Hola Nueva Yorkers, Mi Llamo es Miguel Bloombito

You know I’m beginning to think that maybe those Mayan’s were just really bad at record keeping.  When actual news stories start to read as if they were hatched over at The Onion, you start to wonder if the Mayan they left in charge of their calendar had one too many the night before he sent it to print.  My reasoning behind that: Take a look at the Mayor of New York City, Mike Bloomberg.   It seems that the self-made billionaire financier, turned politician, turned defender of all New Yorker’s with elevated blood pressure, has been waging war on a massive scale for the last few years. 

Waging war against what you ask?  Could it be unemployment, which is at 8.8% in New York City and higher than the national average?  Not a chance slick don’t you know, we’re in a recovery.  The media says so.   Is it against Al-Qaeda?  Don’t be silly, we have them on the run.  The President says so.  Hell we can even bring knives on airplanes again.  Besides, Al-Qaeda only cares about overseas diplomatic posts now.  Oh wait, wasn’t it a silly YouTube video that caused that tragedy? 

No my friends, you see the Honorable Hizzoner Euphegenia Doubtfire, finally found his political niche; he’s fighting the Jihad of all Jihads’: an intifada on soda, salt and just about any other vice that makes it into his crosshairs.  He’s even taking on excess earbud volume (really I swear I’m not making this up) and–wait for it—the evil incarnate that is BABY FORMULA. 

Now before you try to Google any of that, please, allow a few minutes for it to marinate in your brain if anything just to remind you of the fools we the people elect to public office.  Even though there’s a strong likelihood that Andy Warhol will be reincarnated and ooze from your eardrum, take this moment to reflect.   Ok you can breathe easy now; you’re not really crazy, just a bit misguided and occasionally fooled, kind of like a Taylor Swift ex. 

Here we have the elected mayor of the largest city in America with over 8 million residents, with a legislative plate that should be quite full of real issues, working tirelessly to get his constituents to eat and drink and behave exactly how he would like them to. And to boot, he’s more than willing to use whatever executive powers he has as Mayor to force them to relent—no matter the ancillary effects.  Effects like those silly separation of powers doctrines politicians are supposed to adhere to by you know that other silly thing called THE LAW. 

But what’s having a little nuisance like the law that’s ever stopped this mayor?  New York City had firm term limits in place until he convinced the City Council to allow him to run for a third term—how’s that working out for you New Yorker’s?  He like so many politicians who prefer we do as they say --like good little lemmings--versus as they do themselves; but that doesn’t even scratch the surface of my indignation with this elected uber-nanny—and I’m not even a resident of New York. 

He’s been fairly predictable Mayor Bloomberg.   He started with a city wide initiative to reduce trans-fats in food served in city restaurants.  After that his many targets became smoking in public –banning it in public parks and in city restaurants and bars.  His assault continued when he focused his ire against salt-part of an overall initiative to combat high blood pressure in 2010- which took center stage at Gracie Mansion.  So insane his rationale that he's instituted a ban on food that is donated to homeless shelters that cannot have their salt,fat and fiber content assessed. Of course we’re all aware of his desire to ban large sugary drinks, which was recently struck down in court as being an overreach of his executive powers. 

Somebody pass the salt, oh wait, damn.  

And just when you thought he’s had his fill of social tinkering, Major Bloombito (as his FAKE Twitter account parodying his less than eloquent use of the Spanish language would say) is becoming “loco en la cabeza”, deciding that excessive earbud noise is becoming a chronic danger to all human life within the 5 boroughs.   I find myself constantly trying to remind you that I’m not making any of this up.  With that said, I give you the piece de resistance – Mayor Mike has decided in his infinite wisdom—that he would like to  STRESS to new mothers the benefits of breast feeding their children versus using baby formula.  This man is a gift to comedians, political and social pundits alike.  In fact he brings new meaning to the term “the gift that keeps on giving”. 

The problem I have with this ninny nanny of a Mayor is how he’s using his position as an elected official, to micromanage people’s lives—all the while thumbing his nose at the legislative process and at the very same people he claims to be so concerned over.  Somehow I find it hard to believe that when Jefferson and the boys sat down in Philly to hash out this whole concept of a free nation, that they envisioned anything remotely close to this. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m in favor of people binging on Big Gulp’s until they’re blood registers as a natural sweetener or seeing people gorge themselves on Big Mac’s until the secret sauce oozes out of their pores. Although I've heard Nancy Pelosi can't say enough about it's anti-oxidant benefits. I’m just, as most people are, sick of elected officials trying to control every aspect of our lives and force us to behave in ways they believe is acceptable.  That is not what government—at least ours- was ever designed to do.  If anything it was that type of encroachment into people lives (not to mention those pesky little things like taxation without representation) that formed this nation in the first place.

Imagine if Mayor McNumbnutt decided that he wanted to lower the rates of abortions in New York City and pushed some half-baked idea using the city’s Department of Health as his vehicle.  Some of the very same people who’ve been silent on the mayor’s mini-rampages would suddenly find their collective voices to protest.  And I’m quite sure the media would find a way to highlight their anger on a daily basis.  What are you saying Spector, that the media picks and chooses who and what they prefer in the national debate, skewing it just enough to frame the issue?  Of course that never happens. 

Let them eat cake, or pastrami on rye.

Remember this, anytime a politician tries to micro-manage your life, a founding father loses his wings.  Whether it’s the social engineering of the left or that of the right neither should be excused.  Society isn’t some Petri dish used for a politician’s grand experiment nor is it government’s responsibility to tell us how to live.  That’s where freedom and responsibility kick in.  Remember the old saying, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.   With so many greater issues that are at play you have to wonder if people like Michael Bloomberg are simply bored with their jobs. 

I guess when you become a billionaire and want to kill a little time you either run for mayor and try to force people to do what you’d like them to do or you create a reality TV show pitting celebrities against one another for their favorite charity.  Maybe Mayor Mike can hire Dennis Rodman as his public relations director when he gets back from negotiating peace with North Korea.  I’ll take my liberty with a side order of stay the hell out of my life you nitwit politicians and a large Coke.  Damn you Mayan record keepers.  Damn you.

Stopping by CitiField on a Snowy Evening

Every now and again something occurs in my life that makes me either shake my head or want to shake someone else’s head—often violently -- with the fleeting hope that doing so would magically scramble and reset their questionable thought process without causing any long term damage.  Sometimes I even resort to utilizing Mr. Tyzik’s tactic, gleefully taking out my frustration on those “flatheads”.  Using forced perspective to pinch the heads off of your adversaries may get you some odd looks my friends but don’t knock it ‘till you try it.  Its inherent cathartic qualities can do wonders.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really ready for anger management classes, yet.   I’m lucky enough to say that just being with my 2 ½ year old daughter has done more to put my life into perspective than anything The Kids in the Hall ever had to offer.  She has the light switch to my heart this little kid.

Now that she’s getting older and more aware of the world around her, I’m able to share more of what I enjoy with her and see how she reacts to understanding it.  This is her second season watching, rooting and generally hanging out with me as I go through the emotional roller coaster that is being a Met fan.  Of course this is something I always imagined doing ever since I could remember watching the Mets with my father as a child.  It’s more than just a rite of passage or bonding.  To me, I’m imprinting memories of our time together that I hope she’ll keep with her for all the days of her life.  I guess the older I become, the more cognizant I am that this gift that is life isn’t guaranteed by age.  My father wasn’t even 50 when he passed.  There’s just so much that I want to show her, teach her, and experience with my daughter that sometimes I have to be mindful not to overcompensate, she is just a 2 ½ year old and I do plan on sticking around for a while, God willing.

One of the characteristics she seems to share with me is a love of reading.  Granted she goes from Elmo to Mickey to Dora the Explorer in a matter of minutes – her attention span is fickle-- then again so is mine and I’m old so who am I to complain.  I’m trying to get into the habit of reading to her.  In fact I’ve already lined up the books that I want to read to her as she gets older.  Of course there will have to be the classics but I wouldn’t be a proper parent to a young and becoming Met fan if I didn’t find a way to sneak in Faith and Fear in Flushing or Total Mets in there, maybe even The Bad Guys Won just to keep it fresh and edgy.  Don’t worry I’d censor anything that came out of Dykstra’s mouth—including the chaw.  But there’s one genre of literature that I’m going to introduce to her not because it was one of my favorites.  In fact it was my least favorite form of writing because I found it so difficult to interpret – the world of poetry was never kind to me.  But there were always exceptions.

I was never really attracted to poetry growing up.  It wasn’t until I was in college and was lucky enough to have a professor, Mr. Chauncey G. Parker, who taught English Literature.  Mr. Parker was quite the interesting cat.  For one, he worked in the Lyndon Johnson administration and if I recall, he did some work for the United Nations as well.  We would get into some really interesting arguments regarding policy and politics in general.  We really didn’t agree on a lot but he was an amazing professor; never trying to indoctrinate as so many do in academia these days.  He was a bona fide Renaissance Man.  He wrote a novel, The Visitor, a crazy psychological horror about a man who becomes obsessed with a rodent that has overrun his upscale New York brownstone.  His novel was later turned into a film starring Peter Weller, Robocop himself.  Hey don’t laugh; I’m pretty sure there aren’t many of us that can boast that on our resumes.  But Mr. Parker in his best Northeastern, Hyannis Port, Bostonian voice, explained to me the amazing talent that was Robert Frost. 

Robert Frost is one of America’s most popular and storied poets of the 20^th century.  His works have been studied over by students and scholars alike.  Some of his classic works include The Pasture (1913), Mountain Interval (1916) and the beginnings of New Hampshire: A poem with Notes and Grace Notes (1923), which contained “Fire and Ice”, and my favorite, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, his masterwork.  It was that poem which reminded me of why I’m a Met fan.  I know what you’re thinking, how in God’s name does a Frost poem translate into something relatable to a Met fan?  Well first off here’s the poem:

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Frost wrote this poem supposedly in an evening sitting and during a time of great personal frustration—something Met fans can easily sympathize with.  Practically our entire history has been wrought with frustration on some level.  Like all poetry, it’s subject to one’s own interpretation; Frost’s Snowy Evening is no exception.  The woods, to some, describe the edge of civilization.  To me the Met fan it describes the team.  They are equally irrational and yet garner consistent support.  It’s those qualities that attract us as fans and what attracts readers to the woods.  They are restful, seductive, lovely and dark…like oblivion.  Also like our team, at times.  The woods can represent madness, the looming irrational and of course also beauty. 

The owner of the woods (us and not Wilpon) –lives in this village – and travels there on the darkest day of the year.  Perhaps this an alliteration of how we’ve stuck by this team even during their most dire and desperate times?  It’s the basic conflict in the poem, which is resolved in the last stanza.  What attracts us to the woods and what force (responsibility, frustration, and exacerbation?) pushes us away from the woods occasionally?  This is the division between the village (the fans) and the woods (the Mets).  It’s not as if the woods are particularly frightening or wicked, yet they still posses the seeds of the irrational, just waiting to prey on our emotions. 

The woods, as much as it draws us in, consistently finds ways to repel us, drawing us away.  “Society” in baseball terms could be translated into “the experts” –always pointing out the negative and condemning us from staying here in the dark, in the snow—why would we care for such a flawed team?  With the last two lines, “And miles to go before I sleep” being repeated.  Is it a forewarning?  Are we masochists for this team of ours; do we have some sort of death wish?  Or do we take it as Frost did that he had many good years of poetry still left in him and that we still have many more years of torture…I mean love for our team?  Damn, poetry can be annoying. 

Unlike the majority who see the darkness in this poem, I take the positive from it.  I don’t try to dwell on the flaws this team of ours have.  We know it as well as a geneticist knows what composes DNA.  The Mets are in our DNA, it’s who we are, for better or worse and as long as there’s a hope for the future –and there almost always is even in our team’s darkest days—we stand true.  We argue we root, we hem and haw.  We sometimes take it too far and retract, remembering our roots.  But we come.  Every Spring, we come.

Somewhere, I hope Chauncey G. Parker III Is smiling.  Smiling that I’m willingly passing down to a new generation – a new set of tortures—and enjoying every bit of it. 

Sector Movie Review - Zero Dark Thirty

Last last year the National Geographic Channel aired a docu-drama based on the Navy Seal raid that killed the Al-Qaeda terrorist leader and mastermind of the September 11^th attacks, Osama bin Laden.  The film was told from the perspective of the soldiers who initiated the raid, Seal Team Six.  It aired just two days before the Presidential election and was produced by Harvey Weinstein, a major supporter of the President’s.  Naturally it created a furor as some assumed it would be a late-inning puff piece intended to influence undecided voters towards the President.  Well, needless to say, it’s doubtful that the docu-drama did anything to sway voters in any direction, even though it did accentuate the President’s leadership. 

Two months later, the big budget Hollywood version depicting the raid in Zero Dark Thirty has hit theaters.  Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, the director and writer of The Hurt Locker, take on bin Laden and the mythos encompassing the CIA, two Presidencies and the military – and may have scored another critical hit.  The big difference between ZDT and its Nat Geo little brother is that Bigelow focuses all her attention on the decade-plus long investigation spearheaded at the CIA by Maya, (played by Jessica Chastain who has been nominated for best actress) a young woman who was recruited right out of college who’s only task has been to hunt down the world’s most wanted man. 

The film is based on obvious true events and producers were given incredible access to certain information by the Obama administration, however Bigelow had the daunting task of keeping viewers riveted even though the outcome and ending was a given.  By presenting the story to the audience through the eyes of Chastain, Bigelow was able to do what all great filmmakers are able to do—she created a film that made you emotionally invest in the main character.  Early in the film we are shown a scene where Chastain and the CIA field agent Dan (played by Jason Clarke), are in the process of interrogating a man with information on a courier that worked for bin Laden.  What ensues is probably the most controversial part of the film as it portrays “enhanced interrogation” including waterboarding scenes.

Personally I’ve always been on the fence regarding “enhanced interrogations” and much of what the post 9-11 world that President Bush both dealt with and helped to initiate under his watch.  While some tactics are a necessary evil in the end, we do have to remain vigilant in not relishing them (see Abu Gharib).  Regardless your opinion of the man, it’s hard to say that the tactics that he pushed through including the “enhanced interrogations” didn’t provide the intel our clandestine services needed to finally capture bin Laden.  That’s not to say that “enhanced interrogations” alone were the reason he was finally captured – no endeavor of this magnitude can lend its success to one practice. 

 Is it morally ambiguous not to afford Geneva Convention rights to enemy combatants because they aren’t fighting for a particular sovereign nation?  Perhaps it is.  Then again is waterboarding torture?  Is playing Gwar at 200 decibels around the clock?  These are part of the psychological games the CIA used to weaken the resolve of some detainees.  Some tactics may have played fast and loose constitutionally but one could argue if they weren’t done, would bin Laden have ever been caught? And to Bigelow’s credit, she didn’t try to paint President Obama as some Christ-like deity as compared to his predecessor’s Satan.  The world is a far more complicated place than that and Bigelow is clearly aware of that throughout the film even if some of President Obama’s most strident supporters aren’t.

Bigelow takes a very straightforward systematic approach to the hunt for bin Laden in ZDT.  At times it seemed a bit too procedural bordering on banal but given the length of the actual investigation and the stakes that were at risk, I’m sure those involved were anything but banal.  Unfortunately that’s how it translated on film.  Not to mention that much of Maya’s yeoman’s work is treated as commonplace as your typical office employee.  That in itself lends to the view that much of the work done to capture bin Laden was tedious and often times unproductive—prompting her superiors to question her tactics--so Bigelow’s answer to that was to jump ahead a few years into the investigation.  

To offset the rigidity of the pace of the film, Bigelow and Boal take advantage of the character of Maya to its fullest.  Shining a light on her solitude as she’s so alone-- consumed by the hunt—Chastain owns this role without question.  Even as she’s consistently beaten down by both her superiors lack of faith in her to struggles in the investigation, it’s her resolve that keeps the audience hooked and if you’ve ever seen the Showtime series Homeland, which is also led by a strong female protagonist, you’ll appreciate Chastain’s character even more as she actually represents someone who does exist—albeit without the neuroses of the character from Homeland.

The best example of her resolve comes when one of her colleagues was blown up by a suicide car bomber at the Camp Chapman base in Afghanistan in 2009, killing 7 CIA agents.  Because Maya was spared, she believes it to be an omen that she’s meant to finish the job.  She tells the Seals at the camp, wary of her and the CIA’s presence, “I’m gonna smoke everybody involved in this op,” speaking about the attack.  “And then I’m gonna kill bin Laden”, prompting a few raised eyebrows from the Seal unit, not accustomed to such steeliness from a CIA field agent. 

The supporting cast is stocked.  You have the Deputy Director played by Mark Strong (Green Lantern, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) shouting at his agents in a conference room, “I want targets!  Bring me people to kill!  Do your fucking jobs!”  James Gandolfini plays Leon Panetta, the CIA Director (now the outgoing Secretary of Defense) and along with them were Kyle Chandler as Maya’s cautious station chief, Edgar Ramirez as a CIA operative who tracks bin Laden’s courier, and Jennifer Ehle as a fellow veteran CIA agent.  Each one did an amazing job with what they were given. 

We finally head into the last 45 minutes of the film, introducing Seal Team 6 and the raid itself.  What was a methodical investigative quickly grabs it’s war footing and takes us into what it must have been like to finally achieve one of the greatest battlefield victories in modern history.  The raid itself, while bereft with its own problems (the hard landing of the stealth Blackhawk which later had to be destroyed) changes the viewers point of view, taking on the perspective of the Seal team.  I found it interesting that even though I knew the outcome, I was still riveted and at times unsure of what was to come.  It was ironic because it was that feeling of helplessness that Maya conveyed for the first time in the film, when everything was out of her control. 

Zero Dark Thirty will certainly cement itself in cinematic history if anything for its subject matter and what it means to each viewer on a personal level.  Is it flawed? Yes.  Bigelow actually received little help logistically if any as she had zero access to weaponry or aircraft.  Did Kathryn Bigelow use whatever access she was given to fall in suit with 90% of Hollywood and use this film as a political statement, no.   This was neither a film that carried a torch for the President nor one that drove a stake in the heart of his predecessor.  She created a drama akin to an episode of Law and Order but one that transitioned, at the pivotal moment, into the most significant on-screen adaptation of the most important military action of recent time. 

In the end, after the Seal team successfully completes the mission, we see an emotionally spent Maya, unsure of what to feel—completely lost in the moment.  She’s given the task of confirming the identity of bin Laden’s corpse—confirming that it was him and confirming for the audience that the long struggle to bring the world’s most wanted man to justice was accomplished.  And Kathryn Bigelow has accomplished an excellent look into history in the process. 

The Sector gives Zero Dark Thirty 8 out of 10.

Tour de Farce

Apparently there is no lack of public humiliation encompassing the sports world these days.  Everything from the fake dead cyber-girlfriend of Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o to the recent MLB Hall of Fame vote which resulted in zero inductees, the first time that’s happened since 1996 and only the 8th time ever, thanks mostly to the stigma left in the wake of the PED era.  Now we have former cycling champion Lance Armstrong doing the latest PED mea culpa in an interview with that hard hitting, take-no-prisoners journalist, the Edward R. Murrow of our day, Oprah Winfrey. 

Doing the proverbial interview with Oprah has become the staple of many a celeb looking to rehabilitate their often times self-destroyed public image.  She’s basically the female Larry King minus the goofy suspenders; never really trying to pry the total truth out of their guests as much as wanting to be “the first” to air whatever the celebrity has to say – all of which has been vetted by their public relations handlers of course.  I call it milktoast Entertainment Tonight journalism as it’s all about the fluff and little about the substance.

For many years Armstrong was accused of taking PED’s and always vehemently denied it both in the public arena and even during depositions while under oath – which could ultimately be his real undoing.  Armstrong won a record breaking 7 consecutive Tour De France titles from 1999 to 2005.  It amazes me how these celebrity/sports types have this complete disconnect with reality and believe that they can sustain charades like these indefinitely.  In Armstrong’s case, I’m not even that upset over the fact that he used PED’s – I’ve become numb regarding PED use and athletes at this point. 

It’s that Armstrong used his celebrity as a bludgeon to destroy the lives of friends, colleagues and business partners and anyone else who came along and questioned his veracity.  Armstrong was no better than a typical mafia thug.  But this mafioso was perfectly created, born from a media cauldron and clothed in cloak of infallibility – yellow bracelets included.  Those yellow bracelets that everyone from politicians to movie stars to school teachers wore happened to be all the rage a few years ago were the creation of Armstrong’s Cancer research foundation, Livestrong and were designed as a way to accumulate donations for cancer research. 

Even the name -- Livestrong -- has an air of invincibility to it and along with the people whose lives Armstrong’s destroyed, it’s the real damage that he’s done to the honest and good work of Livestrong that will test that invincibility over time.  This was from an article on Yahoo Sports by Dan Wetzel and it’s so spot on I had to give him a hat tip.  He has 9 questions that he hopes Oprah will ask:

1. Why now, Lance? Is it because in one potential perjury case the statute of limitations has passed? Is it because you've already lost almost all your sponsors, had to step back from your foundation and are no longer getting the attention you once earned?
Did you have to lose nearly everything until you sought the only possible out? And at this point, why are you worth listening to at all?
  

2. Why are you doing this with me, Oprah Winfrey? I'm not known for my cycling knowledge or for pointed follow-up questions or my investigative journalistic skills. In fact, it's the opposite.
  

Wouldn't sitting down with Scott Pelley at "60 Minutes" have been a more legitimate forum? How about the Sunday Times of London, which you sued for libel for printing the truth? Or any of the French or American media that you bashed all along when in fact they weren't wrong at all?
  

You always fashioned yourself as a tough guy, Lance. You beat cancer for crying out loud, why go soft now?
   

3. Let's talk Betsy Andreu, the wife of one your former teammates, Frankie. Both Andreus testified under oath that they were in a hospital room in 1996 when you admitted to a doctor to using EPO, HGH and steroids. You responded by calling them "vindictive, bitter, vengeful and jealous." And that's the stuff we can say on TV.
  

Would you now label them as "honest"?
And what would you say directly to Betsy, who dealt with a voicemail from one of your henchmen that included, she's testified, this:
  

"I hope somebody breaks a baseball bat over your head. I also hope that one day you have adversity in your life and you have some type of tragedy that will … definitely make an impact on you."
  

When you heard about that voicemail, why didn't you call Betsy and apologize then?

You can read the 6 other questions that Wetzel would like Oprah to ask Armstrong here.  The questions have the reader feeling exactly what it would be like looking up at a predator drone strike right before a hellfire missle is launched. 

Look I’m not some holier than thou righteous preacher here trying to cast Armstrong and the rest of the PED users off onto some sort of moralistic island where they are mandated to do penance and compete in weird games of skill against Jeff Kent.  In fact when it comes to PED use I’m more upset on how we, the public treat these fools after we discover their indiscretions.  Instead of shunning them we find them fascinating.  Hell even Melky Cabrera who was suspended by MLB last year for 50 games because he tested positive for PED’s, was signed by the Toronto Blue Jays as a free agent to a 2 year $16 million dollar contract mere months after getting caught. 

I take back anything and everything I’ve said about Armstrong or any of these guys, they’re geniuses.  We’re the dopes.

Reign Delay?

As I was driving home the other night, I was listening to Casey Stern and Jim Bowden on the MLB Network Radio channel on XM.  They were discussing with Jill Painter, the L.A. Daily News sports columnist, the Baseball Hall of Fame vote which took place Wednesday.  This is the same Jill Painter, member of the Baseball Writers Association of America who thought it made perfect sense to cast one of her Hall of Fame votes for the former Blue Jay, Dodger, Diamondback and Met, Shawn Green.  As she was engaging in verbal kabuki, explaining her vote, I could almost feel the indignation boiling over from the two hosts.  Big kudos goes out to both Bowden and Stern for having the combined patience of a saint.  That interview alone should earn them a few Marconi votes in my view.

It’s a good thing I don’t do radio; I wouldn’t have been nearly as diplomatic as they were.  As if there wasn’t enough preordained controversy with this year’s crop of candidates, we get this nonsense and I’m not even going to enrage you with her supposed rationale.  I have too much respect for you to even try.  It’s almost as bad as the one vote that someone gave Aaron Sele.  Again, not going to enrage you with the facts, you can look up Sele’s pathetic career statistics here if you wish.  Then you have my permission to curse uncontrollably - - and yes you can practice reading that line in your best Bane voice.  Or Darrell Hammond’s Sean Connery as I believe they’re one in the same. 

Call me naïve but I was always under the impression that those having been afforded the privilege of a Hall of Fame vote would show just a modicum of respect towards it.   I’m not the only one who thinks this way as does the great Metstradamus.  But this is unfortunately the year that common sense, fairness and respect for the game clearly went over the edge of the train tracks faster than a New York City subway commuter.  Ouch. 

Now I’ve been very sympathetic to the plight the writers have when it comes to wading through the waters that PED’s have polluted in Major League Baseball.  But like Metstradamus, when voters use their privilege to make some grand statement (i.e. voting no one in), peppered with some who find it – I don’t know – comical, to vote for the likes of Sele and Green, it simply demonstrates to me that stupidity isn’t determined by who you write for or what and if you get paid for writing it. 

At least I didn't Nair for short shorts Marty.

When the likes of Marty Noble, someone I’ve always had tremendous respect for, thinks that because Mike Piazza had an abundance of—wait for it—back hair, during his time as a Dodger and decides to connect the follicles and assume that it meant Piazza used.  It shows me just how far we’ve fallen as a people more than anything.  We’ll believe the very worst of each other just to protect our own vanity because God forbid a player is later found to have juiced.   

We can’t have writers dealing with pangs of remorse now can we?  To top it off, Noble then ironically said that as a Met, Piazza had a hairless back, which is ALSO a symptom of steroid use.  So if Piazza essentially played with Robin William’s back he’s using yet if he’s smoother than an Abercrombie model he’s also using?  Absolutely pathetic, especially that never, not once, has Piazza been accused or named in any report or tested positive for any performance enhancing drugs. 

I always believed that MLB needs to be far more proactive of a guide for the BBWAA when it comes to Hall of Fame voting and steroids.  I wrote a piece for Metsmerized in early 2011 calling for Bud Selig to commission a panel exploring the effects that PED’s have on actual playing performance.  Of course Selig and MLB want absolutely nothing further to do with this issue—at least not what happened in the past.  One bright spot happened a few days ago when the MLB Players Association and MLB agreed to year round drug testing for Human Growth Hormone and Testosterone. 

I guess 3000 hits just ain't what they used to be huh?

The BBWAA and their writers refused to vote for some players and based it on innuendo and unproven allegations; and that is shameful itself.  In part I can understand their fear of enshrining someone who later is proven to have used PED’s as players elected cannot be removed from the Hall of Fame.  My question is why is that?  Hypothetically if a Hall of Famer does something illegal, whether during or after their playing career, why are they not immediately open to removal?  That, in my opinion, would allow the writers to choose players based on their careers and not on speculation.

George Orwell was quoted as saying: 

“Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.”

Now the real question remains, who was Orwell talking about; the players or the writers?

The Triumph Through The Tragedy

I was raised a Catholic.  While I’m not what you would describe as your textbook Catholic, I still believe in God -- not so much in man and even more so lately.  Part of what we’re taught when we’re young is to simply accept that everything that happens in this life, absolutely everything, is part of God’s divine plan.  It’s one of those sacred canons that you’re not supposed to question, pending a yardstick to the wrists.  Guantanamo has nothing on Catholic nuns I kid you not.

When a mother of three is diagnosed with Cancer in her early fifties and later dies, never to see her daughters marry or have children of their own, we’re supposed to accept that it was all part of God’s divine plan.  Or when the elderly grandparent, having lived a long and hopefully meaningful life, takes a final breath, we’re told it was his time and more importantly, that it was all part of God’s divine plan.  Oh the mystery of the existential always made me wonder why should we accept the mother dying from Cancer or the elderly whose life has seemingly run its course?  Then you have children ranging in ages from 6 to 7, gunned down in their school by a deranged madman, we question how?  How could God allow something like this to happen?  I wish I had the answer to that.

We’re an interesting bunch; Catholics that is.  We occasionally find refuge in the idea of God’s devine plan when things don’t go quite as planned.  When it really hits the fan we pull out the-- it’s God’s will and works in mysterious ways card.  You know because the mysterious will of a deity is completely valid when it allows children to be slaughtered before roll call especially a deity that proclaims to love us as his own.  George Carlin, seen by many Christians as the anti-Christ, once said “I was a Catholic until I reached the age of reason”.  Unlike Carlin, I never completely shared in his atheistic views but where he and I agree is how man uses Religion to fill in the blanks -- to essentially keep the herd moving along with the caveat being -- no questions allowed.  Move along, move along.

When I heard that there was another mass shooting at a school, taking 26 lives 20 of which were children, I immediately thought of my own daughter who’s only two.  I was thankful that she wasn’t at the age to understand what had happened thus prompting those questions that test a parent’s mettle.  It may have been a selfish reaction but I have a feeling when all is said and done and the families are allowed to heal from this unthinkable tragedy, the common denominator is going to end up focusing on the role parents have and haven’t been playing in the lives of their children probably in the last 20 + years.  Let me just tell you, being a parent is easily the most difficult job you could ever possibly have.  Sure you have the self-help books some penned by famous authors such as Dr. Benjamin Spock.  But in the end there are no user guides, no pdf files, nothing but your own life experiences and good judgment that you have to impart onto your child.  If you fall short or fail in that regard there is no do-over, no restart. 

There is so much that we don’t know right now as to why Adam Lanza, 20, would go on such a rampage killing his mother , the 26 lives at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut and culminating by taking his own life.  I didn’t want to draw any conclusions regarding this tragedy.  Like everyone, there is a time to grieve and heal and then a time to reflect and find resolution.  I see this tragedy broken down into three equally important components, none of which should overshadow the other or be treated like a political football to score points with any issue groups. 

We are living in a violent culture precipitated by a lack of parental guidance at home.  We have parents allowing their children to sit in front of TV’s playing for hours on end video games like Call of Duty.  These first-person shooter games are intensely realistic as they mimic wartime battlefield conditions and some in fact have been partially created and tested by current and former members of the military.  That in itself has caused the Pentagon to take notice.  This is from an article on Forbes.com:

Some have criticized the use of video game technology to train and equip military recruits, citing it as a form of desensitization that makes the taking of lives easier. But proponents argue differently, saying that the use of these video game trainings has allowed for the opposite. By training a soldier in an accurate recreation of former missions, military analysts believe that video game developers are helping to prepare soldiers for the battlefield in a way never before possible.

It’s the very same desensitization that’s affecting our children and that’s what we should find very concerning.  I’ve played these games before and I would be lying if I told you that it didn’t raise my heart rate and put me on edge after just a few minutes of play.  Kids today are spending hours playing these games and parents seem to be just fine allowing it and guess what, video games have ratings systems in place in hopes to preventing the young from playing them.   How’s that working out especially when it’s the parents who often are the one’s buying these games for their kids?

Of the recent mass shootings, each perpetrator shared a similar profile.  They were loners who were extremely intelligent, almost completely lacking in social skills and influenced in part by violent video games.  Though each act of violence has its own distinct context, especially regarding Army Major Nidal Hassan, who was in active duty and who’s act should be treated more as a terrorist attack, over the past decade the social science research community has continued to search for more general frameworks of understanding.  Indiana University commissioned a study of 28 students who were randomly assigned to play either a violent, first-person shooter game or a non-violent one every day for a week. None of the participants had much previous gaming experience.  Researchers found that those who played the violent video games showed less activity in areas of the brain that involved emotions, attention and inhibition of impulses.

But some researchers believe that establishing more precise psychological/criminal profiles in the hope of preventing such events through interventions may ultimately prove elusive.  We may not be able to exactly predict human behavior but what we can do, especially as parents, is to take note of our children and how they behave and the games they play.  It’s inexcusable to allow teenagers to spend hours playing a game that mimics the ravages of war, only to have them become desensitized to it.  We’re no longer in the age of Pac-Man, not when you have games so realistic that they’re used to train soldiers.   This is the first step in addressing this epidemic.

The next step segues almost seamlessly as it concerns our mental health system or in fact our woeful excuse of a system.  I work with the public and this may be viewed as simplistic of me to say but I’m very confident in the fact that I’ve dealt with the gamut of some --shall we say--psychologically challenged individuals.  I say that tongue-in-cheek but in all honesty it’s something that’s always on my mind at work.  To put it bluntly, I’ve dealt with people that absolutely should be institutionalized.  I’ve had someone tell me that their Cable company was remotely viewing them in their homes from a camera placed inside their set-top box.  She was completely and utterly serious and while we often reminisce at work about that incident jokingly, it makes me wonder why someone who clearly needed more than just a pill to get back on the right track again was out and about among the rest of us.  I’ve had people threaten my safety, my life – the list can go on.  All of them by people who are somehow operating under the radar of mental fitness. 

In my home state of New Jersey, the Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital closed on June 30, and the subject of a hearing that was held in Trenton where mental health advocates, legislators and opponents of the shutdown seemed to agree on one point: New Jersey needs to commit more money to support Hagedorn's patients as they move out of the hospital and into the homes of relatives, residential facilities in the community, and other psychiatric hospitals.   As it is being reported, Adam Lanza may have had mental issues and was not properly diagnosed and treated.  The question it raises is: are we doing enough to address the very real issue of mental health in this country or are we simply shaking our heads and making juvenile jokes when someone acts way out of what is generally the norm? 

And to tie it into my first component -- why didn’t Adam Lanza’s mother do something about it?  Reports are saying that she would tell babysitter’s that Adam was to never be left alone.  That in and of itself should have warranted psychological help not to mention it brings into question the veritable arsenal Adam Lanza’s mother seemed to be amassing in her home--her home with a potentially mentally ill son.

This leads me to the third and last component that needs to be addressed and that involves guns.  I’m a gun owner and have been for many years and it’s something that my father taught me to understand and respect from a very young age. I remember feeling both fearful and in awe of it simultaneously.  I was about ten years old when he was comfortable enough to tell me about it. Some of my friends wonder why would I have a gun in the home especially with a two year old.  First, I keep my handgun in a locked safe that only my wife and I have access to.  According to reports Lanza’s mother was a gun collector -- owning handguns and rifles – all accessible to her son.  Now if I knew my child had ANY psychological problems, the last thing I would do is keep my handgun where she could access it.  Let alone a cache of weapons.   It’s basic common sense. 

One of the weapons Lanza used was the AR-15.  It’s essentially a civilian version of the military M-16.  It usually fires a .223 caliber round whereas its military counterpart fires the more powerful 5.56 full metal jacket round.  The clip used in the AR-15 can hold from 5 to 100 rounds.  As a gun owner and someone who believes in the 2^nd amendment, I find it ridiculous that ANY gun owner would find it necessary to have a weapon that holds as much as one hundred rounds.  Forgive me how this comes across but my .357 Magnum holds 5 rounds -- I only need 1.  I say that because the issue of gun control is something that over the coming days will be front and center because of this tragedy. 

The fight over gun control is a battle between two diametrically opposing viewpoints – one on the political left and the other on the political right.  Unfortunately, as with most issues, the extreme elements on both sides tend to have the loudest, and often times, most irrational voices.  You see there are those who feel that there is no weapon, or ammunition type, or high capacity magazine that should ever be banned because of an irrational fear that someone like President Obama will somehow summon the Army in black helicopters to come door-to-door, confiscating their arms while burning the Constitution.  

Trust me gun owners, if the President really wanted to do that, you and your AR-15, one in each arm, wouldn’t be able to stop it.  What we do need is more in depth background checks and licensing.  Yes, licensing.  If I have to take a test to drive my SUV then I think taking a test to show that I’m responsible enough to use a handgun is only fair.  The idea of everyone being armed isn’t feasible since most people aren’t mandated to be trained in the first place.  Relying on armed untrained citizens to properly use firearms responsibly would be a huge risk.  The last thing we all want is for guns to be in anyone and everyone’s hands –regardless of age or mental capacity. 

Don’t get me wrong.  There are those on the left who advocate a complete ban on firearms and they’re simply living in a utopia that only exists in their minds.  But to juxtapose this with another hot-button issue, there are those on the right who think abortions, at any stage of the pregnancy, should be banned.  They too show little in the way of compromising.  It’s this inability to find common ground –something so lacking these days – that is why both ends of the political spectrum have little to no trust in each other.  But to make the unfortunate assumption that simply banning guns will solve this issue is just the easy out and all it does is give the opportunistic politician a chance to prop up their brand all the while offering up a false sense of security at the expense of guaranteed rights.   

If there was one element to this story that stands apart from the issues it has to be the media.  I understand the role of the media is to inform but when informing takes a backseat to wall-to-wall sensationalism, a line has to be drawn especially when members of the media feel the need to express their own opinions on the matter.  CNN anchor Don Lemon stated that despite gun violence actually going down since 1990, in his words said “it doesn’t matter” essentially saying restrictions need to be put in place.  I agree to an extent but if the media continues to focus on only one aspect of this tragedy then their doing a disservice to us all. 

To put this into perspective, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2009 there were 1,314 children under the age of 14 that died in motor vehicle crashes, and the numbers rose even higher in 2012.  That’s like having 65 Sandy Hook tragedies yet the media doesn’t report that or come out for a ban on certain type of vehicles.  Do we really need cars that can travel in excess of 100 miles per hour?  Where’s the call for a ban on sports cars or sub compacts?

I don’t know what the next few days, weeks and months will come because of this.  I do know that there are no easy remedies out there and anyone who tries to convince you that all we need is that “one” fix, is flat out lying and probably pandering to a particular group.  There’s a saying that through tragedy comes triumph.  I look at my daughter and I wish my faith was stronger --I really do.  That’s the funny thing about faith, you either have it or you don’t.  I want to believe that God wouldn’t want children to be slaughtered and I understand that we all have free will.  

Free will –according to Christianity—the direct result of Eve eating the apple from the “tree of knowledge”.  But I’m still at a loss as to how this all fits into His “Devine Plan”?  By Eve’s actions we are now subject to life without God’s involvement?  Is that our punishment?  And why would God wish to punish us for seeking knowledge?  We pray for things like this not to happen but if they’re predetermined, what’s the point?  I wish it were easy for me to offer myself up to faith, as it was when I was younger.  If there is anything we should all pray for, it’s the ability to find hope in a time when hope is slowly fleeting.  

Generally Out-Managed...er

Have you ever wondered what does the term "fair market value" really mean? It's often bantered about in the sports world when an athlete vying for a new contract, tries to sell his talents to the highest bidder. I hear it all the time. To me, it means getting paid for the service you're providing balanced against what others in your specific field are being paid for doing the same. Sounds fairly simple right? You get paid according to what your peers are being paid and how well they perform. That's how it works for everyone- everyone with the exception of one Robert Allan Dickey. 

You see, Mr. Dickey, he's just weird. First off, what's with the name? Dickey. Really? He play's professional Baseball for a living but that's a loose term since he happens to play for the New York Mets. Don't get me started on that - talk about having regrets. He's a pitcher but I'll be damned, he's a weird one at that too. He's a knuckleball pitcher. The knuckleball happens to be a last resort pitch used by those trying desperately to hold onto their career.

It's kind of like when Lindsey Lohan play's Elizabeth Taylor in a Lifetime made-for-TV movie. He's also missing a ligament or a nerve or something in his elbow; weird and damaged goods I tell you. Oh and here's the cherry on the top of this sundae, he's 38 years old! He's weird, old, damaged goods - and he wants to get paid "fair market value". I got his nerve- right here.

I admit he did ok last year. He led the Mets in practically every pitching category including usage of the word "enigmatic" 247 times. He was the first Mets pitcher ever to quote Faulkner in a post game interview that left the dreamy Kevin Burkhardt mesmerized in the moment. Oh yeah, and he won the Cy Young award. It's not that I'm minimizing what he means to the Mets but he's replaceable especially that he thinks he should get both "fair market value" and long term security. Sure I know he's just looking for a 3 year extension but he's 38 years old for crying out loud. And you know I don't like long term relationships plus we all know I've had to put a ring on one player this winter so far - two is pushing it! Damn that Beyonce.

Word on the street is that Anibal Sanchez just inked a 5 year, $80 million dollar deal to return to the Detroit Tigers. That's a lot of coin for a guy who's career record is under five hundred. Then you have that kid with the mental issues in Anaheim, Grienke. He just signed a 6 year deal with the Dodgers worth almost $160 million. I guess I have to agree that Dickey is worth somewhere in between those guys, right? Damn market. Here I was hoping it would bottom out and come to me (that's code word for I was hoping Dickey would finally exibit oxygen deprivation from his Kilimanjaro ascent and sign for pennies on the dollar).

Well needless to say, he's feeling fine, a little peeved but otherwise ok. I would be peeved too if my boss asked me to dress like an Elf at the company Christmas party. Maybe asking him to park the cars took it too far. Oh well, you live and learn. I have to get going now, I'm currently texting Alex Anthopoulos but don't worry, I'm multitasking here. My box of chocolates order from Swiss Colony just got approved - on company credit no less. Now that's winning!

All my best and happy holidays,

Sandy