Frankly, Big Papi, I Don't Give a Damn

It’s Oscar time for baseball. Soon, overly muscular men will strut their stuff on the red carpet of the media (or at least sports journalists and the players’ PR reps will) to prove why each one is or is not deserving of the Cy Young, MVP, Rookie of the Year, and Manager of the Year awards. These awards seem as meaningful to me as a juicy filet mignon sitting on my plate -- not very. I can never remember who won the previous year’s awards, nor do I care to.

But I am intrigued by the debate stirred up this year (and in past years too, I’m sure) about the relative merit of giving the MVP award to a DH rather than to a player who participates on both offense and defense. Fans and journalists are pledging their allegiance either to Alex Rodriguez or David Ortiz for the AL MVP; most for Rodriguez are citing Big Papi's less than frequent stints on defense. Despite my Red Sox love, I don't really care who wins. But if pinned down to choose, of course I'd say Ortiz. The argument (thank you Scott Miller) kinda goes like this:

Normally, I subtract points for a designated hitter. I know the argument -- hey, it's in the rules that a guy can use the stick but not his glove -- but a DH still is not a complete player. However, Ortiz has been so money for the Red Sox over the past two seasons -- and particularly this year -- that I believe his summer has been special enough to warrant the award. Of his 47 home runs, 20 have either tied the game or put the Red Sox ahead. As Ortiz himself might say, that's a lot of clutch homers, bro.

Beyond what this discussion means for the MVP debate (cause I don't care, remember?), I'm more interested in the potential implications for Hall of Fame inductions, which I do care about. In 2003, when the debate was raging about Edgar Martinez, I remember staunchly refusing him a ticket to Cooperstown by arguing that as a DH he didn't belong. Now I realize that what I meant to argue was that EdMar shouldn't be in the Hall because of his lack of stellar accomplishments, not because of his position.

If Ted Williams had been a DH and hit in the same way, I would have wanted him to be inducted. Same with Pete Rose. (Oh, right.) Just cause you're a DH doesn't mean you can't be the most valuable player or Hall of Fame caliber. It just means you have to be pretty damn awesome to overcome the fact that you're sitting on the bench for more than half the game. I think Ortiz has it in him to do just that.

[Oh, and since I mentioned it, I may as well officially say on record that Pete Rose has my backing to be in the Hall of Fame. Anything he did while a manager isn't any more greedy or harmful to baseball than any number of moves made by players, coaches, and managers nearly every day. He just got caught. It shouldn't affect his status as one of the greatest players of all time. (In 1999 Sporting News selected him as the 25th Greatest Baseball Player, ahead of Sandy Koufax, Tris Speaker, Rod Carew, Mel Ott, and Yogi Berra, among others.) Hell, they let violent assholes into the Hall, so why not a gambler?]

You Mean I Can't Buy Condoms with That?

Congratulations to Dr. Dora Mills, Director of Maine's Bureau of Health, and Governor John Baldacci for continuing to refuse federal abstinence-only "sex education" money. Their decision has brought the grand total of states that refuse to take such funds to a whopping three; Pennsylvania and California complete the trio.

Unfortunately, Dr. Mills (and future state funding for the Bureau of Health) are now under attack by conservative members of the state legislature:

"First of all, the bureau's director, Dr. Dora Mills, is not a policymaker or elected, like legislators, so I continue to object to policy being made by bureaucrats," [State Sen. Debra D.] Plowman said. "Second, I hope that she's going to find that $161,000 somewhere in her budget to continue the program she has been involved in, because we're not making it up. So she best not be asking for any increases in her budget next year, or the two years after that for that matter. If she can unilaterally turn away money, then she can't be in too difficult circumstances. She, and the governor, should have run that one by the Legislature."

Aside from the petty linguistic criticism of Plowman's contention that one can make a unilateral bureaucratic decision in conjunction with a state elected official (the Guv at that!), this quote is pure schoolyard battle drivel. "She best not be asking me for an Oreo after thumbing her nose at Mrs. Smith's Soft Batch chocolate chip cookie yesterday." What, is Debra Plowman 9 years old?

Of course, I'm anti-abstinence-only funding, so I'd agree with Mills's and Baldacci's decision regardless of the conservative response. But if I were a Maine resident and read Plowman's asinine threats, I'd be incensed that this woman was ever elected to the legislature. Mills wasn't overstepping her bounds as a bureau director by acting in conjunction with the Administration to refuse that funding. She was being smart and principled and demonstrating that not all state officials are out for more federal money to stuff their own coffers.

La Haîne

Here are some folks who recently have received spit-laced invectives for committing various "crimes," some great, some small, and some imaginary. You decide which is which.

• God-and-country-lovin' John Denver fans turn violent when Mark writes a review exposing the irrelevance of their beloved'’s music.
• After implicating teammate Miguel Tejada in his own embarrassing steroid controversy, Raffy Palmeiro is asked to leave the Orioles' locker room and to not return for the rest of the season. Oddsmakers put it that no other team will ask him to ride their bench next season either.
• Police in Ciudad Juarez receive fiery criticism for their gross incompetence in investigating the murder of 350+ women in the city and surrounding area.
  
• New York Yankee Derek "I-I-I-I-I-get-around" Jeter receives more hate mail for dating white women.

Walk, Don't Run to the Playoffs

For other ailing Red Sox fans out there, I have a temporary cure for your playoff worries: the toe-tap inducing guitar-and-drum goodness of The Challengers. It's hard to find an objective history of the band, but check out bassist Randy Nauert's nifty summary and Challengers Cartoon Book.

Though not the most famous of the surf rock bands of the '60s, these guys knew how to play the genre well and outplayed some of the original bands on the very tunes that made them so famous (The Ventures and The Surfaris, to name just two). Seriously, check out The Challengers' version of "Wipeout." It may stave off fears about the Red Sox, who are in danger of doing just that.

You gotta have balls to call 'em

Do you go to a French restaurant expecting the head chef to have been born and raised in Provence? Or are you more concerned that the chef cooks your “moules avec frites” to perfection? According to “Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime” by Jean Hastings Ardell, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (NAPBL) demonstrated its allegiance to pure French ethnicity in a 1968 lawsuit concerning the contract of Bernice “Bernie” Gera, one of the few female umpires to break even the single A ranks of professional baseball:

Leisure [the NAPBL Wall Street-trained lawyer] likened the NABL’s need for male umpires to that of a French restaurant’s need for a French chef or a religious organization’s preference for a salesman of its own creed.

Hmm...isn't an employer hiring based on preferences for her/his own group characteristics illegal (in theory, anyway)? The New York State Human Rights Commission agreed that it was, and Gera eventually did win the battle -- after 5 years of stress and attorney fees. So, how come the situation of female umpires in professional baseball has not improved since Gera’s case almost 40 years ago?

For example, Pam Postema – who had accumulated 12 years of professional umpiring experience, including 6 in triple A – was set for a historical promotion to the majors in 1988. However, after a controversial media attack against her led by born-again Christian/ Houston Astros pitcher Bob Knepper, Postema was “released” from her duties for ejecting too many people and a “worsening” attitude. [Insiders knowingly blamed these foibles on a bad case of PMS, I'm sure.] Postema's fate was sealed by a tell-all expose of major league baseball (which I've gotta read) and questions surrounding her sexuality. She would never call a game in the majors -- and neither would any other woman.

It is true that Postema's goal eluded her and that few women followed in her path. Melvin Driskoll, of Jim Evans's Academy of Professional Umpiring, said they have a hard time attracting women. [Do they even try?] Between 1977 and 2002, thirteen women attended Harry Wendelstedt's school, with only Postema and Theresa Cox making it into the minor leagues.

If professional experts are supposed to reflect their charges or clientele, can someone explain why so many women’s basketball/ hockey/ volleyball/ curling coaches are men? Or why so many gynecologists and obstetricians are men? Cause last time I checked, men don’t have vaginas.

But It's Only 10 Miles from I-80

Since Mark has already brilliantly documented the highlights of our semi-cross country trek, here are the coulda-been highlights -- if we had had two more weeks to make the journey and a shitload of money:

Our first tangential stop was to Wheatland -- "Where Presidential History Comes to Life." Oh boy, and did it ever. I will never forget traipsing through the rooms that once housed James Buchanan.

We then headed west to Altoona, PA to visit the famous horseshoe curve. I had been there before, but wanted to ride that crazy "Funicular" again.

A couple hours into our trip, we stopped at Frank Lloyd Wright's classic woodsy architectural haven, Fallingwater. I bought this T-shirt.

Next, Mark wanted to stop at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. We spent a couple hours gazing at Marilyn and a bunch of soup cans and then combed through the archives.

In our continuing search for presidential paraphernelia, we had barely crossed the border into Ohio before hitting the McKinley Memorial Library and Museum. We even got to sit next to McKinley, who was daintily perched on a red velvet couch.

After leaving McKinley behind, we hightailed it to Cedar Point Park, where two full days were spent riding roller coasters. We probably felt a combined 500 G's pushing and lifting and generally propelling our bodies in all directions. I left a happy woman.

At this point, we decided to make a beeline for Minneapolis, and only allowed ourselves one more (ridiculously expensive) stop -- at Taliesin, the Wright house and compound located in Spring Green, WI. Super pretty and worth the money if you happen to have it bulging out of your wallet.

Aaahhh...then home once again.

Tennis Rocket Battles

Dear Lord. And to think Andre Agassi used to be at the top of my "I hate you" list.

Agassi over Blake 3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6).

I sure wish Pete were still playing, so we could compare their mid-30s tennis capabilities. And their adorable schlockiness:

At 1:15 in the morning for 20,000 people to still be here, I wasn't the winner, tennis was.

Stalled at the Start

How is a person supposed to start boxing up books and clothes when the fascinating U.S. Open match between Rafael "I-can't-decide-if-I-prefer-black-or-white-capris" Nadal and James "Thank-God-my-face-is-no-longer-paralyzed" Blake is taking place?

Blake's currently serving at 5-4 for the first set after having just broken Nadal. Oh, what I wouldn't do for Blake's inside-out forehand.

Blake just won the first set. Please let him knock that pretty Spaniard out.

Hometown Pride

In honor of the anniversary of the first day of the Great Textile Strike in Woonsocket (Sept. 1, 1934), take a look at this Illustrated Timeline of Woonsocket Labor History. Those fiesty Canucks!

I am also proud to report that the University of Minnesota library has the book published by the Industrial Trades Union of America that is pictured at left.

Snoozin' Song Tag

Okay, so Bob Mould didn't exactly tag me personally, but I've visited his Whole Foods a couple times in the past week and maybe I touched a nectarine that he gently nudged with his knuckle while reaching for the grapes...

Here's the deal: List ten songs you currently are obsessing over -- any genre, any format, etc. If you have a blog, do it there; if you don't, do it here. Then tag five people or so. Here are my songs, in no particular order:

Arcade Fire: Wake Up
Kleenex/Liliput: You
Rufus Wainwright: One Man Guy
Bikini Kill: Feels Blind
Will Smith: Switch
Imperial Teen: Teacher's Pet
The Go-Betweens: Heart and Home
Missy Elliott: Lose Control
Guns N' Roses: Mr. Brownstone
The Positions: Back to Me

Okay: Mark, Eli, Jon, Ezra & Alex, Kate & Eden, Emily, CJ, Ross, and Liz -- consider your nectarines gently nudged by my knuckles.

Ride Again, $4 & Stall Humor

While I didn't exactly approach Michael Boodley's Bastille Day, 1975 record-setting performance of 1,000 consecutive rides on the Coney Island Cyclone [pictured left], I did experience the historic wooden coaster's brilliance twice in a row this past weekend. Who knew that a coaster that began operating in 1927 could be so damn exciting! I guess I would expect nothing less from "perhaps the most famous roller coaster of all time."

The Cyclone's notorious first drop (of 85 feet at a ridiculously steep 60 degree angle) was phenomenal. Then, for a blessed one minute and 50 seconds (covering 2,650 feet along the way), you're whipped around six 180 degree turns, 18 track crossovers, and a whopping 27 changes of direction. I left with bruises and the next day woke up with sore muscles. Of course, I wouldn't have my wooden roller coasters any other way. I feel perfectly content with skipping Cedar Point now.

Also while in NY, I ran across the funniest bathroom stall graffiti conversation I've seen in quite a while:

Drunk woman #1: I hate those damn Red Sox, except for that Mike Timlin, who is H-O-T.
Drunk woman #2: I'm with you, except mine is Brian Daubach. Woo hoo!
Drunk woman #3: The Red Sox rule! MLB Champs 2005!
Drunk woman #4: The Red Sox can go fuck themselves! Yankees rule! They were just throwing the Red Sox a bone!

Wow, where to begin? First, I love that there was a drunken baseball debate happening in a women's bathroom stall. This makes me happy.

Second, I need to point out that Yankees fans have, uh, interesting taste in men. Timlin and Daubach? These certainly can't be the same fans who drool over Jeter.

Third, just throwing the Red Sox a bone? Then what are they doing this year? Setting a big juicy steak in front of us? Cause it sure looks to me like the Sox are going to win the Division, and that the Yankees are in a 3-way tie for first in the Wild Card race. Red Sox rule!

Throwing Asymptosy

Umm...take a look at the new Throwing Music Blog. Now, I know there are blogger templates and all that, but I distinctly remember screwing around with different color combos before settling on this design.

Also, note the hip new TM home page, as well as the exciting news about more "Free Music" in the works. Plus Kristin's working on a new solo album AND a 2nd edition of "Murder, Misery and then Goodnight". What a way to start my morning. I love this woman.

Hatching and Strippling

After my weekend trip to the National Building Museum, I am convinced some part of me was an architect in the 18th or 19th century. Their current exhibition, Tools of the Imagination, made my blood pressure rise, my eyeballs explode, and my latent kleptomania emerge. You can see some of the beautiful instruments as part of an exhibition flyer. Here are the tools I especially wanted to swipe:

1) Four-layer magazine case: Who doesn't want to keep all of their architectural implements in a nickel silver bound burr walnut case?

2) Beam compass: Or, in this case, a "microscopic" beam compass.

3) Ellipsograph, or trammel, if you will. If you get really skilled with it, you're even allowed to join the Elliptical Turning Association. No joke.

4) Perspectograph: Which can be used to make fancy perspective drawings of houses, such as this or this.

5) Volutor: That Andrew Kay is a genius.

Buckeye Battle

Mark nicely summarizes a current debate we are having over Ohio cultural attractions. Though it is kinda lopsided, in that he has choices 'a'-'e' and I'm left with meager old 'f'. My mom has already told me she's with Mark on this one, despite those presidents being "the most boring ever." Which would you pick?

Crisis at 357 Park Place

I attended Woonsocket Middle School from September 1991 to June 1994 -- and they were the three happiest years I spent in school. One would think middle school would be absolute torture for tomboyish, corpulent, adolescent girls, but I loved my time there.

It's amazing how much things can change in a mere 10 years. The descriptions of the school's current state in 2005 from this Providence Journal 5-part series do not ring true to me at all. I guess I sensed things were changing at the middle school when I was in high school and heard stories from my friends' younger siblings. But this?

Woonsocket Middle School -- New England's largest -- has been called a labyrinth, a jungle, a danger zone, and even a haven.

The complex, which covers a city block larger than a football field, is full of snaking hallways, storage closets turned into classrooms, and shadowy stairways known to disorient even the heartiest visitor.This year alone, faulty intercoms, broken bathrooms, corroding pipes, and cockroaches have disrupted learning and eroded morale.

School days are frequently interrupted with arrests, fights, and violent confrontations. Three months ago, a teacher was arrested for hitting a student. Last year, 13 students were suspended for assaulting teachers and 170 students were suspended for assaulting each other.

In 1998, a student was raped in a stairwell. In 2001, another student was sexually assaulted by a gym teacher.

The school is so volatile, teachers feel it is more important to take 10 to 15 minutes out of academic time twice a day for escorted bathroom breaks rather than risk what might happen if they allowed children to tackle the bathroom trips on their own.

Now, sure, there really is nothing unique about this situation. There are bad schools around the country, many much worse than this. Woonsocket surely isn't the only community where parents are yanking their kids out of public school to go to uptight Catholic ones. And teachers clash with an ever-changing repertoire of administrators everywhere. So what's the big deal?

Well, I guess what really disturbs me is how fast the school became an absolute quagmire. To me, it epitomizes the complete disinvestment in public schools that's happening around the country, particularly in urban settings that have experienced recent waves of immigration and only seem to be getting poorer. (According to this article, 32% of Woonsocket Middle School students live in poverty and 61% come from low income families.)

In a recent conversation with someone familiar with urban New England school settings, it was agreed that investment in schools alone is not enough. The ailing schools are merely a consequence of a community that's suffering in a myriad of other ways. So do you start trying to repair the city's economy before the schools? Do you attempt a simultaneous fix? I guess that's what I went to policy school to try to figure out, but hell if I know.

Perhaps the one concrete recommendation that jumps out to me is to build another school -- this structure is clearly too small and old to hold all these kids. Woonsocket is far from being the largest city in New England, so there's no reason for it to have the largest middle school. Split the school in half, have smaller class sizes, you know the drill.

Fat 6th graders who like to wear plaid blazers should feel comfortable at Woonsocket Middle School, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't in 2005. Kids who hate going home at night should have a reprieve during the day at Woonsocket Middle School, and it sure sounds like the nightmare only continues.

Teachers, administrators: learn to get along and friggin' figure out what the hell to do with the students. Mayor, City Council, community leaders: you're no longer a mill town filled with Canucks, Italians, and Irish folk. The population's changed, so get with the program and serve your constituents -- yeah, even the ones who don't have money.

Andy Roddick's Jaime Yzaga

I'll never forget the 1994 U.S. Open because of a Peruvian tennis player named Jaime Yzaga. My favorite netsman, Pete Sampras, had had a rough year and ended up losing to Yzaga in the fourth round. I was devastated. How could Pete lose to someone I had never heard of before? My friend (and 6th grade crush) Carlos sensed my distress and taunted me with the name Jaime Yzaga for years. (Little did I know that Yzaga also had dealt Pete his first ever U.S. Open loss -- in 1988!)

This devastating memory was jogged tonight as I watched Andy Roddick lose rather handily to Paul-Henri Mathieu a mere two days after Roddick won the Legg Mason here in D.C. Mathieu's performance was incredible, culminating in a scrambling point on his serve that ended with Mathieu running down a Roddick volley for a desperate forehand winner. It was amazing.

I like Roddick enough, and I loved Pete Sampras. But I imagine it being infinitely more satisfying to walk onto a tennis court and beat someone who everyone is expecting to kill you than to walk onto a tennis court and fulfill everyone's expectation that you're going to win.

Guaranteed Roddick will come out firing in next week's tournament. No one likes to learn the Yzaga lesson.

FunNY

Eli has already posted about this on Expecting Rain, but I like to brag about highlight the talents of my friends. Check out the last paragraph of this NY Times article by Robert Strauss.

[Update: You now have to purchase the article to read the last paragraph. Basically, the article describes the award for humor fiction writing that Strauss established at Carleton, and that Eli is the only winner of the award he has ever met. And that Eli won two years in a row. And that one of Eli's winning stories pondered whether or not dogs could be Jewish.]

Design Like You Give a Damn

Thanks to a profile in the Washington Post, I've discovered one of the neatest non-profit organizations ever -- Architecture for Humanity. Co-founded by practical idealists Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr, AFH is committed to promoting "architectural and design solutions to global, social and humanitarian crises."

AFH is working on tsunami reconstruction in Asia, improvement of "tent cities" for refugees and internally displaced persons, and construction of soccer pitches in South Africa with a focus on the pitch as a place of community gathering for HIV/AIDS prevention.

These folks ain't after the Gehry or Calatrava glamour -- they're not making much (if any) money. But they understand that not only wealthy people deserve thoughtful, ecologically sound, aesthetically pleasing design. Hats are off, guys and gals.

There Go Those Liberal Colleges Again

Who knew that since 1986 Hampshire College has been home to such a valuable resource as the Population and Development Program? In a cursory glance at their online materials, I've already explored "10 Reasons Why Militarism is Bad for Queer People" and "Why the Hispanic Challenge Should Be Discredited." Take that Samuel Huntington (whose incendiary article "The Hispanic Challenge" is available online if you register for free at Foreign Policy).

Hampshire is also home to yet another phenomenal center -- the Civil Liberties and Policy Program. CLPP hosts an annual reproductive rights conference and organizes a National Day of Action that sounds pretty damn cool. Those lucky kids...

He'll Flip Ya For Real

Sometimes, but not often, Hollywood does pick the right movies to sequelize. Several reports indicate that Kevin Spacey has signed on to reprise his Keyser Soze/Verbal Kint stint from The Usual Suspects!

It appears as though an Australian barista started the rumor. I guess Kevin trusts her to make his coffee, so she must be telling the truth, right? Right? Don't burst my bubble. My team of monkeys can beat your team of monkeys.