The Chris Moeller Archives

Busch Bash

Here's a rundown of the festivities at Busch Stadium this weekend.

posted by CM @ 8:40 AM 0 comments

Why I plan to stand and applaud for Mark McGwire

Mark McGwire will make his first public appearance since testifying before Congress this weekend when the St. Louis Cardinals play the last three regular season games in Busch Stadium history. McGwire will be on hand for each game, and will pull the number three off the outfield wall on Friday to mark the remaining games at the venue. I will be in attendance that night.

When McGwire makes his ride around the playing field, returning to the site of his historic exploits, I will stand and applaud in recognition of his extraordinary accomplishments on the diamond and because of the professional demeanor he has demonstrated on and off the field.

Contrary to some media reports, Mark McGwire never attempted to fool us into thinking he was "legitimate." He never sought the spotlight. In fact, he often shunned it. During his 70 home run campaign of 1998, he would routinely attempt to re-direct the media attention to teammates whose exploits may have had more to do with a given night's outcome. Overtly or otherwise, we all demanded that he do everything legally to win. That was his end of a social contract that brought him enormous paychecks in return. He delivered.

Even if he were to be proven to have done everything he's been accused of doing, in terms of performance-enhancing drugs, (and it's worth noting that he hasn't,) he still would not have broken any rules. You may believe, like I do, that Major League Baseball needs to toughen up it's policy on granting players medical clearance to wear body armor while batting, but that doesn't mean Barry Bonds is a cheater because he wears it. Personally, I don't demand asterisks on records accomplished with the aid of amphetamines, rehabilitory narcotics, or reconstructive surgery, and I recognize that the only possible reason McGwire was ever singled out to testify before Congress was because he was the biggest fish in the tank.

He was not an active player when he testified, nor was he a policy-maker on behalf of Major League Baseball. What was he doing there, other than for publicity, if the hearing was about confronting current league policy? He didn't lie, as Rafael Palmeiro did, though I believe that would have been within his moral rights in response to a question that had no right to be asked. He wasn't responsible for the death of Burt Hooten's nephew, as the high school boy's father declared in testimony. That father was responsible for the values of his son, along with, of course, the boy himself. These values harken back to a fairer time, before the word "hero" was replaced with the despicable phrase "role model."

Though I didn't ask more of McGwire than his giving it all on the field, he delivered much more than that. He gave charitably and quietly to causes in which he believed. He earned the respect of both teammates and opponents. In 1961, Roger Maris was booed in New York City when he supplanted Babe Ruth as baseball's single-season home run king. He died in 1985 without receiving his due from the public. When Big Mac supplanted Maris, it wasn't about Big Mac. The slugger didn't point to the heavens and declare himself to be the greatest, as other conquering players have done. Instead, he shared the moment with his teammates and a chief competitor, before granting unto Maris' grown children the spotlight and honor their father had been denied during his life.

As Congress renews its public grandstanding on the steroid issue this week, baseball is in the crosshairs. (Funny how we hear almost nothing about yet another NFL player testing positive for "a banned substance" [Travis Henry.] He gets a modest suspension of four games, and the NFL doesn't disclose the identity of the substance as a matter of policy.) The publicity generated by re-opening the steroid hearings on Capitol Hill will help further distract the public from Congress' two sanctioned wars and its failure to put the development of a protective infrastructure ahead of pork spending. A fully-implemented steroid patrol program would accomplish nothing, anyway, other than spur improvements in the field of positive drug-test avoidance. Expect an expensive disaster something along the lines of the broader "War on Drugs."

Some in the media have attempted to cast a shadow of doubt upon the "legitimacy" of McGwire's feats. What cannot be re-written or re-interpreted are the feelings I experienced, along with other Cardinals and baseball fans, during McGwire's St. Louis reign of 1997 to 2001. Those thrills were very much real, as I can still vividly recall. We gave him the atmosphere, and he did the hard part, rising to nearly each and every occasion. I'm proud to call myself a fan of the player and the person. That's why a fifth inning standing ovation for Mark McGwire will be a lasting memory of my final visit to Busch Stadium.

posted by CM @ 10:21 PM 2 comments

Some stuff to read

I've been sidetracked the last couple nights by Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan documentary on PBS. Time will be short tonight.

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An odd distinction perhaps, but, for me, this is the funniest story to come out of the Katrina destruction. Opportunistic Republicans went searching for dead victims whose heirs would have benefitted from the repeal of the estate tax. They're still searching.

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The mainstream national media has moved on to other things, but the New Orleans Times-Piscayne has this collection of some of the stories from the early days of the Katrina disaster that turned out to be exaggerated or untrue.

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It's Banned Books Week. The American Library Associaton gives us the 100 most frequently banned books of the 1990s. Head to your local library and sign out a dozen or so.

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Will Conan O'Brien have to change his act when he takes over the Tonight Show in four years? Not exactly a time-sensitive issue, but it is the topic of this illuminating article. If you read the whole thing, I'll send you a personalized plaque of achievement.

posted by CM @ 10:02 PM 2 comments

Button-down precision

A couple years ago, I caught a Jerry Seinfeld interview in which he described a recent evening watching Tony Bennett in concert. He marveled at the pop singer's craftsmanship and the polish of the performance. (Paraphrasing) he said it was an act honed with time and exercise. He extended the tribute to Bennett by indicting the current prevailing mindset in show business of instant stardom. Performers today, he said, aren't willing to devote the time to measuring and perfecting the act. The American Idol-type shows, or even the Star Searches of a previous generation, peddle the illusion that talent is discovered, rather than developed. We easily forget that an A-list performer and star like Seinfeld toiled in comedy for more than a decade before becoming an "overnight success."

On Saturday night, blog contributor "Dave L" and I saw Bob Newhart in concert in Kansas City. Now in his 70s, Newhart is still dry, deliberate, gentle, and side-splitting in a performance that is as polished as any you'll see in show business. Newhart has always mined laughs from an audience's anticipation of the joke-- his infamous stammer is not an impediment of speech, but a device of the comedy. His act adapted perfectly to television (not once, but twice) because it's situation-driven (i.e. the classics, Lincoln's Press Agent and the Driving Instructor.) Bob was, inveritably, the last sane man, as all else around him slipped into chaos. It may sound strange, but his is the same "everyman" character quality played by another great comic performer, Cary Grant. They both had the ability to escape the situation unruffled. With Grant, the facade was that of elegance and a whiff of the aristocracy. Newhart has been just the average face in the crowd. It added to his legend of "dullness" that he once toiled in one of our most proven punchline professions-- accounting.

But don't believe it for a second-- you don't last for two decades at the top of network television, and for nearly half a century in the public spotlight, by being dull. There's an element of danger to Bob Newhart that boils just beneath the surface. He's dangerous because he looks like the rest of us. He knows that surprise is the key element of comedy. That's why he's been compelling all these years. He'll play the straight man for a Mr. Karlin, or a Larry and his brothers Daryl, but then rap you with a crying tantrum, like he did on the Tonight Show just days before Johnny Carson's final show. He's a jazzman of his craft. Not a Miles Davis, improvisational and explosive, but a Duke Ellington, painstaking and impeccable in his composition.

Newhart's first eponymous TV series was groundbreaking in its use of ensemble performance, and his second was nearly equally regarded by both audiences and critics (some of us even prefer it,) but Newhart's most enduring legacy, I believe, will be the comedy albums that proceeded both shows. "The Button Down Mind" and its successor, "The Button Down Mind Strikes Back," are probably the most influential, and certainly the best-selling comedy recordings of all time. Today, they seem to wholly embody that entire era of the early '60s, Kennedy, and Camelot-- the end of an age of mindlessness and mediocrity. As subversive as they were hysterical. The dark and twisted ruminations of the American accountant.

posted by CM @ 11:57 PM 0 comments

Episode 4: A New Hope

Three years ago, my twin and I made history by holding the world's first ever TV Festival. Movie Festivals already abounded, from the beaches of Cannes to the mountains of Sundance, but no one had ever attempted what seemed to us to be a natural extension for the visual arts. We culled some video tapes, called some friends, printed the programs, reserved a giant sub sandwich, and began the journey of a thousand miles with but a single step and the Cheers' episode where Cliff goes on Jeopardy!.

Three years and 57 screened clips and episodes later, we're at it again. Aaron and I hereby announce the 4th Annual Moeller TV Festival to be held November 5th and 6th at Aaron's home in Cedar Rapids, IA, USA, assuming we meet the landlord's code. We promise a rousing mix of small screen classics, focused this year on the present day and the decade of the 1970s. Controversy and censorship will be running themes throughout the event. The full schedule of programs to be viewed will be published on this blog in October.

If you are interested in attending, e-mail me at christophermmoeller@msn.com. Directions will be provided. Food and drink will be complimentary at the event, and gifts for the hosts are not mandatory. If you do choose to buy gifts for the hosts, however, the traditional 3rd Anniversary gifts are of leather and crystal. Hope to see you there!

posted by CM @ 10:32 PM 5 comments

Pujols' thunder

Some useful information for National League MVP consideration:

Albert Pujols has scored 119 runs, compared with 92 by Andruw Jones.
Jones has driven in 125 runs, compared with 109 for Pujols, but Jones has had a NL-leading 175 at-bats with runners in scoring position. Pujols has had 133 (tied for 20th.) Jones has batted .217 in such situations. Pujols, .323.
Pujols has an on-base percentage of .433, compared with .351 for Jones. The Cardinals' firstbaseman has slugged at a .618 clip, Jones, .596. These two columns combine to give Pujols a 104 point advantage in OPS.
Pujols' team is 9 1/2 games better.

What's the debate?

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The housing market is still hot, and my landlord is feeling the heat. New tenants are being offered half off the first month's rent, and the "For Rent" sign just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I can tell I've been pegged as a potential home buyer because I've won the "Early Bird" rent drawing three times in the past year. Tonight, there was a sign on the door that threatened to "relocate" anyone caught forgetting to close the manual elevator door. They can't afford to boot you out, so they'll just move you to a unit on the first floor where you can't fuck up the elevator.

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The New York Times move we discussed yesterday now makes more sense. But it's still a stupid move.

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Quote of the day: Jazzman Wynton Marsalis, about his hometown-- "(New Orleans) is a place freer than the rest of the country, where elegance met an indefinable wildness to encourage the flowering of creative intelligence."

posted by CM @ 8:20 PM 2 comments

Another free post

It's one of the darkest days for American journalism in the new millenium. The New York Times website began charging for access to their op-ed columnists this morning, with a price tag of $49.95 a year. It's a curious move given the dying circulation of it and other American dailies. The Times correctly assumes that its audience is moving to the internet, but the company believes it needs to act to protect the exclusivity of its talented stable of writers. Their mistake is underestimating the competition, if not in terms of quality, than at least in quantity. For my money, no syndicated columnists can match the wit and wisdom of Maureen Dowd or Frank Rich, but with the internet, I've got plenty else to choose from. The net's symphony of honest and independent voices more than makes up for the lack of polish in their collective presentation.

Trying to control the internet is like trying to catch fish with your hands. The LA Times tried this same maneuver about two years ago when it put its entire content behind a subscription wall. That move lasted about a year. (I was among those who abandoned the site when faced with a fee, then returned the very day it was lifted.) NYT lawyers will stay plenty busy, also, trying to keep the columns from being posted unofficially on any of the hundreds of thousands of other free websites. They must realize this since they're forcing the columnists to contribute more to their paying subscribers. John Tierney is going to sponsor a book club, for example, and subscribers will also get early access to Sunday articles and free archive access.

I'm going to miss my Maureen Dowd, but I'm losing her for a good cause. The elite in this nation realize they're losing their grip on our access to information to the most democratic technological advance in history. And that's a beautiful thing.

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Let's celebrate. Here's a link to a free column by Fareed Zakaria that I think is especially prescient. Zakaria argues that the biggest failure of President Bush and the Congress has been their lack of pragmatism.

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I've been trying to think of another reason, other than naked opportunism, why two of our former Presidents would put their own names on the "Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund." Do you know anyone yourself who would be more likely to contribute to the cause because it was connected directly to either of these two men? I don't. I would argue, personally, that both men were willing accomplices to the political structure and ideology of neglect that worsened the impact of the storm. Of the three names, Bush, Clinton, and Katrina, I'd be hard pressed to decide which has done the most damage to the American economy. As activist Danny Glover said this weekend, "When the hurrican struck, it did not turn the region into a Third World country... it revealed one."

posted by CM @ 10:06 PM 4 comments

The 57th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards

In the immortal words of Seymour Skinner, welcome to a wonderful evening of theater and cleaning up after yourself.
Many of you probably missed tonight's Emmy Awards telecast, on purpose, because you believe the show only honors TV programming that is, at once, hopelessly safe, unchallenging, or fiscally viable. I want you to know, however, that if you believe this, you are only mostly correct. Similar to this year's Oscars-- just when you thought the sky was at its darkest, two quirky writers are recognized for their brilliance. Here are the highlights from Sunday night's CBS broadcast...

7:04pm (times are central standard)- I arrive home fashionably late after another rousing edition of "the Baseball Show on KXNO." Earth, Wind, and Fire and the Black Eyed Peas are beginning a special Emmy rendition of EWF's "September." Sirens of the small screen, Marg Helgenberger and Doris Roberts, shake it in the aisles. The lyrics are almost entirely indecipherable, but there was a video clip mixed in referencing the profane language of "Deadwood." David Milch's show has the most sophisticated dialogue, and dialects, in the medium's history, and all half these people hear is "cocksucker, cocksucker."

7:08pm- Ellen DeGeneres is just about tops in the hosting business. Quite famously, she works all of the award shows following our great national tragedies. So you can catch her "next month at the North Korean People's Choice Awards." Her girl-- and ours, Portia de Rossi, is seated next to her mother in the audience, and the host makes a clever pitch to host the Oscars. I hope she gets the chance.

7:13pm- Brad Garrett is named Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy, igniting what will be a big night for "Everybody Loves Raymond" and its ninth and final season. In his speech, he remembers to thank "Britney and our baby."

7:21pm- William Shatner wins Best Supporting Actor in a Drama. I don't watch "Boston Legal" (because David E. Kelley shows are always too cute by half, and frequently vomit-inducing,) but I've always thought that our beloved Captain Kirk was about the most limited actor in the business, in terms of his range of expression. Here are a list of five "Deadwood" supporting actors who collectively could have swept the nominations in this category: John Hawkes, Brad Dourif, Leon Rippy, Garret Dillahunt, and the most captivating and distinctive actor of our time, William Sanderson.

7:37pm- Blythe Danner wins for her role on "Huff." My hand to God, I have never heard of that show.

7:44pm- Of all the fraudulent awards in Hollywood, the most fraudulent are for performances in television movies or miniseries. These productions are largely melodramatic, dull, and created for the sheer purpose of winning "prestige" for their respective networks. The academy uses the nominations to further honor people they've heard of. I offer now the 10 nominees for supporting roles this year. You're familiar with each of their work: Christopher Plummer, Paul Newman, Randy Quaid, Brian Dennehy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jane Alexander, Kathy Bates, Camryn Manheim, Charlize Theron, and Joanne Woodward. The latter should have one of these awards named for her.

7:51pm- The greatest (only great?) Emmy tradition is the variety show writing nominees submitting their own humorous video clips. "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" had the best montage this year. A quick roll of the show's lesser known writers, followed by a long pose by the show's host. Honorable Mention goes to the Ali G Show for the montage of male porn stars and Prince Charles.

8:01pm- Doris Roberts wins for "Raymond." She brings her grandsons on stage with her.

8:02pm- I spit out my Bud Select as David Letterman is announced. He delivers a warm tribute to the late Johnny Carson, but the clips of the old "Tonight Show" could have been substituted for some lesser known ones. My favorite moment was there, though. Carson does a magic coin trick for a young boy at the desk. "How do you make it really disappear?" the boy asks. "You get married," Carson replies.

8:14pm- "The Daily Show" wins Best Variety Series. Jon Stewart says that many of today's young comics feel about Letterman the way Dave feels about Carson.

8:35pm- It's Geoffrey Rush turn on stage for his lead role in HBO's Peter Sellers film. I'd like to see the numbers on the percentage of television movies or miniseries that are based on a celebrity's life. This year's nominees in these categories boiled down to a battle between the real-life team of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Peter Sellers, Elvis, and the Roosevelts. The only electric moment in the history of these categories was-- no, not "The Winds of War," but the victory of the hot young unknown, Angelina Jolie, as "Gia."

8:46pm- In a truly great moment, "Lackawanna Blues" star S. Epatha Merkerson announces upon her win that she has lost the notes for her speech down the front of her dress, amidst her immense cleavage.

8:50pm- "Desperate Housewives" wins for Comedy Directing. That show is both comedic and dramatic, but it's creator, Marc Cherry, knows the unwritten rules of Emmy victory. Call yourself a comedy! Dramas beat dramedies, but dramedies beat comedies. This was the lesson learned hard by "Moonlighting."

8:52pm- Hip hip hurray! The only true victory of the night. The award for Best Writing in a Comedy Series goes to "Arrested Development." The honor is validation, not only for Mitch Hurwitz and Jim Vallely's classic episode, "The Righteous Brothers," but for GOB Bluth and his tragically misunderstood ventriloquist partner, Franklin.

9:03pm- "Emmy Idol" was a winner, too, as far as I'm concerned. Here, Shatner and soprano Frederica von Stade perform the original "Star Trek" theme. The Idol winners-- ultimately, wisely, and my cellular phone tally-- will be Donald Trump and Megan Mullally for their "Green Acres" performance.

9:13pm- Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw appear on stage to pay tribute to their fallen "brother," Peter Jennings. CBS never gives Brokaw a one-person camera shot. Just an observation. Also, NBC's news clips in the anchor montage all have the peacock in the corner of the screen. ABC does not label its clips.

9:29pm- In unsanctioned Idol competition, Conan O'Brien performs the first stanza of "Charles in Charge."

9:35pm- Oliver Wendell Douglas, Miss Ellie Ewing, Ernest T. Bass, and Mr. Emil Peterson all died this year.

9:45pm- Tony Shalhoub wins again this year for "Monk," yet I remain convinced that the Batemans will one day get their due in Hollywood. Their mistake has been making it look effortless.

9:47pm- In one of the evening's two great tragedies, Ian McShane of "Deadwood" loses to James Spader of "The Practice." Last year, Academy voters shunned a submitted performance by McShane in which his character delivers five minutes of exposition and backstory while receiving a blowjob. And now they've done it again. I'll never get into the heads of these voters.

9:55pm- (Loud sigh.) It's "Lost" over "Deadwood" for Best Drama. We're told HBO shows don't win because people employed by the networks resent the freedom inherent in pay cable productions. Translated, that means it's socially acceptable in Hollywood to vote against Home Box Office because they won't hire you. Those of us who have access to both products recognize the difference in quality.

9:57pm- "Everybody Loves Raymond" is named Best Comedy. I'm sure years from now we'll all be in complete agreement that "Raymond's" ninth season was better than "Arrested Development's" second.

10:00pm- Done on time. Ellen says goodnight to the second that my VCR clock flips to 10 o'clock.

posted by CM @ 11:51 PM 1 comments

Toxic waters

Here's a devastating account of the environmental damage wrought over the past two weeks by the collision of a catastrophic weather event and our fragile and unsustainable fuel-based economy. Read at your own risk.


Note: Posting will be hit and miss this week. I'm on vacation from work. You might think that that would free up more time for blogging. You'd be wrong. I'm feeling a little tapped. Also, drunk.

posted by CM @ 2:59 PM 0 comments

Weekend reading: Sept. 9-11, 2005

Already think America's drug laws are hypocritical? You won't be surprised by this. It turns out Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist was hopped up on a prescription narcotic for nearly a decade. To Rehnquist's personal credit, he dissented in June when the court ruled that doctors can be blocked from prescribing marijuana for their patients.

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There's one factor you don't hear discussed in the media regarding why many New Orleans residents failed to leave the city before Katrina: The fact that local television meteorologists had probably overhyped the last ten hurricanes that approached the coastline. Perspective is always the first casualty of the ratings war.

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Cubs great Ron Santo says he's going to miss Busch Stadium.

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But I have no idea what this is all about. Read it, then check back.


First of all, "garish red seats" could not have "represented all that went wrong with sports in the 1960s." The seats weren't painted red until the mid '80s. Likewise, the artificial surface wasn't installed until the early '70s.
Secondly, media space might be at a premium during the World Series, but Wrigley Field is hardly reknown for its large and accomodating media workspace, either. Of course, it's even less reknown for its World Series games.
Thirdly, I wouldn't put Wrigley Field high on my list of great ballparks. To venture there, I have to double my budget and travel time, brace myself for imclement weather (outside the middle two months of the baseball season,) don knee pads to squeeze into the seats, and a hard hat to get through the concourse.

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Trivia question of the day: Now that Jerry Rice has retired, which NFL receiver has the most career receiving yards? Answer below.

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I forgot to mention that I caught "The Aristocrats" on Labor Day. Incredibly funny. I thought about providing a litany about which comics score big in the movie, and which don't. But the movie is not about the punchline. It is, as advertised, a dissection of the joke. Some comics who appear, such as George Carlin and Paul Reiser, are cast really as narrators. Some are given the privilege of appearing only once, but delivering a big laugh. Director Paul Provenza held each comic's fate in his hands. I will say, though, that almost all of the women nailed their auditions.

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I watched a Fox Sports Net countdown show this morning, highlighting the top 10 dynasties in sports history. The Steel Curtain Pittsburgh Steelers came in at number 8. Curiously though, the show included no mention of the team's reported steroid abuse. I'm still waiting for that Congressional inquiry.

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Today on the radio, I heard both a sports guy and a weather guy refer to the Iowa State/Iowa football game as "The Super Bowl of Iowa." I don't like it. Let's work together to kill that expression before it catches on.

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Trivia answer: The Rams' Isaac Bruce, with 11,753 receiving yards.

posted by CM @ 8:44 PM 2 comments

Chris Carpenter for Cy Young

This is the most lily-livered defense of a potential baseball award recipient that I've ever read. (Does that make sense?) ESPN's Jayson Stark won't even go so far as to say Chris Carpenter "doesn't deserve (the Cy Young) award." He just wants to make the point, as his copy editor believes, that the win statistic for a pitcher is overrated. Which seems to me like arguing that oxygen is disproportionately credited with maintaining human existence.
Obviously, you can pitch well and lose, and you can pitch poorly and win. But at the same time, I think we've all seen that guy who uses his two pitches to work through the batting order once or twice-- and then starts looking into the dugout for help. We've all shed tears for the pitcher who "deals" for six innings, departs with a one or two run lead, and then asks a parade of pitching mates to record the last nine outs of the game.

Stark's argument for Houston's Roger Clemens is peppered with faulty logic (Surprise! A low road ERA only means a higher home ERA,) contradictions of his own criteria ("previous close calls" in the voting,) and statements of unflappable support by observers as impartial as Clemens' own manager. Stark even stoops so low as to use Clemens' age as a justification for the honor. (Though it's worth nothing that both candidates pale by comparison here to the Giants' Jeff Fassero.}

Chris Carpenter deserves the Cy Young Award, and here's the why. Carpenter rolled to his 21st victory tonight against the Mets. That's now ten more than Clemens. Wins are the most important statistic because team wins are the currency by which baseball standings are measured. The object of professional baseball, after 136 years, is still to win the most games.
The criteria by which a pitcher "wins" or loses" is fair-- predominately because the designations of victory or defeat cannot be awarded in absentia. One must be still in the game when it becomes decisive, to win, or alternately, lose it.
This is what I find particularly eye-popping about Clemens' numbers. It's not the 11 wins or the 6 losses. It's the 11 no-decisions. I'll be clearer. Before tonight's start by Carpenter, the two hurlers had each made 28 starts. Yet Carpenter had pitched almost 24 more innings. (213 to 189.1.) That's almost one more inning on average per start. Why is Clemens leaving these games? The Astros aren't scoring, but Clemens isn't giving up many runs. His team's fate still hangs in the balance. You don't need to earn a win to record a complete game. All you need is to have pitched nine innings. How many times has Clemens gone the distance? The answer is once. Chris Carpenter has seven complete games, including four shutouts.

Thursday night's game actually demonstrates some of the disadvantages Carpenter has in the Cy Young race. The Cardinals now lead Clemens' Astros by 13 games. They've held leads similar to that each day of the past three to four months. Baseball Prospectus calculated this morning that if the remainder of the season were played out a million times, the Cards would be NL Central Division champs 999,935.5 times.
Perhaps with that statistic in mind, Carpenter left tonight's game after just 7 innings and 96 pitches. Sound like a typical start for Clemens? It does to me. Not for Carpenter, though. If Stark's numbers are accurate, it was the first start in his last 16 that the Cards' ace failed to work into the eighth inning. The 5-0 cushion was generous, perhaps, but it was a scoreless game into the fifth. The 43-year-old Clemens left his last start after only five frames.

In the same way that Clemens' win total is damaged by a lack of offensive support, isn't it probable that Carpenter's ERA suffers in reverse? If Carp's not forced to bear down in just one start out of, let's say, six, the ERA may balloon. Earned Run Average, in this way, can be just as misleading as wins.

Another "quality start" tonight by Carpenter makes it 27 out of 29 for the year. It's strange that Stark and Phil Garner both think that Clemens' "lowest ERA since '85" is "historic," but neither believes Carpenter's "highest percentage of quality starts since '94" is worth comparing. (What would truly be "historic" is if a guy lost the Cy Young race to a guy with ten fewer wins.) The 21st victory (with four starts remaining) was Carpenter's 13th in succession. After starting the year, 8-4, his ERA has dropped as the pennant races have heated up. His monthly ERA's, in succession, have been 4.01 for April, 3.60, 0.90, 1.11, 2.17, and 1.11.

Cy Young ballots will be cast in the next three weeks. Clemens will have a remarkable advantage in terms of national publicity. He's headed to the Hall of Fame. He has a shelf at home already weighed down with Cy Young Awards. Having starred for both the Red Sox and Yankees, he'd have a huge leg up in publicity even if he never won a game. What he has accomplished this year is, no doubt, a great achievement and a great story. What's unusual about his season for me is that, while his numbers haven't swayed me into thinking he's the worthy recipient of the Cy Young, they've swayed me into thinking he's the greatest pitcher of all time.

I confess, also, that I, too, suffer from being a partial observer. I've had the chance to watch nearly every start Carpenter has made this year. I've seen his dominance, and I've seen what that contribution has meant to the rest of the Cardinals team, whether it be their pitching rotation that he anchors, their well-rested bullpen, or the team as a whole.

I've only seen Clemens pitch twice. And he lost to Carpenter both times.

posted by CM @ 11:53 PM 5 comments

Latino Legends

There's very little time for blogging tonight. I attended my second KXNO Radio "Cardinals Gamewatch" of the summer. This is an event in which Cardinals fans gather at Rookie's Sports Bar, just off 63rd and Park Avenue in Des Moines. Don't ask about the outcome.

Earlier today, I voted for Major League Baseball's "Latino Legends Team." I voted for...

C- Ivan Rodriguez
1B- Albert Pujols
2B- Roberto Alomar
3B- Bobby Bonilla
SS- Dave Concepcion
OF- Roberto Clemente
OF- Manny Ramirez
OF- Sammy Sosa
SP- Juan Marichal
SP- Pedro Martinez
SP- Martin Dihigo
RP- Mariano Rivera

Against my better judgement, I did not vote for former Cardinal great Joaquin Andujar. But you should click on his name anyway, and treat yourself to a 1982 World Series highlight, featuring play-by-play man Joe Garagiola.

posted by CM @ 10:56 PM 4 comments

The Tao of Todd

Last year, the Cubs players and their manager successfully lobbied to get team broadcasters Chip Caray and Steve Stone removed from their posts. With neutered announcers now firmly in place in the Cubs' booth, the players have shifted their editorial focus to the Cardinals' television broadcast team.

Second baseman Todd Walker suggested Monday that Joe Buck and Al Hrabosky were trying to make Cards' manager Tony LaRussa look like a "genius" at the expense of Cubs' manager Dusty Baker.
The scenario in question was the eighth inning of a 2-2 ballgame Monday afternoon. Both teams led off the frame with their first place hitter, who reached base. The teams' best sluggers, Derrek Lee and Albert Pujols, were each due to bat third. The Cubs' 2nd place hitter, Ronny Cedeno, dropped down a successful sacrifice bunt, but the maneuver allowed LaRussa and the Cardinals to pitch around Lee. The Cubs ultimately failed to score.
In the bottom of the inning, the Cardinals' 2nd place hitter, Abraham Nunez, swung away and legged out an infield hit. With runners on first and second, the Cubs were forced to pitch to Pujols, who swatted a decisive three-run bomb into the bullpen in left to the roars of "M-V-P, M-V-P."

"At this time, you're going to pick on every little thing," Walker said, "It's the perception that if it's a team like the Cardinals, who have won 80-something games, that they're perfect. That's not the case. When you're losing, people look for things. In baseball, nobody is perfect.

"But there's a perception that if you're 20 or 30 games over .500, [37, actually] that you are, and if you're a few games under, like we are, then they make the assumption that you [lack fundamentals]. That probably is a fair analysis, but that's the case with every team. It gets overlooked when you're winning games like the Cardinals."

OK, I admit his point gets a little confusing at the end. It is a fair analysis that the Cardinals are more fundamentally sound? Or it isn't?
It doesn't help, either, that, turns out, Dusty Baker never called for the bunt. Cedeno missed a sign, according to the manager. It was supposed to be a stolen base attempt, and the runner on first, Jerry Hairston, Jr., missed the sign too. Ouch. (Walker admitted to missing a sign in the fifth inning, when he was thrown out trying to steal.)

The Chicago Sun-Times partially backed Walker by pointing out that the Cardinals' Nunez made a sloppy play in the game, too, by trying to score from second on a wild pitch with Jim Edmonds at the plate. But I thought that was a good aggressive attempt. It took a heady, back-up play by shortstop Cedeno to get Nunez after the catcher's errant throw to the plate.

Walker's support of his comrades is commendable, but, like the criticism of Caray and Stone last year, it illustrates some of the thin skins present in Dusty Baker's clubhouse. LaRussa's national reputation, freshly-polished by his team's success, some recent historic wins, and a best-selling new book, clearly keeps Baker from enjoying a good night's sleep, and Baker's secondbaseman is attuned to that.

Last week, Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon (whose long-overdue firing arrived today,) implied that LaRussa, and his top lieutenant, Dave Duncan, were racists because they have had run-ins with both Baker and him. (McClendon and Baker are both black.) Duncan was suspended four games last week for failing to duck a punch thrown by Pirates' hitting coach, Gerald Perry.

When asked for comment, Baker suggested only that McClendon's comments were misconstrued. (I offer a thorough account here.) The skipper failed to offer other possible alternatives as to McClendon's implication.

The bottom line is this, and I'm going to be blunt. The Cubs were predicting a dynasty in 2003, giddily en route to their first division title in 14 years. At which point, the hand of God-- donning a Cubs' cap and earphones-- reached from the sky and damaged, possibly irreparably, the collective mindset of a decent ballclub. The '03 club did not win the pennant, nor did the following two Cub teams, who have, instead, each endured horrid thumpings at the hands of LaRussa's juggernaut. Only four players now remain from that '03 playoff team.

Sloppy baseball, like it or not, does reflect directly upon the manager. And Walker is absolutely wrong if he believes that the little things even out over a long season, while talent prevails. If anything, the opposite is true. And any fan that has followed the '05 Cardinals can attest to that.

In baseball, players play, but the great teams are always a reflection of their manager. The same principle applies to the poor teams. The blame doesn't always lie with the manager, but the responsibility always does.

posted by CM @ 10:25 PM 3 comments

Naw'lins on film

Has there ever been a bad movie that took place in New Orleans? I can't think of one. I've seen about half of these. I recommend "Eve's Bayou" and "Angel Heart" above all.

posted by CM @ 9:40 PM 1 comments

Law and order

There was an interesting exchange on "Real Time with Bill Maher" last night between Maher and Mideast expert Fareed Zakaria. Zakaria compared American expectations of the Iraqi war to the more recognizable realities of the New Orleans crisis.

He says Americans wonder aloud why they were not greeted as heroes in Iraq for delivering the prospect of freedom and democracy. But those elements can never be introduced immediately. Like the people suffering from the hurricane, they're not thinking about freedom, they want drinking water and a sandwich.

There can be no democracy without law and order. It reminded me of the way creator David Milch described the central theme of "Deadwood" on HBO. Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1876, was a culture that had no law, "bein' on Indian land," according to a central character. The show describes how the people attempted to make order where law did not yet exist.

posted by CM @ 12:13 PM 1 comments

A Newer Deal

Americans are poised to help their fellow citizens in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Now is the time for leadership, and George W. Bush is failing to give it to us. He lied outright to Diane Sawyer Friday morning when he said-- "I don't think anyone anticipated any breach of the levee"-- knowing full well that the New Orleans Time-Piscayne, and the former heads of both FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers had each issued dire warnings about the levee in recent years. His failure to send the military to the scene for five full days after the storm will go down in history in texts that already include the phrase, "bin Laden determined to attack America."
The current head of FEMA, Michael Brown, who didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 Katrina victims still in the New Orleans Convention Center, had no experience in disaster relief when the President awarded him with an appointment to the post. The Prez lauded him with a "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" on Friday.

To best utilize the renewed compassion and energy of the American people, we need a fundamental change in the way that business is conducted in Washington. We need an end to the era of greed that placed a greater emphasis on private wealth than on public investment. Seeing this destructive power of Mother Nature should remind us all how precarious our existence really is, even in a country of such tremendous resources. It's going to take a renewed commitment to community to weather the coming storms. The symbolic beginning of this new era should be the formation of a 21st Century Public Works Administration.

The original PWA was a principal ingredient of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in 1933. It was a relief organization designed to make work for the millions of unemployed during the Great Depression, constructing schools, hospitals, highways, bridges, dams, and housing. Today, you can see the positive legacy of the PWA in almost every American community. Three billion dollars in investment in '33 was distributed among 13,000 projects and has undoubtedly saved us hundreds of billions in the decades since. Conservation was a high priority. A vast majority of government buildings-- courthouses, post offices, etc. still stand. Where would our energy situation be today without the hydroelectric power that's been harnessed by the dams over time?

The rebuilding of New Orleans would be the first, high-profile, energy-building project of the new administration, but the failures of the levee and the flood protection system there are only symptomatic of a larger national problem of crumbling infrastructure. Schools, public housing, and medical facilities are disintegrating in our most depressed communities.

A principal project of the new PWA would be the construction of urban commuter rail systems in medium-to-large populated cities that don't already have them-- my home city of Des Moines, Iowa, for example. This public investment- emphasis on investment- would save an enormous amount of money and energy in the coming century as we finally come to grips with the end of the planet's supply of oil. Plants designed to harness wind energy, and other alternative energy sources, would be constructed as well to deal with an energy crisis that has already arrived.

Many critics of the government effort in New Orleans this week believe that the failure falls in the lap of the federal government. They argue that it's a large bureaucracy that worsened the impact of the Hurricane. But, keep in mind, the current administration has made it a matter of policy to weaken these institutions. FEMA was downgraded from a cabinet position to a position under Homeland Security under President Bush. The Army Corps of Engineers, a principal infrastructural agency if ever there was one, has been massively defunded during Bush's consecutive terms. The Corps asked for $105 million in hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year, and the White House cut that amount to $40 million.

Bush's disdain for public investment has been evident in other programs as well. He puts oil industry executives in the EPA to weaken that department's power. He puts creationists and program slashers at the helm of the Department of Education. It's all part of a design to weaken public faith towards the effectiveness of a strong federal government-- mismanagement packaged as advertisement for change.

But the fact is, public investment pays over time. What may have been seen as a frivolous infrastructural expense just a week ago, with two wars raging overseas, should now be viewed as a critical national economic priority. We have a ready and willing workforce at our disposal in this nation. Let's harness that power.

This is the foundation of the 21st Century Public Works Administration. or the Moeller Plan, as some are calling it (a sort of Marshall Plan for our own people.) The details still need to be ironed out, as I only first thought of it last night at around 6 o'clock, but it's an investment idea, I believe, that could save us billions of dollars over time, if only Washington could get away from its mindset of short-term solutions and the endless cycle of electioneering. The current administration is already bought and paid for, but something similar to this should be a major part of the Democratic Party's platform and their message to voters beginning in the mid-term elections next year.

posted by CM @ 11:36 AM 0 comments

FYI

FYI - I'm not deleting any of your comments from the blog except for the trolling advertisements. They seem to be the latest fad on this server. Once before, I was able to delete the ad without a deletion message setting permanently, but it didn't work today. I'll probably just let them go from now on. Let's make it a free marketplace of ideas. Sorry for any confusion.

posted by CM @ 8:28 PM 0 comments

The warning signs

It may seem indelicate to move into the politicizing phase of the tragedy in New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta, but some of the facts coming out have been alarming.

The New Orleans' newspaper, the Times-Piscayne, has been raising the issue of lost federal funds for new levees in Louisiana since spring of last year. On June 8th, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, LA, told the paper, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Also that June, an Army Corps project manager "essentially begged" (according to the Times-Piscayne) for $2 million for urgent work as the levees sank. Obviously, it's unfair to blame the Bush administration for the hurricane, but it's fair to critique the President for the status of New Orleans as he cuts his six week summer vacation short by two days and sends 30,000 National Guard troops to the disaster area. 7,500 members of the Guard have been assigned from Louisiana and Mississippi, but 35 percent of Louisiana's Guard, and 40 percent of Mississippi's Guard are stationed in Iraq. On top of that, you were dealing with a steep decline in Guard recruitment, in the Delta and elsewhere, caused by the Iraqi occupation.

Environmental agencies have been very critical of the Army Corps of Engineers' activities in the lower Mississippi. Oil and petrochemical factories have been pumping God knows what- and how much?- into the Mississippi for a generation, as the Corps-built dikes turned the river into a gushing sewer. The wetlands, which should serve as a modest level of protection during a hurricane, have been used as landfill for suburban development along the Mississippi. (Louisiana loses 25 square miles of coastline a year.)

Meanwhile, last month's Nature magazine published an especially sobering study by an MIT meteorologist from MIT that found "that hurricane wind speeds have increased about 50% in the past 50 years, and that a rise in surface temperatures linked to global warming was at least partly responsible."
It would be incorrect to assume that global warming caused this hurricane, but it's irrefutable that warming global temperatures will cause more hurricanes to occur and will heighten their impact.

The city of New Orleans has a poverty rate of 34 percent, triple the national average, so it also wouldn't be incorrect to say that many people died in the hurricane because they didn't have the money to leave. An estimated hundred thousand New Orleans' residents, most of them African-American, had no cars in which to vacate the city. A first-hand account in Wednesday's Des Moines Register by an Iowan still stuck on the 7th floor of a New Orleans hotel suggested that taxi rides to the airport in the hours before the storm were going for $1,000. This might explain some of the extensive looting that's taking place in the city now, as Wal-Mart's impressive supply of firearms makes its way into the hands of the desperate and resentful.

This may sound as though I'm casually tossing out blame over a remarkable, and very possibly unavoidable, natural tragedy, but I'm really furious. New Orleans is one of my favorite American cities, and I've been reading obituaries by its own sons and daughters, like Josh Levin, and it all seems so senseless, in an era of such staggering callousness and greed.

Corporate America appears to be heeding the President's call to donate what it can. Of course, the six and seven figure contributions will be generally offset by the free publicity the companies receive for their gifts, including a running crawl at the bottom of the screen tonight on CNBC. Earlier today, George W. Bush finally asked Americans for their sacrifice in a time of national tragedy, urging them to avoid buying gas in the next few weeks unless they need it. After September 11th, Americans were willing to sacrifice, and the President merely asked us to "shop till we drop," as the military and their families payed the unfair price of fighting an illegal and immoral war.
Now, Bush should heed Howard Dean's call and ask his friends in Big Oil to join in the sacrifice and stop gauging American families at the pump. He should stop hiding behind their profit-driven junk science and own up to the facts about global warming, and he should acknowledge the culpability of his own administration in failing to take the ecological warning signs seriously.

posted by CM @ 9:07 PM 8 comments