Oops...My Bad

No sooner do I rag on the Pittsburgh Pirates for their epic blowout losses this season than our beloved Milwaukee Brewers, their chief tormentor, splice together an impressively outrageous string of early-inning, middle-inning, and late-inning defeats.

Following an "Oh-for-Homestand" homestand, the Brewskis, seemingly eager to distance themselves from their tenderly loving, patient, and concerned patrons at Miller Park, sought their fortunes on the Carefree, Open Road. I'm pretty sure that was manager Ken Macha I saw driving the team bus to the airport at light speed.

Getting away almost worked. Long the bugaboo of Brewers' fortunes, the team's starting pitching has actually seen Fortuna reversed this week, eking out two good starts in a row in Cincinnati. The team's young demi-ace, Yovani Gallardo, provided a gutty, one-run outing over six innings on Monday. Then today, Tuesday, Manny Parra notched an unusually above-average start, and minor league call-up Marco Escobar had a terrific Brewers' debut in middle relief.

All of these efforts were, of course, wasted. What's the opposite of clutch heroics? Clutch goat-ics? Todd Coffey gave up the seventh inning grand slam in relief of Gallardo on Monday; and today, Future Hall of Fame Closer Trevor Hoffman took the hill in the ninth with a 4-2 lead.

It's getting harder and harder to keep to my spirited defense of Hoffman, who, once again this season, blew the save opportunity. Five men up, nobody out, bingo-bango-bongo, that's all she wrote. That's five blown saves this year for Hoffman, most -- like today's -- involving the long ball. I still wouldn't boo him, based on what he's meant to the game, but I'm pretty sure his personal Open Road, having headed south for the past six weeks, is about to head west, into the sunset.

That's how it's gone for the Bluer-than-Blue Crew all season. The starting pitching is largely an underperforming disaster. The exhausted relief corps has converted near-wins into losses with astonishing predictability. The bats are made of titanium in one game and sawdust the next. With former starter Jeff Suppan making $12.5 million, Trevor Hoffman at $8.0 million, Bill Hall -- Bill Hall! -- still collecting $7.2 million of Bernie Brewer's money while hitting .218 for Boston, and Prince Fielder gearing up for a Scott Boras-sized payday in 2012, Brewers GM Doug Melvin might be wishing he'd been on the bus out of town, too. Macha, a convenient target of scorn, might be wise to strap on a parachute on the flight to Pittsburgh.

The Pirates are now ahead of the Brewers in the standings. It could be all my fault for posting that earlier blog entry; I've awakened the Baseball Gods and earned their scorn and retribution. As New York Mammoths' star pitcher Henry "Author" Wiggen says at the end of Bang the Drum Slowly, "From here on in, I rag nobody."

Until tomorrow's game, at least.

Merit Badges

Remember earning merit badges in the Boy Scouts?

I don't. I never got past Tenderfoot, the equivalent rank in Scouting to "maggot" in the Marines. Something about not being able to start a campfire with two wet matches. But I did earn a nifty Bowman patch at the archery range at Camp Boyhaven one summer, and one winter at the Deep Freeze Jamboree (they use words like "Jamboree" in the Scouts), my Deer Patrol teammates earned us another patch, exhausting themselves pulling me on a sled around a timed obstacle course and successfully cheating at the signals checkpoint. Way to go, guys!

Professional certifications are the merit badges of the corporate workplace. I recently took the ITIL V3 Foundation exam following a six-month contract that lasted two months. If the Deer Patrol were to decode "ITIL V3" on the signal range, with or without deploying a runner from the send station to the receive station -- I'm not saying that's what happened -- we would report that it's a stilted, U.K.-originated IT management jargon used by IT departments at budget-justification time to promise that they will, for a small investment this year, say a 10% cost increase, disentangle and standardize (er, standardise) their various functions and processes so that costs can be reduced the year after next; by which time, it is hoped, this year's budget cycle will be largely forgotten. When I passed the ITIL V3 exam at one of those ubiquitous computerized testing centers, the certifying organization, EXEL, sent me a certificate and a pin. A pin! For me! I put it on my sash, right next to my other merit...oh, wait. Never mind.

Merit badges come in all shapes and sizes. I'm reminded of this whenever they trot out a flag rank military leader to go before Congress or the cameras at budget-justification time, his or her dress uniform festooned with about a hundred colorful insignia, each representing some courageous or meritorious accomplishment. Once in a while, the press catches some ex-military political appointee sporting a merit badge that he didn't earn, and then all hell breaks loose. We former Scouts who have passed the ITIL V3 exam recognize the public procedure that follows: in ITIL V3 terms, it's referred to as the "Service Operations: Gang-Wedgie" process.

Modern life is full of merit badges that you can earn: high school diplomas, sports trophies, driver's licenses, college degrees, letters of recognition, paychecks and promotions, perp walks. I think there should be additional awards for the intangible accomplishments in life. When you figure out a new commuting route across town that avoids the construction in rush hour, you should get a merit badge in transportation. When you get your kids to eat their vegetables, both you and they should get a merit badge on the spot. When you 'fess up to transgressions from your youth -- I'm not saying that's what happened -- you should get a badge, too.

In this spirit of generosity, I am pleased to announce that I hereby award myself the Fire Starter merit badge. On several occasions this past winter, at long last, I successfully built a wood fire from scratch, using only two matches. It turns out, the trick is to build it indoors.

Too Much of Nutting: Pirates Lose, 20-0

Having lived in Pittsburgh three times in my life, including one particularly great day in the crib listening to the radio when Bill Mazeroski hit his World Series-winning home run (so I'm informed by a reliable source), I remain a fascinated outside observer of the city's major sports franchises.

I stayed up last night to see the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins' well-fought, triple-overtime defeat at the hands of the Ottawa Senators in the first round of the playoffs. Nearly losing the team to bankruptcy and relocation several times in the team's history, Pittsburgh fans have thoroughly enjoyed the Penguins' 21st Century renaissance.

I'm ruefully following the sordid train-wreck of an off-field life of Steelers' quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, with his motorcycle crash, barhopping misconduct, alleged assaults and improprieties, and now, a multiple-game league suspension. But frankly, I'm more interested in the long-term trajectory of the team's fortunes. Big Ben's shoestring tackle following a turnover saved one Super Bowl opportunity for Pittsburgh, and his perfectly placed touchdown pass to Santonio Holmes won another. Never mind that Roethlisberger is a risk-taking lunatic and Holmes is now history; the "Stillers" will always be intriguing.

Then, there's yesterday.

The Pittsburgh Pirates -- home to Honus Wagner, Pie Traynor, Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, and Manny Sanguillen; winner of National League pennants and World Series championships as recently as 1979 -- have now had a losing record in 21 consecutive seasons.

Yesterday, they capped off more than two decades of sub-.500 futility with a historically awful, 20-0 drubbing at the hands of the formerly awful, recently capable Milwaukee Brewers.

The Pirates players are reportedly angry and embarrassed. The front office, manager, and coaching staff are surely embarrassed. Ultimately, however, it's all about the ownership and its commitment, or lack thereof, to providing the financial resources for on-the-field success.

For the Penguins, former NHL superstar Mario Lemieux assumed a leadership role and parlayed an ownership share borne of unpaid back salary, a willingness to partner with moneyed interests, his dogged persistence through health problems and arena issues, and his status as franchise and league icon into a consistently successful, entertaining Stanley Cup winner. Around the NFL, the Rooney family is a highly regarded class act, and its stewardship of the Steelers has brought championships and cause for celebration to Pittsburgh.

In contrast, the Pirates' ownership group, led by the Nutting family, fields a persistently losing team with the lowest player payroll in Major League Baseball while remaining profitable due to large revenue-sharing sums from wealthy teams. That's a stick in the eye to the dwindling core of traditionalist fans that, along with casual scenery-seekers, constitutes the Pirates' fan base. Losing is no disgrace, but not even trying -- in this case, an indictment of the team's cynical, miserly ownership rather than its struggling, overmatched players -- is a travesty.

Supposedly, ownership and the front office have a 5-year plan to invest in minor league talent that will blossom into major league competence. That's a formula that worked recently for the Brewers, as Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, Tony Gwynn, Jr., Ryan Braun and J.J. Hardy progressed through the ranks to the major league level. Time will tell whether the Nuttings and their front men in the front office will offer a hot prospect a groundbreaking, millionaire-making contract as the Brewers did with Weeks, but the signs are not promising; at least one recent top prospect, catcher Matt Wieters, was bypassed in the 2007 amateur draft by the Pirates as too expensive to sign. He's now the starting catcher for the Baltimore Orioles. And the beat goes on.

It makes me wonder whether Bud Selig's overriding powers as MLB Commissioner, which reputedly can be invoked at will for the good of the game, can be invoked to effect a much-needed change in the ownership of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Baseball in Pittsburgh has lost its way, but the solution is simple. It's time for Commissioner Selig and his fellow owners to kick the Nuttings out of the crib. The irony is that if they do, it will be the Pirates that can grow up.

Earth Day

Every person that you've ever known who is not, at this moment, either in outer space, flying, soaring, jumping, skipping, leaping, vaulting, performing a handspring, diving, falling, or dead is, at this moment, somewhere on the Earth.

Happy Earth Day.

A Cheshire Cat, With Wings

Andrew Weiland of BizTimes Milwaukee posted an article today about the post-merger rebranding of Milwaukee-based Midwest Airlines as Frontier Airlines: "Only the Cookie Remains".

Midwest had some great amenities in its heyday as Midwest Express: 2x2 leather seating, enough legroom for actual human persons, and real meals featuring real food on real tablecloths. With direct flights that avoided an O'Hare connection, Midwest truly was, as the slogans went, "Milwaukee's Hometown Airline" offering "The Best Care in the Air."

It was a wonderful experience. Passengers were happy cats. Clearly, it couldn't last.

One by one, the amenities disappeared as airline price competition and a moribund travel economy, post-9/11, brought cost-cutting imperatives and forced Midwest to consider consolidation. The company's Board of Directors rebuffed a takeover bid from AirTran Airways, only to sell soon thereafter to Republic Airways, which had also bought Denver-based Frontier Airlines.

Everyone seems relieved that Midwest's fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies, customarily handed out to passengers during the descent, will continue to be part of the customer experience as the fleet is repainted in Frontier's colors. Really? Was it only about the cookies, all along?

The smile may remain, but this cat's disappeared. Like Grizabella, only time will tell if she has another life left in her.

Hell's Bells: Trevor Hoffman Wins One

What do you do when your legendary bullpen ace falters? If you're the Milwaukee Brewers, you win the game anyway. If you're a Brewers fan, it's not so clear.

Sunday night's Brewers-Cardinals game at Miller Park was hugely entertaining for Milwaukee baseball enthusiasts, including my Beloved Spousal Unit and I, perched in the upper deck. Baseball's full range of action was on display: impressive power hitting, alert baserunning, an incredible, diving catch in the outfield, and both expert stops and game-changing errors in the infield.

By the time the overtaxed stadium speakers struck up "Hell's Bells" at peak volume as the Brewers' closer, future Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman, trotted in from the bullpen, the hometown faithful were in a partying mood.

Only, not so fast. Giving up back-to-back homers to Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday -- what other pair of the game's best sluggers would be more likely to come through in the clutch? -- Hoffman closed out merely the half-inning, not the game. He left with a a 7-7 tie, a blown save, and a deflated crowd.

There were boos as he walked off, more than a few. For Trevor Hoffman. The Trevor Hoffman. With 594 career saves, the most in the history of the game. The veteran presence on the pitching staff. The player whose theme song alone whips the crowd into a frenzy.

But also, the Trevor Hoffman who had signed a new contract for a healthy raise early in the off-season, struggled all spring training, and has yet to find his "A"-game this April. Now, two of the game's best hitters take him deep in the ninth. Never mind that the Brewers' Casey McGehee made Hoffman the game's winning pitcher with a walk-off homer moments later. The question remains: is this the beginning of the end for one of the game's superstars?

Could be. But, fellow Milwaukeeans, knock it off with the booing. We're talking about Trevor Hoffman here. Not only is he crucial to our chances, but we're lucky to have the opportunity to watch him at his craft, even in his late career. This is why we bring Rembrandts to the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Milwaukee Public Museum, Eric Clapton to Summerfest, the Bratwurst to the Sausage Race.

We're trying to encourage the Brew Crew to win a ballgame, and we're disappointed when the team falls short some nights. But please, a little appreciation and respect for the great career and continuing efforts of a consummate professional. Enough with the booing. All things considered, I'd rather not be in Philadelphia.

You Too Can Be a Golf Announcer

With the Masters underway, My Two Innings presents Ten Essential Phrases that will help even you achieve your lifelong dream of making a living by talking adoringly about people who walk around lawns for a living while other people carry their equipment for a living:

1. "He's got the courage of a champion."
2. "Not his best effort on that one."
3. "Now, Tiger Woods."
4. "Slight break from left to right."
5. "You can tell he's been working on the range."
6. "They all look good when they go in."
7. "He's got that look in his eye."
8. "It's amazing when you think of all the great champions who have walked across that bridge."
9. "That's in the fescue."
10. "Here's Tiger."

Using only these phrases in a carefully modulated stage whisper, and with the help of a long-suffering on-course reporter who knows the game better than you ever will, you too can earn that network blazer.

Books in 10 Words or LessxxxxFewer

Herewith, My Two Innings presents brief descriptions of well-known books. Based on the recent Twitter meme, #booksin10wordsorless; elevated in status from mere tweets to a full blog entry.

The grammar cops are correct to insist that we amend the title to "10 words or fewer" from "10 words or less". (I'm holding fast to my revolutionary placement of quotation marks, however).

To business:

1. Ethan Frome: The sled, Ethan, the sled. The sudden deceleration. That's life.

2. Gorky Park: Soviet Union has police detective, too. Like yours but better.

3. Jurassic Park: Prehistoric tse-tse's, manufactured beasties, bovine feasties -- hold onto your keisties!

4. Moneyball: Billy Bean boasts best budget ballplayers.

5. Winnie the Pooh: English child's vivid imagination manifests as blissfully stupid animal friends.

The author reserves the right to add to this list, and will do so whenever the Idiot Spirit moves him.

Three Card Wenceslas; or, Tegwar Revisited

Ten years ago at a family reunion, my sister and I started to play a game that we called Three Card Wenceslas. We'd never played it before, but we both picked it up fairly quickly and, before long, became totally absorbed in a spirited contest.

Three Card Wenceslas has no rules. We made it up as we went along.

She would play a pair. I would meld. She would draw from the deck. I would raise. She would knock. I would discard. And so forth. Complete and utter improvisation. Complete and utter nonsense. Even the name of the game was phony. But we played confidently (and loudly!).

Our mom's cousin wandered over. By that time, my sister and I had progressed to Three Card Blind Wenceslas, played with eyes closed. I think I was holding a card to my forehead. The improvisation continued, with plenty of trash-talking between us.

Our cousin took this in for a while. Finally he asked, "How do you know when someone wins?"

"We just did," I said. Ba-da-boom!

A bit of a lowlife prank to pull on a relative, granted, but at least we didn't scam anyone for money (I rationalize). However, it turns out the cosmic joke of the situation has been on me all along, and I've only just realized it.

You see, I've just finished rereading Bang the Drum Slowly, the touching, tragicomic 1950's baseball and mortality novel by Mark Harris. It was the first time since my early teen years, when I was a budding baseball geek, that I'd read the book. Also, by chance, the 1973 movie version starring Michael Moriarty and Robert De Niro was shown the other night on Turner Classic Movies.

Both are terrific, the book moreso than the movie, but that's not important now. What is important is that the fictional ballplayers played a fictional card game to scam unsuspecting bystanders in hotel lobbies out of their fictional spare cash. The ballplayers' card game was called "Tegwar", and it had no rules. The play of the game was eerily familiar, right down to the trash-talking!

Buried like an intelligence mole in the Early 1970's quadrant of my baseball-addled subconscious, "Tegwar" had been lying in Wait (so to speak) for decades. It reemerged ten years ago as "Three Card Wenceslas" -- the T-W letter combination is too improbable to be purely coincidental, don't you think? When I came across the Tegwar bit in Bang the Drum Slowly recently, the realization of what I'd likely done sent chills up my spine. Cue the Twilight Zone tones!

We'll see our cousin again this summer. Hopefully he'll get a good laugh at my expense when I tell him the "Tegwar" story. It still might work out for me in the end, though; I'm pretty sure I can sell my remaining inventory of "Three Card Wenceslas" rulebooks on eBay.

For Evelyn Evelyn, Life is a Cabaret

Cabaret rocker Amanda Palmer and accordianist Jason Webley have teamed up to produce a forthcoming album of oddball songs by "Evelyn Evelyn", a musical act featuring conjoined twin sisters and former circus performers Eva and Lynn Neville who were "discovered" by Palmer and Webley. The twins don't appear much in public, so it is said, but their songs, featuring musings from many angles on the nature of duality in the universe, would be suitable for the old Dr. Demento radio show.



Perhaps predictably, the twins -- more accurately, their producers -- have their detractors. In particular, Disabled Feminists airs a thoughtful protest that, paraphrasing, Evelyn Evelyn is part of a tired, stereotype-laden treatment of Persons With Disabilities (PWD) by the Abled, as it treats them as freakish, and is therefore objectionable on the face of it. Less admirably, Disabled Feminists goes on to warn prospective commenters against posting any counterarguments on its site that would be "derailing" its apparently unimpeachable criticism of the project.

So, I'll do it here. I would respond: Palmer's and Webley's art lies squarely within the cabaret tradition and is entirely appropriate in that context.

Cabaret as a genre provides a safe space for exploring touchy, edgy, even taboo subjects by treating them humorously, satirically, or entertainingly, for the sake of illuminating the humanity at their core. Like gossip, cabaret art is, at least in part, a communal conversation to discuss essential truths and morals, including where the boundaries are.

Consider the satirical show-within-a-show at the Kit-Kat Klub in the movie Cabaret. The stage show and its songs depict poverty, hunger, greed, promiscuity, antiSemitism, Naziism, etc. We gasp when the "bride" is revealed to be an ape, and then Jewish. Is that depiction in the 1970's movie unacceptable on the face of it, due to its vile antiSemitism -- i.e. should the piece never have been written, performed, and filmed at all -- or does it serve an illuminating purpose by laying bare the antiSemitism of 1930's Germany (and elsewhere, and elsewhen) through satirical mockery?

Consider the subjects of Amanda Palmer's songs "Mandy Goes to Med School", "Missed Me", and "Oasis", to name just a few. "Oasis" alone treats alcohol abuse, date rape, teen pregnancy, abortion, manipulation, betrayal, and denial (all in under two minutes). Those are hardly the only examples of difficult subjects in her repertoire. When in "Guitar Hero" the narrator says "Tie them up and feed them the sand -- ha! N****!", is her use of the n-word variant vile and unacceptable on the face of it -- i.e. should the song have never been written and performed -- or does it serve a greater satirical purpose by illuminating the vulgar slang used, by videogamers and soldiers alike, to dehumanize one's virtual and real enemies?

The critics are welcome to say, they don't like this or that or that something is bad or wrong. That's part of the conversation. And granted, the original conception of Evelyn Evelyn seemed more screwball than purposeful or satirical, though the more recently published Evelyn Evelyn background story can be seen as a kind of a text-based cabaret number. My point is, if you're the kind of person who sees Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" as a political statement against animal rights, you're unlikely to find much of value in Palmer's and Webley's songs -- or indeed, in the entire cabaret tradition.

It's Our Bloggerversary!

Dear Friends (and the occasional "Next Blog" clicker),

One year ago today, I posted a timid entry regarding the number of days remaining until the start of baseball spring training. Thus began a rapid disgorging, ceremonious and unceremonious, of every wee little intellectual twitch I had that I thought might look good in ASCII characters. I had two rules: I had to express a unique take or personal angle on each topic chosen; and...I forget the second rule. Whatever. Oh, right, that was the second rule: Whatever. My internalized Assignment Editor would be checked at the door, or preferably into the boards.

I only violated the spirit of these rules a few times, as with a rather generic recent review of the new Sherlock Holmes movie. That's the neat thing about having a blog, though: I can flout my own rules at will. In the immortal words of General Al Haig: I'm in charge here, yo ho ho!

Since My Two Innings was initiated, I and my Beloved Spousal Unit (take a bow, dear) have rescued ourselves from the brink of Denver employment and happily scurried back into the warm embrace of Milwaukee's economic malaise. This represented the closing leg of an epic, four-year tour of America's most benighted, yet reportedly above-average cities -- all of which seemed to involve driving large trucks through Nebraska to get there.

Meanwhile, through the secular magic of Blogger, I've indulged in numerous obscure references, ignored highly sensible educational requirements that one should meet before engaging in art criticism, and decried the downfall of third-rate sports teams that were never really as good as second-rate to begin with. Baseball, Hockey, Movies, and Music have all been featured prominently in these scribblings, naturally, but who knew at the outset that Bowling Alley Demolition, Equestrian Feats, and Male Hereditary Characteristics would also become tagged entries? Free Verse, even -- twice. Talk about indulgence.

I don't want to give you the wrong impression. It's not been all Pulitzer Prizes and mid-six-figures book contracts. Distractions from a more dedicated commitment to the blog and to writing generally have included a foray into the lamentable, lazy man's world of Twitter; a randomly occurring, sudden spate of gainfulness carrying with it the strangely alluring appeal of a paycheck; and the predictable development that it took only two months in the beginning to use up all of my passably tolerable stories.

Even so, I've managed to prove once and for all, in this media-slogged millenium, that an amateur blogger's two best friends are an ergonomic keyboard and a low readership count.

So here we are again, only seven weeks until pitchers and catchers report. At the rate things are going, that's either three blog posts, two soul-crushing Pittsburgh Pirates salary dumps, or one exceptionally long drive through Nebraska. My money's on the Nuttings, as they haven't disappointed me yet. Good luck on your picks, and Happy New Year to you and yours!

Sherlock Holmes: Steampunk Pugilist?

The new Sherlock Holmes movie is rollicking, steampunkish, and artfully dark and bleak in its cinematographic depiction of Victorian London. The fast-moving plot calls to mind old-time, Saturday-at-the-movies serials. The gothic darkness reminds me of the first Batman movie with Michael Keaton.

This production goes over the top with its amount (rather than severity) of cartoonish fisticuffs and James Bond-like physical predicaments. Not the about-to-be-caught-with-Miss Moneypenny, sexy-fun kind of predicaments but the about-to-be-sawn-in-half, always-in-peril kind of predicaments. The Holmes-Watson relationship in the film has been much discussed, but it's really only suggested rather than explicit. The critics may have it otherwise, but this is no Brokeback Baker Street.

The dialogue is quick, mumbling, and often hard to hear with a loud, action-movie soundtrack behind it. For that reason alone, those with reduced hearing capability will find the movie's wit and subtleties -- and there are plenty of both -- difficult to follow.

Robert Downey Jr. chews the scenery, of course, and Jude Law's version of Dr. Watson shows deeper depth than some other Watson depictions. This Irene Adler is a fetching but shallow character, as is Watson's fiancee, Mary. The dark-caped villain Lord Blackwell, an antagonist of evil intent, calls to mind the dark Don Giovanni figure in Amadeus, or even Darth Vader. Have I mentioned that the movie is dark?

Appropriately, we saw Sherlock Holmes at a holiday week matinee. We enjoyed it but were glad for the early show discount. I hope these facts provide you with enough clues to deduce our summary rating.

Healthcare Reform: It's All About the Benjamins

My continuing objection to the U.S. healthcare model, with or without the currently proposed reform legislation, is that it relies upon an obsolete, anti-growth employment model that includes four invalid, or soon-to-be invalid, assumptions:

(1) Employment is continuous, or at least sequential, and each job has a duration on the order of several months or more;

(2) Employment compensation consists of only traditional salary or wages that correspond to time served rather than value added;

(3) Employment occurs, and healthcare benefits therefore accrue, within a single political jurisdiction;

(4) Ability to pay healthcare costs and insurance premiums depends upon one's salary or wages rather than one's accumulated wealth (as does the income tax, for that matter).

In a truly innovative, venture-based economy, creative contributors might work several hours for one client, work a month and a half for another, and have an intermittent gig with a third -- and that's only in one's main line of business. There might also be a side project or two, perhaps some online sales, investment income, capital gains, etc. Or perhaps a high-mobility worker travels from jobsite to jobsite, his or her geographic flexibility across state and national boundaries, going to where the work is, representing a crucial contribution to an efficiently operating global economic system.

Having healthcare benefits associated with traditional, full-time employment makes little sense in the current economy in which traditional employment describes the circumstances of fewer and fewer citizens. The high-volatility economy simply doesn't square with the traditional workplace assumptions underlying the healthcare debate. To reconcile healthcare reform efforts with modern workplace realities, a historical perspective may, ironically, provide the most illumination.

Consider that, similar to today's venture-driven economy, many of the nation's founders, including Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, pursued multiple lines of entrepreneurial business, often simultaneously. This suggests a conceptual litmus test for evaluating today's healthcare reform proposals: would any proposed system under discussion that is still based on salary and wage income have covered Washington's leeches, Franklin's syphilis treatments, and Jefferson's extended family?

The McCarver Rule, On Ice

When it comes to making observations, baseball analyst and ex-catcher Tim McCarver has a unique gift of foresight. His prediction of Luis Gonzales's winning base hit in the classic 2001 World Series -- McCarver called not only the winning hit but how and where the ball would likely be hit, and why, based on the game situation -- should be in the broadcast archives of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

McCarver's observations extend beyond unique scenarios to universal laws. He proclaims with confidence that in the history of baseball, no conversation between a batter who has reached first base and the first baseman has ever meant anything. Then, there is the now-famous McCarver Rule: every time you watch a baseball game, you're likely to see something, or a combination of things, that you've never seen before. Perhaps a triple play; or a double play where an outfielder applies the final tag; or a pitch over everyone's head that the batter swings at anyway. Something.

What I didn't realize until today is that the McCarver Rule extends to realms beyond baseball. Less than a minute into tonight's Minnesota-Michigan college hockey game, Minnesota was penalized two minutes when the refs and linesmen threw two overly aggressive players in a row out of the same faceoff. I've been watching college hockey for more than four decades -- including a short stint as the World's Worst College Hockey Announcer -- and I'd never seen that rule applied before. Frankly, I didn't even know it existed.

Was this startling occurrence in fact the McCarver Rule in operation? If so, is it now to be understood as a universal law of all sports? Kenneth, what is the frequency? Crucial research questions all that now fall to Your Humble Correspondent to investigate.

Shocked, Shocked About Steroids

Retired pitcher Curt Schilling once wrote an emphatic opinion piece on his 38 Pitches blog about the steroids era in baseball. According to Schilling, it's naive to think that any major league team was completely clean during that era, which he says encompassed his entire career.

It's deflating to realize that such awesome spectacles as the McGwire vs. Sosa home run race of 1998, the tape measure home runs of Bonds and A-Rod, the clutch hitting of Manny Ramierez, and the power pitching of Roger Clemens into his greybeard years have reflected the willingness of players to cheat and owners, executives, and managers to look the other way -- perhaps even encourage the practice.

In addition to steroids, consider: growth hormones (both human and equine); blood-doping (both human and equine); surgical enhancement (Tommy John surgery, LASIK); podiatrics (athletic shoe design); textile science (swimsuit fabrics); applied aerodynamics (curveballs, spitballs, knuckleballs); and statistical evaluation ("Moneyball"). And oh, those lovely East German swimmers! Success and failure accrue not just to athletes but also the technological prowess of the society that sends them forth into the arena.

Given the importance of sports in understanding the capabilities and limits of the human body, and the importance of sports science in developing those capabilities further, is there really a clear, ethical line between physical enhancements that represent cheating and those that are legitimate technological advances? Who makes that determination?

Consider the classical origins of athletics: as a means of inspiring, motivating and testing physical fitness, coordination, teamwork, and strategy -- in preparation for military battle. Somewhere right now, some American kids on combat patrol are probably taking various performance-enhancing drugs in a belief (true or mistaken) that doing so will aid in their muscle recovery or alertness and help keep them alive. Some American captains or sergeants might be encouraging this practice.

Somehow I doubt that the public would react to such "cheating" with the same scorn that it heaps upon juiced ballplayers who, for reasons both laudable and selfish, have given their bodies over to the R&D labs.

Yankees Win, Blah Blah Blah

Speaking of Philadelphia, weren't they just in a World Series? It's been only two weeks since the end of the baseball season, but the victory by the Yankees over the Phillies has already receded from front-of-brain consciousness.

For me, the iconic play of the postseason came in Game 4: Johnny Damon's alert steal of third base when nobody was covering the bag. That play showed verve and spirit. Other than that, not much comes to mind. Hideki Matsui hit a bunch of homers and doubles in the final game, and Mariano Rivera pitched more than one inning a few times. Andy Pettitte pitched with his usual Pete Sampras-like countenance. Derek Jeter got on base some, I'm pretty sure. Must have. A-Rod had a big game at some point, didn't he?

Ever the fair-weather fan, I tried to get excited about the Yankees win, which (unacceptably to some) was nine long years in coming. I'd grown up in Upstate New York during the losing Yankee seasons of the late 1960's and early 1970's, post-Mickey Mantle, pre-Thurman Munson and pre-Reggie Jackson. After pitching ace Mel Stottlemyre, graceful outfielder Roy White, and the late Bobby Murcer, the talent level on those teams fell off sharply. Recalling those lean years, I hold that a championship is never to be taken for granted -- even by a pinstriped franchise with a payroll large enough to fund NASA.

In that spirit, I caught some of the 2009 post-parade ceremony at City Hall. Honestly, I've never seen a more subdued, workmanlike celebration. With few exceptions, the players sauntered out when their names were called, most looking for all the world like they'd rather be somewhere else, or wanted a fee for their appearance. (In fairness, serious hangovers could have been involved.) Keys to the city were presented by Mayor Bloomberg to each Yankee player, including minor-league call-ups, as well as every last team employee down to the shoeshine kid. A few short speeches were made; a few onlookers cheered.

Most of the speakers credited Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, now in failing health, and his sons for their massive spending on star players that has driven and disrupted the economics of baseball for three decades. To finance astronomical salaries, ticket prices have risen over the years, and have now reached the level of the absurd in the new Yankee Stadium. It's no longer New York's barbers and cabdrivers who can afford to attend the games, especially in the seats closest to home plate, but bankers, lawyers and celebrity politicians. Perhaps this explains the curiously underwhelming response when the final out of Game 5 was recorded. "The-e-e Yankees win!" said the team's broadcaster. The fans cheered; the players put on special caps and t-shirts; the loudspeakers played We Are The Champions. All according to plan.

(Is noone aware that Queen's vainglorious winner's anthem was meant to be ironic?)

Excellence through expectation and execution is admirable in business and sports alike, but only in the corporate world is it enough. Sports requires passion as well as achievement to hold fan interest and build loyalty. As the Yankees report to spring training in 2010 and prepare to defend their 27th championship -- will Manager Joe Girardi change his number from 27 to 28? -- the best they can hope for if they succeed is not ecstasy but relief at meeting the annual plan.

Meanwhile, baseball enthusiasts everywhere else will hope that their team can stoke up, catch lightning, and take down the mighty Yanks. Explosive exuberance awaits the franchise and its fans whose players can, just once, overachieve wildly, steal a pennant and a championship, and reach the very pinnacle of their professional existence.

          Irrational, yes; impossible, no --
          We're in first place! Go, Brewers, Go!

"The Hammer"

The Philadelphia Flyers retired Dave "The Hammer" Schultz's No. 8 last night at The Spectrum. This tribute to the NHL's Super Goon of the 1970's portends either (a) the fall of Western Civilization or (b) the resurrection of Philadelphia hockey. Or both. Quick litmus test, for those on the fence: Do you like gladiator movies?

Schultz was a fighter and a game changer, the defining member of Philly's Broad Street Bullies championship teams of 1973-74 and 1974-75. Bobby Clarke scored the goals and Bernie Parent stood on his head in goal, but it was Schultz's clownish, brawling fisticuffs that set other teams off-balance. His antics not only inspired his own team but set the tone for a generation of brutality-as-comedy vehicles in the popular culture, from Paul Newman's minor league hockey movie Slapshot to Warren Zevon's hockey anthem, Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song):

          Brains over brawn -- that might work for you,
          But what's a Canadian farm boy to do?

The Hammer's 472 penalty minutes in 1974-75 -- only hockey celebrates its most flagrant lawbreakers -- are still an NHL single-season record. So iconic were Schultz's hockey fights that several exemplary, brutal specimens of his art are posted on his own web site.

Philadelphia built a statue to Rocky, Sylvester Stallone's fictional prizefighter, but it was a real fighter that clutched and punched his way into the city's heart and reaffirmed its combative, working class soul. If the Flyers of Broad Street contend for this year's Stanley Cup, as seems likely, they will do so with two championship banners from four decades ago and Dave Schultz's No. 8 as their visible inspirations from above.

          Hit somebody!

One. Tera. Byte.

Always the futurist, I bought a Leading Edge Model D Personal Computer in 1986 for $1,500. With its amber-colored monochrome monitor, proprietary word processing and database software, and choice of either two floppy drives or one floppy and one hard drive, this Korean-made entry into the nascent, IBM-compatible personal computer market was considered at the time to be a value-oriented bargain.

I opted for the hardware version with two 360-kilobyte floppy drives. Why would a home user, even a writer wannabe, ever need a hard drive, a $100 option? Who could possibly fill even a fraction of ten megabytes -- that's more than a million English words! Twenty novels! Whereas my likely storage requirement was for a half-dozen unpublished articles, a dozen letters home, and a couple of text adventure games.

With word processing software disk in one floppy drive and data disk in the other, I was good to go. No more tiptoeing around allowable-use policies on the mainframes and time-sharing systems at school and work. No more jostling for access to shared PC equipment and dedicated word processors. No more flipping sign-up sheets. More disk space than I thought I would ever need, totally at my disposal, totally my own. So modern; so ahead of the curve. You bet!

I just looked at the electronics ads in this morning's Sunday edition of the New York Times. For a mere $200 -- discounted online to about $100 -- you can now buy an external hard drive from a computer accessories vendor that has one terabyte of data storage space.

One terabyte for $100. With apologies to binary computing purists, that's 1000 gigabytes, each of which is 1000 megabytes, each of which is 1000 kilobytes, each of which is 1000 bytes. 100 billion English words. Two million novels.

I'd better start writing!

How Life Imitates a Thomas Boswell Column

For decades, sportswriter and columnist Thomas Boswell of The Washington Post has penned beautiful, trenchant commentary. His baseball writing, in particular, captures the hard truths and romantic spirit of the game, mostly without succumbing to the wistful dreaminess so typical in the trade (except in his book titles: How Life Imitates the World Series, Why Time Begins on Opening Day, etc.).

Boswell always writes with a purpose to a cathartic conclusion. One professor of my acquaintance assigns his carefully crafted columns to her writing classes for basic training in rhetoric. Until his World Series preview column this morning, however, I hadn't sent a link to one of his WashPost pieces to a friend or relative for a couple of years, maybe more. Reading Boswell used to be a twice-weekly routine for me, a necessary act of recreation. Why no longer?


One answer: the rise of rapid-fire highlight and debate shows on cable. A high volume of quick, pithy takes on topical issues -- often at high volume -- has superseded the well-thought-out exploration of a single theme. In sports, Tony Kornheiser's and Mike Wilbon's Pardon the Interruption, a preeminent, high-quality example of this format, even employs a time bell to keep the discussion lively.

Another: On the Internet, vehement opinion-mongering in response to any mental stimulus has supplanted the omniscient, thoughtful, writerly voice of yore. Whether in politics, sports, or celebrity gossip, the role of today's columnists, talk-show hosts, and bloggers is to kick off an inflammatory debate that will maximize the number of page hits by rabid partisans. The inmates are in charge of the asylum. The tabloids have always been with us, to be sure, but careful consideration of topical issues by an informed commentator now seems as quaint as a Labor Day doubleheader.

But I think the primary reason is that Boswell's talent is largely wasted on covering the Washington Nationals, a quasi-replacement franchise for the team of his youth, the twice-departed Washington Senators. Brilliant writing about the nearby Baltimore Orioles in the Cal Ripken/Eddie Murray era could not assuage his grief and anger at Major League Baseball officials over not having a team in the Nation's Capital. Boswell's columns became a sweet, sad song of yearning for a new franchise to replace the loss and end the grieving. Along the way, he excoriated baseball leadership -- from the Commissioner-for-Life, to the Players Association's obstinate boss, to the Orioles' incompetent owner -- for debasing the game that he cherishes, and that his readers have come to cherish through his writings, week by week.


At long last, Boswell's prayers and entreaties were answered: Major League Baseball delivered a franchise to Washington. The Nationals, nee the Montreal Expos, arrived to play for D.C.-area baseball fans -- and were quickly confirmed as a flop, the new taxpayer-funded stadium sparsely filled, the new team's flaws ruthlessly exposed by baseball's unforgiving 162-game season. Even the best writer in the business can lose his edge when his lifelong dream is fulfilled, and it turns out to be a letdown.

But now comes the World Series, and life, like sportswriting, returns to the present tense. Boswell's beat shifts back from the local losers to the exalted winners. In his World Series preview column this morning, he sets up this year's classic match-up between the Phillies and Yankees -- brilliantly, concisely, and from several levels: analytical, critical, cultural, economic, inspirational. What he says about the World Series is...well, click here and enjoy the read. He says it better than I ever can.

Once again, Tom Boswell has made me care about this trivial, irrelevant, thoroughly wonderful game, infused with as much meaning as everything that's most important in my life. I sent the link to my friends.

Former Math Major, Reclining

She: Did you have any dreams?
Me: No, I had axioms.