The Red Sox And Reality

On The Boston Red Sox

Originally uploaded by Phil At Sun.

The thesis behind the excellent book “Feeding The Monster” by Seth Mnookin is that the kind of advanced thinking about strategy, personnel and the role of statistical analysis in baseball was what led the Red Sox to their 2004 World Championship, their first title in 86 years.

The meat of the book details the efforts of the three principals in the front office (Owner John Henry, President Larry Lucchino and General Manager Theo Epstein) as they put their theories to the test during the 2005 season, the year after their championship. The book makes an eloquent case that the main opponents to the front office’s strategies are not the New York Yankees but rather the fans and press corps in Boston.

The Red Sox believe that the best way to create and maintain a competitive baseball team is to question conventional wisdom and make unpopular decisions that may not pay immediate dividends. To do this, the Red Sox front office must mollify, handle and neutralize the negativity of the country’s most rabid fan base and an especially vicious press corps. I was especially taken by the analysis in this book since another season since the 2004 championship is now in the books, a year where the Red Sox failed to make the playoffs.

Two points jump out at me:

1) The thrill and joy of the 2004 season have already faded. Nothing in my sports fandom will ever top the Sox’ victory, yet so many fans seem to have a “what have you done for me lately attitude.” The press in Boston has fed this attitude with non-stop negative coverage. This year’s team was underperforming, but what team would not be given the scores of injuries to key players?

2) The Red Sox already seem to be compromising their values in order to placate both press and fans. I guess I would have made the Hanley Ramirez and Anibel Sanchez for Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell trade, too. But, If the Sox had kept the two youngsters would they be further ahead in the coming years? However, the fans and press go ballistic if the Sox don’t pull off a blockbuster trade in the off-season or at the trading deadline before the playoffs.

Fans complain now about losing guys like Hanley, Sanchez and Cla Meredith–but all those trades were cheered and practically demanded at the time. Everyone thought the trades would put the Sox over the top. Most current Sox fans and press folk don’t have the kind of temperment that allows them to cheerfully speculate about the future star careers of current minor leaguers if the Sox aren’t winning now.

What’s in my book bag for work

What’s in my book bag for work

Originally uploaded by Phil At Sun.

I spent a good while tonight browsing through the “What’s In Your Bag?” photo group on Flickr. It’s addictive. I have to admit, I’m what my mom used to call a “nosy Parker”.

photo group on Flickr.

Mornings At The “Racing” Household

I often get strange ideas in the shower, ususally along the lines of odd bits of songs, commercials and other pop culture detritus that I can shout out or warble in my off-key tenor.

This morning it was an impersonation of an overly serious drama student announcing his rendition of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.’s catchphrase “Shazam!” (complete with Southern accent) and then intoning “end scene”.

After several go-rounds with that, I tried to get my wife involved in a discussion of the politics of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. This was a show about people in the military, filmed during the Vietnam War, yet with no commentary about (or mention of) the war.

My wife’s response? “I’ll put two cookies in your lunch if you stop talking crap and feed the doggies.”

The cookies were homemade and quite delicious at noontime.

Honor Ernie Davis–Ernie Davis Dome

Ernie Davis

Originally uploaded by Phil At Sun.

Syracuse has atoned for two out of the three sins it has committed in relation to African-Americans and its athletic program.

1) Wilmeth Sidat-Singh was recognized for the trailblazer he was, an African-American quarterback in the 1930’s!

2) The African-American football players who boycotted the 1970 season will now be getting the Chancellor’s medal.

One More! Name the Dome after the late Ernie Davis. The first African-American Heisman Trophy winner, leader of SU.’s 1959 National Championship team and whose tragic death from leukemia ended a chance at professional football.

Ernie Davis is the secular saint of Syracuse University. Ernie has a statue and several other honors in his hometown of Elmira, but nothing commensurate at Syracuse. The trophy room in the Carrier Dome and a endowed fund for the football team are named after Ernie. not only are neither honors sufficient, they are insulting.

Rename Syracuse University’s dome stadium after Ernie Davis. The Dome sits on the same ground that Ernie played on at the since demolished Archbold Stadium. Do it now, while Ernie’s mother is still alive.

They Know How To Market To Me

This article in Salon by David Marchese points out that the latest releases by The Killers and The Hold Steady have one thing in common: their love of early Bruce Springsteen.

Albums like the Killers’ “Sam’s Town” and the Hold Steady’s “Boys And Girls In America” show the continuing popularity “…of big, brawny rock ‘n’ roll…that speaks in the language of roaring engines and chugging guitars.”

Time to hit Sound Garden again.

NYT Has Never Heard Of Dr. Jennifer Daniels

An article on alternative treatments for diabetes recently appeared in the New York Times.

The article poses a question about “a classic conundrum in medicine: if doctors know that patients can help themselves without taking drugs, but they also know that patients are not likely to follow this advice, what should they do?” According to the author, a large, three-year long federal study says doctors should try to get patients to try diet and excercise instead of going for drug therapy.

This study obviously never asked Dr. Jennifer Daniels this question. Dr. Daniels was hounded out of the medical profession for making this same decision. A patient who agreed to follow a strict diet and excercise rather than start insulin shots, went on an alcoholic bender on vacation in the Carribean, and had to be treated for insulin shock upon his return to Syracuse.

Dr. Daniels did nothing wrong, but several authorities were out to get her. The mainstream medical profession still doesn’t trust natural cures (what they refer to as complementary and alternative medicine), preferring to use technology and drugs. The New York State medical board is one of many being sued for overzealous prosecution of racial and ethnic minorities for alleged malpractice

But, more than anything, it was Dr. Daniels’ opposition to the proposed Avenue of The Arts development project that ensured her fate. The successful lobbying campaign that torpedoed the dubiously financed project angered its developers, powerful former State Senator Tarky Lombardi and his longtime henchman Bob Herz. The rumor around this town has always been that the extraordinary persecution endured by Dr. Daniels has been meted out at the behest of Tarky Lombardi.

So the New York Times needs to amend its story. Tell your patient to amend their diet and excercise to avoid insulin treatments for diabetes, but only if you are not an ethnic/racial minority doctor, are not linked to any hint of complementary and alternative medicine and haven’t pissed off powerful political interests in your hometown.

Oh, by the way, Dr. Daniels was my physician and I received outstanding care during the time I was her patient.

Rockin’ Out With Rap

There was a brilliant essay in the Washington Post recently by Lonnae O’Neal-Parker about her struggles as an African-American parent with rap music. Growing up in the 80’s she loved rap, but the music now seems to her to be a problematic minefield of misogyny, violence and commercialism. The description of her anguish at having her pre-teen daughter accusing her of disrespecting black voices because she forbids her to listen to contemporary rap on the radio is heartfelt. This issue is deeper for her and other African-American parents than just “kids and their music today!”

The article made me think about my relationship with rap, a middle-class, pushing middle-age white male with no kids. A rocker at heart, I was in college when rap first started to push out into mainstream consciousness. I went down to Center City Philadelphia to get a copy of “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash because none of the record stores on my predominately white campus stocked rap. I loved R & B, funk, ska and reggae–why shouldn’t I like rap?

I can still bust out rhymes from Grandmaster Flash, Public Enemy and K.R.S.-1, in college I tended to focus on the political in most things. However, I also listened appreciatively to groups such as Arrested Development, De La Soul (so-called hippie hop) and laughed at the humor of Digital Underground and Tribe Called Quest (Humpty Dance and I Left My Wallet In El Segundo were on most of my party mix tapes.)

It’s a sobering thought that people would now characterize those acts as “old school.” I am a lot less enamored of the new school. It’s not just that rap is now totally equated with gangsta rap. N.W.A. was as gangsta as you can get and “Straight Outta Compton” was a milestone in music–not just rap. How did we get from the incendiary “Fuck Tha Police” to 50 Cent and the repulsive “Get Rich or Die Tryin’?”

Like disco as it aged, rap has painted itself into a musically vapid corner. Most songs are indistinguishable from each other. A wall of noise with shouted lyrics and no subtlety. That’s not always a problem–it’s the same description of punk rock, after all. Musicians have to find a way out of the wilderness, claiming the sliver of originality that will differentiate themselves from the crowd. Most rappers today don’t care to do so.

I feel that rap’s problems with misogyny, over-the-top materialism and the glamorizing of street violence all stem from the same source, rap has become a commercial art form pandering to its main cutomers: suburban white kids. Rap is now largely an excercise in moving product and pseudo-gangsta fantasies move the most product. It’s almost like minstrelsy and blackface, except with real African-American artists. Cartoon figures like 50 Cent play to the racist sentiments of white teenagers. A stereotyped image of black people sells better in suburbia: Glock-wielding thugs and Cristal-swilling pimps. You can’t go triple-platinum with peace, love and understanding these days. Racial pride and unity is just bad business.

There are still rap artists that try to buck the trends: groups emphasizing positive, uplifting messages (the Roots) or cutting their beats with other musical genres (Andre 3000 of Outkast). Unfortunately, they are few and far between.

**UPDATE**

Talking to a hard-core rocker today who was very dismissive of rap in any form, I realized another argument: all fans of hard rock in general and Aerosmith in particular must give up some love for Run DMC. Without their version of “Walk This Way” and the heavy rotation play of the video on MTV, Aerosmith would never have had their second-half (post-recovery) career.

Philanthropy v. Taxation

According to a new ranking of charitable giving, as measured by the percentage of a family’s liquid assets given away, Nebraska is the nation’s most charitable state. This ranking doesn’t include Warren Buffet’s huge donation to the Gates Foundation; Nebraskans give one percent of their assets each year to charity.

This list is an attempt by the group New Tithing to get wealthy Americans to start thinking about donations as a share of their assets, rather than a slice of their yearly income. The New York Times piece points out that this effort, if focused correctly, could begin to ameliorate the increasingly sharp divide between rich and poor in our country. As an example of this possibility, the article profiles the efforts of Ord, Nebraska in stabilizing their population and growing new-fangled businesses as a result of charitable funding.

The article also points out that wealthy states like New York fall much further down the line in charitable giving as a percentage of one’s assets–and then speculates on the benefits that would accrue if the affluent areas gave away their money at a rate similar to Nebraskans.

One fact that the article mentions as a possible reason for the lack of charitable giving is the larger tax bills paid by residents of wealthier states. An exchange in the Walsh/Maffei forum the other night emphasizes how ingrained this notion of unfair taxation runs in our state. Both politicians referenced the fact that New York contributes more in taxes than it receives in government benefits, confident that advocating for a lessening of that gap would be a positive way to attract New York voters.

Why don’t voters look at taxation in a similar light as charitable donations? Shouldn’t New York, a much wealthier state than most, contribute a greater share towards the common good? Aren’t taxes spent on the common good? This is perhaps the nub of the problem–call it compulsory v. voluntary philanthropy.

I obviously feel better about my charitable giving if I can control exactly where it goes. Unfortunately, purely voluntary philanthropy runs the risk of creating extremely well-funded operas and Ivy League colleges while leaving thruway interchanges and sewer pipes woefully underfunded. So governments institute compulsory philanthropy, so assets may be distributed more equitably and according to real needs.

The compulsory nature of taxation clouds the beneficial nature of its results: schools, roads, food safety inspection etc. Tax dollars are often spent on efforts many people find objectionable (be they Iraq wars or abortion clinics), further severing the connection in the taxpayers’ mind between their contribution and the public good.

We seem to have created an understanding and a framework for holding charities responsible for the use of our donations. As citizens, we need to demand a similarly transparent and efficient system for collecting, allocating and spending taxpayer dollars. Limited overhead, practical goals, demonstrable results.

NPR Notices Upstate, If Only To Take Pity

On NPR’s Morning Edition this A.M. there was a story on the sluggish economy in parts of the Northeast and Rust Belt midwest. The rather generic piece: bland academic, quotes from both candidates, one real “common man”, was based on interviews done in NY’s 20th Congressional District near Albany. The actual person interviewed was a meat-cutter at a grocery in Glens Falls.

Although the internet citation labels the story “Sluggish economy weakens Republican candidate”, the story’s focus on the Sweeney/Gillibrand race was minimal, focusing instead on describing upstate NY’s economy as one “almost as dire” as well-known basket cases in the industrial midwest. Syracuse was namechecked and lumped in with other cities struggling with the loss of manufacturing jobs since the 1990’s.

I thought we had reached the post-smokestack economy phase of our development?

Is Upstate Dragging Hillary Down?

The answer to that question is yes, according to Joshua Green’s in-depth article on Hillary Clinton in the current issue of the Atlantic entitled Take Two. Well, Hillary’s upstate strategy is at least a small example of the kind of problems that might hinder her from winning the Presidency in 2008.

The kind of attributes that make for a strong Senator often are negatives for an effective Presidential candidate. According to Green, the more that Hillary ingratiates herself with inferior (but more senior) politicians, the more she runs away from big-picture crusades in favor of small-picture legislative victories and the more she puts the parochial concerns of New Yorkers in the forefront of her efforts, the harder it will be for her to be the sort of bold and visionary candidate that wins national elections.

There are two pungent examples of the article’s disdain for Hillary’s attempts to champion upstate. The first is the author’s dismissal of any substantive benefits from Hillary’s upstate efforts:

“. . .the psychological benefits of her upstate attentions have been tremendous. It’s as if the prom queen had wandered unbidden during lunch to insist on sitting with the kids from shop class . . . Clinton never came close to adding 200,000 jobs upstate. Her popularity stems instead from sheer, bludgeoning persistance and an eager willingness to spread her glamour over an area with little of its own.”

The second is a telling quote by Hillary’s close friend and former chief of staff Maggie Williams:

“I remember listening to a conversation at some black-tie event where she was talking about what you should feed to pigs. If you fed them a certain kind of food they produced better meat. We were in an extremely social setting, but she seemed perfectly intent on talking about it because it had to do with some upstate issue. I kind of felt like, um, do we really have to talk about this here?”

I’ve always had problems with Hillary. I didn’t like her attempts at health care reform because she refused to consider a single-payer system. She voted for the war in Iraq. She always sounds like she’s triangulating her positions because of pollsters and campaign consultants. But I’ve never thought that she was patronizing us by spending time up here and listening to our concerns. In fact, Hillary (and Chuck Schumer who patented the upstate strategy) stand in great contrast to many state politicians who couldn’t find our towns on a map.

I voted for Tasini in the primary and I’ll probably vote for Hawkins in the general election, but this article made me feel sorry for Clinton. If she had come into the Senate and tried to use her power and celebrity to make big changes the article would be crucifying her for her haughtiness and hubris. Talk about a no-win situation.