Primary predictions and post-season palpitations.
At the risk of encouraging the few detractors of this column?and New York Press' house dilettante Matt Taibbi?I may temporarily be losing my mind.
It was a postcard-autumnal morning here in Baltimore on Monday as I walked with my boys to the new school, scooting them along to arrive before the eight o'clock high-tech alarm rang. It's a far cry from our NYC routine the past several years, flagging down a cab for the half-hour ride to the Upper East Side, instructing the driver repeatedly not to miss the turn at Central Park South.
Along the way, crossing the intersections of St. Paul and N. Charles St., we kicked apples and chestnuts on the ground, gabbed about the upcoming Quentin Tarantino film, saw more squirrels than union members at a Democratic National Convention and considered the fate of the Boston Red Sox.
I've written before that the Curse of the Bambino, at least in my 41 years of following the Bosox, is as real as the left-wing bias at the New York Times. Every season, the new players who make up the team's roster protest that they don't believe in no damned curse, and that may be. But I'll bet Nomar Garciaparra, despite comments to the contrary, is haunted by Mr. Ruth. After all, one look at Nomar at the plate, a study in OCD with his tugging and pulling at batting gloves and wristbands, says it all. Accordingly, on the way home from school that morning, I spied in the distance a black cat and promptly crossed the street.
It gets worse: In the past several weeks I've worn only blue or red shirts, turned off the tube when a dud reliever like Todd Jones or Scott Sauerbeck takes the mound, and I keep a 1915 silver dollar on my desk as a reminder that once upon a time the Sox were World Champions.
As I'm writing, it's two days before Pedro Martinez faces Tim Hudson at Oakland's monstrosity of a ballpark, and there's no choice but to predict the Sox will win this first round of the playoffs in five games. That makes me nervous, too. The other match-ups are easier: The Braves choke again and fall to the Cubs in four; Giants sweep the Marlins; and the Yankees take the Twins in five close contests.
Which brings me to another conundrum, one that I've gone back and forth on, endlessly, with fellow Sox fans. Should Boston prevail over Oakland, which team would you rather face for the American League pennant? On the one hand, the Twins seem an easier mark. On the other, as my friend Rick suggests, reaching the Series wouldn't be complete without passing through Yankee Stadium.
After thinking about this more than is healthy, I agree with another buddy, Chris, who thinks Rick's purity angle is a lot of bosh. He wrote the other day: "I honestly don't care who they play. Maybe your reflexive Yank-hatred comes from being a Sox fan who's had season tickets at the Stadium for years. But for me, the rivalry is all about the annoyance of Yankee fans. So if the Yanks get past the Twins, then it will be another exciting episode in their rivalry. If the Twins emerge triumphant, then I won't give the Yanks another thought until April.
"I don't worry about the Twinkies, squeaker champions from the weakest division in baseball. Who scares you in that lineup? Torii Hunter? [Yes. And Shannon Stewart, mostly.] Do you realize the Twins picked up Jesse Orosco? If I were a Yankees fan, I'd feel like I won the lottery?getting to face this guy after suffering through his moon shots all year. I think the Yanks will go through them in three games, like a chainsaw through custard. If I'm wrong about that, then I think the Sox will go through the Twins in four.
"A betting man would say the toughest teams in the playoffs are going to be Oakland and San Francisco, because of the pitching. If we get through the first round, I like our chances."
I admire Chris' cool, calm and collected approach, but I'm guessing that's a front. We've been through this many times in the past decade, and if he's not wetting his pants like Sen. John Edwards right now, I'd be very surprised.
Quickly, before moving on to Dick Grasso, Paul Krugman and my main man, Dr. Howard Dean, a rundown on MLB's post-season awards. Roy Halladay's a lock for the A.L. Cy Young, as is Eric Gagne in the N.L., although I'd prefer the Cubs' Mark Prior. The Cardinals' Albert Pujols deserves the N.L. MVP, I think, if only for putting up with manager Tony La Russa, but Barry Bonds wins easily. There's a lot of jabber about the Yanks' Jorge Posada taking the A.L. award in a muddled field, but I think teammate Hideki Matsui or Boston's David Ortiz is more worthy. I don't buy that Matsui's a real rookie, not with all those stellar years in Japan (what, baseball in Asia doesn't count?), so I'm with future Devil Rays superstar Rocco Baldelli for rookie of the year. Also, count me in for Florida's Dontrelle Willis.
Finally, as proof that it doesn't take an amateur to screw up predictions before the baseball season begins (I picked the White Sox, Angels, Diamondbacks and Phils to win their divisions), a look at Peter Gammon's March 25 ESPN online column is interesting. Gammons, the sports equivalent of Robert Christgau, said: "Barry Bonds will make a serious run at batting .400"; "Minnesota will win the most games in the AL while Arizona will win the most in the NL"; "Kerry Wood will win 20 games"; "Junior Griffey will make a run at 50 homers"; "On Aug. 1, we will be doing a story on whether or not Manny Ramirez can win the Triple Crown"; and "George Steinbrenner will threaten to fire Joe Torre by May 15, but will wake up and instead trade David Wells by July 1."
All Wrong
Howard Dean has more guts than all his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination combined, although that's not saying much. The problem for Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman (has Edwards dropped out yet?) is that they can attack Dean's semi-weekly gaffes and still not dent his base of activist Democrats who actually vote in the primaries. These people don't care that the Man From Vermont (via Park Ave.) calls Palestinian murderers "soldiers" (actually, most probably agree) or that he's flip-flopped on Medicare and the Social Security retirement age. (Which ought to be raised to 70; when SS was instituted by a former president an eon ago, life expectancy was much lower.) They love his anger, the grenades he throws at President Bush and his rivals, the audacity to mimic Sen. John McCain and, most of all, his unflinching reminders that he never would've invaded Iraq.
Dean stumbled onto the internet fundraising technique, but quickly embraced it and is killing his opponents with cash contributions. More importantly, unlike the Beltway candidates, he's collecting both small and large amounts of dollars, taking a lesson from the GOP. Dean is also leading the attack against Wesley?sorry, General Wesley?Clark for his recent conversion to the Democratic Party. Appearing on Face the Nation last Sunday, Dean said: "[Clark's] a good guy, very qualified, but he was a Republican until 25 days ago, and I think that's going to be hard to swallow for a lot of Democrats." He also noted that the Hero of Kosovo, Mr. Multi-Lateral, voted for both Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.
Dean needn't fear Clark, at least until Hillary Clinton gets into the race, as the man fired by her husband falters and it's necessary for her to "save the party." The biggest tip-off that Clark's is a phantom candidacy is that Bruce Lindsey, who acted as Bill Clinton's G. Gordon Liddy, is involved in the General's nascent campaign. And you have to love that on May 11, 2001, at a speech before a Republican audience in Little Rock, AK, (brought up by the Wall Street Journal last week) Clark praised not only Reagan and former President Bush, but also his son and the men and women in the current administration. Clark now derides Bush's tax cuts as "reckless," but that speech came after the first round of cuts was being debated and harshly criticized by lifelong Democrats, was well known.
The Journal's Holman W. Jenkins Jr. was one of the few journalists who put the obscene vilification of ousted New York Stock Exchange's Richard Grasso in perspective. On Sept. 24, Jenkins wrote: "In all the folderol about Dick Grasso's paycheck last week, one question worth pondering is how did it come to be everybody's business what he was paid? The money isn't yours or mine but comes out of the revenues of the New York Stock Exchange, owned by its 1,366 seatholders?
"Whatever you think of the exchange's defenestrated impresario and its goofy board of directors, the spectacle put on by Mr. Grasso's critics was hardly more attractive, full of self-righteousness and the kind of chicken-bleep hostility that isn't even brave enough to find its own target but simply looks around for a socially approved punching bag."
Grasso did make a ton of money, but is anyone asking Alex Rodriguez to give back his $22 million for a season's work that resulted in yet another last-place finish by the Texas Rangers?
Improbably, the man who unwittingly comes to Grasso's defense is none other than Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman, currently on tour hawking his awful book The Great Unraveling.
On page 208, preaching about Medicare, Krugman says: "It's one thing if the rich can afford bigger houses or fancier vacations than ordinary families; Americans accept such differences cheerfully."
To be fair, Krugman adds, "But a society in which rich people get their medical problems solved, while ordinary people die from them, is too harsh even for us."
So it would seem Krugman would "cheerfully" acknowledge Grasso's huge compensation. I do love, however, the wacky "economist" including himself in the ranks of "ordinary people" who can't get decent medical care. I had no idea that Princeton University or the New York Times, Krugman's two employers, had such lousy insurance programs.