I don't remember the last weekend that was as good as this one. Friday: 7-6 Red Sox; Saturday: 7-5 Red Sox; Sunday: 7-6 Red Sox. Oh, by the way, the losers in each of those games: the New York Yankees!
Sunday was the capper. The script read a bit differently than it played out. Daisuke Matsuzaka was making his first start against the hated eternal rivals. He was supposed to win a taut, tense 1-0 shutout. Didn't work that way. In fact, he trailed going into the bottom of the third, 3-0. Then, the ghost of Ted Williams (head intact) reached down and touched the bats. After Youk and Papi went quickly (6 pitches total) and quietly (easy flyouts to Abreu and Cabrera) to Yankees' ace, Chase Wright (Chase Wright?), Manny blasted his second home run of the season onto the Mass Turnpike. And then JD Drew visited Williamsburg's outer suburb. And then Mike Lowell drove the Turnpike. And then The Captain continued his awakening by bombing the back row of the Monster Seats. Four batters; four home runs. Not done since the Dodgers' bottom of the ninth performance late last season. Not done against one pitcher since Terry Francona's dad, Tito I, participated as a Cleveland Indian in 1963. Poor Paul Foytek. He gets remembered once in the 18 years of Sunday Night Baseball on the Worldwide Leader, and it's for giving up Back-to-back-to-back-to-back homers. To a group of immortals like the aforementioned Tito Francona, pitcher Pedro Ramos (yes, boys and girls, the American League used to play real baseball!), Woodie Held and Larry Brown. But at least Brown went on the be a fairly successful basketball coach. Or maybe that's a different guy.
Anyway, the Yankees Sucked, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Results: the Red Sox are 12-5; the Yankees are 8-9. And all is well in God's universe!
At least until next weekend at the Stadium.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
How?
How does a 23 year old man decide that life isn't worth living?
How does that 23 year old become so angry that he decides to take as many people with him as possible?
How does a college president fail to close his school after two murders in a dormitory?
How does that college president keep his job after that failure to close results in 31 more deaths?
How do college-aged people ever learn to trust and feel secure after watching friends and teachers gunned down before their eyes?
How do parents get through a day when they know there are multiple murders on their kid's college campus, but they can't get hold of their kid or get the names of the dead and wounded?
How do we call ourselves civilized when we continue to tolerate this sick, sick, sick gun culture?
How does God let it happen?
How do you counsel the survivors?
How do you stick a camera and microphone in their faces and ask young people how they feel after witnessing such a thing?
How do you explain it all to children?
How do we get better?
How do we do better?
How do we fix our souls?
How do we pray?
How do we not?
God, be with the Virginia Tech family today.
How does that 23 year old become so angry that he decides to take as many people with him as possible?
How does a college president fail to close his school after two murders in a dormitory?
How does that college president keep his job after that failure to close results in 31 more deaths?
How do college-aged people ever learn to trust and feel secure after watching friends and teachers gunned down before their eyes?
How do parents get through a day when they know there are multiple murders on their kid's college campus, but they can't get hold of their kid or get the names of the dead and wounded?
How do we call ourselves civilized when we continue to tolerate this sick, sick, sick gun culture?
How does God let it happen?
How do you counsel the survivors?
How do you stick a camera and microphone in their faces and ask young people how they feel after witnessing such a thing?
How do you explain it all to children?
How do we get better?
How do we do better?
How do we fix our souls?
How do we pray?
How do we not?
God, be with the Virginia Tech family today.
Friday, April 13, 2007
The I-Man and Me-Man
Don Imus has been fired. Yesterday, MSNBC ended its simulcast; today, CBS Radio and WFAN ended his radio program. If you don't know what Imus said, you haven't been in the country the last week.
This is a tough one to figure. Imus has done the same show for...decades. He has routinely characterized people by ethnic and gender stereotypes for as long as I have been aware of him. And still, over the last 15 to 20 years, the I-man turned into a player. The guests on his program have been a Who's Who of American politics (from Clinton to McCain and everyone in between) and journalism (from Jeff Greenfield to the Newsweek team to anyone else who had a book to sell). Because Imus has drawn listeners who vote and read and have money.
We have told ourselves that racism and sexism has become limited to the ignorant, illiterate and poor. But as Willie Shakespeare said long ago, "The truth will out." And now it has.
Imus' act hasn't changed. But he'd become accepted, and influential. While everybody knew what he is. But somehow when he said it about Gwen Ifill or William Rhoden, it didn't generate heat.
Then he attacked the Rutgers University women's basketball team. You know, the national runners-up to the University of Tennessee. Coached by one of the genuinely courageous women I have ever heard of. Imus used one of the crassest characterizations of that group of young women that he could have possibly found. One that had no connection to any reality those young women are living. Hey, I couldn't have gotten into Rutgers. I bet Imus couldn't have, either. So he crudely dismissed them as something less than acceptable, and became a pariah in the process.
I hate to admit it, but I have heard worse terms than Imus' used in regard to people of color in Fellowship Halls and Sanctuaries of churches I have pastored. Imus has protested that he is a good man who did a bad thing. I don't know if he is, or isn't. But I have heard people who lived exemplary lives in every other area use the crudest of terms in telling jokes or relating some perceived advantage that a member of a minority group had "unfairly" received because of some preference. And I have rarely done what I should have in those instances, preferring peace to justice. May be that old Don isn't the only one with issues to deal with.
We are still a racist society. That doesn't mean that white people schedule time each day to spew bigotry and hatred at the non-white. It does mean that there are still inherent advantages for the majority, and disadvantages for the minority, that are too blatant to be denied. And leaving all of the protesting of that fact to the minority evidences the majority's comfort with the way things are. In other words, I'm not bad because I'm white, but I sure am suspect if I willingly accept the benefits of being white in America, and don't raise my voice to speak truth to power on behalf of those who do not share my advantage.
It is fascinating to me that Imus' downfall came after attacking athletes. This Sunday, April 15,
is Jackie Robinson Day in Major League Baseball. 60 years ago, Jack Roosevelt Robinson broke baseball's unwritten Iron Curtain and played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Baseball was 7 years ahead of America (in the Brown v. Board of Education ruling) in doing the right thing. Sports led the way then, and may be doing so again.
It has been moving to hear the build up to Sunday's recognition of Mr. Robinson. Several significant players will be wearing his universally retired 42 in Sunday's games. The Dodgers have chosen to have all their players wear Jackie's number. So have the Houston Astros. The Dodgers' decision is obvious, but there were no Houston Astros when Robinson broke the color barrier. The Houston franchise wasn't awarded until after Robinson's career was over. Could their desire to dress up in Jackie's number have anything to do with the fact that the Houston Astros do not have any African-American players on their team? And that they probably would prefer that no one notice that on Jackie Robinson Day?
Jackie Roosevelt led. The Rutgers University women's basketball team is leading. But that still doesn't mean everyone will follow.
I come, proudly, from a liberal family. My father was one of those rabble-rousing pastors who marched to Mayor Loeb's office in 1968 to ask for justice for the sanitation workers. I love the famous picture, taken from behind the Mayor's left side, that reveals his shotgun at the ready under his desk should those rowdy preachers have gotten too far out of line. My grandfather received death threats when, as pastor of St. Luke's Methodist Church, he seated the group of black Memphians who were visiting the great white churches to see if their proclamation of the gospel had any real meaning. It did at St. Luke's! I love that heritage, and embrace it. I raised my children to believe that "in Christ there is no slave or free, Jew or Greek, male or female" and that, in America, "all [people] are created equal."
Then one day, my older daughter, then teen-aged, asked "Dad, would it bother you if I dated a black boy?" I guess that I could have lied and looked good. But I confessed. "Yeah, I know that it shouldn't, but it probably would."
The I-man isn't what he should be. And neither is the Me-man. Or most of those who have decried Imus this last week.
"But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."
This is a tough one to figure. Imus has done the same show for...decades. He has routinely characterized people by ethnic and gender stereotypes for as long as I have been aware of him. And still, over the last 15 to 20 years, the I-man turned into a player. The guests on his program have been a Who's Who of American politics (from Clinton to McCain and everyone in between) and journalism (from Jeff Greenfield to the Newsweek team to anyone else who had a book to sell). Because Imus has drawn listeners who vote and read and have money.
We have told ourselves that racism and sexism has become limited to the ignorant, illiterate and poor. But as Willie Shakespeare said long ago, "The truth will out." And now it has.
Imus' act hasn't changed. But he'd become accepted, and influential. While everybody knew what he is. But somehow when he said it about Gwen Ifill or William Rhoden, it didn't generate heat.
Then he attacked the Rutgers University women's basketball team. You know, the national runners-up to the University of Tennessee. Coached by one of the genuinely courageous women I have ever heard of. Imus used one of the crassest characterizations of that group of young women that he could have possibly found. One that had no connection to any reality those young women are living. Hey, I couldn't have gotten into Rutgers. I bet Imus couldn't have, either. So he crudely dismissed them as something less than acceptable, and became a pariah in the process.
I hate to admit it, but I have heard worse terms than Imus' used in regard to people of color in Fellowship Halls and Sanctuaries of churches I have pastored. Imus has protested that he is a good man who did a bad thing. I don't know if he is, or isn't. But I have heard people who lived exemplary lives in every other area use the crudest of terms in telling jokes or relating some perceived advantage that a member of a minority group had "unfairly" received because of some preference. And I have rarely done what I should have in those instances, preferring peace to justice. May be that old Don isn't the only one with issues to deal with.
We are still a racist society. That doesn't mean that white people schedule time each day to spew bigotry and hatred at the non-white. It does mean that there are still inherent advantages for the majority, and disadvantages for the minority, that are too blatant to be denied. And leaving all of the protesting of that fact to the minority evidences the majority's comfort with the way things are. In other words, I'm not bad because I'm white, but I sure am suspect if I willingly accept the benefits of being white in America, and don't raise my voice to speak truth to power on behalf of those who do not share my advantage.
It is fascinating to me that Imus' downfall came after attacking athletes. This Sunday, April 15,
is Jackie Robinson Day in Major League Baseball. 60 years ago, Jack Roosevelt Robinson broke baseball's unwritten Iron Curtain and played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Baseball was 7 years ahead of America (in the Brown v. Board of Education ruling) in doing the right thing. Sports led the way then, and may be doing so again.
It has been moving to hear the build up to Sunday's recognition of Mr. Robinson. Several significant players will be wearing his universally retired 42 in Sunday's games. The Dodgers have chosen to have all their players wear Jackie's number. So have the Houston Astros. The Dodgers' decision is obvious, but there were no Houston Astros when Robinson broke the color barrier. The Houston franchise wasn't awarded until after Robinson's career was over. Could their desire to dress up in Jackie's number have anything to do with the fact that the Houston Astros do not have any African-American players on their team? And that they probably would prefer that no one notice that on Jackie Robinson Day?
Jackie Roosevelt led. The Rutgers University women's basketball team is leading. But that still doesn't mean everyone will follow.
I come, proudly, from a liberal family. My father was one of those rabble-rousing pastors who marched to Mayor Loeb's office in 1968 to ask for justice for the sanitation workers. I love the famous picture, taken from behind the Mayor's left side, that reveals his shotgun at the ready under his desk should those rowdy preachers have gotten too far out of line. My grandfather received death threats when, as pastor of St. Luke's Methodist Church, he seated the group of black Memphians who were visiting the great white churches to see if their proclamation of the gospel had any real meaning. It did at St. Luke's! I love that heritage, and embrace it. I raised my children to believe that "in Christ there is no slave or free, Jew or Greek, male or female" and that, in America, "all [people] are created equal."
Then one day, my older daughter, then teen-aged, asked "Dad, would it bother you if I dated a black boy?" I guess that I could have lied and looked good. But I confessed. "Yeah, I know that it shouldn't, but it probably would."
The I-man isn't what he should be. And neither is the Me-man. Or most of those who have decried Imus this last week.
"But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
This Just In...
Some rich guy is buying the Tribune Company, which apparently means that the Cubs will be spun off after this season, like some failed corporate division. This is news. This is big.
Mark Cuban wants to buy the Cubs.
I love the Red Sox. I am passionate about the Cardinals and the Braves. I deeply enjoy the Giants (due to Jon Miller's work). But if Cuban buys the Cubs, all bets are off.
If you've been in a cave, Cuban is the boy wonder who invented some internet audio streaming system while sitting around in his dorm room during college, while most of the rest of us were drunk at the fraternity house. Cuban and his partner, whose name I cannot recall, sold their invention to some larger .com during the boom for about a bazillion dollars. The partner must have bought a remote South Pacific island and disappeared. Cuban invested a miniscule amount of his serendipity in the then-woeful Dallas Mavericks. You know, the Mavericks? Who employed Roy Tarpley, the Steve Howe of the NBA. The Mavs, who signed some skinny German kid, Dark...Dork...maybe Dirk something. The Mavs, with cranky old Don Nelson coaching them and trading away Steve Nash.
Yeah, that'd be the Mavericks, who lost the NBA Finals to the Miami Wades last Spring, and are far and away the best team in the league this year. Because of their owner. He's smart. He has learned. Fast.
Cuban is also crazy. He yells at referees. He challenges David Stern. He tells the truth. He couldn't care less about fines for all of the above, because, again, he has half a bazillion dollars.
And Avery Johnson. And Dirk Nowitski. And Josh Howard, Jason Terry, Jerry Stackhouse, Erick Dampier and Devin Harris. And, in all likelihood, an NBA title in his near future.
I want Cuban in baseball. I want Cuban in Chicago. I want Cuban ruling Wrigley. I want Cuban to include his friend, Bill Murray, in his ownership group. Why? Have you seen the Pebble Beach Golf Tournament? The ghost of Bill Veeck lives in Bill Murray's soul (via Veeck's son, Mike, a Murray partner in the St. Paul Saints of the Northern League). Baseball needs that spirit. And I want Cuban to make friends with Steve Stone, and bring him back in whatever role Stoney wants. Baseball needs passion and intelligence like Steve Stone's. And I don't ever want to hear of another stuffed suit on a high floor of the Tribune Building making any decision that impacts Wrigleyville, the Cubs, or the longest-suffering fans in the world (even before the Red Sox and White Sox ended their droughts).
Let Mark Do It.
That's the only campaign slogan I want to hear this year. Sell the Cubs to Cuban. He will know what to do with them. And if he doesn't, he'll learn. And it will be fun. And the Cubs will win a World Series. Because Cuban is the most dangerous thing in sports ownership: a passionate fan with half a bazillion dollars. I love him. He's me, and all of us, with bucks. He's just the guy to entrust with a public trust like the Cubs and their Friendly Confines.
Mark Cuban wants to buy the Cubs.
I love the Red Sox. I am passionate about the Cardinals and the Braves. I deeply enjoy the Giants (due to Jon Miller's work). But if Cuban buys the Cubs, all bets are off.
If you've been in a cave, Cuban is the boy wonder who invented some internet audio streaming system while sitting around in his dorm room during college, while most of the rest of us were drunk at the fraternity house. Cuban and his partner, whose name I cannot recall, sold their invention to some larger .com during the boom for about a bazillion dollars. The partner must have bought a remote South Pacific island and disappeared. Cuban invested a miniscule amount of his serendipity in the then-woeful Dallas Mavericks. You know, the Mavericks? Who employed Roy Tarpley, the Steve Howe of the NBA. The Mavs, who signed some skinny German kid, Dark...Dork...maybe Dirk something. The Mavs, with cranky old Don Nelson coaching them and trading away Steve Nash.
Yeah, that'd be the Mavericks, who lost the NBA Finals to the Miami Wades last Spring, and are far and away the best team in the league this year. Because of their owner. He's smart. He has learned. Fast.
Cuban is also crazy. He yells at referees. He challenges David Stern. He tells the truth. He couldn't care less about fines for all of the above, because, again, he has half a bazillion dollars.
And Avery Johnson. And Dirk Nowitski. And Josh Howard, Jason Terry, Jerry Stackhouse, Erick Dampier and Devin Harris. And, in all likelihood, an NBA title in his near future.
I want Cuban in baseball. I want Cuban in Chicago. I want Cuban ruling Wrigley. I want Cuban to include his friend, Bill Murray, in his ownership group. Why? Have you seen the Pebble Beach Golf Tournament? The ghost of Bill Veeck lives in Bill Murray's soul (via Veeck's son, Mike, a Murray partner in the St. Paul Saints of the Northern League). Baseball needs that spirit. And I want Cuban to make friends with Steve Stone, and bring him back in whatever role Stoney wants. Baseball needs passion and intelligence like Steve Stone's. And I don't ever want to hear of another stuffed suit on a high floor of the Tribune Building making any decision that impacts Wrigleyville, the Cubs, or the longest-suffering fans in the world (even before the Red Sox and White Sox ended their droughts).
Let Mark Do It.
That's the only campaign slogan I want to hear this year. Sell the Cubs to Cuban. He will know what to do with them. And if he doesn't, he'll learn. And it will be fun. And the Cubs will win a World Series. Because Cuban is the most dangerous thing in sports ownership: a passionate fan with half a bazillion dollars. I love him. He's me, and all of us, with bucks. He's just the guy to entrust with a public trust like the Cubs and their Friendly Confines.
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