The Henry Wiggen Blog

The all-white neighborhood is extinct! Tell that to the guy on 155th Street stuck between all-blonde SUVs...Oh, and KC ranks high in desegregation?

2012-01-30T16:37:00.016-06:00

Good news? Well, my guess is some members of the local media will doubtless see it that way.

Segregation, as a disease of the last century, is in remission, according to a study released today by researchers at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. And, according to the work of Edward Glaeser and Jacob Vigdor, Kansas City shows one of the biggest declines in segregation among the nation’s most segregated cities.

Now, if you’ve driven down 155^th Street recently from State Line west into the sunset, you might think, ‘Ah, what magic you can do with numbers.” Stopped at the light at Metcalf Ave., for example, you find yourself boxed in by giant SUVs piloted by blonde drivers with blonde children in soccer uniforms staring blankly out the back windows… or – just as likely – sticking their pink tongues out at you for whatever indignity you apparently suffer.

Lexus in front, Mercedes behind, Tahoe to the left, BMW to the right. You’ve no doubt wondered as you waited where all this money comes from. What do these people do?

So, these statistics deserve a closer look than I’m offering here. Much closer.

Start with this: Kansas City ranked ninth among the 10 most segregated American cities in 1970. That’s no surprise in a city once ranked first for the most highway miles between population centers. Wichita ranked seventh on the most segregated list and Chicago, of course, ranked first.

In 1970, 91.1 percent of all Chicago metropolitan census tracts were segregated. The researchers utilize a statistical tool called a dissimilarity index – a tool I will not pretend to understand. The index number for Kansas City was 87.5 percent in 1970.

What I think this means is that in 87.5 percent of the city's census tracts, at least half the African American faces with have to be replaced with white faces to achieve perfect integration.

By 2010, Kansas City had fallen to 57.7 percent on the index, a decline of 29.8 percent. This was the fourth largest decline among the top 10 most segregated cities. Oklahoma City, Wichita, and Dayton, Ohio, experienced larger declines in the index.

And in the first decade of this century, Kansas City ranked ninth overall in the decline of segregation. Between 2000 and 2010, census information shows a decline in segregation – measured by the dissimilarity index -- in Kansas City from 68.6 percent to 57.7 percent, a 10.9 percent decline. In the same decade, Detroit went from 84.2 percent to 68.6 percent. But Detroit was also essentially depopulated.

Of course, Kansas City was still the fourth most segregated city on the list of biggest losers.

I’m not sure how hard we should pat ourselves on the back about this. It will be interesting to see what the local media does with this story in the coming days. The researchers, however, were sufficiently impressed with the results they culled from the census numbers to declare the all-white neighborhood is "extinct" in modern America. Extinct.

Well, they do hedge a bit when they explain what they mean by extinct.

“All-white neighborhoods are effectively extinct. A half-century ago, one-fifth of America’s urban neighborhoods had exactly zero black residents. Today, African-American residents can be found in 199 out of every 200 neighborhoods nationwide. The remaining neighborhoods are mostly in remote rural areas or in cities with very little black population.”

Allow a statistical idiot to rephrase. What the latest census data found is 199 of every 200 neighborhoods has at least one African American resident. That feels a bit closer to reality.

By this definition America is completely integrated, thanks in particular to those Latin immigrants the great grandsons of Polish and German immigrants love to hate. The researchers point out 99.8 percent of all census tracts in America contain at least one person who claims Hispanic heritage.

All these numbers remind me of a time I was interviewing a demographer at Johnson County Community College. I was curious about whether the constant booster boast that the golden goose sported the second highest income per resident in the nation was actually true. This demographer showed me something else, something that had been at first a statistical puzzle for her staff. They had compiled a scattergram of residents of color in the county. And right there square in the middle of Mission Hills was the highest concentration of black dots in the entire scattergram. How could this be?

They did a little checking. No, they found no hitherto hidden ghetto of color just west of State Line. The census had simply picked up a large concentration of live-in help. Gardeners, chauffers, maids.

Perhaps the most telling results of today’s study come from the researchers’ own cautions. I’ll quote them at length because they are worth pondering:

“The 1960s were the heyday of racial segregation. During those years, segregation seemed a likely cause of many of the troubles afflicting African-Americans. Segregation was so enormous, and so unfair, that it seemed to create a separate and unequal experience for African-Americans everywhere. During those years, the fight against housing segregation seemed to offer the possibility that once the races mixed more readily, all would be well.

“Forty years later, we know that this dream was a myth. There is every reason to relish the fact that there is more freedom in housing today than 50 years ago and to applaud those who fought to create that change. Yet we now know that eliminating segregation was not a magic bullet. Residential segregation has declined pervasively, as ghettos depopulate and the nation’s population center shifts toward the less segregated Sun Belt. At the same time, there has been only limited progress in closing achievement and employment gaps between blacks and whites.

“The difficult lesson of these decades is that society is complicated and single solutions rarely solve everything. While the decline in segregation remains good news, far too many Americans still lack the opportunity to achieve meaningful success.”

--Lofflin… more on this later…

Star columnists: Helling on truth, truthiness and truthfulness... why not just say no? and why waste space on fried macaroni?

2012-01-25T11:01:00.010-06:00

Just say no.

For a journalist, saying no is difficult to impossible. But, in my opinion it's the real answer to the question Dave Helling raised in his Kansas City Star column today.

First, let me say I liked the column. The question of holding journalism's feet to the fire of truth is always a good one. And Helling makes a good case for the difficulty of establishing THE truth of a statement or a situation. His trick question about gas prices is compelling and not foreign to most reporters.

Of course, as Sissela Bok carefully pointed out in "Lying, Moral Choice in Public and Private Life," (must reading for every reporter) truth and truthfulness are different things. If a reporter held himself to only presenting THE truth, she'd only write once in a great while. But, her intention to be truthful, is a noble way of life.

But what does "intention to be truthful" mean?

I'd like make a small case for a different vision of it from the one often practiced by reporters in the field.

It means thinking hard about what truth means in the context of actually working for a news organization. Here's a centering question: Does getting the most truth out of the situation mean more than being first with the story?

It means rethinking what a story is, what news is. It may sometimes mean saying, "Whoa, this isn't a story. Yes, this here quote is sure newsworthy, but it isn't true, so it isn't a story."

What that suggests is reporters, who are, after all, in the truth business, ought to intend to discover the truth in every statement they report. "Every statement?" I'm writing this and cringing at the thought. But I'll stand by it. So, if they're reporting on the price of gasoline during Barack Obama's administration of the White House, it is incumbent on them to report all three of the "truths" Helling offers in his piece.

Because three competing truths exist doesn't mean the reporter should be paralyzed. It means the reporter should provide all three to the reader and let the reader decide.

But I'm wondering if sometimes the reporter should just say no. Of course that may mean Tony Botello will have the story first on his blog. Or somebody on television will mention it first at 6 p.m. Or, heaven forbid, CNN will get it first.

Competition is not a persuasive argument for anyone BUT reporters. The people whose lives are affected by news stories are certainly not persuaded by the argument. Nor are the readers who go to the newspaper or the blog for information. The only people persuaded by the necessity of beating the competition, are reporters. And, of course, the people who sign their paychecks.

Senator Jones calls Senator Smith a racist. Once Helling decides to write this story the cows are out of the barn. Let's say he calls Smith and asks him if he's a racist and Smith says, "Hell, no!" and Helling puts that in the second graph, or even in the lede. Nothing changes. A large percentage of readers will at least wonder if there is some truth in the charge and many will be sure it is true.

So, here's a novel idea. What if Helling decides not to write the story until his own highly developed sense of truth is satisfied? What if he demands evidence? What if he checks every angle as thoroughly as the responsibility of his profession demands? And what if he decides, then, not to write?

Would not writing be more truthful than writing in the traditional manner -- charge, denial, counter charge, denial?

Wouldn't providing all three truths about gas prices serve the reader better, especially if he also held the source's feet to the fire of all three truths?

I respect Helling's position here, don't get me wrong. I just want to push the argument a little farther.

When you think about the import of what Helling tackles in his column today and consider two other Star columnists chose to waste their space on Paula Deen, you can't help but be grateful. Now, really, Mary Sanchez and Jenee Osterheldt would have served us all well if they'd just said no to the temptation to write yet more vacuous words about Paula Deen. There is only so much of value you can say about fried macaroni.

They may have written the truth. But, then, who cares?

--Lofflin

Mark Wahberg, Mike O'Neal-- Don't apologize. Say it loud, say it proud, 'This is who I am, this is what I really think; I'm a jerk, okay...'

2012-01-21T11:51:00.005-06:00

...

This is getting old. Another person in the spotlight apologizes for something stupid he or she said. It was Mark Wahlberg, this time, for saying he would have done what he does in movies if he had been on one of the planes that were steered into the World Trade Center.

I don’t want him to apologize. I want him to stand up and say, “Well… really, that’s what I would have done. Call me stupid, that’s what I said and I meant it.”

But, no.

I don’t want the speaker of the Kansas House to apologize as he did for a really stupid e-mail message he sent about Michelle Obama. I want him to stand up and be proud.

You read that right. I’m sick of apologies. I’m especially sick of forced apologies.

Here’s how it goes.

Folks in public life do, say, and write stupid things.
The Word Police -- or TMZ -- comes down on them, and
… after a few days while they wait to see if the storm blows over, they issue a statement saying they are sorry for the offense.

It reminds me of a person I know who always prefaced her statements with, “I don’t want to be rude…” but was, then, invariably, rude.

So, Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal published a cartoon which shows him to be a jerk. It shows him to be insensitive. It shows his subscription to the politics of disdain which run so strongly through the Republican Party (and the Democrat Party when a Republican is president…). It shows some degree of racism. Political wives and husbands have generally been off limits unless something in their activities was newsworthy and certainly Michelle Obama’s hair is not newsworthy.

So, be a big boy, O’Neal. Stand up to the nanny state you hate and say it straight. Yes, I published that cartoon. What of it? It was just a joke. Guys like me have been making jokes like this about people we don’t like forever. I don’t like Obama and I don’t like his wife. I don’t think they deserve respect just because they are in the White House.

Just once I’d like to see one of these guys with enough guts to stand up and say “I did it and I’m proud of it.” Then, of course, it would be clear what they stand for, how they feel, and exactly who they are.

Terrorist or freedom fighter? Let's take this peace journalism idea up a level; a world of death and destruction is just plain stupid

2012-01-05T18:02:00.016-06:00

...

One man’s terrorist is, I’m afraid, always going to be another man’s guerilla fighter. The river between is unbridgeable.

This is a gloomy start for the first entry of the new year, but if we’re going to search for real answers to the war and strife that engulfs us humans, we have to start by being honest. Make no mistake, the peace and joy of our Christmas is an illusion we can afford to create for ourselves. Much of our world cannot.

My colleague, Steven Youngblood, returned home from Uganda just before Christmas having brought together natural enemies one more time in hopes of fostering a thing he calls “peace journalism.” Steve and I have talked about this movement many times, all the way back to the days when we were trying to name what he was advocating in Moldova, I think. Here’s what he wrote on his blog about his pre-Christmas foray in Uganda.

Specifically, government spokespeople from the army, police, and local government and journalists sparred over whether the Ugandan government was justified in banning live coverage of protests earlier this year, and restricting official updates of the investigation of the July, 2010 terrorist bombings in Kampala. Each side played its part, with the journalists crying foul at the heavy hand of the government while the security officials maintained that the moves were designed only to protect people and property. Predictably, no consensus was reached. I did express my opinion that the ban on live coverage represented a journalistic decision, and thus should not have been made by the government.

I told Steve that looked to me like an exhausting list of tangles to work through. In fact, he had written once when his transport was stuck in the mud that he hoped the conference went more smoothly than the trip to it and from his conclusions I would guess the mud he encountered wasn’t just under his wheels.

Every single question in his post -- those raised in this paragraph and those raised in the rest of the piece -- could occupy a semester's study in a journalism ethics class. They are not new and they are not unique to Uganda. They were debated right here in the land of the First Amendment during the race riots of the 1960s. Should journalists cover events that will inflame the passions of others? Should they quote language that will further divide communities and may lead to bloodshed. Should they practice self-censorship and if they don’t, should government step in?

To be honest, I think most, if not all of the questions he enumerated from the conference, are unsolvable. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work on them because every increment toward agreement is good. But the fact that one man's terrorist is another man's guerrilla fighter, a question I've been troubling students with since I started teaching in 1980, is just almost impossible to resolve. And, in many ways, it is the heart of the disagreement. A society with only one word for murder would be in a big philosophical pickle.

Orwell saw this. War is peace. Repression is protection.

You can usually get somewhere in ethics by bringing down the scalpel on a problem, by trying to divide it into its parts and solve each one individually. But the problem with this one is that once you divide it, it gets tougher. If the difference between freedom fighter and terrorist is in eye of the perceiver – in other words, it boils down to the perceptions of the aggrieved vs the perceptions of the privileged -- then both will always see it differently. So you try to define the difference in terms both can agree on. And that is really thorny, as well. Were not Americans involved in terrorist acts against the British? Don't all revolutions begin with terror? Were Americans not ruthless terrorists against the Indians? Was Sherman not a terrorist? And what about the American president who unleashed the mighty power of the atom bomb on the people of Japan? Was that not an act designed specifically to create terror?

Suddenly defining terrorism gets uncomfortably sticky. How is terrorism different from war? Is it not an act of terror (taking the phrase literally) to bomb a village from an airborne drone in an effort to kill several terrorist leaders hiding in the village? What sort of terror does that unleash on the innocent?

I detest the notion of civilized war. ‘Just war’ theories just confound me. War is the breakdown of civilization. War is the breakdown of justice. War is the absence of humanity. To attempt to bring humanity to it is like trying to hold water in your fist.

I know writers and photographers, journalists and movie directors have created a huge body of work finding all those virtues in the throes of war. To be honest, I don’t buy it anymore. I'm just too old to see anything but destruction and waste. I’m not saying good people don’t fight and die and provide examples of loyalty and bravery in war. They do. But the war itself, well, as Edwin Starr once said, “What is it good for?”

I'm afraid the only just position I can find on terrorism is the pacifist position. If you rule all violence out of bounds, then these differences don't matter.

OK, so what then is pacifist journalism? Might as well take the idea of peace journalism to its logical conclusion. Would that simply mean condemning all violence, from capital punishment to war and everything -- terrorism and guerrilla fighting -- in between? A tougher pill to swallow, eh? Martin Luther King, Jr. vs. Malcolm X. Gandhi vs. Che.

You might rightly say that's an easy position for a person who lives in comfort in Missouri in the US of A to take. If you were on the butt end of a repressive and brutal government, maybe you’d sing a different tune. Perhaps. But, maybe it is the only real position on this issue. The only way around the horns of this ancient bull.

I'm thinking Youngblood’s 'security' officials would never buy into such a notion. And, no aggrieved journalist would either. Their jobs sort of depend on violence, or, more precisely, the threat of violence. Terror, in short.

I keep coming back to that Who song, "Won't get fooled again." Check out the lyric somewhere on the Net if you haven't heard it in a while. Would these two sides see the wisdom in it? Because the song takes the long view that most people in strife can't afford to take. If you make a violent revolution, you always wind up in the same place. "Meet the new boss; same as the old boss..." Brilliant lyric. I'm thinking the only real revolution is a non-violent one. The only real change is possible through non-violent strategies. Change from within.

Mankind's record of change through violence doesn't seem to me -- not a world historian but a casual observer -- to be very good. Violence is like lead poisoning -- the more of it you engage in, the more of it remains in the bodies of your people forever. Slavery, for instance, the ultimate violence, can never be cleansed from a country's soul. Not even when a member of the former slave class becomes president. You can run from these things in your history but you can't hide. They aren't just pages in your history book; they are poisons in your system.

--Lofflin

And, unfortunately, the beards have all grown longer overnight...

Please, someone explain what is happening at Kaufman Stadium... Fool me once... fool me twice? Betancourt's baaaaaack!

2011-12-20T15:26:00.004-06:00

Oh no!

You simply won't believe this.

--Lofflin

Jolly thoughts for a cold dark morning with steam rising on the ponds and ducks in the water-- Not!

2011-12-08T08:07:00.016-06:00

Bah Humbug.

No, this is not a Christmas rant. I've got no gripe with Christmas this morning. My gripe is with morning.

Morning, I hate you.

Especially in winter, I hate you. I hate waking up in the dark, stumbling around in the dark to get the coffee pot fired up. Looking for my shoes, rubbing my eyes red, the taste of elephant hooves in my throat, and not even getting to dip a fishing rod in the water as a reward.

Ah, morning. A rod in the water, hot coffee in the Thermos, the promise of crappie for lunch. Dream on.

Ducks leave wide sparkling wakes on the big pond off Highway 45. Steam rises and the sun is barely above the horizon. Yes, but no joy for me. I left my camera at home and I don't have time to fish. Drive on by, big boy.

Instead, I have a final exam to give. Which these days means presiding over a room of 30 people who feel exactly as I do about morning; me feeling their angry eyes for interrupting their progression to the credential they believe they need to have a decent life. As a tiny reward, I'll show them "Who's On First" from "Naughty Nineties," knowing they could find it themselves on You Tube any time they wanted, anyway.

Some mornings I feel useless. I feel like life has passed me on the highway and decided not to take a picture.

A few minutes later, I'm sitting in a coffee shop with fake logs in the fireplace, unlit, watching the sun come up over Taco Bell and the early arriving employee who unlocks the door then sucks down one last cigarette in the cold air on the sidewalk outside. Man, what those gloves must smell like after a few of those morning heaters! A chubby carpenter works his way into a pair of brown quilted coveralls. He’s got a cranberry colored awning to fix this morning.

It's just 8:15 but the Taco 12-Pack is back and we've got to get ready.

And I'm ready for another day of murder, abuse and mayhem in the early years of the new century. Child abuse is much in the news these days -- and the accused are the he-men of the big time sports world. Funny thing about child abuse, in the 1800s it didn't officially exist. The first case was brought by the ASPCA. That's right, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The first case required an 11-year-old girl to be declared an animal for the court to hear the case.

Then child abuse kind of went away until an article in a respected medical journal in the 1960s declared it a disease. It was everywhere for a while, then it kind of went away again.

And now it is back with a vengeance. Priests and coaches have made it news this time. And, do not take me wrong, it should be. I just wish I wasn't here to witness it. I just wish I could have gotten in and out of this life without knowing such a thing existed. Without watching it endlessly crawl across the bottom of the television screen while I'm trying to lose myself in a basketball game.

Selfish, eh? I stand accused.

Well, it will be one of those days if I turn on a television or read a newspaper over somebody's shoulder or click on a newspaper Web page. Nothing but static. Stomach turning crawls, bright faced talkers bringing horrific news and all the brain killer static of modern life. The Republicans will be after Obama -- they remind us of our first and second wives who could find something objectionable in everything we did. And murders in bucolic Kansas City will be reported. Dead bodies discovered. Road rage pile ups. Some favorite food found unhealthy. Tony will be busting out the exclamation points and big healthy mostly uncovered breasts. Otherwise, meanness and stupidity will be everywhere.

Have a good day, sir. Would you like a bag for all that stuff?

--Lofflin, just a bit out of sorts. Be glad yours is not the next paper I grade...

My Frank White story from I-70 Baseball.com; Warning! Reading this will only make you madder...

2011-12-04T19:11:00.018-06:00

“It was twenty years ago today

Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play…”

By John Lofflin

Published 9/31/10

It was 20 years ago yesterday Frank White last ranged across the dirt of a major league infield as the second baseman of the Kansas City Royals. You can imagine him, the consummate glovesmith, waiting on the first pitch from Kevin Appier to Luis Polonia, opening and closing the broad pocket of his light brown Rawlings mitt, silently thinking through the calculus of Polonia’s tendencies versus the grass and dirt between home and his cleats.

It was Sept. 30, 1990, and the Royals were finishing an unremarkable season in Anaheim, Calif. Appier had 11 wins against 8 loses and with a victory that California afternoon would finish the season 12 and 8, George Brett was hitting .328 when the game ended, and Bo Jackson broke a 1-1 tie on a 3-1 count in the bottom of the ninth with a pinch hit blast into the right field seats.

But Frank White was hitting just .216 that afternoon, last in John Wathan’s batting order. And, it was White who watched from the dugout while Bo Jackson walked to the plate in his stead with no outs in the ninth. Whether he knew it or not, this would be the last time Frank White’s name would be written anywhere in a major league lineup. But it would not be the last time he suited up, nor the last time he calculated the possibilities of bat, ball and infield dirt, even if he sat behind a microphone two decades later to do it.

Twenty-one years spent as a player on the field, counting three years in the minors, and 20 years as a major league coach, minor league manager and teacher-announcer. That’s a lifetime in baseball… and at the highest level.

It’s almost always a mistake to judge a ballplayer by his last game, even if Frank was the pivot man in two double-plays during that tense pitcher’s duel in California. The last game tells you little about an 18-year career. Every sixty-two year old softball player knows the feeling of coming to bat for the last time in late September praying for a crisp line drive double to take into the snowy nights, but grounding out instead. After all, Babe Ruth struck out in his last at-bat.

“If Yuni (or Alex, or Mike, or Wilson,

or Willie, or Billy)

had just taken one more step

to get in front of that ball…”

So, 20 years after his last at-bat, what is the story of Frank White’s career in baseball? Well, Frank White wasn’t just homegrown, just one of us. He didn’t just grow up 10 blocks from the old Municipal Stadium at 22nd and Brooklyn Ave., and attend Ewing Kauffman’s baseball academy reportedly between gigs working construction at the new ballpark. He wasn’t just one of the best, if not the best athlete to wear a Royals uniform. He wasn’t just a great gloveman who lived in the shadow of being just a great gloveman, to say nothing of the shadow of George Brett. He wasn’t just old school before anybody thought up the moves to new school. He wasn’t just a classic.

He was all of those justs.

Oh, and he was one thing more. You put a name on this one. All season on television, you could hear it in his voice. He was growing more and more reluctant to talk about his own career. Sure, it was natural for other announcers to needle it out of him. Who wouldn’t? You’ve got Frank White sitting next to you in the booth, heck…you not only want to know what glove he wore – the classic Rawlings XPGS, Heart of the Hide, designed to scoop and shovel – but, for god’s sake, you want to know how he broke his gloves in. So they asked and prodded and begged Frank to talk about his career and by the end of July you could hear he had had enough.

Which is what he said when asked for an interview for this piece. “I have gotten to the point that I don't like talking about myself much,” he wrote in a polite-but-no-thanks e-mail message from Cleveland while the current Royals were losing three of four meaningless games.

In fact, in the same unassuming tone of voice during a mid-season broadcast, he said what needed to be said about the current crop of Royals. It was probably the definitive comment about this cohort of players, many of whom he had managed at Wichita in Double A.

It’s time, he said, for these guys to start making their own history. He said he was tired of talking about his and his teammates’ history. We can’t keep living on 1985, he said, meaning Kansas City and its baseball franchise. It’s time for these guys to make a statement.

But, until they do write their own story – if they do – Frank knows we still want to hear his. Of course, eight Gold Gloves in the age of defense speak for themselves.

“Welcome to the big leagues, kid,” he quipped.

“You’ve just been introduced

to Mr. Frank White.”

It was his glovework which distinguished the Royals second baseman. Two defensive plays in Royals’ history will be forever burned to that place where the mind stores visual memory. Unlike the pine tar bat and George Brett’s magnificent meltdown, you don’t see these two replayed 50 times a season. You don’t need to. All you have to do is close your eyes and watch the Angels’ Jim Edmonds sprint full on with his back to the plate then lay out flat on the warning track to catch the impossible 418-foot line drive sinking desperately over his head. Better, by far, than Willie Mays’ celebrated Polo Grounds catch. And all you have to do is close your eyes to see Frank White leap skyward, legs splayed, to snare a line drive headed for the gap and bring it back to earth. It was a pure Michael Jordan moment. Gravity? What gravity?

Smooth, indeed.

Cal Ripkin Jr., tells a story about Frank in his book “Get in the Game: 8 Elements of Perseverance That Make the Difference.” Seems Ripkin hit a chopper on Royals’ turf over Paul Splittorf’s always slightly askew cap and it was headed into center field. It would have been his first big league hit but he made the rookie mistake of slowing up just a touch at first so he could round the bag and jab a few steps toward second.

Problem was … well… Frank White was playing second that day. Frank, Ripkin writes, “came out of nowhere, backhanded the ball, jumped, and made an incredible throw to first to get me out by a fraction of a step. I went back to the dugout shaking my head and was greeted by my teammate Ken Singleton. ‘Welcome to the big leagues, kid,’ he quipped. ‘You’ve just been introduced to Mr. Frank White.’”

Fred White, Royals announcer for 24 years, remembers Frank as a youngster in the league. Fred joined Denny Matthews in the booth in 1974, a year after Frank’s debut, and from there watched Frank at second base the next 17 seasons.

Frank White was the best pure athlete on a talented, championship team, he argues today: “And that’s really saying something. Think about it – he played with Bo Jackson … Willy Wilson… Athletically, he was just huge. Athletically, no one was as good as Frank.

“He could do everything. He would do things that would just amaze you. I remember one play he made in the playoffs. He threw a runner out at first – and he was halfway between second and third when he caught the ball.” It was Game 3 of the American League Championship Series in 1980 when the Royals finally broke the Yankee stranglehold on the pennant.

“Frank ranged so far left and right,” Fred says, “and straight up. You’d just shake your head.”

Fred thinks of Frank as already “good as a young player” who probably picked up some lesson from former second baseman and Royals/Cardinals coach Chuck Hiller. “I’m sure Whitey has something to do with it, too,” he says, referring to the legendary White Rat, Whitey Herzog. “Frank was very coachable.”

Herzog wrote in the introduction to Frank’s book “Good as Gold: Techniques for Fundamental Baseball,” he had coached two great infielders: Ozzie Smith and Frank White and, “from that experience, I can say that Frank White was the best defensive second baseman I have ever seen… If Frank had played for the New York Yankees, that town never would have heard of Willie Randolph.”

Fielding statistics are still in their infancy so take these numbers as simply suggestions of defensive prowess. Steve Bruschini crunched some number for a Detroit Tigers-oriented Web site, Bleacherreport, in July, and decided -- of course -- Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell were the best double-play duo of the 1980s. He placed Frank White and early-1980s shortstop U. L. (toothpick) Washington 10^th. But his statistics suggest exactly the same range for both double-play combinations, 5.26. His fielding percentage calculations rank the Tigers duo about eight one-thousandths better than White and Washington -- .9808 to .9729.

What those numbers tell you is statisticians have too much time on their hands. As George Brett allegedly said of the game… “It gets easier the farther you are from the dirt.”

Ok, but it is a game of numbers, so what are Frank’s? Start with the raw numbers: Frank played 17,809 innings across18 season. He had 11,174 chances (which is not actually a measure of range because it doesn’t account for balls a fielder didn’t get a glove on…) and converted 4,742 of those opportunities to put-outs. He also had 6,253 assists, recording 1,382 pitcher’s-best-friend double plays. Taken together, those numbers reduce to a fielding percentage across 18 seasons at second base of .984.

In 1982 and 1985, Frank recorded the fewest errors in either league – 17 each season.

Baseball Reference ranks Frank White 34^th among all players in career total zone runs, one spot below Willie Randolph and just eight spots below Ichiro Suzuki. What are total zone runs? This will make your head hurt the way the Pythagorean theorem once did. http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/total_zone.shtml Suffice it to say, total zone runs is a computation, based on play-by-play data, of the number of runs a player saves or costs his team defensively in a season. David DeJesus currently ranks 151^st. In 1976, Frank ranked fifth in the American League.

Range, again, is difficult to measure from scorebooks, but here goes. In 1984 and 1985 Frank’s statistical range – putouts plus assists by games played – ranked first in the American League. He ranked second in 1983 and fourth in 1986 and 1987. His 5.56 career range factor ranks 13^th among all second basemen measured.

Sean Smith’s total zone computations for second basemen from 1956 to 1986 rank Lou Whitaker first at plus 76 runs, Frank White second at plus 71 runs, and Bill Mazeroski third at plus 70 runs.

Whew! Feels a bit like the calculus final you flunked your freshman year of college. Take a breath. Though Sabermetricians may disagree, here’s one simple way to understand the impact Frank White had defensively on the game in his era. Frank won the Rawlings Gold Glove at second base every year from 1977 to 1982, then again in 1986 and 1987. And, at least one year in there he was simply robbed.

“That pitch was too close for Billy

(or Mike, or Kila, or Mitch)

to take with two strikes;

I never wanted to leave it up to the umpire…”

The idea he was just a gloveman always seemed to stick in frank’s throat. By all accounts, he forged himself into a better hitter. In fact, he eventually became a dangerous hitter in the middle of a scratch and claw lineup.

“He went from a guy you’d pinch hit for in late innings to batting cleanup in the World Series,” Fred White says. “He finished his career with 2,006 hits.” Add to that 407 doubles and 160 home runs.

Clean up he did in post season play. He hit .250 against the Cardinals in the1985 World Series including a home run and double in all-important game three in St. Louis. But it was the breakthrough 1980 playoffs against the dreaded Yankees where he smoked everything. He hit .545 with a slugging percentage of .909 and an on-base plus slugging percentage of 1.455. He banged out six hits in 11 at bat; a double, a home run, three RBI and he recorded a stolen base across the three game series. For his trouble, he was voted the American League MVP in the series.

Typical of a hitter who believed in fundamentals, he ranked second in the American League in 1976 in sacrifices, giving himself up 18 times, and in 1982 he was third in the American League in doubles.

He put both bat and glove together in 1986. He won the Silver Slugger at second base as World Champion. He ranked seventh in doubles and 10^th in extra base hits in 1986, won a Gold Glove and went to the All Star game, the last of five trips to the classic. In the classic, he pinch hit for Whitaker and went one for two with an RBI – a home run off Mike Scott. If that’s going to be your only hit in an All Star game in seven at bats, might as well make it a home run.

Two days in Frank White’s life as a hitter will live in the record books. The first was an evening contest Sept. 26, 1979, in Anaheim Stadium. The Royals won 4-0 behind Dennis Leonard who was 14-11 at the time. The Royals were in second place, but four games back of the Angels with four to go. Frank was hitting third with Brett out of Herzog’s lineup.

In the top of the first, Frank singled to left off LaRoche and died at third. But the top of the third was classic Royals’ baseball from the Frank White era. Willy Wilson singled to right then stole both second and third while U. L. Washington struck out. Frank came to the plate and ripped a home run off LaRoche to give the Royals a two-run lead. And Frank wasn’t through.

He came up again in the fifth against reliever Bob Ferris and doubled to left. He came up again in the seventh and flied out to center, leaving him just a triple shy of the cycle. And, in the ninth, he whistled a triple into centerfield off Ralph Botting. He scored the fourth run of the contest one hitter later on a Hal McRae single. Thursday was an off day. The Royals won Friday night13-1 in Oakland and followed with a 6-2 win Saturday. On Sept. 30, they lost and the Angels won. The race was over.

Three years later, Sparky Anderson’s Tigers were in town. It was Aug. 3, 1982, and Dick Howser’s boys had won six in a row and were in first place. The Royals’ offensive machine was humming. Willie Wilson was sailing along at a .325 clip, Brett was hitting .294, Otis .300 and McRae .310. Frank was torrid at .325 and hitting second in the lineup.

The bottom of the first went according to script. Wilson singled and Frank drove him in with a home run. In the third, Frank doubled to left field. In the fifth, he reached on an error, driving in Wilson again. This is a broken record. In the seventh, he once more singled Wilson home. He was now, bite your nails, a triple away from the cycle. The triple, everyone knows, is the toughest piece of the puzzle.

In the bottom of the ninth, with two out and the score knotted at five, he laced a walk-off triple into right field bringing in Onix Concepcion with the winning run.

After Alex, or Yuni, or Mike, or Willy, or Wilson attempted to barehand a ground ball and Visquel it to first base, but didn’t: “I always thought that’s why Mr. Rawlings made gloves…”

When people talk about Frank White they talk about fundamentals. When Frank White talks about baseball, he talks about fundamentals. Fred White thinks Frank’s demeanor in the broadcast booth fits his demeanor on the field – solid, nothing flashy, fundamental. “And that style fits this city,” he says.

You can learn a lifetime of baseball technique listening to Frank White call a baseball game. It’s always something simple, something solid, a classic way to hit the ball, bunt the ball or make a play. It’s always like an outfielder taking a perfect route to a deep fly ball or an infielder turning a perfect double play.

“If you look at Frank as a player,” Fred White says, “he always did everything in a classic fashion. He never went for the hot dog play. Everything he did was just plain classic.”

While Fred points to the strength of the current Royals’ farm system and to the crop of young players Frank White managed in Wichita form 2004 to 2006, and the crop who won the Texas League championship this year at Northwest Arkansas, who could blame him in he had a soft spot for “Frank’s team.” They did win the World Series.

“They came to the ballpark every day expecting to win,” Fred remembers. “You learn to win as a team and you learn to trust the guys you play with. They knew George would be at third, Frank would be at second, Willie or Amos would be in center. They played together; they trusted one another.”

--30--

Frank White out, Royals bare hand another slow roller to third and throw the ball into the stands

2011-12-02T10:39:00.006-06:00

Frank White is out as a home team broadcaster, according to the Kansas City Star this morning.

Just when you thought it was impossible for the brain trust to handle home town public relations worse, they manage to blow the lid off the curve.

Frank White was the ONLY reason to watch a Kansas City Royals broadcast. Why? Well, you might actually learn something about the game. Or, you might actually hear somebody in this tight-assed organization dare to criticize a player or management of this lousy ballclub. Denny Matthews wasn't afraid and neither was Frank. Denny usually communicated his feelings by the dead air he left after some homer comment from one of his sidekicks. Frank just came out and said it.

You had to love it when Frank, after watching another Sports Center inspired attempt at bare hand fielding, quietly asked why the fielder, or his sidekick, thought Mr. Rawlings made ball gloves. Of course, this was coming from a eight-time Gold Glove winner, so what would he know?

On second thought, the brain trust is right. Frank shouldn't be sitting up there in the broadcast booth. The fact is, Frank White should be sitting in the dugout next spring managing the competitive team the Royals are finally putting on the field. That's where he should be.

--Lofflin

Sam Mellinger did a good piece this morning that will only make you madder.

What I'd like to see next, but won't, I'm only dreaming, is Frank White's next visit to Kauffman Stadium be in another uniform as the manager of a ball club he deserves. I'm with Frank White -- done with the Royals.

But, can we sell that? Doing good in the world is not a lost concept, as two of my students have recently shown... fight the power!

2011-11-27T12:51:00.009-06:00

Good news.

Well, good news to me, anyway. Two of my students made the news this week and they have something interesting in common.

Andria Enns was profiled in the Independence Examiner for her next adventure spreading the ideas of peace journalism in the world. I take no credit for this, by the way. She was inspired by my colleague Steven Youngblood to pursue this concept. He took her to Uganda a summer ago and, she says, changed her life.

I have to be honest here and admit I'm not completely comfortable with the principles of peace journalism. How can you not be comfortable with an effort for peace, you say? Well, that's the problem.

The catch is this: peace journalism is about suppressing the inflammatory language in reporting, language which can lead to violence and death. That's a huge simplification and doesn't do the principles justice but I'm going to spare you a long treatise at this point. The rub is I'm old school about journalism -- somebody said it, I report it. Somebody is angry, I report somebody is angry. A little passion is necessary in the world. People ought to be angry about injustice and war.

But I see the other side, too, how inflammatory language can actually cause injustice and war. And, I haven't always been in love with the way journalism is done in the world. That's why I became a teacher. You can hide behind the idea of objective journalism only so long before you realize doing journalism ought to do more than line the pockets of a few corporations.

More on this later. Back to Andria, who generally supports peace journalism in her travels by doing good in communities where a little good is badly needed. She doesn't sweat the principles; she gets dirty doing the work. I'm obviously proud to be her teacher.

My other student in the news is Anthony Hardwick. OK, Anthony graduated several years ago but, you know, when does my student stop being my student? I'm also proud of Anthony. He is the guy up in Omaha who had guts enough to start a petition drive against his own boss over the ridiculous practice of opening retail stores on Thanksgiving night, turning a family holiday celebrated by everyone -- a holiday with no religious barriers, and, also, no actual basis in history -- into just another marketing event.

Anthony gathered a stunning number of petitioners. He was featured in big articles and interviews everywhere, including the New York Times, which did a thoughtful profile on him.

If, after garnering this publicity, no public relations firm can see what a dynamo he is, well... nobody can get hired in public relations anymore. Who wouldn't want a guy who can singlehandedly launch a petition drive that gets him interviewed on CNN and MSNBC and into the pages of the New York Times? My guess is he won't be working two retail jobs much longer.

I was particularly proud of the way he presented himself and his ideas in those interviews. This man has something to offer the world. He can bring a little good to a world in bad need of good.

Which brings me, belatedly -- it is Sunday morning by the way and the only thing I have to do is snake a backed up drain... why hurry the writing -- to the point. Both of these students have decided to go out and do good in the world. Doing good in this world is no small choice.

A few years ago, the university decided to write itself a new mission statement. Don't get me started. But here's the interesting thing about the process. I proposed to the mammoth committee in charge of the writing that the mission statement conclude by saying our graduates would be committed to doing good in the world.

A hue and cry went up in the room. Folks shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Teeth gnashed. Suddenly the big screen where ideas were being typed froze. I knew immediately I'd stepped on a land mine. Who can define good!? One person's good is not another person's good? One culture's good is not another culture's good? It reminded me of the professor in Tom Wolfe's latest novel who always made air-quotes with his fingers when he said the word "god".

Here the offending word was "good".

Quickly, the committee suggested something better. The university would produce "graduates who are committed to their communities." That was my sentence without the phrases "doing good". It took the committee less than five frantic minutes to go from "...graduates who are committed to doing good in their communities" to "...graduates who are committed to their communities." I suggested that gang members are quite committed to their communities. At that point, the whole concept just erased itself from the big screen.

If an institution of higher learning cannot even commit to graduating students with the responsibility of doing good in their communities, who can?

Well, the graduates can. As Andria -- who hasn't even graduated yet -- and Anthony -- who has just begun doing what he will do in the world -- have shown, using a college education for doing good is not a lost concept. Not lost on some of our best students, anyway.

--Lofflin

An excellent anecdote - and antidote - for starving writers

2011-11-21T21:13:00.000-06:00

As I watch the Chiefs play (surprisingly) decent football against the New England Patriots, I am also reading a collection of boxing short stories by F.X. Toole. The collection, published in 2000 under the title "Rope Burns," but since then it's been re-named after its most famous short story: "Million Dollar Baby."

I haven't reached the well-known tale just yet, but I was intrigued by the introduction. Toole, a former boxer, trainer and corner man, for years worked to break into the writing biz. He accomplished it with this story collection in 2000, but sadly passed away just two years later. This is the best boxing fiction I've read outside of W.C. Heinz' classic "The Professional."

Here's a brilliant passage from the introduction comparing Toole's two passions, which should ring true to all you aspiring writers out there hoping to make money at it someday.

I started in the amateurs, took nights off from my job so I could work three-rounders in VFW halls, recreation centers, and the back rooms of spaghetti joints. Then four-rounders, and ten, and traveling around the world to work twelve-round title fights. I've worked seven title fights of one kind or another, and I've been licensed in ten states - from Hawaii to New York, from Missouri to Florida. There are plenty of guys who have done much more in boxing than I, but there are many who've done less. And I've fought in Mexico, France, Germany and South Africa - where, in Cape Town, by the way, they produce a champion Cabernet Sauvignon, Fleur de Cap, that will do wonders for your spirit.

About the only thing I haven't done in boxing is make money. It's the same for most fight guys. But that hasn't stopped me any more than not making money in writing has. Both are something you just do, and you feel grateful for being able to do them, even if both keep you broke, drive you crazy, and make you sick. Rational people don't think like that. But they don't have in their lives what I have in mine. Magic. The magic of going to wars I believe in. And the magic of boxing humor, the joke almost always on the teller, that marches with you every step of the way.

Joe Posnanski misses the mark on Joe Paterno -- hot house thinking is always suspect and vested interests cloud the vision of even great writers...

2011-11-12T11:35:00.019-06:00

I really hate to do this, but I'm going to take Joe Posnanski to task.

Joe wrote a good column at Sport Illustrated after the Penn State child rape scandal broke, but it isn't good enough. I came to it through a couple of links -- the last in the Pitch -- and all along the way it is being hearlded as one of his best pieces of work. It isn't.

Posnanski is right on when he discusses how he wrote a bundle of columns in his early days about a football coach he thought was the best since sliced bread. He was shocked when the coach committed suicide. It was an awakening -- the sort many reporters have along the way.

As a reporter I came to the same conclusion: There are no all-good people and there are no all-bad people.

However, from this distance I detect something in his approach to this Penn State story that he should at least consider. He is, by the way, writing a book about Joe Paterno. He is even living in State College, Penn., to write it. And, near the end of his column, he seems strangely nuanced about his feelings when it comes to the subject of the book-to-be.

Why, you might ask, did the good people at Penn turn their backs -- literally -- on the 10-year-old in the shower and on the other uncounted victims? I don't think it would be unfair to suspect they had a vested interest in doing so. They were vested in the football program and in their legendary coach, and they made their ethical judgments with those concerns either front and center or hidden, but either way you can at least suspect those concerns were at the root of their decisions.

That's what happens when we make ethical decisions in the hot houses of our own minds. We twist and turn our excuses and justifications to provide the answer we wanted to hear in the first place. This is why presidents do things we can't imagine -- at some point they all come to believe the free world depends on their being president of the United States. So do their underlings. College presidents are not immune to hot house thinking either. Nor, their underlings. None of us are immune to it. Even very good writers.

With a book probably under contract and already a couple of months spent building the narrative and the sources while living at Penn State -- Joe Posnanski should probably step back and ask himself if he is also invested in this story in a way that might cloud his ethical thinking.

From all indications, there are no nuances to this story. That's my opinion, anyway. It seems logical to me that three things should happen: 1) Bo Pelini should be man enough, and care enough about the young people under his wing, that he not take his Nebraska football squad to State College to play football today. One of my students suggested this to me Thursday and he was right. The game started a few minutes ago, by the way, so you have your answer to number one. 2) Penn State should be courageous and sorry enough to simply cancel the rest of its season. And, since that game started a few minutes ago, you could conclude Penn State is simply sorry -- one sorry damned institution of higher learning. And, 3) Joe Posnanski should at least consider saying, well... this is just really not a bunch of people I want to invest a large chunk of my life writing about.

Unless, of course, he absolutely believes to his soul he can write the book with complete honesty. Only he knows if his editors and his publisher would accept his version of the truth or if they -- and he -- will be too vested to get it right.

-- Lofflin, feeling humble writing like this about the Great Posnanski...

And if you haven't read Greg Hall's piece, for god's sake, do. It is certainly miles ahead of this effort. Then, of course, as Hall points out, there is the question of the $750,000 advance.

Perry's brain fart sinks the Titanic; The New York Times sinks the republic... Neil Postman laughs lustily from the grave

2011-11-10T08:47:00.010-06:00

Rick Perry fell victim to a mind fart last night.

OMG, as my students are wont to say.

In the Republican debate he was asked what three agencies of government he had vowed to close. He could only name two. It was a disaster of Titanic proportion.

Hell, I've been there. I've walked into a few rooms and forgotten why I walked in. I've walked into a few classrooms lately and wondered why I walked in -- but that's another story.

Neil Postman is laughing this morning from the grave. I don't know how they keep his grave clean, in fact, given the number of times these days the ground shakes around it with belly laughs. We are -- without doubt -- becoming sillier by the minute.

The point Dr. Postman made about the complete dominance of show business on our culture and the destructive new epistemology of image it has fostered, is playing out everywhere you look today, but no more clearly than in the way the media cover presidential politics.

Perry's mind fart was THE news from the most recent effort of Republicans to choose a presidential contender. The New York Times played it right in the middle of their Web Site, just under Joe Paterno, above the fold, so to speak.

But you have to love the story itself. First, it included this wonderful comparison: "Mark McKinnon, an aide to former President George W. Bush, describing the moment as the “human equivalent of shuttle Challenger..."

Now, that's damned funny. Unless, I suppose, you are a family member of someone who died in the Challenger. In one of many stories to appear about Paterno, a reporter told us another media person alluded to the assassination of JFK for comparison to Paterno's firing.

But this is the best -- or worst -- part.

The Times "reporters" Jeff Zeleny And Ashley Parker don't tell the reader the third department until the 14th paragraph of their 1,500-word story, the paragraph just before the Web version goes to page two. In fact, in terms of usable voter information, they provide only one snippet on the first page of their big take: Perry apparently intends to close three federal departments -- Commerce, Education and ... well ... the Department of Energy.

As readers we are never made privy to why. No suggestion is made about what closing those agencies of the federal government would do -- good, bad, or neutral. At one critical juncture near the end of the story, they deign to tell us the Republicans presented a united front in favor of -- " less government intervention and more reliance on markets."

Are you telling me it took two big time reporters to write this story?!?

That's it. The total substance from 35 paragraphs, 1,527 words: Republicans favor less government and more markets and Rick Perry favors closing three government agencies. One last tidbit of valuable information nearer the end: the candidates are united in opposing intervention in the economic crisis in Greece and Italy. Imagine that.

I'm sorry, but from a voter's perspective, from the respective of a troubled republic, let alone a troubled Republican party, that story was bankrupt. The New York Times should be ashamed.

The Times offered this gem from Perry:

“This campaign is about ideas,” Mr. Perry said. “It’s not about who’s the slickest debater or whether anyone’s made a mistake or not...”

Who's he kidding? And, who is the Times kidding?

--Lofflin

iJournalism or Civic and Citizen Journalism -- the name wars among academics continue in search of relevance and hipness...

2011-11-01T19:52:00.009-05:00

This is the second time in two years and frankly I am bored to tears with it.

Not the World Series. This World Series repeated nothing from the past and was anything but borning.

I belong to the Civic and Citizen Journalism interest group in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication – the huge umbrella organization for academics who teach in communication departments and schools of journalism. And today, on the list-serve, the question of changing the interest group’s name has been in question.

Last year it was the Newspaper Division. I got way too invested in that discussion, which ultimately turned into a generational war, and – as I often do with horror movies – I had to turn it off. I created a separate e-mail folder for it, went there occasionally to check progress of the war and, unfortunately this is a reminder of the grinding war in Afganistan, forgot it was there.

In truth, I can’t tell you who won.

At Civic and Citizen Journalism, the suggestions for new names and the reason are familiar from the previous battle. My favorite suggestion so far is iJournalism, which signals either of two impulses:

1) We are enamored with the I, the self, the journalist enamored with herself, which is actually a live issue for incoming freshmen journalism majors, or

And, no, I am not so un-hip that I am unable to recognize the signature branding of Apple computers,

2) We are enamored with the technology.

Being enamored with the technology is like a flu germ that spreads through academic communication departments – without innoculation – from about fall break through the dreadful winter months, until nearly May. It affects both students and faculty, equally. It generally hits after the first midterms – perhaps in response to poor performance or simply to boredom, to the prospect of being cooped up together through the snow and cold – and continues unabated until the season of finals and portfolios and the prospect of summer arrives, when we become again more enamored with what work we have done and less enamored with what we did that work on.

I probably don’t belong in the Civic and Citizen Journalism interest group in the first place. I’m there because I was not hip to the inside jargon of academics, sharing my department as I do with only one other soul who is himself also not terribly hip to inside jargon, and, typically reading into the name what I wanted to read.

When I joined, my thought was this group would be about the reporter as citizen – as a member of the community not an objective observer outside (above) the community. As such, my thinking went, citizen journalists would respond more to their communities than the demands for blind objectivity by their editors or the demands for sexy, reader-grabbing stories by their publishers. Civic and citizen reporters, I thought, would see themselves as members of the community first and be guided by the notion of doing good in their communities.

What I was missing, of course, was the emphasis on citizen in the name. I’m learning through this debate that the word citizen means the armies of bloggers and Twitter feeders and practitioners of whatever technology comes next, who report like lone wolves on happenings in their communities.

I have a good deal of respect for those folks. With the folks who put out neighborhood association newsletters, they may be the last stand of local news reporting. I remember the “community correspondents” from my first newspaper post and how they supplied us daily with interesting reporting about who was in the hospital and who visited who for coffee. I had great respect for them then – they often produced the most readable and interesting copy in the newspaper – and I have great respect for them, and their digital kin, today.

While I find those modern legions politically interesting – even inspirational – it isn’t the interest group I signed up for. iJournalism is a much more honest name, and pretty hip at that, and if I’ve learned one thing in academia, it’s how desperately we want to be hip, lest we be left behind, like the ivy climbing up our building walls.

--Lofflin

Tower of Power: "Sometimes hipness is what it ain't..." I cling to that lyric sometimes.

Last images from the 1977 Royals - Yankees playoffs; the fans are part of the spectacle, and being a grandpa with tickets is obviously a very big deal

2011-10-18T22:28:00.010-05:00

The 2011 playoffs are over so these are the last three images I've printed from the 1977 Royals vs. Yankees series. I shot this little guy over his grandpa's shoulder as they walked down the isle to their seats in the upper deck. In this image he is looking at me.

In the next instant, he looked at Grandpa. This is a look of pure adoration.

Do you suppose he remembers? After all, he is in his late 30s now -- pretty close to 40-years-old. I have no idea who he is, this far removed. But I wish I knew and I could ask if he remembers his grandpa and this big game in the big stadium.

If you want to know what baseball means in America you need only look at those two photographs.

And, just to end the set, here is the beer man. Notice the price of a brew at the stadium in 1977 and we thought that was outrageous.

--Lofflin

Photographs: John Lofflin

How big and grand is baseball: A line drive to left, perhaps, off George Brett's young bat in 1977

2011-10-14T23:12:00.012-05:00

I've always been intrigued by the sense of space in baseball. Visually, the expanse of grass and dirt seems to go on forever, especially if you're a hitter in a slump or an outfielder chasing down a ball in the gap. So, in 1977, I rambled up to the press box and shot a few frames looking down on the field. This is one of those images.

What I saw from there that I liked was the cool interplay of lines and circles. This game was played on carpet, not grass, which seems more obvious from this perspective. Look closely and you'll see it's George Brett at the plate, Thurman Munson catching and Greg Nettles at third -- all three plus the pitcher, in the throes of action-- the kind of orchestrated motion that composes a baseball game.

Looks to me like a line drive into left from Brett. If it is, this is probably Game Four, bottom of the fourth inning and this was a line out to Lou Piniella to end the inning. It is Sparky Lyle on the mound. The Royals scored two runs in the inning, battling back from a 5-0 deficit, though the effort proved futile.

I took my mother to a Royal's game a few years before she died. She was in her mid-80s at the time. She had watched a lot of baseball, from the wooden stands at Klamn Park to metal bleachers at Stony Point... and a lot on television after I discovered girls and got too old -- 17? -- to play. She followed the Diamondbacks when Randy Johnson was there and she followed Curt Shilling to Boston because his pitching motion reminded her of mine. You should always be a hero to your mother, if no one else.

We helped her down to her seat in the right field bleachers at Kauffman stadium and she was quiet for a while, just looking around. "John," she whispered in my ear, "It's a lot bigger than I thought it would be."

That put a tear in my eye. What she meant, I think, was that watching baseball on television all those years sort of put a little box around the game. But in person, well, it was expansive, beautifully so, and it was grand -- so much more grand than what you could see in your living room.

I sure wish I had taken her to the park more often.

Well, the Tigers are fighting back now. It's 9-4 in the fifth. For some reason I don't think this game is quite over. And I realize that even in high definition on a big screen television, the size of which my mother could not even have imagined, the game is smaller and less grand than it would be in person. I hope this image captures just a little bit of the size of the game.

--Lofflin

Photograph/ John Lofflin

Subjective journalism

2011-10-13T18:41:00.000-05:00

Flipping through the channels, I landed on Larry Moore of KMBC 9 News talking about the 75th anniversary of Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo. I didn't catch the full report, only the last few seconds, including this (paraphrased) wrap-up statement from Mr. Moore:

"Municipal Auditorium is, of course, one of the most famous buildings in America."

I'm not making that up. Really, Larry? One of the most famous buildings in America? That's a bit subjective, isn't it? In fact, I would venture to say it's not even one of the most famous buildings in America NAMED MUNICIPAL AUDITORIUM. A Google search of the phrase finds references to Municipal Auditorium in Nashville higher than a link to the Kansas City facility, and slightly below that are links to Municipal Auditoriums in Shreveport, La., and freakin' Harlingen, Texas. Not that a Google search is an appropriate indicator of popularity, but it's sure as hell a better indicator than KMBC used.

And the fact that it's bad reporting doesn't even bother me too bad - every human listening to that broadcast, if they gave it a half-second of thought, would know the statement was bogus. But I'm offended by the laziness of the statement.

Just because you're on TV doesn't mean you can phone in your facts and make wildly subjective statements.

Another from 1977: The moment you knew the real Yankees had arrived and the Royals were doomed

2011-10-12T17:23:00.010-05:00

This is another flawed negative. I remember clearly making a print of it in 1977, refocusing the enlarger, swearing, making another print, focusing the enlarger with the grain magnifier, making another print, swearing…

Royals’ first baseman John Mayberry apparently didn’t focus on this ball any better than I did. Even mighty, mighty, Photoshop couldn't save this one.

There are moments in games that break your heart. Not just fans, either. Some moments break a team’s heart, its spirit. That three run homer in the 11^th tonight in Detroit may have been one of those moments. Thinking St. Louis, Game Six of the 1985 World Series is a perfect example. Game Seven was a foregone conclusion.

Well, in 1977, it seemed the young Royals might just beat those damned Yankees. They won Game One 7-2 in Yankee Stadium behind Paul Splittorff. They lost Game Two by nearly the reverse score – 6-2. A split at Yankee Stadium: Was it an omen? Had the Royals come of age?

Maybe. Just maybe. The Royals took Game Three by the reverse score – 6-2 – at Royal’s Stadium. One more victory… one more…

But Game Four was awful. The Yankees became the Yankees and the Royals became the A’s of the early 1960s. Farm team. Little brother. Poor relation.

And the moment you knew it was happening – the moment you knew in your heart the Royals would not go to the World Series in 1977, was the moment John Mayberry dropped this pop-up a few feet foul of the bag. It was the top of the fourth, Marty Pattin on the mound, Yankees ahead 4-2.

Willie Randolph reached on a throwing error by George Brett at third. I will never forget that error either, the first of two in the inning, because the ball took off like a rocket over Mayberry’s glove and ticked my vulnerable right ear as it sailed through the photo bay. I stood no chance because I was focused on Brett in a 300 mm lens and looking through such a lens you have no sense of distance. An inch to the left and it would have hit square in the middle of the lens and killed me. I have no doubt.

As I tried to catch my breath and summon courage to raise the camera to my eye again, Bucky Dent sacrificed Randolph to second. But Pattin induced Mickey Rivers to pop up. Whew! Two down. We’ll get out of this inning yet.

Not so fast. John Mayberry simply didn’t catch the ball and he would never have an easier chance. He should have caught it. He was there. He looked up, raised his glove and, unbelievably, the ball fell unmolested to the ground. My memory is his glove never touched the ball but this image is inconclusive.

In truth, it didn’t matter. Rivers grounded out to short on the next pitch. Greg Nettles singled Randolph home and the lead was three. The Yankees would have scored that run whether Mayberry caught the ball or not. The Yankees won 6-4.

But the moment Big John missed that pop-up was bigger than the scorebook says it was 34 years later. At that moment, standing in the photo bay no more than 20 feet from the play, it was impossible not to know the magic had been all used up. The real Yankees had returned and the pretenders would soon go fishing.

More to come...

--Lofflin

Fuzzy photograph/ John Lofflin

More photographs from the 1977 playoffs to commemorate the playoff season -- Here the un-decisive moment of an in-decisive hitter

2011-10-09T21:24:00.010-05:00

I didn’t notch this negative in October 1977, so I probably didn’t print it. Probably I looked at it against a light bulb or on a contact sheet and said, “Shit, pulled the trigger too late.”

This is definitely not Henri Cartier-Bresson’s classic “decisive moment,” the invocation under which all photojournalists toil.

In fact, it is probably a classic un-decisive moment.

And, as a black and white photographic image, it isn’t flawed just because it is late. The subjects are not separated visually from the background by either light or focus. And, just look at the middle. There’s nothing in the middle but the ball, and the ball is traveling in the wrong direction. In fact, everything and everybody in the image is moving in precisely the wrong visual direction.

So, 34 years later, imagine the photographer’s surprise when he prints this image under yellow lights in the last black and white photo-lab on the planet and falls strangely in love with the result. This is the classic moment after. This flawed bit of Tri-X film, too-long camera lens -- these are the very edges of the frame --, and nano-second tardy photographer, captured an eloquent moment of success and failure in a very hard game.

Call it success by mistake.

What you see in this frame is the hitter who watched a third strike cross the plate, his head turned around backward staring at the umpire, his now useless club pointed to the ground; the umpire, back turned from him in theatrical pose – “yer out!” – finishing the call with flourish; the catcher, stepping toward first, already firing the offending ball to third base where it will travel around the horn; and the crowd joyous.

Even the beer man has turned in this moment -- mid-pour -- to watch.

This is probably the top of the second inning, Game Four, Oct. 8, 1977, Larry Gura pitching. If it is, the strikeout victim is Chris Chambliss. The catcher is Darrell Porter. The umpire is Marty Springstead. Chambliss was the second out, but the Yankees would go on to score two runs in the inning on a Willie Randolph single, a Bucky Dent double and a Mickey Rivers single. They would win this pivotal game 6-4.

Oh yes, in the background it looks like Thurman Munson is unloading a big, no doubt disgusting, load of Red Man. Therein lies one of the great -- if sometimes disgusting -- powers of the camera.

-- Lofflin

Next: "The Pop-up"

Photograph/ John Lofflin

PPS: Think about those Yankee names -- Willie, Bucky, Mickey. Baseball names all. Not, I hestitate to point out, soap opera names like Justin, Shane, Corey, Lance, Max, Zack, Taylor, or Brandon. But baseball names change with the times. Willie, Bucky, Mickey, feel like 1950s baseball names. Modern baseball names would include Prince, Miguel, Jhonny, Ramon, Jose, Tokashi. Add in the interesting Russian first names, perhaps tied to the Russian presence in Cuba and revolutionary Latin America -- Ivan, Yuniesky, Vladimir, Melky -- which is reportedly short for Mikhial --, Alexi. Interesting how names define the period of the game.

Nolan Ryan watches his Rangers win -- another righty from 1977 on the bump: Dennis Leonard

2011-10-09T00:31:00.014-05:00

Dennis Leonard in full stride in 1977. Love the mutton chops.

Pitchers work on a big stage in the middle of the theater. Nothing happens until they throw. They are part athlete, part actor, part magician. Good pitchers rule the bump -- the way K-Rod did last night despite having almost nothing to throw. The pitch in Dennis Leonard's hand at this moment looks like a two-seamer.

And if you think about fastball, you think about Nolan Ryan, the Express. What a moment last night when the television camera caught Nolan Ryan nervously watching his Rangers through the screen, in suit and tie, gripping and re-gripping fastball and curve on the baseball in his hand. It never goes away, does it?

Has anyone who ever stood at the top of the hill under all those eyes -- from the three decks of a major league ballpark to the single layer of wooden stands under tin roof, like Klamn Park or Heathwood Park in Kansas City -- ever forgotten the grip? Who among that little brotherhood of baseball pitchers isn't most comfortable with a baseball in his hand?

This was Game Five, Oct. 9, and Leonard took the loss. He had won Game Three 6-2, a masterful nine-inning two-hitter. Both Hal McRae and George Brett were 2 for 4, and Darrell Porter was 3 for 4 in Game Three. But in Game Five, despite McRae's 3 for 4 night, he lost in relief, replacing Steve Mingori in the ninth. The White Rat sent him out to the hill for the ninth on just 48 hours rest to protect a one run lead. He gave up a single and walk, left the game, and both runners scored after his departure. Damn Yankees. Heartbreaker.

More to come...

--Lofflin

Photograph/ John Lofflin

From my dusty archives: more images from the 1977 playoffs on a big playoff night for the Brewers and Cards...

2011-10-07T23:35:00.013-05:00

Doesn't seem like the playoffs without the White Rat holding forth, does it?

The man looks like he was born under that ball cap, doesn't he? Especially in the late afternoon October sun... Afternoon sun in October has a special quality.

More 1977 Royals-Yankees playoff photographs to come...

By the way, did you notice the opposing shortstops, Brewers vs. Diamondbacks, were castoff infielders for the Royals last season?

And you know the networks are weeping tonight. No Phillies, no Yankees. At least they have Texas -- but in Texas, football is king by now. Prediction: Lowest television ratings ever; most hard-fought, most entertaining, league series games in recent memory.

--Lofflin

Photograph/ John Lofflin

Some images of playoff games in Kansas City -- file under ancient,heartbreaking but wonderful history

2011-10-03T00:20:00.013-05:00

With major league baseball playoffs in full swing, I thought I'd go through my archives (boxes) looking for photographs I took of the classic heartbreaking Kansas City Royals -- New York Yankees playoff battles of the late 1970s. This image of Fred Patek laying down a bunt is from 1977, I think. Who can you identify on the Yankee bench in the background? Wonder if you can recognize anyone in the stands.

This was Game Five. Patek batted lead-off but went oh-for-five.

I'll post some others later this week.

--Lofflin

Tony Botello's low level of indignation shines a light on some of the absurdity of Kansas City priorities

2011-09-27T15:01:00.008-05:00

Tony Botello, when he isn’t testing the boundaries of libel law or propriety, is the king of juxtaposition. His forte is a sort of critical thinking I wish we could teach more often.

In education, unfortunately, we’ve settled on a safe sort of critical thinking to teach – problem solving. Now, I’m not against problem solving, but what we really should teach is the ability Tony has shown to put two things together and – heaven forbid – compare them critically – with the emphasis on critically. Teach kids to take a stand. To call bullshit. To say something is unfair, wrong, needs to be changed, doesn't make sense.

Tony’s work is strongest when he does this. He seems to just naturally see the world this way. That’s the real skill here – seeing the world through this lens. I’m not sure how you teach people to see this way – it may be that life has to teach you to see through things with this lens.

Journalists are supposed to have a bullshit alarm. They’re supposed to possess a really low level of indignation. Supposed to…

Tony struck the sacred with a recent post. He noted the fear some people might be feeling about their safety at the Plaza Art Fair, given the disruptions a few weeks ago by kids with text machines in their hands (and at least one idiot with a gun). Sounds reasonable, eh?

Then Tony did a little genuine critical thinking. Of course, increased police presence would reassure art lovers their annual love fest on the Country Club Plaza would be safe from those people. But what about the safety of, say, a family living east of Troost, enjoying the evening on their front porch? Extra police in their neighborhood?

I'm not sure from reading if these are Tony Botello's words or the words of one of his "awesome" tipsters or the words of the author of the photograph he displayed, but they are words with a lot of power:

"Oh my god will the lily white folk at the plaza art show be safe this weekend with the extra security?? Meanwhile the over/under on young black men being killed this weekend on the east side is 3, and where's that extra security?..."

Now, I’m not sure that argument really holds up. My guess is the East Side already has extra police. A good journalist would check this out. So, Tony only took the argument halfway… BUT AT LEAST HE GOT THE IDEA ON THE MOVE, which may be more than you can say for the gaggle of columnists at the rest of Kansas City media.

A good reporter did find out the numbers. Alan McArthur at the K C Reporter found that each person in the Central Patrol Division is protected by more than two officers for each officer protecting a person in the North Patrol division. In other words, the police department stations one officer for every 320 residents in the 17 miles covered by the Central Patrol while in the 85-mile North Patrol Division the department deploys one officer for every 688 residents, more than double the force.

The department stations one officer for every 564 Metro division residents and one officer for every 474 East division residents, but only one for every 701 residents in the South division and one to protect every 764 residents in the Shoal Creek division.

So, in fact, the department DOES deploy a larger force on the East Side than in other portions of the metropolitan area. But perhaps Tony's argument is that the east side force could use a "surge" of troops given the guns and death there.

Yesterday, Tony Botello’s bullshit alarm went off again, and he landed this nice barrage of punches:

"In Kansas City we don't like making excuses for students caught in a failed school system.

"We don't want to make excuses for people trapped in the desperate circumstances of the urban core.

"We (rightfully) vow that not even women dressed like "sluts" deserve to have their appearance used as an excuse to justify assault.

"We don't like excuses from politicos about increased spending or so many other infrastructure issues that they've pathologically ignored.

"There are some people who still want to make excuses for The Kansas City Chiefs and their pathetic losing streak."

Add something to Mr. Botello’s argument. The fate of the Kansas City Chiefs, or Kansas City Not-So-Royals, isn’t in any league with the serious issues to which he compares them. The fate of any city’s sports teams pales in comparison to education, rape, and crumbling bridges.

But take a look at the list of “most read” stories in the Kansas City Star at 11:08 a.m. Monday morning. Talk about screwy priorities:

· 1. Will Missouri follow Texas A&M out of Big 12

· 2. Cassel’s quarterback play…

· 3. Chiefs lose…

· 4. Two Johnson County residents injured…

· 5. Fatal shooting at car wash…

· 6. Chiefs cling…

· 7. Kicker Succop struggles…

· 8. Royal’s Mendoza…

· 9. Chiefs blitz…

· 10. Olathe drowning victim…

This calls into question the critical thinking skills of Star readers, as well. As teachers, we’ve got our critical thinking work cut out for us, eh?

--Lofflin

Moneyball interview with the real Billy Beane contains a reality shot for local baseball fans to ponder in otherwise baseball empty October(s)

2011-09-25T13:47:00.006-05:00

Well, as long as I'm into quoting other people, here's some wisdom from an interview today in the New York Times about Billy Beane. Of course, the interview is about the release of "Moneyball" to theaters nationwide. But this is not Beane talking. These are Adam Sternbergh's thoughts, and they make great sense in the conversation we've been having here the past couple of weeks.

Never fear, I'm not out of ideas. Or lazy. I've got some things cooking in the old noodle for later. But ponder this in the meantime:

.... "A five-year dry spell actually places the A’s among the more fortunate have-not franchises in baseball. The Toronto Blue Jays have not made the playoffs since 1993. The Pittsburgh Pirates have not made the playoffs since 1992. The Kansas City Royals have not made the playoffs since 1985.
"Each year, a small-market team with a midrange payroll, like the Milwaukee Brewers or the Tampa Bay Rays, does make the playoffs, usually thanks to a few canny personnel moves, the judicious allocation of limited funds and, most crucially, a stockpile of young talent, collected through high draft picks that are a result of years and years of being absolutely terrible. Such a team has a few seasons to compete with the big boys — the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies, primarily — before its young talent matures and bolts for big money, offered up by the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies, primarily.
"These occasional breakthroughs by midmarket teams allow those who defend the inherent competitive imbalance in baseball to point and say: “See? It’s not impossible.” Conversely, when a free-spending team like the Los Angeles Angels does not make the playoffs, those same people can say: “See? Money doesn’t guarantee wins.” (These people are, more often than not, Yankees fans.) ...."

Star writer's glass half-full; mine half-empty... prune juice in mine, Boulevard Beer in his

2011-09-23T10:47:00.008-05:00

Interesting how two similar ideas can result in completely different arguments. Here is a classic example of the half-empty / half-full glass of water. I hate to be the half-empty glass. This piece about the "new look Royals" by Rustin Dodd from today's Kansas City Star follows the same contours as my more depressing (more realistic?) post Sept. 18, but with a positive spin... to say the least.

As the Royals wind down a season of transition and prepare to enter the offseason, those are the shadows of doubt that follow the franchise.
The Royals are 30-30 since July 19, a steady infusion of youth providing a lift in the season’s second half. But the club has also clinched its 16th losing season in 17 years.
Ratings for Royals telecasts on Fox Sports Kansas City are up 31 percent over last season, including a 65 percent bump in August, according to Nielsen Media Research. But the franchise is still on pace for 90 losses, the 10th time it would reach that mark since 1999.
Attendance at Kauffman Stadium improved over the last two months — the Royals drew 23,980 per game in August and September while averaging 21,289 for the year — even as Kansas City fans were finishing up their 26th straight season without playoff baseball, the longest active drought for a single city in the majors.
“They’ve been waiting a long time,” manager Ned Yost conceded.

Now, the Royals enter their final road trip of the season with a 12-7 record in September, and the numbers suggest that they may have tapped into a fresh source of energy — on and off the field.
Rookies Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Salvador Perez are hitting. Alex Gordon and Jeff Francoeur are finishing up breakout seasons. And some of Billy Butler’s doubles are finally flying out of the ballpark.
There are still questions.

A few questions, maybe. Like, what the hell are the "new look" Royals? I think everyone who has followed the Royals knows, by heart, the look of rebuilding. The question is, what year are the Royals rebuilding from? 1985?

--Lofflin

For a more sober look at this, try this post from Kings of Kauffman: http://kingsofkauffman.com/2011/09/20/counting-chickens/

Chiefs lose 89-10; Royals lose 958 games in 10 years... why? Because you get what you deserve

2011-09-18T15:59:00.018-05:00

Kansas City Chiefs: Forty-eight - 3. Forty-one– 7. Cumulative score for 2011: 89 – 10.

Kansas City Royals: From 2001 to 2010, 958 loses. Average 95 loses per dreadful season. 2011? Eighty-six losses and counting with nine games left in the season. Eighty-seven just an inning and six runs away.

Why are Kansas City football and baseball teams so relentlessly dismal?

Two reasons:

1) Kansas City fans allow them to be.
2) Absentee landlords.

Kansas City fans allow them to be terrible: The reason here is simple. They don’t vote with their feet. They continue to go to the games. They watch the games on television, despite having in the modern age a plethora of choices to watch other, much more interesting, games. They buy the jerseys. They call into talk radio and they continue to dream.

As long as they continue to do these things, management will have no reason to put winning teams on the field. As long as people buy your cheeseburgers, the restaurant brass has no reason to improve the meat underneath the special sauce.

And, in the case of baseball, they continue to believe in next year, to substitute hope for reality. They continue to prefer the possibilities in Omaha to the realities at Kauffman stadium. How do you think Mike Aviles (three-run home run just now for the Boston Red Sox, who say they have had their eye on him for years), Wilson Betemet, Willie Bloomquist, Raul Ibanez, and Zack Greinke (seven innings, two hits today), feel about the Royals'various rebuilding plans?

Pretty damned good, is my guess, since all five are playing for teams leading their divisions and will no doubt be playing ball in October when the Royals’ brass are busy planning for 2012 and the ballplayers are thinking about fishing, hunting and reseeding the lawn.

You can add Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran and Alberto Callaspo to the happy list since they all toil right now for three other teams still in the hunt.

I've always believed you get what you deserve in life. Better said: You get what you take. You get from relationships exactly what you are willing to tolerate. Jobs always expand to fill whatever space you give them in your life . People treat you exactly how you allow them to treat you.

Absentee landlords: The hard fact is, the Royals and Cheifs live in rental houses. If you’ve ever lived in a rent house, you know the drill. The landlord collects the rent every month and hopes you don’t call in between. Need the toilet fixed? If you don’t want to use the can at Quik Trip for the next two weeks, better do it yourself. Roof leaks? Get out the buckets.

What incentive does a landlord have to make the rent house top tier? None, if the city is full of renters willing to fork over whatever the landlord wants to charge for the house he offers. That’s the drill. Ask anyone who lives in a rent house.

No one in Kansas City has been willing or able to step up and buy these franchises since Ewing Kauffman died. The big money here – what there is of it – is far more interested in the arts. That’s their choice. The social payoff in a cowtown for supporting the arts is much greater than the payoff for owning a baseball team. That sounds backward but it isn't.

Can’t buy a house? Rent houses are how you live.

Wish it wasn’t so, but it is.

--Lofflin

On a Tuesday morning

2011-09-11T08:36:00.000-05:00

Ten years ago this morning, I was sitting in a classroom at Park University listening to a professor speak about public relations. A fellow student came into class late and seemed agitated, and while the professor was in mid-sentence the student said, "Do you all realize the World Trade Center is under attack?"

That was the moment our lives changed. But as President Obama said in an interview with ABC News this morning, our lives really haven't changed that much. People still work in skyscrapers. We still laugh and love and cry, just like before (although we may do all those things with a little more feeling now). We still fly on jumbo jets. We still cross bridges and go through tunnels that have been labeled "potential targets."

As I write this, survivors are reading the names of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Some of the survivors are in their teens; they can't be old enough to remember much from that day. I think back to the 21-year-old kid I saw in the mirror back then. I'm glad I was old enough to remember it. I'm glad it's burned into my brain. And I know I'll never forget.

Joe Posnanski on the value of wins in pitching -- The more you know the less you know

2011-09-05T10:13:00.005-05:00

...

This is not a mathematical response to Joe Posnanski’s feeble (on purpose) attempt to resurrect the win as a measure of pitching on his blog and in the Kansas City Star today. I appreciate the power of math as much as the next guy, so don't think of this as some anti-science Republican contender crazy-ass response.

But... I'm trying to wrap my mind around watching a baseball game in which the pitcher is irrelevant. In slow-pitch softball this is very nearly the case but we still spend the winter trying to perfect knuckle balls and teeny dinky little curves and screwballs. Of course these trick pitches don't matter at 20 miles per hour but we simply can't resist. Mentally -- and visually -- it is impossible to take the pitcher out of the center of the diamond. I mean, what if Jeff Francis had not given up four runs yesterday? Would the Royals not have won 6-5?

It seems to me the more we know -- open our minds and allow math to tell us -- about baseball, the more complex and interrelated, and ultimately unknowable, the game becomes. Which is not a bad thing. Just an uncomfortable thing.

Twain wrote that becoming a river boat pilot spoiled the magic of the Mississippi River for him. The river was never the same once he learned its tricks and the mathematics of navigating it.

Like many of my friends, I really like Joe’s blog. Seems to me his writing has improved dramatically across the years. Gone are the cutsie phrases he liked to repeat across the breadth of a column until you yelled ‘Uncle.’ The subject matter is often richer, the writing even more elegant, and the substance enhanced by a lot more interviewing and – yes – more math. I’ve always liked reading him, even before I saw him tip the kid at D’Bronx who made his sandwich.

But I’m wondering why so much of his writing is even better today. Probably getting away from the Kansas City Star is one reason. It would be difficult to shine consistently in that organization – what with the lack of competition among the company he kept (was Jason Whitlock ever really any sort of competition for a writer, let alone a reporter?), the lack of demanding editors, the limit of the small stage. How can you really expect to get up for yet another column for such a small, somewhat unsophisticated audience?

And, you can’t discount the way writing about losing teams must have worn on him. This is a problem many small market writers face daily. Can you really expect his best stuff every morning when he has to write about yet another nine-six loss? Look at what writing about a losing small market team is doing to Lee Judge. He’s been reduced to writing about whether it is better to lose early or lose late.

And, of course, Joe writes A LOT more now than he did in Kansas City. He writes every day in the blog, tweets constantly about what he intends to write, and works on several big takes at once for publication elsewhere – meaning on much bigger stages. Red Smith wrote something about the winning percentages of daily columnists – I think he said he thought two wins a week was pretty good. But he was talking about writing two winners out of five tries. Joe has far more opportunities to win each week (and also to clunk), so you’d expect his wins to be higher but – because you do get better the more you write – you might also expect his skills to improve which means those wins might be inflated by just more practice.

Then again, he writes in the ‘dead bar’ era of newspapering. Whereas most newspapers had their own bars back in the day, and newspaper men wrote a lot more columns on damp bar napkins, you’d just naturally expect Joe to write more winners and less soggy, get-me-over, losers.

But the thing about Joe that is truly stunning is how deep he goes into a column or a post or a story with quality stuff. Many writers – most writers – can knock out a few good graphs at the top of the piece. But, Joe is a finisher. Good to the last drop. Of course, some of that is because he writes – I’m guessing – on very portable computers which – unlike typewriters – can be drug along with you nearly anywhere. So, he doesn’t have to finish in one sitting. And, since he is probably not antsy to get to the company bar in the middle of his column, and because the stakes are higher at the better organizations for which he toils, he has more stamina and better equipment. You’d expect him to go deeper into a column, wouldn’t you?

I mean, how much of how good Joe Posnanski is, can we attribute to Joe Posnanski and how much is out of his control? We’re used to reading one of his pieces and saying, ‘Man, that was well-written. Another winner for Joe.’ But when you really think about it, how much of that winner is really Joe’s doing?

--Lofflin

PPS: In looking around for the Red Smith winning percentage I happened on this wonderful piece by David Halberstam about the Great Walter Smith. It is a book review, but it is much more. Please, if you are a writer -- or reader -- don't miss it.

Beauty in math courtesy: http://www.ct4me.net/math_methodology_instruction_resources.htm

The biggest problem with this country is our inability to educate people to be thoughtful, functioning adults with the ability to think critically

2011-09-04T13:46:00.002-05:00

...
I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web. I will not read the comments under articles in the newspaper on the Web.

--Lofflin

Bring back the smoke filled rooms. The silly season of presidential primaries is choking us...

2011-08-30T16:46:00.008-05:00

We are almost exactly a year away from the national conventions of the Republican and Democrat parties but the silly season is already in full swing.

From Michelle Bachmann’s warnings about earthquakes and hurricanes to Ron Paul's call to dismantle FEMA in the midst of a national disaster, to Rick Perry’s love affair with America, silliness rules the primary season.

What we need is a return to the smoke-filled rooms of yore. Both parties, or what's left of them.

I'm not kidding.

Smoke-filled rooms became four letter words in the tumult of the late 1960s. Before Chicago Mayor Richard Daley gave them the off-color reputation of certain rooms in houses of ill repute they were where the movers and shakers -- the stalwarts -- of political parties gathered to sort through potential nominees. They were far from perfect, but at least their impulses pointed in the right direction.

The party faithful -- I like to think of them smoking Mississippi River Crooks cigars -- had good reason to choose wisely. Their political futures depended on it. If they chose a loser, the spoils went elsewhere. They were empowered with choosing a candidate who -- first and foremost -- stood a chance of winning.

And not winning just an Iowa straw poll, or just Iowa, for that matter, or even just the Midwest, or just among farmers, or union folks. They knew how many votes it would take to win the presidency and where those votes would come from, and -- generally -- as an act of self-preservation they chose candidates with the best chance of capturing those votes.

To be sure losing coalitions formed and losing candidates accumulated backers in those smoky rooms. And sometimes, as Mark Hanna once said,” there ain't a first rater or in the bunch.” But, by necessity, their view was broad and mostly toward the middle -- as middle as possible in each particular season.

But the debacle that was the 1968 conventions paved the way for a more democratic impulse. Of course it is difficult to argue against a democratic impulse.

So, in 1972, the McGovern Commission rewrote the rules for the Democrat Party and the Republicans followed suit. All things democratic were in order.

The math is simple: before 1972, three=fourths of the delegates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms; after 1972, three-fourths were chosen in primaries. Today the percentage is even higher.

And that's a prime example of a good idea gone bad. Collateral damage included:

· A greater need for greater and greater amounts of money. We all know where that led.
· By necessity campaigning had to be done on television. How else can you run in five states in five days? This meant, again, more money, and it also meant more attractive candidates prevailed. In other words, if you want to be president today, you've got to be a looker.
· Candidates were not forced to be generalists, to appeal to the middle of the country. They could capture the nomination in small bites by wooing smaller and smaller interest groups. But they were in grave danger when they took actual positions on issues. It's one thing to say you are in favor of smaller government. That plays well in New Hampshire, Iowa, Florida, Texas, and California. But if you say, as Gov. Rick Perry said, Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, you have doomed your candidacy in Florida, no matter how well that notion plays in the suburbs of Dallas. So, successful candidates learn how to campaign without saying anything. At least they learn how to campaign without saying anything significant. They don't take positions on issues. They make personal assertions about what they believe and who they are. Ultimately, if they are successful, they get elected and no one knows what they stand for, or worse, what they intend to do. To the country. To you and I.
· Appealing to small interest groups means more fringe candidates emerge. They emerge because it may only take 10% or 15% of the electorate to make a good showing in some primary states, if a large number of candidates are still in the race. They may be able to woo ardent supporters to a particular position in, say, Iowa, or New Hampshire, or Florida, and hope the momentum will carry them into the general election. But they usually fall by the wayside, tons of money and television time and voter angst wasted.
· Heaven help us if they make it into the general election.
· Even so, many of the candidates who make it into the general election, are unelectable. Their appeal is to too small. So once they've sewn up the primary season they try to move to the middle. And that move brings fire from the media, because inconsistency is one of the main things the media looks for. It's easy to see and it's easy to write about.
· So a candidate like a Barack Obama presents himself as a liberal to win the nomination in the Democrat party then immediately begins moving to the middle. And as president, he lives in the middle. His voters are left feeling cheated, and they should feel cheated. After all, the wars he swore he would end have continued. The health system he swore to reform isn't reformed. The influence of big corporate money isn't diminished. Oil Independence hasn't arrived. And no child left behind – or, as teachers like to say, no teacher left with a behind -- continues to make high-stakes testing the point of education.
· More fringe candidates make it less likely parties will nominate contenders who could appeal to a broad base of Americans. This means the governing cycle, as opposed to the electoral cycle, will leave most of the people feeling impotent as participants in the process.
· The power of political parties will be further eroded. When the political party is powerless, the press becomes dominant. But the press is ill-equipped to fill the role of the political party. It's like bringing the centerfielder in to pitch. The point of political parties is to pull people together, to find their common ground, to find out which issues unite rather than divide them, to make nice, to build coalitions of different kinds of people. The role of the press is exactly the opposite. The press looks for disharmony where the party looked for harmony. The role of the press is to find those places where people disagree, to identify the places that go bump in the night.

And, in this silly season, everything goes bump in the night. Although it gives the press something to do, and it keeps the rooms smoke-free, the republic suffers.

--Lofflin

B0bby Valentine right, right, right but wrong, wrong, wrong about Starlin Castro. If this was an audition, he sounded like an insufferable bully...

2011-08-26T21:08:00.010-05:00

Sunday Night Baseball this week was awful.

It was all the talk during warm-ups for our doubleheader last night. Our softhanded third baseman Jim Dorn brought it up first as he gently coaxed his right arm into playing shape.

What happened was Bobby Valentine turned game commentary into an audition for the soon to be open job of Cubs' manager. The Cubs will have a new general manager next year and it's a good guess whoever fills the role will be looking for a new skipper. Was Billy Beane watching Sunday night baseball?

Not likely. According to Moneyball, he can't even bear to watch his A's.

Valentine was so bad, folks who hated Joe Morgan on Sunday Night Baseball (not me, by the way) might actually have briefly hoped for his return.

Valentine became fixated on Starlin Castro, the Cubs' fine young shortstop who is currently hitting .307. It was unseemly. Inning after inning he offered Castro damning praise while ripping into his inability to focus on the game.

It isn't that Valentine was wrong. He was right. And, right. Right again. Right. Right. Right. Very right. Right. Right. Right.

The producers obviously caught his obsession and focused the cameras on Castro in a way I've never seen before. Throughout the middle innings they had Castro in the lens between nearly every pitch. By some accounts they were focused on him unrelentingly for 10 long minutes.

They proved their point. Castro is young, somewhat undisciplined, and only loosely focused. At one point they showed an amazing replay of a pitch during which Castro was standing with his back to the plate, his glove hand in his back pocket rummaging for sunflower seeds, staring off into the distance beyond left field. Castro, in the bright circle on the screen -- a technique generally reserved for showing terrorists in airport cameras -- never saw the pitch. Thank god it was a ball.

Valentine put the Cubs' current skipper, Mike Quade, in a bind. Over and over he chirped Castro must be disciplined. For his own good, somebody must discipline him. If this goes on unchecked, he'll be ruined.

After the game, the Cubs' skipper did, dutifully, bench Castro for one game.

The thing you have to remember is this kid learned to play baseball in such poverty the only glove he had was made from a milk cartoon, according to fine baseball writer Jeff Passan. This year, at 21, he is making $440,000 which must seem like $4 billion, and soon he will be rewarded with a contract well into the millions. To go from a cardboard glove to the prospect of millions at the age of 21... well can you blame him if sometimes he looks up at the sky in wonder instead of watching the pitch being delivered?

Personally, I love to watch him play. His eyes simply sparkle when he is at the plate waiting for a pitch. He plays with love and he swings with abandon. Bobby Valentine needs to pick on somebody his own age.

And, Billy Beane, that audition should convince you hiring Bobby Valentine to manage what ever club you direct next year would be a huge mistake, something akin to signing Yuniesky Bentancort to play short and hoping he will learn to take a walk once in a while.

--Lofflin

Screen capture courtesy http://larrybrownsports.com/baseball/starlin-castro-benched-day-after-espn-shows-him-not-paying-attention/83567

Tony's hot mess: libel law is one of the great conundrums of free speech and the Internet only makes the dilemma worse

2011-08-24T21:12:00.014-05:00

Time to weigh in on the legal “hot mess” Tony Botello at Tony’s Kansas City has gotten himself into.

Despite his bravado, I’m pretty sure I know how Tony feels. As a green reporter I wound up looking down the barrel of a similar threat because of a careless green reporter mistake. Like Tony, my buddies were quick to offer legal advice – the most memorable was that since what I did was clearly stupid I probably couldn’t be sued.

What I remember was my stomach turning over and sinking to the bottom of the lake as I discovered all the air I needed to breathe had been sucked out of the room. It felt, now that I think about it, a lot like drowning.

My whole career, both years of it, passed before my eyes. I had a wife and a kid and a dog... well, no dog, but I might want to have one some day, and I was sure it was all over.

Libel law is scary. It’s meant to be scary.

We have no prior restraint in this country. Only on a few occasions has anyone been legally restrained from publishing. Persuaded not to publish, sure. Ordered by an editor or publisher not to publish, sure. But through legal action… I think you could count the times on one hand.

But, the law does allow punishment instead of prevention, and libel law is one of those punishments. Libel law only infringes on free speech by intimidation.

Libel law is a real conundrum for folks who cherish free speech because it can have such a chilling effect, which those of us who value free speech hate. But it’s a conundrum because, on the other hand, libel law is meant to protect a person’s reputation. And a person’s reputation is the single most important thing he or she possesses. Once a reputation is broken… well, try the old Gerry Spence demonstration. Hold a pencil at both ends and pretend you are standing in front of a jury. Now, snap the pencil in half. Tell the jury if it were possible to put that pencil back together, we wouldn’t be here asking you for money.

Now comes the Internet and suddenly defamation is everywhere. The Internet has let loose tons of good and not-so-good ideas, tons of criticism, tons of free speech. It has truly democratized publishing – if you count venues and not readers. It is a free speech advocate’s dream. And I'm a strong advocate of free speech. I love the way the Internet has made the workings of the human mind transparent. And, as a journalist, I love the way it has made information as plentiful as dandelions in spring.

But what about reputations? You only have one reputation. If you are the person whose reputation has been snapped in half by all that free speech – often cowardly anonymous free speech (this is definitely not the case with Tony) – you might not be so happy about what the Internet has wrought. You can neither deny – for whatever good that does – nor refute. And, in all likelihood – as the Star take on this today points out – you probably have no remedy.

Now, for me, the key to understanding this dilemma is responsibility. In my opinion, censorship and self-censorship are two entirely different animals. I am dead set against censorship. But I am strongly in favor of reasoned and compassionate self-censorship.

Somebody has to take responsibility when a reputation is damaged – actually, before a reputation is damaged. Somebody has to take what anonymous tipsters say and check it out. Everybody in the profession knows that some tips are true and most are not. In either case, the tipster more than likely has an axe to grind. If you are going to publish tips or rumors or scuttlebutt, it is your ethical responsibility to make a conscientious effort to discover the truth of it.

It makes a huge difference, legally and ethically, if the person being libeled is a public person or a private person. The law is much kinder to private folks… and for good reason. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to make SOME effort where public people are concerned. You still have to demonstrate an absence of malice, and that is pretty easy to do. I’m no lawyer, but my understanding of the law is, bottomline, all you have to do is make some effort to just call the guy and ask him if the rumor is true.

Now, again, I’m no lawyer. And I think anyone who thinks he knows libel law and isn’t a libel attorney, is both naïve and dangerous. So please don't try to take this to the bank... or, god forbid, to court.

I sincerely hope Tony gets through this mess unscathed. I love his “awesome” blog, to borrow one of his more endearing phrases. As a former reporter, I have an unending appetite for rumor and motive and documents not meant for public consumption. I have to admit to dialing up Tony’s Kansas City a couple of times a day because I’m more likely to know what’s going on there than if I read just about any other local source. And, having been a reporter, I have a natural skepticism about what Tony writes.

This lawsuit may put Tony in the limelight for fifteen minutes – maybe even on a national scale. Good. It may turn out to be a great favor to him. But I hope it also shines a light on the great conundrum of the Internet and on the fact that where you have the most freedom, you need the most responsibility.

I’ve was never particularly fond of the editors I worked for as a reporter – on a professional level anyway. But this blogging business has given me a new appreciation for the frustrating, sometimes pedantic, questions they asked. Writing and publishing without an editor scares the living shit out of me. And, frankly, it should.

--Lofflin

Image courtesy: http://activity-holidays.visitwales.co.uk/477/mushroom-hunting-wales/

If you love baseball, play it; the commercial game is just a nasty cup of cold coffee, and the future is just a smoke screen for the losing present

2011-08-14T11:43:00.027-05:00

Aggawwwaga!

Allow me to start with a Sunday morning warning.

If you are like me and not always cleaning up as you go, make a rule to do at least this: Rinse out your old coffee cups right after you decide the stuff is too cold to drink.

Otherwise, you may sit down to write, get engrossed in the thoughts swirling in your head, and reach for one of those old suckers from a week ago instead of your nice fresh cup of Cafe Verona. The cup with "No More Mr. Nice Guy" in big letters on the outside. The one with black oil and mold on the inside.

Let me tell you something... the mold that grows in week old coffee is nasty.

Be warned.

Now that I've recovered, on to the idea I promised a few posts ago. I know you've been waiting and thinking you've been hoodooed again. Not so.

I promised a big idea about baseball. Here it is and now that I've built it up it doesn't seem so big.

First, I'm talking about big time commercial baseball. The industry of baseball. Moneyball, but not exclusively in the Billy Beane sense of it. I'm not talking about playing baseball... or softball... for the joy of it. I'm not talking about The Game. This ain't no Annie Savoy soliloquy.

Pardon me while I make sure I have the right cup.

I'm talking about the game people watch, follow, subscribe to, pay to see, comment endlessly on, begin conversations with when the weather isn't interesting, call in to the radio about, write books about, write columns and blog posts about, buy uniform shirts complete with somebody else's name and number on the back because of. Oh yes, and write novels about. I know of only one adult baseball novel not about commercial baseball.

And commercial baseball has always been a reflection of the times in which it was played. This is a trait of commercial baseball that you can even find in the statistics. Look at world war time baseball statistics. Look at statistics in the industrial revolution. Look at statistics in an era when Americans felt thrifty or when they felt expansive.

But you see it as much in the cultural side of baseball. When Americans were enamored with gambling, with rags to riches schemes, you got the 1919 Black Sox. When moguls ruled the economic world -- when they owned the newspapers and the railroads and the oil companies -- they also ruled the baseball world. Look at a baseball card from the 1970s and tell me you don't see the 1960s. At the end and the beginning of the century, when the cult of personality came to rule politics and rock 'n roll, steroids flourished. And when the players were finally trapped, did they not behave just like Bill Clinton, who did not have sex with that woman? I see two lies there -- sex and woman -- Monica Lewinskiy was, in my book, somebody's little girl. And, of course, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens did not take steroids.

So, what does baseball reflect in the teen years of the new century?

The power of big money. Followed by helplessness. Futility. And, finally, acquiescence. And the big hoodoo of the Tea Party and of the United States Congress. The shell game and the suckers.

If you see the economic and political world you live in as a big set up, then you know how baseball fans in many towns feel. If you see economics and politics as a Machiavellian mixture of guile and greed, you know how baseball fans feel. If you feel like you are the sucker born every minute, you understand how baseball fans feel when they see through the smoke screen of the local nine's rebuilding plan or the general manager's beloved "process."

Rebuilding and trickle-down economics are one and the same, in my opinion. Hoodoo. Ways to sell the otherwise unpopular idea that you need to help me get rich. You keep coming to the park and I'll keep filling it with a combination of minor league talent and just enough major league ballplayers to feed your hope for the future. Or, the more money I make and the less taxes I pay, the more likely I am to maybe offer you a minimum wage job in one of my enterprises.

The point, for most of the commercial teams, is to put just enough good players on the field to keep you coming back. To sell you on carnival rides and mustard races, and most of all, on the future down in the minor leagues. To get you talking about trades and firing the manager, and hating the owner, and buying into the process. It is only about winning and losing for teams and fans in a few cities. The rest of us are just there to fill out the schedule.

Coming soon, two months of playoffs. The better to sucker you in.

Just as the political world we live in is primarily smoke and mirrors, big time manipulation, slight of hand, public relations to the ninth degree, so is baseball. We are, in Neil Postman's seminal words, entertained to death. Does the score of yesterday's Kansas City Royals game really matter? Not if winning is how you measure a baseball game. Does the score of the Iowa Straw Poll really matter? Not if you care about the economy or the quality of life in this country. Barack Obama knew how to organize, how to win straw polls and primaries and even the White House. He didn't know shit about governing. And I'm one who voted for him.

Heck, I've voted for two mainstream candidates in my lifetime: Bill Clinton once and Barack Obama once. You can fool some of the people some of the time...

So, maybe that's why I've grown so cynical about commercial baseball and presidential politics. Both drink from the same cup. As I said at the top... be warned. Make sure you reach for the warm cup of fresh coffee on your table. The alternative is nasty.

I promise some lighter fare next time I hit the keyboard. Just needed to get this rant off my chest. Until two weeks ago I had been thinking happily about how much softball I could play when I retired. Now I'll have to work until I'm 90.

By the way, if it is baseball you like, my advice is simple. Quit watching and start playing. No matter what age you are. If you love the game, play it. You'll get that bad taste out of your mouth real quick if you do.

--Lofflin

BTW: That southpaw guarding the No More Mr. Nice Guy cup is my little Lucy. From the look in her eyes, she knows nasty when she smells it...

T-Bones give Frank White his very first "night" at the ballpark... That alone speaks volumes

2011-08-13T11:03:00.007-05:00

...
I'll make this extra brief since I'm starting to sound like a crotchety old man and my last post was a bit heavy. Well... more than a bit.

The T-Bones held Frank White night at their minor league -- in league only -- ballpark last night.

Frank told the S tar he was pleased. “I’ve never had a night at a ballpark...,” he said.

Do I have to say anything else? You can fill in the blanks here all by yourself, I'm sure.

--Lofflin

Fires in London... could they spread to our shores? Do we understand the danger of neglecting the social contract? Something to think about...

2011-08-10T18:00:00.002-05:00

Burning buildings in the streets of London should be a warning to those of us living in her former colony.

It is maddeningly difficult to find even speculation about the causes or grievances of the London rioters in the articles I've read today. One article cited similar riots in 1985 led by “black youth” living in rotten housing projects. Sounds familiar. This time it is “minority” youth turning over cars and throwing Molotov Cocktails. The New York Times’ account implies, without saying so, the austerity measures forced on the British government, similar to those we are now about to embrace, are to blame.

Now, riots have causes and grievances but they’re usually hard to see through the smoke and mayhem. Riots simply take on a life of their own. Hey, they’re a lot of fun, somewhat profitable, and they are attractive to rebels, outlaws and people who just like to hear glass break. Nonetheless, they don’t happen without provocation. Many times they are ignited by a killing or a beating – usually at the hands of police – or some other perceived injustice inflicted by the authorities. Usually, when thinkers try to deconstruct the environment of the riot, they find the underbrush was already dry and primed to explode.

Look at it this way. Riots like those in London the last four nights tell you an awful lot of people don’t have to get up and go to work in the morning. They tell you a lot of people are blind with anger and hate. They tell you a lot of people feel left out and powerless. They tell you a lot of people do not see the law, or the police, on their side.

In short, riots like those in London show you a lot of people with nothing to lose.

Now, I’m just speculating and from quite a distance. But if I’m right about this, we need to pay attention. This movie could be coming to a theater near you.

Here I’m going to speak plainly, which means I intend to just state what is, not whether I think it is good or bad. What I’m about to say may seem foolish to some and heartless to others. It is meant only as an attempt at some sort of unvarnished truth. The situation exactly as I see it.

We live, as do the British, in a community connected by contract law. We are fond of saying this when we describe the difference between our civilized society and some more barbaric nation or when some obviously guilty murderer or murderess is set free by a jury of his or her peers.

But we don’t really know what the social contract is, or why it exists.

It is an agreement with clear give and take. I give up some of my freedom to the community. In exchange, I get peace (sometimes), protection, some form of prosperity or at least the hope of prosperity, and stuff like clean water and safe food. Simply put, I get hope for a better future and a tolerable existence today.

Now, I grew up in a working class neighborhood and that is a lot different from going up in a non-working neighborhood. We always believed we could work for a better life, have a job and a family, save some money, take a vacation each year, and live long enough to collect social security. That turned out to be a bit off; after 19 years of school my economic situation was far more tenuous then my Teamster father. Thank god I didn't get a PhD. Then I’d really be broke.

But the social contract did deliver a pretty damned good life for me and for the other folks who grew up in our neighborhood and more or less played by the rules. We’d be fools to complain. But make no mistake, life in a non-working neighborhood provides no such promise and no such reality.

Back to the contract. In essence, I give up my wild ass desires – some of them anyway – to live in basic harmony with everyone else. I don’t do this because it is the nice thing to do; I do it to get back what a solid community can provide in social and economic rewards. That is the central point.

But what if the community doesn't give me anything in return. What if I just have to give up my wild ass desires and get nothing in return? What if I live only on the margins of this community; if I have to bow and scrape to eat; if I see no hope for a better life; if I have no sense that I matter in that community? What if I feel powerless, feel everything is a set-up, manipulated by the wealthy, by the corporations, by the religious interest groups, by the relentless media? What if I have nothing at all to lose in this grand bargain?

Why should I play by the rules, especially if I had nothing to do with making the rules?

Which brings me to why the social contract has become the natural way to organize many communities: The social contract is designed to prevent precisely what is happening in London and has happened in several periods of American history. The social contract offers a reason to behave. And the reason is self-interest.

I respect the contract because I believe I can prosper in the peaceful community it creates.

Take that away and the Molotov Cocktail rules the night.

Now, if I've made you mad enough there’s smoke coming out of your ears, don’t stand too close to the gas pump. This part will really make you mad.

The reason for the social contract – in my reading of politics – is to keep a lid on insurrection. Conservatives like to think liberals and misguided conservatives spend tax dollars on social programs and entitlement programs out of naïve, soft-hearted, altruistic motives. They’re dangerously wrong. Today’s Tea Party bravado about small government and big debt is wrong for the same reason. The reason for these expensive social programs, for the safety net, is to prevent exactly what is happening in London tonight.

If you don’t want Those People burning down your precious Country Club Plaza, you better be sure they are either massively distracted or they have some small sense of hope of a decent life within the system.

If you were charged with inventing three things to keep poor people out of the streets, you’d invent 1) the social contract to provide hope or food stamps, or to appear to provide hope on the basis of daily rags-to-riches stories in the media… and food stamps; 2) cable television and American Idol; and 3) cocaine.

This crazy fixation with the national debt at the cost of jobs, education and hope, is eliminating the first of those inventions. We’d better hope cable television and cocaine are enough to keep the lid on our non-working neighborhoods. I’m guessing they aren’t enough in non-working London neighborhoods.

Instead of this crazy fixation, we better make sure everyone who lives in this contract society is – symbolically at least – getting a dollar of good for every dollar of freedom they pay in. It’s pretty easy to see on the telly what happens when a whole lot of people have nothing to lose.

--Lofflin

Credit where credit is due

2011-08-09T18:21:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't chimed in for a while. I've been going ninety-to-nothing at my job and another blog, but I've been reading John's great stuff and looking at his fantastic photos with rapt interest.

But I wanted to drop a quick line to hand out some credit for great customer service. Since I currently work in an industry where customer service is crucial, and since I've been learning that people who receive bad customer service will tell 10 of their friends about it but people who receive great customer service only tell four friends, I think it's important to give credit where it's due.

For that other website, I do business with a company called Go Daddy. I'm sure you've seen their obnoxious commercials, especially during the Super Bowl. They're a website hosting service. And in the managing of my blog, I've run into a few wrinkles that I couldn't work out through the company's website. I've had to call and talk to a human being.

But Go Daddy makes it pretty damn easy. Their toll-free customer service number is plastered at the top of their homepage. When you call the number, you have the choice to enter your customer number. Don't have it? That's okay. The wait time is about ten seconds before your call is routed to a real live human.

All the customer service associates I've spoken to are friendly, professional and efficient. It's a real "Wow" experience to deal with them.

In this age of cynicism, it sounds silly, I'm sure, to hear somebody praise a company for customer service. But I don't care. The only way to change a cynical world is to reject the status quo.

Brief Sunday update: Johnny Giavotella called up; quickly nicknamed Gia; intelligentsia wonder what great prospect Gia is already holding back

2011-08-05T19:29:00.020-05:00

Johnny Giavotella better be the second coming of Frank White.

If not, a lot of the Kansas City sports intelligentsia will be sorely disappointed.

Last night, a sports talker began the 11:30 p.m. segment with something like this: "Tomorrow will be an exciting day for Kansas City sports fans because the Royals have finally called up Johnny Giavotella."

I don't know if it works this way in other towns.

(It does. Watching Astro's broadcast this afternoon, all the talk, and I mean all the talk, about the exploits of their minor league players, despite the fact that half the players on the field this Sunday were minor leaguers a few week ago. Same conversations with the rookie families in the stands as Royal's broadcasts. And a kid from Austin celebrating his birthday who plans to be the Astro's general manager when he grows up and predicts a world series victory for the 'Stros in 2013. This is just so Kansas City...
Greinke, by the way, up 6-0 and perhaps on his way to victory 10...
Astros' announcers admit "this game isn't very interesting" down now 6-1 so they've focused on discussion of a kid they've obtained by trade who the organization has just moved up from the Florida State League with -- the brass say -- "a can't miss bat." I guess when your major league team is going nowhere for years and years, the most interesting thing is the future... Not a very Zen way to live, eh? Certainly familiar to Kansas City fans...)

But it sure does in this place. The savior is always just around the corner. The grass is always greener in Omaha. The excitement is never a pennant race -- it's something off in the distance, a promise for the future, the next flavor of the month.

And so, Kansas City fans create their own excitement in the dog days of every losing season, waiting for the new savior from Omaha to arrive.

What do you think Detroit fans were cheering tonight? Their league-leading Tigers, no doubt, racing for the post season.

And now, it's the bottom of the second and Johnny Giavotella is at the plate. The announcers have already nicknamed him Gia. They are, it is clear, already his buddy. The excitement is palpable on screen and in the announcers' voices... save Mr. White, who was once a rookie and has met his share of rookies, and -- given the way he has been treated -- obviously feels he owes little to the Royals' brass in the way of shilling for their latest call up.

Gia looks at a ball. That's good news. Obviously a money ball player willing to take some pitches. Certain fans are thinking how angry they are with Chris Getz for hitting so much above his average this season and fielding so well that Gia has been held back from their eyes.

And on the next pitch? Well, it is with sadness that it must be reported he grounded weakly to the second baseman who flipped to second for one out and the shortstop fired to first for two, ending the inning. One announcer, with real sadness in his voice, announces Gia -- "The good news story of the day" -- has grounded into a double play in his first at bat. But never fear, he says, "there will be many more at bats for this young man."

Far be it for reality to interrupt the good news story of the day.

I have nothing against Johnny Giavotella. He has an excellent name for baseball -- a sort of pre-Jackie Robinson, pre-Roberto Clemente, pre-Ichiro, kind of second baseman name. And, as the last great call up we couldn't wait to see, Mike Moustakas (another pre- everything name) trudges back to the dugout, head down, after striking out -- he has just 10 hits in the last 20 games for a .177 batting average -- I'm wishing Gia well. A second baseman like Frank White doesn't come to a city's faithful every day.

But now that Gia has two major league hits under is belt, and a ninth inning walk, I'm wondering who HE is blocking from "our" view. Indeed, what great player at Northwest Arkansas or Round Rock or Wilmington, is he blocking? Some member of the Kansas City sports intelligentsia is no doubt asking that question in a post somewhere on the Net as we speak.

As long as Kansas City fans look on baseball this way, the brass will never be forced to put a winning team on the field. Not at the major league level anyway. It'll always be blue sky and next year.

--Lofflin -- feelin' sorry for the kid because he didn't make these promises but will have to live up to them. The sports talkers and the club brass created this hype for their own improvised purposes.

Where have all the Royals gone? Gone to better places every one... Hum along if you know the tune .. especially if you know it all too well

2011-08-02T09:21:00.019-05:00

Always a seller, never a buyer. Always a bridesmaid. Well, not quite. Usher is more like it. Always the usher, never the bride.

That's the fate of the Kansas City Royals during the annual July 31 player bazaar and everyone in this town knows it will be at some point in late May. No use pretending... though many do find it useful. The Star writers sometimes find it a useful way to stay employed. Some local sports intelligentsia need to manufacture a reason to be hopeful or have something to talk about on endless radio shows -- at least until football begins. The Royals' brain trust.

Can anyone remember a year the local nine were buyers on July 31st? I have a vague memory of one lousy year when they bought... and it came to nothing. But the memory has long faded.

And, like everyone else, I'm growing tired of this blasted heat and the Royals, so I'm going to let it go for a while. We'd all be better off if we just lowered our expectations. Kansas City got its first white major league team from Philadelphia, and that team had been more than miserable for years. We've had, in our white major league history, one shining moment of great baseball in our town and that was it. Call it our Thomas Hart Benton moment. Greatness has not become routine here.

Maybe I'll be eating these words next year. Maybe the home nine will be buyers next year. Maybe they won't need to buy. The second baseman from Omaha will be spectacular, the Moose will regain his stroke, Danny Duffy will be the second coming of The Bulldog. The first baseman in Omaha will hit 50 homeruns. They'll trade Billy Butler, to our great relief, because ALL he can do is hit .300 year after year.

Speaking of trades...

I was thinking about this yesterday. Mike Aviles was in a Boston uniform getting his first base hit for the league leading Red Sox. Detroit took the day off, but Wilson Betemit no doubt enjoyed it a little more knowing his new team was also leading the league. In Philadelphia Sunday, Raul Ibanez doubled for the league leading Phillies, having escaped Kansas City in 2003 due to indifference on the part of the Royal's brain trust. Philly has the best record in all of baseball, by the way. And Sunday, well, Sunday he hit two home runs, one to tie the game in the ninth and a double in the 10th to win it. (And, when you think about the one that got away, John Mayberry Jr., blasted a walk-off home run last night against the Phillies keeping Cincinnati just barely in the pennant hunt.) And Carlos Beltran was two for four yesterday while patrolling right field for the league leading San Francisco Giants. Jeremy Affeldt, by the way, threw two scoreless for the Giants in relief.
Oh yes, and Zack Greinke gave up two runs yesterday in six-and-two-thirds against a potent Cardinals lineup for his ninth win. And, you knew this is coming, his league leading Brewers moved to three-and-a-half games over the Cards. He also laid down one fine bunt -- a key to the Crew's five run fifth.

One time Royals all. Except Mayberry, who should have been. But the Royals' brass seem to do anything they can to keep from mentioning the franchise's one bright shining moment, which might be why they didn't draft him right out of their own back yard.

Okay, time to stop bellyaching. But, somehow this all seems too familiar. It rings up with something awfully familiar from modern American life. More on that later. Joe Posnanski offered the money quote of the hour today: the idea that we now live in a world of "retaliation by posing." You can read him yourself to get the context. I'll try to weave that in, as well. Stay tuned.

In fact, you can get an interesting glimpse at what I'm thinking by reading the comments under Bob Dutton's hopelessly hopeful piece which I just got around to reading today in the Star. The comments are much better than the story. Of course, the comments also contain some of the usual crap, but if you start with JCE3227, you get an idea. He or she points out how major league baseball is like so much else in modern life... to quote a trusty old jazz/blues tune... "Them that's got shall get, them that ain't shall lose..." or something like that.

--Lofflin

Photograph courtesy http://www.reception-wedding.com/bridesmaid_etiquette.htm

THE CRINGE FACTOR: How the debt crisis 'debate' sounds like Vietnam, how compromise has become a four letter word... again

2011-07-28T10:54:00.012-05:00

Cringe! Cringe! Cringe!

That's what I'm doing this morning. These Tea Partiers sound so much like I did when I was nineteen it makes my teeth grind.

We, too, made liberal use of the Constitution. We took phrases from the Bible and turned them into slogans. We loved loud speakers -- and loudspeakers -- and cherished cries for revolution. And every invocation ended with the word 'now'.

We saw our movement in the frame of a 1950s cowboy movie. We were the good guys making a stand with honor and bravado, often at our personal Alamo. In fact, the Western movie in American culture exalted martyrdom the way we are told Islam exalts martyrdom.

But, most of all, we hated compromise.

To us, compromise was a four-letter word. OK, 10 letters, but who's counting when you're making a revolution.

I sat in meeting after meeting in dorm rooms and barrooms where those who dared suggest compromise were shouted down. I did some of the shouting. I won't deny that in some situations the impulse to shout down a compromise still crosses my mind... and lips. In those days, we judged the stakes too high and the art of compromise too slimy for what needed to be done. And those who suggested compromise somehow always seemed bound for a life in politics (an equally dirty word) or corporate public relations.

Does any of this sound cringingly familiar?

Now, the country is on the brink partly because the word compromise has become a four-letter word again.

This time it is the right wing who hate compromise, who promise never to compromise. Well, not entirely the right. I'm not sure where to place the libertarians. In a classic definition of conservative and liberal, they exhibit the tendencies of rather extreme liberals. No matter the political geography, compromise is no longer an art in politics; it's a sin.

As I studied politics in my 20s and 30s and began teaching about it in my 40s and 50s, I came to understand compromise better. Words matter, so let me cast this word in a more useful context. In politics, compromise is actually the art of consensus building. Consensus building is what artful politicians used to do. If they wanted to pass a law to pull in government spending, they built an overwhelming hunger for it among their constituents then found ways they could compromise with the other side to create legislation and policy. With consensus on their sides, legislation was easy to pass, generally accepted, and the political earth moved. The presidents who were good at building consensus, got stuff done. The presidents who dug in their heels, usually left office bitter and frustrated.

Take Lyndon Johnson as an example of both. He was a consensus builder of the highest order in the Senate. And in terms of domestic issues, he remained a consensus builder in the presidency. He could put his arms around your shoulders and bring you into the tent with all the skills of a new car salesman who survives late December.

If there is a fence around the junkyard in your neighborhood, you can thank Lyndon Johnson's consensus building skills. If you live in a rural community with a water treatment plant, thank Lyndon Johnson. If you think affirmative action helped tamp down the effects of racism, thank Lyndon Johnson. (Of course, you're free to disagree with the effects of affirmative action...) Lyndon Johnson presided over the last great outpouring of legislation from the American congress, though another compromise artist, Ronald Reagan got a bit done, himself.

But when it came to the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson, the great conciliator, dug in his heels like a pit bull. He said 'no' and 'hell no', made his mind up he wouldn't be the first American president to lose a war, paid way too much attention to the artful lies of his strategists, and left office with his proud head bowed. He refused to compromise and consensus went so strongly the other way, he was left alone on an island of power.

I'm not sure if consensus building is possible today unless you own a cable news outlet. What decision makers are left with is posing. Instead of striking a deal, they strike a pose. It works fine in overnight polls. And, it makes them feel like the cowboys they aren't but want to be. Their supporters -- dwindling it seems -- cheer them on. But the poll numbers are fleeting, especially when nothing happens and things get worse. By the time the next presidential election arrives the country will be so hungry for a conciliator, the current crop of candidates will look like antique gas guzzlers. And, ultimately, like Lyndon Johnson, they'll leave office bitter and bowed.

But, for now, the country suffers.

--Lofflin, just my twenty-cents worth

Flash: Are Royals brass charging players to launder uniforms? Despite victory, keeping the whites white seemed the base running goal

2011-07-24T11:04:00.005-05:00

Don't want to spoil the party.

After all, the Royals won in thrilling fashion last night. One of the new hot shots came through and looks so far like the real deal. The fireman put out the fire and the fireworks went off.

But watching the final two innings or so, I found one thing really disturbing. Did you see the same thing?

The Royals scored crucial runs twice on throws to the plate. And, in neither case did the runner slide. Escobar, whose body language just looked really tired to me, kept looking back at the outfield all the way home from third and went in standing up. Then to close the game Aviles did the same thing, except he -- at least -- wasn't slowing himself down by looking back.

Both plays, from the couch perspective, were too close for comfort.

Maybe the Royals are charging the players to launder their uniforms now. That wouldn't exactly be out of character.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I saw a couple of players earlier go into second base on close plays without sliding. Getz on a steal and Cabera, I think, running from first on a hit to right.

A team always looks good in the middle of a hot streak like this, but not sliding across the plate with the game on the line raises some questions. You'd think every player would remember Jeremy Giambi not sliding home and being ignominiously tagged out on Derek Jeter's relay throw in game three of the 2001 league championship series.

But I guess not.

--Lofflin

Fine game photo by Michael Macor, San Francisco Chronicle

Another summer image you might enjoy: Sis's Cafe roof line, a place for sun bathing without bikinis or muscle shirts...but plenty of bird brains

2011-07-21T13:06:00.007-05:00

Here's another summer image. This is Sis's Cafe at 7th and Osage in Kansas City, Kansas.

--Lofflin

Orchid soul: Summer in the city; enjoy some new images of mine from Kauffman Gardens

2011-07-14T18:35:00.015-05:00

Take a break and enjoy some of these recent images from Kauffman Gardens on a humid Kansas City day when even the drinking fountain let the lens see its soul...

--Lofflin

"Wearing the Uniform Thing..." Royals revisit a past blunder and Sam Mellinger calls them out for it. Maybe it's the Monarchs who should protest

2011-07-09T18:02:00.019-05:00

...

Do you ever wonder why beat reporters tend to avoid the tough negative story? They do, by the way. Not every beat reporter and not every time. But beat reporters have two strong reasons to issue a street parole to a tough story.

1) They like the beat and they want to keep it. And it took them years to learn this beat. They have an investment. Here they get the "backing" of the news organization in which the editor tells the beat reporter, "Hey, if they freeze you out we'll put someone else on this beat and you can have another one." Gee, thanks for having my back.

2) They know if they write the tough story -- or if somebody else sneaks onto their turf and writes it -- they'll spend hours listening to the PR flacks "explain" why they're wrong. And, I do mean hours. It's kind of like buying a car. More like an old fashioned root canal.

So, when Sam Mellinger called out the Royals yesterday for the huge public relations blunder of not being willing to spend 20 grand on Negro League uniforms for Negro League day, I wanted to cheer and at the same time offer condolences. In fact, Mellinger wrote two tough columns about the Royals this week. Double trouble.

A Royals spokesman was interviewed this morning on one of the local talk shows. When I heard him say something like, "Last night we explained to Sam what we were doing ..." I knew he'd gotten the business. Then the spokesman tried to give the listeners the business by saying it wasn't about the money at all, it was -- company line -- about "doing something different."

No uniforms and no hats. That's different. Like the difference between grilled rainbow trout at the Bristol and Filet-O-Fish at McDonalds.

I wrote recently about the ocean of bullshit we're navigating in this life and Mellinger was the butt end of my tirade. Well, this week he's produced two no-bullshit columns and he deserves a pat on the back from his readers. The Royals, meanwhile, deserve a kick in the pants.

I've just started Phil Dixon's book on Bullet Joe Rogan. I can tell already it's going to be an excellent read. The point Dixon makes early on is how the local newspapers -- the white local newspapers -- managed to keep their readers ignorant about the existence of this Hall of Famer in their own back yard simply because he was black. The Kansas City Star, Mellinger's newspaper, was instrumental in this, all but ignoring black baseball in this city throughout the Negro Leagues' heyday.

This is not a small thing. Ignoring black baseball went hand-in-hand with ignoring the student scientists from black high schools who consistently won science competitions here. Ignoring the success of a people is an excellent way to force them to the margins, to keep them in their place, to break their spirit and to make white folks happily unaware in their cocoon of superiority.

Thank god for the Kansas City Call.

The Star played a role in racism in Kansas City. Mellinger, whether he knew it or not, wrote a fine column to undo just a little bit of the shame that entails. And it is the Royals who now wear the burden of shunning a community of Kansas Citians they should be desperately courting. They need to face facts: They are not -- by any stretch -- the best professional team to wear this city's colors.

But the PR machine will prattle on about "doing something different." And they may well have told Sam Mellinger last night something close to what they told Joe Posnanski nine years ago when they tried the same stunt. Posnanski recalled that conversation on his blog today. A PR guy told him he was unaware of the importance of the "wearing the uniform thing."

Doesn't that just grind your teeth.

Because, the "wearing the uniform thing" is exactly the point of recognizing the Negro Leagues at Kauffman Stadium. The Kansas City Star, Kansas City Kansan and Major and Minor League Baseball made the Negro Leagues as invisible as they possibly could just as those in power made black and Latino communities as invisible as they could by building freeways through the middle of those neighborhoods and suburb upon suburb fading away from those neighborhoods. Interstate 35 isn't just a road to somewhere. It's a road that cut up neighborhoods, hid poverty and racism from commuters and provided an escape route to whiter and whiter cul-de-sacs farther and farther away.

You did notice where they built Kauffman Stadium, didn't you?

Wearing the uniforms is nothing less than recognizing the grace and power of those big league teams. Modern players dressed in Monarch's uniforms give those in the stands and legions of viewers a brief glimpse of a great league of baseball their fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers may well have missed. And they provide a critical connection for African Americans between the modern game and the game of their fathers and grandfathers, a connection which is otherwise invisible.

The "wearing the uniform thing", dammit, is the point.

If, nine years later they told another reporter they weren't aware of how important the uniforms are, good god they should have been aware. But, then again, they drafted Luke "Three-And-Two-Thirds" Hocheaver number one and they sent Kyle Davies out to the mound a few days ago on the way to his eighth loss against one victory. Maybe they shouldn't be held to such a high standard after all.

Heck, maybe it should be the Monarchs who protest if the Royals deign to wear their uniforms in public. I'm not sure, at this point, it does much for their storied image.

--Lofflin

Thanks to Tony Botello for noticing, to Anon for arguing, but now's the time to call bullshit bullshit

2011-07-03T11:28:00.024-05:00

Last night I snapped. After the second inning I could watch no more. I had had enough. I turned off the television and made more productive use of my life, vowing never to turn the Royals on again, never to read the paper about the Royals, never to listen to the paid talkers squawk about the Royals and never to write about the Royals.

You can see how that went.

Even if I can’t hold to it, I am duty bound to offer it as advice to others.

Actually, watching the game itself isn’t so bad if you appreciate it for what it is… a battle between David and Goliath… a penny pinching minor league team against a major league team. From that perspective, it can be kind of interesting.

What you have to eliminate, for your own sanity, is the commentary. You can only stomach so much bullshit at a time and in a world full of bullshit, every little bit you can avoid helps. As a political scientist of sorts, bullshit is my research interest. As a teacher, I encounter some form of bullshit every day.

One of my favorite little books is “On Bullshit” by Harry G. Frankfurt. Professor Frankfurt begins his treatise with this:

"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it…. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves." From there he develops a sophisticated definition of bullshit, which, for a philosopher is something akin to establishing your fastball early in the count.

As Professor Frankfurt soon points out, bullshit is everywhere today. We’re awash on an ocean of bullshit and, as the late James David Barber foresaw, the ropes mooring our boats to the shore are coming loose at a frightening pace.

My impatience with bullshit about the home team is not because I'm a New Yorker marooned in Kansas City and spoiled by winning. I’m no newcomer to losing baseball. I was an A’s fan as a kid. I have a friend who says he became an atheist because he always prayed on Sundays for God to help the A’s win at least one game of the doubleheader. Like Nietzsche, his conclusion was that God is either dead, not a baseball fan, or not listening to boys marooned in Kansas City.

At least then we had Star sportswriter Ernie Mehl to call bullshit “bullshit.” The owner once saddled up a donkey and had him led around the warning track at Municipal Stadium wearing a banner that read: “Poison Pen Award to Ernie Mehl.”

A Henry Wiggen Blog reader took me to task yesterday for my “cheap shot” at Star sportswriter Sam Mellinger. I was reacting to the usually reliable Mellinger’s convoluted logic that somehow Zack Greinke’s 5-something earned run average – when compared to the ERAs of the rest of the starting staff – made the trade for Greinke look like a success for the Royal’s Brain Trust. My argument was that Mellinger failed to mention Greinke is 7 and 3 so far this season for the Brewers and only Bruce Chen, who hasn’t pitched much, has a winning record for the home nine.

Now, in the abstract, Anon was right in criticizing my use of the pitchers’ won / lost records to argue with Mellinger. Anon – who is, b y the way, a pretty darn good writer – reminded me most Sabermagicians have abandoned winning and losing as a measure of pitchers, that my old school approach is hopelessly dated. I agree, to a point.

Whatever the math reveals, it seems the point of the game is still to win. The argument reminds me of the current abhorrence for the ancient runs-batted-in statistic. I agree this yardstick is flawed. It depends in great measure on what the three or four hitters in front of the person in question are capable of doing. But, again, the point of playing baseball IS to drive in runs. Flawed as won / lost records and runs-batted-in may be, it is still better to drive in runs than to not, and winning is definitely better than losing.

My fear is that those who should hold the feet of the Royals Brain Trust to the fire will get lost in numbers describing bullshit like "quality starts" and "pitches seen per at bat".

Today, the Star’s Sabermagician blogger Martin Manley seemed to have had enough as well. His column, though not a direct repudiation of Mellinger’s, makes the case using much more sophisticated number. As I barely understand it, GMSC – game score – is meant to measure what a pitcher adds or subtracts to the game by his presence on the mound for however many innings he lasts. The calculus is more complex than that, adding points for completed innings and strikeouts and subtracting for hits, earned runs, unearned runs and walks. It was created by Lawrence, Kansas, wizard Bill James, of course.

So, if I’m reading this chart right, Royals starters have only added value to 36 of the 83 games they’ve worked. That’s roughly 43 % of their starts, which is reasonably close to what you get if you only look at their won/lost records. And only Bruce Chen has averaged adding anything to a game – and Chen just barely.

Now, as I said before, that is horrendous. As Manley said, it certainly wipes the lipstick off the pig.

Which is what got me going on this subject in the first place. What I’m sick to the point of shouting about is the ridiculous public relations effort (sorry John Landsberg… but you know what I mean) by the team’s talkers and others, to not only put lipstick on this pig but add eye-shadow and blush. I expect better out of the sportswriters and bloggers who cover the Royals. The announcers – well that’s easy to understand. Frank White and Denny Matthews have adopted their mothers’ admonition to not say anything if you can’t say something nice. The others come to the booth well armed with lipstick and eyebrow pencil.

And what’s more troubling is this same ocean of bullshit is everywhere today, from baseball to medicine, to politics, to education. About all you can do now is swim for your life.

--Lofflin… pushing that damned metaphor like an old Volkswagen with a bad starter…

Image courtesy http://hopeexists.wordpress.com/2010/09/

PS: Joe Posnanski used the dreaded "quality start" statistic to absolutely embarrass the Royals' pitching staff in a great post today.I remain unconvinced about quality starts but the numbers they produce do nail Kyle Davies work on the mound rather well.

Base running and pitching from two perspectives: Sam Mellinger misreads the numbers and Sean Forman says small ball makes only a small difference

2011-07-01T13:39:00.017-05:00

I'd like to balance a stretched-to-the-point-of-breaking use of statistics from Sam Mellinger in the Kansas City Star today with a bright piece about the REAL value of small ball in the New York Times.

Mellinger wrote an unfortunately homer column today arguing the Zack Greinke trade will look better now because Greinke has an ERA over 5 for the Brewers and most of the Royals' pitchers have lower ERA's today. What he fails to mention is that Greinke's record is 7 wins against 3 loses after being bombed in New York Tuesday. What he also fails to mention is that only Bruce Chen among Royals' starters has a winning record at 4-2. The other four have 11 wins (at nearly the All Star break) against 28 loses.

That comes to a horrendous, unthinkable, .286 winning percentage for the rest of the Royal's starting staff.

Greinke has won 7 out of 10 decisions, a .700 winning percentage. Mellinger does allow that Greinke has 80 strikeouts against 12 walks in 2011. But, somehow, for the usually reliable Star sportswriter, this adds up to a winning trade for the Royals' Brain Trust. Oh, Homer, pay no heed to the siren song!

Enough said on pitching.

Now to the excellent piece in the New York Times by Sean Forman about the actual value of aggressive base running. This, the Sabermagicians conclude, is an overrated bit of baseball mythology. Simplified, their numbers suggest stolen bases, or extra bases taken, add 0.2 runs to the total a team with a more conservative approach to base running would score. So 200 stolen bases could be expected to produce just 40 extra runs a season.

Perhaps more importantly, runners caught stealing or caught taking an extra base, subtract 0.5 runs from a team's total. So the risk of stealing bases -- in the case of most runners -- is a significant gamble. Except for a runner like Mr. Dyson, the numbers suggest it is better to just stay put, let a single be a single and let a double be a double.

The numbers suggest a base runner like Mr. Dyson might add one win per season to a team's total. If you're tied for the league lead or the playoff spot at the end of the year, that's significant. Otherwise...

In other words, those who love to preach small ball to baseball fans in small markets are just shilling for tight-fisted management. Small ball is just... well... small ball. Would you trade a steak for a hamburger? A Danny Edwards Ole Smokie for a double Sonic burger?

However, a list of the players since 1950 by position who added the most to their teams by base running includes two Kansas City players from the same era -- George Brett and Willie Wilson. No other team has two players on the list. Here it is:

Thurmon Munson
Jeff Bagwell
Davey Lopes
George Brett
Luis Aparicio
Rickey Henderson
Tim Raines
Willie Wilson

Well, I guess you could add Blue Moon Odom to the list of Kansas City players. He was the highest rated pitcher as a base runner.

At any rate, that's pretty good company for Brett and Wilson. Of course, this is no surprise if you ever saw Willie Wilson go from first to third on a single to right, his feet barely touching the ground.

Billy Butler, by the way, contributes minus 9 runs to the Royals' total run production each year through base running, just behind Prince Fielder. You can look at those numbers and say, Ouch!, or you can say nine runs isn't that much across a season for a guy who reaches base once in every three opportunities. Or, you could take a look at Prince Fielder's contract when the free agent sweepstakes for him is over next spring and draw your own conclusion about how important base running really is.

Both Greinke and Fielder, by the way, toil for a team that is tied for first place in their division while the home team is, once again, mired at the bottom of the heap. So much for small ball and the Royal's starting pitchers.

--Lofflin

Will Ferrell may introduce more young writers to Raymond Carver and the guy with all his furniture out on the front lawn: Everything Must Go

2011-06-20T11:52:00.006-05:00

The very idea of a guy drinking whiskey and looking out on his front lawn where he has trotted out all the furniture of his former life for a sort of crazy man's yard sale, gets my writing blood up.

So much so that I've shared the origin of the idea with many of my writer students across the years. It is inevitable the best students will wander into my office, sit down underneath Albert Einstein, and want to talk about writing. Often, they are discouraged. College can be discouraging to writers. It is full of criticism and -- boy, I hate to say this -- literature they often find remote, and the pleasure they feel in putting words together becomes more mathematical than joyful.

Often they are searching for themselves at the same time they are searching for clues to a writing life. Tough in spades.

About half the time, the conversation starts with a question. "Do you know anything about Kerouac?" Or, "I just started Kerouac..." which is also a question without a question mark. Or, "Do you have On the Road?"

I've gone through a half-dozen copies of On the Road. For some reason I never get them back despite the warning my father always gave me when he loaned a tool: "Son, don't forget where you got that."

I usually warn them, too, about how Kerouac died. They nod, but they don't listen. They're young.

Then I try to turn them on to Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer is out on loan...) or Clyde Edgerton (Rainey, for those about to embark on marriage...). And always I tell them about Raymond Carver. When I do, I tell them about the man drinking whiskey with all his possessions on the front lawn.

They look at me like maybe I've finally gone around the bend.

Now they have the opportunity to see the story. Will Ferrell stars in a new film titled Everything Must Go, which is based on the Carver story "Why Don't You Dance?". Perhaps the film will lead them to Carver, then to the collection "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." I hope so.

I ordered copies just in case.

--Lofflin

In judging LeBron, context is king

2011-06-16T18:27:00.000-05:00

I do not follow basketball. At all. But it's impossible not to follow LeBron James.

Lebron's team, the Miami Heat, lost the NBA Finals to the Dallas Mavericks. After the decisive game, LeBron set the world on fire by saying this:

Pretty inflammatory stuff... when you listen to just that clip. But take a look at this video, which includes James' full answer as well as the question that provoked it (you can stop watching after the first 45 seconds).

Hmm... That's a horse of a different color.

LeBron was asked, point blank, "Does it bother you that so many people are happy to see you fail?" Wow. That's harsh. It's a harsh thing to realize and a harsh thing to be asked. If I had been asked that question, I'm sure my answer would have been, 'F*** those people!" or something even less eloquent.

James, actually, gave a thoughtful answer to the question: people can hate me all they want, but it doesn't make them better people, and it doesn't make me a worse person. We all have to keep living on this planet.

We have to remember something important here: LeBron James is 26 years old. Twenty-six. I still consider myself young, and I'm five years older than LeBron James. And ever since he was 18, he's been a multimillionaire. His world view has to be considerably skewed compared to our own.

Just give the kid a break. There's no reason to hate this guy. He plays a game for a living, for crying out loud.

Billy Butler is a hitter, today, tomorrow, next year. Leave him alone. If you want to see Omaha, take I-29 north and shut the heck up

2011-06-14T17:16:00.006-05:00

Just let the fat boy hit.

I'd like to digress from from search for jazz negatives to talk just a bit about Billy Butler. Sam Mellinger brought this to mind in a Star column and Kevin Scobee added his own thoughts of KoK, which is an excellent read.

The fans here are so enamored with the future, with what MIGHT be someday (If you are a Royals fan this all too familiar…), they don’t recognize what they already have. One poster on the Star column about Billy said something so damned dumb I can’t get it out of my head. He said he was MAD at Billy for “keeping his average above .300" because that was keeping "us" from getting a look at Clint Robinson, the next flavor-of- the-month in Omaha.

Mad at Billy Butler for not failing! Mad at Billy Butler for hitting .300! What on earth has sports come to in this society? This guy thinks the next Mickey Mantle is in Omaha held back by a .300 hitter in Kansas City. If I'm not mistaken, the intelligentsia among the fan base once thought Kia was being held back by Billy. Were they the same ones clamoring for the Hawaiian to be optioned back to Omaha when he fizzled? Probably.

Now, they want to trade the only proven .300 hitter on the team.

I’m sure Oakland or Boston would be in the market for Mr. Butler. They subscribe to the theory that stolen bases are not a good risk most of the time, that hitters who have patience and only swing at good pitches help the ball club, that driving the ball to the gaps wins games. Ah, you say, but Billy hits into a lot of double plays (between singles and doubles). Seems to me Frenchy has hit into more double plays this year than Billy.

But Billy is not racking up big time RBIs. RBIs measure what the players around a player do. Really, no sense discussing that where the Royals are concerned. If you're angry about Billy's RBI totals, talk to the three or four guys in front of him.

Oh yes, and while we're hating on Butler, we're snuggling up to Chris Getz.

Heard Bob Davis calling the game a few weeks ago with Denny Matthews. Getz is up. It's a 10-pitch at bat. He's fouling pitch after pitch off. Bob's going on and on and on about Getz. He says to Denny, “He's really driving up the pitch count here. Denny, you have to say something positive about a guy who looks at so many pitches.” The moment of silence that followed spoke volumes. You could almost feel Denny roll his eyes through the radio. Finally, Denny says, “Well, yes.” That 'yes' was flat as a squashed squirrel on the freeway. Getz grounded to second on the next pitch.

But the intelligentsia love the new blood from Omaha. Why, they're guaranteed to be stars already.

We’ll see if Hosmer is a hitter second time through the league. Looks to me like they've already found that hole in his swing. And Moose? Like Hosmer, he looks like the real deal. But, we'll see where they are in July.

The grass will always be greener in Omaha, I’m afraid.

--Lofflin

Bruce Ricker left a gift to Kansas City jazz fans -- The Last of the Blue Devils -- here are some photographs of Fiddler Williams & Jay McShann

2011-06-10T14:08:00.013-05:00

Allow me to add this image from the Reunion concert in Lawrence that was part of the "Last of the Blue Devils" movie. (See below) The Blue Devils, by the way, were a territorial band playing across Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri and other points west and east. Count Basie was a member of that band.

The image left is Claude "Fiddler" Williams, an Oklahoma kid, as was Jay McShann, below. They made a lot of wonderful music together. Just wonderful, smokin' music. I used to see the Fiddler in Lawrence at Paul Gray's Jazz Club on Massachusetts Street in the 1970s. He just tore the place up -- in my rock n' roll youth I compared him to Jimi Hendrix. Ok, that's still not a bad comparison.

I interviewed him many years later in his home on Kansas City's east side. He was a generous interview, full of stories and insight. His voice was soft as a Hershey bar left in the glove box on a summer day (thanks to Larry McMurty for the idea) but also pleasantly rough. I remember he said things changed around here when the Beatles arrived. Suddenly, he said, audiences didn't know a complicated blues chord from any other note.

He was probaby right, but the long haired kids danced their butts off at Paul Grays. They might not have known what chords he was playing but they knew he could outswing anybody they were llistening to at the time on the radio.

He was in the Basie band when John Hammond took them to New York and the big time. Hammond was traveling across country, the story goes, to hear another band. I think he stopped in Chicago -- that might be where the other band was -- and heard Basie on the short wave on WHB live at the Reno Club in Kansas City. He forgot about the other band, got back in the car, and drove straight here.

Claude was the guitar player in the band that night but when the got to New York, Hammond replaced him with Freddy Green. Fiddler told me that was because Green owed Hammond money and it was the only way John would get his money back. Fiddler laughed and said it was for the better, he'd have spent the rest of his life just sawing back and forth across the guitar strings (he illustrated) as a rhythm player if he'd stayed in the band. On the fiddle, he was always out front, always got the last word. Besides, he chuckled, he had outlived both Count Basie and Freddy Green.

He held forth during the 1940s and 50s at a club I think was on Blue Parkway where Neece's Lounge was, but I've forgotten the name. If anybody knows, leave a comment. My wife an I spent many romantic evenings listening to him play in his 80s, and she claims he was the one who introduced her to jazz one Friday night at the Point. He sang a number and she was hooked. The planet misses him.

More photographs to come as I find them ...

Filmmaker Bruce Ricker died recently. He lived a short while in Kansas City and left the city a great gift -- the movie "Last of the Blue Devils." If you are interested in jazz, particularly the history of Kansas City jazz, this movie is a must see.

Ricker put together a couple of "reunion" concerts in 1979 to create his film. One was at the Mutual Musicians Foundation at 18th and Highland in Kansas City. The other was in Lawrence, Kans. Both were stunning, almost like traveling back in time to the day when jazz and Kansas City were the same. It took a brave and resourceful soul to make these reunions happen.

Ricker hired me to make still photographs but I don't remember if I actually got paid or my payment was free admission. Certainly doesn't matter now. All I know from this distance is I was up front and center with my Rolli and a pocket full of black and white film.

Here's one of Jay McShann and Gene Ramey. I'm going to leave this post on top for a while and add other images as I find them in my ridiculous file, which is actually just a box crammed full of negatives. Do anything you want with them except make money or not give me credit.

--Lofflin

A few words from Bob Dylan in sympathy for the June Swoon Royals

2011-06-08T16:34:00.003-05:00

For the June Royals I offer this lyric from Bob Dylan's 115th Dream which I always thought perfectly described a very bad day:

"... I shook his hand and said goodbye

Ran out to the street

When a bowling ball came down the road

And knocked me off my feet

A pay phone was ringing

It just about blew my mind

When I picked it up and said hello

This foot came through the line..."

-- Lofflin

Image courtesy: http://www.moffitt.org/site.aspx?spid=A236CA442A104DD6A4E2929F95DE66FA&pv=1

Quick thoughts on O'Sullivan, Billy Butler and the hit & run, why my temper is still a problem at 62, and happy news of a new second grade teacher

2011-06-03T09:57:00.010-05:00

Sean O'Sullivan is right. The major leagues are no place to work out a new delivery or a new pitch. Omaha or N.W. Arkansas would be much more appropriate.

With a good friend and maybe 2,000 fans I watched Wednesday's afternoon game at the stadium. We were praying -- out loud -- in the bottom of the ninth the brain trust would let Billy Butler swing away, rather than strapping him with a hit & run request or, worse, a sacrifice bunt.

They didn't, and it paid off.

But we were left with sabermagician questions for which I'm sure somebody has a rational, unemotional answer. How often is hit & run profitable? When, and in what circumstances?

Butler had previously been tied in knots by a hit & run request. Anybody in the park could see it was an attempt to prevent Butler from hitting into another doubleplay. Of course, it caused him to hit directly into a doubleplay.

For god's sake just let the big boy hit the ball.

I played lousy myself last night. It's crazy to do this at 62, but, well... I figured out why. I let my temper drive me rather than my legs and hips. I don't like being pushed around and I let the young man who did it know, but I couldn't leave it there. And I paid the price. In addition, I hit one to the fence in BP and another to the fence in my first at bat and I think I just got enamored with the fence rather than that elusive spot about an eighth of an inch below center on the ball.

If you know what I mean.

Then, as I was settling in to sleep, setting the alarm on my cell phone, I noticed a text message. My daughter is the new second grade teacher at the elementary school in her town! Immediately I could hear this conversation:

Erik: Who you got this year?

Willie: Mrs. Morton.

Erik: Lucky.

--Loffllin -- almost too proud to be healthy...

Photograph courtesy the Kansas City Star. Could not find a credit line for this wonderful image anywhere on the page. My guess is John Sleezer.

Hometown excuses about emotional damage: O'Sullivan and the gopher ball, Pena and the tag; has baseball come to this? Emotional damage? Really?

2011-05-30T10:49:00.011-05:00

One more ridiculous excuse from the local newspaper, unfortunately from usually reliable Sam Mellinger:

“I’m getting more and more concerned with Yost. I’m fully aware of what the theoretical logic is – save the bullpen, especially when a game is lost. But how do you factor in the emotional damage done to the pitcher who has to keep serving up gopher ball after gopher ball?”

This, it must be said, is just plain silly. Are we really to be worried about the"emotional damage" of leaving a pitcher in the game when the roof caves in? Has baseball really come to this?

While I don't agree with Ned Yost's obsessive desire to save the bullpen -- for what? -- I think the idea of coddling pitchers like children is as misguided as coddling children. Both pitchers and children are capable of much greater resiliency than common wisdom suggests.

Maybe it is because both have short memories.

In the case of pitchers, short memory is a matter of survival. Standing on the hill in the center of the diamond is a place of great import, whether your wife is sitting on the steel bleachers with four other wives or 40,000 screaming fans are arranged in three bowls and you feel like a bullfighter. Most pitchers are performers. They love being out there. Hell, I even love being out there in the circle in slow-pitch softball though I'm just 50-some feet away from a crushed eye socket. Pitchers are pitchers because they have extraordinary arms, they develop extraordinary legs, and they love being on the hill at the center of everything.

But, baseball being baseball, they are going to get whacked now and then, even the very best. And when a pitcher is whacked, he or she has no place to hide. That's why pitchers take so much offense at hot-dogging, even in slow-pitch softball. Nobody on the field is so guaranteed to be embarrassed several times a night than a pitcher.

If Mr. O'Sullivan can't take it, he should learn to play right field. Period. Same for the young minor league pitcher Yost left on the mound to rot a week ago. Look at the list of Royals' pitchers who have given up 15 hits in a single outing. O'Sullivan is in very good company -- You'd say most of those guys were pretty tough minded... and successful.

My question is why he didn't sit some Rangers on the seat of their pants. Back to back homeruns happen. Can you imagine back to back to back homeruns off Bob Gibson? Neither can I.

My real complaint is that Mr. O'Sullivan doesn't seem to have anything in his arsenal to get major league hitters out. There is a reason why he gave up "gopher ball after gopher ball," Sam. If you want to blame anyone for exposing Mr. O'Sullivan to the possibility of emotional damage, blame the general manager for making him a major league starter.

Talk about emotional damage is silly. Especially when you are talking about catchers. Was catcher Pena afraid of contact at the plate yesterday at the game's most critical point? Had he seen too many replays of Buster Posey? Was his psyche damaged? Do we need a change in the rules (yes)?

Come on. He's a catcher. He crouches behind the plate, inches from the bat, ordering 98 m-p-h fastballs thrown at his face. Do you really think in the heat of the moment he's afraid of a baserunner? He's a catcher, dammit.

Besides, he's wearing armor. He's got the ball in his hand, which is like holding a club if you do it right.

The problem here -- again -- is not emotional. It's physical. Like Mr. O'Sullivan, it has to do with skills. Now, I think Brayan Pena should be the everyday catcher. His bat is making a case for such. But he takes forever to apply the tag. Watch him do it and you'll see he hasn't mastered the instinct of slapping the tag down quickly. Some middle infielders also suffer this malady. You just let the momentum of the throw carry your glove to the ground and you've got the job done.

He can learn. But this intrusion of pop psychology into major league baseball writing destroys the true grit nature of the game. Save it for Parent magazine. Or, maybe not.

--Lofflin

The revolution will not be right back after a message from anybody... rest in peace Gil Scott-Heron

2011-05-28T18:05:00.005-05:00

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Jazz simmers in the background.Brian Jackson's funked up sax. Then a voice. Low. Growly. Sure. Tough. Fragile. Uncomprimising. Intelligent.

Angry yet hiding an onery smile, if that's possible in sound. These words:

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

OK, now you know. This is not going to be what you thought it was when you put the needle on the record. It's not going to be like anything you've heard before. The sixties were full of these moments of surprise. Then these three killer lines:

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.

Suddenly you see yourself and your world in stark relief. This man has us nailed, our world. It is uncomfortable and it is reassuring. What you've always thought about your world is confirmed. We are amusing ourselves to death. We have lost touch with reality. We are living vicariously through television. We want to change the world but our expectations are surprisingly low and our energy level extends little beyond the space between us and screen. And, historically, even MTV has yet to be invented. Then he drops in some topical stuff. Nixon, Mitchell, Abrams and Agnew. None of that makes a lot of sense these days. Skip ahead:

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

Not the same products today -- substitute Enzyte or Lexus and you get the picture. You have to love this even it is is 45 or so years later:

NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised. ....

Then all of this, like a machine gun burst:

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville

Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

RIP Gill Scott-Heron April 1, 1949 - May 27, 2011

--Lofflin

Image courtesy:http://lyrics.wikia.com/Gil_Scott-Heron Cover/ Reflections, 1981

What happens when the dog finally catches the car? Mike Bettes' open heart in Joplin; Aaron Barnhart misses THE ethical question in the Star

2011-05-24T10:25:00.019-05:00

Watching Mike Bettes, the Weather Channel's tornado chaser, catch his prey Sunday afternoon in Joplin was one of those moments of live television which stop you in your tracks. It was not hard to see that Bettes had gotten more than he bargained for.

The wise injunction to 'be careful what you wish for,' may have gone through his head at the moment he stood among the bare shards of trees and cars, the devastated hospital framing the sky in the background.

Bettes seemed quite sincerely moved. So often television turns life into a game of sorts -- a contest, a reality show. We know it does this to politics and political scientists suspect this is destructive to our schema about what is really at stake in an election.

Talk to a Vietnam veteran -- anti-war or not -- about how television coverage led away from the reality of that bleak moment in history rather than revealing it. My sense is early on Vietnam was covered as a trench war -- like WWI or the Civil War, or even WWII -- geographical coverage that lent itself to maps and advances and retreats, territory taken or lost. Reality was much different.

So, it is no surprise tornado chasing has perhaps obscured the reality of these enormously destructive storms. Mike Bettes seemed to be realizing this Sunday afternoon. We must be grateful to him for allowing his emotions to show. Television is best at showing emotion and genuine emotion -- not scripted, not contrived -- is rare on television these days.

Aaron Barnhart, the Kansas City Star's television "critic", wrote about Bettes today, but his piece was little more than a collage of one-liners from good sources. It was, in modern parlance, well-sourced but it was written on auto-pilot. Barnhart missed THE most important question raised by Mike Bettes at the scene, and today amplified by the presence of everyone from Al Roker to Anderson Cooper, and every television talker in this town.

Let's go back to the moments after the storm and Mike Bettes holding the microphone, stunned and humbled by the utter destruction as far has his cameraman could pan. A man comes up, stage left, obviously distraught, moves into the frame, tells Bettes he's just burrowed out of his house and he needs help finding his 74-year-old neighbor. Great television, eh?

You can see the ethical problem developing like a storm cloud in the reporter's head. Does he help? Or does he film? He tries feebly to evade the horns of the bull by telling the guy he will help and walking back with him to what might have been a house. But he doesn't really help -- what could he do with one hand -- and, if memory serves, we are abruptly switched to commercial so we never really know what came next.

Here's how you phrase the question: Confronted with immediate need, do you continue to broadcast or do you put down the microphone and begin trying to move lumber?

The answer might seem simple to those who are not reporters, which is one clue reporters need to notice. People who aren't reporters say, "Well, yes. Of course." But reporters often take another position, a position their bosses take even more strongly. My job is not to rescue; my job is to report. We all have our jobs.

For Bettes, the argument is more difficult because he was not just reporting but also warning. On the microphone, he was telling people, literally, the tornado is still on the ground east of here, for god sake, take cover. He had a compelling reason to keep talking.

Still, a man may have been trapped under that rubble behind him. He could have put the microphone down, and his cameraman could have put the camera down, and they both could have started pawing through the debris. Would you have blamed them? Would you have applauded?

I was raising this issue in the abstract in class several years ago when a student held up his hand. His father, he said, had been a cameraman at a local television station -- I don't recall which -- and had been one of the first to arrive at the scene of the Hyatt Regency collapse in 1981 where about the same number of people were crushed by concrete as died in the Joplin twister. In fact, he had arrived before fire and police -- a true first responder that day. He could hear cries for help inside the rubble. My student said his father called into the station on the radio and told his boss he was putting down the camera and going in.

According to my student, his boss told him his job was to take pictures and he'd be fired if he didn't.

He didn't and he was fired.

As you can imagine, our discussion went from abstract to real in a heartbeat. That's what reality does. It takes the abstract -- a tornado forming because the jet stream is stuck in a late winter mode -- and makes it real. Mike Bettes gave us a glimpse of what happens when reality strikes and we have to be grateful to him for opening his heart and our eyes. And, in his dilemma, we glimpsed a big ethical issue -- are reporters, when the rubber of a crisis meets the road, observers or doers? Which raises the even bigger ethical issue of what television does to us viewers when it turns its mighty power to making us passive observers rather than doers.

And if the television observer at the local newspaper can't see the real dilemma here, the reality of our passivity will continue to elude us, both as viewers and as professionals in news. This was a genuine lost moment -- on television and in print. If the Star could spare Aaron Barnhart from television criticism and send him to Joplin to cover the damage and the rescue effort, he would -- if he were not on ethical auto-pilot -- be forced to face this critical issue.

--Lofflin

I see where Tony wrote on this, too, this morning. I think he missed the point also because he was thinking in the old-school journalism way about objectivity and the passivity being objective requires. That's a surprise coming from Tony's Kansas City.

Book blurbs, boxing and the greatest sports novel of all time

2011-05-21T16:54:00.000-05:00

Sorry, baseball. The best sports novel of all time doesn't belong to your sport.

It's a book about boxing: "The Professional," by W.C. Heinz.

Heinz is also the mastermind behind the terrific novel "M*A*S*H," which inspired an equally-brilliant movie and a television show that redefined the genre. Heinz, whose name is largely unknown these days, can be credited for an enormous cultural impact.

I began re-reading "The Professional" this week, and one of the things I'm struck by is the blurb on the front of the book. As you probably know, authors often have other authors write blurbs for their dust jackets. It's a common practice, and it's a good way to sell books. If you write a horror novel and Stephen King pens a blurb for your dust jacket, you've just sold a million copies.

Anyway, Heinz' novel had this blurb on the cover:

"THE PROFESSIONAL is the only good novel about a fighter I've ever read and an excellent novel in its own right."

The blurbist? Ernest Hemingway.

I'm not going to tell you about the story, because you should buy this book and read it. If possible, get the edition with a foreword by Elmore Leonard. That's damn fine reading, too.

But I will say that after you read "The Professional" you'll know where Stallone stole the blueprint for "Rocky." And I will share one passage from the book, wherein Heinz writes about a trainer creating a boxer:

The greatest sculptor in the world, working in marble, cannot add a thing. It it is not there, it is not there. No man makes it, and so no man is truly creative, but by subtraction from the whole he reveals it. That is the nearest that man can come to creation, and that is why the great are afraid. Only they can see all of it, and they are afraid that, in their process of subtraction, they will not reveal the all of it, and what is hidden will remain hidden forever. They are even more afraid that, in the process, they will cut too far and destroy that much of it forever. It is that way in the making of all things, including the making of a fighter.

Could truer words ever be applied to editing?

Heinz died in 2008; here's a nice obituary from the Washington Post.

Sometimes you just have to laugh...

2011-05-20T12:20:00.010-05:00

...

A good morning laugh is so good for your soul. My grandson graduated fifth grade last night. His mother tells me the teacher read this about him... no doubt written by him: "He plans to play basketball at either KU or Hawaii and... he is good looking."

Now, he IS good looking. And he does have a pretty good jump shot for fifth grade. But that must have been one of those moments for his mother... one of many 'oh-my' moments. You know what they say: What goes around, comma, comes around. Let's just say he and his mother have more than DNA in common.

Here's another chuckle. Tuesday night we're playing softball. Doubleheader night. First game we get our butts kicked but we're doing better in the second game. We might even be ahead. It's about the third inning and right in the middle of the pitch, the sprinklers come on in the outfield sending everybody running.

Crash Davis: "You want a rainout? I can get us a rainout."

What I loved was the banter before the game. Remember, we're all at least 60 years old. Well, the guys are all gathered around in the dugout putting pine tar on their bats, rubbing analgesic into their knees, backs, shoulders, calves et al., lacing up their spikes, working over mouthfuls of sunflower seeds, bending and twisting muscles and joints that have suffered from a half-century or more of swinging bats, throwing pitches and running bases.

But the conversation isn't about baseball or softball or politics, or even grand children. It's about urologists. We're like fifth graders telling fart jokes. We've got wonderful tales about being surprised the urologist was a woman ("This just ain't happening!"... "Hey, that's exactly what I said when she walked into the room..."), or when the urologist has particularly short fingers ("You have no idea...") -- a story which set everyone to squirming--, or stories about a wide variety of other wonderful happenings when latex gloves have been snapped on and the position assumed.

At homeplate, the umpire and our skipper are trying valiantly to get us to take the field but nobody can hear them for the laughter. The ump finally has to walk over and order us onto the field.

Sometimes you just have to laugh in this life. Thank god for my wonderful grandson. He has no idea how many times he has lifted my spirits when the whole world seemed to be raining.

--Lofflin

I'll trade you Schwarzeneggar and Gingrich for John Edwards on the All-Cad lying and cheating team

2011-05-17T12:16:00.015-05:00

If the two political parties were baseball teams and 'Hypocritical Cad' was a valued position on the infield -- are you following me? -- and I was the Democrat team GM and you were the Republican GM -- still with me? -- I'd trade you our John Edwards this morning for your Newt Gingrich and Arnold Schwarzeneggar.

What? You want me to throw in Bill Clinton, too? He's redeemed, in other words, retired. How about a player to be named later whose lying cheating affair hasn't yet been made public?

Deal?

Deal.

Apparently we have lots of cat scratch fever to go around, as The Nuge reminded us recently on the Rev. Mike Huckabee's Fox show.

--Lofflin, reminding you that a man who will lie to his wife will lie straight up to the country.

Nuge album cover image courtesy Giantpanther.com