
who
were
just
coming
into
their
own.
You’ve
got
(Jonathan)
Broxton
and (Cory)
Wade
and
a
lot
of
good
young
talent.
I think the
Dodgers planned really well. We may very
well face them in the World
Series, so I don’t want to say too much, but I wish them the best.”
Amid
myriad signs of Mets’ farm-system impoverishment there is this: the
recall of
Nick Evans, who batted .093 at Triple-A Buffalo, then a lusty .276 at
Double-A
Binghamton.
Joe
Girardi’s
enviable,
Joba-like
dilemma:
Do
I
keep
Phil
Hughes
pitching
lights-out
in
relief,
or
return
him
to
the
rotation,
where
he
could
be
an
even
bigger
asset
(than
Chien-
Ming
Wang)?
- o -
(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: 6/18/09)
Corzine Playing
Catch-up Game, Like the Mets
If Jon Corzine is a baseball fan,
chances are he roots for
the Yanks or the Phils. That’s the way
the ball bounces in the state he manages, New Jersey.
But Corzine these days has a lot in common with the Mets. That is, he’s struggling in his contest with
Republican challenger Chris Christie, just as the Mets are scrambling
to keep pace
with their division-leading main rival, the world champion Phillies.
The scoreboard shows Corzine trailing
Christie, a prosecutorial
slugger, by 10 polling points in a state that is 80 percent Democratic
and
Independent. The Mets trail the
Phillies by three games, despite a $36 million
payroll edge
and the fact that it is the most valuable franchise in the NL, nearly
twice as
profitable as the Phils.
Corzine’s huge personal fortune helped
him win election to
the senate in 2000, and then to the governorship in 2005..
But his reliance on money as the big bat in
his campaigns made him less reliant on players in the Dem party. His diffidence toward the team led to
defections and a deficient political farm system, something that has
burdened
the Mets throughout Omar Minaya’s four-plus years as GM.
Corzine will be getting reinforcements
from Team Obama,
which has a big stake in keeping NJ in the Dem win column.
The Mets have no such help on the
horizon. Discomforting days lie ahead
for Minaya, Player Development VP Tony Bernazard, as well as the team’s
fans,
and, of course, owner Fred Wilpon and son Jeff.
- -
-
The Yanks are drawing better than some of us hoped they
would at their new, publicly subsidized (with dollars and parkland)
stadium. But how much better could it
have been if, instead of reduced to an unsightly husk across the way,
the old
stadium, spruced to the max, had been saved, as was Fenway Park?
In yesterday’s Boston Globe, former Mass. governor
and presidential candidate Mike Dukakis paid tribute to the people who
made the
decision to hold on to Fenway:
“The
new
ownership
group
understood
what
many
native
Bostonians
did
not
-
that
we
had
a
jewel
of
a
ballpark
that,
with
some
tender
loving
care,
could
both
expand
the
number
of
seats
and
preserve
its
special
history
and
atmosphere
in
a
way
that
almost
no
other
major
ballpark
has
been
able
to
do. The results have been
spectacular. The cost is a fraction of what the new ballpark would have
entailed, and the experience of watching a ballgame at Fenway is (more
enjoyable
than ever).”
It
looks
as
though
Manny
Acta,
a
Mets
front-office
favorite,
will
soon
be
the
ex-manager
in
Washington. Or
does
it?
Washington Post columnist Tom Boswell isn’t so sure:
“Whom
will the Washington
Nationals name as interim
manager? Bench coach Jim Riggleman or Class AAA manager Tim Foli? Or
will it be
Bobby Valentine, now in Japan…More
important, after the whole offseason search process is complete, who's
the
manager in '10? The baseball grapevine has good reasons why it won't be
any of
th(em).
"’It's
going
to
be
me,’
said
Acta…He
was
poking
his
finger
into
his
chest,
his
face
animated
with
the
kind
of
pride
you
know
must
be
in
him….
‘It's
going
to
be
me,’
he
repeated,
not
hostile
but
defiant.
‘Watch.’ With
that,
he
walked
toward
the
field
at
Yankee
Stadium
where
his
Nats
lost
(again).”
Stat
city
(mlb
leaders):
Innings
-
“the
most
important
pitching
statistic”(David
Cone)
-
Roy
Halladay,
Toronto,
103
(14
starts).
W-L
record
-
Halladay,
10-1. Strikeouts – Justin
Verlander, Detroit,
110
(90
innings). Gopher balls – Kevin
Millwood, Texas,
13
(99.2
innings).
- 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, on a long-weekend road trip, will
be up next a week from today.
(Posted: 6/16/09)
There are Ballpark
Possibilities in Politics, Too
“At the ballpark, anything is possible”
-
thank you, NYT’s Ben Shpigel - and in politics, the same is true: in NY
state
alone, we’ve had such recent examples as the sudden departure of
Governor Eliot
Spitzer, the unexpected promotion of Kirsten Gillibrand, the abrupt
overthrow
of the Senate Dem majority and its leader Malcolm Smith.
And, on a grander scale, how about the
long-shot election of Barack Obama? Anything
seems
to
be
possible
when
it
involves
political
players. Issues are
another ballgame. Health care
reform has taken the field before with broad fan support, but been
beaten badly
nevertheless. In the pressbox they’re
touting this contest as crucial. Robert
Reich, writing for The American Prospect, sees two defining outcomes in
the
game: whether Obama has the strength and
savvy to take on one of the most formidable lobbying teams around; and,
if so,
whether he can eke out a public-option score as part of the victory.
Reich says Skipper
Obama can’t play small ball with its
public-option offense: the option has to
be “national in scale and combines
its bargaining power with Medicare, and is allowed to negotiate lower
drug
prices and lower doctor and hospital fees. And
that's
precisely
what
Pharma
and
Insurance
(and
the
doctors)
detest,
for
exactly
the
same
reason.”
The UK Guardian’s Michael Tomasky brings
a
realistic perspective to the ballgame: “The
powerful lobbies…(seem) resigned
to the idea that some kind of healthcare bill will pass, so they might
as well
play ball and make it something they could live with. But will they
stay
resigned or decide they have a little fight in them after all? I'd put money on the latter…
“It's one thing (for Team Obama) to
be adroit in the first inning, which is where we are. When it counts is
in the
ninth inning. (This week) marks the start of an important process
because Obama
will clearly hope that by the time the late innings come around, he'll
have
toured the country and solidified public opinion behind reform.”
Based on
Obama’s tentative pitch
for the idea yesterday, the chances of the reform including a
meaningful
public-option plan are about the same as those of the Mets making it to
the
World Series. Anything else apparently
is possible.
- -
-
Six of the 14 weekend
inter-league match-ups ended in three-game sweeps.
The Colorado Rockies deserve star billing:
they won their ninth, 10th and 11th straight
against Seattle. That ties their team record set in 2007, when
they surged to a pennant and then the World Series.
Other sweepers: the Marlins over the Blue
Jays, the Angels over the Padres, KC over Cincinnati, the Giants over
Oakland,
and Tampa Bay over the Nats.
The second-place Angels moved to
within two-and-a-half games of first in the AL West, the second-place
Giants to
within seven and the Rockies to
within
10-and-a-half in the NL West, the third-place Rays to within five in
the AL
East, and the third-place Marlins to within six in the NL East. (Update: Angels beat the Giants last night to move
two games behind the
Rangers, the Giants slipping to seven-and-a-half behind the Dodgers.)
What more could go wrong for the Mets?
Plenty:
On SNY Sunday afternoon, Mets announcers Gary
Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez noted early that Johan Santana’s
velocity was topping out only at 91 mph. “He’s hittable,” they agreed. And he has been, they might have added, over
his past six starts (ERA 6.50). Johan
should bounce back, but if he doesn’t, this season for Mets fans will
turn from
a singular bad dream into a grand slam of a nightmare.
In that
context, there is this cheery Metsian note
from NY Post-man Kevin Kernan: “The
Mets keep saying they are a
championship-quality club, so (failing to score with bases loaded and
none out)
can't happen. But everything happens to
the Mets. They are playing without
their injured shortstop and first baseman and are hindered in left
field. The
situation at first is getting more dreadful by the day with young
Daniel
Murphy. He's hitting .238 with a .354 slugging average from a position
that is
all about slugging. Consider that Mark
Teixeira's slugging percentage is .620. Rookie
outfielder
Fernando
Martinez
is
not
ready
for
the
majors.”
- o -
(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: 6/13/09)
The Bouncing of Black
Leaders in Baseball and Politics
The other day, while interviewed by
WNYC’s Leonard Lopate,
Keith Hernandez confirmed the story behind the firing of Mets manager
Willie
Randolph a year ago this month: the team’s Latino players didn’t relate
to him
and wanted him gone.
On NY’s political field, we know that
two Latino members of
the Dem Senate majority – Pedro Espada
of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens
–
had similar feelings about their African-American leader Malcolm Smith. They toppled him from power, insiders say,
because he made promises to them he couldn’t keep…and billionaire Tom
Golisano
made it worth their while.
Little sympathy was expressed for the
victims in either coup
– Randolph
didn’t deserve the way he was fired, said the media, but he did have it
coming.
Smith paid the price, according to the press, for not staying on top of
things. An argument could be made that,
with Moises
Alou lost for the season and closer Billy Wagner hurting and on the
brink of
the DL, Willie should’ve been given a fairer shake.
Or that Smith, having managed the thankless
task of keeping his precarious majority together, merited a better fate
than to
be blindsided by big money.
NY Times columnist Gail Collins may
have been the only media
voice to give the saga an against-the-grain perspective:
“The coup was
engineered, at least
in part, by…Golisano…(He) spent several million dollars helping the
Democrats
get their precious two-vote majority. In
triumph, he traveled down from Buffalo
to share his insights on how to resolve the state fiscal crisis with
the new
majority leader…Smith. To Golisano’s
outrage, Smith kept checking his Blackberry while his patron was
talking. This is a truly shocking
story…Anybody who
has been in politics for more than six minutes knows that the cardinal
rule is to
look interested when a rich guy is telling you his thoughts.”
Less
shocking
is
the
issue
Golisano
wanted
to
discuss: the
proposal
to impose a tax on the
super-wealthy like himself. That tax
has the important, if reluctant, backing of David Paterson. The governor has merited boos for the bungled
Carolyn Kennedy/Kirsten Gillibrand Senate-appointment play. But his record on taxes, pension reform, etc.
in this tough economic year would seem to be good enough to warrant a
fair accounting
by the media; the press could at least offer occasional positive
mention. It
may turn out that, like Randolph, Paterson will
deserve to
be fired, but he shouldn’t be subject - it says here (again) - to the
piling-on
way it is happening.
- -
-
Errors, injuries – all kinds of misfortune – are piling on
the Mets, last night’s
heartbreaking loss to the Yanks the latest example.
The Yanks are the least of
the Mets’ worries, however…
Tim Redding’s tribute to the Phillies Thursday
night - “You
can’t keep that team down for long” - was a not-so-subtle
acknowledgment that
the Mets can’t expect to catch the defending champions this year. The wild card is a (remote) possibility if
Jerry Manuel’s hope that his decimated team can stay above .500 until
his
injured regulars return (dates unknown) is realized.
Snap
quiz
–
who
said:
"They
deserved
to
(beat)
us.
We
didn't
play
too
well.
Of course, we're
disappointed, but we can't feel sorry for ourselves. Their guys have
played
better than us." Answer:
Derek
Jeter,
although
it
could
have
been
a
collective
Yanks/Mets
statement
after
losing
five
of
six
to
their
chief
rivals,
the
Red
Sox
and
Phillies.
Let’s focus, before the inevitable
happens, on the
rejuvenated Colorado Rockies. The Rox
named former Dodgers and Pirates manager Jim Tracy to replace Clint
Hurdle as
skipper late last month. As of last
night’s ninth-straight win, 6-4 over the Mariners, the team, under Tracy, was 11-4,
having completed an
eight-game streak…on the road!
And that’s not all: seven of the games were against the
Cardinals and
Brewers. “Not easy to do,” said Tracy in an
understated salute
to his team.
-
o
-
(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: 6/11/09)
Dysfunctional
Describes Teams as Well as Pols
The “in” word in New York these days is
“dysfunctional” – defined
generally as “failure to serve an assigned purpose.”
The term seems to be hurled daily at the
state government, with particular reference now to the Senate and its
failure
to get things done, thanks in great part to a tumultuous game of
musical chairs. But dysfunctional is
finding its way into the
baseball lexicon, too. Fans of the
Washington Nationals feel their team is not meeting its assigned
purpose of
being minimally competitive. Then, in a
separate category, there are the Mets, whose manager a year ago Willie
Randolph, would soon be deposed just as abruptly as was Senate Majority
Leader Malcolm
Smith on Monday.
Much has been made of the legislative
balls now in the air –
same-sex marriage, mayoral oversight of NYC schools, reinforced
tenants’
rights, etc. But in the overriding
won-lost
columns, Dem errors give Team GOP an unexpected advantage as the battle
for majority
status plays out between now and the 2010 election.
That in turn could lead to a crucial
reapportionment victory - control of how the state’s legislative
districts are
redrawn, insuring through creative demarcations that Repub vote
potential is
maximized. On a managerial level, the
miscues will certainly set back skipper David Paterson’s effort to dig
in as a
late-appearing in-charge governor.
The hits the Mets are taking in the
media haven’t matched
those endured by Paterson. But the harshness is growing, despite the
patchwork team’s occasional signs of life. SI’s
unforgiving
Jeff
Pearlman
provides
a
tough
example:
“These
Mets
lay
down
--
for
everyone.
They
play
with
little
gusto,
and
less
aggressiveness.
They
rarely
hit
in
the
clutch,
and
make
lackluster
opposing
pitchers
appear
to
be
the
second
coming
of
Steve
Carlton. When the Yankees suffer
through a conga line of injuries, the organization never offers up the
maladies
as an excuse. The Mets, on the other
hand, all but seek out injuries to cite to the media. If
only
we
had
Delgado.
If only we had Reyes.
If only ...
“The future has been
written for
the 2009 New York
Mets, and it is not good. They are
modern day Jobs, all of them. Only in
this run, there is no reprieve. A team
with baseball's second-highest payroll will win, oh, 85 games and
finish 10
games behind Philadelphia.
They will add someone -- Aubrey
Huff? Nick Johnson? -- to the mix, sing
his praises, find a groove, then
sink back to reality. They will fire
their manager, trade off their prospects, talk about the new Mets, the
fresh
Mets, the exciting Mets. But they're
still the haunted Mets.”
Lob from Left Field: “The
(compromising
posture)
of
the
Democratic
Party
may
have
sufficed
when
the
GOP
was
ascendant
and
the
goal
was
restoring
a
Democratic
majority.
But now the majority party resembles a
dysfunctional family, badly in need of outside intervention.” - William Greider in The Nation (touting citizen
activism)
Although the Red Sox have dominated the Yankees so far, attentive
residents
of Sox Nation have no illusions about their team leaving the
pinstripers
behind. The Boston Herald’s Gerry
Callahan cites a key reason the Yanks will be around at the end: “We don’t know
yet if the Yankees finally bought themselves a World Series,
but we know this: the Yankees bought themselves first place… primarily
with one
move. After years of foolish free agent
signings from Kevin Brown to Carl Pavano to Jason Giambi to Kei Igawa,
(Brian)
Cashman and the Yankees got one very right this year.
“Hey, they
were due. In (Mark)Teixeira, they got a
29-year-old player who hits like A-Rod but acts like Jeter, a buttoned-down professional... unfazed by the
bright lights and big expectations of New York.”
Baseball
simplified, courtesy of Josh Beckett (quoted by the Globe’s Nick
Cafardo):
"The whole
game of baseball is predicated on the fastball, keeping it located.”
- o -
(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: 6/9/09)
The Dissing of
Paterson And the Mets
If Mets fan David Paterson watched the
Phillies-Dodgers game
on Fox Saturday afternoon, he surely noticed that his team received no
respect
from Dick Stockton and Eric Karros.
Indeed, the announcers treated the Mets in the dismissive way
the NY
political media treat the governor of their state.
“The Phillies have made the playoffs
the last two years,”
said Stockton,
“and
they’re
on
the
way
to
making
them
this
year.”
“All their star players have intensity,”
added Karros. “That’s rarer than you
would think. It rubs off on the team
as
a whole.” No mention of the Mets. The NY press mentions Paterson all right, almost always
with
disparagement.
When the media people look ahead to the
gubernatorial
playoffs, they see Andrew Cuomo, like the Phillies, to be a virtual
sure thing.
The similarities between the two
alleged also-rans were
underlined last week when the Mets lost four of five games to the
struggling
Pirates and Nats. “Jerry Manuel doesn’t
have the players.” was the consensus verdict on the injury-riddled team. It was much like the media’s relentless
sniping at the people Paterson
depends on: “The governor doesn’t have a capable staff,” has been the
mantra.
What Team Paterson has that the Mets
don’t is time. It will be mid-August
before Jerry Manuel can
hope to have all his stud invalids – Delgado, Reyes, Putz and maybe
even Billy
Wagner - back en masse. In the Mets’
current vulnerable state, keeping the Phils from muscling them out of
the
picture by then will take some doing. Paterson can
fend off the
muscling from his party until early next year.
In the meantime, though, he’s got to win the kind of generally
positive
press he attracted by vetoing the bill that would have sweetened the
pension of
newly hired cops and firefighters. What else? He
needs
to
project
an
image
of
command,
something
that
doesn’t
come
easily
to
him.
And he could use more of the kind of pressure Charlie Rangel put
on
Cuomo last week. Charlie warned Andrew,
in so many words, that taking on a black Dem candidate for governor (an
incumbent, yet) for a second time in eight years could compromise his
political
future. So far, Cuomo’s stance says he
believes time is on his side as the gubernatorial game plays out.
The Mets will still have seven
head-to-head games with the
Phillies as of the second half of August (and nine with the Braves). But for them to mean anything, the Mets
probably need Omar Minaya to produce a Santana-like miracle deal…and do
it
soon. If it happens, it won’t be soon
enough to shore up the undermanned team for its six games beginning
tonight
against the Phils and Yankees. To
paraphrase a classic “Peanuts” strip, “You know what they say, Jerry
Manuel,
‘Win some, lose some.’ To which
Manuel
replies: “That would be great.”
The Yankees have been confirming the
baseball truism that
“good teams get the breaks” since Alex Rodriguez returned to the lineup
a month
ago. Trailing the Rays, 3-2, in the
eighth inning Sunday, the Yanks were able to tie the score when third
baseman Willy
Aybar made an error on a double-play ball tailored to set up a force at
the
plate. The decisive run in their 4-3
victory was grounded home by Hideki Matsui, whom an umpire signaled
safe at
first, a call cameras showed to be wrong.
In attracting the breaks, the Yanks are taking their cue from
captain
Derek Jeter. He has been the master at
finding a way to get on base through errors, walks – even fluke plays
that
sabotage conventional outs. On YES last
week in Cleveland,
Paul
O’Neill
noted
Derek’s
gift:
“Jeter’s hitting the ball well,” he said, “but he can’t make an
out if
he tries.”
The Red Sox have a nice problem facing
them as a backdrop to
the six games they’ll play with the Yankees (starting tonight) and then
the
Phillies: John Smoltz is scheduled to
join the rotation next Monday, the 15th.
That means someone has to go – and it won’t
be Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Tim Wakefield or Dice-K Matsuzaka. That apparently leaves Brad Penny, who may
have a new address – the Phillies? – when Smoltz takes the mound
against the
Marlins.
- 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: 6/6/09)
A Year To Run Out Ground Balls Hard
“This
is
not
a
year
to
not
run
out
ground
balls. We
get a check every two weeks, and there are
people who just found out they ain't getting a check. We've
got
to
pinch
ourselves
and
realize
how
lucky
we
are."
-
Detroit
manager Jim Leyland to his team
during a series at home this week against the Red Sox (quoted by the
Globe’s
Dan Shaughnessy)
Leyland
could have added a key reason the
ball players are lucky: they have a union to represent them in dealings
- on
such things as free agency and salary arbitration - with team owners. (As most of us know by now it was
then-Federal District Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor who stopped the
owners from seeking
to emasculate the union by eliminating the decades-old collective
bargaining
agreement in 1995.)
Leyland was referring, mainly, to the plight of auto
workers in and around
the Motor
City.
The bankruptcy filing, first by Chrysler, then by General
Motors,
brought uncertainty into the lives of thousands of employees and their
families. What will happen to holdover
Chrysler
workers remains murky as the legal game unfolds in the judicial
ballpark. GM employees have a clearer
picture of the
field in front of them; the union workers among them have no need to
pinch
themselves to see how comparatively lucky they are.
Here is how the NY Times laid out the situation earlier
this week:
“GM employees who are
not union members do not have any
job security. The company can ask a
judge for an immediate pay cut (for them) and can announce job
cuts…Contracts
covering members of the UAW union and other unions will remain in force
unless
the company asks a judge to void them…UAW members approved (contract)
changes
last week, and the new GM is expected to honor that contract…
“A
company
can
also
eliminate
retiree
health
care
benefits
for
non-union
employees…”
While
in
Detroit,
Dan Shaughnessy reminded readers of a way of life that has disappeared
with
union jobs: “In Michigan, GM
was
the
embodiment
of
the
American
dream.
You
could
get
a
job
at
the
plant,
work
there
your
whole
life,
raise
a
raft
of
kids
who
could
go
to
college
to
East
Lansing
and
Ann
Arbor,
and
you
probably
had
enough
left
over
for
a
summer
cabin
up
north.”
“I
hate
unions,”
we
overheard
a
young
working
woman
say
not
long
ago,
while
watching
coverage
of
a
labor
dispute
on
TV. “I wish I had a
union.”
Lob from Left Field (on Team Obama’s ties
with Israel):
“This
is
a
basic
lesson
which
most
people
learn
in
adolescence
or
young
adulthood.
Teenagers
who
tell
their
parents
that
they
are
not
compelled
to
comply
with
parental
dictates
are
typically
met
with
the
response
that
this
is
so
only
if
they
want
nothing
from
their
parents,
but
as
long
as
they
seek
financial
support,
then
the
parents
have
the
right to demand certain
actions in
return…
“Identically,
if
Israel
wants
to
be
free
of
what
it
and
some
of
its
U.S.
supporters
call
‘interference’
from
the Obama
administration,
that’s
very
easy
to
achieve:
Israel
can
stop
asking
for
tens of
billions of dollars of American taxpayer money, huge amounts
of military
and
weapons
supplies
for
its
various
wars, and unyielding
American
diplomatic
protection
at the U.N. But as long as Israel remains dependent
on the U.S…, then Obama… has the obligation to demand that Israel cease
activities which harm U.S. interests.” - Glenn
Greenwald in Salon
-
-
-
You’re Fred Wilpon. Your Mets are
reeling again from injuries. Last year,
it was Moises Alou and Billy Wagner, this year Carlos Delgado, Jose
Reyes, J.J.
Putz, etc.
You know that injuries are part of the game, that good teams find
players on
the bench or in their system to help them stay competitive. You could see this past week the Mets were
not up to the challenge. Your team has
always been short on good back-ups, hoping instead for quick get-backs. You have to wonder about your GM’s strategy;
about his emphasis on pricey free-agent signings and deals for older
players; and
ask yourself, too, why Omar’s and Tony Bernazard’s farm system is so
unhelpful? You
must have seen in the Houston Chronicle what a fellow owner in your
situation
has decided:
The Rays may be defending AL champions and only five games out of
first in
the East (as of early last night), but in NY and Boston they’re chopped
liver. The media in both cities see the
Sox and Yanks finishing in the top two spots this time.
Here’s a sample from the Boston Herald’s Michael
Silverman: “The AL
West-leading Rangers ar(e) at
Fenway… and they will be followed by the Yankees, who figure to be
neck-and-neck with the Red Sox in the AL East for quite some time.”
The almost-audible rejoinder of
NYY fans: “That’s if the Sox are lucky.”
-
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 6/4/09)
Baseball-Like Wish
List Follows Barack to Egypt
The baseball wish list probably begins
in Chicago,
where
Cubs
manager
Lou
Piniella
yearns
for
an
early
return
of
injured
Aramis
Ramirez,
his
so-far
irreplaceable
third
baseman. But, just as every
team
has a wish list – the Phils would like a starter to replace Brett
Myers, the
Mets a reliable eighth-inning reliever, the Red Sox a rejuvenated David
Ortiz,
etc. – so were political teams wishful in advance of Skipper Obama’s
speech in
Cairo today. Substance was on their
minds.
Although the president said his pitch
would be down the
middle with no surprising change-ups, that didn’t stop different
political team
members from digging in. They hit from
every stance on both sides of the plate this week, suggesting that
Barack say
what they wanted to hear about U.S.
foreign policy. The Neocons hoped Obama
would play hardball and reaffirm what they see as America’s mission to swing
forcefully for freedom in the world. The
Realists wanted a presidential pledge to pull the string on our use of
force, limiting
it only to places where vital U.S.
interests are at play. The Progressive
Policy Wonks would have liked the skipper to say Team USA will be more
cooperative
than competitive with other teams in the global league, and will send
interventionism to the showers.
Isolationists, who hit to right, and Anti-Imperialists, who pull
to the
left, would have both been happy for a sign that Barack was prepared to
leave
the field; the A-I team would like all bases pulled up, the I-team just
some.
A ballbag full of left-leaning wishes,
the ultimate in
wishfulness, was tossed the president’s way by the International Herald
Tribune’s William Pfaff:
“(Although
only
remotely
possible,)
Obama
might
declare
in
Cairo
that
he
wished
to
withdraw
all
American
forces
from
Muslim
countries,
and
seeks
the
support
of
all
Muslim
governments
to
make
this
possible.
That
while
he
will
honor
guarantees
given
to
governments
in
the
region,
(and)
will
pursue
the
authors
of
any
attack
on
the
United
States…
the
objective
of
his
government
is
a creative
disengagement,
leaving the people and political forces of the Islamic regions to
settle their
own affairs, with – should they wish – generous financial help from the
U.S….”
The
UK
Independent’s
Robert
Fisk
saw
the
game
from
a
similar
perspective:
“ I
suspect
that
what
the
Arab
world
wants
to
hear
-
not
their
leaders,
of
course,
all
of
whom
would
like
to
have
a
spanking
new
US
air
base
on
their
property
-
is
that
Obama
will
take
all
his
soldiers
out
of
Muslim
lands
and
leave
them
alone…But
for
obvious
reasons,
Obama
can’t
say
that.”
-
- -
Stat city oddity: Two Zacs – Zack Greinke
of
KC
and
Zach
Duke
of
Pittsburgh
– are rated two and three on the mlb pitching effectiveness list. Roy Halladay (9-1) is number one.
Greinke (8-1) leads the majors with a 1.10
ERA and hasn’t given up a home run in 82 innings. CC
Sabathia
is
sixth
on
the
list;
Johan
Santana
has
dropped
to
15th. SF’s
Tim
Lincecum
leads
in
strikeouts
with
91
in
71.2
innings.
Joe Torre said something we already knew about Jorge
Posada to Yahoo Sports’
Gordon Edes the other day: “He gets lost in the
shuffle, but he’s a really good pressure player.”
Edes reminds us that “Posada played just 50
games last
season because of a shoulder injury, and the Yankees missed the
postseason for
the first time in 13 years.” Another
reminder
from
Joe
about
a
member
of
his
old
team:
“You
lose Alex
[Rodriguez] like the Yankees did this year, you get so accustomed to
the
numbers he puts up that you don’t realize until he’s gone how much you
miss him.” What’s
obvious
now: When A-Rod, then Jorge
returned to the
lineup, the Yankee offense became just plain scary.
More
from
Edes,
on
two
of
the
NL
Central’s
competitors:
“Cubs GM Jim Hendry (talking about) the
Cardinals: ‘Give Tony La Russa
credit, but if people don’t think the (Cards) have good
players, they’re
nuts. They’re way better than just Albert (Pujols). Yadier Molina is a
good
catcher, [Ryan] Ludwick is a good player, Rick Ankiel is a good player,
Chris
Duncan can hit, and they got some gamers like they always do. And their pitching is good.’ Hendry
on the Central race: ’It wasn’t going to be
easy even
if we were healthy. We haven’t played very well. It’ll
be
a
dogfight. There’s no (one saying)
Cubs are going to win
for sure’. ” Surprising
omissions: Brewers and Reds, both very much in the division race.
Michael Kay’s know-all banter during
Yankee games on YES
sometimes wears us down. But his
occasional
flashes of wit help make him tolerable, as was the case the other night
in Cleveland. Seagulls had swarmed in from the lake and
settled on the outfield grass. “The
gulls are shading Matsui to right,” said Kay.
-
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
6/2/09)
Yankee Lineup Is T
for Tough, Nothing More
A Nub posted on May 21 included this
phrase “With a lineup
that has turned into Torturers Row, the Yankees…” You
won’t
see
such
blithe
reference
to
torture
again
here;
not
after
the
graphic
reminder
of
what
the
practice
entails
as
seen
on
Bill
Moyers
Journal
last
weekend.
The program, featuring excerpts from the documentary “Torturing
Democracy,” showed in painfully vivid terms the price we as well as the
victims
pay for our government’s descent into barbarism.
Most of us have experienced brief
periods of excruciating
pain in our lives. We can imagine – if
we try – how that pain inflicted in a sustained way must feel. What we can’t imagine unless we see images of
it is the inhumanity of people doing unspeakable things in our name. We flinch from the subject of torture lest it
prompt us to dwell on the betrayal of our values – we thought we were
better
than the “animals” of Nazi Germany, say - and the way the practice has
corrupted so many of our fellow citizens.
Early in “Torturing Democracy” (before
the temptation to
flinch begins), there is this segment,
dating
from late 2001/early 2002, filled with dire implications for many who
were
about to become victims:
“As Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda disappeared
into the rugged mountains on the Afghan/Pakistan border, the Pentagon
increasingly relied on bounty hunters.
“Tens of
thousands of leaflets promising ’enough money to
take care of your family and your village for the rest of your life’
were
dropped by psychological ops teams.
(A Witness):
‘Where is
Arab? Where
is Arab? Where is Arab? Thousand dollar
for one Arab. Thirty thousand, forty thousand, sixty
thousand.’
“Any Arab
in the region was at risk of being turned in as
a terrorist (by local warlords).”
Colin
Powell’s chief of staff, seen in the documentary,
suggests roundups like that one were part of a Team Bush effort to find
somebody
who, in the run-up to the Iraq
war, could be broken into saying there was a link between Al Quaida and
Saddam
Hussein.
Team Obama has a tough
sell trying to put this dark chapter
in our history behind us. Its effect on
the American psyche clearly will not soon go away.
- -
-
"We're getting to the point where we're
50 games into the season. I think the
numbers start meaning something.” - Red Sox manager Terry
Francona
The numbers today
say the Red Sox will fight it out with the Yanks for first in the AL
East, and,
barring a Rangers-Angels-or-Rays surprise, should feel confident of
winning the
wild card as a consolation. The numbers
say David Ortiz is still only batting .185.
But Mark Kotsay, who can play the outfield and first base, is
due off
the DL today, while John Smoltz should join the team around the 15th,
a
potentially
big
boost.
"We've
talked all along that we believe Chien-Ming Wang is a
starter, and at some point we believe he's going to be in this rotation. I'm not ready to say that right now. I love
the way he is throwing the ball .
. . “ -
Joe
Girardi, on the possibility Phil Hughes would be replaced in the
Yankees
rotation.
May Whine: Minnesota
fans hate to complain about their annually overachieving team. But, while Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau were
baseball’s two best hitters on May – with a combined BA of .386, 20
homers and
61 RBIs – the Twins only went 19-21 for the month.
The fans would rather see the team performing
best, with Mauer and Morneau the secondary story.
ESPN’s Peter Gammons saluted
Tigers owner Mike Ilitch last week for ignoring
Bud Selig’s attempt to limit the amount paid in bonuses to highly
regarded
drafted amateur players. Ilitch signed
pitcher Rick Porcello out of the University of North
Carolina in
2007. Porcello, only 20, won his fifth straight start last Wednesday. He has a 1.50 ERA in those games.
Ilitch declined to be a “good citizen” (like
the Mets, who went along with Selig’s approach and regretted it). As Gammons points out, he did more than just
sign Porcello: “Ilitch had to OK more
than $8 million to get
(Rick) to forget about a dorm room in Chapel Hill, N.C. Ilitch…(also went) above Selig's price-fixing
’slot’ and sign(ed) Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, who in turn gave
(GM
Dave) Dombrowski the chips to trade for Miguel Cabrera, one of the best
hitters
in the game.” The
Red
Sox
face
Porcello
tonight
in
Detroit.
-
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 archive
