Joe Never Left

Best Fans In The World

I’ve been kind of batting this around in my melon for several months, if not years, now.  Why do women baseball fans seem so good? And I mean starting from when you’re a kid to being a grumpy old man.  I’ve always felt this way. And Im not sure I was going to be able to find a jumping off point, so I’ll just start scribbling.

I’m not trying to make a logical argument either for or against. Just a few statements and observations.  I think a lot of it has to do with my mom and then later my daughter and then even after that a number of women using social media.  Of course my mom first. Its not that she came to my games as a kid (too many siblings at home) but as she got older she got to palling around with Horace Stonehams wife out at Cypress Golf Course in Colma. So she spent a lot of time down in the front rows at Candlestick back in the late 60s and early 70s.

What I remember more than anything, was that she never had anything bad to say about any of the players, even the Dodgers. And her friends were the same way. My old man was a different story.

Years later, when I was coaching, the moms, girlfriends, wives, sisters were always supportive. They never wanted anybody to get hurt, or embarrassed.  They were and are always knowledgeable, and never afraid to ask questions. And keep at it until they got a legitimate answer. But mainly they were interested in the player as a human being. As a player, as a character guy.  And I can understand this now that I’m older. Baseball really is a game based upon close personal relationships. Its not a macho sport. Despite some of the occasional posing after strike-outs and homeruns. Its a game where quiet dignity is celebrated, even worshiped. Joe DiMaggio,  Jackie Robinson, Buck O’Neil, Willie McCovey and so many more. So there’s that unspoken aura of chivalry to a certain extent, whether it is real or not. I want to believe it still exists.

That there is that bridge to the old ways, and if you’ve ever been to a Giants game at PacBell, and see how the women fans are, you’ll believe it too.  As a matter of fact, being tradition and superstition bound old guy on social security, I am pretty sure without the thousands and thousands of women fans, the Giants don’t win that world series. On paper, they had no business getting beyond the first round.  And in the end they breezed. So thats my story on the 2010 World Series Championship, and I’m sticking to it.

About 20 years ago I was going to help out a guy I used to play with. My gig was over at another high-school and the new place was the same high school my daughter attended up in the wine country.  It wasn’t a very strong program, and we were not going to win a lot of games,  but it was an opportunity to reach a few kids and teach some skills  along the way. Just before tryouts,   my buddy has to return to LA when his father got ill, so the entire team, not just the pitching staff,  falls in my lap by default. I know none of the players and vice versa.

My daughter Kris, had grown up around the game because of her older brother and could keep a pro-style score book by the time she was 11. (She graduated in Econ eventually) The school district allowed for a student trainer scorekeeper, so she got to bail out of school early during the season and make those roadtrips out to Fort Bragg, Sonoma, Petaluma and so forth with her old man.

Talking about a dad living the dream though I did not appreciate it as much as I should have.  Funny part is, Kris was only 15 and all the boys of course were seniors and juniors so there were some tense situations initially, just like there is whenever a woman enters the so-called bastion of the male.  Never had to worry.  She was respected, and respectful back. She always cheered, even for the kids she didn’t like without sounding like a tape-recording from a White Sox broadcast. And thats pretty hard to do when you’re 4-20 for the season.

She had fun, I lost hair. See what I mean?

And later, when I moved out of the way, to give others a chance, and went back to being a fan and follower of the Giants and the best college baseball program that I know of, it was the women fans who always struck me. The girlfriends, moms, aunts, a few wives and maybe a handful of women from the softball team. But what really struck me were women Giants fans.  Let me back up a minute.  For those of you who have had the misfortune to listen/read my diatribes,  I have constantly sabotaged a lot potential friendships with other fans, because (drum roll) they didn’t enjoy the game like  I did.  Thats right. Amazing. Its taken me 10 years to realize that in America, and around the world, fans are free to enjoy a game of baseball any way they want, and they don’t need my permission to do so. Oh holy shit, I’ve been saved – I think.

But talking with Anna (and several other really nice and gifted bloggers and tweeters), who I do not know except via twitter and reading her comments and questions over the last few seasons, I am so taken by her approach to being a Giants fan. She literally loves these guys unconditionally, like so many women Giants fans. Without being a silly groupie-Clubhouse Annie.  And then I think about all the lessons you try to teach to guys coming up in the game that are not skills related, but life-related, and then it all makes sense.  The Anna’s of the world get it. They get it as much as any player.

Because you see, to women like Anna, they intrinsically understand the heart of a player, like they understand the heart of a relationship. They are capable of  somehow becoming that 10th man out there on the field and for some teams, without that 10th man, they never get to the top of the mountain.

Even today Bruce Bochy in front of the sell-out crowd after the game said as much when talking about how important fan support was. He just forgot to add  “…especially the women”.

Brayers And Bedwetters

Yeah Whatever
They are also known as beat writers, columnists, televangelistic MLB blatherers and any other pejorative that seems appropriate.  The usual collection of dipsticks are calling for jihad on steroids after Melky Cabrera, having a career year, tested positive for a ped. Ahem. Big fucking deal. I ran a red light 3 years ago, and if you live in San Francisco, you’ve earned a parking ticket or two and probably have not fed the meter a time or ten. You really think 30 days in County jail is appropriate? Well thats exactly what you’re calling for when a MLB player gets popped for Peds.

I’ve written so much about this over the years that I don’t care to explain it all again. The lines are drawn and aint nobody changing their minds. The media will not rest until they run out of aspersions to cast. They are serial masturbaters when it comes to PEDS. Nothing gets them so sweaty excited as a MLB ballplayer getting popped for a performance enhancing pharmaceutical; especially if said ballplayer is “uppity” with the media.

If you want to know the actual truth about steroids/peds and baseball go read this.   Then read John Perricone’s stuff. Then read my two cents on the motivation behind making parking tickets a felony.

Three Things You Need To Know
1. Steroids never hurt an adult. Read Dr. Norman Fost:

“Dr. Norman Fost : Dr. Fost was awarded an A.B. by Princeton, an M.D. by Yale, and an M.P.H. (Master of Public Health) by Harvard; he is not only a practicing pediatrician (and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin) but also a widely recognized expert in medical ethics, being Director of the Program in Medical Ethics at the University of Wisconsin (which he founded) and Chairman of the Hospital Ethics Committee; he heads the Child Protection Team, and is a former Chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics.  A couple of years ago, he received the William G. Bartholome Award for Excellence in Ethics from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

2. Its only cheating if what you’re doing to enhance your performance is not available to your opponent and gives you an unfair advantage. If peds are available freely to all, then nobody has an unfair advantage. Corked bats, nail files, pitching in front of the rubber, scuffing the ball, shining mirrors, forearms to the head, intentionally injuring an opponent are more egregious than steroids. Nobody has a problem with cortisone. Nobody has a problem with Tommy John surgery or ibuprofen for that matter.

3. The worst thing about peds is the feds and Bud Selig have pushed sports pharmacology underground with no quality control. Especially in Latin America and the crap coming out of Mexico. This is what driving legitimate sports medicine underground does. The Feds have lied to you about so much most of you don’t even care anymore. You just assume that when a Federal official speaks, they’re either lying outright or hiding something. Why would you think they would behave honestly when it comes to sports pharmacueticals?

Blathering Media
The usual batshit blathering beatwriters and media twerps who follow the Giants around like dogs in heat are doing great impersonations of Jihad-intent Radical Imans. It is a holy crusade with these guys. It is their one chance as never-was’ and high-school nerds to pile on their betters. It is the chance for asshats like Kirk Gibson, Curt Shilling, and Tommy Lasorda (who helped ruin Glenn Burkes’ life in retribution for his son’s homosexuality)  and others like them to go off on Latin American ballplayers including the ludicrous calling for banishment amongst other things.  Which should tell you more about bigots like Gibson, Shilling and Lasorda than it does about Melky Cabrera, Barry Bonds, Mark Magwire, Roger Clemens et al.

Crystal-Ballers. Not.
The jackasses who are so pronounced at predicting ballplayer performance are now trying to bully the Giants into not re-signing their best hitter (sound familiar Bonds fans) because the Franchise is now tainted with the steroid label. The label that they themselves have attached to the Giants. And the Franchise won’t be able to take the bad publicity and blah blah blah, and the media twerps will hold their breath until they are blue and Mike Lupica is finally tall enough for to ride on the ferris wheel by himself.  It may work out that way insofar as Cabrera doesn’t have the same connection with fans Bonds did. Baer doesn’t want to take even the smallest chance on losing even one ticket sale.  Larry Baer, the ultimate undie-buncher when it comes to taking a stand that may cost him 37cents will probably be bullied by his media peers and walk away from Melky. Sounds like a commissioner I know.

Hat Trick of Offensive Failure
This dufus front office will have cut loose its best offensive player in 2007, (Bonds) 20011 (Beltran)and 2012 if they don’t resign Cabrera. And then these very same droolers, who helped drive Bonds, Beltran and possibly Cabrera out of San Francisco, will  moan, wet their pants, whine and bray about how the San Francisco Giants don’t have enough hitting, when they again fail in their ultimate quest as they have failed for 7 of the last 8 years to reach even wild-card status with what was once the best pitching in baseball.  Baer and his billionaire owners won’t care, they have sell-outs and panda hats.

Go Niners!
I’m just glad the 49ers have it together big-time.  Win or lose, the ownership is dedicated to winning as their number one priority, and carrying their message directly to the fans. They have made all but one or two local media guys with their prissy self-righteous attitudes irrelevant. And thats always a good thing.

This And That – Dog Days.

Mania
Like most egomaniacs who think they are some kind of hot shit writer, I go back and occasionally read stuff I’ve written in the past. If I come across something that somehow defied all the odds and came out like I thought it would, far be it from me to not rub it in.  If you want to read how ridiculous  a very few some  many most of my predictions and observations turned out, find them yourself. You’ll feel good about you if you do. Meanwhile, here’s a few random picks from August of 2010 and August of 2011 that still resonate.

August 2010
Zito Getting Ripped
The Giants are paying Barry Zito $18.6 Million this year. As this intrepid commentator remarks the multimillionaire hasn’t been much help to the Giants post-season hopes this year (never mind the prior three seasons) having notched only 3 wins for the hometown vanilla since early May and no wins since the middle of July. (caution, the language is pretty blue and not suitable for children, though the concept is I suppose)

Which brings me to my point of what good does it do to fixate on acquiring for one’s self every year, millions of dollars if along the way you ruin your reputation.  If you disgrace yourself in the public square. Not inadvertently, as it appears Mr. Zito has done, but deliberately as it appears Mr. Clemens has done.  By nature we are all flawed and make mistakes and even inglorious decisions from time to time.  But to deliberately seek out the Congress of the United States to plead one’s case for innocence when the overwhelming evidence is to the contrary, as Clemens has done? Entire Article Here

Slow Times At Ridgemont High
Pay Attention – Its Never Just One Thing. Never. Failure or Success Is The Result of Many Connected Events
Like I said, its never just one thing. For either Sandoval or Lincecum.There is much noise about “what is wrong” with those two faces of the Giants franchise. Nobody can say for sure why they are not performing up to public expectations; expectations instilled and exploited by the incessant marketing machine that is San Francisco Baseball Associates. There has been all manner of wacky theories; everything from Lincecum’s hair, and offseason interstate road-trip with a bag of happy smokes, to Pablo Sandoval’s domestic problems either of the relationship or the culinary variety, depending on which commentator you’re reading.

Wish Them Well
But in the end, they are both likable young guys. In ballplayer years, they’re approaching middle age, but in real life they are barely voting eligible. They play a kids game and they don’t bully people, they smile a lot and say the right things in public for the most part. Its pretty hard to wish somebody like that anything but the best, and I’m certain nobody wants to see these two budding stars fail. There are enough hard times to go around in everybody’s everyday life. Wishing ill on these two kids is just nasty. So if Lincecum and Sandoval just keep in mind that their current struggles are not caused by just one thing, give it time, and go back to doing the things that made them successful in the first place, they (and their thousands of well-wishers and Giants fans) will be just fine. Entire Article Here

August 2011
Offense Aficionados – Hold Your Noses
Just to point out the obvious, these are Giants rankings in On Base Percentage, Slugging, OPS and Runs scored from 2005 (when Bonds was injured and most of Bakers guys had cleared out their lockers) followed by their pitching rankings below.
2005 – 29/25/27 – Runs Scored – 29th
2006 – 28/22/25 – Runs Scored – 24th
2007 – 27/30/30 – Runs Scored – 29th
2008 – 24/28/28 – Runs Scored – 29th
2009 – 30/28/30 – Runs Scored – 26th
2010 – 19/13/17 – Runs Scored – 17th
2011 – 29/28/29 – Runs Scored – 29th
The Case Against Sabean – Squandered Opportunities Year In and Year Out
During this same period, Giants pitching rankings in ERA, Runs Allowed and OPS against.
2005 – 17/14/17
2006 – 9/15/10
2007 – 9/6/10
2008 – 17/17/17
2009 – 2/1/2
2010 – 1/2/2
2011 – 2/2/1

You can read the entire article here

Number 42 – Inner Circle of The Hall of Fame

What Do You Say After Its All Been Said Better?
Type in “Jackie Robinson” in a Google search bar and you will get almost 5 million hits. The notion that I could add anything to Jackie Robinson’s legacy is ludicrous on its face. So the only thing for me to do was try to contemporize Jackie and bring the Jackie Robinson era forward and contrast it against the 21^stcentury Hall of Fame selection process.

Graham Womack, is a gifted writer dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of  Major League Baseball history. He, like most fair-minded folks who think such things through, seems more inclined towards an inclusive Cooperstown.  Baseball has had thousands of more potential candidates than the other sports combined. Yet it is more restrictive than the NFL by far. The gatekeepers still do not understand that honoring a man does not diminisht the honor given another. Anymore than a father only loves his oldest son half as much after his second son is born. That of course assumes you’re truly trying to honor a ballplayers accomplishments, and look for ways to honor him.

Its A Matter of Policy
As a matter of policy, the NFL mandates between 3 and 7 new enshrinees per year. In contrast the MLB HOF has gone years withouth inducting somebody. And I don’t think anybody considers the NFL HOF inCanton,Ohio to be a second rate anything.
Hence the Inner Circle of  the 50 greatest players. It is a proposition that both honors the greatest of the greats, without marginalizing nor excluding those who were merely great.. In many regards, the idea is at one with the wonderful Negro League Baseball Museum founded by the magnificent Buck O’Neil in Kansas City and now headed up by Bob Kendrick, a tireless advocate, like Buck,  for all that is good in baseball and humanity.

Celebrating Greatness The NLBM Way
The NLBM is about celebration of greatness and participation and passing down the great values and lessons learned from one generation to the next.

Jackie of course played in the Negro league. So along with everything else, he is obviously going to be included in any such elite group of ballplayers. He is the only player in history to have his number permanently retired by all thirty Major League teams. It was a foregone conclusion that Jackie would be included along with the best of the best by those voting for membership in the Hall of Fames Inner Circle.
 
Now I suppose the current process of Hall of Fame Induction works for some. Maybe I’m a little out of step, but to me, the most prestigious honor and recognition comes from ones peers, not guys who used to be part time restaurant critics before they became HOF voters. Because of this I always felt major league scouts working in concert with established sabermetricians would make a pretty fair combination and core of expert voters.

But since the days of Pete Rose, there is this almost compulsive obsession to exclude people. Rather than look for former players to honor, the voters in their daily writings seem to spend more time criticizing and castigating  potential candidates.

The BBWAA
While many in the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) see this as a way to keep their institution exclusive, and by extension “better” than the other sports, this attitude has the potential to accomplish just the opposite, reducing Cooperstown to the equivalent of “That’s a Clown Hall of Fame, Bro” where selection is predicated upon bogus statistics and media public relations.

Neither the NFL nor the NBA folks who select their respective honorees come close to besmirching the very players they are supposed to be evaluating and honoring the way members of the BBWAA do. If anything, NFL, NBA and NHL voters are almost out of view as their respective seasons progress, mentioned only in the context of actual voting taking place, vote results, and finally, enshrinement of honorees.

No Fun For Fans Either
Until that time when Bart Giamatti banned Pete Rose, Baseball’s HOF selection process was a time of happy anticipation, celebration, and memory-sharing. Now, thanks to the great number of pontificators running the selection process, the MLB HOF annual vote is morphing yearly into an ugly, polarized battle ground between those that do and did, and those that wrote and spoke about it. With millions of fans in the middle, not enjoying any of it one bit.

It is no fun. It is Yankee fan against Yankee fan, Giants fan against Giants fan.  It is an adversarial and antagonistic process, and one that now, no matter the results, is one that has created an aura of cynicism, suspicion and worst of all, trivialization. Because that is what happens when too many of a  games best players are excluded because of personal antipathy and a desire to punish for “uppitiness” or “rudeness” and hiding those motives behind unproven and/or non-contexutalized events.

So against the current backdrop, what if the Jackie Robinson era had taken place in this century with the current crop of voters and their willingness to use their voter status as a platform for advancing personal agendas and imposing their individual forms of relative moralism onto the selection process? 

Would Jackie Have Made It In Today?
Would Jackie Robinson have been selected so readily into the HOF(he was elected in his 1^st year of eligibility with 77% of the vote) if there had been rumors of “greenies” or “domestic violence”  spewed foryears in the Sports media? I highly doubt it.  There is simply too much bitterness and resentment against players who do not play the owners/media “beisbol been berry berry good to me’ in the game today. Its all about media exposure and branding. Baseball has made it very clear they do not want individuals and personalities. And if anything Jackie Robinson was an individual and a personality.

While Jackie said all the right things in public and never responded to personal attacks from the field or the stands,  Jackie Robinson was nobody’s fool and nobody’s puppet. He stood up for right and he stood up against wrong , and for the dignity of African Americans. He played against the game as hard if not harder than Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio. And he played against the game with smarts, instincts, courage, and humility. A superhuman undertaking, the tribulations of which, eventually killed him at the too young age of fifty-three 40 years ago this autumn.

Leading His Own Parade of Greatness
Only a handful of legacy players, (those with Hall of Fame talent and achievements) can march to their own drummer in today’s age of 24 hour news-cycle, scandal-driven, reality-show-potential world. And that’s because there are very few  players who are not easily replaceable. In the current MLB star system, most players are simply in supporting roles for legacy players.

And that brings us back to Jackie Robinson and his accomplishments in his era brought forward into the 21^st century. Starting with Babe Ruth, baseball became the domain of the homerun hitter. Homeruns are game-changers and game-enders and it is the only time in baseball when the defense has no defense.

Its always been this way. Homeruns have always been spectacular and dramatic. The greatest single play in baseball is the walk-off homerun. People by the millions stay glued to games at the park and on TV every night, just for the opportunity to witness one.

Jackie played 10 years and he hit only 137 homeruns. Wait you say, he was a middle infielder and his career OBP was over .400 and a career OPS+ of 132 and he averaged 23 stolen bases per year, won Rookie of the Year and one MVP and made the All-Star team 6 times in his 10 seasons before he retired after the 1956 loss to the NY Yankees in the World Series. That’s plenty good enough for the Hall of Fame, regardless of his breaking the color barrier as it has become known. 

 Would His Lack of Home Run Power Count Against Him?
Probably not, but there is also enough wiggle room for those who are driving their own agendas of exclusion to claim that while Jackie was great, he wasn’t great enough. That he lacked power and as a result did not dominate games the way Mays, Williams and others in his era did. Heck, he wasn’t even the best player in the Negro League. He won only one MVP while many HOFers have won more than one. And that’s all the voters would have to say if they wanted an excuse to exclude him.

Jackie seemed to be fortunate in that regard. Jackie was supported in the baseball press in his day. Branch Rickey was respected by media folks. Pee Wee Reese stood up with Jackie. It was time.

Jackie Broke In Right After The Worst War In History
Unless you were a Grand Kleagle in the Indiana Ku Klux Klan, Jackie Robinson was a great uplift for a war-weary nation in 1947 who had become sickened at the atrocities committed upon millions of innocent human beings simply because of their ethnicity, religion and skin color. A lot of Americans died to free those people, and there wasn’t a lot of stomach in the Northern states for any of that stuff.

The war was over, Hitler and Himmler, were dead,  the concentration and death camps had been liberated, the war criminals had been tried and convicted in Nuremberg, and the GI Bill was helping millions of vets get back on their feet and get an education. For the first time in a generation there was hope for a better life than the one their parents had.

And Major League Baseball with major league players was back and Jackie Robinson could more than hold his own. While it will always be the hateful who get media attention, many middle-class ball fans, while still consigning African Americans to “less than” status in spite of everything, and against all reason, proudly, though self-consciously,  pointed to Jackie, patted themselves on the back and cheered and rooted for him. It was a beginning.

The Toughest And Possilby The Greatest Man To Ever Play The Game
Jackie rarely disappointed. Probably the toughest man to ever play the game. Not just physically, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Nobody outside of combat, has ever been tested on an almost 24/7 basis for 10 straight years the way Jackie Robinson was.

Forget the Baseball Hall of Fame. Forget theBaseball Hall of Fame Inner Circle of the 50 greatest ballplayers of all time. Jackie Robinson belongs in theInner Circle of the Human Race Hall of Fame. And I am greatly privileged to have been given an opportunity to share my thoughts about Jackie.

And that’s all that I have to say about that.

Freeh Report

The Freeh Report on The Pennsylvania State University July 12, 2012
The much anticipated Freeh Report on the Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Penn State Football, Penn State University et al scandal will have been published in its entirety here ( 6:AM PDT) by the time most of you read this.

A lot of people are going to analyze this thing to death. While it won’t have the gravitas of an official law enforcement investigation, it will provide a jumping off point for much of the depressing civil litigation that is sure to follow.

Not Much In The Way of Legal Teeth
In spite of Louis Freeh’s resume as a federal judge and director of the FBI, he has little legal authority in this privately funded investigation. He is hired and paid by the Penn State Board of Trustees to conduct interviews, make findings about the who what where when and why things happened in the PSU football scandal.

The real nasty stuff is yet to come in the way of the US Justice Department, a tsunami’s worth of civil lawsuits, the NCAA and not least of all, the TV networks who pay PSU millions each year for the broadcast rights.

Follow The Money
Like they say, when a big money scandal is about to hit (and a $72 million annual football revenue stream is big money) follow the money.

It is in the Trustees interest to minimize their legal exposure in preparation for the avalanche of lawsuits that will be coming their way for weeks and months, if not years. The trustees, a collection of monied alumni primarily, acted swiftly in November to distance themselves from the primary participants, to this point anyway, in the scandal including Graham Spanier, former president, Tim Curley, Athletic Director, Gary Schultz, VP of Administration, Joe Paterno, Head Football Coach and other football assistants, despite student riots and other childish and boorish behavior from PSU students and alumni, including the ridiculous Franco Harris.

Fig Leaf
In so doing, they hoped to mitigate to a certain degree their liability by pointing out they acted with due diligence and in the University’s best interest by terminating their affiliation with the above-mentioned individuals soon after the Grand Jury handed down indictments and warrants. This is the thought that was advanced by Sports By Brooks some days ago, and it makes sense if you follow the logic of it.

This seems to be very little, too late. The Board of Trustees appear to have deliberately looked the other way as the culture of corruption under Paterno’s mafioso-like leadership of his football program ran amok in Centre County for years. Add in Paterno’s puppeteering of the administration for decades, and one can see that the corruption is as deep as it is widespread.

November, 2011
In November we cited a history of abuses and criminal activity that goes back to at least 1978 under Joe Paterno’s football program. Everything from murder and rape to home invasion, drug dealing, assaults, burglary, and countless other criminal activities. They were documented and detailed in Sports Illustrated and ESPN Outside The Lines. Everything we surmised is coming to light.  Time To Stop Believing

From Mischief And Mayhem
We wrote at the time: ” The Penn State football team, its fans, its sycophants, Nebraska’s fans, and a TV audience witnessed (or participated) in a mockery of the “Grand Experiment” with prayers, and candle-light vigils, and more prayers, and more vapid, unctuous play-acting for the cameras before today’s game, in which the old-guard was still coaching on the sidelines with thousands of fans trying to claim the moral high-ground and portray Paterno as a victim, and not a perpetrator.

Try some empathy on for the victims and their families. How can you not look on in astonishment and rage and great sadness to see the fruits of Paterno’s ill founded labors treated as noble conquering heroes, or as victims instead of amoral enablers?  Especially considering what is now known. That this football program has not been suspended, and continues to ply its trade weekly on National Television is an affront to human decency.

So What Next?
The fallout from the Freeh report. Mostly silence from the Paternophiles and those addicted to PSU football. There are already subpoenas being issued by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office, not to mention Eric Holder’s Department of Justice who desperately need a win in court. There will be depositions in the two criminal investigations and dozens of civil lawsuits. It has the potential to run on for years.

And if that weren’t enough, the NCAA is waiting in the wings, ready to launch its own investigation; not based on criminal activity, but on two compliance issues, the honesty and ethcis code of conduct and the “institutional control” requirements covered by NCAA Sanctioning rules.

Financial Worst Case
As we mentioned earlier; follow the money. ABC/ESPN CBS NBC pay millions of dollars for the broadcast rights to college football games, so they can peddle beer, trucks, pizza and other useless schlock to their audiences on Saturdays in the Fall. You can rest assured that once the morbid curiosity passes, PSU football will become a national disgrace. And I don’t know well that is going to settle with advertisers over time. Like they say, money talks, bullshit walks. If the networks determine that televising Penn State football is bad for business, and they pull the plug, PSU football as everybody knows it will be dead, and the decision will be taken out of their hands.

Suggestion Follow The Painful Lead of University of San Francisco in 1982 and Self-Destruct.
In 1982, following the sexual assault charges of Quintin Dailey on a nursing student, the president of the college, Rev John LoSchiavo decided to can the troubled program voluntarily. It cost them millions of dollars over the ensuing years. The school was steeped in embarrassment (being in the geographical center of San Francisco did not help matters either) and donations suffered. As a private university, this was no small matter. All of this was anticipated but this is what Father LoSchiavo said at the time:

“The Board of Trustees of the University of San Francisco decided yesterday that the men’s intercollegiate Division I basketball program at USF should and will be discontinued. Anyone who is familiar with this institution and its proud history will understand what a painful decision this is. In all the circumstances, however, the Board had no other responsible choice.  ….. The price the university has had to pay for those problems has been much greater than the heavy financial price. There is no way of measuring the damage that has been done to the university’s most priceless assets, its integrity and its reputation.”

In 1998, ironically the same year that Jerry Sandusky was first confronted with his sexual assault activities, the USF Dons returned to the NCAA Tournament after many years. As was written at the time, they made it back the right way.

The tumor has to be excised. It can be done humanely or it can be forcefully and savagely removed. The decision is up to the Pennsylvania State University Board of Trustees.

Dick Vitale Coach K Defend Paterno
Time To Stop Believing
A Program Of Criminals
Palermo vs. Paterno
Mischief Murder and Mayhem

Bob Kendricks’ Buck O’Neil – Redeeming The All Star Game

Redeeming The All Star Game – A Good Purpose
Too often the All Star Game has degenerated into a kind of Bud Selig Realtiy Show where the only goal has been to generate money for the Commissioners office and MLB owners.Trivializing it even further with "Tie Games" and "World Series Home Field Advantage" and now ridiculous web-based ballot stuffing has brought the game itself to a new nadir.

The Long Term Damage Of Greed
Ballot box stuffing accomplishes two things. It embarrasses one player, and insults another. Ballot box stuffing marginalizes even further a game that once stood for pride and a chance to demonstrate talent and skill for players like Mays, Clemente, Aaron, Mantle, Williams, Koufax, Marichal, Gibson, Stargell, and other future Hall of Famers. It actually meant something to represent their league.

Forgoing what was important and relevant and good about the All Star Game for some cheap Internet revenues. So now its run like a little-league exhibition where the parents control the voting and what was once a great American tradition in years past, has devolved into a few hours of product peddling.

To The Rescue
Fortunately, Negro League Baseball Museum President Bob Kendrick’s efforts to put the NLBM back on the map have paid off. In 2012, the All-star Game’s outcome, which will be played on the lush grass of beautifully renovated and pristine Kauffman Stadium will really be secondary. Because this year the All Star Game will also be dedicated to sharing the magnificence of the players that played in the Negro Leagues, as personified by Baseball’s favorite ambassador, Buck O’Neil.

Greatness Remembered
Because of Buck and his successor Bob Kendricks, millions of Americans who might not otherwise have the opportunity, will get a chance to share in a celebration of the best players in the world they mostly never heard of. The NLBM memorializes some of the greatest and most talented players to ever walk onto a baseball diamond. They are mostly unknown due to a darker time, that is still not properly lit. But here they are celebrated, and offered up by the African American baseball community to all Americans, without exception or exclusion. No seeds or dip on the floor however.

Harold Reynolds Said It First – There Is No Crying In Baseball 
In the spirit of Buck O’Neil, there is no mourning here. There is no finger pointing here. What’s done is done. Its about exceptionalism, the love of great achievements, and an important part of American Heritage being given to the American people without condition, without recompense. In a way, the Negro League Baseball Museum is the essence of the very spirit of what the ideal America would be and what could have been. Exceptionalism, triumph, forgiveness and celebration of those traditions that we hold in common and an honoring of the sacrifices of the past.

Inclusion For All – The Negro League Baseball Museum
It is a baseball museum of inclusion of great players, unlike Cooperstown which has become a political playground of the country club set where great players are gleefully excluded and potential members are ridiculed and castigated for years in advance of their eligibility.

Folks will find no such animosity at the Negro League Baseball Museum. There is more respect for players in the doorway at 18th and Vine in Kansas City, then there is in the entire Baseball Writers Association of America country club in Cooperstown. Because thats how Buck was.

Role Models In Public
All of Kansas City should be proud of Bob Kendricks, (a relative stranger to me by the way) and what he has done to keep this dream alive for all Americans everywhere. I can only speak for myself, but this is what sets baseball apart from other endeavors in life. It is the specialness of the Buck O’Neils that allow us to point to that rare man, and say to our sons: That is a man worth emulating. That is a man who acts like he is part of something so much bigger than himself, and spends his days going about the business of being part of it.

Mr. Bob Kendricks
Negro League Baseball Museum
1616 East 18th Street 
Kansas City, MO 64108
(816) 221-1920

SF Giants – Still Staggering After All These Years

Update On July 4  – 2012
Watching Lincecum and Bumgarner getting whacked back-to-back by Davey”Tin Man”Johnson’s Montreal Expos in a 15 hour span is like having herpes. The basic virus never goes away, and periodically rears its cold-sore ways at the most inconvenient time. This is what following a Brian Sabean SF Giants team is like in the post-Baker, post-Bonds era. A pathetic offense that couldn’t compete with the Rockford Peaches.

Powerless – Maybe The Offense Needs a 12 Step Program.
A powerless offense unable to pick up the pitching staff. An offense that has ranked below 50th percentile, but usually far worse, every season since 2004. And why is that?

The First Step in Recovery Is Admitting You Have a Problem
First of all the guy who keeps the offense a mess, Brian Sabean, denies its his fault. Its always the player’s fault. of course, Emmanuel Burris and Brandon Crawford should be hitting 30 jacks a year, thats why they’re paid the big bucks. It doesn’t help that a sycophantic and silly Bay Area media encourage him either.

The Second Step Is Trying to Restore Some Sanity – Not Encourage It
Second of all, when his acquisitions crap out like they mostly do (there are exceptions occasionally) he never dumps them. If his bosses are paying for those guaranteed contracts, by golly those guys are going to play; “we spent a lot of money and we demand  some value!”

Third Step – There Is Nothing Good To Be Had From Binge Spending
Value? You want value? Here’s some value for you. Tim Lincecum $18.2 million. Barry Zito $20 million. Brian Wilson $8.5 million. Aubrey Huff $10 million  Aaron Rowand $13.6 million. Freddy Sanchez $6.0 million. Jeremy Afeldt $5.0 million. Javy Lopez $4.25 million 

You know what that is? Thats $85.5 million for two schizophrenic starters, a closer on a vacation, a 3-time DFA loser collecting welfare in the clubhouse, a squat monkey living large in Las Vegas, a glass porch monkey who has been crippled since the day he limped over from the Pirates clubhouse 3 years ago, and a couple of middle-reliever burn-outs.

Riding The Dead Horses To The End Of The Trail
That’s what Brian Sabean is doing with $88.55 million this season. Which is more than the entire payroll of 15 teams. Each year he throws money at over-the-hills like Miguel Tejada, Edgardo Alfonso, Orlando Cabrera, Jose Guillen, Matt Morris, Brett Tomko, Mark DeRosa, Armando Benitez, Edgar Renteria, Dave Roberts and so on. Everybody makes mistakes, especially if you’re aggressive in the market-place like Sabean.

The difference is, Sabean refuses to pull the plug on his mistakes. He rides his crippled and useless horses like a desperate Damon Runyon character whose one step in front of the bill collector. He keeps sending out washed out claimers running out their last days in the last race at Shady Dollar Downs; until they can’t even get back to the barn after another losing effort or break down completely on the track limping around until the meat wagon shows up to euthanize them.

Disgusting and pathetic and humiliating for players

And until the Giants front office figures this part out and makes a decision to change their ways, there is no sense going further.
——————————————————————————

Seventy Eight Games In – July 03, 2012
Thanks to a Los Angeles Dodger meltdown and a whole lot of early season injuries to the Diamondbacks, the Giants are clinging to the NL West Division Lead, despite, yet again, a pathetic run producing offense:

Runs Scored – 23rd. Homeruns – 29th. OPS with runners in scoring position. 29th. Following are the San Francisco Giants Team OPS rankings by position compared to the rest of Major League Baseball:

C   – 8th
1B – 12th
2B – 28th
3B – 22nd
SS – 20th
LF -  8th
CF – 14th
RF – 14th

A Look At The Individuals
Remember those are by position, not by player. You can see how much the 3b position cratered when Sandoval went on the DL as he is ranked a very acceptable .845. Good for 7th out of 29 third-basemen with a minimum of 175 PA. By contrast, one of his replacements and a guy that gets far too many PAs, Joaquin Arias ranked 28th of 29 with an embarrassing OPS of .609.

Buster Posey, who does most of the catching ranks a solid 4th out of 24 Catchers in OPS at .847  Incredible for a guy coming off one of the ugliest injuries seen around here not on a football field.

Left Field is manned by Melky Cabrera, ranked 5th in OPS amongst 29 Left fielders with a very solid .905.

Next of course would be Angel Pagan in Center field. This is where things begin to taper off. Pagan is ranked 13th of  28 with a quite respectable, though mediocre .754 OPS

Bochy The Fool
First Base is normally played by Brandon Belt except when Posey moves out from behind the plate to 1b. When he is in there, Belt ranks an above-average and getting better 8th out 28 in OPS at .822. When Bochy pulls Belt from the lineup and inserts Hector Sanchez in his place, the drop off is cataclysmic: Hector Sanchez ranks 38th out of 45 of all catchers with at least 100 Plate Appearances. An OPS of .609.  Thats a drop of over 200 points in OPS Bochy gives up every-time he platoons Belt, a great glove in the mold of JT Snow, with Sanchez a great big piece of steel pipe disguised as a catchers mitt.

Sabean The Bigger Fool
Right Field now features some cat named Gregor Blanco who ranks 31st of 36 guys with a minimum of 175 Plate Appearances. Way up the list in front of him are two recent Giants outfielders  in second and third place respectively; Carlos Beltran with a .968 OPS and Cody Ross with a .934 OPS.  Both of those players were not invited back by Brian Sabean. In Sabean’s mind It was more imperative at the time to sign Aubrey Huff and Freddy Sanchez. Naturally, both have contributed less than zero to the Giants over the last two seasons. As did the guy that he got for Joe Nathan and Francisco Liriano. And the nothing he got for Jeff Kent.

Second Base And Shortstop – Two More Black Holes
Occupado like an airliner restroom by Ryan Theriot and Brandon Crawford respectively. Two guys were released before this season (Jeff Keppinger and Mike Fontenot) so Ryan Theriot could be signed. Ryan Theriot ranks 22nd of 26 second-basemen with a minimum of  175 Plate Appearances with an awesome OPS of .625. For some reason Bochy thinks this is the best choice to hit second. Jeff Keppinger on the other hand, since signing as a F/A with Tampa has an OPS of .782, ranking  6th out of 34 with a minimum of 125 Plate Appearances.

Brandon Crawford, brings up the bottom at Shortstop with an OPS of .607, good for 26 out of 33 with a minimum of 125 Plate Appearances. For what its worth since Fontenot was cleared out along with Keppinger when Crawford was handed the starting job, Fontenot In limited utility duty with the Phils, is OPSing about 140 points higher at 755 in 80 Plate Appearances.

Spoon-fed Bullshit
So while the usual suspects kiss Sabean’s ass because Melky out-voted Braun in All-Star Game balloting, and Pagan had a hitting streak, and then giggle at Jonathan Sanchez demise, they ignore the flotsam of Huff and Zito and Rowands contracts. They deny the existence of squandered opportunities by Brian Sabean as manifested in the accomplishments and power hitting of Carlos Beltran and Cody Ross, and the superior play of Jeff Keppinger and even Mike Fontenot compared to their successors  And by usual suspects I mean all of the CSN and KNBR stooges on the broadcast side and SFgate and Bay Area News Group on the written side.

So instead of being 10 games in front of the laughable Dodgers and heretofore crippled Diamondbacks, the Giants are once again, for the 8th year in a row, bringing up the rear of Major League Baseball in offense, in spite of Posey, Cabrera, Sandoval. Thank you Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy.

Time For A New GM
I nominate Jack Inthebox. Just for openers, no stinking garlic fries. Straight-up, Country Style or Curly. No stench. No halitosis. Go Jack.

Tim Lincecum – Hat Trick

June 29, 2012 Update: Madison Bumgarner threw in his two cents last night with a 5-0 shutout of the first-place Cincinnati Reds carrying a no-no into the 6th inning. An incredible run of 4 shutouts in a row — all over first place teams. I’ve never seen anything like this before and probably neither have you.

Fun.

Lincecum’s Woes

June 23, 2012 Update
Last night was one of those fun nights you can never predict. As feared, Lincecum was a mess from the 1st pitch he threw. Six consecutive batters and 3 runs and drunk bases later, Super Tim emerged from an invisible phone booth and punched out the 7-8-9 batters in the A’s lineup. The A’s would not do squat until Tim retired from the game after six innings. While 2 more A’s would get free passes, 5 more would punchout, a good trade-off. The Giants scored 4 runs in the ninth and held on for a 5-4 win.

Except every great pitcher has had them. Many young pitchers started hot, had a bad year and never came back to what they were and there’s no single explanation.

Beating Lincecum’s bad season to death won’t resolve anything simply because Lincecum is a work in progress.  He might bounce back to where he was, (unlikely). Or he might recover to the point of average to slightly better with spurts of his old self like  Vida Blue like Kerry Wood and/or AJ Burnett. Or he may go Oliver Perez, or Mark Fydrich or David Clyde.

Bigger Picture
The bigger picture and the bigger problem is this. It should have been expected or anticipated with and a contingency plan put in place, besides this one which may be implemented by the All Star Break. Not specifically Lincecum, but any of the other three guys, Vogelsong, Cain, and Bumgarner. Zito has been a mortifying symbol of good money thrown after bad since 2007 and is a dangling ruptured appendix on the intestines of the pitching staff and is therefore not part of the conversation unless you’ve recently moved here from Jonestown.

Sabean’s Abuse of The Pitching Staff.
The miracle of Voglesong is the only thing that kept the Giants out of the dumpster last year. Zito’s continued uselessness and Jonathan Sanchez’ demise notwithstanding. Play-off baseball kills arms, increasing the length of the season by a month,  inclement weather and increasing pressure physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Compounding it with 7 consecutive years of sub-par offense only increased the amount of stress. Instead of coming out after 5 innings with a 4 run lead, starters were relentlessly left in to go maximum pitch counts to keep a game within a run or maintain a tie or one-run lead.  The Giants have ranked at the bottom of every meaningful offensive category since Bonds last year of health which was 2004, with the exception of Aug-Sept 2010 when they ranked 17th in runs scored..

How Bad Offense Affects Good Starting Pitching
They ranked 17th of 30 teams in runs scored in 2010 when they won the World Series. Every year going back to 2005 before and since has been worse. Cain came up for good in 2006. Lincecum in 2007, Bumgarner in 2010, Vogelsong in 2011. None of those pitchers has had the kind of run support that would have enabled them to take an inning off here and there over the years.  Maybe 30 innings over the course of a year. Add it up. Thats a lot of potential quality innings thrown away because of guys like Aaron Rowand, Aubrey Huff,  Mark DeRosa, Freddy Sanchez, Bengie Molina, Edgar Renteria, Miguel Tejada, and just a great number of horrible signings that floundered, then fizzled, and eventually failed.

As Usual The Buck Stops At The Top.
When Sabean became the baseball face of the franchise in 2003 following Baker’s departure, things started downhill. Other than Bonds, no more homerun power was to be had. Sabean told Kent that he was no longer wanted. The Giants made some decent draft choices of starting pitching and Buster Posey has had one stellar year and portions of 2 other years. Sandoval is up and down like a Jenny Craig drop-out and Belt is who knows at this point. We will give Sabean credit for recruiting but overpaying, an above average bullpen over the last few years. His evaluation of free-agent starters that signed were Matt Morris, Brett Tomko, and Barry Zito not to mention the millions to Armando Benitez.

If Lincecum does not pitch another decent inning in his life, he will always be amongst the best to ever wear a Giants uniform. Nothing can change that.

Dick Vitale And Duke U. Coach K Defend Joe Paterno

Update: In The Year of Our Lord, June 30, 2012, Dick Vitale Acknowledges Paterno Culpability
From a tweet to Brooks - RT @DickieV  @SportsbyBrooks learned of report that proves Joe Pa knew more than I believed. I WAS WRONG-always thought he could’ve done more.

Always thought he could have done more? Really? Care to point that out someplace or is this just another gratuitous self-congratulatory prevarication like your initial unsolicited clown-defense of Paterno and derisive treatment of folks like me who laid out the rationale, evidence and timeline for you, weeks ago.

Seems you only have something to moralize about when the Big Boys Camera’s are on.

Your’e still a phony faking poser in my book.

We Speak – You Listen
Coach K (Duke University Coach) and Dick Vitale; he of the 75 going on 16 ESPN has-been coach tribe. For some reason, they decided Fathers Day weekend would be a great time to go public with their tributes and testaments to Joe Paterno. This of course followed the end of Pennsylvania’s sickeningly strong case against accused child rapist and former JoePa confidante and protege, Gerald Sandusky. Thank you Mike. Thank you Dick. The irony and timing of your remarks has been duly noted.

For these two to defend Paterno after all the evidence of previous criminal convictions of Penn State footballers for rape, murder, home invasion, burglary and more is pathetic and self-damning. For them to claim that Paterno was ignorant of Sandusky’s sexual predatory crimes has the effect of giving credence to Paterno’s charade.

What to Make of Paterno’s Claim?
"I don’t know anything about man on boy sex? I never had to face something like this". "I felt inadequate. I never had to face anything like this before." Well how about picking up a brochure (or dropping a dime and calling somebody in student services on campus for that matter.  There is more information available to the public then one could read in a lifetime. As a matter of fact, precautionary education was required reading for many youth coaches as far back as the 1980s.

Educational material has been put out prodigiously by victims advocates, youth athletic organizations and state and federal resources for years just so the Jerry Sanduskys of the world can be prevented access to victims.

Close to being accessories to Paterno’s Coverup With Their Reckless and False Statements Based On  Wishful Thinking?
Are Coach K and Dick Vitale trying to tell us that Joe Paterno was unaware and unconscious during his reign at PSU? This self-styled man of letters, humanities, and human behavior? This man who had so many felons recruited by him that he lost track?  After all that and they still try to tell us that Joe was incapable of covering anything up and was ignorant of Sandusky.  And if he was, what the hell is a man like doing running a multi-million dollar money machine on Pennsylvania State property?

READ THIS simple brochure for parents about sexual offenders. It will take 3 minutes.From the State of Washington. Any person who read something like this which is and was widely available and then claimed ignorance of Sandusky’s behavior is a liar.  After reading this, try and convince yourself of the truthfulness of Paterno’s statements. Then juxtapose his behavior in the aftermath of McQuery’s staining him with direct knowledge of Sandusky’s raping of a little boy. 

But to Coach K and Dick Vitale, Joe Paterno’s deeds outweigh his massive and what turned out to be extremely dangerous, character defects.  As if this wannabe mafia-don was a great man and incapable of covering anything up or even suspecting anything unseemly. 

And In This Corner
"Sports By Brooks"  Intelligent and contextual analysis by new media news leader and former play-by-play announcer, Brooks writing on K’s remarks. Despite repeated inquires on twitter and elsewhere, Duke University’s Athletic Department who was posting Coach K’s remarks rapid-fire from his nationally televised appearance on CNN, chose to ignore repeated inquiries. Vitale for some reason later on, decided to go for some of his own face-time and came up with a disappointing recycled cliche that had long ago been put to rest by all but the most rabid of Paterno supporters and Penn State Alumni. Both K and Vitale refused to answer any of Brooks questions. Or any direct questions from anybody challenging their Paterno testimonials and Trustee castigations for "wrongfully" terminating Paterno..
  
Ignoring The Evidence – Willful or Lazy?
In view of the documented evidence of Centre County court cases and arrest records, Vitale and Ks obstreperousness in claiming saint status for Paterno would be hilarious except for the disservice, disrespect and utter contempt they actually show  towards victims of Paterno’s criminal football program. Before you dismiss this statement as some blogger going over the top and expressing "an opinion", you need to look at the facts, the arrest records and the large large number of crimes ON THE RECORD committed by former recruits of Paterno.

From Paterno’s Grand Jury Testimony on Jan 11, 2011: "Well, I don’t know what you would call it," Paterno replied. "Obviously, he was doing something with the youngster. It was a sexual nature. I’m not sure exactly what it was.

"There is no smoking Gun". – Except in his own contradictory statements in his press-release interview in the Washington Post.The most damning being an outright lie of huge proportions. Read for yourself:

Joe Paterno Speaks: "So I sat around. It was a Saturday. Waited till Sunday because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. And then I called my superiors and I said: ‘Hey, we got a problem, I think. Would you guys look into it?’ Cause I didn’t know, you know. We never had, until that point, 58 years I think, I had never had to deal with something like that. And I didn’t feel adequate.”

So in 58 years, as he told THE WASHINGTON POST which even Coach K and Dick Vitale are aware of, he never had to deal with something like that and didn’t "feel adequate".  Didn’t feel adequate? That was his excuse?  I had no experience and didn’t feel adequate?  Did Paterno even read the local paper? This 25+ years after Hodne’s rape  and burglary conviction? And 20 years after middle guard Todd Hodne’s murder convictions? And two decades after he did nothing after one of his players broke into a house during Liberty Bowl week, drew gunfire, and let the kid skate by paying a $46.00 fine?

Penn State Footballer Sentenced to Life For a 2006 Murder in The Same Courthouse Where Sandusky Being Tried.
How is there even a shred of credibility to Vitale and Coach K’s support of JoPa and his so-called grand experiment, that in view of the investigative and separate reporting pieces  28 years apart. Including a rape by future murderer and middle guard Todd Hodne in Sept 1978 and former NFL prospect Lavon Chisley’s murdering the son of his football host family by stabbing his victim 93 times in 2006? And then blaming so-called white racists in a dope deal gone awry.

Hodne was 19 when he raped a local woman, after he which he burglarized her home. "We had some slippage in discipline" was how Joe Paterno summed up his 1980 interview in Sports Illustrated.  Dickie V, Coach K and every single one of the dozen or so Paternophiles I’ve confronted have refused to meet those facts head on.

I’m not going on with this anymore today. The facts are there for those who want truth. For the twisted supporters and defenders and deniers and enablers of Paterno, there is nothing I nor anybody else can say or write that will open  your minds and help you lose your elitist self-absorbed sense of entitlement. It will never happen until either you or somebody you care about becomes a victim of Paterno-like criminals or Jerry Sandusky-like rapists.

Or when the Feds come to Centre County and tear all the phonies protecting the "PSU" and "JoePa" brand, a new asshole.

 Time To Stop Believing
 A Program Of Criminals   
 Palermo vs. Paterno
 Mischief Murder and Mayhem