The Best Star Wars Movie Ever

Let's have this debate now, as the answer may change over this weekend.

For decades, one could ask Star Wars fan of their favorite film. Without flinching, most die-hards will offer a one word answer: Empire. Those who favor The Empire Strikes Back generally offer a list of reasons. It is a faster paced film than its predecessor, with better film quality to boot. Empire afficianado's also say the film presents a more nuanced, darker view than its sunny predecessor, a developing screwball romance between Han and Leia, and they love the big reveal. Fan-boy's also o cite Han and Vader's iconic lines as proof of the film's superiority. Fair points, although Vader's line, ("No, I am your father) is probably the most misquoted line in film history.

Empire definitely had better visuals than  Star Wars, as the film itself is higher
quality, and the producers decided to give the Falcon cockpit a major upgrade.

But I'm rarely satisfied with what other people say. For me, a person who lives literature, writing, and storytelling, the better film between the two is clearly Star Wars. Why? Let's hear from the actor's themselves and then dig a little deeper.

What gives? Same ship, different movie. Conclusion: Star Wars is darker.

"They've made movies like this before," said Mark Hamill. "A movie about a farm boy and a wizard and a princess."

Alec Guiness was even less impressed. "New rubbish dialogue reaches me every other day on wadges of pink paper -- and none of it makes my character clear or even bearable."

And lastly, Harrison Ford.

"That opening shot," said Ford in a 1977, "is a stroke of genius."

That's right. The man who famously referred to his character as Ham Yoyo and has spent the last quarter century explaining his contempt for the Star Wars universe once had nothing but praise for the films, and his character. 

In a televised interview, Ford confessed that he had never seen science fiction films before, or cared. "But this one is different. It's not about the science. It's about human relationships."

Human relationships indeed. Star Wars is the story of an orphaned farm boy who longs for adventure--and then justice--after his only known relatives are slaughtered by armed soldiers. It's Arthurian Legend, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordan and more.

It's a John Ford Western. It's a Kurosawa Eastern. Some say it's a space opera. Others say its a World War II action movie.  

And really, Star Wars is all that and more. Hence the genius of the first installment in the franchise, and its superiority over all films that have come in its wake. 

Star Wars is the superior film. Every element of storytelling is seamlessly integrated into the plot and dialogue. Every film technique that was worth retelling is retold here, but coupled with the aura of pioneering special effects and the mystique of legends. Some say the film, nearly 40 years old, is showing its age. Some disastrous CGI over the last decade might give those critics pause. That point is surely debatable.

What is not debatable is that the underlying pulse of the story is a beat that goes on forever. Much about how the creator's of Star Wars utilized Joseph Campbell's mono-myth template for storytelling has already been said. Rather than repeat what others have said, let's compare Skywalker to another Luke from film folk lore.

Cool Hand Luke, filmed in 1966, shows our titular character as a redeemer, one who wins over the hearts of the oppressed and pays the ultimate sacrifice for their sins. It's familiar from another Luke, in another time.

Luke in Star Wars, also shows parallels to the Holy Gospel. In the Gospel, it is clear that Jesus is descended from noble lineage. When Jesus meets John the Baptist, God himself speaks to him. "You are my son," he says. "with whom I am pleased."

When Luke meets Obi-Wan, he learns of his noble birth. "I was once a Jedi knight like your father." Obi-Wan, like John the Baptist, mentors and grants special powers. 

Like John the Baptist, Obi-Wan is killed by the Empire for aiding the resistance. Herod's Empire slaughters the innocent children in to stop the rebellion from gaining a savior. Vader's Empire slaughter's innocent Jawas, diplomats, along with Luke's foster parents to prevent stolen data tapes from falling into the hands of the rebellion. Luke leaves Tatooine to go to Alderon and bring justice to the galaxy. Jesus leaves Nazareth to go to Bethleham and liberate its people from the clutches of the Evil Empire.

Oh yeah, and Jesus blew up the Death Star. Tiberius was really upset about that. What, you didn't know? Read the Gospel. It's in the back.

This is not the ending to the film you are looking for.

Okay, you got me. But while Jesus and Cool Hand became martyrs to the cause, Skywalker emerges victorious. Is that a cheap Hollywood ending? Maybe, maybe not. Consider the time Star Wars was conceived, produced, and released.

1968. America's greatest moral leader and America's greatest political leader and struck down by assassin's bullets. Walter Cronkite declares the Vietnam War a conflict that cannot be won, and Richard Nixon takes the White House. 

Dark times indeed.

Now examine every top-selling movie in the years that followed. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid leaves our characters dead. Love Story is a variation on Romeo and Juliet, although instead of suicide, Juliet succumbs to inoperable cancer. The following year saw Gene Hackman and Clint Eastwood starring in cop films from coast to coast. Hackman plays Detective Jimmy Doyle in New York City, Eastwood plays Harry Callahan in San Francisco. Doyle and Callahan escape both films alive, but their careers are most likely dead. The Godfather? Dead. Bear in mind, these are just the top selling films over a three year period. Near the top are such cynical masterpieces as Clockwork Orange, Caboret, and Shaft. And Mash. And Midnight Cowboy.

By 1973, things are looking up, in that some of the protagonist's actually survive in The Exorcist. Serpico is still alive at the end of Serpico. 1974 gives us more corrupt police and/or mafia films with Chinatown and The Godfather II. Both films outperformed Charles Bronson's journey to the dark side in Deathwish.

In 1975, Jaws topped out One Flew of the Cuckoo's Nest as the best-selling film of the year. Randall Patrick Murphy is dead, but Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider were able to outsmart a shark. Yes, our heroes may not be able to defeat human villains any more, but they can triumphantly defeat a fish. Not just any fish, through. He's got mighty big teeth! They're razor sharp! Look at the bones! Some would say that the Shark was hungry for people. I would take this a sign that maybe people were ready for a happy ending again. One that could easily have been facilitated if Brody had gotten a bigger boat and the townspeople had the common sense to stay out of the water. Gee, maybe the Shark in that movie was our intellectual equal after all? Moving on . . .

1976 gives us Rocky Balboa and Travis Bickle. Balboa looses his fight and Bickle looses his mind.

Now, put yourself in the audience in 1977. You've seen or at least heard of every movie on this list. It's the culminating scene. The Rebel fighters go down, one by one. As Luke makes his final approach, his flight partner radios that his engines are damaged, and he can't cover for him.

"Stay back, Wedge," Luke instructs. "You can't do any good back there." 

Wedge apologizes, and complies. As he does so, the film gives a wide angle shot for emphasis. Our hero is by himself being chased by enemy fighters. Luke had one pilot whose name was actually his function: He could serve as a "wedge" to protect Luke for his shot on the Death Star. Even if Luke gets the shot, he's a goner, and he knows it. The fighters that have nearly decimated the entire Rebel fleet have a clear target and are ready to fire.

This scene reason why Star Wars is on the AFI list and Empire is not.

The creators of Star Wars could have easily analyzed the box office returns and cynically given the audience what they had responded to for the better part of the last decade. They could have ended the story with Luke as another martyr. But they didn't.

And they were right.

Star Wars is a dark film. An orphan looses his only known family, and then his only friend. An entire planet is blown to pieces, at a time when audience members were well aware of the Nuclear chess game between the United States and Russia. Real life has this kind of suffering. And yet Star Wars reminds us of what we gained.

For one, we gained women's rights, embodied in Princess Leia. Films had never given us a Princess like her before: She resists torture. She mocks and belittles her captures. Leia even insults her rescuers. She carries a blaster and she knows how to use it. Princess Leia is completely unfazed by death, her only concern is prospect of restoring democratic government to the galaxy. Thanks to the millions of women who demanded rights in the 1960s, we got a genuine female hero in the 1970s. 

And we deserve it. 1977 was a clear time to remind ourselves that Good triumphs over Evil in real life. Cynics say that Star Wars is cheap. That good versus evil is unrealistic, and that for an empire to invest heavily in something with a design flaw that could be exploited by a courageous aerial assault is just silly cinema. 

And yet sometimes that's the way things are. I like the Star Wars, as a stand-alone film, does so much for so many people.

And can one lucky shot bring down a whole structure? Even when it is heavily guarded? 

Hey, it happened before. In real life. Somebody made a movie about it. The creators of Star Wars saw it, and deftly made it more interesting.

The Worst Star Wars Movie Ever

Six movies. 358 books. 138 video games 4.4 trillion dollars in gross earnings from ticket sales alone.

Star Wars is by far the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful film franchise of all time. The ability to capture the imagination of not millions, but billions of people worldwide for more than one third of a century is nothing short of astounding. A popularity that stands the test of time, coupled with rave reviews from critics put Star Wars in a class all by its own.

At least it was critically acclaimed. Before the dark times. Before the LucasFilm Empire. What started with pointless and/or sinful special edition "edits" soon snowballed into a disaster that shall forever be known as the "Phantom Menace."

As a 17 year-old in 1999 who grew up on the VHS tapes of the original trilogy, I was excited. We were all excited. Then we were disappointed. Disappointed led to anger. Anger led to the dark side of not bothering to watch Episode II: Attack of the Clones. The question beckons: Which is these two is the worst Star Wars film ever made? I await vote, but first, hear my thoughts.

I sat through The Phantom Menace, annoyed with Jar-Jar, unimpressed with Anakin, and baffled by the inexplicable regression of technology that somehow takes place between the prequels and the original trilogy. I had hopes for Attack of the Clones.  These hopes faded faster than the time it takes the Millennium Falcon to do the Kessel Run when legions of disappointed fans left the theaters expressing their dismay. A terribly written love story. A comical, farcical light saber battle is the film's stirring conclusion. I could go on, but I won't. The sins of both movies are to well-known and well documented to be repeated here.

Personally, my vote goes to Attack of the Clones, in that I found this film to be utterly unwatchable. It has no saving graces. None. Darth Maul is an entertaining villain, and the culminating scene between Maul, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan is exciting. It's exciting to watch real actors engage in a light-saber battle to the death.

Less exciting is watching an animated version of Yoda grab a light saber and "fight" the aged and almost immobile Christopher Lee. Why does Yoda need a light saber? He can lift a spaceship and fly it using his power of the Force! "Your weapons," he says, "You will not need them." One can say the same thing about Attack of the Clones.

Episode II, from start to finish, is completely unnecessary, not only as a film, but as any sort of connection to the canonical Star Wars Universe.

Mosholu Mist

I love it when New England Gray meets New York Green.

Or maybe I should say I love it when Mosholu Mist creates a San Francisco Silhouette?

Mosholu Parkway as viewed from 4 train platform, April 20, 2015. Fog both obscures and highlights north Bronx beauty.

Exclusive: Hartford baseball team announces name change, new logo.

The soon-to-be former New Britain Cats are now the soon-to-be former Hartford Yard Goats.

"We wanted a name that would identify our organization as family friendly and appeal to kids as well as baseball fans throughout the region," said team owner Josh Solomon. "Unfortunately, we had no idea that 'Yard Goat' was a type of railroad locomotive, and the resulting backlash forced us to go back to the drawing board."

The result? Instead of rooting for obscure railroad jargon, baseball fans all over the state will receive a special treat: Say hello to the Hartford Huskies!

David, the mascot of the new Hartford AA Baseball team.

Unlike the Yard Goats, reaction to the Huskies moniker has been uniformly positive.

"Let's face it," said Joe Torre. "A baseball star is not a goat. One does not handle a bat or glove like a goat. This new name should go over well."

Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy agreed.

"The state of Connecticut," Shoughnessy said, "is a vicious mix of Yankees, Red Sox and Met fans. And that's just during the summer months. The rest of the year, the state's residents are pitted against each other as Celtics or Knicks, Patriots or Giants, even Revolution or Football Club. Thankfully, the Connecticut community spirit can now continue past March Madness and extend all summer long."

Michael Jordan a Yankee?

Could Michael Jordan and Derek Jeter have been teammates?

It's possible.

It's so hard to believe that more than a quarter century has passed since Michael Jordan reached the height of his dominance. I remember vividly the ubiquitous "Be Like Mike" posters, and that nearly every male my age wore a pair of Air Jordans. Be like Mike! They would say.

The shoes didn't help. No third grader at Charles Wright Elementary School was ever able to dunk a basketball. To be fair, no one on any basketball court anywhere could be like Mike.

I also remember the shirts. That number 23 emblazoned across their backs. How many times I thought I could strike up a conversation with a fellow fan of Dan Mattingly, only to be disappointed.

What I did not know was that no one was more uncomfortable with this level of cult-status hero worship than Michael Jordan.

"I'm not a statue," said Jordan. "I'm a human being."

But an extraordinary human being: An All-Star. A Champion. An Olympic Gold Medalist. It was hard to see him as simply human. To err is human, but to Air like Jordan is Divine.

Shocking news would change how we saw a superstar. James R. Jordan, father of Michael Jordan, killed for his car at a rest stop in North Carolina. The perpetrators turned themselves in when they discovered the victim was. A harsh, harrowing, and heartbreaking reminder of how fragile our life on this Earth can be.

"I felt I was being engulfed in the success that I'd gathered at that time, and then my father passed." Said Jordan. "That was the last straw."

A human being indeed. I was only 11 years old when a larger than life basketball superhero announced that at the height of dominance, he would walk away from the game. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who how trouble understanding why. At a press conference, Jordan explained to the world his decision.


"When you lose the sense of motivation, and the sense of to prove something as a basketball player," he said. "It's time to move away from the game of basketball."

Sad and stunned, Jordan's Chicago Bulls teammates attend his retirement conference.

And then, baseball. Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf also owned the Chicago White Sox. Reinsdorf agreed to pay Jordan his Chicago Bulls salary while he played for the White Sox AA affliate Birmingham Barons.

"I thought he would give that up after one bus ride," said Reinsdorf. 

It's not hard to argue with that logic. It's a steep drop from flying first class and checking into the posh luxury hotels to the utterly unglamourous life that is a minor league baseball player. But that's not how Jordan saw it. After dropping a routine fly ball and striking out twice in his first game as a Baron, Jordan was ecstatic. 

"It takes the pressure off," he said. 

The rest is history. A .202 batting average, 104 strikeouts, and 11 errors in centerfield. And yet . . .

And yet this was a man who hadn't played organized baseball in over ten years. A man who hadn't played baseball since Jimmy Carter was president. Someone else hit .202 in the minor leagues right after high school. That someone else? Derek Jeter!

Could Jordan's career have taken a similar trajectory? Terry Francona--Jordan's manager in Birmingham--deemed it possible.

"You've got to get 1200 at bats before you can consider someone playing in the big leagues," said Francona. "If he would've been willing to give it a couple more years, he would've found a way to the big leagues: If you tell him no, he's going to find a way to make it be yes."

Could it have been yes? Against better competition in the Arizona Fall League, Jordan's batting average jumped 50 points. He stopped dropping fly balls and started making shoestring catches. In March of 1995, he was slated to gain a promotion to the White Sox AAA affiliate in Nashville.

But with the use of replacement players and baseball mired in its never-ending player strike, MJ traded in hardball for hardwood with a simple statement: "I'm Back!"

But could Jordan and Jeter have been teammates? Consider this: In 1996, The Yankees needed a new left fielder and signed Tim Raines from the Chicago White Sox. Had the strike been resolved, and Jordan completed a full season at AAA, he could have earned a spot with the White Sox in September, when the rosters expanded to 40 players.

It's well-known that George Steinbrenner always wanted a big star, and Jordan would have been the biggest of them all.

Could Jordan have excelled in baseball, as Terry Francona predicted? Consider this: Who has better reaction time and better bodily kinesthetic skills than Michael Jordan? With MJ's blessed combination of strength and speed, he could have easily morphed into a player akin to Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle. It certainly would have helped the Yankees, who went through a revolving door of left-fielders for the first half of Jeter's career.

Jordan would have fit right in playing alongside Posada, Martinez and Jeter.

Famed law professor and statistician John Donohue considered this possibility on the 20 year anniversary of Jordan's re-entry to basketball. A lawyer first and economist second, Donohue was measured in his off-the-cuff analysis.

"Someone asked me if I wanted to see him play on his first day back," recalled Donohue, "but the prices were exorbitant, so I went the second game."

And?

"He [Jordan] was good, but he wasn't very good. The Bulls didn't win that year, then they won three consecutive championships. It's safe to assume that if he doesn't take a year off to play baseball, he wins another two championship rings."

Good point. While one can say with the certainty of a full-court shot that MJ would have succeeded in baseball, his success probability in basketball is a slam dunk!

And yes, while Jordan could have succeeded in baseball, he was simply the best of his kind in basketball.  The buzzer beating jump shots. The reverse layups. The no-look passes. And the amazing acrobatic slam dunks. His combination of speed, strength, and snap judgement made him an artist on the baseball court--an artist we may never be fortunate enough to witness again.

More than just a math teacher.

March 14, 1995


The electronic buzzer sets of its doomsday ring at 8:45 AM, and that means another elementary school day is upon us. The doors open, and I walk through the doors along with 80 other students from grades 5 and 6 at Charles Wright Elementary School.

Well, most of us. Steve Haefs wants to get as many practice football throws in as possible. As we file in, he keep throwing the ball in hopes that someone will catch it. Once we get inside our classroom,  he throws again. This time, nobody catches it.

This bunker is actually an elementary school. We sure didn't win any architecture awards!

Our teacher, Mrs. Heffernan picks the ball up from the floor. Steve extends his right arm, expecting her to hand the ball back to him. Instead, Mrs. Heff frowns slightly. With a drop of the elbow and a snap of the wrist, she throws a perfect spiral into Steve's free hand.

Our jaws drop. We didn't expect to see that coming!

"Mrs. Heff, that was pretty good," says a surprised Steve.

She shrugs. "I grew up in a neighborhood full of boys."

We settle into our desks, and Mrs. Heffernon starts the math lesson of the day.

"In 1994," she says, "there were 112 reports of people bitten by rats in New York City.

We laugh.

"Also in 1994, there were 44 reports of people bitten by people in New York City."

We laugh again.

"On the day that you go to New York City--a city of 8 million people--what is the probability that you probability that you will bitten?"

She walks us through the steps: 156 bites. 365 days a year. That's 0.43 bites per day, 0.000000059 bites per person on a given day. Now for the final question: Explain that in scientific notation.

"5.9 x 10^-8!" Shouts a jubilant Anthony Sousa. He's right, as always. Anthony Sousa isn't just the fasted person to play touch football at Charles Wright--he's got a quick mind, too. Once again, he is first to the punch.

Mrs. Heffernon then poses a question to the entire class: Do we have anything to worry about?

Gotta love math with Mrs. Heffernan! Every 6th grader at Charles Wright Elementary School has been looking forward to the New York City trip with eager anticipation. With few exceptions, we have been awaiting this trip since 1st Grade. It is a rite of passage at this school.

Not everybody is happy, though. Urban legends have taken their toll on wary parents, a toll that passes its fee onto impressionable young minds. I remember very well when one of my older sister's friends expressed her fear of traveling to New York City.

"There's a place called Harlem," says the wary friend. "If you just look at somebody, you got shot."

You're on a bus," says my sister. "You only ride through the city on the bus. Then you go straight to the museum."

That was in first grade. I didn't have any fear then. Why would I? New York is where I went to visit Momma Nonna, my great grandmother. She was the sweetest person in the world to me.

Not exactly a bedroom community!

Ah, but New York City is 150 miles away from little Wethersfield, Connecticut. This isn't Fairfield County, Connecticut's little panhandle of bedroom communities for wealthy city commuters. Wethersfield is a first ring suburb of Hartford, which, ironically, has a much higher crime rate than New York City. In perhaps further irony, Anthony Sousa, grew up in Hartford's North End, a neighborhood so veritably unsafe that it makes parts of Harlem look like Paris.

But I digress.

Something happens in the afternoon. My memory is hazy as to what started it, but I must have erupted like a firecracker on the Fourth of July, because the next thing I knew, Mrs. Heffernan just stopped the lesson, right in front of 20 other students.

"Okay, Kevin," she says. "Out."

I stand up. I know I've done something wrong, and scared senseless as what will happen next. Mrs. Heff escorts me right out of the classroom, and instructs another teacher to keep on eye on things while we are out. We walk right past the principals office, right past the foyer, and right out of the school building itself and into the courtyard.

We stop. I fully expect Mrs. Heffernan to start yelling and screaming. She says nothing. I am speechless.

"You know, Kevin, even though I know that somewhere a factory is putting chemicals into this air, as soon as I walk outside these doors and take just a few breaths, I feel better."

She turns towards me.

"Wouldn't you agree?" She asks.

I nod.

"Are you ready to go back now?"

I nod again.

"Good," she says. And with that, my only major disciplinary infraction for the entire schoolyear is over. We go back to class. 20 students resume learning, and at 3 pm, the final doomsday buzzer crackles over the intercom, sending everyone home for the day.

I've certainly been blessed to have so many great and wonderful teachers in my life. Mrs. Heffernan is surely one of them.

Broken Chairs, Broken Dreams

Spring Training, 1995.

Ah, Spring Training! That wonderful time of year when regular players warm up and get loose, while veteran players compete with hungry rookies with a ferocious intensity to grasp at whatever roster spots are available.

This year, it's a little different. 55 men are wearing the white jerseys with navy blue pinstripes in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  But can anyone truly call them the Yankees?

Four years and 40 pounds before joining the "Yankees."

"Some of these players, "I've never seen," said Yankees General Manager Gene Michael. "To give you an evaluation, I wouldn't do that."

The Major League Baseball Restoration Act is dead. It officially died on February 26, 1995. The Kansas City Royals were in striking distance of making the postseason for the first time in nearly decade, but the baseball strike struck out that possibility, and newly christened Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole has no interest in making any sort of compromise with Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, or anybody else for that matter. Not with House Speaker Gingrich threatening to shut down the U.S. Government.

Two out of three branches of the Federal Government have failed to end the one of the worst work stoppages in labor history. For a combination of baseball has-beens and never-will bees, the closed door on labor negotiations is an open window.

Randy Kutcher owns a .228 lifetime batting average and hasn't played a single major league game since 1990. To his credit, he insists he's not a replacement player.

"When this opportunity came up," said Kutcher, "I jumped at it."

At least Kutcher can still realistically talk athleticism. Matt Stark hasn't played professional baseball in five years. He has gained at least 50 pounds in the time since. After batting and fielding practice, Stark sits on a chair and answers questions from the press. The chair breaks.

Dramatization: Jason Jones sits on a chair assembled by non-union labor.

"Go easy," says Dave Pavlas. "We only got 60 of them,"

Dave Pavlas has pitched for many teams over the last four seasons, but calling him a journeyman is understatement. After pitching all of 14 games for the Chicago Cubs over the course of two seasons, Pavlas has spent the last two years pitching in Italy and Mexico. At least he can boast recent organized competitive baseball on his resume. Others are not so lucky, including former construction worker Tony Brown.

"I don't owe the union anything," says Brown, who last played AAA baseball in 1989. Whether he is referring the Major League Baseball Players Union--or whichever union construction job he ditched in order to make spring training--is unclear. But Brown makes it clear that he is certain about his athletic talent.

"Now its my opportunity to get on T.V." he says. "And be a star."

Technically, the Yankees do have one Major Leaguer in their midst, but he wears a suit and tie instead of a ballplayer's uniform. The Yankees are paying Steve Howe $772 a week for "administrative" work.

"This is a condition of my probation," says Howe, who is required to be employed as a result of pleading guilty to attempted cocaine possession in 1992. "Yeah, I could have gone out and flipped burgers at Denny's. The important thing is that I needed to be somewhere where I could do what I needed to do and train."

Steve Howe reluctantly watches spring training from the sidelines.

Gene Michael is shaking his head in disbelief. It wasn't supposed to be this way. In December, he engineered a major trade with the Chicago White Sox. In exchange for 1993 Cy Young Award winner Jack McDowell, the Yankees surrendered Keith Heberling and Lyle Moutan. Heberling was 1-3 with a 5.66 ERA for the Yankees AA affiliate. Moutan played for the Columbus Clippers along with Derek Jeter last year. Since he wasn't Derek Jeter, he was clearly expendable.

In essence, Gene Michael turned lead into gold: Two minor-league dead-weights for a 20 game winner. The hard-throwing right-hander McDowell was supposed to join the crafty lefty Jimmy Key at the top of the rotation. The result would have been a lethal 1-2 sucker punch that would leave the competition gasping for air while the Yankees coasted to their first World Series in nearly 20 years.

The McDowell trade was a good deal, but it raised a serious question. The White Sox were in first place at the end of the 1994 season. Why would they let go of their best pitcher in exchange for minor league prospects?

The 1994 season ended abruptly, The Stark reality is that 1995 season may not start at all.


Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/21/sports/baseball-yankees-introduce-a-cast-of-strangers.html

http://articles.courant.com/1994-12-15/sports/9412150262_1_yankee-stadium-yankees-general-manager-service-time

http://articles.courant.com/1995-02-26/sports/9502260343_1_howe-s-career-steve-howe-manager-buck-showalter


http://m.spokesman.com/stories/1995/feb/26/yankees-put-howe-to-work-front-office-duties-will/

During Black History Month, Historic Black American Threatens to Make Baseball History.

February 10, 1995.

How did Ted Kennedy's Major League Baseball Restoration Act go over with the American public? Did anyone--players, owners, or fans--feel any sense of hope and optimism with President Clinton's personally appointed labor negotiator?

New York Times sportswriter Claire Smith had an answer.

First, the prologue. Claire Smith is nothing short of a historic figure. She is the first female baseball reporter for the Hartford Courant. In fact, she was one of the first female sports reporters anywhere.

Smith takes timeout at the 1995 All-Star game with Sandy Koufax and Steve Garvey.

How Claire Smith got her start a sports reporter is nothing short of historic. During the 1981 World Series, Sports Illustrated Reporter Mellisa Ludtke was assigned to cover the 1981 World Series. The New York Yankees were playing against the Los Angeles Dodgers, matched together for the third time in four years. One would think that more than a decade after the explosion of the women's rights movement, a female reporter could just walk into the Yankees clubhouse and do her job.

But it was not to be. She tried to walk in. The Yankees denied her access. She sued. She won. As a condition of the lawsuit, every American League team had to allow equal access.

In other words, women were allowed to do their job. Shortly thereafter, the Courant hired Claire Smith to cover the New York Yankees.

Story over? Not really. The plot thicken once again! When the Courant assigned Smith to cover the 1984 National League Championship Series between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres, discrimination struck again.

Years later, Smith would recall in vivid detail what happened when she tried to interview the players after Game 1:

"I go down with the rest of the reporters. I'm in the clubhouse. Some of the Padres started chirping and cursing. 'Get her out of here.' So on and so forth.

"Some of the staff come and start saying, 'You have to leave, you have to leave, you're not allowed in here.' As they were ushering me out, I went right past Jack McKeon, who was the general manager, and I said, 'They say I have to leave.' And he said, 'That's right, this is [manager] Dick Williams' clubhouse.'

"At that point, it was either a trainer or a clubhouse guy — he had Padres gear on — he literally put his hand on my back and pushed me toward the door. As I was pushed out the door, Dick Williams was coming back from the interview room. I said, 'They say I have to leave.' And he said, 'That's right,' and just kept going."

After the trauma of being physically assaulted simply for doing her job, Padres First Baseman Steve Garvey walked on the field to conduct an interview. Smith reported on the game, but the real story was her eviction from the clubhouse and subsequent victory the following day: Yes, women were allowed to enter the clubhouse of National League teams, too.

Stay classy, San Diego: Steve Garvey comes to the rescue.

Smith would grow in her career as well, and by 1995, she was an established sports writer with the distinguished New York Times. In the wake of the strike, Clinton's multiple attempts at mediation, and now Ted Kennedy's attempt at restoration, Smith used the power of the pen to speak for fans of every race, creed, color, gender, and national origin.

Fans Should Turn Their Backs, Too. That was the bold headline from the conservative New York Times. This from a woman who had made sports writing her livelihood. A trailblazer who had accomplished so much for so long, who had recently been promoted from small-city beat writer to work for the nation's largest newspaper. The message to the players and owners alike was clear: we don't want you anymore.

"What an embarrassment," wrote Smith. "Not for Clinton or Gore, mind you. For Major League Baseball, an arrogant, spoiled industry that is, as everyone knows by know, not only capable of commanding such an audience, but of ignoring it, too."

A less than optimistic Bill Clinton tries to get baseball back on track on a Feb.
7, 1995 press conference. Vice President Al Gore looks even less optimistic. 

Smith spared no one from criticism. She expertly labeled members of Congress the "Sultans of Not." While a dysfunctional Congress may be what we in the business call "an evergreen story," the baseball's popularity nosedive was a relatively new development, from which Smith offered further insight and analysis.

"Pete Rose and his gambling scandal may started the hemorrhaging back in 1989. The death of a commissioner,Bart Giamatti, wounded the game again. The death of the commissioner's office made the sadness complete after the owners sacked Fay Vincent, a man who wanted to make peace with the player. Player related scandals, drugs, tax violations, and just aberrant behavior have fueled the deterioration of the game's image."

The point was clear: Major League Baseball may not be salvageable, or even worth the effort. Smith closed with a recommendation that those who still do care about baseball practice tough love. And why not? "The owners and players won't notice, anyway," Smith lamented. "They're too busy seeing the destruction of each other."

Six weeks from the start projected of opening day, and one of baseball's most distinguished writers was willing and able to search for a new career path. What chance did Major League Baseball have to get back on track?

Did Steroids Make Jason Giambi a Worse Ballpayer?

I'm not talking about ethically. I'm talking physically. Because I believe that steroids ultimately proved to be a performance decreasing drug for Jason Giambi.

When the BALCO scandal first broke, Jason Giambi found himself right in the crosshairs of late night comedy fodder.

"Either that man took steroids," raved Louis Black. "Or he had surgery to put his legs where has arms used to be!"

Those killer biceps were great at producing towering,  tape-measure home runs, but the negative impacts are hard to overlook.

What Giambi gained in home run power, he lost in versatility. The man who represented America as a third baseman in the Olympics and originally played left field at the cavernous Oakland Coliseum was unable to play any position other than first base for the rest of his career.

Even at first base, his defense was a liability. despite his solid glovework, he lacked the amazing grace and cat-like agility of his predecessor,  Tino Martinez, despite the fact that Tino was three years older than Giambi. Worse still, Giambi was often reluctant to so much as attempt to throw to second base in order to turn a 3-6-3 double play.

One of many great plays from Constantino. 

As a Yankee fan, it was difficult -- even painful sometimes -- to see a player with such obvious defensive deficiencies in the lineup everyday. On one hand, Giambi had reason not to over exert himself. His comically oversized muscles could easily tear. That's what ultimately happened to his younger brother, Jeremy. The younger Giambi saw his career end at the ripe old age of 28.

As a Yankee fan, it was almost painful to see a player with such obvious defensive deficiencies in the lineup every day. The Yankee teams of late '90s were a beautiful mixture of solid,  all-around players. A stellar combination of in-house talent at grizzled veterans eager to contribute. It was said that Swiss watchmakers would visit Yankee Stadium to see perfection in action.
Watching the Yankees during the Giambi years was like going to your favorite restaurant only to see that the menu had changed.

If Giambi had never taken steroids, things could have been better, both for him and the Yankees.

Pop quiz of the day

What lurks beneath the surface is ripe for another New York Story. The recent explosion of wealthy individuals who own homes in New York City, yet do not live in New York City is a fascinating phenomenon. "The New York Real Estate Market is now the premier destination for wealthy foreigners with rubles, yuan, and dollars to hide," wrote Andrew Rice in New York magazine. "More and more," wrote Katherine Clarke of the Daily News, "international business magnates, wealthy heirs and new rich tech moguls are snapping up palatial homes in New York, renovating and redesigning them at a cost of millions, and then leaving them vacant almost all year. Last week, the New York Times wrote an extensive exposé on the great lengths that some of this individuals go in order to get a bite of the Big Apple.

One must wonder: how many of Manhattan's 1.3 Million residents actually live here? When we see something like this, the answer may not be so simple.

Question: The owner of this multi-million dollar townhome is either

    a) On vacation.
    b) Someone who lives in Los Angeles but thinks he is above staying in hotels when he travels.
    c) A Russian oligarch who is trying to cheat on his taxes.
    d) A lonely old man who has crept inside his refrigerator for comparative warmth.

February 14th, 1995: Cupid plants a seed.

Art class. My most loathed of all classes.

It wasn't because I didn't like art. It was because the art teacher would put forth simple instructions, outlined step by step, for all to do. Somewhere between steps one and two, I would encounter and absolute and unmitigated failure.

Example: Take your piece paper and a pair of scissors. Cut the paper into a circle.

I would cut and cut, and end up with some sort of bizarre shape of abnormal cuts and gashes that it would take a Phd in mathematics to find a name for this thing that I had cut out.

The remainder of art class was always downhill, because completion of the project was predicated on having a usable circle. Since I didn't, I would have to salvage what I could while every one of my classmates had something that they could be proud of.

My attempts to emulate great art made me look like this!

This went on for my entire elementary school career. It ended when I went to middle school and didn't have to take art classes any more. I took music classes instead.

But for now, stuck in elementary school, I still had to endure my flailing artistic fingers. But on this day in February, art class was a little different.

"I wanted," said the teacher, "to have a field trip to New York, to the Museum of Modern Art, but the Board of Education said no."

A collective gasp came over the class of 12-year-olds.

"Wait a minute," said one student, speaking for all of us. "I thought we were going to the art museum in New York."

"You are." The teacher reassured. "You are going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art this spring. However, I tried to persuade the Board of Ed. to give you another field trip, a different field trip, to the Museum of Modern Art."

Yes, the Wethersfield Board of Education didn't want 6th Graders at Charles Wright Elementary School to get too much education. In the words of Richard Milhous Nixon, that would be wrong.

There would be no class field trip to the Museum of Modern Art. But our teacher gave us the next best thing: A video about the artists featured at the MoMA. For one day in art class, I was spared both frustration and humiliation!

Even more than I enjoyed not embarrassing myself, I actually enjoyed the video too. When it was over, the teacher played an identification game. Those who dared accept the challenge would stand up and see a series of paintings. The goal was to name the artist who had painted it.

I stood up, confidently. And I nailed it. And I mean, nailed it. One by one, I saw the images. One by one, I identified them in less than a second. Starry Night? Easy: Van Gough. That girl on the farm? Andrew Wyeth. Melting clocks? Dali. I was on a roll!

When I saw one those famed examples of organized chaos, I was so quick to answer that I gave the artists nickname instead of his actual name.

"Jack the Dripper!" I said with excitement, as if answering faster would give me more points in this thing that wasn't even a competition.

The teacher rolled her eyes a little bit. She gave a half grin. "That's right," she said. "But I would prefer you called him Jackson Pollack."

When it was over, I had scored perfection: 10 for 10. For one day in art class, I was unmatched among my peers in the opposite direction of failure.

The teacher stressed that seeing these paintings in person was still of paramount importance. Unfortunately, we would have to go on our own time. I walked away skeptical if that time would ever come.

Come 2006, I met someone. I felt special around her. She felt special around me. It was all that stuff they don't teach you in school, although maybe not for lack of trying. Her name was Nicole, and she decided it was time to take things to the next level.

"I want to go to the MoMa," she said.

And so we did. When I walked up to the fourth floor and saw all those paintings in person that I saw in 6th grade art class, I couldn't help but feel thankful for that one particular lesson more than 10 years ago.

As you can see, I wasn't the only one smiling.

It would be nice if I were able to thank that art teacher in person. I'm not saying she played matchmaker, but she sure helped.

I met a new friend in the park yesterday!

Not much to say here, just hanging out with some of New York City's winged wonders before the snowstorm.

February 8th, 1995.

Standing on the corner,
Suitcase in my hand.
Waiting for this baseball strike to end,
Pleaded the legions of angry baseball fans.

After Clinton fails to end the baseball strike, Massachusetts Senator Edward
M. Kennedy makes a pitch of his own to end the six-month old player strike.

What started in mid-August was now entering mid-February. This baseball strike was almost as long as baseball season. With President Clinton stymied after the failure of his imposed February 6 deadline, Ted Kennedy offered a pitch of his own.

No, not the Ted Kennedy who pitched for the Chicago Cubs and retired in 1886. The other Ted Kennedy. The guy who lowered the voting age to 18. Who passed Title IX for college sports. Who passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Lion of the Senate who worked with members of both parties to pass monumental legislation over and over again. On February 8th, 1995, Edward M. Kennedy proposed yet another piece of signature legislation to his long list of accomplishments: The Major League Baseball Restoration Act (S. 376)

The MLBRA was no joke. It called for a three person panel with vast power. Perhaps most important, it could call for public testimony under penalty of perjury. This is significant because shortly before the strike, one very prominent man in baseball made a statement regarding the financial status of the Texas Rangers and other baseball clubs.

"I have a very strong sense," forecast George W. Bush,  "that if the players go out, the owners won't come back."

The owners might leave and take their productivity elsewhere. Ayn Rand would be proud. It's odd that George W. Bush would threaten to leave baseball when in fact, he was already leaving baseball to run for Governor of Texas. But Bush added a dire warning to show that he wasn't the only one headed for the door.

 George W. Bush leaves baseball to enter a career in politics.

"There are enough clubs losing money" he said. "And hemorrhaging."

It's one thing to say that an organization with profits in the billions was losing money to a reporter for the Dallas Morning News. It's quite another to say something like that under oath with the possibility of criminal prosecution for making false statements.

The Bill attracted one Co-Sponsor in Barbara Milkuski of Maryland. Milkuski had strong reason from her constituents to pass this bill. On January 13, 1995, Major League Baseball had already approved the use of replacement players on account that no deal had been reached. Cal Ripken's consecutive games streak was now in serious jeopardy. Ripken had openly stated that he wouldn't return to baseball without a contract, and his consecutive games number stood at 2,009. The strike had already robbed him of 50 games in 1994, now it threatened his career.

One of John F. Kennedy's most famous accomplishments was averting both a potential steel strike and a major price increase in the cost of steel. It was a double play! If something as major as the cost of U.S. steel could be resolved through executive action, it would seem that ending something as trivial a major league baseball work stoppage should have been a home run--or as easy as drinking a glass of milk.

Stuck at home instead of spring training,
drinking milk is a great way to pass the time.

This Day in Baseball, 1995: Clinton Hurls a Fastball--and Misses the Strike Zone Entirely.

On January 27th, 1995, President Bill Clinton set a deadline to the owners and players of Major League Baseball to reach a deal by February 6th. 

White House Aide Paul Begala, a season ticket holder for the Baltimore Orioles, was quite hopeful.

"This is coming from the heart," said Mr. Begala. "I can tell you: This is way beyond politics. He is a sports fan, and he feels the rage every fan feels."

But February 6th came an went. The MLBPA Strike that started in August 1994 still showed no signs of abating. The following day, President Clinton conceded as much.

"They are clearly not capable of settling this strike without an umpire," the told reporters at the White House at the end of a nearly five-hour emergency negotiating session.

Who would that umpire be? President Clinton and other baseball fans would find little help from the legislative branch. Newly minted leadership in the House and Senate made their views quite clear.

"We maintain our view," wrote Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, "that Congress is ill-suited to resolving private labor disputes."

The future of Major League Baseball looked ominous. With No help from Congress, President Clinton appointed longtime labor-management negotiator William J. Usery to broker a deal. Usery had a history of resolving labor disputes dating back to his tenure as Assistant Secretary of Labor in the Nixon administration. Usery's status as a longtime labor supporter and a lifelong Republican made him something of a unicorn. The sign was clear: Major League Baseball needed a miracle start the 1995 season.

But that was in Washington. February 7th was just another school day for me. Down in Georgia, Henry Louis Aaron blew out the candles for his 61st birthday. Happy Birthday, Hank!

New York City Baseball: February 6, 1995

13 candles adorned a two-layer cake from Mozzacatto's bakery. The lights were out, and my jovial family sang me a tune on my special day.

"Happy Birthday dear Kevin, Happy Birthday to you!"

Everybody smiled as I blew out the candles. It was a milestone: I was officially a teenager. But before I took a slice of cake, I made a few wisecracks about my age.

"Well mom," I said with a twinkle in my eye and a touch of sarcasm, "you'd better tell people how old your son is now!" With that, I mimicked the horrified expressions that she would surely encounter when she told people that her son was well past the age of cuteness and into the era of hell-bent teenage mayhem.

As a teenager, I started dabbling with things besides baseball.
Here I am taking a selfie before it was cool. Pretty good, eh?

I thought it wise: From the moment I was old enough to realize that I needed a job, my only plan was to play first base for the New York Yankees. When I noticed that every male my age was growing substantially bigger and stronger except me, it became clear that I needed a different career plan.

In retrospect, I may have had a chance to play some first base for the Yankees that year after all. Famed First Baseman Don Mattingly, Frank Thomas and Mark McGwire all get letters from their respective employers dated February 6, 1995. It read:

[u]ntil such time as the [Owners' and Players' bargaining units] ratify a new collective bargaining agreement or until further notice, individual Major League Clubs shall have no authority to negotiate terms and conditions of employment (or any element thereof) with the [Players' Union] or individual players or certified agents. The [Players' Union] is now on notice that individual Clubs are not authorized to negotiate or execute individual player contracts with bargaining unit players during the pendency of collective bargaining between [the Owners' and Players' bargaining units].

(Source: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York - 880 F. Supp. 246, April 3, 1995, Emphasis mine).

That's right. Normally, February means spring training. This year, for the 845 members of the Major League Baseball Player's Association, February meant unemployment.

If only I had known to send in my résumé!

Also, it would Babe Ruth's 100th birthday that year. Happy Birthday, Bambino!

My Interview with Governor Mario M. Cuomo -- a Natural New York Exclusive!

"Okay, one more question."

The Sports Editor of Southern News raised his hand.

"Why didn't you run for President in 1988?"

He stared at me. Awkward silence. Absent an immediate answer, I thought it wise to keep talking.

"You were mentioned as a strong candidate."

Kevin slaps himself in the face after botching an interview with Mario Cuomo.

His eyes twinkled. His lips grinned ever so slightly. Casually, and sarcastically, he spoke.

"Because in 1988 Michael Dukakis was running for President, and you can't have two Mediterraneans running for the same ballot."

The room of 40 or so professional journalists broke into uproarious laughter. Boom. I had certainly been put in my place. With that, the 2004 Distinguished Lecturer for Southern Connecticut State University closed his pre-lecture press conference.

And yet, from the back of the room, a savior.

"Why not 1992?"

It was Jerry Dunklee, reporter-turned journalism professor, and current faculty advisor to WSIN radio.

Mario had been walking away, but as soon as the sound waves pierced his eardrum his eyes lit up and he spun like a whirlpool back to the podium.

"Let me tell you about 1992," said the former Governor. "I was ready to get on that plane and go to New Hampshire, but we [the state of New York] had a very difficult budget that year. I had a job to do."

The reporters who had put their pens and notebooks down were now furiously scribbling each of Cuomo's words as he went into Press Conference Overtime.

"And what do they say about me? They say he has mob ties, they say there are no Mario's down South--sometimes I wish they would say I had a blonde intern."

More laughter, but not as much this time. With that, Phase I of Mario Cuomo's appearance at Southern Connecticut State University was over. Phase II entailed a meet and greet with the some of the students, followed by a black tie dinner with select fundraisers for the university, culminating with Mario's actual prepared speech at the Lyman Arts Center that night.

I was pulling double duty at Southern News that year, fulfilling my role as the paper's (paid) Sports Editor and following my reporter's nose for straight news. Between studying for finals and staying up all night practicing Velvet Underground guitar solos, I was burning the candle at both ends. But whereas most politicians can put you to sleep when they speak, Mario had a way of waking you up.

Here are just a few quotes of his from that day that I have committed to memory in the ten years since:

"Robert Moses created Authority; I hated Authority, which is why I got into government."

"In a boiling pot, all the flavor is melted away. When we retain our cultural identity, we have a stained glass window, which is more representative of the cultural mosaic that is America."

A moment worthy of Seinfeld: Isobel catches Cuomo scratching his nose.
When our Editor saw the photo, she scratched it right off the front page.

"The journalist haven't really changed, it's the devices. And the ownership. You say you write for the Times, which also owns the Globe and the real estate and the sausage factory--and you want to interview me for story about sausages?"

Ironically, none of this quotes made it to the print version. One of our more seasoned staff members had written a synopsis of the main lecture, and integrating my work with hers proved difficult. In retrospect, if there had been one night to cut back on my guitar playing, this would have been it. Also, Robin, the paper's Editor-in-Chief, was none too pleased that Isobel's only photo of the man in question was when Mario Cuomo scratched his nose. It was a moment worthy of Seinfeld. Robin, the pinnacle of professionalism, was firm on her stance.

"We can't have Mario Cuomo picking his nose on the front page!"

"It's not a pick," said Isobel. "It's a scratch."

Robin had the final word, and we went with a different photo, thank goodness.

Not all of my work got the ax, however. I had interviewed some students that day as well. One of them made a very good point.

"He's a cool dude," said my colleague Christian Faraclas. "He's deep in thought."

Indeed, it was a welcome departure from most politicians, who seem either unwilling or unable to engage in thought at any level.