A SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY

By Edwin Cooney

Fifty seasons ago, Major League Baseball celebrated its centenary. Thus, this year, 2019, is its 150th anniversary. Before you say “so what!,” the fact of the matter is that whether many modern sports scribes like it or not, the golden thread that weaves baseball into our national and cultural fabric is an American tradition. (Don’t tell anybody, but Americans love tradition, baseball, and American history in that order!

The year 1969, no matter how you look at it, was filled with events that were very significant. Here’s a brief list:

Richard Nixon became president on Monday, January 20th; 

Mickey Mantle announced his retirement from baseball and headed for the Baseball Hall of Fame on Saturday, March 3rd; 

Ted Williams, to everyone’s surprise (including his), agreed to become manager of the Washington Senators; 

Bowie Kuhn became the new Baseball Commissioner that spring; 

Baseball celebrated its centenary at the White House during the week of July 6th; 

The All Star Game was rained out on the night of Tuesday, July 8th and played at RFK Stadium on Wednesday afternoon, July 9th. The National League won the game 9 to 3; 

On July 20th, as Neil Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin were setting foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry hit a home run. He had hit the last one in 1963 and had predicted that America would put a man on the moon before he’d hit another one;

As three astronauts were headed toward the moon aboard Apollo 11 thereby fulfilling his late brother’s moon mission, Ted Kennedy was involved in an accident on Chappaquiddick Island which ended the life of Mary Jo Kopechne and ended Teddy’s dream to succeed his brother Jack as president;

Stan Musial and Roy Campanella were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame;

Vice President Spiro Agnew talked about “impudent snobs” who characterize themselves as intellectuals;

Finally, deeply but joyously shocking and gratifying to most baseball fans, 1969 was the year that the New York Mets, under manager Gil Hodges, not only won the National League East and the NL pennant, they handily defeated manager Earl Weaver’s heavily favored Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 1.

A pattern of sorts jumps out at me as the 2019 baseball season gets under way. Remember, 1869, professional baseball’s first season, had to be historic because it assured the continuance of professional baseball. However, just a glance at baseball history reveals that other years ending in the numeral 9 would have special significance.

In 1879, owners instituted the “reserve clause” which originally bound five of their top players to their team until they were released by the team owner.

In 1889, the “four ball walk” was institutionalized.

The year 1899 found baseball owners, some of whom owned two clubs, transferring players to the club that could draw the highest attendance. The owners of the Cleveland Spiders transferred their best players to the St. Louis Browns as the Spiders only drew a total of 6,000 plus fans to their home games. Their record was an abysmal 20 wins and 134 losses leaving them 84 games behind the first place Brooklyn Superbas 101 to 47 record. At the end of the season, the Spiders was one of four teams dropped from the National League, bringing the league down from twelve to eight teams. Expansion was just around the corner in the name of the American League.

The year 1919 was made infamous by the “Black Sox scandal” which saw eight White Sox players who were consorting with gamblers throw the World Series game against the Cincinnati Red Legs. This would result in a gentleman named Kenesaw Mountain Landis being appointed as the first  permanent Baseball Commissioner and the lifetime suspension of the players involved.

All baseball was saddened in 1939 by the fatal illness of Yankee first baseman Lou Gehrig. However, baseball fans were joyous over the opening of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Casey Stengel managed the Yankees for the first time in 1949 and a new era in Yankee dominance was born. Even more significant was the choice of Jackie Robinson as the National League’s MVP.

The year 1959 saw two significant events. First, major league owners instituted two All Star games which would last through 1962. The idea was to use the popularity of the All Star game to raise money for the players’ pension fund. In addition, the first West Coast World Series was played as the Los Angeles Dodgers played and defeated the Chicago White Sox in six games.

The year 1969 was, of course, the centenary year.

The year 1989 saw the lifetime suspension of Pete Rose by Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti and, later that year, Giamatti’s sudden death. Those two dramatic events were followed by the “earthquake World Series.”

As I see it, all of these events had a major effect on the culture of the game just as much as with the results of play.   

A few more words are in order regarding the development of the original Reds. Back in November 1866, a group of Cincinnati, Ohio investors decided to create a professional baseball team. In 1867, they hired Englishman Harry Wright, originally a cricket instructor, to manage the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Every player was to be paid for his services. In 1869, the team played 67 games from coast to coast and won them all. Thus, they entered the 1870 season with a record of 67 and 0. Their star was Harry Wright’s younger brother and shortstop, George. Young George was paid $1,400 and according to everyone was worth every bit of his salary. Batting leadoff, Wright ended the season with 49 homers, 304 hits (about six per game), scored 339 runs and batted 

.629. As truly spectacular as this was, remember that George was a professional up against amateur players. One other fascinating factor about George Wright was his physical stamina. In the early 1860s, Wright, originally a catcher, moved to shortstop having been hit in the throat by a foul tip. He played shortstop barehanded and, even after breaking his leg in 1871, came back in 1873 to bat .388. The Reds almost immediately folded following their eleven inning loss to the Brooklyn Atlantics on Tuesday, June 14th, 1870 with a score of 8 to 7. Harry and George, however, would not follow their fellow Reds management into despair. As for the Cincinnati ownership, their profit was exactly $1.39 after it was all over. The Wrights were Boston-bound and Boston was ready to receive them.

The question ultimately is what’s ahead in 2019, one hundred fifty years after baseball’s Wright brothers and the Reds, and fifty years after Gil Hodges’ New York  Mets? How can we possibly  get even more glory out of baseball?

The answer to that is simple if not exactly directive. Baseball will matter so long as we’re willing to insist that it matters. The fact is that you and I invariably create our own glory. It’s our special genius. It’s just there awaiting the sustenance we’re willing to put back into it in the wake of the energy and the excitement it provides you and me!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

A HODGEPODGE

By Edwin Cooney

California Governor Gavin Newsom announced last Wednesday, March 13th, that he was suspending capital punishment as long as he serves as governor of that state. I thought about perhaps waxing joyously eloquent on that topic and then it hit me. If I celebrate the further crippling of capital punishment, it’s more than likely some readers will read my joy as a criticism of something they believe in and they will feel wronged — or perhaps a better word is invalidated. Generally, I’m perfectly willing to risk that  (otherwise why would I write these weekly musings), but it occurred to me that perhaps I ought to write a brief guide on how those who are pro-Trump and anti-Trump might best communicate. I’ve decided to fill your head with a hodgepodge of knowledge, thoughts, and ideas that might be useful, entertaining, or even helpful in some way. So, here goes:

MORE ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: Three states have never executed anyone since joining the Union. They are Alaska, Hawaii and Michigan. The death penalty was legal in Michigan when it joined the Union in 1837, but it was abolished in 1846 before it was ever used.

HISTORICAL TIDBIT: In case you’ve ever wondered who the first presidential couple to give birth to a child while in the White House was, it was Grover and Frances Cleveland. Their second daughter Esther was born on Saturday, September 9th, 1893. Frances Folsom Cleveland was 27 years younger than the president. Their oldest daughter who was called “Baby Ruth” was born in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts in 1891 between Cleveland’s first and second terms. Baby Ruth was somehow disabled and she died suddenly of diphtheria in 1904 at age 13. The popular candy bar was named for Baby Ruth, not for Babe Ruth, the baseball star.

HOW ABOUT THIS HISTORY LESSON: You and I have been taught all our lives that Winston Churchill created the phrase “the Iron Curtain” at Fulton, Missouri on March 5th, 1946. However, that phrase used to describe Soviet Russia was first used in 1920 by Ethel Snowden in her book “Through Bolshevik Russia.” Mr. Churchill obviously read it and sat on it until the appropriate time. Meanwhile, German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels warned in his weekly newspaper Das Reich that if Germany lost the war, an “iron curtain” would fall across all Europe due to an agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin at Yalta. Mr. Churchill first used the term in a May 12th, 1945 telegram to President Truman in which he wrote of the mass emigration of people from Soviet territory to the west who were fleeing “the iron curtain.”

There was a side to Winston Churchill that too few people ever saw. He loved animals and children. According to Andrew Roberts, author of “Churchill: Walking With Destiny,” around 1923 or 1924, his daughter’s pug dog suddenly became quite ill. To ease his own anxiety and hers, Winston Churchill wrote the following poem:

Oh, what is the matter with poor Puggy-Wug?

Pet him and kiss him and give him a hug.

Run and fetch him a suitable drug.

Wrap him up tenderly all in a rug.

That is the way to cure Puggy-Wug.

Puggy-Wug got better.

HERE’S A “NAUGHTY” FOR YOU: A short time ago, a friend I’ll call “Lady Hush-hush,” sent me a delightful story regarding the origin of the naughty word S.H.I.T.  The story says the word sh*t originated as an acronym  for the phrase “ship high in transit.” Supposedly, ships in the 18th Century took aboard large amounts of animal feces to burn in engines usually fueled by wood which was very heavy. Feces was much lighter but invariably stank.  “Cow pies,” as they were supposedly called, became a muddy stinky mess if they were stored at the bottom of ships. Hence, every box of feces was stamped S.H.I.T. for “Ship high in transit.” 

According to lexicographer Hugh Rawson in his book “Wicked Words,” the word sh*t is about a thousand years old and came from the old English verb “scitan” or from the Indo-European word “skei” which means to split. Other words like schedule, science, and shield also come from skei. 

It has also been observed that the word sh*t has been used by military men who attended West Point but didn’t want to acknowledge it so they often referred to that institution as the  “South Hudson Institute of Technology.” 

Finally, either Dr. Hugh Rawsom or David Emery, the author of the article I’ve just been  quoting from, also observes that anyone who tells you about “ship high in transit” “…doesn’t know sh*t about sh*t!”

Isn’t it amazing how anxious many of us are to discover and document historical excuses for our silliest perversions? Perhaps Mark Twain best explained the above when he noted: “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to!”

FINALLY, SOME CONSERVATIVE, PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME:  Why did President Trump, rather than Boeing, have to ground those 737 Max planes early this week? What am I missing, please? By being forced to do it himself, President Trump has made the best case he possibly could for the need of government regulation of business. Left on its own, free enterprise (which has never been and never will be at all “free,” especially for the public) has “missed the bus,” as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain once said of Adolf Hitler. Capitalism makes a lot of money for those who need and don’t need it alike, but historically it has gobbled up millions of lives for its own profit.

Okay, that’s my hodgepodge. If you didn’t like or agree with all of it, that’s because… it’s a hodgepodge!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

HELLOS AND GOODBYES — THE MARGINS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE

By Edwin Cooney

I’ve decided to focus this week’s musing around a coming event in order to unburden my anxiety about it. I’ll be attending a funeral and I don’t like funerals! At funerals, one is saying goodbye to a family member or to a valued friend. Hellos can sometimes be a little frightening, too (depending on who you’re saying hello to), but goodbyes are usually pretty painful in one way or another — and who likes pain?

I can’t recall attending more than three or four funerals in my entire life. The last funeral I attended was on December 30th when I attended the service for my friend Harry Potter. I wrote about him at the time I learned of his illness. (I still miss Harry!) His funeral was moving, dignified and very personal.

PRE-FUNERAL MUSINGS — As I’ve been reminded from time to time, funerals are for the living, not for the dead. After all, the dead have moved on into “endless sleep” as my agnostic and atheist friends insist or into a dimension of paradise which we Christians believe to be heaven. Those of us who hope that those we’ve loved are in heaven often do our best to console others by sympathizing with their loss and pain. So, we attend funerals.

We, the living, by nature and culture, usually value life above all else. All we know is life. As for death, almost from the cradle we are indoctrinated to fear death above everything else except for the pain and discomfort which precedes it.

Worst of all, there is that permanent separation from friends, family members and other loved ones whose nearness has inspired and nurtured our lives. The loss of a brother or sister or especially the loss of a child is particularly wrenching! In the wake of such a loss, the first question that causes us to clutch our hearts is “why?”

The fact of the matter is that death is inevitable. No one has ever, or will ever, escape it. Death is as natural as breathing. Hence, my first question: must we fear death in order to value life?

If we must fear death in order to value life then it is inevitable that we will seek to protect life by using death as a tool to sustain life. Ah, I can hear you saying to yourself “we already do that, stupid, through war (legalized murder) and capital punishment (a form of domestic warfare). You are right, of course!

Question two: Suppose all humanity had historically accepted death as merely a natural part of life. That concept is so big that it’s hard to wrap your mind around it. If death wasn’t a natural enemy, who could ever be a soldier, nurturer, or a medical hero? Had our Creator — be it Almighty God or “Mr. Big Bang” —  constructed our physical bodies to adequately resist anything but natural death, what kind of a people would we be today? If we weren’t afraid of death, is it likely that we’d have sought to conquer disease as we have? If death wasn’t an enemy, would we value life as we do? I think not. However, I think we’re ultimately strengthened exactly to the degree that we seek to master our fear of death even as we attempt to nurse our inevitable sense of loss in death’s wake.

POST FUNERAL MUSINGS—The gentleman whose funeral I attended was Michael Holley. He was 75 years old, a father, brother, an uncle and a grandfather. I got to know Mike because he was one of our bowling spotters for the Salt City Blind Bowling League here in Syracuse, New York. Each week between early September and mid April for the last ten or twelve years, Mike would spend time setting up special bowling rails, keeping score, spotting to see what pins each of us had left standing for frame after frame, year in and year out. Sure his interests included area sports such as fishing, golf, and especially bowling. He only bowled 300 once in his life, but he was more than proficient at the game. Although like most of us, he could get ragged around the edges sometimes, he was usually very friendly. Professionally, he was a hardware sales executive.

Throughout the simple and intensely personal service, Mike’s friends and family paid loving respect to him. The stories were about childhood pranks, fishing misadventures, as well as one or two heroic deeds. One lady told of how quickly Mike came to her aid while she was cooking bacon over a campfire one morning and some hot grease splattered onto her foot: Michael immediately grabbed a bucket of ice water and placed her foot into it. The foot healed miraculously — no scar!

One gentleman told of how, when they were about 11, he and Mike were smoking cigarettes in a kitchen. They attempted to hide what they were doing by blowing exhaled smoke up the exhaust fan. A neighbor lady saw the smoke and immediately called the fire department!

Mike’s sister told the story of how Mike had carved his and her initials on the top of the dining room table. Of course, Michael tried to lay the blame on his sister, but somehow their parents knew who the real culprit was! Today, the table is still in the family and is now an exceedingly valued treasure.

Of course, there was much grief today at the service. However, the grief was leavened by the nature of the grief. Rather than dwell on the suddenness of the heart attack that took Mike as he slept during the night of February 26th and the morning of the 27th, Mike’s family and friends chose to remember Mike for how he had helped them. When Mike’s daughter asked me what I remembered most about her father, I said there were two short words that would characterize Mike in my memory of him: He gave.

More thoughts: Life is almost never long enough. Everyone’s birth energizes and everyone’s death diminishes.

Hellos can be a little scary as life often is. Sometimes I wonder if babies, with all the joy they usually bring, cry more because they are hungry or because they instinctively realize how frightening life may be! Goodbyes are seldom anything but lonesome.

Maybe I ought to stay away from funerals, especially just before writing! What do you think?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

YOUR FATE IS IN YOUR FAITH - NOT IN YOUR POLITICS

By Edwin Cooney

No, I’m not referring above to gravity, wind, rain, or fire — although I could be! I’m thinking about a phenomenon that —  next to nature’s most potent forces — nurtures almost all of humanity’s ambition and sense of purpose. I’m thinking of both your religious faith and mine. The focus here will be on the woes of a branch of Christianity known as United Methodism. Keep in mind, however, no religious faith is free of conflict. Although I’m far from an expert on the history or even the full significance of religious belief, I’m ready to defend the proposition that religion is either soul-enhancing or soul-destroying.

I define the soul as the center of one’s being that energizes and regulates one’s capacity for spiritual comprehension. The big question, however, is what is the most constructive role our religious beliefs can play in 21st Century America? My answer to that question is that religion should be the wellspring of healing, healing from physical ills, abstinence from the aggrandizement of political thrills, a commitment to brother and sisterhood, and the nurturer of world peace and unity. You know, it’s the kind of “peace” we Christians sing about each Christmas!

However, what occurred last Tuesday night at the conference of United Methodist Global Ministries wasn’t healing; it was downright wrenching! The Conference of United Methodists voted to uphold the church’s ban on LGBT Methodists. Methodist clergy who ordain or marry homosexuals will be subject to suspension or expulsion. Earlier in February at the quadrennial United Methodist National Conference held in Pittsburgh, they came close to taking that same action, but at the close of the conference there remained the possibility that the conservative and reformers might well decide to co-exist for another four years. Of course, everyone prayed for God’s guidance. It was clear to this observer, however, that prayers on both sides were more likely prayers of self-righteousness than they were pleas for God’s guidance. Ultimately, it was as much a political food fight as it was a debate over holy principles. Its objective was ultimate control of the United Methodist Church. Of course, there are ramifications that are too numerous to go into here. However, the ultimate reality is that the United Methodist Church is no longer united. Hence, with disunity come the lawyers and ultimately the politicians.

As a lifelong Methodist, I’ve often taken great comfort in two vital elements of Methodism: tolerance and reason. As I see it, if you destroy those two Methodist principles, you destroy Methodism itself. Conservative Methodists insist that any tolerance of LGBT behavior would make the Methodist clergy “chaplains of ungodliness.” More to the point, as I see it, such an attitude more than suggests that the LGBT lifestyle is a matter of sinful choice rather than a matter of biological function.

Human history is bedecked with religious conflict. No church or other religious faith has ever been created that isn’t vulnerable to serious dissent. The cause of church dissent is generally a secular political cause. Many believe that Henry VIII left the Catholic Church because he and Pope Clement VII differed over an interpretation of scripture. However, numerous Western European princes had been granted divorces when it profited both the church and the princes. The real problem Henry faced was that at the time he applied to the Pope for his divorce, Pope Clement VII was mired in a quarrel with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and was a virtual prisoner. That royal gentleman had thousands of troops surrounding the Vatican. To make matters worse, Catherine of Aragon, the wife Henry was trying to divorce, was Charles V’s sister. Hence, since both military might and politics required valor, Henry decided to start his own religious faith with his personal self at the head of it. The result was both deadly and costly. Hopefully, this new religious conflict won’t be deadly, but you can be sure it will be very, very costly. The lawyers are waiting with upturned palms for all those struggles over church property rights.

The victims, of course, will be LGBT Methodists as well as the clergy who believe that LGBT people are children of God whose sins aren’t any worse than the sins of all the well established straights. Their livelihoods may well be at risk if they deny their consciences thereby denying equal rights and opportunities to sinners.

Conservative Methodists insist that allowing LGBT religious and marital rights would force them to choose between the dictates of scripture thus turning them into “chaplains of Godlessness.”

My reaction? I say NUTS!!! Consider the following questions:

1.) Did Jesus come to earth to sit with the righteous or with the sinner?

2.) If you believe that one people’s sins are more evil than your own, please provide, for the benefit of all sinners, a Biblically based hierarchy of sins. (Note: the Roman Catholic Church used to divide sins into Cardinal and Venial sins which Protestants came to ridicule so I would be shocked if any Evangelical Christian were to provide me with one!)

3.) Didn’t Jesus engage in a longstanding argument with the Pharisees for insisting that tradition and law were superior to any new covenant with humanity? And finally,

4.) Wasn’t it those very Pharisees who condemned Jesus to the cross?

As time passes, I’m sure that, at least in America, the power of the conservatives will substantially wane. The conservatives know it, too, which is why they are so vehement in their denunciation of the future. Ironically, some of the most insistent defenders of the conservative movement are those immigrant and ethnic minorities which conservatives are always denouncing.

A few months ago, I joined the Disciples of Christ thus leaving the Methodist Church. That decision was largely circumstantial rather than principled. Were I to make that move today, principle rather than circumstance would be the primary factor.

I’ve often relayed in these pages the story of the president of Princeton who once scolded General George Washington for inoculating his troops against smallpox by asserting that had God not wanted us to get smallpox, he would never have allowed for them. One of the major errors of too many Christian clergy has been their tendency to explain God’s intentions strictly biblically. The value of the Bible, as I see it, is found less in what it directs and more in the power of its guidance. We know more about medical and scientific cause and effect today than we did during the fourth and fifth centuries CE when the Bible became the sacred book of Christianity. If it weren’t for the Bible, I probably wouldn’t be a Christian. After all, it was the spiritual lodestar of those who came before and taught me. Although I wouldn’t want to be without the Bible, I’m a Christian, not a bibliophile. I’m convinced that too many well meaning Christians misuse the Bible because they are too frightened to use their God-given minds.

There’s more, much more to say about the disunity of the former “United Methodist Church” than I’ve written here. Thus, I’ll close with just a few brief observations.

First, believe what you want to believe no matter who it displeases because that’s your business and God’s, not anyone else’s. It’s how you practice your beliefs that matter.

Second, remember that you don’t actually practice your faith with the guarantee that what you teach will be followed and, even if you do make that assumption, you can be sure that hasn’t been God’s experience! Almighty God knows that not even God’s Ten Commandments are regularly obeyed.

Third, be aware that if you choose not to associate with a conscientious group of God’s children, God may well decide not to associate with you.

Fourth, when you get to Heaven, it’s more than likely that you’ll discover that you have little in common with perhaps even most of your Heavenly neighbors.

Fifth, and finally, you won’t get to Heaven because of your interpretation of scripture or because you rejected and then joined the right church. You’ll most likely get to Heaven because you loved your neighbor as yourself.  

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY