[Click here for a link to the entire RP Debate on Roger Clemens]
A few random musings first…
–Original RP: Saying Ryan Braun is your favorite Jewish ballplayer is like saying Tiger is your favorite black golfer! Unless you’re talking historically, and then I’ll send you a few clips of Sandy Koufax from 1963…and ’65…and ’66.
-I’m ready for Artur to write a book titled Let Me Tell You Something Profound About Nearly Everything. Forget your next campaign — I want to catch a game with you
-2013 RP Fantasy League anyone?
I’ve been a baseball fan for as long as I can remember. Growing up in a family that shared LA Dodger season tickets helped that cause. And I think because of my connection with the Dodgers, I’m largely a baseball purist. We’ve got the only symmetrical ballpark in the National League. Our beloved stadium just turned a cool 50 years old (some of the Dodger Dogs taste like they’re pushing 50, too). And there’s no smoother voice in baseball – heck, sports – than Vin Scully.
I guess as a Dodger fan it’s natural to be anti-PED and anti-steroid. Barry Bonds crushed us for years and Braun made out like a bandit when he won Matt Kemp’s MVP award last year. It’s probably why Griffey Jr. is my favorite player I grew up watching. Yet now, as I think back to all the games I’ve been to, a few moments stand out (there haven’t been many great Dodger moments since ’88):
-Watching Mark McGwire hit balls OUT of Dodger Stadium during batting practice. I don’t mean out of the stadium, into the bleachers. I mean OUT of the stadium, into the parking lot. Big Mac did it once during a game – the only two others to ever do it over the last 50 years have been Willie Stargell and Mike Piazza.
-Watching Barry Bonds absolutely mash. Each of his home runs against the Dodgers sucked a little more life out of me. And yet I always felt like watching Bonds would be the closest thing I’d ever get to watching Babe.
-Watching Eric Gagne make some of the best hitters look like career AA bullpen catchers. He’d run in from Left Field to “Welcome to the Jungle,” and just like our Gagne shirts said, we knew it was “Game Over.
-Watching Clemens deal. I’ve never been so entranced watching a starting pitcher. It’s one thing to sit on the edge of your seat in Loge 131 Row K and secretly hope to see Bonds go yard. It’s another to sit there crossing your fingers for Rocket to hit 97 on the gun and pitch one more inning. I remember that he didn’t throw for too long, but it was 6 or 7 of the most calculatingly brilliant innings I’ve seen a pitcher toss.
I don’t have to tell you what all of these guys have in common. Does it disappoint me? Without question. Has baseball ever been as exciting as it was from the mid-90s to the Mitchell Report? No way. Look what’s happening now. Football is now America’s Game. Kids are growing up playing lacrosse instead of playing catch. And the dollars and cents of baseball continue to get hammered, as season ticket bases erode and people stay home to watch games on their plasma TVs.
So put Clemens in the Hall so I can tell my kids about the game I saw him pitch. And I’ll tell them about steroids, I’ll tell them about how exciting baseball was back then and how devastating some of the claims were. And then we’ll go out and play catch and everything will be fine.”
Yes, Roger Clemens should be admitted and given an extra award for being dragged through the dirt!
It seems the government and our Congressional leaders should have more dangerous criminals to track down and go after.
I fear this all started because a few Congressional leaders wanted some headlines and signed baseballs from the superstars. I’m sure some serious steroid use was going on, and we know it is unhealthy for the players and should not be an example for the young kids, but surely we can let baseball police their own sport.
To me it was all a big waste of money and probably ruined many lives.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jun 25, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Movie etiquette.
When your beloved wife rents a movie for you to watch together and says, “I got this movie because the couple reminds me of us” be prepared.
1) Do not criticize the wife’s character
2) Praise the wife’s character
3) Accept that the “similarities” you have with thehusband’s character will be, shall we say, traits you possess that provide “opportunities for improvement.”
4) The “movie” you are about to watch is really more of a “training film.”
5) Tomorrow night is NOT your turn to pick out a movie.
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UPDATE. (Comments)
THE RP: John, you need to be a little more subtle in the description. It is obvious that the movie is Shrek. And I’m Donkey
REBECCA BROWN (Mrs. JYB3): Jonathan, Shrek was a slow learner but once he got the hang of what to do, he had a real knack for making Fiona feel special and loved in the end….also, it is hard to be critical of Fiona after that locked up in a castle as an ogre issue…..another great movie for us!
JOHN Y: I had no idea Shrek was about relationships. I just thought it was a funny movie about Ogres. I need the Cliff Notes.
REBECCA:…As for Fiona’s characterization, I think she used the locked up in a castle card for sympathy too much and also could have made fun of herself more to draw the donkey and Shrek into feeling more comfortable around her right off the bat. Instead, they felt they had to show that they felt sorry for her and it set the next few scenes up for constant tension. I don’t think I have ever given this much thought to a Disney movie…thanks Jonathan!
THE RP: To be honest, Rebecca, I think I fell asleep when I watched Shrek with the girls. I was just making the surface comment that John looks like Shrek, you look like Fiona, and I look like Donkey.
I appreciate that Roger Clemens is no sympathetic character. Even before his brain and emotions might have been addled by steroids, he could be graceless to an extreme: the few black fans left in baseball winced after he stupidly said he wished he could crack Hank Aaron’s head open when Aaron had the temerity to suggest a pitcher shouldn’t win a season MVP award. It was a dumb, brutal joke that echoed the savage letters Aaron received in the throes of his home run record chase. There was also no grace in the Roger Clemens who could erupt at umpires or batters, and who tended to do it most when his skills weren’t working. There are a host of fans who see nothing but a perennial evader of responsibility in Clemens, and I sympathize.
But the Hall of Fame is a baseball venue and the only relevance of his misdeeds is whether they influenced the stats that make the player’s candidacy (I would say the same for Pete Rose, whose tawdriness never included betting to influence his own games).
Accepting the standard that it’s best to freeze Clemens’ candidacy as of 1998–pre Brian McNamee–I lean toward admission for Roger Clemens, but don’t see the baseball case as nearly as one-sided as some comments on the thread suggest. Clemens’ Red Sox career approximated 16 wins a years for twelve years–exceptional and consistent, but there were outlier years like the masterpiece in 86 balanced against a run of seasons in the early nineties when Clemens seemed past his prime, and an undeniable pattern of erosion. Then there is the mediocrity of his post-season work for the Red Sox, when the rap was that Clemens seemed to fatigue by October (a precursor of why he might have turned to enhancers). The two Toronto Cy Young years (and 41 additional wins) are clouded, perhaps unfairly, by the proximity to his alleged introduction to steroids, and the murkiness around when the cheating might have started.
Read the rest of… The RPs Debate Roger Clemens: Artur Davis Cleans Up
I do not think ball players should be banned from the Hall of Fame for moral reasons not having to do with performance.
As a Reds fan, which everyone knows is the greatest sports franchise on the history of the planet, it bother me that “hit king” Pete Rose is still barred from the Hall for activities having nothing to do with his performance on the field as a player. (Ok, not totally relevant to this debate, but I just had to say that.)
As for players who took performance enhancing drugs, they should not be given a place in the Hall.
Their stats were jacked because they were juiced. But Clemens was found innocent, and it’s not for the Hall to try and convict him. So let him in.
Clemens was one of the 5 best pitchers of all time, AND he’s been vindicated through an extensive and painful court process. Whether or not the sportswriters agree with the jury’s verdict last week, that’s how our democracy works.
The tougher call– moral and practical — concerns whether others who have admitted, or have been suspected of, steroid use should be prohibited from entering the Hall of Fame.
I don’t believe that steroid use — and obviously then, suspicion thereof — PRIOR TO Major League Baseball’s crackdown on performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) should be a barrier to entry. This is a critical distinction. Players such as Manny Ramirez are an easy case — he continued to use PEDs long after Baseball announced stiffer penalties — despite his contribution to the Red Sox resurrection in 2004, he’s done. (Ryan Braun is a much tougher call, and not just because he’s my favorite Jewish player. I agreed with the decision to reverse his suspension based on technicality — again, that is how our system of due process works — but I’m hopeful that in the years to come, the issue will be clairified.)
Read the rest of… The RPs Debate Roger Clemens: The RP in the Second Hole
By Steven Schulman, on Mon Jun 25, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
As an irregular feature, Mondays at The Recovering Politician are sometimes reserved for great debates among the contributing RPs and Friends of RP. Click here for a link to the prior debates.
Today, the following question is posed: Should superstar pitcher Roger Clemens, recently acquitted of lying about using performance enhancing steroids, be admitted to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame?
Steven Schulman, this site’s resident baseball expert — and the second best owner in his fantasy baseball league — leads off:
First, a few disclaimers: Roger Clemens was for many years my favorite baseball player. Until he signed with the Yankees. Then he was dead to me.
Ok, that’s behind us. The question is whether the acquittal of Clemens on the charges of lying to Congress and obstruction of justice make him more or less likely to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and, in any case, whether he should be elected notwithstanding the charges (both legal and moral) against him.
The realist point of view is that the writers who are empowered to elect players to the Hall of Fame are highly unlikely to be persuaded by the verdict in a criminal proceeding. The prosecution’s burden in a criminal court is to prove the facts “beyond a reasonable doubt.” For Hall of Fame voters, the burden appears to be “well, I personally think so, for whatever reason.” For their own reasons – either moral objections or simple embarrassment that they themselves failed to uncover (or to reveal their own knowledge of) steroid use – writers are objecting to anyone from the 1990s into this century who even has a hint of steroid use.
Jeff Bagwell – who ranks among the best first basement ever (in the major leagues, not just my Rotisserie baseball team) – has failed in two tries to be elected to the Hall of Fame, simply because his body type and the era in which he played raise suspicions of steroid use. Accordingly, Clemens’s acquittal will hardly move the needle for the knights of the keyboard who guard the gates to Cooperstown.
By John Y. Brown III, on Sun Jun 24, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
A shocking antidote to a shocking bullying episode.
Karen Klein, the 68-year-old school bus monitor from suburban Rochester, N.Y. was the victim of a horrific bullying episode caught on tape in a video now gone viral. She is the quintessential grandmother –and a genuinely kind hearted and caring woman.
She’s received an outpouring of support, well wishes, and donations.
Southwest Airlines offered her a 3 days all-expenses paid trip to Disney with her choice of 9 guests.
I think Karen Klein should invite her family and the kids who bullied her on this trip and their families–with the condition that the trip be covered by a Reality TV crew and the bullying teens and their families have to spend the entire time with Karen Klein and her family. Obviously, there will be lots of discussion and reflection on why the bullying occurred and, hopefully, heartfelt apologies and perhaps a friendship and respect for the bullying victim who will obviously be viewed as the hero in this awful episode.
It is a seemingly crazy idea, but one I think could work. Really. Karen Klein is an extraordinarily wise and patient woman who could pull this off successfully. And turn the most momentous national teaching moment about the cruelty of bullying into what could be the most significant teaching moment ever about exposing the cowardly forces that create bullying and the resolution between the bullied and the bullies that humiliate the bullies –and discourage future bullying episodes by those who watch.
It would not be a reward by any means. It would be the most humiliating and possibly most important 3 days of the bully’s lives. And for the lives of many future bullies who watch. The gift these teen bullies would be receiving would not be 3 days in Disney. But an opportunity to redefine themselves as decent human beings who could take on the cause of denouncing bullying by others like them. Nothing would speak to discouraging future bullies than former bullies who have seen the light. Not even 68 year old grandmother victims, unless they turn the tables in a manner such as this. It may just work.
And, of course, this has to be Karen Klien’s decision, and I don’t want her pressured into doing something she doesn’t want. She’s endured enough already. But if the following petition helps get the idea in front of her to consider, and she agrees it is something she wants to do and believes would be valuable, I’d love to help provide our encouragement
By Jason Atkinson, on Fri Jun 22, 2012 at 5:00 PM ET
RP Jason Atkinson helps you kick off your weekend with his latest film about last weekend’s adventures with his kids. Mostly filmed with GoPro, Gunder and Pomp fished the Deschutes with their old Dad’s guiding:
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Fri Jun 22, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
The Politics of Tech
In the biggest tech news in quite a while Microsoft has announced their upcoming foray into the tablet market with the Surface. [The Verge]
“Department Of Justice Realizes That Comcast & Time Warner Are Trying To Prop Up Cable By Holding Back Hulu & Netflix” Yeah, I think this has gone on about long enough. We can start taking it seriously now. [TechDirt]
Oracle is getting exactly ziltch from all those patent claims they used against them. A swing and a miss. [Examiner]
Google is reporting an “alarming” rise in requests by governments to censor political content. Here’s hoping they stay strong in their anti-censorship stance. [Guardian]
Here’s an interesting and disturbing piece of news: Making a call using Skype or Google Voice in Ethiopia could get you a 15 year prison sentence. [Venture Beat]
This is just cool – check out the lightshow created during a Coldplay concert by LED lit wristbands. [Mashable]
A few random musings first…
