Baseball is (already) for everyone

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To attend a major league baseball game, is to participate in a thoroughly American experience.  It's a classic sport with something to delight everyone.  As spectators, we usually can forget about life's problems for a few innings.  Or, at least we could.

Now, the MLB, its franchise owners, the players union, or some combination thereof, have joined the ranks of those in the NFL who thought it was a great idea to radiate political messages in giant letters in the endzone.  (And even allow messaging on the back of player helmets).

I hadn't noticed anything similar in professional baseball until recently.  Just beyond the center field wall at Target Field in Minneapolis, one can see, one actually must see, a large sign blaring two words: "END RACISM". 

Who are proponents of the Target Field signage going to influence?  Put another way, who besides actual racists, would advocate for preserving racism?  This practice of adorning stadiums with political messages could beckon all comers for equal expression.  One day will we see a large "END WOKEISM" or "BACK THE BADGE" sign in the right field bleachers?  I hope not, because overt political posturing -- whether Conservative or Progressive in nature -- does not belong at sporting events.

All forms of injustice, including racism, are abhorrent.  We all salute those who fight injustice, but every citizen has a right to pay for and receive the pleasurable escapism of attendance at a sporting event (or a "Hamilton" performance) without political messaging.  

Now, other changes to the game of baseball have been welcome and they involve no political expression whatever, so let's go there....  

Many games were simply too long, but by adding the pitch clock, limiting trips to the mound for pitcher chats and implementing other measures for extra inning play, the MLB has effectively shortened average game time, while preserving the experience for fans.  

Many unnecessary delays involve the pitcher in some way, shape, or form. Relief pitchers warm up in the bullpen, so why not reduce the amount of time they can burn after taking the mound before they face their first batter?  

If the manager is going to call for that relief pitcher, why can't he just signal that from the dugout.  His slow walk to the mound followed by on field discussion with the manager, catcher and a friendly pat on the back of the outgoing pitcher--is followed by more mound chat.  Just zip Joe Reliever in a golf cart directly to the mound and play ball! 

Finally, a personal wish.  Let's keep home plate umpires, but use technology to perfectly call balls and strikes.  Way too many strikes are called balls and vise versa.  Allowing technology to decide how an umpire calls a pitch, would avoid disputes over poor calls and limit fan and player aggravation over all of those truly God awful calls. 

Traditionalists may bristle, but the technology could be implemented without removing home plate umpires from the sport. Aside from the benefits of accurate officiating and stress reduction, the change would equate to another timesaver.

Baseball fans vigorously debate changes like these, but they do so in the context of what's good for this sport that's lasted over 180 years.  Such debates don't involve political ideology today.  I hope they never do. 

How slander goes unpunished

As a teen, I once scraped together enough money to buy a hamburger at a diner, then sat down at a table and waited and waited.  I watched waitresses serving customers around me and after a long period, I caught the attention of one waitress.  I asked her if someone could take my order.  She replied that another waitress had seen me steal a tip and that's why nobody would wait on me.  The charge was bogus.  I had taken nothing.  I protested the charge and left the diner with emotions that affected me decades later and even as I write these words.  I never learned the identity of my accuser.

The point of the story is that if one is going to charge another of being a thief, one must be able to back up the accusation, or there ought to be consequences for the accuser.  

Slanderous or libelous commentary is allowed in America's political environment because it's accepted as free speech and there are no rules for fair play

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when public policy fights occur.  

Unfortunately, class warfare is one avenue that works well for the accuser to smear someone.  Frequently, the one doing the smearing advocates for a populist cause.  Too often, without evidence, one can accuse another of holding depraved motives like "voter suppression" or "racism" and get away with it.  Want examples?   

Do you recall when Sen. Harry Reid likened the GOP to slavery sympathizers because he couldn't handle Obamacare criticisms?  (See my Examiner column published here).  His disgraceful comparison is largely forgotten today.  

Consider Vice President Joe Biden's spoken gem on the campaign trail, telling an African American audience that Republicans are "...going to put y'all back in chains."  Many pundits dismissed the remark as just one more bone-headed comment by Biden.  Now contrast that sorry episode with how Mitt Romney got crucified for citing an accurate statistic about the extent of government transfer payments. 

Romney's utterance wasn't populist, so the opposition could vilify him as a contemptible elitist, yet Biden's reprehensible remarks about the GOP left him unscathed.  

Political slander often occurs after Conservatives disclose ideas to reform the welfare state, curtail federal spending, or simplify the tax system.  Some ideas are better than others, but there's always a number of character assassins that will cry "Racism!"  And advocates trying to reduce voter fraud often attract a full-scale tar job, replete with charges of "voter suppression".    

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Most Conservatives encounter this sort of thing sooner or later.  What if it happens to you?  My advice is to expose your character assassins fully, fairly and early.  Fight with facts, but fight no less.  

If you have a better remedy; please let me know.

Offering gifts and hopes this holiday season

Published 12.21.2006 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
As this is the season of giving and sharing, I wish to publicly share the following holiday gifts and warm wishes for the new year to some specific recipients.

To project managers of the Marquette Interchange reconstruction or anyone else supporting this multiyear mess: I give a hand-selected bag of high-caffeine coffee that will speed up the work (whether or not it is ahead of schedule now). May all the inconvenience caused by the next state highway project take place no closer to me than Plover but no further from you than your favorite grocer.

To all Wisconsin men and women in the armed forces who won't be home this holiday season: I offer my gratitude for your service and prayers for a safe trip home. For those who want to give more than good wishes, go to the state Department of Veterans Affairs Web site: dva.state.wi.us/supportourtroops.asp or call (800) 947-8387. There are a number of ways to get gifts to our service members overseas.

To Sen. Hillary Clinton: I give the strongest encouragement to run for president in 2008 and speak your mind without reservation. Your candidacy is the single best hope Republicans have to retain the White House.

To the aging, sniveling cynics who welcomed back American soldiers from Vietnam by spitting on them or calling them "baby killers": I didn't have time to get you anything, so why don't you just meet me for a quiet drink at the local VFW? Oh, and take a cab. I have some friends who would be happy to give you a lift home. Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself as our service members return from the Middle East and that your children don't act as disgracefully as you did in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

To the anonymous donors of $25 million to Marquette University: You are doing God's work. No joke. However, my Christmas fund is almost depleted, so I believe I can scratch you from my list without much worry that you'll miss the Sam's Club membership card I had intended to send. I'm not sure where to send it anyway.

To the Milwaukee Public Schools and City Hall: No gift to you would be sufficient in that you already have given so much to Milwaukee taxpayers in the form of that inadvertent (but perhaps temporary) $9.1 million tax break. Now, could you extend your good deed by convincing Madison lawmakers that the rest of us in Wisconsin need more tax relief, too?

To the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents: At considerable personal expense, I have had made several engraved copies of the Supreme Court's 2003 decision striking down the practice of the University of Michigan's Law School to award an extra 20 points to its applicants purely on the basis of minority status. Please read it with a warm holiday beverage in front of your fireplace and recall what your dear grandma once said about two wrongs never making a right. Discrimination of any kind is unacceptable, even the kind that works in reverse.

To every jewelry store owner or jewelry department manager in southern Wisconsin: I give a large bag of price tags. Please place them in plain view in your merchandise displays so I don't have to repeatedly waste time or feel embarrassed by asking the price of items that I cannot afford to buy.

Finally, my personal holiday wish to all readers, regardless of what you celebrate at this time of the year: God bless you, and may 2007 be just a tad better for us all.

A Post-Katrina view minus revisionism

After a national catastrophe like Katrina, some voices are bellowing about indifference to the poor and racism, while a grieving nation fumbles to make sense of it all.  Some criticism is out of control.  

Let's decry an inept response to a natural disaster, hold accountable and prosecute decision-makers who controlled resources that could have helped more of our southern citizens. We can blame those who could have executed a more efficient evacuation from what Columnist David Brooks described as, “the most anticipated natural disaster in American history.”  Let us do all this but in the process let us also reject empty political charges that amplify the harm of the hurricane.

Contributors on the editorial pages of my local newspaper (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) could not resist the temptation to tar the Bush administration's actions with a recent piece entitled, “A racial rift sadly revealed” (Sept. 9, 2005).  Reactionary rap singers have called the President of the United States a Racist and far left columnists are actually tying the Katrina disaster to “tax cuts for the rich.” If one whispers any dismay over a lack of  responsibility among those forewarned and able to avert Katrina but who chose to remain in the hurricane’s path, or condemn the behavior of those looting in New Orleans; someone will brand you a Racist.  

Tendencies to make accusations of racism after natural calamities is not new. In some cases, the effects can endure. In his last book, To America, Personal Reflections of an Historian (Simon & Schuster, 2002) former University of New Orleans professor Stephen E. Ambrose writes about the propensity of educators over the decades to teach American expansionism in the West as a period where we practiced systematic genocide of American Indian tribes.

Stephen Ambrose, Wikipedia

Ambrose called such explanations for the complete disappearance of Indian tribes, “totally irresponsible.” 

That our forefathers’ presided over a massive land grab, that they broke treaties, that they failed miserably to assimilate Native Americans, is all true Ambrose reminded us. Yet the only factual basis behind the total disappearance of Indian tribes occurred as Ambrose wrote,”…because of the introduction of European diseases, most of all smallpox.”

If he was alive and writing about Katrina years from now, I'd like to think that Dr. Ambrose would conclude that Crescent City tragedies witnessed in the year 2005 were caused by a devastating hurricane and bureaucratic ineptitude -- not racism, because such charges are "totally irresponsible".