Just Don't Call it Branch Rickey Day

Most of us in the US know April 15^th as tax day, the day when federal and state personal income taxes are due.  But starting in 2004 major league baseball declared that on April 15 of each year, every player in every game wears number 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson, the Texas oil baron who sacrificed fame and fortune to be the first black professional baseball player. No, wait – he was a research chemist working on a vaccine for leukemia.  No, that’s not it either… perhaps he was a concert pianist and composer who gave up his career for the social advancement of his race? 

Well, actually none of those is accurate.  Jackie Robinson was just a good athlete who was the first black offered money to play baseball.  He wasn’t necessarily better than all other black players before him, it wasn’t that he sacrificed some greater calling to prove a point about race, it wasn’t that he organized a march on Washington, refused to give up his seat on the bus, or risked being thrown in jail to be a historic champion of civil rights.  He just agreed to live the dream of tens of thousands of other kids who wished they could get paid for playing a game they loved. 

So why do we need a Jackie Robinson day?  What was the selfless and heroic act he represented that blazed the way for all future black athletes?  Well, racism was definitely strong in major league baseball in the 1940s. No official rule existed that banned blacks from joining the league, but no team had been willing to sign black players despite their demonstrated success in the Negro league.   For sure, Mr. Robinson would face resistance from fans, players, media, and maybe even his own teammates for invading a ‘white sport’.   But let’s not forget, he wasn’t picking up garbage or shining shoes, he was playing baseball for money.  I have no quarrel with Jackie Robinson; by all accounts he was a great player, a great teammate, and never folded to the temptation of lashing out at his antagonists. 

Let’s be honest, who had the most to lose when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers?  A strong case could be made for Branch Rickey, a white business manager who took the risk to break ranks with the fellow owners and league officials by signing a black man. But you probably never heard of Branch Rickey¸ even though he is recognized as the innovator of the major league farm system, for signing the first Hispanic player, for encouraging the expansion of the league by adding new teams, and for instituting the use of baseball helmets.  Rickey was quoted as saying "I may not be able to do something about racism in every field, but I can sure do something about it in baseball."        

But Rickey’s ambitions put him at odds with many others in baseball management. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a judge, opposed Rickey’s proposal for a farm system, thinking it would ruin the existing minor leagues. But his perseverance ensured the survival of the farm system, along with many other beneficial changes to baseball including spring training facilities, batting cages, pitching machines and new statistical measurements for measuring effectiveness. Rickey’s gamble on Jackie Robinson paid off with Robinson wining Rookie of the Year honors and his Dodgers going to the World Series. 

Yet Rickey paid the price for making his enemies. He was forced out of the Dodgers organization and faced resentment from other team owners and management.  So if we define heroes as those who do something selfless on behalf of others, who is the real hero who broke the color barrier of major league baseball?   Shouldn’t we have a Branch Rickey day?  

But that’s not how racism works.  Black racists need to take every opportunity to remind America how underprivileged and oppressed blacks are, and how white people owe them for the crimes of the past. And white people, trying to assuage a conscience of guilt for not having their own history of oppression, jump on board to 'atone for the sins' of a generation they neither created or supported. Soon to be released is the movie "42", which will again enshrine Jackie Robinson as the champion of civil rights- the 'David' who slayed the white 'Goliaths' of race.  Expect Oscar nominations, no matter how bad the acting or directing actually is. 

   

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if next year on Jackie Robinson day, if one of the dozens of players interviewed would depart from the script of “Jackie breaking the color barrier” and give some credit to Branch Rickey for making it possible?  And even more refreshing will be the day when we stop treating black accomplishments like something unnatural and unexpected and instead treat them as ordinary members of the human race. 

Butterflies, Bill Clinton and Bombs.

Most of us have heard about the butterfly effect in one form or another. The basic premise is that a butterfly in some remote jungle flaps its wings which sets off a chain of events that changes weather patterns and causes a hurricane that destroys Florida. While we admit we are more likely to get struck by lightening and mauled by a 3 legged zebra in the same day, the butterfly effect does give us pause to think about the way individual events can ripple through the world around us. Some can even be as profound as the metaphor illustrates.

Take, for example, President Bill Clinton. Ask a few people around you why Bill Clinton was impeached. Assuming they understand that impeached does not equal removal from office, they will probably say it was because he had an affair with an intern. Wrong. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath to a grand jury. Regardless of how you feel about it, these are the facts. I don’t wish to debate the Clinton case, impeachment or Lewinsky. I do, however want to pose a ‘what if’ scenario. What it, when Clinton was asked about his relationship with Lewinsky, he simply told the truth. It could have been in a statement something like this:

“I have had some indiscretions with a White House employee. I am not proud of my actions and indeed am profoundly sorry for the pain and embarrassment I have caused my family, my staff, and the American people. I ask for your forgiveness; and I ask that instead of dwelling on the past that we return our attention to the critical issues we face as a nation. I am optimistic about America and will do everything in my power to earn the trust you have shown by electing me President.”

In more simple terms, this reduces so “Yeah, I fooled around. Busted. What does this have to do with Whitewater or running America?”

Republicans would have been shocked and outraged about the moral degradation, but they would be throwing stones from their glass houses. And Americans would have thought, ‘hmm. What does this have to do with running America?” By confessing his guilt, he would have portrayed a sympathetic character and simultaneously demonized the republicans who were ‘unforgiving’. Does anyone not believe that Clinton’s impeachment and the accompanying media circus had anything to do with the way people voted in the 2000 election? Follow me on this ripple effect:

If Bill Clinton would have told the truth:

* Al Gore would have certainly collected another 200 votes in Florida and been elected president in 2000.
* Dick Cheney would be enjoying retirement from Halliburton.
* George W. Bush would be remembered only as a good governor of Texas.
* We would have at least 2 different Supreme Court justices that would likely not be conservative constructionists like Alito and Roberts. We have yet to see how this dynamic will shape the country.
* Al Gore would have been in the white house on 9/11/2001.
* The US would not have invaded Iraq; 4,400 US soldiers would not have died in Iraq; and the US would have $700B that was not spent on operation Iraqi Freedom (but we would have probably spent on reducing carbon emissions).

* In a few years, Saddam’s UN sanctions would have expired and he could resume oil production, providing a new stream of revenue to the Iraqi government to funnel to Sadaam’s favorite projects.
* Iraq would be a safe-haven for Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations who shared Iraq’s hatred for the US and democracy.
* Increasing nuclear tensions from Iran would motivate Saddam to reinstate his own nuclear program rather than fall victim to his hated neighbor who he went to war with in 1980. His ambition and intent were clearly documented in the Duelfer report by his scientists and government/military officers.
* Nuclear tensions around the globe would ratchet up as 2 power-hungry dictators in the Middle East flexed their nuclear muscles. North Korea makes clear that having nukes makes people notice. Pakistan gets even more uneasy about nuclear terrorists next door in Afghanistan, which makes India more nervous about their geographic status. The former Soviet states have multiple buyers for their left over nuclear arsenals, and the bidding could get high in a part of the world where a million dollars can still make you the richest man in the country. The nuclear club would expand like never before, and everyone has a hair-trigger.
* The US has lost any initiative they might have had to attack Iraq, and can do little other than suggest more UN economic sanctions that we now know were heavily abused by Saddam.

You can decide whether this is a better scenario than the one we are living. But you can’t deny that the world would be a very, very different place if Bill Clinton had simply told the truth.

Makes you think.

Tyranny of the Ignorant and Lazy

Upon historical review of all forms of government, it’s hard to find a better model than democracy.  But that doesn’t mean it always works. In my house, pure democracy would have given 3 children majority rule and we would have had cotton-candy and cheezits for every meal, watched TV and played video games all day, never visited the dentist, and only gone to school 1-2 days a week when they had pizza in the cafeteria. Most of us wouldn’t try to defend that as a ‘responsible environment’.   As parents, we are supposed to make responsible decisions for our dependents to protect and promote their health, development and well-being. And that, in fact, is the criteria we use to determine whether to remove kids from neglectful or abusive homes and put them is protective custody. Notice that the democratic balance of power between the kids and parents is not a factor in these decisions, only the welfare of the children. Seems reasonable, right?  So why do we abandon that philosophy regarding the dependents of our society? 

To quote George Bernard Shaw, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.”  When you get enough Pauls to outnumber the Peters, democracy transforms into a mob of dependents that exercise their majority power to demand more and more until all the Peters are extinct; strikingly similar to the way parasites destroy their hosts.  “Leaders” become merely administrators of entitlement programs.  Innovation loses its rewards, economic achievement is penalized, and we are reduced to a nation of fat, lazy children who become dependent on a government wet nurse rather than accepting responsibility for ourselves. 

I don’t claim yet to have a better solution than democracy, but we know what happens when we let the children decide for themselves what they want.

 

Presidential Debate 2012: Round 1

The first presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama was last night. This morning, most media spun the event as a big win for Romney.  I read statements describing Obama as ‘bored’, ‘disengaged’, ‘unprepared’, ‘uninformed’,  Tom Brokaw (not known for his conservative bias) went as far to say if Romney had delivered a performance as bad as Obama, the race would be over. 

I watched the first half of the debate, and then turned it off because I thought Romney was going down in flames.  What did I miss?  I went back and watched the replay again to find out. I still don’t see it. Romney stumbled into a few opportunities to clarify his positions, which some apparently feel was a first. But I just didn’t see the ‘trouncing’ that the media seems to be characterizing this as. To me, Obama came across as confident in his plans, proud of his positions, and determined to paint Romney as a rich guy that only wanted to help rich people, and a guy with big headlines and no substance.  He didn’t stumble over his words, didn’t appear defensive, didn’t appear ‘outraged’ over being challenged the way he is being painted by his opponents.  So what did everyone else see that I didn’t?

Upon further examination, I did notice a feature of the debate that may have been a factor.  Applause was not allowed. No big showy ovations of support (ala the State of the Union address under any president), no laugh tracks, no hand-picked attentive models casting pre-calculated levels of pensiveness and nodding knowingly at the appropriate times.  TV executives spend a lot of time architecting a televised event to convey the emotions they want to solicit. For performers, they show you beautiful people in the front 2 rows, dancing and having the best time of their lives.  For athletic contests, we see sexy cheerleaders and over-the-top fans that will dye their hair, skin and clothes to show that this is the most important event of their lives. And for dramas, of course, they pay millions to experts to get the lighting, camera angles, mood music and ‘extras’ to usher in the exact emotion we the viewers are supposed to be feeling. 

But this was raw monologue. Contrast it to the party conventions we saw last month, in which delegates gushed uninhibitedly at every syllable uttered by their respective saviors.  Policies haven’t changed, but they don’t come across the same when you don’t have adoring throngs to convince people how profound your ideas are, how sharp your wit is, and how lofty your intellect has become.   It’s like seeing models without their makeup.  Maybe that was the X factor of this debate. If so, Romney better have something else prepared for the next one because it won’t be new next time.

Harnessed Lightening

Anyone who watched Monday Night Football on September 24^th and stayed until the (extremely) bitter end witnessed perhaps the worst officiating call in NFL history.  Trailing by 5, 4^th down, no time left on the clock, the Seattle Seahawks quarterback tossed a Hail Mary pass into the left corner of the end zone and hoped for the best. They got more than they hoped for, or could even imagine.  Green Bay’s M.D. Jennings leapt into the air and caught the ball, pulling it to his chest over Seattle’s receiver Golden Tate. Tate got his hands on the ball and they fell to the ground together, wrestling for possession.  The refs ran over to the play, looked at each other, and then one official signaled touchdown, giving Seattle a 13-12 win.  An extra point would be added to make the official score 14-12. To even the most casual observer, the Seattle receiver did not have possession of the ball, and the touchdown should not have counted.  Countless replays from every available angle confirmed this, but the call was allowed to stand and was even defended the next day by the NFL office.

I am not a huge Green Bay fan. I didn’t have money on the game, I don’t participate in any fantasy football leagues, and it’s no skin off my nose who won the game. But it’s tough to watch a team get cheated out of a win because of a bad call, and even tougher to watch the bad call be upheld for no reason other than the league’s need to save face. The NFL’s regular officials have been on strike since the beginning of the year for who-knows-what, and the NFL has been using ‘replacement officials’ throughout the preseason and for the first 3 weeks of this year.  Under-skilled commentators desperate to feign insight to otherwise boring games have tried hard to make the ‘replacement officials’ a storyline, pointing out every missed call or botched penalty as a pox on an otherwise excellent contest of judgement calls and split second decisions. 

And lord knows we’ve never had a controversial call with regular NFL officials in past years. 

But just how bad are these phony refs?  Let’s see:  With 16 games a week, 4 weeks of preseason and 3 weeks of regular season, we’ve had 112 games with these replacement officials. At an average of 130 plays per game (a conservative estimate), we’ve had a little more than 14, 500 plays run.  Let’s say they got 99% of them correct. That leaves 145 plays that are suspect.  And it only takes 5 or 6 to make a halftime video samples reel to show how ‘incompetent’ the officials are. Do you do your job perfectly 99% of the time?  Do quarterbacks make 99% of their passes?  Do linemen get their assignments right 99% of the time?  How bad do you have to be to be ‘bad’?

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not defending the blown call on MNF. It was terrible, it was reversible, and unlike other mistakes with regular or replacement officials, it directly cost a team a win.  But it is being used as an excuse to condemn all replacement officials as incompetent, blundering, idiots who don’t know a yard line from a sky line.  The fact is that fans don’t have an objective standard for comparing this year’s officials to previous years. Nor are they interested in defining one. They are just mad as hell and want something to be done.  We will see how long the NFL takes to reinstate the regular officials in response to fan demands. 

Frankly, I don’t care much about the game. But I find fascinating the power of a single isolated event to incite public opinion - maybe even a public movement- that it does not necessarily merit. An obscure, cheaply made video about Muslims is used to justify attacks against US embassies around the world. I seriously doubt the protesters in Libya saw the video. Even if they did, how would it justify attacking the US Ambassador? Nobody cares. It’s not about rationale or reason; it’s about providing a vent for rage.   

Whether they are cheated cheeseheads, jilted jihadists, oppressed minorities, or threatened conservatives, the collective power of an angry mob is an awesome force to be reckoned with. Harnessed lightening. And what a powerful force it can be to move mountains if one is clever enough to spot the opportunity, skilled enough to steer it, and wise enough to know how to use it.

The Other Reason April 15th is Memorable

Most of us in the US know April 15^th as tax day, the day when federal and state personal income taxes are due.  But starting in 2004 major league baseball declared that on April 15 of each year, every player in every game wears number 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson, the Texas oil baron who sacrificed fame and fortune to be the first black professional baseball player. No, wait – he was a research chemist working on a vaccine for leukemia.  No, that’s not it either… perhaps he was a concert pianist and composer who gave up his career for the social advancement of his race? 

Well, actually none of those is accurate.  Jackie Robinson was just a good athlete who was the first black offered money to play baseball.  He wasn’t necessarily better than all other black players before him, it wasn’t that he sacrificed some greater calling to prove a point about race, it wasn’t that he organized a march on Washington, refused to give up his seat on the bus, or risked being thrown in jail to be a historic champion of civil rights.  He just agreed to live the dream of tens of thousands of other kids who wished they could get paid for playing a game they loved. 

So why do we need a Jackie Robinson day?  What was the selfless and heroic act he represented that blazed the way for all future black athletes?  Well, racism was definitely strong in major league baseball in the 1940s. No official rule existed that banned blacks from joining the league, but no team had been willing to sign black players despite their demonstrated success in the Negro league.   For sure, Mr. Robinson would face resistance from fans, players, media, and maybe even his own teammates for invading a ‘white sport’.   But let’s not forget, he wasn’t picking up garbage or shining shoes, he was playing baseball for money.  I have no quarrel with Jackie Robinson; by all accounts he was a great player, a great teammate, and never folded to the temptation of lashing out at his antagonists. 

Let’s be honest, who had the most to lose when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers?  A strong case could be made for Branch Ricky, a white business manager who took the risk to break ranks with the fellow owners and league officials by signing a black man. But you probably never heard of Branch Ricky¸ even though he is recognized as the innovator of the major league farm system, for signing the first Hispanic player, for encouraging the expansion of the league by adding new teams, and for instituting the use of baseball helmets.  Rickey was quoted as saying "I may not be able to do something about racism in every field, but I can sure do something about it in baseball."        

But Rickey’s ambitions put him at odds with many others in baseball management. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a judge, opposed Rickey’s proposal for a farm system, thinking it would ruin the existing minor leagues. But his perseverance ensured the survival of the farm system, along with many other beneficial changes to baseball including spring training facilities, batting cages, pitching machines and new statistical measurements for measuring effectiveness. Ricky’s gamble on Jackie Robinson paid off with Robinson wining Rookie of the Year honors and his Dodgers going to the World Series. 

Yet Rickey paid the price for making his enemies. He was forced out of the Dodgers organization and faced resentment from other team owners and management.  So if we define heroes as those who do something selfless on behalf of others, who is the real hero who broke the color barrier of major league baseball?   Shouldn’t we have a Branch Ricky day?  

But that’s not how racism works.  Black racists need to take every opportunity to remind America how underprivileged and oppressed blacks are, and how white people owe them for the crimes of the past. And white people, trying to assuage a conscience of guilt for not having their own history of oppression, jump on board to 'atone for the sins' of a generation they neither created or supported. Soon to be released is the movie "42", which will again enshrine Jackie Robinson as the champion of civil rights- the 'David' who slayed the white 'Goliaths' of race.  Expect Oscar nominations, no matter how bad the acting or directing actually is. 

   

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if next year on Jackie Robinson day, if one of the dozens of players interviewed would depart from the script of “Jackie breaking the color barrier” and give some credit to Branch Ricky for making it possible?  And even more refreshing will be the day when we stop treating black accomplishments like something unnatural and unexpected and instead treat them as ordinary members of the human race.