the_nub.html
(politics and
baseball,
baseball and politics – 5/31/07)
“We’re
going to have to turn it around, but I’m not
sure how we’re going to do it.”
The words are those of Republican
Congressman Jeff Flake,
but they are virtually what Joe Torre is saying about the Yankees. The tendency to associate the prosperous
Yanks with the Republican Party goes back a long way (as does the
linkage
expressed in “Never bet against the Yankees, General Motors or Notre
Dame”).
The analogy now has to do with
similarly bad political and
baseball choices. Both the party and the
team chose to tinker as little as possible with what brought them
victories in
their respective fields. While the
Republicans elected to “stay the course” in Iraq
after the 2004 vote, the
Yankees decided to tweak rather than overhaul last year’s AL
East-winning
machine.
The comparison wobbles when one
assesses the turnaround
prospects of each. Going into last
night’s schedule, the Yanks were eight-and-a-half games behind the wild
card
leader (Detroit),
in the only race they can realistically consider to be still up for
grabs. Roger Clemens, scheduled to debut
in Chicago
Monday, will
improve the team’s chances of making up ground, but as Torre has noted,
“he’s
not going to carry us.”
A long-shot Republican game plan can
carry the party to
victory in the 2008 presidential race, if the opposing team cooperates. The GOP believes pitching the importance of
national security will neutralize the Democrats’ emphasis on
Iraq-related
errors. Furthermore, they think their
leading candidate, “Mr. 9/11” Rudy Giuliani can attract more voter
support than
current Democratic leader Hillary Clinton.
Hillary’s back-and-forth record on the war has left her about 10
points
behind Giuliani in (general public) poll approval ratings.
And even if Giuliani or Clinton or both don’t
turn out to be the rival major candidates, the Republicans believe
there’s reason
for hope. In the words of House GOP
leader John Boehner (quoted in this week’s New Yorker): “The Democrats
are
going to stumble. It’s just the nature
of things.”
- -
-
As the Yankees stumbled in Toronto
this week, YES commentator John
Flaherty did something seldom heard on game telecasts: he singled out a
coach
for a series of accolades. On Tuesday
night, Flaherty credited Blue Jays third base coach Brian Butterfield
with the
team’s improved infield defense. Then,
when Toronto’s
Aaron Hill made a tie-breaking steal of home in the seventh inning,
Flaherty
gave Butterfield a share of credit for the theft. “I’ve
watched him; he’s always working to
make players on his team better,” said the Yankees announcer about the
Blue
Jays coach.
In the SNY booth at Shea Stadium
the same night, Ron Darling
anticipated a key balk call by first-base umpire Bob Davidson. “Davidson calls balks no one else sees,”
Darling said in the first inning of the Giants-Mets game.
Sure enough, in the 12th inning,
Davidson detected a balk move by Armando Benitez that put Jose Reyes
into
tying-run-scoring position on second base.
Later, moments after Reyes scored (on another balk), Carlos
Delgado
homered to give the Mets a 5-4 win.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey (dickstar@aol.com).
Previous editions can be found by scrolling below.)
(politics and baseball,
baseball
and politics – 5/30/07)
“News
is something somebody wants to suppress. The
rest
is IPA – information, propaganda or advertising.”
- Journalism 101
Let’s see: aside from sideline reports
of warfront bloodshed
– more on-field info than news – there’s
the standard grandstand fare: celebrity scandals, courtroom
revelations, etc. Then,
on occasion, the real hard-hitting stuff: a story like the recent one
resulting
from James Comey’s testimony. Remember,
he’s the former acting Attorney General who told Senate investigators
about the
hospital visit of then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales; how
Gonzales tried
to get a sick John Ashcroft to sign off on an illegal wiretapping
program. Gonzales, who escaped a
Congressional rundown
but still faces a force-out situation, didn’t want to see that story on
the
national scoreboard.
News, in the strict sense of the term,
is rare these days
because of the way the game is played: the digging required takes time
and is
therefore expensive, which is why most investigative reporters have
been sent
to the showers. Real news is rare, too,
because
reporters protect their sources in return for access.
Then there’s the problem of
embedded-ness. In U.S. baseball parks, as in Iraq,
reporters practically live
with the people they’re covering.
So there’s reason to be grateful for
the few baseball
writers who launch a few newsy tidbits with their IPA fungoes. One is Newsday’s David Lennon, who reported
Saturday on Willie Randolph’s double standard in dealing with
lackadaisical
play by David Wright and Carlos Delgado.
Randolph
criticized Wright for failing to run out a roller that looked foul but
curved
fair. But he excused Delgado for failing
to run hard and being thrown out on what should have been a double. Then, on Monday, Lennon reinforced a
long-standing sense that closer Billy Wagner is not a Randolph fan.
“As for his manager’s comments about just how ‘good’ the Mets
are,”
wrote Lennon, “Wagner wouldn’t let himself be baited into the same type
of
bravado. ‘He can say that,’ Wagner said.
‘He ain’t got to play’.”
Mets fans can thank the Boston Globe’s
Nick Cafardo for this
morale boost concerning a recently arrived rookie:
“Things you hear
from special assignment scouts: They love Mets outfielder Carlos
Gomez. ‘Out of this world,’ said
one. ‘Absolutely a
future superstar’.”
Finally,
NYC stat man Scott Swanay
notes how significant one-run-victory records can be in selected
division
races. After the long weekend, for
example, the Padres and Dodgers were tied for NL West lead, even though
San Diego
had +43 runs
scored, compared to LA’s +18. The
difference in one-run games, however, was Dodgers 11-4, Padres 9-10. Similarly, in the NL Central, the Brewers led
the Cubs by five games despite Chicago’s
having
had +25 runs scored to +12 for Milwaukee. The critical difference in that division’s
one-run games: Brewers 7-6, Cubs, 2-12.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey (dickstar@aol.com).
Previous editions can be found by scrolling below.)
(baseball
and
politics, politics and baseball – 5/29/07)
Who gets the prize for having the
most productive Memorial
Day weekend? The Mets won three of
three, but a few teams did better, winning four of four.
The Nub believes two individuals deserve
special citations. One goes to Rudy
Giuliani, the other to Brian Cashman.
Each came through in a sticky
situation. Both on the spot for something
they’d done in
politics and baseball, and just plain baseball, they succeeded in not
letting the
game get out of control. Giuliani, still
leading in many presidential polls, has been getting negative press for
acquiring four Yankees World Series rings and a seat from the original
Yankee
Stadium. The latter story, dating from
1982, surfaced this weekend, and, with it, an indignant letter written
at the
time by then-Associate Attorney General Giuliani. Rudy
accused the reporter, who asked in print
how Giuliani had obtained the seat (it had been the gift of a student
intern in
his office) of “display(ing) a reckless regard for the truth and…acting
maliciously.”
Such a response today would only have
kept the story alive. Reporters instead
focused on former NY Mayor Rudy’s
acquisition of the rings, a questionable series of transactions Wayne
Barrett described
recently in the Village Voice. Giuliani
could have gotten defensive or vitriolic, as he has in the past. He chose to make light of the flap and thus
put it to rest (at least for the time being).
“This reporter,” he said of Barrett (who has written two books
critical
of Giuliani) “sticks pins in a doll of me every night.”
Cashman was more adroit than Giuliani. Whereas Rudy made the story involving him go
away, Cashman, responding to George Steinbrenner’s published
scapegoating of
him for the Yankees’ poor play, said there was no story to begin with.
“There’s
no surprises here,” he said. “He’s said
this to me privately.” Cashman even
injected a wry bit of humor into what he considered a non-story. Asked whether he would travel to Toronto yesterday to watch the team or to Scranton to
watch Roger Clemens, he said he
wasn’t sure where he’d be: “I guess I’m day-by-day.”
On the
Angels-Yankees
radio broadcast Friday night, John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman were
talking to
the Daily News’ Roger Rubin about Steinbrenner’s other outburst. Asked by a reporter what he thought of Jason
Giambi telling USA Today he was “wrong for doing that stuff,”
Steinbrenner
replied “He should have kept his mouth shut.”
Rubin thought it more interesting that the owner hadn’t said
Giambi
“should have said he was sorry.”
Sorry is an appropriate word for the NL
Central
Division. Five of its six teams are
under .500 and the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, who had the best
record
(22-10) in baseball three weeks ago, have lost 13 of 19 and are now
28-23. Bad though they’ve been, the
Brewers have not
lost appreciable ground to whichever team – Houston, then Chicago – took
shaky possession of second
place.
Stat time: Paul
Lo Duca
(.329) and John Maine (6-2) are Mets among the top five NL leaders in
B.A. and
W-L, respectively. A third top-five Met
– Oliver Perez – has earned a noteworthy spot among NL ERA leaders. He is fourth with a 2.54, ahead of John
Smoltz, 2.58.
(The Nub
is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey (dickstar@aol.com).
Previous editions can be found by scrolling below.)
(politics and
baseball,
baseball and politics – 5/25/07)
A decade ago, the Mets had a
slick-fielding Cuban
shortstop,
Rey Ordonez, who was on his way to winning three golden glove awards
(’97, ’98,
’99). To play in the U.S., Ordonez had been forced to defect
and leave
his wife and family behind when he fled Cuba in 1993.
His private life while alone in the U.S.
never
stabilized, and eventually personal turmoil, including a messy divorce,
seemed
to affect his play. In
any event, the Mets gave up on him in 2002,
when he should have been close to his peak.
Ordonez’s history is worth
recalling as Congress wrestles
with an immigration bill that could put the stamp of law on keeping
worker
families separated, no matter what the country of origin.
The U.S.
has been dealing for years
with immigrants by letting them come in, legally or illegally, if they
could be
useful. Ballplayers are among the
privileged groups of professionals who receive regular visas with
minimal red
tape. For menials like restaurant and
farm workers, the government has looked the other way.
Until now.
Virtually all have had to say goodbye to families for long
periods to
earn money north of the border. Many
have been able to slip back home temporarily from time to time,
something the
wealthy Ordonez could not do because of the hardliner exile-driven
Cuban
embargo.
Baseball fans who thrill to the
exploits of players from
Latin America, the Far East and other parts of the world – most of them family
men -- should sympathize with efforts to make it easier, not harder,
for all
useful immigrants to come and work without having to sacrifice the
presence of the
people closest to them.
Two Democratic presidential
candidates – sons of a Mexican
mother and Kenyan father, respectively – were quoted in yesterday’s NY
Times on
the importance of not disrupting the lives of immigrant families. The paper said Bill Richardson believed the
so-called compromise bill “placed too great a burden on immigrants –
tearing
apart families…(and) creating a permanent tier of second class
immigrant
workers.” Barack Obama was quoted as
saying the merit-based, or point system under which guest workers would
qualify
for visas “does not reflect how much Americans value the family ties
that bind
people to their brothers and sisters or to their parents.”
- -
-
Mets general manager Omar Minaya was accused early
in his NY
tenure of over-valuing Latin American players while apparently
considering many
non-Latinos expendable. For example, after
signing Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran and trading Mike Jacobs
(among
others) for Carlos Delgado, he swapped Kris Benson to the Orioles for
Jorge
Julio, and Jao Seo to the Dodgers for Duaner Sanchez. Then,
when Sanchez was disabled in a taxi
accident, he sent Xavier Nady to the Pirates for Roberto Hernandez and
Oliver
Perez. Oh, yes, when Julio turned
out
to be a bust, Omaya traded him to Arizona
for Orlando Hernandez. He also picked up
Guillermo Mota from Cleveland
and, last winter, Ambiorix Burgos from KC for Brian Bannister. Although Julio and Hernandez didn’t work out
and Burgos is still a work in progress,
two
throw-ins in the Baltimore and Pittsburgh deals
have proved to be potentially
superior starting pitchers: John Maine and Perez, respectively.
Nitpicking Mets fans, like the
Nub, can reproach Minaya for
failing to add another solid starter to a patchy rotation.
But, Latino loaded though it may be, the
record overall attests to Minaya being a shrewd judge of talent and a
canny
dealmaker. That’s
a far cry from what we had with his
predecessors – the bumbling duo of Jim Duquette and Jeff Wilpon and
their team
of enablers. For Omar and all the
above, Mets fans have every reason to be grateful.
-
o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey (dickstar@aol.com).
Previous editions can be found by scrolling below.)
(baseball and
politics,
politics and baseball – 5/24/07)
During a Yanks-White Sox game in Chicago
last week, a YES camera focused on a bat that Joe Girardi and Michael
Kay
speculated was made in Italy.
Further investigation – through Google – led to
a Nub conclusion it was an American-made bat, a Mizuno.
A Mizuno? The days when Louisville Slugger, Spalding
and Adirondack dominated the baseball
bat
field are long gone – as current and recent players know.
There are more than 20 makers of wood and
metal bats: Akadema, Anderson, Brett
Bros., BWP, to name those at the top of the alphabetical order. Louisville Slugger is still prominent, if not
dominant, and Rawlings, an old familiar name, is in the mix. Mizuno, Easton,
DeMarini Reebok and Worth are other well
known brand names in an industry that is booming.
The growth of baseball bat sales
and usage parallels that of
our more lethal offensive weapons – military arms.
A government report published late last year
said the U.S.
provided nearly half of weapons sold to militaries in areas where
analysts
believe the likelihood of armed conflict remains highest.
Indeed, the U.S.
has been found to send
weaponry to 18 of the 25 countries involved in an ongoing war.
Why are we doing it? Not for
security. The State Department itself
describes 13 of those 18 countries as "undemocratic” and therefore
potentially unfriendly. We sell weapons
for the same basic reason baseball and bat-makers sell their products:
money. Last year, arms sales totaled $21
billion,
making weapons an indispensable U.S.
export, given our trade imbalance.
Stat Time: Whichever bat Barry Bonds
prefers, he is wielding it with all-or-nothing power. Seldom
does a good hitter with a slugging
percentage over .600 have a batting average well under .300. Going
into last night’s games, Bonds was hitting only .282 and slugging .618.
He was
tied for third in the MLB with Tori Hunter in slugging, behind Alex
Rodriguez
and Magglio Ordonez.
Look who has the second best caught-stealing percentage among MLB
catchers: New York’s own Paul Lo Duca of the
Mets. As of last night, he’d cut down 11
of 21 attempted stealers for a .524 percentage.
Only the Cardinals’ Yadier Molina has a better percentage - .538
(seven
of 13). Jorge Posada?
Only eight of 36 for a .182 percentage.
Tied for first in MLB outfield assists: KC’s Mark Teahen and the
Twins’
Michael Cuddyer, with eight in 40 and 42 games, respectively. The NL leader is Philadelphia’s Shane
Victorino, with seven in 41 games.
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey (dickstar@aol.com).
Previous editions can be found by scrolling below.)
(baseball
and
politics, politics and baseball – 5/23/07)
The subject is courage, as
displayed on-field and off. Few would
dispute that the purest example of
courage in MLB history was shown by Jackie Robinson when he broke
baseball’s
color barrier in the late ‘40’s.
Robinson risked serious injury, and worse – his life was
threatened – if
he persisted in taking the field each day with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Larry Doby, Roy Campanella, Don
Newcombe, et al, may have
felt pressure similar to that experienced by Jackie.
But he was the pioneer who surely made things
less dangerous for them.
Washington Post columnist David Broder
called attention to
the c-word in a piece last week in which he said this about George W.
Bush and
Tony Blair:
“History will record
that both of them saw the threat to the West posed by terrorism and
responded
courageously. The wisdom of their policy
and the conduct of their governments are not likely to be judged as
highly.”
Broder’s columns
rarely appear in the New York
area these days. As dean of the Washington
press corps, his words influence
other mainstream journalists as well as hundreds of thousands, even
millions of
readers, across the country. They
therefore deserve to be addressed.
George W. Bush may have had – and
may retain – the courage
of his convictions. But dictionary
definitions of true courage link it to the willingness to face danger,
to put
one’s body on the line. Bush, and, to a
much lesser extent, Blair, sent others to risk their lives, and, in
thousands
of cases, to die violent deaths in a war of choice, not necessity.
Single-mindedness, determination,
perhaps. But, Broder to the contrary,
those who
witnessed Jackie’s ordeal know Bush and Blair did nothing “courageous”
in
the Robinson sense of the word.
-
- -
It took far-sightedness on the part of the Red Sox
a
half-dozen years ago when the team drafted – in “Moneyball” author
Michael
Lewis’s words – “a fat third baseman who couldn’t run, throw or field.” The player was Kevin Youkilis, and Boston had
spotted a skill
that enabled him three months into his first season to have – according
to
Lewis – “the second highest on-base percentage in all of professional
baseball,
after Barry Bonds.”
Going into last night’s game with the
Yankees, Youklis was
fourth in OBP (.428) and fifth in the AL
batting-average race (.342) Here is
part of an appreciation paid him by columnist Bob Ryan in yesterday’s
Boston
Globe:
”
Kevin
Youkilis is
never going to give away an at-bat.
"’Why
would
anyone do that’, he inquires.
“Well,
they do. We've
all seen guys who, in certain circumstances, put the stamp on the AB
and place
it in the mailbox. It's only one of 550, you know?
"’I
don't care if
it's 13-1 or 1-1 or what else is going on,’ vows Youkilis. ’I'll be up
there
trying to get a hit’."
Another
tough out worthy of appreciation is Detroit’s
Placido Polanco, who, as of last night, was sixth in the AL batting
race, tied with Youklis for fifth
in hits, and owner of the league’s
fewest strikeouts with six in 166 at-bats.
- o -
(The Nub
is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey (dickstar@aol.com).
Previous editions can be found by scrolling below.)
(baseball
and politics, politics and baseball – 5/22/07)
It is one thing for baseball commissioner Bud Selig to refuse to
discuss the
sport’s steroids scandal and how he’ll handle the moment when Barry
Bonds
breaks Hank Aaron’s home run record.
Those are not life-and-death issues.
But it is quite another when both the Democratic and Republican
presidential candidates shy away from serious
discussion of the death-dealing conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians, as they did in three “debates” these past several weeks. Jimmy Carter ventured on to the vacant
field
earlier with publication of his book “Palestine:
Peace Not Apartheid.” He hoped to
attract other players from all sides of the conflict into a rhetorical
fray. It didn’t work.
This week, unlike the politicians, two journalists left the
sidelines to
take some tentative swings at addressing the situation.
Eric Alterman of the Nation and the New
Yorker’s David Remnick succeeded, separately, at least in putting the
crisis
into perspective.
Alterman notes the awkward silence where there should be healthy
noise: “The
difficulty of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he says,
“stems from more sources than one can comfortably count, but surely
one of the most significant is our inability even to discuss it.” Alterman says the “emotional
intensity” generated by the conflict precludes
rational discussion:”Personally, I deal
with this problem by
refusing to discuss the conflict with anyone.”
Remnick lists a series of plays that have backfired to explain why
people
prefer to stay away from this Mideast minefield: “The insistence on
further settlement, the failures of the Palestinian leadership to
respond to
Israeli offers during the negotiating process at Camp David and Taba;
the rise
of suicide bombing, martyr worship, Islamist ideology, and internecine
violence; the myriad misjudgments of the (Edhud)Olmert government—all
have
deepened the sense of hopelessness.”
Alterman sees a positive sign in the distance, which is probably the
best
that can be hoped for at
this stage of
the game: “As it happens, two
professors, Sami Adwan of Bethlehem
University and Dan
Bar On of Ben-Gurion
University, are trying to
address
exactly this problem under the aegis of the Peace Research Institute in
the Middle East. Called
‘Learning Each Other's Historical
Narrative,’ their project aims to develop parallel histories of the
Israelis
and Palestinians, translate them into Hebrew and Arabic and train teams
of
teachers and historians to teach in the classroom. If we are ever to
have any
real hope of solving the Israel/Palestine crisis, then surely this is
the place
to begin.”
- -
-
Back to Bud Selig. This is what the
Braves’ Chipper Jones said about him, indirectly, in the context of
interleague
play: "I don't think
there's any question it's not fair, but I don't think Major League
Baseball is
concerned with fair. If you play the top teams in the American League
and
everybody else doesn't, it's pretty unfair."
When you consider that, under the
MLB’s “rivals” arrangement, the Braves play six times against the Red
Sox while
the Florida Marlins get to play six against Tampa Bay,
Chipper would seem to have a point. Over
the weekend, the Marlins swept the Devil Rays as the Braves were
dropping two
of three to Boston. Florida
was the only team in the NL to sweep.
The Tigers and LA Angels took three from the Cardinals and
Dodgers,
respectively, to help give the AL
an overall 23-19 edge.
The Yankees
may be lagging in most
statistical phases of the game, but, going into last night’s action,
they were
the only AL
team with two players among the top five in OPS, the combined on-base
and
slugging percentages. The two: Alex
Rodriguez (.392 and .677) and Jorge Posada (.441 and .618). A-Rod has the highest slugging percentage in
either league. In the NL, the one team
with two players in the top OPS five was lowly Colorado – Todd Helton and Matt
Holliday.
- o -
(The Nub is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey (dickstar@aol.com).
Previous editions can be found by scrolling below.)
(politics
and baseball, baseball and politics – 5/21/07)
Although his departure should be
scored a force-out, Paul
Wolfowitz is being allowed to leave the game for a pinch-runner. His World Bank teammates, and the public, are
awaiting his replacement, who will run the entire franchise. With so many people, including fellow
players, wanting him out, how did Wolfowitz manage to hang on for as
long as he
did? He had the support of President
Bush, the services of an effective attorney Robert Bennett, and the
Bank’s
dependence on the U.S.
for much of the money it disburses. But
Wolfowitz’s staying power was reinforced by his off-field affability
which
helped him get favorable stories in many news publications and TV-radio
reports.
He received a surprising boost
from an unlikely
non-conservative corner of the field. The
New Yorker magazine may not be to liberalism the “Bible” that The
Sporting News
is to baseball, but the magazine does have a pro-Democratic,
progressive
reputation. Yet in its April 9 issue,
days before the Bank began an investigation of conflict-of-interest
charges
against its president, the New Yorker published a long, mostly
laudatory article
on Wolfowitz. Some excerpts from the
piece by writer John Cassidy:
“Wolfowitz is often
depicted in
the media as a neoconservative zealot, but on the road he is
unfailingly
polite, demonstrating a scholarly interest in local culture…I reminded
Wolfowitz that President Bush had recently conceded that errors had
been made
in the prosecution of the (Iraq) war. ‘I
said that long before any other official in the U.S.
Administration,’ Wolfowitz
replied…
“Christopher
Hitchens, the Vanity
Fair columnist, who has entertained the bank president at his home on
several
occasions, told me that ‘the most surprising thing about Wolfowitz is
that he’s
a bleeding heart. His instincts are
those of a liberal democrat, apart from on national security.’…The
chances are
that Wolfowitz will remain in office until 2010…Since the mid-seventies
he has
been challenging entrenched bureaucracies. ‘I don’t want to be flip
here,’ he
said not long ago…’But if no one was complaining, then nothing would be
happening’.”
- -
-
There have been lots of
complaints about Chicago White Sox
catcher A.J. Pierzynski. After several
on- and off-field incidents involving both opponents and teammates,
Pierzynski
is reputed to be one of the most disliked players in the majors. Michael Kay, on YES, asked Joe Girardi about
Pierzynski, implying that A.J.’s aggressiveness made him at best a
mixed
blessing wherever he’s played. Girardi
disagreed: “Pierzynski is a winner,” he
said. “Minnesotawent to the post-season twice when he played with them.
Then he helped the Giants make the playoffs
in 2004. And we know what happened in
2005 when the White Sox won the World Series with A.J. as catcher. He’s a winner.”
The Grady Sizemore watch.
The Cleveland
centerfielder was cut down for the first time on his 16th attempted
steal yesterday by Cincinnati's Chad Moeller. The Mets’ David Wright is the newperfect-steal leader
with nine..
Ichiro Suzuki had 45 straight stolen
bases over two seasons
until his streak was broken last week.
The catcher: Jose Molina, of the
LA Angels.
- o -
(The Nub
is a team
effort skippered by Dick Starkey (dickstar@aol.com).
Previous editions can be found by scrolling below.)
(politics and baseball, baseball and politics
–
5/18/07)
The pitching chart for Republican
presidential candidates
showing their stuff the other night: almost
an even mix of straight-ahead and breaking balls. The
down-the-pike serves had to do with the
need for tax and spending cuts. There
were 57 of them, every pitch unmistakable.
The breaking balls – 60 in number – concerned terrorism, Iraq
and
torture; they came in at unpredictable angles.
Although the terrorism pitch was
Rudy Giuliani’s staple, he
threw an unexpected fast one on spending cuts this way:
“About 50
percent,
just about 50 percent of the federal employees are going to retire in
the next
10 years, during the term of, maybe, one of us. And we have the
opportunity of
not refilling all those positions. And I would pledge not to refill 50
percent
of them.”
Giuliani and Mitt Romney were
among those who agreed that
“enhanced interrogation techniques,” if not actual torture, should be
used if
“attackers” are captured before a terrorist incident occurs. John McCain, who had been a prisoner of war
in Vietnam,
disagreed:
“One of
the things
that sustained us…is the knowledge that if we had our positions
reversed and we
were the captors, we would not impose that kind of treatment on
them…It's not
about the terrorists, it's about us. It's
about what kind of country we are.”
Another frequent (34) - and
predictable – part of the GOP repertoire was a strong pitch in favor of
tough
immigration reform. There were 23
offerings on abortion/choice/right to life, but only one or two on
either
health care or social security.
Studs Terkel, the transplanted
New Yorker who has flourished
in Chicago
as
raconteur and author, has been on social security for a long time. Studs turned 95 this week.
He is a Cubs fan, but, as these words make
clear, his true love is Wrigley Field:
“The
Cubs have been a legend for years. Nothing to do with baseball. You
have to
understand that. The Cubs' popularity had nothing whatsoever to do with
baseball. It's a place to come to as, say, the Air Show is, the Auto
Show, the
Art Institute. It's a place to be at.”
Heard
at the start of the Cubs-Mets game yesterday afternoon
from home team announcer Gary Cohen:
“This lineup looks like it’s for a March 10th
exhibition
game; only two regulars (Shawn Green and Carlos Delgado).”
Along with the subs, a pitcher up from
triple-A, Jason Vargas. A Cubs meltdown
in the ninth helped the Mets to a surprise 6-5 win.
It won’t be a surprise if Mets fans start
staying away from day-following-night games because of Willie
Randolph’s
practice of giving most of his stars a rest.
Heard during Yanks-White Sox game
yesterday, low-key high
praise from Joe Girardi for Mets’
pitcher Oliver Perez: “He has a chance to be good.”
With just about a fourth of the
season completed, only five
regular starting pitchers – three in the NL, two in the AL- have ERA’s
under 2,00. LA’s Brad Penny (1.39), San Diego’s Jake Peavy (1.64) and Atlanta’s
Tim Hudson (1.77) are the three NLers. Oakland’s Dan
Haren
(1.64) and KC’s Gil Meche (1.91) are the others. How
much tougher is it to pitch in the AL, with its designated
hitter, than in the NL? Penny, Peavy and
Hudson
have all
won five; Meche and Haren, with comparable innings, have only won three.
(The Nub appears regularly at
perfectpitcher.org)
(politics and baseball, baseball and
politics - 5/17/07)
Fred Thompson, whom the media have placed on the
first-string team of Republican presidential candidates, found himself
relegated to the bench this week. In
Tuesday’s Times, Clyde Haberman quoted an NBC executive as indicating
Thompson
could claim to be part of what is “probably the best utility player” on
the
network’s team. The exec was talking with
impolitic restraint about the TV series “Law and Order” in which the
former
senator and current actor plays an off-field benchwarmer, a judge.
Thompson has to be taken seriously as
an alternative to
other GOP first-stringers – Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Along with his down-home (Tennessee) conservative
credentials, he
follows in the winning actor-to-president tradition established by
Ronald
Reagan. But where “Dutch” Reagan, who
launched his career as a baseball announcer, knew how to communicate
with a
smooth delivery, Thompson has shown a weakness for pitching himself
into a
pickle.
In a speech celebrating the rule of law
– caught by Salon’s
Glenn Greenwald – Thompson turned one way, then the other, resulting in
a
rhetorical balk:
“Our
nation is based upon the proposition that our statutes, common law and
the
Constitution will not only be applied fairly between litigants, but
will also
be observed by the government…. People will be able to rely upon the
rules,
usually long established, and their consistent application. This
engenders
respect for the law.”
A few lines
later, Thompson changed direction on behalf of Scooter Libby :
“I…know
something
about this intersection of law, politics, special counsels and
intelligence (in
which Libby was involved) . And it was obvious to me that what was
happening
was not right…I
have called for a pardon for Scooter Libby.”
“After
all” – these are Greenwald’s words – “the only thing Libby did was
commit
perjury, obstruct justice and make false statements to the FBI and the
Grand
Jury. Everyone who reveres the Rule
of
Law and who laments its erosion knows that crimes like that are no big
deal and
that people who break those little laws should not be punished, but
instead
should be pardoned by their political comrades.”
A big deal in batsmanship was
pulled off Tuesday night by
the Dodgers’ Rafael Furcal: he collected four hits for the third
straight
game. The only others in the past
half-century to have done so: Brett Butler, Tim Salmon and Mike
Benjamin. Mike Benjamin?
He was a part-time infielder who played for 13
years with the Giants, Phillies, Red Sox and Pirates from ’89 through
’02. Salmon spent his entire 14-year
career with
the LA/Anaheim Angels. Butler
played 17 years with Atlanta, Cleveland,
the Giants, Dodgers, and
briefly with the Mets. He appeared in 90
Mets games in 1995, batting .311 and stealing a remarkable 21 bases at
the age
of 38.
Yankees and Mets fans, wondering
how many more home runs and
stolen bases Alex Rodriguez and Jose Reyes will collect this year
compared to
last, need wonder no more.
NYC-based stat man Scott Swanay projects 49 homers
for
A-Rod, compared to 35 last year. Reyes,
he says, will steal 74 bases, 14 more than the 60 he stole in ’06.
(The Nub appears
regularly at perfectpitcher.org)
(politics and baseball, baseball and politics - 5/16/07)
Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy of California, clearly a baseball
fan, describes political unfairness embedded throughout the country in
terms we fans can understand. McCarthy likens the edge gained by
“juiced up” players to electoral results “juiced up” through the
rigging of congressional districts. The juicing is done through,
“cherry-pick(ing) voters of the same
political affiliation, with little regard to whether those
gerrymandered lines respect established communities and neighborhoods.”
Says McCarthy, in an article published by Common Dreams:
“It's a perversion of (the fairness) ideal
when we allow politicians to win through unfair advantages, by ‘corking
their bats‘ …cutting deals that perpetuate this unfair advantage in
other districts to maximize the number of representatives of one party
who are sent to Congress.”
Although Texas and California have taken their licks in the media for
such “juicing”, New York is notorious as well. A recent
study found that 187 of 212 of the state’s legislative districts have
been shaped in a way that gives lopsided majorities to one party or the
other. The voter lineup in those locales has a direct influence
on the makeup of congressional districts. McCarthy‘s final
rallying cry can be seen as a challenge to home team supporters as well
as to New York’s voters:
“Like
the fans of Major League Baseball,” he says
,“it's time for people to speak out and
demand (fairness).”
It is not likely that the inattentive voting public will
mobilize. As for baseball fans and the sport’s key unfair team
advantage, consider that the Yankees and Mets own two of the three top
payrolls in the majors. Would their fans, sympathetic to the
plight of the people stuck with low-payroll teams, join in a demand for
the kind of financial parity that exists in the NFL and NBA?
Fuhgeduhbowdit!
Speaking of the NBA, Daily News columnist Filip Bondy makes a
long overdue point:
“The NBA
Playoffs are sprawled out over too many weeks, too many time zones, too
many late nights…” What has that got to do with baseball?
Just this:
It's an out-of-season distraction
just
as is football in late
summer and early fall. Both sports - especially pro football -
take up too much space better devoted to the Mets and Yankees when
baseball is hot. The solution: non-baseball seasons need to be
shortened.
Sports Illustrated’s Jon Heyman apologized to Kansas City GM Dayton
Moore the other day for ridiculing KC’s $55 million signing of Gil
Meche. Other baseball writer apologies should be
forthcoming. Why? Meche currently leads the AL with 61.1 innings
pitched and ranks third in ERA with a 1.91. He has a three-to-one
strikeout ratio (47 strikeouts, 16 walks) and, using Heyman’s
reckoning, should be 8-1 instead of 3-1.
(The Nub appears regularly on
perfectpitcher.org)
(politics and baseball, baseball and politics - 5/15/07)
The baseball predictions fans should take seriously are those made by
the stat people who devote themselves full-time to every nuance of
player performances. Bill James is a prime example (although he’s
keeping a low predictive profile since becoming associated with the Red
Sox). Charlie Cook, who produces “The Cook Political Report,“ is
the Bill James of politics. When Cook foresees electoral results,
political people pay attention.
On “Hardball” the other day, Cook had good news for one leading
candidate, bad news for another. Here is his exchange with host
Chris Matthews about Rudy Giuliani’s prospects:
MATTHEWS: So you are saying Giuliani is in trouble because of his
pro-choice position?
COOK: Yes, I just think that he‘s got the perfect position for a
Democratic candidate. I just don‘t know if you can get a Republican
nomination this way…
MATTHEWS: So…you think (Mitt) Romney is going to win the (Republican
nomination)?
COOK: I think it‘s either Romney or (Fred) Thompson, more likely
Romney.
Cook was elaborating on Giuliani’s problems when Hillary Clinton’s name
came up:
COOK: I don‘t think you can lose Iowa and New Hampshire and win this
nomination. And that‘s why I—
MATTHEWS: Hillary could.
COOK: First of all, she‘s ahead in New Hampshire.
MATTHEWS: But even if she lost the little states, she‘s still going to
win this thing. Isn‘t Hillary going to win this thing?
COOK: If I had to put my money down some place, yes.
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who is supporting Hillary, made a
notable speech in New York City a few years ago in which he said, for
Democrats, every day was “Groundhog Day.” “You go to sleep one
year, a Bush is president and there’s a war in Iraq. You wake up
12 years later and a Bush is still president and there’s still a war in
Iraq.” If Hillary becomes president, the Republican variation of
the “Groundhog Day” speech could revolve around
Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton.
A baseball embodiment of Groundhog Day is Astros pitcher Roy
Oswalt. Last year he led the NL in sacrifice bunts with 20.
This year he shares the lead with Dodgers outfielder Juan Pierre.
Both had six going into last night‘s play. But where Pierre had
played in 38 games, Oswald (6-2) appeared in the equivalent of
seven.
(The Nub appears regularly on perfectpitcher.org)
(politics and baseball, baseball and politics - 5/14/07)
The dream of a level playing field.
Baseball fans know it will never happen while the wealthy Yankees‘
sense of entitlement endures. In politics - on foreign
affairs turf - everyone knows it will never happen while the U.S. as
world power operates on a double standard: what America wants is right,
even if, objectively speaking, it’s wrong.
A case in point: U.S. relations with baseball-loving Cuba. Since
1989, when the cold war and Fidel Castro’s close ties with Moscow
ended, there has been no rational reason for the “Yanquis” to continue
considering Cuba an enemy state. Only domestic political pressure
(involving what are surely some Florida Marlins fans) keeps the
punish-Cuba policy alive.
Were politics ejected from the game, the Havana Sugar Kings would be
back playing in a U.S. league - triple-A or even major league
level. Were politics given the thumb, American baseball fans
could tour the Cuban League cities and see fine players performing for
free - “Sports is a Right,“ say the commerce-free billboards at the
island ballparks. They would see Cuban kids playing stickball
with a Latin twist - quick-stepping, not running the bases is the
rule. Were politics thrown off the field, most of our Cuban-born
major leaguers would not have had to defect - and never would have left
their families - to play in the U.S.
Most importantly, were domestic politics not dictating U.S. policy, our
government would not be hitting out at Michael Moore for his cinematic
support of the free Cuban health care system. Or, most
egregiously, Washington would not have allowed an accused terrorist,
linked to the bombing of a Cuban airliner with 73 people aboard, to go
free in Miami last week. The accused, a Cuban exile named Luis
Posada Carilles, had past ties with the CIA. Our own government
originally described him as “an unrepentant criminal and admitted
mastermind of terrorist plots.“ But without a level playing
field, there was no way to bring him to justice.
Prominent Cuban-born players on major league rosters: Bronson
Arroyo, Cincinnati; Danys Baez, Baltimore; Yuniesky Betancourt,
Seattle; Jose Contreras, White Sox; Ryan Freel, Cincinnati; Luis
Gonzales, Dodgers; Livan Hernandez, Arizona; Orlando Hernandez, Mets;
Raoul Ibanez, Seattle; Mike Lowell, Boston; Orlando Palmeiro, Houston;
Jorge Posada, Yankees.
Mike Lowell is batting well over .300 on a Red Sox team that has won
seven of its last nine games, five of six on the road against Minnesota
and Toronto. Red Sox Nation can be excused for an early outburst
of euphoria. This is how Nick Cafardo expressed it in the Boston
Globe:
“How far-fetched is it to say
the Red Sox are well on their way to winning this in a landslide?…The
Red Sox are at the pinnacle of their game…Boston's starting pitching is
head and shoulders above every other team's in the division and better
than any other rotation in the league right now…With the rotation,
(manager Terry) Francona said, ‘That gives you a chance to win every
night. It takes the heat off the bullpen.‘…This might be a team that
can run away with it."
(The Nub appears regularly on perfectpitcher.org)
(politics and baseball, baseball and politics - 5/11/07)
Wayne Barrett, in this week’s Village Voice, describes how Rudy
Giuliani allowed his “love affair” with the Yankees to become a scandal
involving a variety of sweetheart deals, some of which may have been
illegal. George Steinbrenner was Rudy’s enabler.
Turns out that Steinbrenner is linked in a different - political - way
to ex-Mayor Rudy’s successor Michael Bloomberg. Both believe in
preventing the free movement of those who won’t get with their programs.
Bloomberg and his Police Chief Ray Kelly gained notoriety by penning in
anti-war and anti-Republican demonstrators on the city‘s public
streets. Now the Times has elaborated on mention made in The Nub
two weeks ago concerning fan dissatisfaction with what is a pet
Steinbrenner diversion - the “God Bless America” delay in the middle of
the seventh inning of every Yankee game. Moments before the
song is played, the Times reports,
“police
officers, security guards and ushers turn their backs to the American
flag in center field, stare at the fans moving through the stands and
ask them to stop. Across the stadium’s lower section, ushers
stand every 20 feet to block the main aisle with chains.”
Steinbrenner‘s spokesman explains that, for George, the interlude
- an expression of 9/11- and war-related patriotism - requires
respect. One suspects that gratitude is the sentiment fans at
ballparks other than Yankee Stadium feel for being dispensed from
participating in the “God Bless“ interval (except on Sundays and
holidays).
Garrison Keillor is grateful for the candidacy of Barack
Obama. The “Prairie Home Companion” humorist isn’t shy about
making fun of George W. Bush. But, Democrat though he clearly is,
he usually refrains from stating a presidential primary
preference. Not so this week. In his column in Salon,
Keillor offers this take on Obama:
“He is completely new, a break from
the old rhetoric, a guy who doesn't pummel the old straw men or seem
put together by pollsters. He has youth, skinniness, blackness, cool
intelligence, an unabashed love of country, and it's exciting to
imagine him in the White House. He is a rebel who got over
himself and discovered the beauty of the American cadence. Not
like the Current Occupant, who came from the privileged mainstream and
is still flailing against it, the Iraq war his latest attempt to prove
that he knows better than Father.
“People who are dubious about a
Clinton Restoration are mighty taken with Sen. Obama, who seems to hear
the drummer the rest of us hear.”
Bobby Murcer does not endorse instant replay; he doesn’t want it
introduced into baseball under any condition. Murcer said during
a Yankees broadcast Wednesday night that replays would mean loss of the
“human element,” something basic to the sport. As for the need to
reduce, if not eliminate, bad calls, Murcer said it can be done if
umpires concentrate on plays at bases other than the ones to
which they are assigned. Of a glaringly bad call at second base
on Monday night, for example, Murcer said an attentive third base
umpire, with a better angle, should have taken the initiative - and had
the authority - to overrule his colleague. “That type of support
should be practiced more,” he said. Murcer’s YES colleague
Michael Kay wasn’t sure he opposed using replays. “I was opposed
to the wild card, to inter-league play (which I’m still not crazy
about),” he said, “but they’ve worked out pretty well.”
(The Nub appears regularly on perfectpitcher.org )
(politics and baseball, baseball and politics
- 5/10/07)
Two political players whose early moves have put them at the top of the
lineup card for the mayoral race are covering similar turf. Bronx
BP Adolfo Carrion and Brooklyn/Queens Congressman Anthony Weiner both
are warming up outer-borough constituencies with more
centrist-than-liberal repertoires. Both emphasize support for
small homeowners and businesses, and the struggling middle class, in
general. Weiner, who took one for the Democratic team in the 2005
mayoral primary, has an “I-am-owed” edge he is diligently
exploiting. Carrion thinks that, as a minister’s son, he can make
family values an effective campaign pitch, which may help him with
African-Americans as well as Latinos.
The prospective lineup (in alphabetical order): Tony Avella, Carrion,
John Liu, Marty Markowitz, Christine Quinn, Scott Stringer, Billy
Thompson, Weiner. Al Sharpton, always a threat to be an added
starter, could upset the order. But, as of now, Weiner and
Thompson figure to be in the heavy-hitting slots.
Speaking of lineups, it was Andy Van Slyke, the once-great center
fielder, now a coach with Jim Leyland’s Tigers, who some years ago said
“You can tell how good a team is offensively by checking who’s batting
fifth.” Coincidentally, a scan of the stats indicates there’s no
better number five hitter in the bigs than Detroit’s Carlos Guillen.
Jason Giambi and the Rangers’ Hank Blaylock are in the Guillen ballpark.
Business owners faced with removal to make way for the new Shea (Citi)
Stadium at Willets Point say they’ll go down fighting. They have
a champion in Tom Angotti, urban affairs professor at Hunter
College. Angotti, skeptical about city plans for the area, asks
several pointed questions on Gotham Gazette. The first two are
these:
Green
Auto Repair: Could the city do more to “green” the existing auto
repair shops, rather than simply closing them down or pushing them out?
If the plan goes through, hundreds of mechanics in Willets Point will
be forced to operate in low-tech storefronts and neighborhoods where
the most logical location for dumping crank case oil is the city’s
sewer system. Instead, the city could create an auto center using the
latest pollution-prevention technology. This could sustain the
livelihoods of area workers instead of threatening them.
Who
Benefits?: Sustainability and green sound nice, but the question
is always what and who gets sustained? The Willets Point proposal seems
to do a pretty good job at sustaining real estate development in
Queens. The city’s Economic Development Corporation has been
negotiating the plan with big developers whose main commitment is to
sustain their investors’ returns.
Steal this stat: The only major leaguer to have stolen more than
10 bases who has yet to be caught: Cleveland’s Grady
Sizemore. Jose Reyes, who leads the majors with 19 steals, has
been caught 20 percent of the time.
(The Nub appears regularly on perfectpitcher.org)
(baseball and politics, politics and baseball - 5/9/07)
Tom Glavine. Shawn Green. John Maine.
Those are baseball names that come to a Mets fan’s mind when the talk
turns to people you can “look in the eye” and feel that you know.
(The Nub knows them all only from seeing TV interviews and getting the
sense they are regular guys. David Wright and, oh, yes, Derek
Jeter, have lost the “regular” touch through overexposure.)
The subject, applicable to politics as well as baseball, suggests
itself, thanks to a team of AP reporters who combined to evaluate the
presidential candidates on the basis of accessibility and
authenticity. From different campaign beats, the two legmen and
four women compiled what amounts to political “regular guy” standings.
In first place at this still early stage of the race is the eldest of
the top-tier players, John McCain. The report says this of the
four-term Arizona senator:
“McCain
(has) a freewheeling style that allows him to mix it up with voters -
and reporters - everywhere he goes. He has resurrected his
Straight Talk Express bus and his several town-hall meetings a day.”
John Edwards (who impressed one nubber with his patient, one-on-one
presence in 2004) is a close second to McCain, according to the report:
“Edwards has tried to stick to the
campaign style that he honed in 2004, wading into audiences after
speeches. The former North Carolina senator and 2004 vice presidential
nominee is drawing bigger crowds this time around, but he offers plenty
of face time and is known to stick around events until the crowd
thins.”
Mitt Romney is awarded third through wit - To a man in NH who said “You
look like the president,” he replied, “You say that to all the guys” -
as well as accessibility:
“After appearances, (Romney) usually tries to take questions from
voters and linger as time allows. He often meets privately with groups
of around 30 people, and has held a handful of ‘Ask Mitt Anything‘
events.”
The three candidates with most superstar appeal - Hillary Clinton, Rudy
Giuliani and Barack Obama - are also-rans in these particular standings
because of Secret Service agents watching over Hillary and Obama, and
personal security aides guarding Rudy. Accessible or not, all
three apparently attract large audiences, with Obama, according to the
AP report,
“frequently draw(ing)
crowds in the thousands.“
- - -
Baseball risks turning off crowds in the hundreds of thousands if it
persists in resisting use of instant replay to double-check - and
possibly correct - close umpire calls. On Saturday afternoon, the
Yankees’ Melky Cabrera was called safe on a play in which he clearly
missed first base. The missed call - “If baseball had instant
replay, that would be overturned immediately,” said Tim McCarver - led
to a Yankee breakthrough run against Seattle. Monday night,
the tables were turned when the Mariners’ Willi Blomquist was clearly
out stealing second by a few feet but umpire Doug Davis, with a bad
angle, made an admittedly bad call. The tainted run that resulted
proved decisive in a 3-2 game.
As Vladimir Lenin, formerly of the Eastern League, would say, “What
must be done?” Institute instant replay for the first
seven-and-a-half innings only, for all plays excluding balls and
strikes. The penalty for an unfounded challenge would be the loss
of an out in the next inning. Coming into the 21st century
doesn’t have to be complicated. For baseball’s sake, it does have
to happen.
(The Nub appears regularly on perfect pitcher.org)
(baseball and politics, politics and baseball - 5/08/07)
Let’s go around the horn - from Clemens to Steroids to Unions.
Selena Roberts in yesterday’s New York Times reminded us that last year
the Rocket was implicated in the baseball scandal that centers for the
moment on Barry Bonds. It happened, Roberts wrote, when former
Clemens teammate Jason Grimsley was busted for ordering shipments of
illegal drugs.
“Grimsley
fingered several players for using performance-enhancing drugs, but the
names were redacted in court records. The Times, saying it had
seen the affidavit, revealed some of those names including Clemens and
(Andy) Pettite.
“The Times’s disclosure enraged the
United States Attorney’s office, which labeled the report inaccurate
but did not detail what mistakes had been made. What exactly was
wrong in the report - the names or something else?”
Chances are we’ll never know for sure answers to any of the
steroid-user questions. Which brings us to unions, the Major
League Players Association, in particular. The Boston Globe
quotes an unidentified team doctor as saying: “You think it’s the
doctors who are covering this up because it’s what the teams
want? You’re out of your mind. If you so much as hint to a
player that you want to talk about the risks of, say, HGH [human growth
hormone], you’re risking a lawsuit. You’ll have the union up your
ass.”
- - -
Missing from both presidential debates over the past two weeks was any
more-than-fleeting mention of Labor. That’s a reflection of
diminished clout: the percentage of private-sector unions has dropped
from a peak of 36 percent in 1953 to just a bit above 7 percent, where
it was at the beginning of the last century. Congressional
Democrats say they are going to reverse the anti-union policies of the
Bush Administration, but that does not appear to be a high-priority
effort.
It is a priority with one presidential candidate, however - John
Edwards. Fortune magazine calls Edwards
“the 2008 race's chief proponent of a
hotly contentious view - that America's economic salvation lies in
millions more Americans paying union dues.
“Edwards brings to the contest,” says
the magazine, “a core belief that expanding organized labor …is the way
to reduce poverty, expand the middle class, narrow the nation's income
gap and make globalization less painful.”
Laboring the point: What do Brendan Donnelly (Red Sox) ,
Kevin Millar (Orioles) , John Mabry (Rockies) and Damian Miller
(Brewers) have in common? They are among the half-dozen
still-active players who scabbed during the baseball strike 13 years
ago. Will they ever be accepted into the players’ union?
The Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo quotes an unnamed member of the Red Sox
as saying “never.”
One of many stats that illustrates how designated hitters beef up the
offense in the AL:
Going into last night’s games, the AL had only 13 shutouts this season,
compared to 20 in the NL. San Diego has most - four; the Cubs
have three. Three AL and four NL clubs (including the Mets) have
two.
(The Nub appears regularly on perfectpitcher.org)
(politics and baseball, baseball and politics - 5/7/07)
Just as you know what a pitcher considers his most effective delivery
by the number of times he throws it, so do politicians signal what they
consider their strongest argument through repetition. Thus, last
week, the 10 Republican presidential candidates appearing together in
California pitched the idea of tax/spending cuts 45 times in their
90-minute exchange. During their joint appearance a week earlier,
the Democrats tossed Iraq at the national TV audience the same number
of times, 45. It’s conceivable those repeated slants will leave
fans numbed during the many political innings ahead.
A secondary pitch popular with both the GOP and the Dems was
terrorism/security, delivered 16 times by each side. Rudy
Giuliani’s slant on terrorism mirrors the end-justifies-the-means
stance of supporters of Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, et al. “They
may have bulked up with steroids,” those supporters say, “but they
still had to hit the ball out of the park, no easy task. You
can’t dismiss that achievement.” Giuliani says, in effect,
“The Administration may have bulked up in a different field - gone to
extremes in curtailing civil liberties - but you can’t argue with the
results: Despite fears to the contrary, we’ve never been
attacked since 9/11.” However grudgingly one may acknowledge it,
there’s a kernel of truth in both contentions.
John Edwards says he’s not playing anymore if President Bush continues
making the “war on terror” his main pitch. He objects to what he
calls a “Bush-created political phrase” Edwards bore down on the
subject in an interview with Time magazine:
"This political language has created a frame that is not accurate and
that Bush and his gang have used to justify anything they want to
do. It's been used to justify a whole series of things that are
not justifiable, ranging from the war in Iraq, to torture, to violation
of the civil liberties of Americans, to illegal spying on Americans.
Anyone who speaks out against these things is treated as unpatriotic. I
also think it suggests that there's a fixed enemy that we can defeat
with just a military campaign. I just don't think that's true."
- - -
Fox Sports consistently overreaches in its weekly baseball broadcasts,
cutting away to different locations manically at times. No sooner
Saturday afternoon did Joe Buck discuss the sad dilemma of Bonds’
pursuit of Hank Aaron’s home run record than the audience of the
Mariners-Yankees game found itself watching Barry bat against the
Phillies in San Francisco. The timing couldn’t have been
worse. Ichiro Suzuki, perhaps the most interesting batter extant,
was at the plate in New York. In SF, the Phillies were walking
Bonds intentionally. And while many apoplectic NY area viewers
surely became more so, the cameras lingered 3,000 miles away during all
four meaningless pitches.
The predictable announcement yesterday that Roger Clemens would be
joining the Yankees makes the Bombers reaching the playoffs even more
predictable. The Tigers are not quite a sure thing but Jim Leyland has
trained them to be resilient: they’re the only team with a
winning record - 4-3 - when trailing after six innings. No one
else is close. The weekend’s mild surprise: Atlanta coming from a
4-1 deficit to hand the Dodgers their first loss in 16 games when they
led after six innings. The Braves are clearly for real.
(The Nub appears regularly on
perfectpitcher.org)
(politics and baseball, baseball and politics -
5/4/07)
The Democrats’ on-field hopes of cutting down Alberto Gonzales have
taken a hit from a retired player who knows how the game is
played. Former Congresswoman Liz Holtzman, a member of the Dems’
‘73 Impeachment team, hints that Charlie Rangel and other current team
strategists who think Alberto will soon be out are delusional.
Why? Because Gonzales’ removal would clear the field for action
against his manager, George W., a threat the president will never
allow even to reach the on-deck circle.
The nub of Holtzman’s persuasive argument, which appeared in the Los
Angeles Times, is that Bush would have to fill the vacancy, should
Gonzales leave, and
“the last thing
the White House wants is a confirmation hearing.”
In 1973, she recalls, the Senate set a condition for confirmation of
Elliot Richardson as the Nixon Administration’s new AG. It
demanded appointment of an independent counsel to look into the
Watergate scandal.
“Richardson
duly appointed Archibald Cox,” Holtzman writes.
“The rest is history. Cox’s aggressive
investigations led to the prosecution of top administration officials
and the naming of Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator in the coverup.”
An eventual Congressional vote to impeach Nixon led to his
resignation. Since Bush has no desire to be another Nixon, says
Holtzman, he would never want to set in motion a repeat of the ‘73-’74
chain of events. She thus expects Bush to
“prefer keeping a drastically weakened
Gonzales in place.”
As for World Banker Paul Wolfowitz, the other Bush player still in
place, there’s a fair chance his opponents will execute a force-out
after he pursues an appeal to his umpires. If that happens, the
anti-Bush team will at least have completed half a twin- killing.
Although it falls short of total success, the result will be a reminder
of the venerable scorekeeping rule: “You can never assume a
double-play.”
- - -
A rule ESPN should establish concerning it’s baseball game
announcers: No admittance to Chris Berman. His presence
turned the Phillies-Braves game Wednesday night into a rollicking,
bantering mess. The “Boomer” succeeded in even throwing Orel
Hersheiser off his usually more-than-competent game. Steve
Phillips remained his usual off-puttingly instructive self. (It
may be his Mets baggage that jaundices The Nub.)
There were good moments: Hersheiser talking about the policy some teams
have of keeping prospects like Braves call-up catcher Jarrod
Saltalamacchia at the Double-A level away from Triple-A teams.
They don’t want the youngsters infected with the “surliness” some
veterans exude because they’ve been sent down from the major league
level. Visually eloquent was a long close-up of Ryan Howard
in the dugout, brooding about a prolonged slump. The contrast
after the big first baseman broke out with a long home run was
dazzling. For some of us - one nubber, anyway - ESPN games are
not as engaging and informative they could be if Gary Thorne and/or
Steve Stone were in the TV booth.
(The Nub appears regularly on perfectpitcher.org)
(politics and baseball, baseball and politics - 5/3/07)
Public opposition helped stop a city plan to build a football stadium
in Manhattan, but it couldn’t prevent Mayor Bloomberg from pushing
ahead with plans for two new baseball stadiums in the Bronx and
Queens. Shouldn’t we baseball fans be happy?
Nub’s answers: no in the Bronx; maybe yes, maybe no, in Queens.
We’ve already talked about the new Yankee Stadium project. It’s a
done deal. We think it should have been stopped somehow because
it meant the loss of 22 acres of local public parkland. And
perhaps equally important, the Stadium is a baseball shrine that should
be preserved. Instead of replacing it, the city and developers
could presumably have arranged for a dramatic transformation that would
add big-ticket amenities - skyboxes, restaurants, etc. - while leaving
at least an outline of the existing stadium and the hallowed ground
where Ruth, DiMaggio, Mantle, Jeter and so many other pinstriped heroes
played. But preliminary work has already begun on its
replacement. Time to move on.
The new stadium project in Queens is a different story, for the time
being anyway. The city is encountering more community resistance
to its grandiose plans for change than it did in the Bronx The
community is Willets Point, admittedly not a pretty place. The
Times calls it an “eyesore,” The New York Sun “a polluted 60-acre nest
of heavy metal.” Bloomberg proposes to transform it, as part of
the stadium project, into an environmentally friendly “dynamic center
of life, energy and economic activity.” He also promises to
relocate the businesses that are uprooted.
The 250 scrap dealers and junkyard owners of Willets Point are prepared
to fight as they did more than 40 years ago. They hired a young
lawyer named Mario Cuomo then to represent them after the city sought
to condemn the land to make way for the 1964 World’s Fair. Cuomo
took the city to court, and won. It will be a bigger upset if the
community wins in court again.
Baseball fans, by and large, are people persons. They sympathize,
as did Newsday’s Wallace Matthews, with Willets Point resident Frank
Ardizzone, who said this about the situation: “People from the
outside, they come here and all they see is junkyards. This is a
community, with hard-working people trying to make a living. These are
human beings here."
To which Matthews added: “It is a point that seems to be lost on the
politicians, who see only dollar signs, and on sports fans, who don't
care whom the bulldozers flatten in the rush to build their heroes a
stadium, and by a lot of sportswriters, who become willing shills for
the team…”
All true, but let’s face it: Shea is a slum, not a shrine, and,
unlike the 22 acres of Bronx parkland, the junkyards will not be missed
by most Queens (or other) residents. Baseball fans should be more
activist in their sympathies. But it is unlikely that they will
be going to bat for Willets Point as the political game proceeds.
- - -
Scott Swanay, the NYC-based stat man, offers this tip as we baseball
fans look ahead: Watch the difference between runs scored and
runs allowed. Scott says that stat is a good indicator as to who
will be contending for the long haul. The top NL numbers after
yesterday’s games: Mets in East with +45, Cubs in the Central with +29,
Dodgers in the West with +22. The Red Sox, at +40 at game time
last night,, are far ahead of everybody in the AL.
.
(The Nub appears regularly on perfectpitcher.org)
(politics and baseball, baseball and politics -
5/2/07)
What do Al Gore and Roger Clemens have in common? The potential
to bring excitement - and perhaps victory - to teams competing on
political and baseball fields. It’s possible Gore will join
Democratic teammates in the presidential race, and little doubt now
that Clemens will sign on with the Yankees.
Gore, “the best ex-president who was never president” (Maureen Dowd’s
phrase) says he has no plans to reenter the public arena. But he
has been careful not to rule out his return as a
player.
Clemens has made it all but definite that he will be back in baseball
this season. He’s said he’ll decide to play (or not) this month
before signing with either the Yankees, Red Sox or Houston, depending,
among other things, on “how their pitching lines up.” Few
teams have the pitching disarray the Yankees can offer, which means New
York is where Clemens is most needed and most likely to make a decisive
difference in the AL pennant race. How attractive is that?
Gore figures to see if Hillary, Obama or Edwards surge into
pennant-winning position as the primaries approach. If none
do, the pressure - and presumably the temptation - will grow to get
into the game. “All signs are that he will run,” said the man who
runs Gore’s PAC “New York Draft Al Gore” at a meeting yesterday.
Steve Cohen, the PAC-man, said he thought Gore would use the impetus
from his fight to stop global warming - as well as his early opposition
to the war - as the basis for a campaign that should have broad
appeal.
The presence of Andy Pettite on their roster gives the Yankees added
appeal in attracting the Rocket. Clemens and Pettite are
close. Roger has said he would have stayed with the Yankees on a
partial-season basis had Pettite not left for Houston after the 2004
season.
The Astros do not seem competitive enough to get Clemens to
return. The Red Sox, on the other hand, look to be so
pitching-strong that the Rocket would be superfluous in Boston.
Gore has no relationship like that of Clemens-Pettite. But
already there is talk among the former vice president’s grass-roots
supporters about circulating fantasy team bumper stickers. They
would read: “Gore/Obama”
One of the baseball season‘s most predictable reports (from yesterday‘s
New York Times): “The injury to (Orlando) Hernandez…is…a…concern to the
Mets because he is their No.2 starter and has a history of breaking
down.” Willie Randolph on El Duque going on the DL: “It’s a good
thing we have some depth.“ Sorry, Willy, if Chan Ho Park (the
replacement starter Monday) is a sample, the d-word should be spelled
d-r-e-g-s.
(The Nub appears regularly on perfectpitcher.org)
(politics and baseball, baseball and politics - 5/1/07)
“Patriotism can be something other
than support of war.”
- Senator (and
presidential candidate) Chris Dodd
At Yankee Stadium Sunday afternoon, the ire that informed the
Connecticut senator’s remark, made a few days earlier, surfaced in the
the middle of the Red Sox-Yankees seventh inning. Many in the
capacity crowed cheered impatiently during the singing of the last
lines of “God Bless America.” The outburst muffled the repetition of
“my home sweet home.” It was less dissatisfaction with the
ceremony - in support or our troops - than an eagerness to see the game
resume. The incident, repeated more and more often on such occasions,
suggests that, after five-and-a-half years, it is time for Major League
Baseball to give the post-9/11 remembrance a respectful wrap.
Since the ceremony has unavoidable militaristic overtones, the
unpopularity of the war may contribute to the restiveness.. The
major leagues have resolutely taken part in war-connected flag-waving
through the years. Enough, the fans seem to be insisting: it goes
without saying - or singing - that everybody supports the troops.
Let’s stop this extra delay of the game.
An objectionable policy of a related, if different, kind was the
pressure the Mets placed on Carlos Delgado to stop demonstrating his
opposition to the war. While playing with Toronto and Florida,
your may remember, he refused to stand on the field during the “Star
Spangled Banner.” It is an irony that most Americans would now
agree with such a protest were the Mets to let Delgado be
Delgado.
Perhaps the professional game’s worst war-supportive embarrassment
occurred four years ago, just after the invasion of Iraq.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame cancelled a 15th anniversary showing
of “Bull Durham” because one of the film’s stars Tim Robbins made
critical comments about President Bush and the war. Major League
Baseball, which makes possible the Hall’s existence, could have
intervened but did nothing. Its guilt-by-association with Hall
president Dale Petroskey, who initiated the flap, persists.
Former Mets sportscaster Gary Thorne continues to suffer embarrassment
- and perhaps a pang of guilt - for repeating a bogus story that Curt
Schilling’s supposedly bloody sock in the 2004 ALC was stained with red
paint, not blood. More newsworthy than the gaffe - to The Nub -
was mention that Thorne, always a lively play-by-play presence, will be
spending most of the summer reporting Orioles games and doing only a
few on ESPN.
Some added reasons why the Yankees will be glad to see April in their
rear-view mirror: In 12 of their 14 losses during the month they blew
the lead. Overall they’ve had leads in 21 of 23 games. Had
they held on, their record would be 21-2 instead of 9-14.
(The Nub appears regularly on perfect
pitcher.org)
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