Roger O Green

Baseball Hall of Fame 2014: my ballot

I had to leave off players for the Baseball Hall of Fame I most definitely would have considered:

Now that Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre, who rank third, fourth and fifth, respectively, on the career list of managerial victories, have been “elected unanimously to the Hall of Fame [on December 9] by the expansion-era committee,” it’s time for me to think about the players, who will be voted on by the baseball writers, the results of which will be announced on January 8. “To be enshrined, players must be named on at least 75% of the Committee members’ ballots.”

Here are the players on the ballot. Last year, NO players were inducted – which was too bad – so now, with new players being retired for five years, there’s a real backlog. The sportswriters who vote can select up to 10 players, though most apparently do not.

These are my picks:

1. Jack Morris. It’s his 15th and final year on the ballot. He got 67.7% of the vote last year; put him in.

2. Lee Smith, who had more saves than anyone when he retired in an era when relievers often pitched more than one inning. 12th year on the ballot. He got 47.8% of the vote last year, but this year, I fear he’ll do worse. I’ve supported his selection for years.

3 and 4. Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. Both pitchers are worthy, and Maddux should be a lock with over 350 wins; Glavine had 305, and 300 has been the threshold for years, probably too high in the five-man rotation. It would be nice if they could go in with their longtime Atlanta manager Cox. Both 1st year on the ballot.

5. Frank Thomas. They didn’t call him The Big Hurt for nothing. He hit 500 home runs, yet also batted over .300 for his career; power hitters often sacrifice average for power.

6 and 7. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. Now we come to the Steroid Era players. No one would argue that these aren’t the best position player and pitcher, respectively, on the ballot, and in fact two of the best players ever. The steroids weren’t specifically banned at the time they were allegedly taken them. Last year, I understood why Bonds only got 36.2% and Clemens, 37.6% of the votes; the writers didn’t want them to go into the hall on the first ballot. But they still belong, even cutting their numbers by 25%.

8. Mike Piazza. A good hitting catcher, who was never specifically accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs (PED), but everyone who bulked up in that period was suspected by some. There’s no reason to believe it so. Last year, in his first year of eligibility, he got 57.8% of the vote. Some writers who didn’t want him in in his first year might vote yes in his second.

9. Craig Biggio. Second basemen aren’t usually expected to be selected for power, but for defense. Yet thrice he won both the Gold Glove (for fielding) asnd the Silver Slugger (for hitting) in the same season.

10. Tim Raines. I’ve become convinced that being the second-best leadoff hitter in his era, after Rickey Henderson, is worthy of the Hall. He had over 800 stolen bases in his career.

I had to leave off people I most definitely would have considered: Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, whose home run race in 1998 reengerized the baseball fan after the 1994 strike, both tainted by PED use; first baseman Jeff Bagwell, pitcher Mike Mussina, and pitcher Curt Schilling, who I dropped in favor of Raines. Probably three or four others I would have picked in another year.

Keith Richards is 70

Share a few words of wisdom: You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Yes, I’m as surprised as you are. Maybe he is too.

Early in the blog, on the significant birthdays of musicians, I would do this meme, answering questions based on the songs of the artist. Later, I started picking my favorite songs by the person, or group, but since I did that for the Rolling Stones only five months ago – around Mick Jagger’s birthday – thought I’d regress a bit.

Artist/Band: Keith Richards (b. 12/18/1943)
Are you male or female: Jumpin’ Jack Flash; Monkey Man
Describe yourself: Happy; I Got The Blues; Mixed Emotions; Sittin’ On A Fence
How do some people feel about you: Complicated; Out of Time; 19th Nervous Breakdown
How do you feel about yourself: I Can’t Get No Satisfaction; Waiting On A Friend
Describe what you want to be: I Wanna Be Your Man; Like a Rolling Stone
Describe how you live: Ain’t Too Proud to Beg; 2000 Light Years From Home; Tumbling Dice; You Gotta Move
Describe how you love: Blinded by Love; Empty Heart; Everybody Needs Somebody to Love; Heart of Stone
Share a few words of wisdom: Don’t Lie To Me; Get Off My Cloud; It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll; You Can’t Always Get What You Want

W is for Wal-Mart, or Walmart

I find it odd that it has banned music with explicit lyrics, yet carries a full complement of assault weaponry that has recently included the Bushmaster AR-15.

One of my sisters is one of the greatest Walmart shoppers in the country. She and my late mother have gone to dozens of store in the southeastern United States. I remember a visit they made to Albany a few years back – probably just after the Daughter was born – and they wanted to go to the local Walmart EVERY SINGLE DAY they were in town. And this was the previous Walmart, NOT the one expanded in 2008 to be the largest Walmart Supercenter in the United States.

Whereas I’m not quite as enthusiastic. I rather like the success story of Sam Walton, going from a single store to become the largest private employer in the world with over two million employees. But some of the company policies have made me wary.

I recall reading in the 1990s about Walmart entering towns in the Midwest, driving out the local hardware store and other merchants. When it found a Walmart store was not profitable enough, it would pull out of the market, leaving the towns much worse off than they were when it arrived. Now that Walmart is having declining sales, this seems like a scenario that could be replicated. Its aggressive price challenge is aggravating its competitors, who claim Walmart has misrepresented the facts.

I find it odd that it has banned music with explicit lyrics, yet carries a full complement of assault weaponry that has recently included the Bushmaster AR-15, which was used in the Sandy Hook (Connecticut) Elementary School shooting and several other high-profile mass killings.

Walmart, many claim, is the epitome of economic inequity, when they could easily afford to pay their employees better, which led to the largest employee strike ever last autumn, and more actions in the spring, and again around this Thanksgiving. It’s clear that Wal-Mart’s low wages cost taxpayers money. By comparison, Mark Evanier and the Daily Kos tout Costco as a much better corporate entity.

Those Walton billionaires, sons and daughters of Sam, are bankrolling a number of controversial actions such as school “reform” efforts in Los Angeles.

Still, my personal antipathy has less to do with any of that than the one and only time I went to Walmart willingly. It was the autumn of 1994. I had just had a painful romantic breakup, and I needed a bunch of household items. Someone said that I should go to Walmart, which had opened only the year before in our area.

I took the bus out to the locale and started filling the shopping cart. I went home with several bags of stuff. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized that I was missing a bag. I called Walmart, and they found my missing merchandise at the register. It was too late to take the bus back to Walmart, but I said I would return the following day.

The next afternoon, I arrived at Walmart and waited for someone to get my bag from the manager’s office, where I was told my stuff would be. After at least a half-hour, I was told they couldn’t find my bag. But I could go back through the store and get the stuff again.

Now I hated going through the store the first time. Going through a second time, trying to find the SPECIFIC items I had purchased the day before was really difficult. The first time, I was just going up and down the aisles; this time, I had to try to match my previous purchases in terms of size and brand, and price; what a pain! I’ve never shopped there, or any Walmart, willingly since, as I find it too big for my taste.

And to answer the question of a hyphen or no hyphen in the name: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) [is] branded as Walmart.
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A unified theory of shoving.

ABC Wednesday – Round 13

My iconoclastic Christmas

A couple years ago, a very good friend of mine, someone who has known me for decades, said I was an iconoclast. I suppose that’s true; other people have said over the years that I march to the beat of a different drummer.

Most people listen to “Christmas music” between Thanksgiving (or earlier) and Christmas. Not another note after that, because the tree has already been literally thrown to the curb. I put “Christmas music” in quotes because so much of it has nothing to do with Christmas. Certainly all the secular songs about Santa and reindeer are about Christmas. And some of the religious stuff, though, since we are in Advent, not Christmastime, you may not have noticed here are more about the baby having been born than anticipation of the event.

(One of my favorite podcasters mused whether River by Joni Mitchell is a Christmas song. I say: absolutely. It speaks of cutting down trees, and reindeer; it may express ANXIETY over the holiday – they’ve made whole movies about THAT – but it’s no less applicable.)

Then there are those songs that just have to do with cold weather. Now these have NOTHING to do with Christmas whatsoever: Jingle Bells, upon which River is based; Jingle Bell Rock; Frosty the Snowman; Winter Wonderland; and especially Baby, It’s Cold Outside. But try playing Sleigh Ride or Let It Snow in early February; people would think you are crazy.

I tolerate listening to the music starting on November 22, which is the earliest date Thanksgiving can occur – it was on November 28 this year, the latest it can take place. But I don’t start playing tunes until December 6, recognizing some European tradition, and don’t stop until January 6, at the end of the 12 days of Christmas. Hope that doesn’t weird you out.
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The American Family Association’s Naughty Or Nice List And The Vapidity Of The ‘War On Christmas’

The poor tellers

I ended up five cents under, and spent nearly a half hour not finding the error.

Of all the recent stories about economic inequality in America I’ve read lately, this one jumped out at me: 1 out of 3 Bank Tellers in New York on Public Assistance. I’ve never worked in food service in any capacity, or in a large retail store, but I was a bank teller, for a month.

It was the winter of 1977-1978, at the end of a not great year, in which I lived in Charlotte, NC; Binghamton, NY briefly; Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC, NY; and New Paltz, NY, before drifting up the Hudson River to crash with friend Uthaclena and his first wife, and their two dogs (his I loved, hers, not so much).

After a year of being underemployed, I secured a job working at the Albany Savings Bank in downtown Albany. I was a teller in February 1978, making $6,000 a year. Every day I had $9K in my drawer, more on Wednesday state paydays and Fridays. It was depressing, getting all dressed up in a dress shirt and tie I couldn’t afford to look “professional,” with the “chance of upward mobility.”

My trainer was a former teller; she was a decent person, and undoubtedly a good teller, but a lousy, and impatient, teacher. When I finally got on the window, after the training, on the second day, I ended up five cents under and spent nearly a half-hour not finding the error.

This made it easy to quit, with three days’ notice, to take a job with the Schenectady Arts Council’s government-funded program to bring arts into the schools, starting the beginning of March. I was the bookkeeper, but it wasn’t the same level of pressure. Didn’t have to wear a tie. And I was making $8,200 per year, not a princely sum, but way better than at ASB.

The downside, ultimately, is that the funding abruptly ended in January 1979, leaving me unemployed for nearly five months, but it was definitely the better choice.
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You should watch Money on the Mind if you can. In nine minutes, it addresses the differences even perceived wealth differences can make.

Jaquandor’s liberal screed, which I agree with.