The Chris Moeller Archives

Season's Greetings

This holiday weekend, many thoughts will be with the community of Marshalltown, Iowa. Eighty-nine immigrant workers, employees of the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant, were arrested there last week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and are being detained for deportation.

Many of the workers were transported to different states without being granted access to lawyers, according to Senator Tom Harkin's office. Assurances have been made that parents with small children would be released to make arrangements for child care, but "there continues to be reports of numerous single mothers remaining in custody," said Harkin on Tuesday. Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, has promised due process for each of the workers arrested, but "due process" for the current administration might easily mean water torture, electric wiring of the fingertips, and/or naked human pyramids.

The Gestapo-like roundups at six different Swift & Co. plants across the country, resulting in about 1,200 arrests, took place on Friday, the Day of the Virgin Guadalupe, considered sacred on the Christian calendar by many of those now in Immigration custody. "Jesus was not mindful of Social Security numbers, or countries of origin, or of native languages," said the Rev. Barbara Dinnen of Las Americas Comunidad de Fe of the United Methodist Church at a service in Des Moines on Sunday.

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The "War on Christmas" is officially on. But it's nothing compared to the "War on Hannukah".

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I'm sure Cecil Travis was a nice man. He was a career .314 hitter with the old Washington Senators who had an American League leading 218 hits in 1941, the same year Joe DiMaggio hit in 56 straight games and Ted Williams batted .406. He died Saturday at the age of 93. The problem is that Hall of Famer Bob Feller, the self-appointed arbiter of global morality, is planning to cast a Veterans' Committee vote for Travis' induction into baseball's hallowed shrine this year, while still vehemently opposing the inductions of all-world players Pete Rose and Mark McGwire.

Travis played parts of only 12 seasons, and collected only 1,544 hits in his career. He was drafted into the Army infantry on December 24th, 1941 and didn't return to the big leagues until the final weeks of the 1945 season-- absent by then two toes lost to frostbite on a battlefield in France, and never again batting above .252. "He was a very good hitter, and he did a very good job in the war," Feller said this week, "If it had not been for the war, he would have had a lifetime average of .325, .335."

Would have. Would have. Whitey Herzog would have made the Hall of Fame if he had chosen to manage 10 more just mediocre seasons. Dwight Gooden would have made the Hall of Fame if he hadn't chosen to put a mountain of coke up his nose. I would have made the Hall of Fame if I had spent more time in the batting cage in high school and less time perfecting my impression of Willie McGee. Pee Wee Herman would have made the Hall of Fame if he had been born an Alou brother in Bajos de Haina, Dominican Republic during the late 1930s.

Hall of Fame voting is about credentials-- raw numbers and contributions towards the intangibles of victory on the diamond. It's not about electing the goddamn Pope!

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The preceeding would be kind of a sour conclusion to what will likely be my last posting before Christmas. Try this on instead. (Audio warning)

To all a good night.

posted by CM @ 8:33 PM