Baseball Stories - Obama Edition

Obama As White Sox Fan

Here's a pretty cool article in the NYT about Barack Obama and White Sox GM Kenny Williams.

All 30 general managers at baseball’s annual executive meetings here at a Southern California resort spent Tuesday distracted by more than arbitration seminars and beckoning golf holes. Like many other citizens, they sat around televisions expecting to watch the national election returns deep into the night.

But Williams, general manager of the Chicago White Sox, followed the coverage with a keener sense of anticipation than any of his contemporaries. Not only is he one of just two African-American general managers — the Los Angeles Angels’ Tony Reagins is the other — but as a fellow prominent member of Chicago’s black community he has known Barack Obama for almost 10 years, and considers him a friend.

They have hung out at mutual friends’ barbecues, shot hoops at a local health club as recently as this summer, and — with Williams intrigued by public-policy issues and Obama a longtime White Sox fan — discussed each other’s jobs far more than their own.

“I’m interested in all these questions of foreign policy and national security,” Williams said. “In between his games, shooting a couple of baskets, he asks me, ‘What about your pitching?’ I said, ‘Excuse me, you worry about national security, I’ll worry about the pitching.’ ”

The ability of baseball to heal America, as Walt Whitman wrote. :)

Obama Might Help Baseball Back To The Olympics?
This one is a bit further out with the pixies. I don't think baseball is a good fit with the Olympics and I remain sceptical it can ever get back. While it was loads of fun in Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Athens and Beijing, its entry into the Olympics in the first place was predicated on the amateur comp. Now that the Olympics want Major Leaguers to turn up and there's no way the owners will have a bar of it, it's a really bad mismatch of expectations.

So it is against this context we find this article.

With Barack Obama in the White House, baseball officials think their sport could have a better chance of getting back into the Olympics.

"If the perception internationally of the United States improves by virtue of his election, then I think the U.S. stature in international sport of every type will be enhanced," San Diego Padres chief executive officer Sandy Alderson said Wednesday at the general managers' meetings. "I don't think the United States has the international stature in sport that it once had."

Baseball was added as a demonstration sport in 1984 and 1988, then was a medal sport starting in 1992. The International Olympic Committee voted in July 2005 to drop baseball and softball following the 2008 Beijing Games. When a vote for reinstatement took place the following February, baseball lost 46-42 and softball failed 47-43.

At the time, International Softball Federation president Don Porter said: "I think anti-Americanism was a factor." Softball was added for the 1996 Atlanta Games.
"I think clearly how the world looks at America is going to be different with Barack Obama in the White House," Cleveland Indians general manager Mark Shapiro said.
"And that will be initial. And then how he leads and how he governs will determine how they look at us over a sustained period."

Colour me sceptical. I just don't see it. The IOC and MLB are diametrically opposed in assumptions about sports. MLB is one of the first modern professional sporting organisations; the Olympics still cite amateurism and participation as its benchmark values. The MLB is focused on markets and everyday business for 162 season games per team plus play-offs; the Olympics are heavily invested in 2 sets of quadrennial events that last for 2 weeks. While the market is still very American, the composition of MLB teams are very international and post-Nationalism. The Olympic Games sing about being International, but when the competition begins, it's all about flag-waving Nationalism.

Even a quick survey like that shows just how distant their values actually are, and that makes them more incompatible as partners than you would think. All the things MLB values and has accomplished does not mean much to the IOC, and vice versa. It's hardly the basis for mutual understanding, let alone agreements to be made. Throw in the steroid/PED issue and you have a hornet's nest of 'issues'. Even with Barack Obama's vaunted oratory, it's going to be a really hard sell to bring back baseball to the Summer Games.

Nate Silver Scores Big

A couple of weeks ago, I alluded to baseball stat nerd Nate "PECOTA" Silver who was running his own analysis of the US Presidential election campaign and drew the conclusion that Obama would win with about 348.6 Electoral votes (It's looking like 364). He said at the point, it was Bottom of the Ninth in a 2-0 ball game with one out. McCain is at bat, but Palin's just been picked off first.

Anyway, Yahoo ran this story today about all the pollsters and Nate Silver got the pole position of mentions.

First, we can look at Nate Silver, a new prognosticator to the political scene. The baseball statistician turned Electoral College map savant really was the belle of the election ball, living up to his website's tag line: Electoral projections done right.

While Silver never did any of his own polling, he analyzed all the pollsters' findings and spit out every voting model possible. Ultimately, he said Obama would win by 52 percent to 46 percent. In the end, Obama won 52 percent to 46 percent in the popular vote.

Silver's Electoral College map wasn't far off either. This graphic below, shows a comparison of what he projected vs. what actually happened. Unless I'm looking at this map wrong, the only thing they projected incorrectly was Indiana. (A note: Many news outlets have not called Missouri yet because it's so close. The latest numbers have McCain ahead by about 6,000 votes. If that's the ultimate outcome, Silver got that right too.)

Pretty special effort there. I'm telling you, the smartest sports fans in the world are baseball fans. :)

Obama Wins

Just How Bad Were The Bush Years?

If you'd told me back in 2000 after Al Gore had his Presidency stolen away, that the 2008 Democratic Candidate who would displace the Republicans from the White House was going to be a black man, I probably would have laughed. Most people would have. Well, Obama won.

In a historic victory over Republican candidate Senator John McCain, the President-elect told a sea of supporters in a Chicago park.

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where any things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive ... who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," he said.

Senator Obama told the crowd that his victory belongs "to you", and the voters who turned out did so because they believed this time "must be different and their voices could be that difference".

He said America was not a collection of individuals, but "we are and always will be the United States of America".

He said it was "a long time coming" but "because of what we did on this day" during this election, "change has come to America".

Listing the challenges ahead, including two wars and a financial crisis, Senator Obama said that he was hopeful for America.

"There will be set backs and false starts," he said.

"I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face ... "

Senator Obama congratulated Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin for all they had achieved and looked forward to working with them.

He said Senator McCain had "endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine".

So much for the Bradley effect. People really did want change. That vibe was in the air from the moment he got past Hillary to win the nomination. Here's the thing: I ended up rooting for the guy, not because of him, or because of the other guy, but because of history. And when you think about it the first Black POTUS coming to power in our lifetime is historic and worthy of telling your grand-children one day that we were there to see it.

Of course if you're one of those people rootin' for the other side, you're probably thinking, "Fuck, how did that happen?"

It happened like this: George W Bush's Presidency was so-o-o-o bad, that America was willing to vote in a relative newcomer, a relatively inexperienced executive, and a black man to boot, rather than return the GOP to power. That is to say, America said that a young black man with relatively less experience than his white counterpart, had to be a better choice than the guy who was going to follow in GWBs footsteps - And that simply blows me away. GWB was so bad, that...

...Ahh, fuggedaboutit.
The point is, change has come at last. It's been a long time coming.

On The Eve Of The US Elections

Just Before Obama Makes History
All my life, it seemed impossible that a black man (and by extension any coloured person) would or could become POTUS. We'd seen Morgan Freeman play a very dignified POTUS in 'Deep Impact', but it just seemed like one of those fanciful Hollywood notions - a bit like Geena Davis playing one or the amazing career portrayed by Martin Sheen in the 'West Wing' series where a pretty wonderful Democratic parallel universe unfolded. All of this was a stark reminder at just how awful a choice had been made in having George W Bush as POTUS.

It's interesting how fast, how far-reaching his candidacy has been in readdressing the countless wrongs that have been done. There is a chance that this is the beginning of something great, like a renewal of the American dream, the great promise that was once there in the Constitution. It just might be a black man who leads America out of its current mess and leads it to a place where it can lead the world with true authority. We'll see. The expectations have never been this high.

This is going to be good.

Saying Bye To Bush
I nearly wrote 'elected' George W. Bush, but in fact I have to say he had the election jury-rigged to steal it from the man who would have made a much better POTUS than himself. The tragedy is somehow Amrica allowed itself a POTUS so committed to abstract notions that he was willing to appoint incompetents based on their beliefs about Abortion and 'Roe versus Wade'. After 8 years of the country being run into the ground, both fiscally and financially as well as international prestige and reputation-wise, it seems appropriate to celebrate the coming end of his sad Presidency.

This is a Presidency that saw (just to name only the MAJOR disasters):
9/11.
The War in Afghanistan
The War in Iraq
The military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay
The Sub-prime loans crisis
The Complete meltdown of the financial markets that led to the bail out - with his treasury secretary begging his own party on bended knee in Congress

I'm sure there are going to be any number of right wing commentators who are going to try and salvage the legacy of this Bush Administration, but the facts are, he ruined America. It is fitting tat just as the last days of GW Bush are about to come to pass, Oliver Stone is coming out with his movie 'W'. I hope he puts the boot in hard.

Watch Out For The Grassy Knoll
Speaking of Oliver Stone, he of 'JFK', of all the things that haunt us all is the 'Military-Industrial Complex'. I always recommend people read this book 'Voltaire's Bastards' which explains just why there is such a conglomeration of interests. It essentially comes down to the fact that the US Government never completely wound down its war-footing after WWII, and as such there were a plethora of firms that kept wanting government contracts to make arms.

That is to say, there's a whole bunch of companies that only make weapons, and weapons for the US government at that - and they form a dirty big part of the US economy.

Years ago, Japanese aviation engineers from Mitsubishi went across to the USA to find out just what resources could be used to build the FSX fighter jet based on the F-16. To their amazement, they found that these companies made parts that were never tested in volume, and were never placed in general domestic civilian use. This surprised the Mitsubishi engineers because even though Mitsubishi make weapons for the Japanese Self Defense Services, they also make vast consumer products from pencils to automobiles.

And yet, here were whole cities in Arizona and Colorado that specialised in making things that were just for weapons, never to see light as commercial parts. The funny thing is, these communities always want small governments, less taxation, but more government spending on arms because that's the only way their economies function. An elaborate kind of corporate welfare for a whole sector of the economy. This is who the Military-Industry Complex are, and this is why they keep harping on about the right to bear arms and the threat of socialism. They're the people who Oliver Stone thinks detested JFK so much because he was going to deny them a war, that they organised the assassination.

Guess who they're voting for, and why there might be gunmen on some grassy knoll waiting for the Barack Obama motorcade.
It's not about race, it's about their collective hip pockets.

Presidential Debate - McCain v Obama

Actually Seeing These Candidates

I've only seen Barack Obama in small clips, so the recent round three was my first opportunity to actually watch him in action as well as a straight comparison with his opposite number John McCain. To be honest I think Obama's native intelligence has been understated by the press - it was abundantly clear that he's a much, much smarter cookie than I'd been led to believe - while the press has overstated the policy agenda of John McCain's campaign. McCain looked like a insubstantial retard next to Obama.

Throughout the debate it seemed pretty obvious that McCain's mantra was still the Republican chestnut of smaller government and tax cuts and rebate to the rich sort of stuff at best, which is disappointing because it shows he has very little awareness that that line of reasoning led to the current financial crisis. If anything was obvious as daylight was the fact that if one voted for a McCain presidency, it really was going to be more of the same, in spite of his insistence that he's not George W. Bush.

Obama has been criticised for some time now as having very little policy specifics, just blankly offering change without a concrete policy platform. This characterisation was simply wrong. The man is full of concrete plans that he can't say enough about without the moderator cutting him off in mid-flight. If the debate was anything to go by, Obama seems to have more of a plan than McCain.

McCain spent his equivalent time essentially attacking Obama for being liberal, or for having friends who used to be radicals or having voted for a Pro-Choice bill while being a Illinois state politician. I have to say this was a boring tactic by McCain. Frankly, I'm not interested in 'Roe versus Wade' as a issue at all or whether a judge would overturn it or not. While McCain railed against the ideological framework for picking judges, he sure was happy to roll in the ideological claptrap of abortion as an issue.

It's a non-issue. The only reason it can be made into something that resembles an issue is because there are enough stupid people who insist that it should be an issue. Bottom line, I don't really care if some trailer-park trash teenage girl gets impregnated by some trailer-trash boy, and is wondering if she should have the right to terminate the pregnancy or not. It's just not a pressing issue on my horizon. I'm sorry if it sounds callous, but it's just not an issue.
The pressing issues for the USA is going to be how it gets through the current economic mess caused by the lack of oversight that was sanctioned by the current Bush administration; the two wars being left as the legacy of this same Bush administration, and how to actually take a step towards a greener energy-economy which hs been resisted by the Bush administration.

It is clear that John McCain is coming too late in history. The part of history where the very arguments that McCain was trying to mount held any weight, was consigned to the dustbin 12months ago when the credit crunch came in to dismantle the extensive debt structures America and the rest of the first world had built up. This is no time to be insisting on small government and more tax cuts for the rich. In that sense the debate illustrated just how out of touch, out-moded and out of luck McCain was as a candidate. It's simply not going to matter what he says. The time for his kind of politics has passed.

The Idiots In Middle America
It's sad but true that one of the most anti-intellectual things going around is Hollywood tailoring its product so idiots in Middle America can 'get it'.

There's something about the Presidential debate that is operating on the same level. As I noted before, the metaphorical 800lb gorilla in the room is the financial crisis which is going to turn into the looming recession. Yet, the debate's format itself wants to tackle such moronic issues appointment of judges who might overturn 'Roe versus Wade' or the effect of negative campaigning or whether the oil import proportions can be cut, or whether the education voucher model in Washington DC could be mounted Federally. I don't think too many people would have been wiser about just how much the candidates are actually trying to have a plan that deals with the metaphorical 'gorilla in the room'.

I saw the dissection on Fox afterwards and the pundits were happy to talk about negative campaigns and the abortion issue, with the woman from Fortune Magazine trying to characterise Obama as a 'liberal' and therefore something bad. They went to a bunch of scruffy looking swinging voters who then said a bunch of incredibly idiotic things like "I'm voting for a President, not a debater." Dude, stay at home if you're not interested in the debate! Don't waste our time with how inadequate your mind is in digesting what just took place.

Another nork sumgly said "I think what Obama' saying is right, but I still won't vote for him."
That's not a swinging voter, Fox television! That's a racist prick who has no rational argument but simply can't abide a black man.
I don't know why I get irritated by this, because it's Fox. But it is so stupid. You sort of wonder if people really are going to take pointers from that moronic cast of imbeciles.

They say a country elects a government it deserves - and perhaps 8 years of George W. Bush cements all the negative connotations of that expression. Nothing depressed me more than just how dumbed down the actual coverage was, in the light of the actual debate.

The News That's Fit To Abuse

Race And Gender

Amazingly, Barrack Obama's campaign is gaining momentum. Here's an interesting article.

A year ago, Clinton was the prohibitive favourite to win the Democratic presidential nomination, with a massive war chest, a national organisation, universal brand recognition, the support of the union movement, a strong base in the Senate, and millions of women wanting a woman to be president for the first time.

All this has not proved enough. The only factor that has kept Clinton in the lead has been racial animosity. African-Americans and Latino-Americans do not like each other. Their voting in this campaign has conformed to this reality. While Obama has won the overwhelming majority of the black vote, Clinton has won the overwhelming majority of the Latino vote.

In Washington, the commentariat has attributed the Clinton campaign's dominance of the Latino to the "goodwill factor", a legacy of the presidency of Bill Clinton and his support of the free trade pact with Mexico. This is partly true and mostly rubbish. It is not the goodwill factor but the ill-will factor that has split the Democratic vote so cleanly on racial lines.

Whites, in contrast, have not voted as a racial bloc. Not at all.

They are voting for Obama in their millions. He has won more votes from white Americans than any of the Republican candidates in their primary races, which are dominated by white voters. Hillary Clinton's natural majority with women voters has been offset by empathy for Obama among white men.

The trouble facing the Clinton campaign is that it is running out of Latinos. Only Texas remains, a big prize she will win, thanks to the large Mexican-American vote, the same bloc that delivered California last week, thus saving the Clinton campaign. Beyond Texas I think she has a problem.

Her lead in the polls, and on the ground, and with white voters, simply evaporated as soon as the political shooting started this year, in the rural Midwest state of Iowa. Five weeks ago, after the Iowa caucuses, I began this column with these words: "I've been following or covering American politics all my adult life and the best speech I have ever heard in a presidential campaign was delivered at 10.30 in the evening, Iowa time, by a man who had been up since 4am. That man was Barack Obama."

On Saturday, for the first time in the campaign, Clinton and Obama spoke at the same event, the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Richmond, Virginia. Clinton was polished. Obama was electric. The crowd responded accordingly.

Obama was able to lay out key and defining positions that Clinton simply cannot access. As he said at the weekend, he always opposed the invasion of Iraq, "a war which should not have been authorised and never have been fought", and a war that Clinton voted to authorise. He can say, as he did yesterday, that his campaign has been financed by more than 200,000 small donors, not by lobbyists, big donors and big unions, unlike Clinton. He can advocate a mandatory national health insurance safety net for every American, while Clinton's plans for healthcare reform remain mired in complexity.

If Clinton is dumped by the gathering wave of support for Obama, the November election will offer a stark choice. Senator John McCain, who has almost wrapped up the Republican nomination, is a 71-year-old graduate of West Point who fought in Vietnam, was captured and tortured, who backed the invasion of Iraq and the recent troop surge. The success of that surge, and his record as a war hero, have been critical to his success in a field that has not excited the imagination of the Republican Party, a party fatigued by the presidency of George Bush.

The Democratic primaries have mobilised almost twice as many voters as the Republicans, and much greater energy. The great irony of the 2008 campaign is that Clinton, and not the Republican nominee, is the candidate who can most galvanise the Republicans. No similar animosity is offered to the 46-year-old African-American from Chicago and Harvard generating so much electricity among white voters.

Whites, in contrast, have not voted as a racial bloc. Not at all.

They are voting for Obama in their millions. He has won more votes from white Americans than any of the Republican candidates in their primary races, which are dominated by white voters. Hillary Clinton's natural majority with women voters has been offset by empathy for Obama among white men.

So according to this article, these are the choices being made:

• Black Guy - Votes Obama out of race-&-gender solidarity.

• White Chick - Votes Hillary out of race-&-gender solidarity

• Black Woman - is in a dilemma but Votes Obama out of race solidarity; drops gender.

• Latino Guy - Votes Hillary because she's *not Black*. Race counts more than gender.

• Latino Chick - As above,Votes Hillary. Gender solidarity plus race considerations.

• Big surprise, White Guy Votes Obama out of gender solidarity; drops race.

The biggest block out of the six is actually White Guy and if they're unanimously going for Barrack Obama, I think Obama's going to win the Democratic Nomination now. What can be gleaned from this likely outcome? It is perhaps that amongst liberals, in a contest between the black liberation politics of the 1960s and the Women's Liberation politics of the 1960s, at some level the former took root in American society more than the latter. That the White Guy had fewer problems letting the Black Guy into the workplace than letting women.

I still think an Obama Presidency is going to be short-lived, and likely to end in a hail of bullets. However, Mr. Obama, go unto history's embrace. It may just be your destiny.

Gaming and Game-ability
The Federal Government is looking to shut down the pokies.

TENS of thousands of pokies could be phased out across suburban Australia within a decade under a radical new federal tax plan.

The pokies purge would see gaming machines confined to casinos and race tracks.

Family First Senator Steve Fielding will introduce the anti-pokies legislation in Parliament next week.

It involves gradual tax increases being imposed on individual poker machines in pubs and clubs, rendering them non-profitable within five to 10 years.

All revenue from the tax would be held in a trust fund to help community and sporting groups through the transition.

His bold plan came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hinted at his own gambling reforms by slamming the placement of ATMs in pokie venues.

"Frankly, I think it is wrong that they are there – that's my personal view," he said.

"I do not want to promise the world here, but I know we have a problem and I know that in partnership with states and territories we can work through an agreed analysis on the social impact and what to do about it."

My Mother will be saddened if they disappear because she quite likes them. As does my aunt who flies in regularly from Japan.

UFOs, Huh?
Check this out. Untold Story says that Buzz and Neil and Mike saw UFOs on the way to the Moon.

Nearly 40 years later, this program delves into the not-so-pretty reality behind the mission's achievement. Aldrin and NASA employees discuss the crew's sighting of a UFO (covered up for 30 years), their craft's doomed escape procedures and some almost fatal mechanical failures. This well-made and revealing documentary merges archival footage with interviews to good effect

That's so weird. I didn't know NASA admitted that the crew saw UFOs and that they covered it up. Wikipedia has this entry here.

In 2005, while being interviewed for a documentary entitled "First on the Moon: The Untold Story," Aldrin told an interviewer that he and the crew of the Apollo 11 witnessed an unidentified flying object (UFO)--that is, in the literal sense of the word, an unknown object, not a form of extraterrestrial life. David Morrison, a NAI Senior Scientist, claims to have had a conversation with Aldrin in which he explained that the documentary cut out the interview portions in which Aldrin told interviewers that the Apollo 11 crew ultimately concluded that they were probably seeing a detached panel from the spacecraft.^{[13][14][15][16]} When Aldrin appeared on The Howard Stern Show on August 15, 2007, Howard Stern asked him about the supposed UFO sighting. Aldrin confirmed that there was no such sighting of anything deemed extraterrestrial, and said they were and are "99.9 percent" sure that the object was the detached panel. He also revealed to Stern that he underwent plastic surgery.^[17]

I don't think they saw little green men flying in Flying Saucers. Talk about confusing.