Old Friends on Opening Day

The players may be the heroes, but on Opening Day, I can't help but think of those who become our friends and companions throughout the springs, summers, and falls across the generations: the Voices of the Game. Many of those who have entertained me are no longer with us. Curt Gowdy and Joe Garagiola, who broadcast the Game of the Week when I was a child, along with Tony Kubek, who lives in Toronto in retirement, had the only game I got to watch each week, before cable showed up. Mr. Buck's voice is as familiar and present to my ear today as it was the day he died in 2002. Mel Allen was the voice of This Week in Baseball by the time I heard his voice. "How 'bout that?" For me, Red Barber was Bob Edwards' guest on Fridays on Morning Edition. He was a brilliant communicator throughout his long and rich life, including giving a young, untried broadcaster named Vin Scully his first Major League Baseball job in 1950. I couldn't even begin to calculate the hours I spent with the Braves' classic crew: Ernie Johnson, Skip Caray, and Pete Van Wieren were on twice a night when TBS had a late-night Braves' replay every night. Now, Don Sutton is missing from the Braves' booth, too. And Harry Caray. Holy Cow, Harry Caray! Did anybody ever love the game more than Harry? Did anybody ever have more fun on their job than Harry? I don't think so! I miss Ron Santo being in the Cubs' booth, too. I didn't know it when he was playing, but Ron Santo was a slugging, Gold Glove third baseman, and a Type-1 diabetic, in the days before meters and pumps. He had to guess, as the game wore on. I don't know how he did it. But what Santo never had to guess about was his love and passion for the Chicago Cubs. He lived and died with every pitch. He kept coming to work, even after he had one leg amputated, and later the other, due to his diabetes. One thing that I can't forgive in regards to the Hall of Fame is that they didn't vote Ron Santo in until after he died. Who would have ever been happier about being included? No one! Baseball fans in the age of the internet were so fortunate that Dick Enberg came back to work for the Padres late in his career. What a delightful man, a great story teller, and articulate broadcaster! Ernie Harwell was a giant among men. I bought a big radio with an enormous antenna with a good portion of my high school graduation money in 1979, to listen to Braves' games on WSB 750 am, and discovered WJR 760 am in Detroit, and Mr. Harwell's broadcast. That radio, that sits on my bathroom counter and is played every day to this day, was good enough to differentiate 750 am from 760 am, way before digital dials were dreamed up. Mr. Harwell was everybody's grandfather. What a gentleman. He always declared winter over by reading The Voice of the Turtle when things began all over again. Dave Niehaus of the Mariners, Tom Cheek of the Blue Jays, Bill King of the A's, Lon Simmons and Russ Hodges of the Giants, and on and on. So many old friends from the radio and tv. Howard Cosell, on ABC's Monday Night Baseball. Howard Cosell! Loud, pompous, often obnoxious, and one of the very smartest, sharpest broadcasters who ever lived! I can still hear all of them, whenever I'm fortunate enough to think of them. And they are all happy memories!

White People, We Have a Problem

White people, we have a problem.

We routinely kill black people in the streets of our country. We kill black people for selling cigarettes. We kill black children for playing with toy guns. We kill black people for legally carrying licensed guns. We kill black people for selling compact discs. We kill black people for jogging. We kill black people for driving.

We kill black people.

And we don't like it when black people protest us killing them.

We don't like it when they protest peacefully, taking a knee during the national anthem. When that happens, we call them unpatriotic, and use that excuse to end their careers.

We don't like it when they protest violently, after they cannot get us to hear them when they protest peacefully. We declare that they are thugs, and the President of the United States threatens that "When the looting starts, the shooting starts."

We don't like seeing cities on fire. We feel threatened when a police station is taken over. We wish black people would control themselves, and not do things like this.

When we are killing black people in the streets.

The problem, referenced above, means it is up to us to stop all of this. And we know damned well that we can stop it any time that we want to. Us. White people.

It is all up to us.

We can stop the violent responses to the murders of black people by stopping our murders of black people.

We can stop the peaceful protests by stopping our murders of black people.

We can put out the fires, end the looting, and lower the angry voices by stopping our murders of black people.

The truth is, we are the only people who can stop these awful things that result from our murders of black people. We cannot choose to kill sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, daughters, sisters, mothers, and wives, and choose to have no response to our killing.

We cannot let our police departments run wild, killing unarmed people, and legally armed people, and people who haven't done anything at all, and people who have not been charged or convicted for the slightest misdemeanors, without provoking a response.

And when that response comes, we don't get to choose what it is. And, I can promise you, if my child, or spouse, or parent were gunned down in the streets, the responses we've seen would be considered mild by comparison.

But that's not going to happen. Because I'm white. My children are white. My spouse is white. My parents are white. And American police don't murder white Americans like they murder black Americans.

That is precisely why we have a problem. That is why we have to stop this random, wanton, deadly wielding of deadly power.

We, white America, are the only people who can fix this problem.

The only question is, do we really want it stopped? Or do we enjoy the status quo? Are we committed to maintaining our privilege? Do we want black people to be murdered in our streets? Do we actually want our police to make it plain, on our behalf, and in our name, that if you get out of line, or even if you don't, we will kill you to show who's boss in this sick, racist society?

I'm afraid that we're about to find out.

We're about to find out.

Again.

21st Century American Political Reality

Trump people don’t scare me. I have known my entire adult life (and most of my teenaged years) that there is evil in the world. What terrifies me is this group, which seems to be gathered around Bernie Sanders (and I voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary), who see no difference between Trump's republicans and the Democratic Party, who see Biden being the same as Trump politically, who see ultimate corruption everywhere but in their own camp.

This “mindset” is insane.

Biden was not my choice. Biden is not my choice today. He has positions in his past that I do not like at all.

But Joe Biden is not a threat to the United States of America, and the whole world.

Donald J. Trump is a menace to human civilization at every point, politically, environmentally, and stupidly.

He has to be removed.

He cannot hold power any longer.

I will raise hell with Joe Biden and his administration. I will object to policies that are not progressive. I will protest and annoy the hell out of as many of them as I can.

But you know what will not happen? Joe Biden will not get on Twitter and sic his mentally ill supporters on people who criticize him. He will not toss out idiotic conspiracy theories that incite people to sending mail bombs to public officials and firing weapons in pizza joints looking for child trafficking rings being run by Secretaries of State. He will not retweet white supremacists and Nazis and leaders of the ku klux klansmen. He will never have David Duke writing adoring, appreciative pieces about how they finally have someone representing their views in the White House. Contrary to what Trump would have you believe, he will not use his son as his envoy to countries where he has hotels or any other personal business interests. He will not violate the emoluments clause of the Constitution on an hourly basis. He will not alienate every single ally that the United States has trusted for the last 75 years, while taking up with every despicable dictator the world over.

And he will not take direction from the President of Russia because the President of Russia put him in office and/or has compromising information to hold over his head.

If you see no difference between Democrats and what republicans have become, if you see no difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, you are out of your fucking mind, and you may well be beyond help.

I encourage you to get the help that you need, try your very best to take it to heart, regain the power of rational thought (assuming you ever had it), and take another look at the world.

A Piece of Metal

There is a deal between American sport and fans. It's a very simple, basic deal. The deal is this: while sport matters not one whit, we, the fans, out of a desire to be distracted from all of the burdens, challenges, frustrations, and ugliness of the real world, will suspend our disbelief and treat sport like it is desperately important, as long as the competitors and their employers (including our colleges and our universities) will also treat sport like it is desperately important. And the way that this importance must be performed, on both sides, is that winning has to be the most important thing.
We count championships.
College football fans know how many championships Bear Bryant won, and how many Nick Saban has won. Baseball fans know that the Yankees have 27 World Series championships, and that all the rest of our teams are chasing them. Basketball fans know that the Celtics have 17 titles, and the Lakers have 16. A good many know that Michael Jordan won 6 with the Bulls, and nothing else matters to them. It extends to NASCAR, hockey, soccer, the NFL, MLS, the WNBA, truck racing, golf, tennis, and probably tiddlywinks.
We count championships.
Every now and then, something happens that affects championships. The 1919 Chicago White Sox conspired with a gambler named Arnold Rothstein to throw that year's World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, because some White Sox players (and it is still argued exactly which players) hated their employer, Charles Comiskey for the legendary tightness of his fists when it came to money and salaries, and they wanted Rothstein's payoffs.
In the 1950s there was a point shaving scandal in college basketball. The NBA had a crooked referee a few years back. NASCAR engines are frequently found to be arranged in such a way as to provide illegal amounts of power. The New Orleans Saints have been knocked out of the NFL postseason tournament for the last, what, three seasons, by atrocious referee mistakes. Pete Rose had more hits than anyone else who ever played Major League Baseball, but he is still banned from the game for life because he bet on baseball. Shoeless Joe Jackson, identified by no less than Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb as baseball's greatest hitter ever, and the other "Black Sox" players from the 1919 World Series are not eligible for the Hall of Fame because of their bargain with a gambler.
We don't like it when our championships are messed with.
It is now a matter of public record that the Houston Astros cheated en route to their first-ever World Series championship in 2017. Players looked at their opponents' signs on the video equipment that was installed for instant replay appeals, and banged on garbage cans with bats to signal whether the next pitch was a fastball, or a curve, or something else.
If you think that wouldn't make any difference, I can only surmise that you have never tried to hit even a middling, Little League curveball.
The Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, a very, very bright man, investigated the circumstances, and found the Astros guilty. Manfred, acting within the authority of his office, laid the blame on Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow, and field manager AJ Hinch. Both men were suspended from Major League Baseball for one year. Within hours of the announcement of their suspensions, Astros owner Jim Crane fired both men.
It seemed that baseball had acted swiftly and decisively.
It was clearly hoped, in the Commissioner's office, and in the Astros' owner's suite, that this action would end the controversy.
Hopes do not always come true.
The Astros defeated other teams en route to winning the World Series. The Astros beat the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees in the American League playoffs that year, and then topped the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. Pitchers for those opposing teams, who had been good enough all year to pitch their teams into the playoffs, were beaten, and some of them were crushed.
As though the Astros' batters knew what pitch was coming.
Which they did!
The players from these losing playoff teams are angry about their losses, and the Astros' cheating. It is hard to blame them for being angry.
There have been calls for the Astros' championship to be vacated. The calls have been widespread enough to have required a response from the Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, again, a very, very bright man.
Rob Manfred said that taking away "a piece of metal" just wouldn't make that much difference.
The "piece of metal" that Manfred was referring to was the trophy that is awarded annually to the team that wins the World Series.
The trophy, whose actual name is The Commissioner's Trophy.
Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Baseball, a very, very bright man, screwed up, with those few words, as badly as a human being in his position could ever possibly screw up.
Rob Manfred told us that championships don't matter. Yeah, the Astros cheated, but it's just "a piece of metal."
What's the big deal?
The Big Deal, Mr. Commissioner, is that with those words, you broke the deal. We attend to sport because we conspire with you to pretend that championships matter. And you just told the world that they don't matter. At all. They are just "a piece of metal."
Baseball has set records for the revenue taken in, year after year. Business is great! No matter that attendance has dropped each year for the last four seasons, and the only reason that the dropping streak isn't at seven seasons was a negligible 0.03% increase in 2015. Maury Brown reported these figures in Forbes magazine, and included in his piece that the 2018 and 2019 seasons were the first since 2003 that baseball attendance fell below 70,000,000.
Business is so great, apparently, that Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Baseball, a very, very bright man, feels comfortable in suspending our suspension of disbelief right at the start of another baseball season, a baseball season that is beginning at a time when it seems to so many of us that our country and our world are just falling apart and we need baseball more than ever to give us a respite from the lies and criminality.
Commissioner Manfred won't strip the championship from the Astros because it is just "a piece of metal." Which shouldn't matter to us, because it doesn't matter to Manfred.
I've just begun rereading Edward Gibbon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. In 476, Romulus Augustus sent his imperial regalia to Constantinople after Rome was taken by Odoacer.
I can only suppose that Romulus had concluded that his crown was just "a piece of metal."
A word to the wise. Or, at least, to a very, very bright man.

Baseball Economics and Real World Economics

Nick Castellanos, who will turn 28 on March 4, just signed a 4 year contract with the Cincinnati Reds for a reported $64 million. Let's unpack that sentence. The Reds are one of the smallest of the small market teams, with absolutely no history of major free agent signings. Nick Castellanos is a good player, who had good seasons the last three years. His OPS (the favored metric for evaluating offensive play, On Base Percentage plus Slugging Percentage) for each of those seasons was .811 in 2017, .854 in 2018, and a career-high .863 in 2019. His career OPS is .797. An average OPS for a major league hitter is .750. Finally, I make $64 million for 4 years an average salary of $16 million.
The Boston Red Sox are all hot and bothered to trade Mookie Betts. The stated reason is that they need to get under the luxury tax line in 2020. That line (which baseball, with one of its typically absurd euphemisms, calls the Competitive Balance Tax) kicked in for 2019 at $209 million in player payroll. The Red Sox spent $240 on player payroll, and they had been above the line for some period of years (I don't know, or care, how long). The baseball luxury tax bumps up as a team's payroll exceeds certain levels, and also rises as the ceiling is exceeded for multiple years. With all of the permutations of the rules, the Red Sox are being assessed a luxury tax of just over $13 million for 2019.
The Boston Red Sox were purchased by billionaire John Henry and a consortium of minority partners on December 20, 2001, for $660 million. In April, 2019, Forbes Magazine released its annual valuation of Major League Baseball teams. Forbes estimated the value of the Boston Red Sox at $3.2 BILLION, exceeded only by the NY Yankees, at $4.6 billion, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, at $3.3 billion. I wonder how many investors would like to get their hands on an asset that would rise, in only 18 years, from a value of $660 million, to $3.2 billion? Pretty much all investors, I'd guess. To review, this is a business valued at $3.2 BILLION, owned by a group headed by a man whose net worth is estimated at $2.6 BILLION.
Now, Mookie Betts. Betts turned 27 on October 7, 2019. He's six months younger than Nick Castellanos. Betts was named the 2018 American League Most Valuable Player. He is not the best player in baseball, as Mike Trout has that position nailed down. But he's definitely in the conversation for #2. Betts has a career OPS of .893, almost 100 points higher than Nick Castellanos. Mookie's career-low OPS was .803, six points HIGHER than Castellanos' career average. Betts produced an OPS of 1.078 in 2018 and .915 in 2019. Over .900 is a baseball superstar. Over 1.000 is incredible.
The Red Sox ownership has decided that they need to trade the man who is, arguably, the second best player in all of baseball to save an amount of money (luxury tax) that wouldn't even have signed Nick Castellanos. A $3.2 billion corporation, owned by a man whose net worth is $2.6 billion, is worried about $13 million, and is so determined to save that $13 million that they are determined to eliminate their most significant asset.
This ownership group was, of course, not in place 100 years ago when a financially struggling Red Sox owner traded Babe Ruth, and all of the Red Sox' success, to the Yankees for $100,000 cash and a guaranteed mortgage on Fenway Park, but they seem committed to behaving just as stupidly and short-sightedly as their forebear.
Over an amount of money less than that the Cincinnati Reds could afford to pay one slightly above-average player.

Managing Problems

This week has brought a renewed, if unwanted, focus on Major League Baseball's managers. AJ Hinch of the Houston Astros, Alex Cora of the Boston Red Sox, and Carlos Beltran of the New York Mets were all with the Astros in their World Series winning season of 2017. Hinch was manager, Cora was bench coach, and Beltran was a player. All three were named in the Commissioner's report on the Astros' sign stealing cheating in that season.

All three of these managers were fired by their teams this week, after the Commissioner's report became public. Hinch was also suspended for one year by the Commissioner. Cora and Beltran continue to wait on word as to any suspensions they will face.

I believe that each man deserved/deserves a suspension. I believe that they deserved to lose their current jobs.

But the firings of Cora and Beltran highlight another, even more significant, problem.

There are thirty Major League Baseball teams. There is one African-American manager in MLB, Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers. With the firings of Cora and Beltran, there are three remaining Latino managers: Dave Martinez of the Nationals, Charlie Montoyo of the Blue Jays, and Rick Renteria of the White Sox. Roberts is the first minority manager the Dodgers have employed, but the team of Jackie Robinson has been admired for its progressive approach to the game for decades. The Nationals, Blue Jays, and White Sox have all employed minority managers previously, as have the Mets. They are each to be commended for their openness. Cora was the first minority manager for the Red Sox, who were the last team in baseball to bring a black player to their major league roster when Elijah "Pumpsie" Green was called up in 1959, a full twelve years after Jackie Robinson's advent in Brooklyn.

Most major league teams have never had a minority manager. That fact is hard to understand when you consider who comprises baseball teams.

Cora and Beltran represented 40% of baseball's Latino managers, and 1/3 of baseball's minority managers. I can only hope that the three teams who have sudden and unexpected openings for Major League Manager will consider a wider range of candidates to fill those positiions.

It is shameful that only one team is led by an African-American manager. And it is absurd that only three teams are led by Latino managers.

Baseball must do better. And wouldn't even have to try very hard to do a whole lot better.

Faces

I'm an almost 60 year old white man, born into the heart of the Jim Crow south. I've lived within the bounds of the confederacy all my life but for 7 years, and those were spent in a still wildly racist border state, in a county that retained unwritten Sundown Rules into (at least) the last decade of the 20th century. I had one set of grandparents who never quite mastered saying "Negro" at the time that that was the preferred term. I attended a high school that was created by building a walking bridge over the street that had separated (but unequalled) the town's black and white high schools, just a very few years before I got there, by court order, of course.
I retain a cracker accent, despite of my best efforts.
And yet, I've somehow managed to never, ever dress up in blackface, brownface, or any other face than my own.
Never.
Not once.
At any age.
Just sayin'.