The Diva Showdown
The marvelous Whitney Houston releases a new album on Monday, the first in seven years by the now-46-year-old singer. Houston was an artist of histortic proportion in the 1980s and early '90s. Because of her early career success, we have a treasure trove of hit records to still enjoy, an inspired collection of young female musical performers in the business today, and one million women graduating from college this year named "Whitney." This latest album, "I Look to You," has inspired
praise from critics, but more importantly, it's inspired today's blog feature:
The 2009 Musical Diva Showdown. It's a lot like "American Idol," except without all the circus acts and that British douchebag.
Below you'll find links to seven memorable, nationally-televised musical performances, each by a different American songstress, and you're invited to vote for your favorite in the comment thread below. I've leveled the playing field by culling each of the clips from the David Letterman Show, as fine a showcase for national music as there is. (Message to top-selling female artists not nominated in this Diva Showdown: Get thee to the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theater.)
I warn you in advance not to allow other YouTube viewers to make your critical decision for you. All seven performances have earned an equal "five-star" YouTube rating, but some of the critics in the various comment threads on that site can be quite persuasive (example comments: "OMG, she rocks!" and "lol"). You can also vote with your AT&T mobile telephone. The call costs $1.99 per minute.
And the nominees are...
The tempting
Christina Aguilera.
The sensational
Jennifer Hudson.
The astonishing
Mariah Carey.
The electric
Beyonce.
The sultry
Diana Krall.
The supreme
Alicia Keys.
And classic
Whitney.
Fourth Amendment affirmed
Quote of the day: Chief Judge Alex Kozinsky of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals writing in support of the panel's (9 to 2) ruling Wednesday that federal prosecutors improperly seized the drug tests for 104 baseball players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003,
"This was an obvious case of deliberate overreaching by the government in an effort to seize data as to which it lacked probable cause... The risk to the players associated with disclosure, and with that the ability of the Players Association to obtain voluntary drug testing from its members in the future, is very high. Indeed, some players appear to have already suffered this very harm as a result of the government's seizure." Reaction quotes to the Quote of the day:
Players association attorney Elliot Peters,
"The leaks were crimes. The people who committed the crimes should be investigated and punished... If the government hadn't unconstitutionally seized this in the first place, there wouldn't have been any leaks." Player representative Adam Wainwright,
"Leak the names that leaked the names. People are obviously breaking the law acquiring those names, and it's not the agreement the federal government had with baseball. Those names were court-sealed. For crying out loud, you can't release them, period." Barring an option for a final appeal by prosecutors to the U.S. Supreme Court, the seized drug test results and samples will be destroyed. It will all be hearsay and unsubstantiated rumor after that.
---
Only good words in this corner of the web in regards to Edward Kennedy. He was a driving force behind the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) and Children's Health Insurance (CHIP) Programs. He was an early supporter of HIV/AIDS research and care, and was one of only 14 Senators to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. He opposed the war on Vietnam, and was one of only 23 Senators to vote against the war on Iraq. He championed public health insurance (beginning all the way back in 1969) and countless other programs to fight poverty. His immigration bill in 1965 eliminated discriminatory quotas. It was his amendment to the Voting Rights Act of '65 that lowered the voting age to 18. The greatest aspect of his legacy is that it's a legacy left to all of the people of America, not just to the citizens of Massachusetts. He was never in government to bring home the pork, and despite his family privilege, working-class Americans could put their trust in him.
Let's give it up for the state constitution of Massachusetts also. In the Bay State, there's no such thing as an interim appointment to fill a vacant Senate seat like the one left by Kennedy. A special election instead must be held within 145-160 days.
---
PREPOSTEROUS AGE DISCRIMINATION:
The new Missouri law that bans phone texting by drivers under 21. I hope their state supreme court sees fit to overturn it. As the story indicates, 22 other states have bans or limits on texting while driving, but only Missouri has chosen to target young people exclusively. If young people are too inexperienced to know not to text while driving, then older, experienced drivers must be too
stupid not to recognize the danger. Which is worse? If anything, young people should be the ones allowed to keep the privilege as they're generally more skilled and experienced in their texting.
Great cooperatives in human history
Wikipedia describes the word
cooperative as "the legal right granted to an author, composer, playwright, publisher, or distributor to exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work." No wait, that's
copyright. A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise." And co-ops have been very good for America and the world indeed.
They're fair, they're operationally efficient, and they're much more common than one might realize. We're not just talking about farm and agricultural organizations, credit unions, public utilities, and those neighborhood groceries specializing in organic foods, although there are clearly raging success stories connected with those areas of our economy.
The New York Times reported earlier this year (in respect to research done at the University of Wisconsin) that there are nearly 30,000 co-ops in the U.S. that have annual revenues surpassing $650 billion. Well-known business entities that are
not well-known as cooperatives include the Associated Press, Ace Hardware, Land O'Lakes (dairy), Best Western (lodging), Ocean Spray (cranberries), and Sun-Maid (raisins).
You don't hear very much about co-ops in the news, but this is mostly because very few have been asking the government for bailouts this year. In the currently depressed economy instigated by rampant greed on Wall Street, co-ops have proven to be quite flexile, whether they be financial, worker, or consumer in their orientation. A recent report by the International Labor Organization explains, “Cooperatives are uniquely member-owned, member-controlled and exist to provide benefits to members as opposed to profit, and this has an impact on business decisions. When the purposes of the business are aligned with those of members who are both investors and consumers of the cooperative, the results are loyalty, commitment, shared knowledge, member participation, underpinned by strong economic incentives.”
Co-ops have their roots in agrarian Great Britain in the 18th century, and their American roots in agriculture among progressive farmers. For Midwesterners, that makes them as much about our past as they should be about our future. Co-ops led to the construction of the first grain elevators (the first being raised in Farnhamville, Iowa in 1881) and greater price control for farmers over grain and livestock. Non-profit health care cooperatives may also ultimately provide the solution to our health care crisis. We'd clearly be a damn sight better off with co-ops than with the corporate, profit-driven insurance and pharmaceutical companies we're saddled with today.
---
Ken Burns' latest documentary film series, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," begins on PBS September 27th. With this six-part series, Burns presents the too-seldom-told American story of the establishment of the parks and of the ongoing preservation and restoration of some of nature's most breathtakingly beautiful locations. Included in the narrative is the story of how the then-head of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, Theodore Roosevelt, campaigned vigorously for the establishment of Yellowstone as the first official national park of the United States, an action that culminated with legislation passed in Congress on October 1, 1890. The preceding summer and fall, Roosevelt had been shouted down at various town hall meetings across the country with derisive taunts such as "Commie Go Home," "No Marxism for America's Forests," and "Stop the Bullwinkle Death Panels."
August loves the Cardinals, and so does Chris
A Monday off-day is a good time to catch up with the St. Louis Cardinals, whose fans have been living the dream this month. On August 7th, the Cardinals and Chicago Cubs were effectively tied atop the National League Central Division, with the Cubs enjoying a three game advantage in the loss column. Seventeen days later, the Cardinals have charged out to an 8 game division lead with 36 more to play. (The Cubs have 40 games remaining.) The Birds have not lost a game in the standings to the Cubs on any single day this month in which they played a game.
It's especially satisfying to the fans in that this Cards' club is truly
"The People's Team". Relentless lobbying on the part of club boosters and chat room generals helped force the hand of General Manager John Mozeliak in separate deals for the versatile Mark DeRosa, hungry Julio Lugo, masher Matt Holliday, and future Hall-of-Fame hurler John Smoltz. DeRosa and Holliday, in particular, were popular choices for potential acquisitions among the chatmeisters dating back to the spring, and those of us that advocated the dealing of "promising" young players like Brett Wallace and Chris Perez in return for an aggressive pennant drive in 2009 are being vindicated by the performances of the veteran newcomers.
DeRosa has clobbered 8 home runs in 131 at-bats since arriving from Cleveland, Lugo is batting .303 as a Cardinal, and Holliday, one day younger than Albert Pujols and batting behind him in the lineup, is this year's version of Will Clark, hitting safely in 43 of his first 108 at-bats, good for a .398 average and a 1.151 OPS (slugging avg. plus on-base avg.). In his first start Sunday, Smoltz allowed only 3 hits in 5 innings, striking out 9.
The only irritating topic during 'dog day' baseball conversations is some detectable scuttle around the league that the success of these four ballplayers in their new home has more to do with escaping to the National League than joining a well-coached and well-managed clubs with enthusiastic, compassionate fans. The conventional wisdom these days, you see, is that the American League is the dominant circuit, and this is confirmed by the fact that Holliday, Lugo, and Smoltz, in particular, were each enjoying subpar seasons before joining the Cards.
USA Today's Bob Nightengale went so far as to say last week that Smoltz's pitching career was over unless he could sign on with a National League organization.
I don't buy it. The bulk of the evidence to support this hypothesis is anecdotal, and for every Matt Holliday or Manny Ramirez thriving beyond compare in the National League, there's a Matt Mulder, Tino Martinez, or Adam Kennedy washing out in the Senior Circuit, and that's just the ones over the last few seasons with the Cardinals. I also offer up as example the Cubs' Milton Bradley, who was an All-Star slugger with Texas in the AL, but has taken a well-publicized nosedive on Chicago's north side. Of course, there's also the Giants' well-paid Barry Zito, former ace of the Oakland pitching rotation now trying to remember how to throw a baseball across the Bay, and Scott Rolen was hitting at a .320 clip for the season in Toronto, good for third in the AL, before being dealt back to the National League only to go 2 for his first 17 with the Reds. Andy Pettitte and A.J. Burnett are former sore-armed NL hurlers now propping up the starting rotation of the best team in the American League, the Yankees, and Brian Fuentes, a middling mostly-second-division closer in the NL, is now an Angels' All-Star with the potential for 50 saves before the season is over.
The American League has gotten a lot of publicity for reeling off a winning streak of 12 in the All-Star Game series, and the high-profile and top-spending Yankees and Red Sox are both in the AL, but no National League general manager constructs his ballclub with an eye towards winning the Midsummer Classic, and National League clubs have won 2 of the last 3 World Series, 3 of the last 6, and this despite not having home-field advantage in
any of the 6 series.
The baseball-focused mind is trained over time to search out items to fret about, and August has been so very good to me and my team that I'm worrying instead about crap like this. That's a good thing, I guess. Enter, September.
---
I talked to you a month ago about how tight the all-time series is between the Cardinals and the Dodgers. After another matchup this past week in L.A., and the red team claiming 2 of 3 contests, the Dodgers now lead the all-time series 995-994. But did you also know this? The Cubs and Dodgers completed their head-to-head series for the year yesterday, and after taking 3 of 4 in Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers now lead
that all-time series 1,017 to 1,015. I say, that's downright amazing! This is why football is popular with gamblers, and baseball isn't.
I am not a lunatic!
A healthy democracy requires an aggressive, cynical news media and in this, America is severely lacking. Throughout the Bush presidency, lefties like me-- opponents of the War on Iraq-- were accused of being on the fringe by the news media, of being conspiracy theorists and disconnected "Bush Haters," even as polls came to reveal a widespread, majority opposition to the war.
In 2004, presidential candidate Howard Dean made the claim that Bush was raising the security alert level to fit his political agenda, and then John Kerry raised the status of his opposition candidacy with the news media by attacking his Democratic rival for his so-called irresponsible claims. Kerry became the "serious" candidate in the Democratic race for president with his statements. "I don't care what (Dean) said. I haven't suggested that and I won't suggest that," Kerry
informed the pundit class, "I do not hold that opinion. I don't believe it."
USA Today then published an editorial containing the following: "It's the most serious of allegations-- that the nation's leaders would selfishly manipulate the greatest threat we face." People who promoted the opinion that Bush was fogging the severity of the terrorist threat to boost his own re-election were considered not only wrong, but acting outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse.
Well, guess what, it was true. Former Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security Tom Ridge will reveal in a new book released September 1st that he was pressured to raise the terror alert to help Bush win re-election in 2004. According to the
US News report of the book
, "Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over."
Was there any direct evidence to go on that Bush, Cheney, and Rove were cooking the reports? Of course not. There couldn't be. The reports were always shrouded in secrecy and the "classified" designation. But the point is: where was the news media? They were still operating under a long-ago-discredited maxim that politicians don't lie. FBI and CIA reports on terrorism may have been confidential, but it was clear to all healthy cynics that the political wing of the White House (Karl Rove) was driving policy. They were outing "unfriendly" CIA agents and throwing kickbacks at pundits in return for the support of their initiatives in print and on television.
Opponents of the War on Iraq have been proven correct time and time again in our assessments and predictions of the war-- that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction, that the Patriot Act would be ripe for overreach and abuse by the Justice Department, and that the attack on Baghdad would morph into permanent occupation of the country, as would the one on Afghanistan.
One has to constantly watch his or her government. Be vigilant in his or her cynicism. Mark Twain wrote, "Put your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket." The sad truth is that even as the American people seem to be increasingly cynical and suspicious, the gatekeepers working in the traditional news media are not, meaning that the responsibility for holding the feet of our leaders to the fire falls increasingly on the fringe.
---
Headline and story in
The Onion this week:
"Congress Deadlocked Over How To Not Provide Health Care."---
The Brett Favre saga illustrates two key differences between professional football and baseball.
The first: In baseball, there would be enormous media attention to the fact that Favre used and betrayed the New York team he played for while seeking his personal retribution against the Green Bay Packers and their GM Ted Thompson. In football, this story is all about the Packers/Vikings rivalry with everybody forgetting how Favre also used and mistreated the Jets. In baseball, the fact that Favre was no longer playing in New York this year would be the story.
The second key difference: In baseball, teams play every day, and Favre, regardless of the color of his uniform in any given season, would not be able to play every game with 6-day stubble.
Forgiving Michael Vick
The sports blog
Deadspin has
an interesting take on Michael Vick's return to the NFL.
(Vick's NFL confessors) have built very lucrative careers for themselves in a sport that dispatches humans onto a field to maul each other and that differs from dogfighting largely as a matter of taxonomy... No one with a stake in such a sadistic and dehumanizing endeavor-- not (NFL commissioner Roger) Goodell, not (Eagles owner Jeffrey) Lurie, not (CBS's James) Brown-- has any authority to plumb the depth's of another human being's morality.
Of course, the three said individuals are all preparing to profit substantially from Vick's return to professional football. It's the hypocrisy
I could do without. Spare us the moralizing, and just 'fess up that this is about winning games and/or making money. That honesty would have my respect.
I don't know if Michael Vick is truly repentent for his crimes, and I don't really care. The NFL has already welcomed back wife- and girlfriend-beaters and drunk driving manslaughterers, and we no longer bat an eye when these cases repeat themselves. Vick's crime may or may not be on par with the others, but from a P-R standpoint, the man's biggest offense was being charged with a crime that no other high-profile athlete had ever been connected to before. That makes him the trial case and the poster boy for all animal abusers to come. Prepping his return is not about the rehabiliation of the man, it's about the rehabilitation of the image.
Being a convicted felon shouldn't mean there are no second chances in life, a fact that I hope the braintrust at PETA comes to recognize as they seem more intent these days in attacking Vick than in working with him for the promotion of their cause. Is it any wonder our culture is capable of such cruelty to animals when we're already so relentlessly cruel towards humans in reinforcing our racist, sexist, and consumeristic notions? Castigating and humiliating our human offenders for their crimes won't do any more to help protect the animal kingdom.
Vick's supporters and defenders are both correct in recognizing that the way the quarterback is received back in the NFL will say a lot about our culture. It's important therefore that in a horrendously violent country like ours-- one that leads the world in public executions-- forgiveness must rule the day.
---
The third season premiere of "Mad Men" was devilishly good Sunday night. Take the
"Which 'Mad Men' character are you?" quiz on amctv.com. Turns out I'm a "Jane Siegel," but I don't think "Freddie Rumsen" was one of the options, and of course, we all wish we were a "Joan."
---
This would normally be the time of year (mid-summer) when I present the Chris Moeller Film Awards for the previous year, but this annual tradition, which predates the blog by seven years, is being discontinued. The necessary lag time required to view most of the movies under consideration, when you don't have the online cache to have the studios send you the tapes, made finishing this exercise each year more about establishing its future historical value than anything else. (More than a year after its release, does anyone really give a damn what I thought about "Tropic Thunder?")
Also, I'm discontinuing this feature because most movies stink. It's tiresome to sit through so many (44 that were released in 2008 alone) just because my conscience requires that I be as complete as possible in my evaluations. Nine out of every 10
studio movies make my eyes bleed, and nearly all of the talented directors, and especially writers, are now working in television anyway. ("Mad Men" even has honest-to-god
female writers.) TV had "The Sopranos," the movies had "Analyze This." TV has "Mad Men," movies had "Revolutionary Road." TV has Tina Fey and Larry David, films have Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler. There's really no comparison. Movies can't match the emotional depth of a solid, long-running serial television program.
Just to complete the exercise, though, the best 5 movies of 2008 were "Slumdog Millionaire," the documentary "Man on Wire," "The Wrestler," "Rachel Getting Married," and the tops of them all, "Happy-Go-Lucky." Now get out of the dark room, and get some fresh air. It's summer.
Give us hell, Arroyo
If people still care or ever did about steroids in baseball, they haven't been showing it at the turnstiles. I was at Sox Park in Chicago two weeks ago when the Yankees were in town, and the ballpark was sold out for all four games of the series. Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees star linked to a positive PED test in 2003, was booed loudly and subjected to taunting cries of "A-Roid" and "A-Fraud" And that was just from the Yankees dugout.
Rodriguez's admitted use of "performance-enhancing drugs" and his supposed-staining of the game obviously didn't prevent 150,000+ fans from turning out for a four-game series between the White Sox and Yankees, and if fans had their doubts about the competitive integrity of the game(s) they came to see, it wasn't evident to this observer seated one afternoon in Section 509.
Now with "steroid fatigue" firmly setting in, we have a Major Leaguer finally speaking out in support of the common sense decision to allow professional baseball players access to the same medical advancements and technologies that are available to all other residents of the United States (excluding, of course, the 47 million Americans without access to health care).
Cincinnati Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo, a rock and roll musician in his other career, struck a blow this week
telling his own story to
USA Today. He admitted that he has used androstenedione and amphetamines during his career, that he suspects his name appears on the same court-sealed list of positive drug tests A-Rod has been linked to from 2003, and most importantly, that he continues to take supplements and proteins that do not appear on Major League Baseball's list of approved substances.
What Arroyo is doing, in effect, is the same thing musician Pete Seeger did during the Army-McCarthy Congressional hearings during the 1950s. Rather than pleading the Fifth Amendment, he's pleading the First. He's
not apologizing. Bronson Arroyo's employer is not the final word on what he does with his body.
"People can think what they want of me. I don't give a fuck," Arroyo said, "I can see where guys like Hank Aaron and some of the old-timers have a beef with it, but as far as looking at Manny Ramirez like he's (serial killer) Ted Bundy, you're out of your mind. At the end of the day, you think anybody really (cares) whether Manny Ramirez's kidneys fail and he dies at 50? You were happy if the Red Sox won 95 games. You'd go home, have a cookout with your family. No big deal."
And I'd also be curious to ask Hank Aaron if
he ever took amphetamines, HGH, or steroids, as Tom House, his teammate with the Braves in the late 1960s and 1970s, says all were already common in their clubhouse during that period. "We were doing steroids they wouldn't give to horses," House said in 2005. For that matter, I'd be curious to know if Aaron ever used Cortisone, the steroid hormone used to reduce swelling or inflammation. If steroids are acceptable in medical situations like that, shouldn't they also be permissable in other medical situations such as rebuilding tissue weakened by injury or illness?
Of amphetamines, Arroyo said, "That stuff's like bubble gum compared to steroids. You're playing (a night game) in L.A., you fly across the country, and you're pitching a day game in Wrigley (Field in Chicago). You telling me you don't want something to wake you up? You have half this country, maybe more, that can't function without a cup of coffee."
MLB officials, after announcing Thursday that they would be contacting Arroyo to discuss the list of approved substances, had not done so through Friday. "It's hard to get a hold of me, unless you're in this locker room," Arroyo said, "I get tired of talking on the phone. Sometimes I'd like to throw it in the river. I don't pick it up if it's a number I don't know."
I say make 'em leave you a message.
---
Chuck Grassley's
country decency act is straining.
---
I was already pissed that the butter sculpture memorial to Michael Jackson at this year's Iowa State Fair was slapped down, but seriously now-- shunned in favor of Lady Gaga?
---
I bought a new television last night-- a 42 inch plasma screen. The purchase was instigated by the Cardinals' recent run at the post-season, opening a 4 1/2 game lead on the Cubs with a month and a half to play. The Birds have won 12 of 16 since July 27th, after acquiring Matt Holliday, Mark DeRosa, and Julio Lugo in three separate mid-summer deals. They spend money. I spend money. It's economic stimulus.
Card sharks
I was a big baseball card collector back in the day. From the ages of seven to seventeen (1982-1992), I accumulated thousands of cards. It was a passion that went unparalleled in my life until I switched almost exclusively to boardgame baseball in high school (APBA-- American Professional Baseball Association). Then it was on to college exams and a career in journalism, and finally, at the age of 28-- girls.
The cards began losing their luster for me during high school, when the industry was enjoying its golden age in sales and revenue. It was easy to blame the end of my pastime on the rising price of cards, but it was more of the natural end to my childhood that did it, and as it should be. This is not one of my adult pursuits.
The mainstay brand of baseball cards since 1952 is Topps, out of New York City, and last week, Major League Baseball announced it was entering into an exclusive licensing agreement with the company, and not for the first time incidently. A court decision in favor of the Kellogg's food company in the 1970s brought an end to the first Topps monopoly. Slate's Dave Jamieson is
absolutely correct that this new deal is a bad one for the industry of card collecting as it has always thrived historically when there is competition. Too many companies and too many collectable sets may have meant that the companies had to share in the profits, but it was great overall for the hobby-- and for the sport-- to have such a deep market. This trend bears out going back even to the boom in tobacco cards during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Topps deal is bad for baseball cards, and even more so for baseball, because of the message that's being sent with it from the commissioner's office. This is an exclusivity arrangement that cuts out other popular and innovative brands like Upper Deck (which had been giving Topps more than a run for its money with its popular product), and just as importantly, cuts out the Players' Association. The agreement then seems quite purposeful when we consider that the next labor negotiations loom in the not-too-distant future, a new union chief is taking the reins this year, and baseball cards have frequently been a bone of contention between owners and players.
I'm surprised other commentators, including Jamieson, have not picked up on this angle of MLB's motivation. In Jamieson's article, former pitcher and player rep Jim Bouton touched on how young players of the '50s and '60s, often still in the minor leagues, lined up to sign exclusivity agreements with Topps. With little business acumen and perhaps a little too eager to see their faces appearing on bubble gum cards, the players were often signing away plenty of their own profit potential. Up until the mid-'60s, players were giving away their image to Topps for just $5, plus $125/year for each year they played in the Majors and appeared on a trading card. Capable players with even a decade or so of National and/or American League service were retiring having made less than $2000 for their image on baseball cards for their entire career. Meanwhile, Topps was raking in tens of millions of dollars in profits.
Enter Marvin Miller.
The revolutionary labor leader introduced "group licensing agreements" on behalf of the players in the late '60s that allowed competitors for players likenesses to match offers, and the profits from baseball cards and other products featuring the union logo became the union's war chest. When the players were forced out on strike by the owners in 1994, the union had amassed a rainy day fund of $175 million upon which to fall back. Think that type of player profit doesn't mean just a little bit of leverage for the union? In 1994 or now?
Topps fought to maintain their monopoly every step of the way, threatening lawsuits over almost every new business agreement signed by the Players Association in those early days, but the dour predictions of Topps' financial fate proved to be just as inaccurate as so many of the club owners' predictions over the years. The owners had likewise paid only lip service to free enterprise in their dealings with the players, but the new business arrangements actually wound up creating better products and record-breaking profits for all parties involved.
I don't know what Major League Baseball thinks it has to gain now by returning to a licensing monopoly. History doesn't exactly provide assurance that club owners are wizards at maximizing their own profit potential. They've fought many of the changes that proved to be the most lucrative over the years, from broadcasting games on the radio to increased players salaries; and more recently, Topps has hardly proven itself to be the innovative leader of its industry besides. Topps president Michael Eisner claimed last week that the industry has been hurt during the last 30 years by "a nonexclusive world that has caused confusion for the kid who walks into a Wal-Mart or a hobby store," which is a statement absolutely advocating the overturn of the court decisions that opened up the market to begin with, and that falsely equates the success of Topps Company, Inc. with the success of the card industry as a whole. With this, Eisner is attempting a nostalgic appeal to Baby Boomer stock traders, and more power to him, but something tells me these new exclusive Topps card packs of the 21st century won't still cost 25 cents. Be careful not to buy into the appeal to sentiment and nostalgia. Nobody except Topps executives has ever looked back with fondness at the 1950s and 1960s for the reason that Topps trading cards didn't have any competition on those days.
The Upper Deck company still has an agreement with the players union for licensing. In fact, they re-upped with the union just last month, but their agreement was not one that involved exclusivity, which is probably why we're seeing the announcement of the Topps deal precisely when we are. Upper Deck will now no longer be able to use the logos, trademarks, or the "intellectual property" of the individual teams or the league in their cards or other products. What will the players be wearing in their Upper Deck photos then, asked the New York Daily News last week, "Snuggies?"
On a sidenote, I propose then that Upper Deck's first published trading card set in 2010 be "The Outlaws of Baseball" series, featuring the action-shot rebel images of these epic stars now segregated from the game-- Shoeless Joe Jackson, Pete Rose, Curt Flood, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, even Marvin Miller. Major League Baseball and its partners shouldn't mind at all if other companies want to memorialize these figures as baseball, and by extension, their business partners want nothing more to do with them. (Negro Leaguers should be fair game legally, also.) Dress 'em up as cowboys, outlaw bikers or such in a collection of cards people will be talking about and collecting for generations.
Make no mistake, this agreement was a shot across the bow at the players union, with the owners expressing in effect that they'll be pushing for new restrictions on players salaries and freedoms in the coming labor negotiations despite record league profits as recently as last year. MLB collects the bounty of another exclusivity agreement with their Topps partnership, and this one comes at the expense of the players and the union. With monopoly back in, though, the incentive for creativity and innovation in the card industry goes out, which will be to the detriment of baseball card collecting, baseball, and ultimately, to America at large.
---
"Mad Men" star Jon Hamm, a St. Louis native,
appeared on Conan Tuesday night, discussing his participation in the celebrity softball game at last month's MLB All-Star Game. Don't miss the Season 3 premiere of "Mad Men" Sunday night on AMC.
Kathy the Cougar
Last night, "Larry King Live" guest host Kathy Griffin welcomed Wasilla, Alaska's own Levi Johnston as her guest, one night after Bristol Palin's ex accompanied her to the Teen Choice Awards in Hollywood. Kathy and Levi didn't provide any insightful analysis to the day's news events, but when is "Larry King Live" ever about that?
Of all the peripheral, inconsequential characters that popped up during the 2008 Presidential Election-- from Joe the Plumber to Jeremiah Wright to Meghan McCain to Tony Rezko to Rick Warren to Mitt Romney-- Levi is by far my favorite. I fully endorse
this clip, and if there was more of it to be had on CNN, I would upgrade my cable from 'basic' to 'expanded basic.'
The stupidity of the American people
Our government has been hijacked by corporate goons. This has been obvious for anyone to see for decades. Our lawmakers have been able to store up so much institutional immunity to their acceptance of corporate bribes, these criminal legislators don't even bother to hide it anymore. On Thursday, Arkansas Representative Mike Ross... (insert cough)... a Democrat, publicly admitted he was in the employ of Big Pharma and not the 4th District residents of the Natural State when he helped kill single-payer health care this week:
"We ensured that if there is a government option, it will be just that-- an option-- and it won't be mandated on anybody. If it had been based on Medicare rates, I can assure you that it would have eventually ended up resulting in a single payer-type system, because Medicare has really good rates, because they're negotiating for every senior in America. Private insurance companies could not have competed with that. And so we would have at the end of the day ended up with single payer. Now we've leveled the playing field, if there is a government option, they'll have to go out again and negotiate with providers just like private insurance companies do. That was important to me to insure that we don't end up with some type of single payer system.Do you get it now? Maintaining the private insurance program isn't really about choice and competition, it's about
eliminating choice and competition for the for-profit providers. We're forever being told that government-run health care would be bloated, bureaucratic, and inefficient, and yet private insurers need Congress to protection from having to compete with it. Rep. Ross has only concerned himself with "level(ing) the playing field" between people's health and maintaining the billion dollar profits of the insurance, pharmaceutical, and hospital industries.
But then at health care forums across the country, we've got reactionary conservatives disrupting the proceedings, and issuing death threats against
unions and
pro-reform legislators. Egged on by television and radio demagogues in a manner reminiscent of the great Miami-Dade County
Brooks Brothers Riot of 2000, they fight to the death in defense of corporate bribery. "Save the status quo!" they shout. Quite literally, an elderly protester at an event in South Carolina this week yelled into the microphone, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare!" which is so woefully ignorant of the issues being debated, I dropped my shredded wheat spoon when I read it. I'm reminded of the old story of the pedestrian who stumbles into a group of Communists picketing in the street. He watches innocently enough until a cop starts clubbing everybody in sight. As the cop moves towards the pedestrian, the man shouts, "I'm an
anti-Communist, I'm an
anti-Communist!" The cop, continuing to flail away, shouts back, "I don't care what kind of Communist you are!"
I'm a defender of humanity, in general, and a big believer in the collective and native intelligence of the American people, especially living, as we do, during an era of so many sophisticated media campaigns of distortion and misinformation by our corporate paymasters, but I admit I'm frustrated by the amount of bullshit the American people seem to be willing to swallow lately. At what point do we have to take responsibility not just for our personal sins of commission, but for our sins of omission in failing to educate and steel ourselves from this constant misinformation?
I refuse to believe that the American people, as a whole, are stupid, yet I
have decided to give the other side equal time to present their case:
the text of Bill Maher's comments on his "Real Time" HBO show last night.
Ancient religions today
Female, African-American, Jewish, Muslim, or gay, there is no more underrepresented constituency in this country than atheists. Only one member of Congress, California Rep. Pete Stark, has said publicly that he doesn't believe in a supreme being, yet an estimated 30 million Americans, roughly 10 percent, describe themselves as nonbelievers. According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll two years ago, 53% of Americans said they would not consider voting for a presidential candidate that was an atheist. Homosexuals, the oft-divorced, women, Jews, Mormons, and Catholics all fared better than that in the survey.
In Iowa this week, Governor Chet Culver, who claims the political support of many progressives in the state, is running publicly against atheism now in his bid for re-election next year. He saw the need today to
comment on a decision by the head of advertising for the Des Moines city bus system to remove advertisements placed on buses by an organization called Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. The text of the ads read: "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." Culver offered this statement to reporters: "I was disturbed, personally, by the advertisement and I can understand why other Iowans were also disturbed by the message it sent."
Someone's going to have to explain to me what makes this ad so offensive or "disturbing." The message it's sending is clear:
There's a support group out there for people who don't believe in God. You don't have to join a church to find emotional comfort and support in the company of others. That's a pretty dangerous idea in this country, I guess. I'd like to personally thank the transit authority's advertising director for having my tax dollars wasted on legal fees as the city will no doubt now be sued-- and rightly so-- for violating the free speech rights of this organization and its members.
If you're religious, pray tonight that your deity of choice protects us from his or her insecure followers, and that Governor Haircut grows a pair at some point during his political career, ceasing his inveterate pandering.
---
The most interesting story online today concerning sacrificial virgins is
this one from
Salon about the ancient city of Cahokia near present-day St. Louis. I had occasion six years ago to spend an afternoon exploring (in a very un-scientific capacity) a few of the roughly 80 burial mounds that still remain of this great civilization of the Mississippi Valley and the 12th Century. The residents of this long-ago time and place clearly engaged themselves in fantastic ritualistic killings and human sacrifice, maintained trade links with communities as far away as the Great Lakes and the Gulf Coast, and boasted a solid baseball team starring Jamie Moyer. Its estimated population of 20,000 would not be matched again in North America until it was surpassed by Philadelphia more than 600 years later.
I'll leave it to author/archaeologist Timothy Pauketat and his
Salon reviewer Andrew O'Hehir to give you the deeper details in the link above, except to reveal that my two favorite moments in Cahokia's history are when the ruling family ordered kingly (Michael Jackson-like?) burials to a set of twin brothers, who may have been thought to be supernatural because of their monozygotic properties; and then much later, in the 1960s, when a homeowner in a suburban tract housing development, according to O'Hehir's review, "dug an in-ground swimming pool into the ancient city's central ceremonial plaza."
Check out this book, "Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi," and if you're ever in St. Louis, head on out to this World Heritage Site located just off Route 40. It's the most fun you can have on six square miles of man-made earthen mounds.
The baseball bucket list-- part 2
Let's wrap this up so we can move on to the next thing. It's my checklist of the second 25 things baseball fans should do before they die-- list courtesy of ESPN's Jim Caple...
- See Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols, and Ichiro play in person and chant their names with a stadium packed with fans.
I've seen all three on the diamond, and at the same time, but the only players' names I've ever chanted are "Oz-zie" and "Ya-dee"- Buy a fitted cap to replace the cheap stadium giveaway you got with the plastic adjustable strap in the back and the Piggly Wiggly logo on the side.
It's not Piggly Wiggly, it's Dierbergs. Also, guys with hair like me don't wear caps.- Sing "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway Park.
Why would anybody want to do that?- Recite "Casey at the Bat" and "Tinker to Evers to Chance."
I took a purple ribbon (designation: Outstanding) for my delivery of "Casey" at the 6th grade district arts festival (to the wonderment of all, I tore the cover off the ball). As to the other, I offer this:
On this day, they bid adieu,
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Nevermore to share leather,
Or gonfalon stew.
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Unless, on that silver sandlot above,
Without hesitation, He hands them their gloves,
Looks toward the field and asks, if they might,
Shag flies behind Groat-to-Javier-to-White.
Dan O'Neill, St. Louis, Missouri, 1994
- Read the box scores religiously.
Pietistically.- Join SABR.
I've been blackballed due to steroids.- Get your favorite player's autograph.
Busch Stadium, west parking garage, August 1988, Ozzie Smith, on my scorecard- Learn to throw a curveball.
Trick pitches always seemed unsportsmanlike to me- Take a week-long road trip through the minors, the lower the league the better, and make sure to include a team owned by Mike Veeck.
This is seriously one of the two very best ideas on this list.- Cheer the Rally Monkey.
And while you're at it, participate in the wave, sing "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway Park, and jump off a bridge.- Eat at Boog's barbecue pit in Camden Yards, enjoy a Primanti Brothers sandwich at Pittsburgh's ballpark, the fish tacos in San Diego, a Dodger Dog at Dodger Stadium and garlic fries while circling the concourse in Seattle.
How about a Skyline Chili Dog in Cincinnati?- Attend a game in the Caribbean.
This is the second of the two very best ideas on this list.- Buy a bleacher ticket and sneak into a box seat.
Why would I want to sit with the bums in those boxes?- Passionately argue in a bar over who belongs in the Hall of Fame.
This is what I'm doing on the nights I don't post on the blog.- Collect baseball cards. Get your favorite player's rookie card and store it in a plastic sleeve. Treat all others the way God intended: by clothes-pinning them to the spokes of your bicycle in a pathetic attempt to make an engine noise.
Since I don't have a bicycle, I boxed up all the cards and put them in the corner of the storage room of my Dad's basement.- Rub the Babe's nose in Monument Park.
I scratched his balls.- Camp out in front of the stadium for tickets to see your favorite team in the postseason.
This is hard to do when you live six hours away. But I'm not making excuses.- Try to throw a knuckleball.
First learn a curveball, now a knuckleball? That would give me the same number of pitches Todd Wellemeyer has. His two: balls and home runs.- Try to catch a knuckleball.
This is why catchers wear masks.- Catch a foul ball. And then hand it to the nearest kid.
For years, I planned to give the ball to a kid if I ever came up with a foul fly. Then, one afternoon at Sec Taylor in Des Moines, I grabbed a Jose Nieves pop ricocheting off the stadium roof. It's in my display case at home.- Disobey your parents by staying up late to listen to a game with your transistor radio/iPhone tucked under your pillow.
My thing was recreating the games under the covers.- Go to the All-Star Game.
Check. Last month.- Kayak in McCovey Cove (yeah, Barry Bonds is gone, but San Francisco Bay is still there.)
Kayak in McCovey Cove? That sounds dirtier than eating fish tacos in San Diego.- Eat a hot-fudge sundae in a mini batting helmet.
It was a strawberry sundae in a Cardinals mini batting helmet from Ted Drewes Frozen Custard on Route 66 in South St. Louis for 63 cents the night in 1998 that Dad and I watched Mark McGwire hit his 63rd home run of the season. Pretty awesome, huh?- And finally... See your team play in the World Series. (Sorry, this might not be applicable to Cubs, Mariners, Rangers, and Nationals fans.)
Check, 2004, but Pedro Martinez and the Red Sox threw a wet blanket over the entire evening.
The baseball bucket list
On Thursday, ESPN's Jim Caple published his
baseball bucket list: 50 things all baseball fans should do before they kick the proverbial bucket. Not all 50 resonated with me, but it was a fun idea and a good list. I took stock...
-Spend a week at spring training.
Does five days count? In 1998, Aaron and I did three games and two rainouts in the Grapefruit League.- Learn to keep score.
Cindy Kaestner of Newhall taught me how to do this when I attended my first game at Busch Stadium at 8 years old. I have completed scorecards today of every Cards game I've attended since 1988.- Learn about Tommy John surgery by throwing out your arm at the stadium speed pitch station.
Not at a ballgame, but I did major structural damage at the Adventureland Park speed pitch in Altoona, Iowa in 1985. It made it well worth it when I hit "50" on the gun.- Watch "Field of Dreams," "Bull Durham," "A League of Their Own," "The Bad News Bears" (the original) and "The Natural."
Check, check, check, check, and check.- Use a wood bat.
Did it in competition, actually. This 14-year-old purist broke out a Louisville Slugger in a Pony League game in Walford, Iowa in 1989. The experiment lasted one game, then Dad sawed me off on an inside pitch in the back yard while I was practicing my Tom Brunansky batting stance. ("Bruno" had quicker hands than I did.)- Enjoy a beer in the bleachers at Wrigley Field on a sunny summer day.
This experience can only be enjoyed if your team is beating the Cubs in the park at the same time. Check.- Listen to Vin Scully call an entire Dodgers game.
Most recently this winter when I Netflixed and re-watched Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.- Read "Ball Four," "The Boys of Summer," "Nine Innings," "The Glory of Their Times" and any (preferably all) of Roger Angell's collections.
All but "The Glory of Their Times," though it's on Aaron's bookshelf waiting for me. My required four would be Marvin Miller's "A Whole New Ballgame," John Helyar's "Lords of the Realm," Bill Veeck's "Veeck as in Wreck," and Bill 'Spaceman' Lee's "The Wrong Stuff."- Go to Japan's Koshien high school tournament (i.e., where Dice K threw his famous no-hitter).
Um, yeah. I'll get right on that.- Hit a home run.
July, 1989, Iowa Valley Pony League Championship, solo shot, right-center (opposite) field, 2nd inning, Atkins vs. Walford, off Jim Schulte, in Atkins, Iowa.- Coach a Little League team.
Would it guarantee me a captive audience for the story about the time I hit an opposite-field home run in the league championship game?- Ump a Little League game.
I boo umpires. I don't become them.- Boo the Yankees in person.
Great segue, and check-- most recently yesterday in Chicago, actually.- Play Strat-O-Matic, APBA, Dynasty League or a similar computer-simulation game.
It's an APBA world. We just live in it. Dice and cards over computers, though.- Attend a fantasy camp and have more fun than you can imagine feeling old and young at the same time.
This has never really appealed to me. But then I'm a long way from middle-aged.- Tour the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
In 1987 and again for Ozzie's induction in 2002, but I'm not going back until they enshrine Mark McGwire... and Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon. - Oil your glove and stuff it under your mattress for the winter, then play catch the first day of spring with your parent/child.
I've refused to play catch with Dad since he broke my wooden bat.- Get to a game early enough to watch batting practice.
You haven't lived until you've seen Mark McGwire take batting practice. It was as impressive a display as anything I've ever seen in the game.- Go to the College World Series.
This annual event takes place just two hours down the road in Omaha, but I've never had the initiative.- Play pepper.
As a kid, check. Do kids still do this? They should have a pepper game for Wii Playstations.- Go to a batting cage and see what it's like to hit a 90 mph fastball. Or, more likely, fail to hit a 90 mph fastball.
I could never come close to a 90 miles-per-hour pitch in high school. Only Bugs Bunny could throw a pitch slow enough now.- Attend a townball game in Minnesota (the smaller the town the better).
Minnesota has townball? Check out a Watkins Mud Hens game in Iowa. The community of Watkins is so small, it's unincorporated.- Visit the "Field of Dreams" site in Dyersville, Iowa and the old Durham Athletic Park (where "Bull Durham" takes place).
Check, and no check. I'll hit Durham Park when I travel to see the Andy and Opie statue in Raleigh.- Take your kids to see The Chicken or The Phanatic.
I've seen The Chicken, and he's entertaining, but I'm not convinced it's a good strategy to have children just so I can check off this item.- Run around the bases after a big league game.
I'm over the age limit now for running the bases at most of the stadiums. That's why I typically take my lap around the circuit in the middle of the fourth inning.The second 25 will be in the next post. You've got a few to get you started. Get going...
