Nicole and I spent a good three hours removing trash from the Hutchinson River estuary, I can't tell if I feel energized or exhausted from the experience. We took off from Rodman's Neck at 9:45 AM and paddled for about half an hour before reaching our designated cleanup site--a patch of reeds underneath Interstate 95 (seriously, who designs an Interstate Highway over a national wildlife refuge?). We made good progress filling bags for about an hour, but a rising tide forced us and the other volunteers to move on to a different side. We found another patch of reeds nearby. No sooner than when we landed on the reeds than we were greeted with the crackling sound of plastic bottles underneath our canoe.
Nicole is surrounded by plastic bottles.
We spend about another hour at this site filling our bags before a rising tide forced us again to leave for something resembling dry ground. We paddled onward towards another site, in the meantime soaking in the breathtaking views of swans, common terns, osprey, and cormorants around us.
An elegant Bronx Swan is undeterred by our presence as we paddle past him.
Our third and final trip of the day took us to an island between Pelham Bay Park and Co-Op City. On The island was safe from high tide, so we didn't have to worry about getting our feet wet anymore. Unfortunately, some Wasps also thought this dry ground was prime real estate and weren't altogether grateful of the good cleanup work we were doing. Some people got stung. Nicole was one of them. Ouch!
Transition lenses make me look cool in the canoe. I-95 is visible in the background.
On the one hand, it was exciting and energizing to see Common Terns, Swans, and an osprey in and around the Hutchinson River. We felt a sense of accomplishment after filling bag after bag of garbage that otherwise pollute such a pristine environment. We had the privilege of working with a friendly and talented team of like-minded individuals.
Nicole and I ferry some garbage and soak in the Hutchinson River views.
On the other hand, seeing all that litter in a national wildlife refuge--more than half which was recyclable plastic bottles--was pretty damn depressing. Also, Nicole got stung by a wasp, and she panicked as I paddled us back home against a rising tide. This was no leisure trip.
When it was over, I felt like I had gotten a great workout. I promptly showered and insisted I needed only to lie down for 15 minutes--which quickly turned into one hour. Oops!
An osprey stares at us as we paddle by. Co-op city lies in the background.
Ultimately, the experience was worth it, wasp stings an all. Some topical antihistamine was all Nicole needed for her stings, we felt fulfilled in our mission of garbage removal, and inspired by our winged companions.
This boat is nothing but a weird, watery mystery to me.
Lastly, we got a relatively good look at this bizarre shipwreck near co-op city. Can anybody tell me what this is? I expect to see something like this in Maine, but the Bronx?
Bernie Sanders and Joe Torre have two obvious things in common. They both have a listing on the Internet Movie Database and they both have made no effort to conceal their respective male pattern baldness.
Beneath the surface, the two share many, many similitarities, so much so that their biographies are almost parallel lives, starting with when and where they were born. Joseph Paul Torre was born on July 18th, 1940.
His family resided in a townhome on the corner of Avenue T and 34th
Street in Marine Park in south Brooklyn. Bernard Sanders was born on September 8th, 1941.
His family resided in a rent-controlled apartment on 26th street and
Kings Highway in neighboring Midwood. Their boyhood homes were less than a mile away, and both
Marine Park and Midwood have long been an enclave of Jewish and Italian
immigrants. Similar neighborhoods. Same demographics. Same era.
Larry and Bernie Sanders, circa 1946
These two are closer in more than just age and geography. Both
boys had one parent who came to the United States from Europe as a child.
17-year-old Elias Sanders immigrated from Poland . 8 year-old Margrat Raferno
Torre immigrated from Italy. In spite of the closeness that many immigrant families experienced in the prewar era, both Bernie and Joe would lose one of their parents in their teen years under tragic circumstances.
Dorothy Sanders died at the age 46, when Bernie was 19. The cause of death was a failed surgery, after living with a chronic heart condition from her youth. “The
lack of money caused stress in my family,” recalled Bernie. “That is a reality
that I have never forgotten: today, there are many families who are living
under the circumstances that we lived under.”
Over at Marine Park, the Torre household enjoyed financial
stability, but much turmoil. “When I was growing up,” said Torre, “my father
was a bully. My mother faced verbal and physical abuse from my father.” This
abuse included the elder Torre pushing his wife down the stairs, throwing food
against the wall, even threatening her with a gun.In a household of fear, no one was
spared.“Although I didn’t get abused
myself, I grew up in fear because my mom did.”
When Joe was 12, his older brother Frank, set an ultimatum
to the family patriarch.The ultimatum
was simple and straightforward. “We want you out of the house,” said the 20
year-old Frank to his father. “We don’t want anything other than the house we
live in. We don’t want anything from you. Just leave.” And he did.
The Torre Family home at Ave T and 34th Street in 2016.
Both Bernie and Joe were quite fortunate to have an older sibling who looked out for them and helped guide them in their formative years. Frank Torre was born on December 30th, 1931and Larry Sanders was born on April 25, 1934. Frank and Larry were both classmates at James Madison High School, with Frank graduating in 1950 and Larry in 1952 . Both
would serve as pivotal figures in the lives of their younger brothers, serving
as a guiding light that would enable their younger siblings greater success in
life than they themselves had enjoyed.
When Frank kicked his violent father out of the house,
he had quite a bit of leverage. In 1951, Frank was signed to a major league contract
with the Boston Braves and working his way up through the team’s farm system. By
1958, Frank Torre reached the high-water mark in his baseball career. He hit a
career high .309, and was the starting first basemen on a team that came within
one game of winning the World Series. Frank used his finances to provide Joe admission to Saint Francis Preparatory High School, Frank was aware that Joe’s athletic gifts were far
superior, and persuaded the Braves to sign Joe in 1959.
Stopped domestic violence and home, gets famous for playing baseball.
Both Joe Torre and Bernie Sanders were standout athletes in
high school. While Torre’s athletic accolades are no secret, Bernie Sander’s
track and cross-country record received little attention until recently. Bernie ran
track and cross country, rising to the rank of co-captain on the James Madison
track team and finishing in third place for the New York City Public School
Indoor Mile. In a city of more than six million, only two other high school
track athletes were faster than Bernie Sanders.
Since both Bernie and Joe were such stellar athletes, and both graduated high school in 1959, they most certainly would have crossed paths had Joe attended James Madison. Yet even as they diverged, the two would continue to share many parallels. Both started their professional careers in the midwest, with Joe Torre joining his older brother and playing for the Milwaukee Braves. Bernie Sanders left Brooklyn College to follow in his brother's footsteps at the University of Chicago. This impact on Bernie's career was more subtle, but his work with the civil rights movement got him his first newspaper publicity. In 1962, Sanders was arrested for $25, and it was reported in the local Chicago newspapers.
Chicago Police Officers apprehend a young Bernie Sanders.
Within one year, both men would establish themselves in their respective careers. Joe Torre finished the 1963 season as a solid everyday player and win his first of many All-Star awards. On August 28th, 1963, Bernie Sanders marched with Martin Luther King for the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. "I remember that very well" recalled Sanders. "Let us remember that King was not only talking about racial justice, he was also talking about economic justice."
King was from Atlanta, the which coincidentally was Joe Torre's next stop when the Braves relocated from Milwaukee in 1966. At a time of racial tension and in a place of extreme segregation, Aaron had to insulate himself from the pressure of chasing Babe Ruth's home run record and outright racism from segregationists. Simply put: Georgia was one of five states that voted for George Wallace in 1968--the last time any state ever voted for a third party candidate. The Braves even hired a bodyguard for Aaron. Although Torre has kept his political views closely guarded for most his life, he did make an exception in describing Hank's grace under pressure and the sad state of race relations in America:
“You talk about breaking that type of record, carrying that type of load. It was incredible," said Torre in 2013. When you show up at a ballpark and there are 30,000 people in the stands, how vulnerable do you want to get? You’re right there. And that’s before all the metal detectors. Unfortunately there are people out there who still think that way. It’s beyond too bad. It’s embarrassing to have that be the case."
In the 1970s, both would work in media, Torre as a broadcaster, Sanders as a writer for an alternative publication. Joe Torre's experience with the press gave him an amazing edge in handling the messy New York Media. This was just one example of Torre's "people" skills are often cited as his biggest strength during his tenure as manager of the New York Yankees. Sanders too, saw the benefit of alternative media. In his 2016 presidential campaign, Senator Sanders utilized social media platforms that were famous for pointless babble and cat videos to spread his political message and crowdsource millions of dollars in fundraising.
Ironically, much of the media was reluctant to give Torre his due, as with Sanders. When Joe Torre took over the Yankees, he was dubbed "Clueless Joe." Ironically, it was the establishment media that was clueless. The establishment didn't understand what Joe Torre saw in Andy Pettitte, Derek Jeter, and Mariano Rivera. Buch Showalter had demoted Jeter and Rivera during the 1995 season, insisting that they were not "ready." While Rivera was allowed to pitch in September and again during the playoffs, Buck infamously pulled the plug on Rivera in game 5, despite his 0.00 Earned Run Average. Torre insisted that these young people were not only ready but vital to the success of the present and the future.
During the 1996, the press doubted Torre every step of the way. They questioned whether or not Rivera was a flash in the pan. Some even considered trading Rivera for an everyday shortstop, to give Jeter even more "time" to develop. Even when Torre took the Yankees to the World Series, he was up against a formidable establishment. The Atlanta Braves were returning champions. Sportswriters praised the Braves pitching rotation as a "proven record" that was inevitable against the young Yankees. When the Yankees lost their first two games at home, the press all but declared victory. The Braves had won half of what they needed to win, and with the rest of competition on friendly territory, the World Series was effectively over.
Sound familiar? So far, the Bernie 2016 has followed a similar path. Perhaps it's all just a coincidence, perhaps the two boys from Brooklyn are under the same cosmic influence, or maybe Bernie and Joey are just products of the incredible environment they grew up in. As they say, Only in New York.
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 TheEmpire 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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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?
