It Seems the Big Apple Has Worms

 Amidst the darkness of another Cubs' season gone sour, I am grateful for the chuckle provided by a former Cub.

It's been a rough couple of years for Javier Baez. After contending for the Most Valuable Player award in 2018, he battled injuries in 2019 which put a dent in his playing time as well as the Cubs' ability to contend.

The up-is-down-and-down-is-up nature of the post-COVID outbreak world has not been kind to him. Baez struggled mightily in 2020, claiming the lack of a proper spring training and access to video hurt his preparation.

But he has continued to struggle this year as well.

Always a free-swinger, Baez somehow made it work. But his strikeout percentage has become alarming. Alarming to the point where it leads the major leagues. Which isn't a good look for a player expectinging to cash in on a ginormous free-agent contract this winter.

Traded to the New York Mets at the now-infamous 2021 trade deadline, Baez landed on a team whose season has mirrored that of the Cubs. The Mets looked like world-beaters in May and have regressed ever since. To the point where their 8 and 19 record this August rivals that of the Cubs' 6 and 20.

Ugh.

Pair a frustrated ballplayer known for speaking his mind with an equally-frustrated fan base which expected its team to contend for a division title and things become flammable, as we witnessed over the weekend in New York City.

To be fair, the Mets have been hit by injuries and hit hard. Off-season acquisition Francisco Lindor under-performed, got injured and continues to under-perform. The Mets' traditional strength—pitching—hasn't quite been that, led by Jacob deGrom's recurring arm problems.

The un-hittable pitcher remains un-hittable, but only because he's on the sixty-day IL. As are so many Mets pitchers.

So. Met fans are pissed. In a world wracked by chaos and upheaval, watching your guys contend would be a very welcome distraction. But when they don't, sport becomes just another irritant. Fans boo.

Whatever the reason, several players on the Mets (including Baez) felt entitled to rate their fans performance as well, responding during recent home games with a thumbs-down gesture after getting on base.

Baez admitted it's a way for he and his teammates to boo the fans back.

Pitcher Marcus Stroman even went so far as to blame the media for the controversy.

Hmmm.

Because they saw it, Marcus?

At any rate, I take a not-insubstantial amount of glee at this tempest in a teacup, if only because I'm an old Cubs' fan who can't quite put 1969 behind him.

It was bad-enough the Cubs tanked after such a promising start. But having a team from New York—New York!—sweep in and grab the glory only added insult to injury for this Second City native.

I've disliked the Mets ever since. And for that matter, all New York teams, basically. (Yep. It's a Chicago thing.)

Finally, one of the big disadvantages to being a professional athlete is that when you do your job poorly, you do it poorly in front of tens of thousands of people. The smart thing to do is admit that yes, you sucked today. You screwed up.

That takes the wind out of hypercritical fan's sails.

The stupid thing to do is deflect the blame and the criticism. Like blame the media for that misplayed fly ball. Or in the case of Mr. Stroman, something your teammates did entirely of their own free will.

And yet, this being New York and the Mets, I can only smile at Baez's insouciance.

Rock the boat, baby.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

As someone not old-enough to know how we came to look upon southerners as intellectually inferior compared to people from other parts of the country, I understand perfectly now why that perception might again be in play.

Rightly known for their hospitality (at least as long as you didn't look or worship differently from them), I first experienced it on a family vacation to Kentucky and Tennessee. Of course, as a ten year-old I wasn't engaging anyone in conversations about civil rights or segregation.

No, I was marveling at the natural wonders of Mammoth Cave and the Smoky Mountains, being intoxicated by the century-old vapors in the smokehouse at the Henry Clay mansion and falling in love with a caramel-colored race horse named Traffic Judge who insisted on following me and two siblings around the fence of his (or her) enclosure.

The passage of time has obscured the reasons my parents gave as to why we couldn't take our newfound friend home.

Not so many years later I began to learn about the Civil Rights movement. And the older I got the more plain-spoken my lessons became. The venom displayed by so many in that region was hideous. Ugly. Appalling.

I'll never forget the footage of people spitting on and screaming at the five Black children being escorted into Little Rock High School and the rage that contorted those faces into something not quite human. Or the unprovoked and entirely unjustified treatment accorded the marchers who crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge on March 7, 1965.

No one was going to tell southerners what to do. Or who they could or couldn't hate. If they wanted to treat Black people like the material we flush down toilets, well then by God they were going to do so.

After rejecting the Democratic party en masse when it sought to stop their overt mistreatment of Blacks, that defiance has again flared to new heights.

Acting in the interests of the common good, a mostly Democratic coterie of politicians and public health officials have urged Americans to mask and get vaccinated in the hopes of containing the Coronavirus before it mutates into the variant capable of killing all of us.

Without a single, coherent reason, a largely-Republican contingent has resisted these measures each and every step of the way.

Being asked to wear a lightweight mask amounts to 'tyranny'. The virus is a hoax. And most-pathetically, their brainless, middle-school obstinacy proves they are indomitable. Impervious. And immune.

I'm not even going to touch the hypocrisy of their “my body, my choice” rationale.

And for a time, it was debatable. But as vaccines have become widely available and the sentient portion of our population took advantage of them, the resistant continued to resist. Centered in the south, it is those very states that have suffered the highest infection rates from the Delta variant.

And it is precisely that portion of the population who knows what random and capricious bullshit science is. For the rest of us, this outcome couldn't be more predictable. They ignored the virus, pretended it wasn't a 'thing' and still clutching to their cult leader's words, insist it still isn't.

But even after their cult leader admitted vaccines were important and that they should avail themselves of them, they booed him. While Mount Everest straddles the border of Tibet and Nepal, the Mount Everest of Stupid rests squarely in Cullman, Alabama.

Even as their children are hospitalized in record numbers and the availability of ICU rooms evaporates like spit on a Las Vegas sidewalk. Even as surgeries can't be performed because hospitals are stuffed with unvaccinated patients. And even as our health care workers teeter on the edge of exhaustion

As a once-popular comedian observed “You can't fix stupid.”

This is the fallout from the political party that once called itself the 'Family Values' party. Apparently that includes preventing school districts from protecting your kids from a stubborn and persistent virus. How about it, Ron DeSantis?

I would like nothing better than to indulge Republicans and their COVID death-wish. Taken as a group, they're a largely despicable and ignorant one. America's weakest link. The phrase 'thinning the herd' springs to mind.

But unlike southerners and their misplaced hospitality, I have no interest in providing COVID-19 a forever home. Yeah, I know. You're the fearless one. I'm the snowflake. I get it. Right up until the moment you or your kids are wheezing on a ventilator and having second thoughts about vaccines. 

I'll keep that in mind as I read your obit. 

 

This Is News?

It was commonly agreed the two decades and trillions of dollars we spent in Afghanistan were mostly a failure. True, our presence drove the Taliban underground, but the fact they continued to exist confirmed how compromised this mission was.

Not that we're the first superpower to fail there. Afghanistan is credited with undermining what remained of the Soviet Union following their decade-long war in the nineteen-eighties. (Nope—it wasn't Ronald Reagan, Republicans. Sorry.)

Yes, Afghanistan is a toughie.

The announcement that we were withdrawing only brought a muted response. Amid the chaos and upheaval of 2021, it takes a lot to make page one.

More interesting is the response to the Taliban's re-emergence. Yes, bad news always trumps good. That's how we're wired. But is this re-emergence and the ineffectiveness of Afghanistan's security forces really a surprise?

Is this really news?

Remember what happened in Iraq when we, um, laid Saddam Hussein to rest in 2006? There were no contingency plans then, just as there are no contingency plans now.

Naturally, Republicans have suddenly grown a conscience and are decrying the humanitarian crisis unfolding under Taliban rule.

Not that I deny it or am in any way okay with it. The Taliban are Afghanistan's version of Republicans; a political entity happy to rule via fear. Like all psychopaths, they can rationalize any and all behavior. Were the world a good and just place, the Taliban would be in a bin suspended above an enormous meat grinder, and its adherents would be dropped in one by one. 

But the world is not a good and just place.

My regret is that we didn't prepare a plan of escape for the Afghani who assisted the American effort at great risk to themselves, and in our haste left valuable military infrastructure behind. Worse is leaving the entirety of Afghanistan's female population to the sadistic whims of the Taliban.

To those Republicans who suddenly find themselves in possession of a moral compass, I offer that the same has been going on in Nigeria for years under the Boko Haram. Where was your concern then? Oh, that's right. Nigerians are Black, and there was a Republican president in office.

(Whew. So hard to keep track of you and your shape-shifting concern!)

Beyond the poor planning, what of our military? We lavish billions and billions of dollars upon them, continually buying the newest and most cutting-edge toys and this is what we get? They couldn't oust insurgents with grade-school educations? 700 billion fucking dollars for a 0 – 0 tie? 

Whew. I'm going to need a moment to process this.

If I can presume the majority of the world is outraged by the Taliban, it will quite literally take the world to extinguish them.

If I can presume the majority of the world is outraged by Boko Harum, it will quite literally take the world to extinguish them.

Asking one nation (albeit an enormously wealthy one) to take this on single-handedly isn't going to work. It gives the sub-humans who constitute the Taliban and Boko Harum one big, giant, solitary target.

I mean, who doesn't love to hate the United States?

To too many, it gives them what I will call—for lack of a better word—street cred. But if a coalition of un-hated countries also played a part, it could assume the weight of moral legitimacy

Shame could be a thing again. Imagine.

Arrrgghh!

With a triple-layer cake of anxiety foisted upon us by a panicked political party interested only in its survival, a lingering pandemic and the onset of undeniable climate change, I, like the Chicago sports fans around me, am somehow able to locate still more sources of angst.

Yes, the long-expected sell-off of the Cub's Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Baez came to pass and was as emotionally-grueling as expected. It slammed the door on any holdover hope that something, anything might still happen.

But to be absolutely and perhaps even cruelly honest, this squad had only regressed since their 2016 championship. The succeeding years have seen some of the weirdest baseball in franchise history. One year they couldn't hit. In another they couldn't win on the road. There were multiple late-season fades.

Two desultory wild-card appearances served to twist the knife of their newfound futility.

Granted, owner Tom Ricketts wasn't exactly pro-active when it came to tweaking the roster and adding the bits and pieces necessary to sustain success. But in the end, I'm reminded of the time Branch Rickey infamously told Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Ralph Kiner when the latter approached Rickey for a raise: “Mr. Kiner, we can finish last without you.”

Whatever the reason, these Cubs weren't getting better. And as awful as it was to see the core of the team that finally—finally!—won a World Series ripped away, it was time.

With the ascent of the crosstown White Sox, Cub fans can further salt their wounds by endlessly rehashing the Jose Quintana for Dylan Cease and Eloy Jimenez trade.

At the time, Quintana was a pretty fair pitcher for some mostly undistinguished south side clubs, regularly posting mid-three ERAs and several WARS of five. Cease and Jimenez were prospects. Guys with who-knows-for-sure potential. Question marks.

Fast forward four years.

Quintana was mostly inconsistent with the Cubs and never came close to replicating the years he enjoyed with the White Sox.

Now in his third season, Cease is having a decent year. But it's nowhere near those Quintana had. Jimenez, also in his third year, has enjoyed some early success but has proven to be injury-prone. He also struggles in left field and is resistant to the idea of being a DH.

Cub fans? This ain't Lou Brock and Ernie Broglio. Relax.

Turning the tables, Sox fans can gnash their teeth about the continued rash of injuries, the oft-debated managing prowess of Tony LaRussa and the reasons they struggle to beat teams above .500.

From an outsider's point of view, LaRussa's managerial ability is a no-brainer. With that ever-longer list of position players being felled by injury, the fact he's been able to consistently plug-in worthy replacements and keep the Sox afloat speaks volumes.

Those injuries could be a massive distraction and the perfect excuse for not being in first-place, but that hasn't happened. Case closed.

Young teams need to learn how to win. And the Sox, with the exception of Jose Abreu and a couple of their starting pitchers, are a young team. I'm reminded of the 1988/89 Chicago Bulls, who went 0 – 5 versus the emerging Cleveland Cavaliers that season.

Naturally, their first-round playoff opponent was noneother than Cleveland. And you know what happened? The storied ascent of the Jordan-era dynasty began with that series when MJ hit a last-second jumper in game five to clinch it.

And speaking of the Bulls, it's nice to see some action after so much inaction. Especially after waiting and waiting and waiting for a core of Zach LaVine, Lauri Markkanen, Coby White and Wendell Carter, Jr. to gel, overseen by a couple of hapless coaches.

New GM Marc Eversley has been aggressive in moving on from the talent GarPax assembled, most notably landing center Nikola Vucevic from Orlando in exchange for the injury-prone and under-performing Carter and guard Lonzo Ball in a sign and trade.

That acquisition cost Tomas Satoransky, a hard-nosed guard who provided the team's most consistent play at the point. It was tough to see him go. But to get something...

A little more angst-y is the sign and trade for DeMar DeRozan. No questions about the player or his abilities. He's the real deal. He can play. My concerns revolve around his compatibility with LaVine and Vucevic, and at 32 years-old, is an $85million-dollar, four-year deal really a good idea?

And is it wise to give away still more first-round picks? I'm thinking not. I mean, are we witnessing the reincarnation of George Allen here or what? I'm grateful the previous regime is gone, but too much of anything is generally a bad thing.

I'm hoping very, very hard that Eversley and vice-president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas are looking before they're leaping.

Finally, what discussion of sports-related anxiety would be complete without a mention of the Chicago Bears?

The team continues to struggle against the expectations it created in 2018. Hamstrung by an NCAA Division 3 offense, it was obvious to everyone the Bears needed a bona-fide NFL quarterback. Some NFL-worthy wide receivers and offensive linemen wouldn't hurt, either.

Well, the Bears got a quarterback. Two, in fact. But the other holes remain unfilled.

Over the past ten drafts, the Bears have used nearly a fifth (5 of 24) of their first, second and third round picks on offensive linemen. 2013 first-rounder Kyle Long was a stud, but recurring injuries decimated his career after just three and-a-half seasons.

2016 second-rounder Cody Whitehair is a keeper, even having been named to a Pro Bowl.

After that, the waters muddy. They did spend second-round picks on Teven Jenkins in April and James Daniels in 2018, but Daniels went down for the season five games into 2020 and is currently unable to practice because of a quad injury. Jenkins has yet to attend a practice because of a back condition.

2015 third-round pick Hroniss Grasu (I don't know how to say it, either) is a reserve for the 49ers.

The rest of the line is a motley collection of free-agents, walk-ons and stragglers.

And of that estimable crew, nearly a dozen have suffered injuries or are in COVID protocols, leaving the Bears barely able to field a line for practice. And with actual NFL-quality quarterbacks to protect, it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to envision the already creaky o-line giving way to a critical QB injury.

At the very least this cripples a camp that was to have been dedicated to revitalizing the Bears' tepid offense.

Maybe some things just aren't meant to be.

Absorbed

For many people, squinting at the matrixes on the runout portion of 2,500 record albums to determine where they were pressed would qualify as court-ordered punishment. As would individually discerning the condition of those records and their jackets.

It most-definitely is not a job for the ADHD-afflicted.

As a guy with a really long attention span, it's not quite punishment of the court-ordered variety. It doesn't even suck. Being that they're mine, and that it's been over a decade since I've had fact-to-face contact with them, it's actually quite a pleasure.

It is also very time-consuming.

Let me explain.

I had largely forgotten them. They sat, packed away in cardboard boxes since the onset of the Great Recession. One of the lessons imparted by that misery was that possessions are for the solvent. The employed. To have space for things requires money.

And for too many of the ensuing years, money was mostly a rumor.

The boxes sat unopened until just recently. After years fraught with stress-related weight gain, sickness, unemployment, poverty and death, revisiting the flower of my youth, when I obsessively scoured the length and breadth of Chicago's record stores for soul, blues, rock, reggae, jazz, country and western and soundtrack LPs, has been—for lack of a better word—startling.

My passion burned hot.

The covers. The labels. The posters and the stickers and the iron-on t-shirt transfers. Reacquainting myself with the output of some of my favorite fated-to-obscurity bands: Green on Red, Fetchin' Bones, The Family Cat, Blancmange, the Windbreakers and the Silos.

Feeling the heft and the thick, rounded edges of the old vinyl and the sharp, unfinished edges of the newer evoked oceans of memories. Of youthful, uninhibited freedom. Of disposable income. Of turntables and apartments and parties and girlfriends. Of mix tapes and friends in a better, far less-convoluted time.

In a world untouched by the Internet, record collecting was a matter of visiting stores and crate digging. Thumbing through countess bins of vinyl. Of hopes raised—and then dashed—as the vinyl within a pristine jacket appeared to have spent several hours on the the Dan Ryan Expressway.

But the joy of unearthing a pristine copy of Ann Peebles' I Can't Stand the Rain or Syl Johnson's Total Explosion, or of encountering Bob Koester (R.I.P.) at the Jazz Record Mart on Grand, where he regaled me with a story of Howlin' Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson as I was set to purchase Howlin' Wolf – Live in Europe 1964 were priceless.

As was recognizing a girl from the previous night's Graham Parker concert at Wax Trax and simultaneously striking-up a conversation and a friendship. Or of finding new, still-in-their-shrinkwrap Japanese pressings of Otis Redding's first five LPs at the same store.

The real miracle is that I remained ambulatory.

But it has changed. A few keystrokes on a computer keyboard eliminate countless forays to far-fetched record stores, where imbued with a lottery player's faith I sought copies of Paul Kelly's Dirt or the Ohio Players' Pleasure.

I rarely succeeded, but the search was the thing.

While the Internet has certainly made collecting more-efficient, there is no sense of hard-won satisfaction. Or of the rewards of diligence. No sweat equity. It's record collecting reduced to the same ordinary-ness one encounters in the purchase of frozen vegetables.

There is no context. No sense of rarity. No buoyant joy of discovery.

But I am lucky. Given the choice, I preferred my way. The old-fashioned way. It drew me into parts of Chicago I never would have seen otherwise. And the joy of unearthing a long-sought after record after so many fruitless trips rivaled the Christmases of my childhood.

The goal was always to build a comprehensive vinyl collection. One that would incorporate the multiple influences that went into the creation of the musical chili called rock and roll. Did I succeed? Who knows?

But I've had an absolute ball trying.