AN OLD DANCE TO QUITE A TUNE!

By Edwin Cooney

The year 2013 marks the fourth time the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox have played each other in a World Series. Both teams are rich in history.  Originally known as the St. Louis Brown Stockings between 1882 and 1899, they were called the Perfectos in 1899.  Since 1900, however, they have been the St. Louis Cardinals.

Some of baseball’s most colorful personalities have been Cardinals.  They include pitching stars Jay Hanna “Dizzy” Dean and his brother Paul (Daffy Dean). Dizzy, even as a broadcaster, took pride in slaughtering the King’s English. (“He slud into second” or he was “thowed out at third” are two examples.) A pop fly was “a lazy can of corn.” Stan “The Man” Musial, one of the nicest, most universally liked and productive players ever to play baseball, was also something of a diplomat. Scrappy third baseman John “Pepper” Martin once ordered nine-year-old Jimmy Carter to “get your ass off the field” prior to a spring training exhibition game in Americus, Georgia. (To show he meant business, Martin expertly spat tobacco juice close to young Carter’s shoes.) Bob Gibson, a fierce competitor and big winner on the mound, was a Cardinal mainstay from 1959 to 1976. With his long hair, Fu Manchu mustache and angry mound antics, “Southpaw” reliever Al Hrabosky (“the mad Hungarian”) intimidated many batters and thrilled Cardinal fans all over the Midwest.

The Red Sox were born in the newly created American League in 1901.  American League president Ban Johnson originally planned to establish the franchise in Buffalo, New York, the home of the team’s first manager Jimmy Collins, but he finally decided to put the franchise in Boston to challenge the National League’s Boston Braves.  In 1903, in just their third year of existence, the new Boston team beat the National League’s Pittsburgh Pirates in the first modern World Series.  Their success sufficiently intimidated New York Giants’ manager John J. McGraw so that he refused to allow his Giants to play the World Champs in a 1904 World Series. They were officially called the Boston Americans until December 1907 when owner John I. Taylor decided to rename them the Red Sox.

Between 1903 and 1926, when the Cardinals played in and won their first World Series, the Red Sox won five “World Championships.” In 1903 they defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates, in 1912 they upset the New York Giants, in 1915 they vanquished the Philadelphia Phillies, in 1916 they snuffed out the Brooklyn Dodgers, and in 1918 they swept the Chicago Cubs in September at the close of a World War I shortened season.  In fact, by the time the Cardinals became World Series contenders, the glory years of the Red Sox were over.

The Cardinals have won eleven World Series since 1926 beating the Yankees in 1926, the Philadelphia A’s in 1931, the Detroit Tigers in 1934, the Yankees in 1942, their hometown American League rivals the Browns in 1944, the Red Sox in 1946, the Yankees again in 1964, the Red Sox again in 1967, the Milwaukee Brewers in 1982, the Detroit Tigers in 2006 and the Texas Rangers in 2011.

Both teams enter the 2013 World Series with the best records in their respective leagues: 97 wins and 65 losses.  The Cardinals get special recognition in this era of highly paid free agents because 17 of their 25 players are homegrown Cardinals who never played for anyone else.  Boston gets recognition for having signed the right type of players for maintaining a winning clubhouse attitude, guys of character who put the team first and everything else, even money, second.

Both teams are very popular.  The Cardinals have always had a wide-ranging radio network covering much of the Northeast into the Midwest and extending deep into the South. Growing up in Northeast Oklahoma, Mickey Mantle dreamed of being a Cardinal long before the Yankees signed him in 1949.  Throughout the ‘30s and ‘40s, Cardinal baseball on the radio was as much a radio staple as “The Loan Ranger” or “The Shadow.”

Red Sox stars from Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski to Curt Schilling, David “Big Papi” Ortiz, and Dustin Pedroia have supported the Red Sox connection with “the Jimmy Fund,” a fundraising project begun in 1948 to fight childhood cancer.

Both the Cardinals and the Red Sox are most infamous for their original slowness to integrate following the Dodger’s signing of Jackie Robinson in 1945.  Cardinals star Stan Musial is credited with compelling his teammates to treat Jackie Robinson with the dignity due all opponents.  The Boston Red Sox were the last of the original major league teams to sign a black player.  They had given tryouts to players such as Willie Mays and Sam Jethroe, but failed to discern their obvious worth.  That noted, both teams these days conduct themselves as superb citizens.

The Cardinals and the Red Sox have suffered unexpected tragedies in midseason.  In 1955, the Red Sox’ Harry Agganis, a first baseman known as “The Golden Greek,” died of a pulmonary embolism on Monday, June 27^th, 1955 at the tender age of twenty-six.  On Sunday, June 22^nd, 2002, Cardinals’ pitcher Darryl Kile was found dead of a heart attack in his Chicago hotel room at the age of thirty-three.  Mike Matheny, the Cardinal’s current manager, was the first Cardinal recipient of the Darryl Kile award which defines Kile’s character as “a good teammate, a great friend, a fine father and a humble man.”

I leave it to others to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the two teams.  As this is written the series is very young.  It’s my guess that the Red Sox will win in seven games. 

However it all comes out, the World Series is an old dance to quite a tune: “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

MANY QUESTIONS

By Edwin Cooney

As official Washington stretches, yawns and comes to life and the government reopens for business (which really means for politics) after a sixteen day shut down, politicians and their constituents still face some pretty interesting questions!

According to Senator Ted Cruz, the Tea Party’s latest superstar (sorry, Paul Ryan – sorry, Rand Paul – sorry, Marco Rubio), by voting to re-open the government, “the Washington establishment has ignored the will of the American people.” Okay, Senator, but the question is –- who are “the American people?”  Ah! Since neither Senator Cruz nor President Obama wants to disappoint the American people, could they actually be on common ground for a change?

According to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, “another government shutdown is off the table.”  The question is, off whose table? Senator McConnell’s table or Senator Cruz’s table?  Of course, I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin, the conservatives’ well-compensated mouthpieces, will have plenty to say about Senator McConnell’s table if the government shutdown option isn’t on it.

Since I hate to pick on people when they are down, I’ll take this opportunity to congratulate Senators Cruz and McConnell, along with such House members as Majority Leader Cantor and Budget Chairman Ryan.  I think they’ve finally destroyed the Republican Party.  After all, when you divide even a majority into two sections you come up with a minority.  If it can be said that the Republicans are already a minority, then, divided as they clearly are as of today, it’s possible that they are about to be politically impotent in the very near future.  So the question is, what happens to Republicans who are too conservative to join the Democratic Party and too liberal to be stomached any longer by conservatives?

This isn’t the first time a powerful faction from within one of our two major parties has tried to remake or redefine their party.  One of the most constant threads running through our political history is the havoc ideologists eventually create in both major parties.  Right after the Civil War, radical Republicans embittered southerners for the next hundred years through the establishment of government agencies such as The Freedmen’s Bureau and the military occupation and division of the South.    Southerners didn’t begin registering Republican until modern conservatism gave permission to the successful to openly resent forced association with racial and religious minorities by regulating the activities of private enterprise.

Liberals also dominate when they feel sufficiently powerful.  In 1938, Franklin D. Roosevelt decided after five years of political success that the Democratic Party should be the nation’s liberal political party and he launched an effort to purge conservatives from the party.  As powerful and attractive as he was, FDR failed in that attempt.  One of the people Roosevelt sought to replace was Georgia Senator Walter George.  He launched his “dump conservative’s campaign” at a political rally attended by George himself.  “Sorry, Walter,” the president reportedly said, “there’s nothing personal in this.”  As you might guess, George didn’t buy the president’s reassurance.  Much later, George made the following observation about FDR:  “Some people say that Roosevelt’s biggest problem is that occasionally he’s his own worst enemy. Well, you can be sure that as long as I’m alive, he isn’t!”

In the months ahead, we might get something of a clue as to what forces caused the Congress to shut down the government and to threaten to disrupt the full faith and credit of the United States.  We might even learn what kind of a deal was struck to end the impasse before people named Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, Ryan, Collins, Reed Murray and Obama write their memoirs.

One of the major criticisms of American politics is that both of our major political parties have been too “centrist” and thus mere dupes of “The Establishment.”  If conservatives get absolute control of the Republican Party and turn it into the” Conservative Party” and if liberals get control of the Democratic Party and make it the “Liberal Party,” is that perception likely to change?

As I’ve asserted many times since I began writing these weekly musings eight years ago, I like politics and I like politicians.  I defy anyone to demonstrate how democracy, liberty or freedom can exist without both politics and politicians.  What I fear we have been experiencing since the rise of modern conservatism is politics by political prelates.  If there’s anything more scary than that, it’s hard for me to imagine what it could be!  In a week or two, I’ll gladly enlarge on this theme.

Meanwhile, let’s take a breather -- it’s World Series time!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

ON THE EDGE!

By Edwin Cooney

Forty-seven autumns have passed since conservative news commentator Paul Harvey broadcast a five minute commentary giving all of the reasons he was “...on the edge of anger.”  In that commentary, he railed against every government activity and consequence from our then comparatively small national debt and the bureaucracy which brought it about, to the stalemate in the Vietnam War -- the child of LBJ’s military indecisiveness as Commander-In-Chief. Mr. Harvey’s rich radio baritone reflected the intensity of his personal frustration as he concluded his commentary by saying that by November he might move over the edge if the best either political party could offer us was “....crisis, after crisis, after crisis, after crisis.”

Back then I was sympathetic to Mr. Harvey’s elegant outrage even if I didn’t quite share his intensity.  This fall it is my turn to be “...on the edge.”  As I’ve asserted a number of times in these musings, fear is the father of anger and by nature I resist fear.  Nevertheless, I can’t deny any longer with any integrity the political and social storm clouds I see on the horizon. I’ll explain!

The spring of 1981 was for me a disheartening time.  Ronald Wilson Reagan had just defeated Jimmy Carter, a man and president I’d come to revere for his brains and his humanity. Mr. Reagan, to me, was the embodiment of insensitivity to the needs and concerns of those who are forced to struggle against the outrages of poverty and social prejudices.  His heroes appeared to be almost solely the well-heeled successful in business and those in the military establishment.  His outlook in foreign affairs appeared to be more judgmental than practical.  Politically, he appeared again and again to be above either criticism or tough luck.  It was said back then that if President Reagan drove through a car wash with the top down, Jimmy Carter would be the one to get wet.

As hard as all this was to live with, I felt, as you can be sure most conservatives then felt, that it was less than patriotic to give President Reagan anything less than the benefit of the doubt. I went out of my way to find reasons to appreciate Mr. Reagan even if I could never give him my vote.  Thus, I joined conservatives in applauding his tax-indexing scheme.  I supported the way he masterfully handled the crisis between us and the Soviets when they shot down Korean Airlines Flight 007 in September of 1983.  I also saluted his efforts to reform taxes, Social Security financing, and our immigration laws.  After all, whether or not I liked him much personally, he was the President of the United States of America.

Forty-seven falls later, Barack Obama has twice been elected president.  His major piece of legislation, healthcare reform, has not only been passed by Congress, it has been successfully adjudicated in the United States Supreme Court and, through the president’s re-election last November, it has been sustained by a free people.  Nevertheless, despite all that, opposition to healthcare lies near the center of the current shutdown of the United States government.

I say healthcare is near -- not precisely at -- the center of the GOP’s current strike against the welfare of the American people, because the Republicans’ disapproval and dislike of President Barack Obama is really and truly at the dead center of the current crisis.  South Carolina GOP Congressman James Wilson’s rude and public categorization of the president as a liar and Michigan Republican Congressman Kerry Bentivilio’s recent public crack about the president’s repulsiveness are two examples of this reality.  Hence I assert the following:

First, a total shutdown or -- if you will -- collapse by starvation of the modern federal government has been the goal of conservatives since the late 1970s.  Rush Limbaugh takes delight in reminding all of us that “...Franklin Delano Roosevelt is dead, dead, dead!”

Second, your well-being and mine and that of our families has never been and isn’t now a national priority that concerns conservatives except from the narrowest and most academic standpoint of theoretical constitutional law.

Third, the main reason for this is just plain greed.  Their money is simply too valuable to be spent on you.

Fourth, conservatives find it convenient not to understand the fundamental difference between the functions of business and government.  The legitimate function of business is to make a profit.  The legitimate function of government is the management of national affairs – both foreign and domestic -- in patriotic service of us all.

Fifth, conservatives somehow believe they can spend four or eight years in personal attacks and impeachment proceedings against “liberal” presidents without doing the slightest damage to the credibility of the office once one of their own is elected to exercise its once awesome power and prestige.

Conservative thought and the restraint it can offer to responsible and accountable government is valuable to all of us.  Our liberty would be truly endangered if it didn’t exist.  However, the way conservatives are currently behaving is downright unpatriotic!

Hence, from the edge of something, that’s the way I see it!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS

By Edwin Cooney

My concluding assertion in last week’s commentary was as follows: The successful overcoming of every crisis requires the application of principles that respond best to the fundamental question that the crisis is asking.

That assertion met with the following response from a good friend and enthusiastic reader of these weekly musings: "What the hell does that mean?"

"Does every crisis ask a fundamental question?" my pugnacious friend and reader wanted to know.  That’s a fair question.  So, in recent days I’ve been thinking it over with more care.  Thus, I’ve decided to list a few American crises and ask the questions that should have been asked. I want to see if it’s possible to guess where we would be today had these questions actually been confronted.  I’ll define a fundamental question here as a question that gets to the root of a vitally important issue.

1787 -- Between May and September, 57 men representing the thirteen colonies met in Philadelphia and struggled mightily to put together a constitution.  One of the stickiest questions they faced was that of slavery.  They chose to compromise rather than face the question.  The founding fathers actually wrote slavery into the constitution of a free people in two ways.  First, they legitimatized it by allowing for it in the number of people who would be counted as congressional constituents.  (See Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution.)  Indians and slaves were valued as "three-fifths of a person."  Next, they left it to the individual states to evaluate the worth of human beings within their borders. The question they should have asked was what effect the institution of slavery might have on the nation as it expanded and on its credibility as a bastion of human liberty.

July 1919 -- Woodrow Wilson returned from Paris determined to compel a Republican Senate to pass his League of Nations.  By that time in Wilson's life, every public issue was a moral rather than a practical matter. His major opponent in the Senate was Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr., Republican from Massachusetts, who was then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  These two academic PhD titans from Princeton and Harvard just never surrendered principle, especially to another scholar/politician.  The question President Wilson should have asked himself was whether or not membership in the League of Nations could conceivably be seen as affecting our sovereignty and/or our independence.  The question Lodge should have asked himself was whether he should try to find a way to deal with his central concerns and maximize America’s influence as a formidable world power and a leader in the world community of nations.

November 23^rd 1963 -- Lyndon B. Johnson decides he must not be seen as weaker in foreign policy matters when compared to the late President Kennedy.  In spite of the opposition he raised in 1954 as Senate Minority Leader when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles advocated the question of our possible military involvement in Vietnam, LBJ decided to persevere with military assistance to South Vietnam.  As he would explain time and time again, not to resist the North Vietnamese in their aggression would be paramount to Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 appeasement of Hitler.  The question President Johnson should have asked was whether continuance of our military support of Vietnam was truly a matter of our national security.

June 23^rd 1972  -- If a forthright Richard Nixon had asked himself if the Watergate break-in was a felony more than a political prank, late 20th and early 21st Century politics might be vastly different.

As I see it, our history would be considerably altered if the concerns listed above had truly been faced.  An impasse on slavery might have caused the colonies to divide into two nations – the "Confederate States of America" consisting of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland in the South led by George Washington or Thomas Jefferson and, in the North, the "United States of Columbia" consisting of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York led by John Adams or Ben Franklin.  The two might well have united in 1776 or perhaps 1900 once slavery became obsolete and a changing economy compelled their unity.  It’s staggering to think of how different America might be if politics and war hadn’t caused so much racial enmity.

Early participation in the League of Nations and our absence from Vietnam would have prevented almost a million soldier deaths.

A truly forthright rather than an evasive Richard Nixon would have been reelected in 1972 and would have finished his presidential term rather than being forced to abandon it.

Yes, I think every crisis has within its nature or, if you prefer, its DNA, a fundamental question.

To test my little theory, review the numerous crises you’ve faced in your own life.  How often might you have made a better choice had you just asked yourself a different question?

“Monday morning quarterbacking” is, of course, almost as American as baseball, hotdogs, cherry pie and good beer, but not quite. 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY