I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS GUY!

By Edwin Cooney

I was walking down the street just yesterday, November 28th, when I happened to stop at a little outdoor cafe and, for whatever reason, I sat down at this open-air table and ordered a beer. Suddenly, I noticed this fairly smallish guy sitting across from me. I didn't see him as I approached and sat down at the table but, suddenly, there he was! He wasn't particularly remarkable, but he had a smile that was genuinely both steady and sincere. He was about five feet eight or nine and seemed to possess almost all of his hair and his teeth. Sunglasses hid his blueish eyes. However, as soon as he opened his mouth, I liked him a little less. His voice was rather loutish and although he was certainly articulate enough, occasionally his words were too fast and slightly out of rhythm. One could tell he was a smoker because his left hand had fingers that were stained with nicotine and the stem of a pipe protruded from a front coat pocket.

He was courteous enough and inquired about me, not intrusively, but with some depth. As we talked, I learned several things about him.

He likes to think that he's a Christian, but like Jimmy Carter at one time, he is sure that he doesn't practice it enough and says that if it were a crime he wouldn’t be indictable. He was once a “rabid" Republican and had switched to the Democratic Party although not with the same assurance that he once had as a young Republican. He even seemed to regret having made that change permanent as it is.  

"Some of my friends back in the 60s and 70s used to call me ‘Mr. Conservative’ or just ‘Conserve.’ Others used to call me ‘Edgar’ after J. Edgar Hoover,” he exclaimed with just a tad of embarrassment.

"The real difference between the two modern parties is that Democrats genuinely like people, while Republicans really love government as long as it is state government. Today's Republicans are just warmed-over 19th century Democrats who cheered when South Carolina seceded from the Union,” he said with a half grin. "How else can you explain the modern GOP's love for the late treasonous Confederacy?"

"I've always liked to debate," he said, "but not as much to win the debate as I once longed to. These days I like to debate in order to get the full taste of the other person's motives, interest, and intensity.

I asked him if he'd ever married or fathered children. I have been married twice and I have two boys. "I feel sorry for my first wife these days," he said with a half grin and half grimace. "I was probably a better father than I was a husband. Looking back on it, I'm not sure I'd have wanted to be married to me back then,” he said. “The truth is I wanted to be a father more than I did a husband, especially after my older lad was born. A sense of responsibility and even religious accountability was ever present in those years. I suppose part of the reason I was less than admirable as a husband was that I was forced to grow up outside my natural family and I'm not as family-oriented as many are. My younger son, who is named after his maternal grand-father, is very family-oriented! 

“The single most important person in my life was a special lady named Edith Rachel Gassman, who I met as a houseparent at my residential school for the blind in Batavia, New York,” said my table companion. ""She and I were more contemporaries than we were mother and son. I used to bring my girlfriends around to meet her and she often, but not always,  thought I could do better. However, she was certainly thrilled when my first wife and I gave our first child her last name as his middle name," he remembered.

The old guy went on to describe his second wife as "a lovely, sharing and receiving lady through and through!"

The hardest thing to handle throughout our discussion was the way he spoke of historic, sociological and political issues. I came away less sure than he seemed to be about his openness to ideas counter to his own. I'm guessing that in his heart he is more of a partisan than he insists he is. If you ask me, he believes he ought to be more objective than he is and he has a conscience about it. Additionally, the guy wants to be more popular and likable than he is. So I probed him a bit.

On the subject of religion I asked why religion matters to him. "Oh," he replied. "I don't care particularly what your religion is but in order to be secure I think everyone ought to have a sense of spirituality. When I think of what it must take to be an agnostic or an atheist, I'm reasonably sure such a person must possess an exclusive devotion to reality which subordinates humane reactions that would leave me feeling lonesome. On the other hand, we who are religious possess no monopoly on what Abraham Lincoln liked to call “the better angels of our nature."

I've had a good life and expect to have a little more of it if I can! After all, I love my wife, my two lads, my grand and great grandchildren, my best friend, my close friends, the NYSSB Alumni Association, the Lions Club, and, of course, the New York Yankees. I'm a big Aaron Judge fan. I have to be, after all he's so big! 

"Then," he suddenly exclaimed, "I must always remember my love for those who read the columns I write every week!.

“You write a weekly column?” I asked.

"Yah," he replied," I've been writing a column called “Cooney's Corner” since June 16th, 2005," he replied.

“Wait a minute, fella, what's your name?" I asked.

He replied:  I always sign my columns…

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE BIG PARADIGM SWITCH FROM BELIEVE IT TO PROVE IT!

By Edwin Cooney

You didn't have to be a Democrat to like President John F. Kennedy during the 1960s any more than you would have had to have been a Republican to like Ike in the 1950s.  Jack Kennedy was the second youngest man to take the presidential oath of office. (Note that Theodore Roosevelt was 42 years and 322 days when he took the oath. JFK was 43 years and 236 days upon becoming president.) Young and handsome with thick reddish brown hair, sharp blue eyes, and thin even facial features, well-educated, experienced in military heroism and governmental affairs, a husband to a beautiful wife, a father to two very young and attractive children, somewhat athletic (despite his World War II back injury), a lover of reading, history and sports, the first Roman Catholic president, his often self-deprecating humor drew millions to him believing they knew him sufficiently well enough to refer to him as “Jack” almost as often as they called him "Mr. President.” Just as amazing, the very idea that a president would be the victim of an assassination came out of the blue on a late fall Friday afternoon. This sudden daytime nightmare stunned our national psyche and seared our national consciousness despite the fact that Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley had been so victimized within the previous 98 years.

Even more astounding to millions was the fact that we, the nation that aided others when they were overwhelmed by war, that handed out charity through our Red Cross to other nations when they were hit by natural disasters and strove for international peace and human justice through the United Nations, could possibly deserve to have been stunned by the assassination of such an attractive leader. Above all, he didn't deserve it and we most certainly didn't deserve to lose him. It was mind-boggling to the rest of the world! Sure, we had our faults, but it was the experience of most Americans that we were valiantly striving to correct racial bigotry and even our addiction to materialism. After all, Communists were godless, but we were believers, weren't we? Really, we were good and decent people trying our best to cure the world's ills and insure peace and prosperity everywhere.

Suddenly it seemed to dawn on us that issues rather than personalities were what presidential elections were about. Much of Jack Kennedy's appeal in 1960 was similar to the appeal of singers like Frankie Avalon and Elvis Presley as well as the earlier “bobby socks” appeal of Frank Sinatra. 

As America got back to business following the Kennedy funeral and the lighting of the eternal flame at his Arlington grave, Americans soon became sharply aware of the magnitude of the issues faced by its president. Even if the days of Camelot had existed, the days of Vietnam and civil rights were about to take over the melodies and glamour of presidential star power.

The crises of the 1960s and 1970s had much to do with whether American soldiers lived, died, or became long-term wards of the federal government due to their service injuries. Within the next three years following the Kennedy Assassination, Americans began to doubt the validity of the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the subsequent resolution which gave LBJ the power to bring peace and stability to Southeast Asia. Had LBJ actually been victimized by North Vietnam thus making it necessary to send so many young men to die in the rice paddies of South Vietnam? Had President Kennedy himself been involved in the assassination of South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dihn Nhu which took place about three weeks before our president's assassination in Dallas, Texas? Slowly, but inevitably, the Kennedy family name began to be associated with a planned assassination of Fidel Castro, as well as with organized crime figures such as Chicago's Sam Giancana and others. Were the Kennedy brothers themselves a Catholic family that was rich, smart, and ambitious or were they something more than that? Was "Camelot" merely the self-sustaining dream of Jacqueline Kennedy’s as she spoke to author Ted White on that miserably rainy and cold Saturday night only eight days removed from the minutes she cradled her husband's destroyed head in her lap as they sped toward Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas that terrible Friday afternoon? Were we paying for our enjoyment of glamour rather than substance in our national politics? The answer is that it came to seem so!

We were a generation removed from a life-altering depression and a desperately fought war which we neither wanted nor deserved. Via the Cuban Missile crisis, we had avoided nuclear obliteration largely due to President Kennedy's assertion that the Soviets were looking for a face-saving way out of the crisis they'd created. That judgment alone surely justified Kennedy's 1960 election even if it was based on stardom rather than on intellect, ability, and patriotic reality.

Nations invariably learn even as they make errors. Since Saturday, November 23rd, 1963, Americans have learned more about themselves and the nature of their leaders and society than they learned from the previous 187 years.

Success and power invariably come from lessons whether sought or unsought. The power or capacity to grow develop from those lessons. It would be neither good nor profitable to entirely lose our capacity for innocence, but innocence must be entirely individual rather than national in nature.!

If the assassination of President Kennedy failed to strip America of its innocence, it certainly caused us to be less sure that our success is an automatic reflection of either our goodness or greatness. We no longer assume that the good will inevitably prevail. Today we expect those who would lead us to demonstrate the validity of both their promises and predictions!

Thus, the new paradigm challenges a potential president to mean what you say rather than merely what you believe. The presidency isn't performed on a Hollywood movie set (although Ronald Reagan nearly pulled it off twenty years after his move career ended!), but rather on the stage where conflict, pain, and mortality play as much a role as our hopes, dreams, and national expectations.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

WHAT A MUD HOLE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN STEPPED INTO!

By Edwin Cooney

I like and even admire Joe Biden. He's really and truly "good folks!” Furthermore, I'm glad I voted for him and I'm likely to vote for him again. However, like millions of us "good folks,” Joseph Robinette Biden tends to be delusional at times.

First of all, “Gentleman Joe” (who turns 79 years old next Saturday) ought to be retired, spending time with his family and collecting his hard and well-earned federal pension rather than struggling with all our disagreements and complaints, no matter how legitimate.

Additionally, President Joe appears to be attempting to be a 21st Century Franklin Roosevelt, which is admirable enough, but he lacks both the personality and the political gall to be FDR. He's too straight and honest and, unfortunately, he lacks sufficient charm and that essential deviousness to pull fast moves and thus outfox opponents who think they are smarter than he is. Finally, there is his greatest disillusionment. It's a disillusionment from which millions of us suffer and that includes yours truly. Furthermore, I don't even want to abandon this disillusion. Here it is:

Don't tell Joe, but he's not really President of the United States — he only thinks he is! Despite the fact that he rightfully and lawfully holds the top executive office, there's too little that unites the fifty states. Joseph Biden is thus the “lawful” president, but one must wonder if the states are sufficiently “united” enough to guarantee political, social, and economic well-being.

From the very outset of our 1782 independence, the separate states were reluctant to contribute financially as they had promised for the upkeep of the Continental Army under General George Washington. Even after independence was official, the states quarreled with one another over territory and interstate jurisdiction. After only four years of independence (1782 through 1786), it was clear to the Congress that if the former colonies were to remain united, a stronger central or “federal” government would have to be created. Thus this came to pass in that hot Philadelphia summer of 1787 by passing a federal constitution that would elect a congress, establish an executive and a judiciary that would allow us to grow.(Although created by the Articles of Confederation Congress, the Constitutional Convention met in secret presided over by retired General George Washington who took personal care of all notes following each day's proceedings. These notes and records would remain secret until the close of the convention on September 19th, 1787.) Less than 80 years after George Washington put it all together, Abraham Lincoln had to repair it. Then approximately eighty years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt had to reconstruct our economy. Now, after another eighty years, President Biden appears to be faced with economic, political, social, environmental, and spiritual disruptions that threaten our very existence on this planet. These crises are such that millions of Americans are in denial as to their very existence. Even worse, there are some pretty influential people and organizations that insist that we don't even need government — except, of course, the kind of government that they would be in a position to control. Since the late 1960s, Texans who elected George H. W. and George W. Bush have played with the idea of exercising their right to leave the union since Texas was the only state to come into the union as an already established republic. That is why they are known as "The Lone Star State.”

What's most uncomfortable of all is the resentment as a people which we have established against one another. There are racial differences, religious differences, and political, doctrinaire, and emotional scores to settle with one another.

Sometimes I'm even glad that I'm getting old, especially while I'm listening to the national news every night!

I've always been generally optimistic. I love history and politics, and I have always enjoyed the political process. Lately, however, I feel a lump in my throat by the time each night that the national news is over. If we can't even agree on what causes the weather to do what it does without throwing punches at each other, how can we insist that we're the “United” States of America?

It's all your fault "President Joe," you're too wonderfully naive for us really sophisticated Americans!

 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THEY'RE BRAGGIN' AND RAGGIN' ALTHOUGH NO ONE KNOWS NOTHIN'!

By Edwin Cooney

I've spent a considerable amount of time since last Tuesday reading what Republicans, Democrats and, especially, professional political prognosticators are predicting for the 2022 election based on the 2021 results. As usual, Republicans were determined and optimistic and Democrats both worried and wondered. Political leaders have a professional obligation and are expected to predict what's coming, but history shows that they are almost as wrong as they are right insofar as accuracy is concerned.

As a student of history and an interested observer of politics, I'm far from purely objective, but I try to always keep in mind both the hopeful and fearful possibilities on both sides of the ballot.

I'm still optimistic insofar as President Biden's prospects, but I realize full well that he has to come through with some results if he's to deserve re-election in 2024. In the meantime, his party has to demonstrate to the voter that it can unite and thereby benefit the voter between now and next November if it's to be useful to President Biden in 2023 and 2024. Even more, you can be sure that no one understands the need to bring home the “political bacon” more than President Joseph Robinette Biden. One of the basic differences between President Trump and President Biden is that Joe Biden lacks Donald Trump's sense of personal entitlement.

There were two major lessons brought home to Democrats last Tuesday, November 2nd. The first is that it's not enough to expect political success due to Donald Trump's personal worthiness or unworthiness. There are too many matters of vital concern to voters despite what you or I may think about Donald Trump or "Trumpism." After all, the fate of Donald Trump is secondary to issues such as the state of the national economy, the dangers of climate change, the most effective way to conquer Covid-19, or other priorities. The second lesson is that too often Democrats appear to indulge in "identity politics" at the expense of practical politics. Voters generally vote on issues that directly affect their lives rather than merely issues that soothe their sense of justice. The public is not ready to abandon effective and efficient law enforcement in exchange for ill-defined rules and regulations aimed toward defunding police departments. The public rightfully demands that it be protected to the maximum degree possible against the public marauder.

The fact of the matter is that at the heart of both Republican and Democratic agendas is the conviction that each possesses a monopoly on what's essential to the public interest. It's this conviction that gives ideologues permission never to compromise and work in unity for the common good. All powerful concepts and ideas need adequate regulation just as all sporting activities require umpiring and officialdom. Government also needs to be regulated. Back in the 1930s, FDR asserted: "The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to maintain the interests of the people and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government."

A society without government is ultimately no society at all and a society that's all government is despotic. The government of the United States will be more highly regarded when political leaders finally face the fact that perpetual political hostility is invariably destructive to the well-being of a free, productive, and a happy people. When liberals advocate that which is unachievable through legislation, they're little more than the representatives of garden-variety troublemakers. When conservatives demonize all practical social remedies to bring about human equity, they are merely the representatives of self-important and aggrandizing opportunists.

The real value of off-year election results is that they provide the opportunity for proponents and opponents of all issues and ideals to strut their stuff thus predicting political doom for their opponents and ultimate victory for themselves.

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of this last week's set of elections is this: no losing Democrat claimed that he or she was illegally cheated of election or re-election. Last year, too many Republicans cried over the success that elected Joe Biden at the top of the ballot while praising the legitimacy of the 2020 election results, which favored them, down the ballot. 

So, let the Republicans brag about themselves and let the Democrats rag on one another. Just be sure to let both of them guess how you're going to vote in 2022 or any other year!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY  

WORLD SERIES #117 — WHAT IS IT TO YOU AND ME?

By Edwin Cooney

The modern World Series between the newly established National and American Leagues began in 1903 and was played between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Americans or, as some called them, the Boston Pilgrims. The winner of that first series was to win 5 out of 9 games.

In 1904, New York Giants manager, the irascible John J. McGraw, had sufficient influence to declare that the Giants wouldn't play the American League champions because, to him, the National League (the senior league) was vastly superior to the "upstart" junior league. However, by 1905, the newly established baseball commission forced McGraw's hand to play Connie Mack's Athletics. As things turned out, McGraw's Giants beat the "upstart" Athletics four games to one. This satisfied baseball's traditionalists that perhaps McGraw may have been right, but by then the demand for an annual "World Championship” series was so overwhelming that the fall classic was a national institution.

The first World Series sweep occurred in 1914 when the “Miracle” Boston

Braves shut out Connie Mack's Athletics four games to "zip." (Back in 1907, Frank Chance's Chicago Cubs had not allowed Hughie Jennings's and Ty Cobb's Detroit Tigers to win a single game, but it couldn't be a sweep because the Tigers tied one game.) In those early days, local expectations were a huge part of the show. This was especially true in Boston where the  Fitzgeralds and Kennedys and a famous colorful bartender named "Nuff said" kept the Irish singing "Sweet Adeline" before and after games.

The 1914 Boston Miracle Braves were exactly that. On July 4th of that year they were in last place, but they went on to win the National League pennant under manager George Stallings. They not only beat the three times champion Athletics under Cornelius McGillicuddy (generally called “Connie Mack” or "The Tall Tactician”) but humiliated him.

By 1921, twelve of the original sixteen major league franchises had played in a World Series at least once. That left the St. Louis Cardinals, the St. Louis Browns, the Washington Senators and the New York Yankees. However, in that year’s World Series (which was played 100 years ago last October 5th, 1921), the Yankees, under the direction of their little manager Miller Huggins and with the help of the mighty George Herman (Babe) Ruth, ignited the team. Founded in 1903, they were originally called the Hilltoppers and later were known as the Highlanders because their original park was atop the highest point in New York City. By 1912, the Highlanders were the New York Yankees and the Boston Pilgrims or Americans had become the Red Sox.

This year, the World Series has the traditional format. The first team to win four games out of seven is the winner. The first two games will be held at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas and the three middle games of the possible seven game series will be held at Truist Park, the home of the Atlanta Braves which opened in 2017. Corporations rather than individuals head up both teams. Back in 1921, the Giants were owned by Charles A. Stoneham. His son Horace Stoneham would move the franchise to San Francisco at the close of the 1957 season. The Yankees were jointly owned by Colonel Jacob Ruppert and another colonel with the incredible name of Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston, a former U.S. Army engineer. (The two colonels didn't like each other much and Colonel Ruppert soon bought out Colonel Huston.) Truist Park in Atlanta is owned by a finance company and Minute Maid Field is of orange juice fame.

The year 2021 marks the fifth consecutive year that the Houston Astros have been in post season play. An exceedingly hard and consistent hitting team, they can go a long way with little pitching, but they've also had several of baseball's greatest pitchers on their roster including people like Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke, and Garrit Cole. Their hitting power is awesomely consistent and overwhelming, as often as not. The Atlanta Braves are also hard-hitting, but they are a younger team with only limited post season experience compared to the Astros.

The Braves have been a part of the National League almost from the beginning of professional baseball. Previously, I mentioned the “Miracle Braves" of 1914 who literally came from oblivion to win the National League pennant. They went on to sweep that year's World Series against the veteran Athletics. The team played in Boston through the 1952 season and then moved to Milwaukee where they played the Yankees in the 1957 and 1958 series. They won in '57 and lost in '58. However, many of their players are Baseball Hall of Fame legends including Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn, and Eddie Mathews.

The Astros came into the National League in 1962 as did the Mets. Until 1964, they were called the Houston Colt .45s. The Astrodome (which was built by their owner Roy Hofheinz) was for a time called "the Eighth Wonder of the World."

Both the Astros and the Braves are led by managers who are highly respected throughout the league. The Astros' Johnnie B (Dusty) Baker played from 1968 through 1986 with the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, and Oakland A’s. As a ballplayer, he was in three World Series with the Dodgers: 1977, 1978, and 1981. His last World Series as a player was his victorious series. As a manager, he's managed the Giants, Cubs, the Nationals, and now the Astros. At age 72, it would be most fitting if he were to win this series. Everyone likes Dusty Baker —  players, opposing managers, umpires and fans alike. Dusty Baker is a native of Riverside, California.

Brian Gerald Snitker, a native of Decatur, Illinois, is in his fifth year as the Braves’ manager. Never a major league player, Snitker is an organization man. He began as a player in 1977, catching and playing first base. Apparently, he decided early that his ability to coach or teach would be far more valuable to the Braves' organization than his playing ability. Snitker's son Troy was drafted by the Braves in 2013 and is now an Astros' hitting coach. (As the late, great Mel Allen would say, how about that!)

As mentioned above, the Braves were World Series participants in 1914 (Miracle Braves), 1948 (Boston Braves), 1957-58 (Milwaukee Braves), 1991, 1992, and 1995 (that year they were the champions of baseball), and 1999 as the Atlanta Braves. As for the Houston Astros, the last time they played in a World Series was in 2005 as champions of the National League. That year, the Astros were swept by the Chicago White Sox, four games to zip. They were transferred to the American League in 2013. Thus, the 2021 World Series is being played by two former National League teams: now, how about that!

As to what it all means, for you and me it may only be of passing interest, but for the Snitker family, the outcome is truly personal!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY