By Edwin Cooney
Since 1869, professional baseball has been America’s “national pastime.” Like its fans, baseball is entertaining, and often grippingly outrageous. Recent scandals involving Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez remind fans once again that the game costs too much and besides — it ain’t fair anymore. The truth is that baseball is a lot of wonderful things, but fair is one thing it has never consistently been.
Baseball was born in small town America, but only large corporations can afford to run baseball these days. Back on Tuesday, May 29, 1922, the brethren of the U.S. Supreme Court (which then was populated with such distinguished personages as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Louis Brandeis and William Howard Taft) ruled in FEDERAL CLUB V. NATIONAL LEAGUE , 259 U.S. 200 (1922) that baseball was a sport not a business. That is, baseball wasn’t a business under the provisions of the Sherman-Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal statute that regulated interstate commerce. On that historic date, baseball owners got their piece of the pie.
Of course, back then practically all of the 16 major league teams were run by individual entrepreneurs or well-heeled families such as the Wrigleys and the Comiskeys. Even if the high court didn’t think baseball was a business, Americans knew better. Connie Mack, the man who owned and managed the Philadelphia Athletics, used to say that the best year was when your team was in first place through Labor Day, because if it went to the World Series, you’d have to pay the players more money the following year. You can be sure that Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy — whom some called “Mr. Mack” and others called “the tall tactician”— knew the difference between every nickel and dollar he ever spent.
Like its fans, the game has been touched by scandal numerous times. Most everyone has heard about the Black Sox Scandal of 1919 when eight White Sox players were paid by gamblers to throw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. That wasn’t the first time gamblers tainted the game.
Back in 1877, Louisville Grays pitcher Jim Devlin and three other Grays players admitted to “hippodroming” -- or throwing -- games. Devlin was the team’s only pitcher (they pretty much threw underhanded back then) and the ringleader. What makes this story so American is the irony that following Devlin’s expulsion from the National League, civic- minded Philadelphians made Jim Devlin one of their policemen! As the great baseball announcer Mel Allen used to say: “How about that!”
Imagine what ESPN’s Sports Center would look like if what happened back in 1912 happened today. Ty Cobb’s Tigers were in New York playing the Yankees on Tuesday, May 15th. A loud fan spent the entire afternoon shouting personal insults at Cobb. The fan jeered his lineage, integrity and manhood. The Tigers appealed to the Yankees to do something about the fan without success. Finally, Cobb had had enough and went into the stands. Within a very short time, the fan was a bloody mess and the police moved in. It wasn’t even a good fight, but there was a reason for that. The fan, Claude Lucker, was missing one hand and had only part of the other hand as the result of an industrial accident. As if that wasn’t enough, when American League President Ban Johnson fined and suspended Cobb, the Tigers retaliated by threatening to strike. Cobb was too mean to be popular with his teammates, but with the Tiger players blaming the Yankees for the whole incident, for once he had their sympathy. The home team, as the Tigers saw it, was responsible for controlling the hometown fans. Johnson said that if the Tigers didn’t play, the organization would be fined five thousand “big ones”.
The players were as good as their word and, when the Tigers were scheduled to play the Athletics in Philadelphia on May 18th, they struck. To avoid the $5,000 fine, the Tigers quickly hired seven St. Joseph College players and two sandlot players to take their places. The nine Philadelphia players, representing Detroit, Michigan for a day, were backed up by a couple of coaches, retired players who came out of retirement for the day.
As you might guess, the game was a disaster for pitcher Aloysius Travers (who would eventually become a priest). The A’s scored 24 runs off him and his teammates made nine errors behind him.
One of the hired players was Billy Maharg who, according to some sources, was a go-between in the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. His real name was, supposedly, William Joseph Graham — Maharg spelled backward. Here’s another twist for you: you could call him Billy Graham.
Twenty thousand fans paid to see the spectacle. You may ask did they get their money’s worth? This really did happen. If you don’t believe me, as Casey Stengel used to say, “you can look it up”.
Baseball will easily survive the hysteria over Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Roger Clemens and others who may or may not be eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. You know Cooperstown, New York: that’s the American village where baseball wasn’t really invented.
Baseball is more than a game. It’s part true and part legend, it’s tradition, it’s the unpredictable, and, best of all, it is loaded with incredible stories all of which you and I have yet to hear. Above all, baseball is you, me, and the rest of America in the mirror.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, May 18, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
BEYOND THE RECORD
By Edwin Cooney
If you’ve lived long enough, debated and evaluated people and events frequently enough, you’ve judged losers who really were winners and winners who should have been losers. It can take an entire lifetime to realize the difference. Jack Kemp, who died on Saturday, May 2, 2009, was mostly a winner.
Mr. Kemp was born on Sunday, July 13, 1935 in Los Angeles, California. Despite being a lad of slight stature, he was determined to play football from the age of six and eventually realized his improbable dream. A 1957 graduate of Occidental College, he was drafted, signed and subsequently cut by five different NFL and AFL teams: the Lions, Steelers, Giants, and Chargers. Ultimately, he was acquired by the Buffalo Bills. With the Bills, he’d be a two-time AFL champion. In fact, he was so popular that he won a seat in Congress representing Hamburg and parts of Buffalo, New York less than a year following his 1970 retirement from football.
He was handsome, energetic, and principled and, above all, a man of his word.
I met him in late May 1965 while representing the Batavia, New York State School for the Blind at a Lions Club fundraising weekend in Geneva, New York. He was one of the celebrity guests. “I’m not much of a football fan,” I told him, “What interests me about you is your conservatism.”
I spoke of my admiration for Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, and Republican conservatism. He told me to write him a letter care of the Bills and he’d put me in touch with Mr. Nixon. I didn’t really believe him. I thanked him, of course, but I was sure time would render his offer unlikely. So, I let it pass.
In mid January 1966, I was sitting in study hall during exam week confident that I could pass my next examination easily enough. One of the typewriters was free, so I sat down and wrote a letter to Jack Kemp care of the Bills reminding him of who I was and where I’d met him. I thought it was unlikely that I’d ever hear from him, but into the mail it went.
About six weeks later, I got a letter from Mr. Kemp. It came in a large envelope containing his photo with a football (of course) and it was autographed to me. In his letter he said he would soon be in California to campaign for Ronald Reagan with men whose names were then magic to me: Barry Goldwater, Everett Dirksen and Richard M. Nixon. “I’ll tell Mr. Nixon of your admiration for him,” he wrote.
In early June 1966, I learned that Jack Kemp had kept his word. I got a letter from Richard Nixon with a copy of his book “Six Crises,” which was autographed to me and a picture of Mr. Nixon that was also autographed. Thus my enduring gratitude to Jack Kemp.
Life goes on however. As Jack Kemp became established as a Republican Congressman, I increasingly grew restive about GOP principles. His position on public men such as Ronald Reagan and issues such as supply-side economics became increasingly alien to me. As far as I was concerned, he belatedly declared that he’d vote for the Articles of Impeachment against Mr. Nixon (August 5, 1974). My heart had already been broken by Richard Nixon, so it was hard for me to understand how Jack Kemp, a man of Christian and political principles, wasn’t already sufficiently disillusioned.
Still, I couldn’t entirely consider Congressman Kemp a nonentity. Clearly he was a conservative icon and his 1988 presidential candidacy was of some interest to me. It didn’t seem likely that he’d really be successful though. He was substantial enough, but he often talked too fast and his voice had a ragged tinge to it that I was sure grated on some folk’s nerves. (Actually, I empathized with him on that score as I live with a similar malady.) Still, those 1965/1966 memories were compelling.
Although energetic and passionate, Kemp was an intensely private person, reluctant to talk publicly about his personal experiences and emotional inclinations. Nevertheless, he possessed intellectual and spiritual depth and integrity. He cared intensely about minorities and the disabled. He sought to make it possible for tenants of public housing to purchase their homes while he was George H. W. Bush’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Although thwarted in that effort, he was instrumental in the passage of the Affordable Housing Act which has annually made money available through block grants to low income home and business owners.
If there are some inclined to dismiss Jack Kemp as merely one of those whose name is on a list of ignominious losing vice presidential candidates (such as John Bricker, Bill Miller, Robert Dole, and Sarah Palin), they’d be well advised to recall that others on that list (Henry Cabot Lodge, Earl Warren, Edmund Muskie, and Franklin Roosevelt) were men of substantial achievement.
Sports heroes and politicians are inevitably judged by their records. Even though he was nominated for the second highest office in our land, Jack Kemp is likely to be remembered most for his success on the football field where he was truly one of the best during his career. However, the impact he made on the ideas of the nation and people he cared most about is intangible. Its substance is energy, commitment, belief, and loyalty. Even so, his legacy glimmers like a magnificent beacon shining above and beyond any achievement measurable in any record book. Goodness! That definition might be the description of a star!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
If you’ve lived long enough, debated and evaluated people and events frequently enough, you’ve judged losers who really were winners and winners who should have been losers. It can take an entire lifetime to realize the difference. Jack Kemp, who died on Saturday, May 2, 2009, was mostly a winner.
Mr. Kemp was born on Sunday, July 13, 1935 in Los Angeles, California. Despite being a lad of slight stature, he was determined to play football from the age of six and eventually realized his improbable dream. A 1957 graduate of Occidental College, he was drafted, signed and subsequently cut by five different NFL and AFL teams: the Lions, Steelers, Giants, and Chargers. Ultimately, he was acquired by the Buffalo Bills. With the Bills, he’d be a two-time AFL champion. In fact, he was so popular that he won a seat in Congress representing Hamburg and parts of Buffalo, New York less than a year following his 1970 retirement from football.
He was handsome, energetic, and principled and, above all, a man of his word.
I met him in late May 1965 while representing the Batavia, New York State School for the Blind at a Lions Club fundraising weekend in Geneva, New York. He was one of the celebrity guests. “I’m not much of a football fan,” I told him, “What interests me about you is your conservatism.”
I spoke of my admiration for Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, and Republican conservatism. He told me to write him a letter care of the Bills and he’d put me in touch with Mr. Nixon. I didn’t really believe him. I thanked him, of course, but I was sure time would render his offer unlikely. So, I let it pass.
In mid January 1966, I was sitting in study hall during exam week confident that I could pass my next examination easily enough. One of the typewriters was free, so I sat down and wrote a letter to Jack Kemp care of the Bills reminding him of who I was and where I’d met him. I thought it was unlikely that I’d ever hear from him, but into the mail it went.
About six weeks later, I got a letter from Mr. Kemp. It came in a large envelope containing his photo with a football (of course) and it was autographed to me. In his letter he said he would soon be in California to campaign for Ronald Reagan with men whose names were then magic to me: Barry Goldwater, Everett Dirksen and Richard M. Nixon. “I’ll tell Mr. Nixon of your admiration for him,” he wrote.
In early June 1966, I learned that Jack Kemp had kept his word. I got a letter from Richard Nixon with a copy of his book “Six Crises,” which was autographed to me and a picture of Mr. Nixon that was also autographed. Thus my enduring gratitude to Jack Kemp.
Life goes on however. As Jack Kemp became established as a Republican Congressman, I increasingly grew restive about GOP principles. His position on public men such as Ronald Reagan and issues such as supply-side economics became increasingly alien to me. As far as I was concerned, he belatedly declared that he’d vote for the Articles of Impeachment against Mr. Nixon (August 5, 1974). My heart had already been broken by Richard Nixon, so it was hard for me to understand how Jack Kemp, a man of Christian and political principles, wasn’t already sufficiently disillusioned.
Still, I couldn’t entirely consider Congressman Kemp a nonentity. Clearly he was a conservative icon and his 1988 presidential candidacy was of some interest to me. It didn’t seem likely that he’d really be successful though. He was substantial enough, but he often talked too fast and his voice had a ragged tinge to it that I was sure grated on some folk’s nerves. (Actually, I empathized with him on that score as I live with a similar malady.) Still, those 1965/1966 memories were compelling.
Although energetic and passionate, Kemp was an intensely private person, reluctant to talk publicly about his personal experiences and emotional inclinations. Nevertheless, he possessed intellectual and spiritual depth and integrity. He cared intensely about minorities and the disabled. He sought to make it possible for tenants of public housing to purchase their homes while he was George H. W. Bush’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Although thwarted in that effort, he was instrumental in the passage of the Affordable Housing Act which has annually made money available through block grants to low income home and business owners.
If there are some inclined to dismiss Jack Kemp as merely one of those whose name is on a list of ignominious losing vice presidential candidates (such as John Bricker, Bill Miller, Robert Dole, and Sarah Palin), they’d be well advised to recall that others on that list (Henry Cabot Lodge, Earl Warren, Edmund Muskie, and Franklin Roosevelt) were men of substantial achievement.
Sports heroes and politicians are inevitably judged by their records. Even though he was nominated for the second highest office in our land, Jack Kemp is likely to be remembered most for his success on the football field where he was truly one of the best during his career. However, the impact he made on the ideas of the nation and people he cared most about is intangible. Its substance is energy, commitment, belief, and loyalty. Even so, his legacy glimmers like a magnificent beacon shining above and beyond any achievement measurable in any record book. Goodness! That definition might be the description of a star!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, May 4, 2009
SO! WHAT DO WE KNOW?
By Edwin Cooney
What our recent preoccupation with the significance of President Barack Obama’s first one hundred days probably best demonstrates is that our thirst for presidential scrutiny is as much about personal identification as it is about genuine historical analysis.
Since FDR’s time, except during periods of economic uncertainty, little attention has been paid to the new boss’s first ninety-nine White House morrows. However, these are uncertain economic times, to say the least, and everyone is watching closely (especially the president’s foes both political and personal).
A quick peak at a few post FDR presidencies might provide us a bit of perspective.
The first one hundred days of George W. Bush’s administration were almost anticlimactic after eight turbulent years of William Jefferson Clinton. True, there was still much gnashing of teeth over the “Supreme Court Presidency” of the shy and newly minted George Bush. Still, the economy, which had been in a tailspin during the last months of the Clinton presidency, was expected to be righted by the new administration’s tax cut engineered through a GOP Congress. This tax cut would use the Clinton “surpluses” (which the GOP doubted really existed) until it came time for them to share the money with their political friends. This reality notwithstanding, Sunday, April 29, 2001 arrived, smiled at President Bush for twenty-four hours, and receded into history leaving Americans still hopeful about their new leader.
Bill Clinton’s first one hundred days were pretty much a disaster. It seemed that things were falling apart rather than coming together almost as soon as he lowered his right hand after taking the presidential oath. By April 29, 1993, two Attorney General candidates (Zoë Baird and Kimba Wood) had been forced to withdraw for employing illegal aliens as domestics. The third appointee (Janet Reno) was already embroiled in the April 19,1993 Branch Davidian holocaust. Additionally, terrorists had partially destroyed the World Trade Center on February 26th raising questions of the president’s ability to keep us safe. Finally, as if all that wasn’t enough, Bill Clinton was unpopular by his hundredth day with both straight and gay citizens over his “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise for gays in the military. Obviously, there would be no second term for William Jefferson Clinton — would there?
President Ronald Wilson Reagan was still riding high by his hundredth day in office, but his popularity had nearly cost him his life. He’d been elected, in part, to clean up Jimmy Carter’s economic mess which had been brought on by a combination of high interest rates, unemployment, and inflation, or “stagflation” as they called it. Budget cutting, tax cutting and income tax indexing were some of President Reagan’s proposed antidotes for the ailing 1981 economy. The proposed solutions hadn’t even been fully thrashed out when young John Hinckley, Jr. severely wounded the president, his press secretary and two Secret Service men outside a Washington, D.C. hotel on Monday, March 30, 1981. Even by President Reagan’s one hundredth day in office, it was apparent that America was enthralled by his decisiveness, ideological principles and personal magnetism and would likely re-elect him if the Secret Service could only protect him.
By April 29, 1977, Jimmy Carter was rapidly spending what political capital he possessed when he proposed a domestic war on energy waste. The president’s outsider status was not conducive for playing “inside the Beltway” politics. The steely and independent-minded Georgian was determined to reorganize the government, to see that those who lost their jobs due to the economic policies of Presidents Nixon and Ford were re-employed, and to realize sufficient monetary savings so as to end his first term with a balanced budget. The people wished him well and he wished himself well, too, but politicians (not all of them Republicans by any means) never would be so sure. President Carter’s political future was already cloudy by his hundredth day, even with all of the economic uncertainties, but there were all kinds of silver linings on the horizon.
Question: What do we know from this first 100 days about President Obama’s political future? Answer: Most of America likes him better than they did President Clinton, more than they did President Carter and perhaps, just perhaps, as much as they did President Reagan. Uncertain of our economic or physical security, America will likely understand if President Obama should decide to shift ideological course from time to time. However, it is likely that the President’s greatest asset is the good-natured, unflappable outlook and steadiness that the American people believe now resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
What our recent preoccupation with the significance of President Barack Obama’s first one hundred days probably best demonstrates is that our thirst for presidential scrutiny is as much about personal identification as it is about genuine historical analysis.
Since FDR’s time, except during periods of economic uncertainty, little attention has been paid to the new boss’s first ninety-nine White House morrows. However, these are uncertain economic times, to say the least, and everyone is watching closely (especially the president’s foes both political and personal).
A quick peak at a few post FDR presidencies might provide us a bit of perspective.
The first one hundred days of George W. Bush’s administration were almost anticlimactic after eight turbulent years of William Jefferson Clinton. True, there was still much gnashing of teeth over the “Supreme Court Presidency” of the shy and newly minted George Bush. Still, the economy, which had been in a tailspin during the last months of the Clinton presidency, was expected to be righted by the new administration’s tax cut engineered through a GOP Congress. This tax cut would use the Clinton “surpluses” (which the GOP doubted really existed) until it came time for them to share the money with their political friends. This reality notwithstanding, Sunday, April 29, 2001 arrived, smiled at President Bush for twenty-four hours, and receded into history leaving Americans still hopeful about their new leader.
Bill Clinton’s first one hundred days were pretty much a disaster. It seemed that things were falling apart rather than coming together almost as soon as he lowered his right hand after taking the presidential oath. By April 29, 1993, two Attorney General candidates (Zoë Baird and Kimba Wood) had been forced to withdraw for employing illegal aliens as domestics. The third appointee (Janet Reno) was already embroiled in the April 19,1993 Branch Davidian holocaust. Additionally, terrorists had partially destroyed the World Trade Center on February 26th raising questions of the president’s ability to keep us safe. Finally, as if all that wasn’t enough, Bill Clinton was unpopular by his hundredth day with both straight and gay citizens over his “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise for gays in the military. Obviously, there would be no second term for William Jefferson Clinton — would there?
President Ronald Wilson Reagan was still riding high by his hundredth day in office, but his popularity had nearly cost him his life. He’d been elected, in part, to clean up Jimmy Carter’s economic mess which had been brought on by a combination of high interest rates, unemployment, and inflation, or “stagflation” as they called it. Budget cutting, tax cutting and income tax indexing were some of President Reagan’s proposed antidotes for the ailing 1981 economy. The proposed solutions hadn’t even been fully thrashed out when young John Hinckley, Jr. severely wounded the president, his press secretary and two Secret Service men outside a Washington, D.C. hotel on Monday, March 30, 1981. Even by President Reagan’s one hundredth day in office, it was apparent that America was enthralled by his decisiveness, ideological principles and personal magnetism and would likely re-elect him if the Secret Service could only protect him.
By April 29, 1977, Jimmy Carter was rapidly spending what political capital he possessed when he proposed a domestic war on energy waste. The president’s outsider status was not conducive for playing “inside the Beltway” politics. The steely and independent-minded Georgian was determined to reorganize the government, to see that those who lost their jobs due to the economic policies of Presidents Nixon and Ford were re-employed, and to realize sufficient monetary savings so as to end his first term with a balanced budget. The people wished him well and he wished himself well, too, but politicians (not all of them Republicans by any means) never would be so sure. President Carter’s political future was already cloudy by his hundredth day, even with all of the economic uncertainties, but there were all kinds of silver linings on the horizon.
Question: What do we know from this first 100 days about President Obama’s political future? Answer: Most of America likes him better than they did President Clinton, more than they did President Carter and perhaps, just perhaps, as much as they did President Reagan. Uncertain of our economic or physical security, America will likely understand if President Obama should decide to shift ideological course from time to time. However, it is likely that the President’s greatest asset is the good-natured, unflappable outlook and steadiness that the American people believe now resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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