THE WORLD SERIES -- MORE HEROIC THAN HISTORIC

By Edwin Cooney

As I begin this annual trip down World Series Memory Lane, I offer once again my observation that while teams get the glory for victory or blame for defeat, World Series heroes are always individuals.

Ever since the American League’s Cleveland Indians and the National League’s Chicago Cubs achieved their right to play in the 112th Professional Baseball World Series, there has been a tendency on the part of scribes and broadcasters to call the 2016 World Series historic.  Exciting and wonderful as it truly is, I insist that there’s nothing particularly “historic” about this year’s fall classic.  In order to be historic, a trend, an outside situation or condition, or internal circumstance must be present.  Here are five historic World Series.

The 1903 World Series between the Boston Pilgrims or Americans (take your pick!) and the Pittsburgh Pirates is historic because it was the first World Series and thus started a trend.

The 1918 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs was historic for several reasons.  First, due to our involvement in World War I and the Wilson administration’s insistence that major league players were subject to the draft, major league owners were forced to begin the World Series on Tuesday, September 2^nd, a month before it otherwise would have begun.  Second, it was during that World Series that “The Star Spangled Banner” was first played.  Hence, baseball and patriotism have been permanently linked on a daily basis.  Third, there was nearly a strike by the players over World Series shares.  The strike was narrowly avoided just before the fourth game.

Certainly the 1919 “Black Sox” series was historic: it was due to the result of the subsequent scandal that baseball took the necessary steps to eradicate gambling from professional baseball.

The 1989 “earthquake” World Series was dramatically historic.  The Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants were getting ready to play the third game of the series at Candlestick Park when a 7.9 “shaker” rocked the entire park cutting off lighting within the park and communication with the radio and television networks that were preparing to bring the series to the public.  The series wouldn’t resume until Saturday, October 28th.  In the meantime, there was tentative discussion about moving the series to another location if conditions within the Bay Area of Northern California hadn’t stabilized.

Some insist that the 2001 World Series was historic for two reasons.  First, it was played in the crisis atmosphere of the 9/11 catastrophe.  No one could be sure that another terrorist attack on the heels of September 11th might not be forthcoming -- especially at Yankee Stadium in New York.  Second, the 2001 World Series was the first one to extend into November.  The Yankee’s Derek Jeter hit the first ever November home run, but the Yankees were eventually beaten by the Arizona Diamondbacks.  Neither the Diamondbacks win nor the Yankee’s loss was historic, but everything affected by 9/11 was certainly significant.

As i wrote earlier, individuals (rather than teams) are the ultimate World Series heroes.  Sure, people remember the 1927 and even the 1961 Yankees as well as the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals “Gashouse Gang,” but in 2016 the names of two players, Don Larsen and Frank Robinson, and one broadcaster, Vin Scully, come to both mind and heart.

The 1956 World Series may have featured Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Duke Snyder, and Jackie Robinson, but its brightest star was Yankee pitcher Don Larsen.  A native of Michigan City, Indiana where he was born on Thursday, August 1st, 1929, Donald James Larsen was what baseball calls “a journeyman pitcher” throughout his big league career.  However, his career was loaded with many distinctions.  On Wednesday, April 14th, 1954, he was the losing pitcher for the new Baltimore Orioles. The team had just moved from St. Louis to Baltimore and changed their name from the Browns to the Orioles.  Larsen’s record in 1954 was 3-21.  In December of that year, the Yankees and Orioles made an 18 player swap and Larsen was one of the “swapees.”  Following a stint in Denver where he went 9-3, Larsen joined the Yankees where he went 11-4 in 1956.

Larsen’s career peaked on Monday, October 8th, 1956 when he pitched a 2-0 perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers.  This performance came after a night of drinking with teammates Billy Martin and Mickey Mantle.  Almost as amazing was the fact that six years later to the day, he defeated the Yankees at Yankee Stadium as a reliever for the San Francisco Giants.  Larsen was a good hitting pitcher, too.  He had 14 career home runs and went 12 for 66 as a pinch hitter throughout his career.

The year 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of Frank Robinson’s greatest season during which he hit 49 home runs, batted .316 and drove in 122 runs. He won the American League Triple Crown and the Most Valuable Player award.  A native of Beaumont, Texas where he was born on Saturday, August 31st, 1935,  Frank Robinson’s career was jam-packed with success as both a player and a manager.  It has been said of the 1966 World Series Orioles’ sweep over the Los Angeles Dodgers that “the series began with Frank Robinson and ended with Frank Robinson.”  In game one, he hit a two run blast off Don Drysdale and, in game four, he hit a second drive off “Big Don” that scored the only run of the game to conclude the 1966 “fall classic.”  Fifty years ago this month, the Orioles not only swept the Dodgers, but held them runless after three and one third innings of Game One.  Baltimore’s “baby birds” shocked much of the baseball world as they literally overwhelmed the veteran stars of Los Angeles.

Since 1950l broadcasts of many World Series games have carried with them a special expectation -- that they would be broadcast by Vincent Edward Scully.  Vin Scully was born on Tuesday, November 29th, 1927 in the Bronx, New York.  His warm, controlled but fluid baritone voice invited millions of fans to “pull up a chair.” You didn’t have to be a Dodgers’ fan to feel welcome to Vin Scully’s broadcast or even to his world.  Vinny often described star players’ moves as “poetry in motion.”  His presentations were a combination of poetry and melody inviting the listener to come along to share his pleasure.

The World Series, be it historic or not, constitutes an annual invitation to savor the best in baseball because a championship is ever fleeting.  The day after the winning run is scored and the final out is recorded, spring training is already being anticipated in millions of hearts because, after all, a championship in all its glory is, at the instant of its acknowledgment, yesterday’s story -- and as the song reminds us, “yesterday’s gone.”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE CANDIDATES WE TOLD “THANKS, BUT NO THANKS!”

By Edwin Cooney

Since most Americans appear to be uncomfortable with both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I think a bit of perspective is in order.  So, I propose to write a bit about some of the unsuccessful Republican and Democratic presidential candidates since 1916 - exactly a century ago.

Over the past 100 years, 16 Republicans and Democrats have been elected or re-elected President of the United States.  Even more, 23 Republican and Democratic candidates have been defeated for that exultant office.  Since both space and interest are likely limited on this topic, I’ll focus on what I regard to be the most remarkable electoral episodes.

On Tuesday, November 7th, 1916 incumbent President Woodrow Wilson was narrowly re-elected over former Republican Governor and Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes of New York.  Justice Hughes, who’d not sought the nomination but resigned his seat on the court to accept it,, although he’d made no comment on public issues since his appointment by President Taft in 1910, lost by only 531,385 popular votes and by only 23 votes in the Electoral College.  Scholars generally blame his loss on his insufficient campaign in California which gave President Wilson its 13 electoral votes in the early hours of Wednesday, November 8th. (Note; take away 13 of Wilson’s 277 votes and add them to Hughes’s 254 and Wilson is a one term president by a vote of 267 to 264 out of a total of 531 electoral votes available in 1916.)

There  is a popular story that on the morning after the election a reporter knocked on Hughes’s Fifth Avenue New York City residential door and was told by the doorman “The President hasn’t yet awakened.” “Well,” replied the reporter, “When he does awaken let him know that he isn’t President.”

Justice Hughes would become Secretary of State under GOP presidents Harding and Coolidge, and after four years of serving on the World Tribunal in The Hague was appointed Chief Justice of the United States by President Herbert Hoover.  How much that or any other election mattered must necessarily be speculative.  However, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that had Hughes been elected, the United States may well have found a way to participate in the League of Nations.  Although like Woodrow Wilson, Hughes was the son of a Baptist minister, Hughes lacked President Wilson’s tendency to make every political issue a moral issue, insisting that he held the morally superior position on all issues.  Even more, Hughes lacked Wilson’s racism as well as his tendency to be jealous of his political opponents.

Ohio Governor James M. Cox was temperamentally more qualified than was his successful opponent Warren G. Harding who was elected president on his 55th birthday, November 2nd, 1920.  A progressive governor, Cox both initiated and backed many social reforms while in office and was more than familiar with the details of government administration.  However, he was the first divorced presidential candidate and as a Democrat he absorbed Woodrow Wilson’s unpopularity in 1920, even though the young and popular Franklin Delano Roosevelt (a year before his polio attack) was Cox’s vice presidential running mate.

John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, from the standpoint of experience, were reasonably comparable.  JFK won by only 118,558 popular votes.  The electoral vote, while close, was greater than that between Wilson and Hughes.  John Kennedy received 303 electoral votes to Richard Nixon’s 219.)  However warm may be our memories of “Camelot” and Jack Kennedy personally, the Kennedy administration was almost devoid of legislative success.  I’m convinced that a young President Richard Nixon, whose every act would have been scrutinized by Dwight Eisenhower, men like Dirksen and Goldwater in the Senate, and guided by a vice president of the caliber of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr, and devoid of the cynicism he displayed after his narrow and some say crooked defeat by the Daley machine in Chicago, would have been a much milder politician.

As for 1968, the popular vote margin was close although not as close as was 1960.  Hubert Humphrey lost to Richard Nixon by only 510,314 votes.  The total vote for Nixon was 31,785,480.  Humphrey received 31,275,166.  Due to Governor George Wallace’s 48 electoral votes, the electoral outcome between Nixon and Humphrey was larger.  Nixon received 301 electoral votes to Humphrey’s 190.  (Note: 1968 was my first participatory presidential election and I voted for Richard Nixon.)  Both Nixon and Humphrey were well qualified to be president although Humphrey’s political scope was much broader.  From the standpoint of personal character, there was no contest.  I’m convinced that the only reason Hubert Humphrey lost was due to his inherent decency.  Although under sometimes humiliating and ego-destroying pressure, Humphrey refused to push President Lyndon B. Johnson under the proverbial political bus.  A Hubert Humphrey presidency would have lengthened the post-progressive New Deal era by at least four years.  While it would be silly to suggest a Hubert Humphrey style “Camelot,” there would have been no Watergate type of scandal, and one can reasonably presume that the political climate would have remained traditionally sharp and competitive every four years, but it would have lacked the rancor and even squalor that infects it today. 

With few exceptions (Harding and Cox in 1920; Nixon and Humphrey in 1968; and perhaps Bush and Gore in 2000 as well as Bush and Kerry in 2004), the essential candidate for the times has generally prevailed.

The general attitude in 2016 seems to be that Mrs. Clinton ought to be in jail and Donald Trump seriously needs invasive therapy.  My guess is that Hillary Clinton’s character is far superior to her reputation.

Our task as citizens is to be watchful in such a way as to insure that our presidents always demonstrate “the better angels of their nature.”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

LOOK — HERE COME THE PEOPLE!!

By Edwin Cooney

If you are one of those who would like to see the president elected via popular vote rather than the archaic electoral system which we have been using since the days of the glory of “the Founding Fathers,” hope may be just over the horizon!

Since 2007, a number of states have been considering -- and ten of them have adopted -- what is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact or NPVIC.  It was born in the fertile mind of Northwestern Law Professor Robert Bennett in the wake of the 2000 presidential electoral fiasco in Florida that ultimately sent George W. Bush to the White House even though he’d lost the popular vote to Albert A. Gore by 539,837 ballots. 

Four times in our history (in 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000), the man who took the presidential oath of office the following year came in second -- in defiance of the popular will!  The reasons are varied. However, whenever there may be an immediate and workable solution to a 228-year-old political and social malady at hand, we ought to examine it and its possibilities.

The compact is very simple.  Ten states and the District of Columbia have signed this agreement which will require them to automatically give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote despite how the popular vote comes out in their separate states.  At present, the states that have passed the compact have 165 electoral votes, about 61 percent of the 270 majority electoral total.

Iconoclastic citizens and politicians have been working throughout our 228 years as a federal republic to alter the constitution and thus provide for the popular election of the President of the United States. To amend the Constitution, a two thirds vote is needed in both houses of Congress followed by three fourths of the states. However, scholars believe they’ve discovered a sufficient loophole in the Constitution itself to bring about significant change without having to amend that document.  

Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution reads as follows:

“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress…”

In other words, the states, not the federal government, choose the method of selecting presidential electors.  Originally, a number of states chose their presidential electors through the legislatures thus limiting or even bypassing altogether the popular vote within their states. That all began to change in the 1830s during the era of Andrew Jackson and the expectation of universal white suffrage.  Property qualifications and racial qualifications (but in just a few states) were eliminated.  (Note: when Wyoming was admitted into the union in 1890, it allowed women to vote in both state and national elections.) Thus, historically, the states have largely determined who votes and what procedure is used to elect our presidents.

Here’s the outstanding irony:  the states giveth and the states taketh away!  One of the most continuous threads in American history is the insistence on states’ rights.  Just as ten states and the District of Columbia are leading the way to passage of this National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, the states’ interests might be the major factor should the compact fail.

Back in 2007, Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Linda Lingle of Hawaii vetoed their state’s passage of the compact on the grounds that it would decrease the powers and prerogatives of their states.

Those vetoes brought to mind an argument against abolishment of the Electoral College that I heard shortly after the 2000 presidential election debacle.  Someone was comparing the state of Wyoming which contained less than a million voters with that of Florida with its 25 plus million voters. Wyoming has only three electoral votes or one-eighth of Florida’s 25 electoral votes. However, if you compare the two states by population, Wyoming has an even smaller percentage of popular votes than it does of Electoral College votes.  Thus the argument is that if Wyoming legislators approve passage of this compact or even a constitutional amendment eliminating the Electoral College, they would be committing a cardinal “political sin” by downgrading the value of their own constituency.  Former Delaware Governor Pierre du Pont has argued that the NPVIC is a popular state power grab and that presidential candidates will still primarily visit states with the most votes.

Another possible block to passage of the Compact is Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution which prohibits states to enter into an agreement or compact with another state.  However, proponents of the NPVIC point out that the Supreme Court, beginning with Virginia v. Tennessee 1893 and in several cases since, has ruled that this provision of the Constitution is only applicable when the Federal prerogative is being challenged.

As in almost every instance of political or social breakthrough, there are legitimate contradictory factors to ponder.  However, according to recent polls, approximately 78 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of Republicans, and 73 percent of independent voters, there is a belief that the popular vote should henceforth elect the President of the United States.

Passage of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact or something like it may well be essential to our very survival given the unsettling political and social forecast of the 2016 election.

After all, passage of the NPVIC could make it possible to elect a sensitive, capable, broadminded president largely free of, but nevertheless open to, the very best concepts and ideas flowing from our two traditional parties. The NPVIC could well be the factor that “preserves, protects, and defends” not only the peoples’ Constitution, but the safety, prosperity and wellbeing of the people themselves!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

DON’T GET MAD - GET EVEN!

By Edwin Cooney

A few days ago, a sweet friend of mine, I’ll call her Ms. B, contacted me in considerable distress. An avid Hillary Clinton supporter, she was stumped when a “nasty” cousin of hers (my designation, not hers!) demanded that she name three positive things Hillary Clinton has done during her career.  Such a challenge can be formidable to someone who isn’t steeped in current affairs or politics.  The fact of the matter is that most voters aren’t students of current affairs, history, or politics.  Even more, there’s a subtle trick in such a challenge designed to both embarrass and cause at least some emotional anxiety.  Often the challenger has less knowledge than the one who’s being challenged but is more skilled in pure argument.  Whatever the case, it seems to me that the challenger, more than the one being challenged, is guilty of gross political malfeasance!

Ms. B’s cousin demanded that she spell out three positive actions in Mrs. Clinton’s career without defining what good things Mrs. Clinton has done or could do that would constitute a positive action. It is likely that Ms. B’s cousin is a conservative and is incapable of being satisfied with anything Hillary Clinton has accomplished. Therein lies the subtle deceit in the challenge issued by my friend’s cousin. What makes the challenge especially nasty is the unlikelihood that her cousin is really seeking information.  In the face of that likelihood, my friend  is confronted with the kind of deception worthy of the label with which Mrs. Clinton’s chronic enemies consistently brand on her.

Ideologues of both the right and the left are invariably pickled in the brine of emotional and intellectual illusions.  What ideologues especially detest is political accommodation or, more to the point, practical compromise that satisfies a broad spectrum of voters.  Not too long ago it was considered not only good politics but civic-minded patriotism to please as many voters across the political spectrum as possible.  Now it’s patriotic and civic-minded to humiliate your ideological and political opponents - especially when they are “radical liberal socialists”! 

With all of their much trumpeted sins and liabilities, Bill and Hillary Clinton have largely dedicated their adult lives to public service. Nevertheless, they both have talents that would pay them handsomely in legal and academic circles.  If that isn’t a positive career choice, I don’t know what is!  (Note that Donald Trump, Mitt Romney, John McCain, both George Bush’s, and Ronald Reagan — GOP saints and heroes — all made money before offering themselves for public service.)  An objective read of Hillary Clinton’s biography informs the reader that young Hillary was drawn to public service not by the lure of electoral glory, but by the poverty she came across as a young high school Methodist volunteer in the ghettoes of late 1960s Chicago.  Her sense of duty was further nurtured by the human waste provided by the Vietnam war.  (Note: if that isn’t idealism worthy of positive review, it’s hard to imagine what Ms. B.s cousin is really looking for!)

Finally, read the history of American First Ladies and you will see that only Eleanor Roosevelt equals Hillary Clinton in public service. These three realities or, if you prefer, positive actions occurred before Mrs. Clinton’s official public service in the United States Senate and her stint as Secretary of State even began!

It would be foolish to assert that no one outside of politics could ever be capable enough to make a difference as president, but the fact is that up to this point in our 227 year history as a Republic, our greatest presidents have been politicians: Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and, yes indeed, Ronald Reagan!  Still, Americans are under the illusion that we can only be saved by someone outside of politics.  Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter are the only two presidents to come out of the business community.  Sadly, history records that at the close of both their presidencies, political practitioners led the way to prosperity.

Harry Truman and Ulysses Grant were utter failures as businessmen.  Yet, both of them brought their humanitarian principles with them to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  In 1875, Grant urged the passage of the first civil rights bill — a bill that was eventually struck down by the United States Supreme Court.  Harry Truman ended segregation in the military only a year before election day on November 2, 1948.  Men in business invariably make progress or fail by the strength and wisdom of the orders they issue.  Civic leaders, especially since the political reforms of the early 1970s, have little authority to give orders.  Perhaps the greatest lesson of the political year of 2016 will be the realization that it really is time to start practicing productive politics once again.

Remember, the Tea Party of 2010 didn’t pick Donald Trump.  If you don’t believe me, just ask Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz!  Donald Trump will tell you that “law and order” is what’s missing in civil government.  Nuts!  Law and order is exactly what’s missing these days from the political process!

So, Ms. B, don’t be mad, be cool.  Just ask your cousin to name three presidents from business who have been as well-trained for public service as Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Unlike Cousin’s question, your question contains nothing either subtle or devious.  As “The Donald” told us during the most recent presidential debate, business is about money. He clearly implied money is  business’s business and how business acquires money is exactly none of the people’s business!

RESPECTFULLY SIBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY