The Negro Leagues are now "major leagues"; this is progress?

 So, the ranks of former major league baseball players expanded dramatically this week when Major League Baseball declared that the Negro Leagues were "major leagues."  My first reaction is to recall the joke told by Ben Franklin in the musical 1776; when told that he has the honor of being called an Englishman he says while that may be, he does not have the same rights as an Englishman and “. . . to call me [an Englishman] without those rights is like calling an ox a bull; he’s thankful for the honor but he’d much rather have restored what was rightfully his.”

Let me be very clear here; I am not saying that the African Americans who were forced to participate in the Negro Leagues were inferior ballplayers.  It is the greatest stain on a sport I adore that for many decades some of the greatest athletes in America were unable to play merely because of their skin color.  The history of the Negro Leagues, which Ken Burns ably and rightly included in his series Baseball, is a necessary component of understanding the game.  I have been to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, and it was a shame that the exploits of those players were not documented as fully as those of players in the National League and the American League.

But it wasn’t “Major League” baseball, and calling it that I find a trifle insulting.  If anything, maybe it was better.  As Jackie Robinson demonstrated once he was allowed to join the “major leagues,” the style of baseball played in the Negro Leagues was faster, more daring, requiring more strategy than the style of White teams in the 1950’s, where power hitting was all the rage. 

Not only was the style of play different, but the teams also didn’t play a set schedule of 162 games like the “major leagues.”  Facilities were usually inferior and travel schedules were more taxing.  Pitchers pitched more frequently as staffs weren’t very deep.  They played shorter schedules, so adding them to Major League statistics won’t affect counting stats, but average stats will be skewed; according to the LA Times article linked above, now Babe Ruth and Ted Williams will no longer be in the top ten for batting average.  This isn’t because Negro League players were better; they just played shorter seasons and had shorter careers.

What I think is the real damage from declaring the Negro Leagues to be “Major Leagues” is that now MLB can deny that there ever was any discrimination in baseball.  African Americans can now no longer say that they were kept out of the Major Leagues until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, because now Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson DID play in the Major Leagues.  Problem solved.

If baseball wants to do something about racial issues, there are other steps that can be taken.  Cap Anson, the architect of the policy of excluding African Americans from playing in the Major Leagues, should have that fact added to his plaque in Cooperstown, permanently labeling him as a racist.  This year MLB took former Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis' name off the MVP trophies awarded at the end of the season; they should add a similar codicil to his plaque in Cooperstown as well (or just vote him out; what did he do, other than enforce the color barrier for 24 years?).

I will assume MLB meant well by “promoting” the Negro Leagues to Major League status, but it doesn’t make up for over a half century of overt, unabashed racism (and several more decades of covert, clandestine racism).  I consider it to be rewriting history to make past racism seem more palatable.  Once again, a mostly White organization takes symbolic action against racism; maybe eventually there will be some real, non-symbolic progress.

Does Colin Kaepernick have a job in the NFL?  I didn’t think so,

Are TV Comedies even trying to be funny?

 Many people have described the current TV landscape as a “Golden Age.”  Precisely, the third Golden Age; the first was the 1950’s, when TV technology was too crude to allow the filming of car chases or go on exotic locations, so TV dramas consisted of actors standing (or sitting) on a stage . . . [gulp] talking.  The second Golden Age was the late 1970’s/early 1980’s, when Grant Tinker and MTM revolutionized the drama with groundbreaking shows like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere.  We are now in the late stages of the third Golden Age, when pay cable unfettered content restrictions and revenue streams were divorced enough from “ratings” that daring new shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad could forge new ground.

This may be the Golden Age of Drama, but in my humble opinion it is the Lead Age of Comedy.  Of course, it is dangerous to discuss comedy rationally, as it is entirely subjective.  I won’t do the research, but I suspect that the audience for The King of Queens regularly exceeded that of the great TV classic Taxi.  But while I will confess that what I find funny is idiosyncratic, I still look at the recent winners of the Emmy for Best Comedy and wonder if this isn’t some joke on one of those prank shows.

At the last Emmy Awards the series Schitt’s Creek swept all the major awards.  That was for its sixth season; I have not watched it, but I did watch the fifth season (after having been told the first four seasons were not very good).  The show isn’t exactly bad, and my respect for great performers like Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara, both of whom I loved when they were on SCTV, is tremendous.  But the set up is cliched, and the writing didn’t seem to go anywhere.  In one episode a rumor starts on the internet that Catherine O’Hara’s character had died; people were surprised to see her, then it all stopped because a giraffe stepped on a kitten and the entire internet focused on that.  There was no pay off, no revelation for anyone about being happy to be alive, or being sad when the attention stopped. There was no plot development that I could detect.

As unsatisfied as I was about Schitt’s Creek, I liked the previous year’s winner, Fleabag, even less.  Again, I did not watch the season that won but the previous season, season 1.  For the life of me I could not understand why this was called a comedy, except that if it was called a drama it would be considered worse.  The sole joke was that the main character was devoid of redeeming qualities, which I suppose could be developed amusingly but there was no attempt to do so.  I gave up after 3 episodes, which may be unfair, but life is too short to watch a TV show you aren’t enjoying (besides, there were only 6 episodes so I watched half a season).

I was only able to watch episodes of the previous Best Comedy winner, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, on a plane over the Atlantic, so I reserve judgement (but I will say that what I saw did not encourage me to seek out more episodes).  I have recently watched another Best Comedy nominee from that year, season 1 of the dark comedy Barry.  This is another show with one joke; a hit man in LA stumbles into an acting class while tailing a mark, and decides he wants to become an actor.  I have been able to keep watching Barry, as it is well made and well-acted, and the plot is developing into an absurdist existential farce.  But it isn’t “funny.”

It’s almost as if the modern comedy has evolved to the point where it isn’t supposed to be funny.  Lucy frantically trying to manage items on a speeding conveyor belt is so passé; now we are supposed to watch a character in an uncomfortable situation and chuckle (internally) at the character’s discomfort.  Eliciting laughter is not a comedy’s raison d’etre.

Frankly, the funniest show on broadcast television now might be Legends of Tomorrow, the CW’s pastiche of superheroes that is masquerading as a show about superheroes.  I will concede that my favorite comedy of the past four seasons, NBC’s The Good Place, often passed on doing jokes in favor of some absurdist philosophical point (but the show still had many, many moments of unbridled hilarity).

I think the problem is that the TV marketplace is now so Balkanized, so fractured, that there is no point in trying to appeal to a mass market funny bone.  Why try to appeal to 22 million viewers, like Friends did in its final seasons?  There are so many networks and platforms, it is futile to try and reach that audience.  I can’t even find data on how many people in America watched Fleabag (I didn’t try very hard) but I am guessing it is in the low single digit millions, if that.

And don’t get me started on what these shows call a “season.”  Barry is all of 8 less than half-hour episodes; Fleabag was 6 per season and ran out of ideas after two seasons.  Cheers produced 22-27 episodes per year for 11 years; yes, the Kirstie Alley were a slog at times, but that’s over 270 episodes.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say creators who can create 270 episodes of a TV show (while racking up 179 Emmy nominations and 28 wins) are more talented than ones who call it a wrap after 12.

So, there will never be another I Love Lucy, or All in the Family, or Cheers.  TV comedies aren’t even trying to be funny; maybe the last funny sitcom was Modern family, and that ran dry a couple of seasons before the end.  I guess if we want to find the humor in our modern world, we have to read the political news.

Dick Allen for the Hall of Fame?

 Ron Santo.

Marvin Miller.

Dick Allen?

The Baseball Hall of Fame has gotten into a nasty habit recently of denying entry to deserving people, then letting them in immediately after they die, when they are unable to appreciate the honor.  Marvin Miller, one of the two or three most influential people in the history of baseball, was kept out until after his death, but he said he understood why the owners, who control the Hall of Fame, would not want him admitted.  The case of Ron Santo I find harder to fathom, as he was a popular player and then a beloved announcer for the Cubbies.  The fact that he also lost a leg to diabetes and was in ill-health when he was not being voted in adds to my confusion.

Recently former MVP and Rookie of the Year Dick Allen passed away.  The objective case for his Hall of Fame induction is obvious.  According to Baseball Reference, his ratings for Black Ink, Grey Ink and the Hall of Fame Monitor all put him over the threshold (albeit marginally in some cases).  He put up impressive offensive numbers during one of the most pitching-dominant periods in baseball history, the 1960’s.  The fact that he picked up an MVP award during his career further solidifies his case. 

Yet he never garnered much support from the Baseball Writers Association, where he never got more than 19% of the vote, and far cry from the needed 75%.  The Veterans Committee came close to inducting him, giving him 11 o the needed 12 votes.  Since then the Phillies retired his number, and a revote on his induction was postponed due to COVID.

The case for Dick Allen entering the Hall of Fame is obvious, but so is the case for keeping him out.  You don’t have his numbers and peak at under 20% of the writers’ vote for no reason.  He was difficult to work with, attacked managers and teammates in the press, was a divisive locker room presence, and never led a team to a championship.  Bill James, in his seminal book What Ever Happened to the Hall of Fame, recounts Allen’s tumultuous history and concludes, “And if that’s a Hall of Famer, I’m a lug nut.”

But now that he has passed away, will he get in?  If he only missed by one vote before, I’m guessing the sentimental vote will put him over the top.  Also, a lot of his “difficulty” at the time can be attributed to racism, and in a more woke culture some of the complaints about him will be muted (Bill James acknowledged that Allen was the victim of racism, but pointed out that so were Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Roy Campenella, Bob Gibson, and others who weren’t excluded from the Hall because they were “difficult”). 

I do wish that the Hall would make an effort to indict players while they are alive so they can appreciate the honor.  I previously wrote that Pete Rose should be inducted after he dies, because his “lifetime ban” will have expired, and the point of the ban was to deny him the honor.  For millionaire superstars (like Rose, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens) there aren’t many penalties that will deter them from bad acts, but not seeing themselves inducted in the Hall of Fame should make them think twice.

I’m not proposing that dead players be ineligible for induction, like deceased persons can’t win a Nobel Prize.  I’m just saying that for marginal persons who are kept out, greater weight should be given to how close the person is from meeting the Grim Reaper.  Come on, you know Marvin Miller should be in the Hall, so when he gets past 80 years old just put him in.   Ron Santo was the best third baseman during a pitching-dominated era and played in a pitcher-friendly park, and put in years as a broadcaster.  He should be alive when the inevitable and overdue induction takes place.

The Hall is not about numbers and statistics.  If it were, they would have an objective standard for entry, like golf.  Anyone with a lifetime OPS of .900 or career WAR over 60, come on down.  There are intangibles.  When Harold Baines was inducted, I protested that it is the Hall of FAME, not the Hall of Pretty Good.  Sandy Koufax only had 6 or 7 good seasons, but he was the best pitcher when he was on, and he led his team to championships.  On the other hand, Rafael Palmiero had 3,000 hits and 500 home runs, but never led his team to anything.  Koufax goes in, Palmiero stays out (although granted it is for the failed drug test).

So, Hall of Fame voters, if you are on the fence in the future, look at the player’s birth certificate and take that into account when voting yea or nay.

 

I defend analytics

 Something happened a month ago that I just didn’t feel like talking about, even though it was in my wheelhouse.  It was something where I would defend a decision that everyone in the world was attacking, but I guess the attacks were so ubiquitous I figured what would be the point?  I love tilting at windmills but it gets tiresome.  But the attacks have gone on for a month and at some point my natural contrariness gets backed into a corner and has to come out fighting.

The event I am speaking of was the decision of Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash to pull starter Blake Snell from Games Six of the 2020 World Series in the sixth inning while he was pitching a 2-hit shutout.  The relief pitcher, Nick Anderson, proved less capable and the Dodgers won the game and the Series.

Cash subsequently won the AL Manager of the Year award (for his work during the regular season).  Snell has said he was disappointed by the decision and he now is the subject of trade rumors.  Last week on ESPN one of their personalities opined that the award for “Turkey of the Year” should not only be given to Cash, but named after him in perpetuity for making the dumbest decision of all time.

The decision was motivated by analytics, namely the fact that Snell had gone through the Dodgers’ line-up twice and that he was not as effective when facing batters for a third time.  The most vociferous attacks on Cash have come from the anti-analytics community, who see the Rays’ loss as conclusive proof that analytics are stupid.

First of all, using analytics to make decisions does not me that the decision is always going to work out 100% of the time.  Analytics is about probability, that over time you will more often come out ahead if you make rational decisions based on past observation of outcomes.  Part of the allure of non-analytics is that practitioners remember when their “hunches” paid off and forget all the times that their gut led them astray.

Second, decisions have to be executed.  If Nick Anderson had come in and pitched two shut out innings, we might not be having this conversation.  But he gave up a double to the first batter he faced, Mookie Betts, and the Rays’ fate was sealed.  News flash—Mookie Betts is a pretty good hitter.  Maybe if he had faced Snell for a third time, he would have timed a fastball and hit a home run.  Anderson’s subsequent failure to execute does not impact the decision made to pull Snell before he started facing batters for a third time, which had historically proven to be a bad idea.

What might have happened if Snell had been left in?  Let’s go back to the 2015 World Series.  Mets starter Mat Harvey is pitching a gem in Game 5, cruising after eight innings.  Harvey, who had only pitched one complete game in his entire history (and that was a blowout, not a close game), convinced his manager to ignore what the numbers said and to leave him in.  Mets’ manager Terry Collins eventually gave in and . . . the results were not good.  Harvey blew the game in the ninth, the Mets lost the game in extra innings, and thus lost the Series 4-1.  Analytics doesn’t look so bad now, does it?

As far as I can tell, people who don’t like analytics have one thing in common; they aren’t good at math.  They hate what they are incapable of understanding.  Analytics are responsible for getting the low-payroll Rays into the Series in the first place; analytics is the only weapon teams like the Rays and the “Moneyball” A’s have to compete against teams who can afford to make mistakes and overpay players who don’t work out. 

I concede that analytics has made sports less interesting.  Analytics says home runs are the most efficient way to score runs, so we have to put up with most at bats ending in a strikeout, base on balls, or home run.  In basketball, the mid-range jumper is dying because the most efficient strategy is to combine dunks with 3-point baskets.  In football, the short passing game is preferred to a “ground and pound” rushing offence or unleashing a mad bomber at quarterback because it has proven most effective.

But it is evolution, not heresy.  Yes, I miss the days when Bob Gibson would have punched his manager in the nose before giving up the ball before the ninth inning of a World Series game.  Yes, I miss the days when the 1971 Orioles had four 20-game winners on their pitching staff, when now there aren’t four 20-game winners in all of the majors (in 2019 there were exactly two).  Yes, I wish modern hitters listened to Wee Willie Keeler who said the secret to success was to “hit it where they ain’t,” instead of hitting into a shift when a bunt down the third base line would be an easy double. 

I miss those days, but they are in the past, not the future.

Memo to Mets owner Steve Cohen--don't start planning your parade route yet

 

The Mets new owner plans to win World Series; isn’t that cute?

The New York Mets were sold to Steve Cohen, about whom all I know is that he is rich enough to buy a sports team in New York, which doesn’t predispose me to liking him.  At his press conference after the sale was announced, he said he would be “disappointed” if the Mets didn't win a World Series in 3-5 years.

Mr. Cohen, prepare to be disappointed.

Non-sports people often buy sports teams and announce that the reason why the team hasn’t won recently is that they haven’t tried hard enough, didn’t plan strategically, or just didn't have enough heart. The baseball people who had been in charge, who had spent 20-30 or more years in the game, didn’t have the keen business mind that allows people to succeed in any field.

Let me remind Mr. Cohen of a few facts from recent history.  The Chicago Cubs recently ended a 108-year drought.  The Red Sox, despite the best efforts of Ted Williams and Carlton Fisk, had 86 years of frustration.  Currently, the Cleveland Indians are at 72 years and counting for a championship.   The vaunted Dodgers, one of the premiere franchises of the National League (and one of the richest) just won their first World Series after 32 years.  The Minnesota Twins, who haven’t won in almost 30 years, have lost 18 post-season games in a row.  The Oakland A’s, who haven’t won it all in 31 years, this year won their first post-season elimination game since 1973,  47 years ago.  Currently, 15 of the 30 franchises have championship droughts of 25 years or more.  One of those teams is the Mets, working on a 34 year drought.

Heck, four teams, the Rangers, Brewers, Padres, and Mariners, have never won a World Championship: for the Rangers that’s a 6-decade span.

But this Steve Cohen guy is going to come in, take a team that had a losing record in 2020 (okay, the 2020 season was hardly typical; they did have a .531 winning percent in 2019), and by virtue of his superior intellect, make them World Champions in 3-5 years? 

Because of its rich history with statistical analysis, table-top simulation games like Strat-O-Matic, and the Hot Stove league busy every off-season, there is a long tradition of people thinking they know more than the managers and general managers that play the game.  In some cases, this may be true; but it’s rare.

I would direct Mr. Cohen to the words of wisdom from the late Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti, who once said, “Baseball breaks your heart.  It was designed to break your heart.” You may be planning a parade in Manhattan sometime in 2023-25, but the Dodgers, Braves, Yankees, Astros, Nationals, Cubs, Indians, Tigers, Reds, Royals, Rangers, and 18 other major league teams have other ideas. 

Mr. Cohen, prepare to be disappointed. 

 

Lucifer Season 5 Review; there's still life in the old Devil

 

Life is full of tradeoffs.  Taking a job for more money may mean less time to spend with your kids.  Buying something that is more affordable usually means getting something more cheaply made.  Going out and having fun means risking catching a potentially deadly virus.  What to do.

A perennial trade off is that of quality versus quantity.  Let’s take the example of television programs.  Once upon a time, a “season” of a TV show meant a lot of episodes.  For example, the 1950’s half-hour Western “Have Gun – Will Travel” produced 39 episodes in its first season.  At this early stage of network television, the “TV season” started in the Fall and literally ran a new episode every week until it was time for the “summer rerun season” when networks showed repeats.  As you can imagine, the pace was grueling on the regular actors.

The number of episodes in a “season” slowly went down to where, in the mid-1960’s, a season was an episode count in the mid-20’s, such as Star Trek’s third season which produced 24 episodes.  The number continued to fall until at some point an equilibrium set in at 22 episodes, usually an initial order of 11 and then a “back order” of 10 additional episodes if the show was successful.

But then came a revolution when Premium cable started producing original shows but only 13 at a time.  Imagine, a season with one-third as many episodes as a show in the 1950’s!  But here is where the trade off comes in; the shows are higher quality, but there are fewer of them.  It is a lot easier to maintain high quality in scripts if, like The Sopranos, you only have to do 13 instead of 22, or 39.  This is probably why the last network show to win an Emmy for Best Dramatic Series was 24 way back in 2006.  In 2019, Game of Thrones season 8 won an Emmy for Best Dramatic Series despite producing only six episodes.

This is a long-winded way of my getting around to reviewing Season 5 of Lucifer, which was on Fox for three seasons and now resides at Netflix.  Fox gave the show a limited order for season 1, then showed confidence with an 18-episode order in season 2 and a 26 episode order in season 3.  But now that the show is on Netflix, fans have to comfort themselves with a paltry 10 episodes in season 4 and only 8 in season 5.

But here’s the thing—Lucifer has never been this consistently good during its run.  Don’t get me wrong, after a mediocre season 1 the show made some wonderful course corrections and proved to be a source of good-natured blasphemy thereafter.  But there were more than a few episodes where the case of the week seemed a little thin, or the plot twists with lucifer’s backstory seemed a tad arbitrary, or Lucifer’s sexual puns were more lame than usual.  I have seen the first five episodes of season 5, and they have been five of the best episodes the show has produced.

One thing possibly improving the quality is that, before Netflix belatedly decided on a sixth season, this was supposed to be Lucifer’s swan song, and as the saying goes there is nothing like the prospect of being executed at dawn to focus the mind.  The show has shaken up the loose bounds of its formula (Devil solves crimes in Los Angeles) and is having more fun in how it tells stories.  Just as the show’s best episode, Season 3's "Off the Record," broke with its format, the show is now rising to new heights reveling in its new-found freedom.

Gratuitous spoiler alert at this point; proceed no further if you want NO information about Lucifer Season 5 (then why are you reading this?).  Episode 1, “Really Sad Devil Guy,” adopts a wonderfully executed concept where Lucifer, in Hell, decides to investigate the same murder as Detective Decker, only Lucifer can only access the murder victim’s memories.  This means he is recreating experiences that happened about 36 hours before Decker visits the same locations.  The second episode trots out the long-spoiled revelation that Lucifer’s twin brother, Michael, will attempt to impersonate him, with star Tom Ellis doing very impressive double duty (even if his American accent is lame).  Episode 3 gets delightfully meta as Lucifer and Decker investigate the murder of a showrunner for a TV show called Lieutenant Diablo, about a crime solving Devil in LA with an attractive female partner. 

Episode 4, “It Never Ends Well For the Chicken,” goes two places where it is surprising the show has not gone before: a black-and-white filmed homage to film noir, and Lucifer telling Trixie a bedtime story (their relationship is one of my favorite ones since the first episode).  The last episode I’ve seen, “Detective Amenadiel,” teams up Lucifer’s brother with Decker, revealing new sides of him, and also gives us some much-needed back story for Doctor Linda.

The show has never been better at balancing the needs of a large and talented cast, with only Aimee Garcia’s Ella getting some short shrift (made up for by her playing mobster Tommy Stompanato in Lucifer’s retelling of the story of how he got his ring; you have to see it to understand).  But there are three episodes remaining, so maybe Ella gets another visit to the nudist colony she and Lucifer went to in season 4.  D. B. Woodside and Kevin Alejandro both get to flex their comedic muscles, Lesley-Anne Brandt gets more to do as Mazekean than just glower and kick ass (she sings!), and the always wonderful Rachel Harris does more than just look exasperated when Lucifer is in her office.

I still wish season 5 was more than eight measly episodes, but so far season 5 is looking better than the slightly larger (10 episode) season 4, which was mainly notable for the aforementioned trip to the nudist colony (of course Lucifer would be enthusiastic, but who would have pegged Ella as his equally enthusiastic companion; shame about the unfortunately very long [and strategically placed] hair).  Eight great episodes of Lucifer is better than no episodes, but is it preferable to 20 mostly good episodes? 

As Woody Allen said in Love and Death, “It’s not the quantity of you sexual relations that counts, it’s the quality.  On the other hand, if the quantity drops below once every eight months, I would definitely have it looked into.”

 

The beginning of the end for college football?

“When people of privilege lose their privilege, it feels like oppression.”—Source unknown

 

It has been a tumultuous couple of years, and I am not referring to COVID-19.   Before the pandemic started, women in Hollywood discovered that they had an option other than a) shut up and take it, or b) shut up and quit.  A group that had been marginalized since anyone could remember suddenly put their collective feet down, and suddenly Harvey Weinstein is doing in depth research on a movie about prison conditions. 

Then, four year into Colin Kaepernick’s exile from the NFL because teams agreed that having a Super Bowl caliber QB who cared about social justice was a “distraction,” a Black man dies in police custody and now entire sports leagues are embracing Black Lives Matter, much to the chagrin of those who continue to think Black lives don’t matter but remain politic and silent.

The latest earthquake to shake up the fault lines of American society are the demands of a group of Pac 12 football players, who made a number of demands relating to player safety, working conditions, and social justice.  College football players have been fighting the system for years, struggling against the monolithic NCAA juggernaut for a few meager crumbs of the billions of dollars generated by an unpaid labor system.  They had about as much chance as a AA baseball team against the Yankees, but the tide may have turned.

Why might this latest attempt succeed, when previous attempts to gain power by unionizing and other form of organizing have failed?  One reason is success breeds success, and the players have made gains in the area of name, image, and likeness compensation.  The NCAA dragged its feet but had to take notice when California gave student athletes rights, but then Congress joined in and they had to at least give the appearance of capitulating.

But a bigger and more important factor is that the Big Bad NCAA doesn’t look so big and so bad when COVID-19 threatens the billions of dollars generated by the system.  Suddenly, strength becomes weakness; the prospect of losing all that revenue shows how terrified the colleges and the various conferences are of the loss.  After all, the students won’t lose any money because they don’t make any; but the coaches and athletic directors who make millions have a lot to lose.  And that gives the students power.

It's an application of the jiujitsu principle, allowing a smaller opponent to defeat a larger and more powerful adversary.  The schools in the NCAA have far more to lose than the students, and the students, sensing the fear in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the prospect of no autumn football, are taking the upper hand.

The loss of football revenue also revealed the importance of that money, as schools started shutting down non-revenue generating sports that lived only while football money was flowing into the system.  Universities needed football revenue like junkies need fixes.

Also, the power dynamic is different than in the pros.  If a sizable chunk of the Dallas Cowboys demanded Jerry Jones kneel for the national anthem, he could fire them all and find descent replacements.  But the bench isn’t as deep for college football teams.  If a coach has to replace a good part of his football team, he can’t poach players from other teams; all he can do is recruit hard for the next class (or start recruiting walk-ons from assorted calculus classes and anthropology seminars).  And who would want to go to a team likely to lose because of all those defections?  After a couple of seasons, he just might lose that multi-million-dollar coaching job and have to find work at a less prestigious college.

Aiding the students’ position is the fact that the NCAA is not really a monolith.  It turns out to have little actual power over the college landscape and has no way of reining in schools, especially those in the “Power 5” conferences.  The myth of NCAA power has been exposed as an emperor with no clothes, as each conference has responded differently to the pandemic, with no central authority asserting control. 

If you read a list of the demands being made by the Pac 12 players, it is notable both for its audacity and its circumspection.  These are not orphans asking for more gruel, please.  Who can argue against safety measures to avoid becoming victims of the COVID-19 pandemic?  Given support for the BLM movement, who can argue for increased financial aid for Black students?  Does it make sense to give coaches making millions per year a small pay cut that would contribute to social justice, increased player safety, and better working conditions?  Of course it does.  These aren’t a bunch of hippies taking over the administration building and demanding an end to the war; these are Stanford and UCLA students making reasonable and extremely feasible demands. 

Pac 12 college students are asking the questions that were asked generations ago by those same hippies: if not us, who?  If not now, when?

The seamy underbelly of food delivery

The world is replete with stories of people who regret not buying things when they could have, like stock in IBM or Amazon.  Everyone is looking for that high-risk investment that, in retrospect, was a sure thing.  The latest in the “Boy, if only I had known about this sooner I would have bought that” file--Uber has picked up food delivery service Postmates for only $2.7 billion!

The amazing thing about this news?  It comes right on the heels of several reports that these businesses will never make a profit, they can’t turn a profit even with a captive audience, and they are beset by legal difficulties involving fraud.  

I find the conclusion in the Newshour report the funniest, that people are investing billions of dollars in some pie-in-the-sky scheme that will probably fail because throwing a couple of billion of dollars at a plan that will probably fail is better than putting that money in a nice index fund that is certain to return a solid 4% - 5% per year, or even a moderately risky investment that might return 7% - 10%. 

This demonstrates some sort of psychopathy on the part of investors.  Following on the heels if the tech bubble, then the housing bubble, investors are conditioned to expect excessively high returns as the norm.  It is almost as if investors think “high risk means high reward” and they think it means that making a risky investment is certain to produce a high return.  That is not what high risk means; in fact, it is the opposite of what high risk means.

This reminds me of the TV series Suits when the lead character quit being a fake lawyer and became an investment banker, and his boss complained that he only “hit doubles” and he wanted “home runs.”  First of all, any baseball player who hit only doubles when he batted would be in the Hall of Fame after his first year.  Second, this again reinforces the idea that taking bigger risks always produces bigger rewards.  Riskier investments will, more often than not, fail; that is what it means to be risky.

To cite another lovable TV character, Tom on Parks and Recreation was devastated when his business (which produced absolutely no marketable product) went bankrupt.  He was puzzled because, as he put it, “They say you have to spend money to make money.  Well, we spent money like crazy!”

I have to admit there is not a lot about the food delivery business I understand.  I read that delivery sites can force restaurants to use them without their knowledge.  Delivery services have been accused of charging restaurants for phone calls.    There are a whole host of actions by delivery services that restaurants don't appreciate.  My response would be, if the apps are so bad, don’t use them, but apparently that isn't an option.

This is obviously a breakdown of free-market economics of the highest order.  One of the principles of capitalism is that both parties agree (in theory) to the exchange that takes place, but news articles seem to imply (actually, they assert boldly) that restaurants have no choice but to do business with delivery services that eliminate their profit margin.  How can any disciple of Adam Smith condone one party to a transaction imposing a 13.5% to 40% surcharge on the other party without the other party’s consent?

I was skeptical of food delivery services’ profitability when I thought the fee was being paid entirely by the end consumer; why would anyone pay someone $10 to deliver a $5 chalupa box from Taco Bell?  But after looking at all the short cuts, ethically dubious actions, misrepresentations, and business models dependent on underpaying workers, I am even more convinced that this business cannot legally make a profit.  If it could, it wouldn’t resort to setting up fake websites and stealing its employee's tips.

A major test will come in November, when California voters will decide if gig workers are employees or independent contractors.  If the proposition fails, and the gig companies have to treat their employees with dignity and pay them minimum wage and carry workers’ compensation insurance, there should be a significant market correction.  My guess?  The vast majority of Californians who don’t use Uber, or Lyft, or DoorDash will shrug their shoulders, vote no, and let the chips fall where they may.

In the meantime, do your favorite restaurant a favor and order delivery from them directly, or order take out and pick it up yourself.

Nuance

There are some quotes that are great because they are all-purpose.  They can be trotted out under almost any circumstances and found to be applicable.  Jerry Brown once supposedly said, “What we need is a flexible plan for an ever-changing world.”  That applies to everything from the coronavirus to the upcoming NBA playoffs.  FDR famously said, “All we have to fear is fear itself.”  This is not as all-purpose as some people think it is.  Tom Brady recently said this in response to a question about practicing while COVID-19 cases were spiking; Tom Brady may have six Super Bowl rings, millions of dollars, and a supermodel wife, but if he thinks people shouldn’t be afraid of the coronavirus he is an idiot.

Another all-purpose quote comes from the season 1 opening credits of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, when the lead character insists, “The situation is a lot more nuanced than that.”  Things are rarely as black and white (pardon the expression) as people proclaim.  People often look for an easy solution to problems for which there is no easy answer.  To fall back on another all-purpose quote, as H. L. Mencken said, “For every complicated problem there is an answer that is simple, easy, and wrong.”

Let’s take the example of shows like 30 Rock pulling episodes because of the use of blackface. The idea that a Caucasian actor or singer can put on makeup that makes them look like an African American so they can impersonate an African-American is, well, inappropriate. 

The most recent show to have an episode pulled for use of blackface is the Community episode Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.  The problem with this episode is that a regular character who is Asian, participating in the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, made himself up as a dark elf, which included dark facial and body make-up.  If he had chosen to be a regular elf and just put on some pointy ears, I guess it would have been okay, but clearly people were offended by an Asian actor playing a dark elf.

Do you see the problem here?  We’re talking about ELVES!  People are offended by an Asian actor playing an elf.  He could have been a green elf or a blue elf (Smurf?), but because the script chose “dark elf” (which I understand is a thing in fantasy games and are known as drows) he’s suddenly impersonating an African-American (an African-American elf?).  Should they have hired an African American actor?  No, this was a regular character played by an Asian actor.  Could they have chosen not to make him dark?  I guess no one complains about Orlando Bloom playing an elf, so maybe, although the character of Chang is sort of evil and would opt to play a dark elf (which, again, I understand to be a real thing in fantasy games).  Since Chang was playing a dark elf, he was not engaged in “blackface.”

So far, I have heard no word on whether the Man Men episode where Roger Sterling sang a song wearing actual blackface will be pulled.  There was a previous instance where the BBC pulled an episode of Fawlty Towers because a character made stupid racist statements; as John Cleese pointed out, the character was, in fact, a stupid racist and the episode has been restored.

Society has seen a major, almost unprecedented shift in perspective since the George Floyd death, and we are now entering the French Revolution stage where the easy targets have all been attacked and people are looking for more aristocrats to behead.  This month some BLM protesters in Boston vandalized a memorial to an all-Black regiment that fought in the Civil War (had none of these people seen the Denzel Washington film Glory?). 

This country has a sordid history on race, and a long way to go before we arrive at a harmonious society.  But in our haste to be virtuous, let’s not throw the dark elves out with the bath water.  The situation is a lot more nuanced than that.

Owners are killing the minor leagues

Bill Veeck once said that baseball was the only sport played by normal sized people; to play basketball you had to be 7-feet tall, to play football you had to be 7-feet wide.  Obviously, Bill Veeck had never seen Mark McGuire.

Athletes have more options these days in choosing what sport to pursue, and baseball seems intent on driving high-quality athletes to consider basketball or football as a higher priority.  In 2018 the Save America’s Past-time Act was signed into law as part of the federal spending bill, which should have been named the Save Billionaire Owners A Few Bucks Act.  The language, which was a footnote in the 2,200 page document, exempted the minor leagues from federal minimum wage and worker safety laws.  This for an industry where most workers make less than $7,500 per year. 

Minor league players make so little that when the Washington Nationals announced they were releasing all their minor league players, the players on the Nationals offered to pay their lost wages.  The Nationals were embarrassed enough to reinstate the weekly stipend of $300-400.  Individual players like David Price have also pledged financial support for minor leaguers.

It has been pointed out (I can’t find a citation) that the diets of minor league players are usually unhealthy because they can’t afford to eat nutritious food, so they often binge on fast food or try to survive on ramen.  For a modest expenditure a major league team could feed their AAA and AA players a healthy diet and protect their investment, but this isn’t done.

Baseball is now providing even less incentive for athletes to choose baseball over another sport by reducing the draft from 40 rounds to just five rounds.  Any player not drafted in those five rounds couldn’t sign for more than $20,000.   Incredibly, minor league salaries are so paltry even this wholesale slashing of salaries will only save a couple of million dollars per team.

So, baseball will be paying its minor league workforce below minimum wage salaries, making bonuses smaller, and giving contracts to fewer players, expecting many of the players to spend a few years in college before making another go at earning a spot in The Show.

What is happening in other sports?  In basketball, the NBA is now letting top high school prospects turn pro by going to the G League.  Players don’t even have to pretend to go to college for one year to get to the NBA.  Other high schoolers are opting to play overseas.  No working for below minimum wage for several years before cashing in.

Football players still have to endure three years of college before going pro, but the NCAA is slowly caving to the pressure to allow collegiate athletes to make money on their "name, likeness, and image." They are being dragged kicking and screaming, but it is happening.  Of course, this will be most valuable to quarterbacks and running backs and less so for interior linemen, but it is just the start.   The movement to pay college players a small part of the billions of dollars of revenue they generate appears to be unstoppable.

So while high school athletes in basketball and (eventually) football will be able to cash in right out of school, baseball decided to take their grossly underpaid minor league work force and pay them even less. 

Mike Piazza was drafted in the 62^nd round of the draft, and he is now in Cooperstown.  Would he have stuck with baseball if he was undrafted and had to fight for a position that would pay him a maximum of $20,000?  As one of the previously cited articles pointed out, baseball drafting is an inexact science and many baseball stars and Hall of famers were drafted outside the 5^th round.  Whither these players in a five-round draft?

The all-consuming greed of baseball owners is well documented in books like Lords of the Realm by John Helyar and The Game by Jeff Passan.  In The Game, Passan describes how in the 1990’s the owners were concerned about the competitive balance and small market teams, but instead of redistributing their revenue they expected ball players to enable small market teams to compete by taking a pay cut (and were stunned when the players refused).  Recently, many African-American players and former players have detailed what t was like to be assigned to a minor league team in the South.

But the owners are now cutting expenditures on a minor league system that has always exploited young men’s desire to play baseball by paying them slave wages for several years and putting up with substandard travel and third-rate motels.  They have a cheap source of labor and yet they want to make it cheaper. 

Cutting off your nose to spite your face seems like an inadequate metaphor. 

Tua and the draft

There has been one (okay, more than one) unfortunate byproduct of the COVID-19 situation; it has made ESPN even more hyper-focused than usual. They always fixated on certain stories (where is Tom Brady going?  Who will be the first pick in the draft?) but with so many fewer sports stories out there, they now analyze the ones they have to death.

The biggest topic currently is the NFL draft, and the biggest substory is the question of who will pick Tua Tagovaiola, the “oft-injured” quarterback who led Alabama to a national championship.  He was considered a potential number one pick, but a hip injury (that followed two ankle injuries and a finger injury) have made his draft prospects dicey.

I’ve said before that I dispute the contention that Tua is injury prone.  His injuries have not indicated a defective body part, like a bad knee or repeated back issues. As Tua himself pointed out, he plays a game that is very physical and sometimes injures will happen to the healthiest of people.  Drew Brees missed part of last year with a hand injury; is he injury prone?

But the way the question is always phrased is that is it too “risky” to take Tua with a high draft pick?  But the question obscures an important point; saying it is too risky to select Tua implies that drafting Jordan Love or Justin Herbert is a sure thing.  Here are some other names that were sure things: Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston, Tim Tebow, Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch, Vince Young, Jim Druckenmiller, Todd Marinovich and Jamarcus Russell.  That is only a partial list.  The fact is picking ANY quarterback in the draft is risky; Tua’s hip injury hardly makes him that much riskier.

Let’s look at a recent draft.  In 2017 the Bears could have taken Lamar Jackson or Pat Mahomes with their #3 pick, but both of those QBs were unconventional and therefore “risky.”  They went with a sure thing and traded up to #2 to select Mitch Trubisky. How does that risk aversion look now, after Mahomes and Jackson are the last two MVPs and Trubisky is fighting Nick Foles for his job in Chicago?

If you look at a list of quarterback draft busts, you should notice something—most of them were big with “tangibles.”  Jeff George and Ryan Leaf both had a cannon for an arm, Marinovich and Druckenmller were physical gods.  Who lacked these “tangibles”?  Tom Brady, drafted #199 in 1999.  Aaron Rodgers, who slid nearly out of the first round.  Doug Flutie, who was too small to be a quarterback in the NFL, then excelled in the Canadian Football League before finally getting a chance in the NFL and exhibiting heroics.  If you want to argue that picking the QB with the strongest arm is better than picking someone with a “weak” arm who has a history of success despite his shortcomings, be my guest.  Just look at the footage of Tom Brady at the draft combine and tell me you have to be a physical specimen to play in the NFL.

Another thing to consider is that quarterbacks in the NFL are protected better than college quarterbacks.  If a lineman looks at a QB funny, they will throw a roughing the passer flag in the NFL; college QBs do not have the same luxury.  In both college and the pros, injuries are subject to happenstance, but they are less prevalent in the pros.  Most of the players with long consecutive game playing streaks are quarterbacks.

And no one is suggesting Drew Bledsoe was injury prone when he took a vicious hit that allowed Tom Brady to start his career.

If I were a GM, I would try as hard as possible to put Tua’s injury history out of my mind and evaluate him based on his college performance.  Some say that if you draft Tua and he gets injured, you would lose your job; true, but no one is a GM forever.  You might as well get fired over picking a transcendent talent who might just be available because those picking ahead of you are irrationally risk averse.

You could also get fired for picking Jordan Love and watch him stink it up while Tua goes to Pro Bowl after Pro Bowl and winds up in the Hall of Fame.  Which is riskier, Tua’s injury history, or his talent level?  If the talent is there, you can last a long time as a QB in the NFL.

If the talent isn’t there . . . well, now there isn’t an XFL to go to.

Whither Tom Brady?

Waking up every morning and turning on the ESPN morning show Get Up is like going back in time to when the funniest bit on Saturday Night Live was Chevy Chase’s running gag, “Our top story tonight: Francisco Franco is still dead.”  Of course, I realize that for many of you this raises questions like, “Who is Francisco Franco,” or “Who is Chevy Chase?”  I assume you are familiar with Saturday Night Live.

What I mean is that every morning they talking heads talk about the same thing: “What team will immediately become the favorites to win the next Super Bowl by acquiring Tom Brady as their quarterback?”  There is a narrow window for teams to be considered eligible for Brady Roulette, as they have to be good enough to be able to make the vault to championship status by adding a quarterback, but at the same time desperate enough to take a flyer on a 43 year-old quarterback who is unlikely to get any better.

The stupidest hypothesis is the idea that an ideal landing spot for Brady would be the San Francisco 49ers.  Right, the reigning NFC champions lost in the Super Bowl, so they should discard their young QB who led them to the Super Bowl and could plausibly get back there any time during the next decade, blow up the team, and bring in a 43-year-old who lost in the first round of the playoffs last year.  The 49ers have a QB who last year outlasted Brees, Cousins, and Rogers, and they should give him up because he narrowly lost a game to Patrick Mahomes?  A game that was lost, not because of poor QB play, but because his coach reverted to form and kept passing when he had a large lead in a Super Bowl, a mistake he had made only two years earlier when he was the Offensive Coordinator with the Atlanta Falcons. 

This reminds me of the Seinfeld episodes where low-level Yankee employee George Costanza would create ludicrous trade scenarios that would have the Yankees giving up prospects for a team comprised solely of future Hall of Famers.  Jimmy Garappolo is the 49ers future, and anyone on that team entertaining the idea of acquiring Tom Brady for one second should be consigned to an eternity of being the GM of the Cleveland Browns.

But what about the more plausible landing spots for Brady?  The Titans, the Bucaneers, the Raiders, the Chargers?  Here is the problem—Brady wants to win a Super Bowl and will only go to a contender, a team with a solid offensive line, a strong running game, and an elite receiving corps.  Of course, any team with all that hardly needs Brady; the Titans had all that and got to the AFC Championship game last year with a journeyman QB.  But the team has to be loaded with talent.

But what was Brady’s biggest talent?  The ability to make mediocre players around him better.  How many no-name receivers got to a Pro Bowl after a season with the Patriots?  How many no-name running backs were among the league leaders in yardage after taking handoffs from Tom Brady?  Tom Brady’s biggest gift was the ability to elevate those around him.

But now, if a 43-year-old Brady can only succeed with an Antonio Brown or A.J. Green to throw to, if he needs an established Pro Bowl running back like Derrick Henry to make his play-action passes effective, then he is useless.  Save your money and get a journeyman QB like Ryan Tannehill, or Andy Dalton, or Marcus Marriota.  They are just as likely to succeed with all those weapons around them as a 43-year-old quarterback who has only succeeded when coached by possibly the greatest coach in NFL history (apologies to Vince Lombardi, Don Shula, and Bill Walsh).

Last season the Dallas Cowboys had a great quarterback, great running back, great receiver, and a great offensive line, and they STILL failed to make the playoffs.  No one can guarantee that they will take their team to the Super Bowl and win next year.  Some people thought the Browns had the Super Bowl locked up last year; how’d that work out?  There are no guarantees; that’s why there is gambling.

If you define winning a Super Bowl as “success,” then last season Drew Brees, Aaron Rogers, Dak Prescott, Kirk Cousins, Deshawn Watson, and Lamar Jackson were all failures.  Oh, and add to that list the name Tom Brady.  If Tom Brady can’t make it out of the first round of the playoffs in Bill Belichick’s system, then how can he succeed anywhere else?

I have not cared about an athlete’s choice of team less since Lebron James made “The Decision.”  I will just be thrilled when the matter is resolved, and ESPN can start reporting on facts instead of rampant speculation based on fantasy.

What to do about the Astros

Rob Manfred, baseball Commissioner who referred to the Commissioner’s Trophy as a “piece of metal,” has an escalating problem on his hands.  The longer he refrains from punishing the Astros, the more heat is generated from players and fans over the lack of justice.  He has to do something quickly to dissipate the ill will, or the result will be hit batters, melees, and possibly injuries.

The most logical thing to do would be to punish the players involved, either by fines or suspension but that’s not an option.  Why?  Because Manfred offered everyone blanket immunity for talking.  Can you imagine a DA whose strategy is to offer every suspect immunity, because that way you are sure to find out who is guilty?  Someone on ESPN said they didn’t want Manfred, an attorney, making any more decisions about the Astros because baseball doesn’t need another attorney; on the contrary, I think they just need a better one.

So, why not just take the trophy away from them?  This has a lot of appeal, but there are problems.  One, the fans and players can still bask in their memories, unless MLB has access to those amnesia flashers used in the Men In Black movies.  Second, Astros owner Jim Crane is rich, and he’s a jerk; he could just hire someone to make a duplicate, then keep it in his office until Manfred says he is stopping by for a visit.

A third option was posited by ESPN’ Buster Olney: CENSURE! The Commissioner’s office would draft something, probably on a parchment rolled up onto a scroll, that would formally say something like, “Thou beist cheaters, verily!”  Yeah, that’ll teach them not to cheat.

I have come to the conclusion there is only one answer: suspend the Astros from the post season for two, maybe three years.

First off, how could the union complain about this?  Yes, some of their members would be denied an earned trip to the post-season, but an equal number of members would be getting in in their stead.  Maybe there is something in the CBA about not altering who gets into the playoffs, but a clear majority of the union’s members would support this.

Two, this would impose exquisite torture on the Astros by the death of a thousand cuts.  Every time they would win a game, they would feel good for a second but then realize it doesn’t mean anything because no matter how many games they win, they can’t get to the playoffs.  In fact the more they win, the more they feel lousy.  Given that Astro Josh Reddick has said that they are "going to win and shut everybody up," this would be an apt come-uppance, because winning would only encourage more taunting.

Third, this would damage the franchise (not the players) for years. The closest parallel I can see is that of the sanctions handed down on the New Orleans Saints after “Bountygate," when the Saints were found to have financially encouraged players to injure opposing quarterbacks.  The team was fined $500,000, forfeited draft picks, their coach was suspended for a year and other key personnel were suspended.  The Saints finished 7-9 the next season, managed to win a wild card slot the next year, but then finished with 7-9 records for the next three seasons.  The Saints are now again one of the premiere teams in the NFL, but it has been a long road back to respectability.  If the Astros can’t make the playoffs for two years, that would make it difficult to attract quality players who only want to play for a chance to play in the World Series.

Lastly, I think this would stain their legacy more than nullifying the 2017 championship.  In the future, people could choose not to put an asterisk next to the 2017 World Series outcome and pretend they still won the trophy; but if they are suspended for two season yet win enough games to make the playoffs, there would have to be an asterisk explaining, “Yeah, the Astros won the division but didn’t go to the playoffs because they cheated in 2017.”  Nobody could ignore the fact that they won 100 games but had to sit at home in October.

Maybe the right time to announce this would be when MLB comes out with the report n the allegations of cheating by the Boston Red Sox.  Rob Manfred could take the opportunity to announce a new policy, that teams that have been found to have cheated will be suspended for the post season, and then declare the Astros and the Red Sox ineligible for the playoffs.

Manfred has to either do something to stem the anti-Astros hatred, or be prepared to hand down numerous suspensions to pitchers on other teams for throwing at the Astros or suspend Astro pitchers for retaliating.  Suspending the Astros for the post season would mete out some justice, mollify the angry mob, and avoid re-writing history.

It would also shut some of those mouthy cheaters up.

The Rise of Skywalker--Spoilers!!!

The Rise of Skywalker—Spoilers!

In order to prepare for seeing the final film in the Star Wars non-ology (yeah, right, no more Star Wars films after this) I re-watched The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi on Netflix.  I then read a few spoiler-free reviews that commented that The Rise of Skywalker more or less chucked all the good decisions made in The Last Jedi and virtually remade The Force Awakens.  Since I decided that I liked Last Jedi more than Force Awakens, this did not motivate me to see Rise of Skywalker.  But, in its tenth week of release, the crowds had finally died down and I made my way to the very same theater I had seen the original Star Wars (none of this “A New Hope” garbage) at 43 years earlier.

I hated it.

I want to say it is the worst of the nine movies in the Star Wars canon (ten, if you add Rogue One), but frankly I have no recollection of Attack of the Clones and only fleeting memories of Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith.  I do remember walking out of the theaters and not being as disappointed as I was after seeing Rise of Skywalker.  Isn’t worse when you mother says she isn’t mad, just disappointed?

One of the criticisms of Force Awakens was that co-writer/director J.J. Abrams had constructed a movie that appeared to replicate the beats of the original Star Wars (aka “A New Hope”).  I felt that, similarly, Rise of Skywalker attempted to follow the beats of the less successful sequel, Return of the Jedi.  There was the emergence of a new threat by the bad guys that needed thwarting, there was the need for a full scale assault at the end, and there was the need for a small band to take out an object for the invasion to succeed (force field projector/nav tower).  It wasn’t bad, just very, very familiar.

One reason for that familiarity was that the bad guy was the same as in Return of the Jedi, Emperor Palpatine. After killing off the new evil overlord Snoke in Last Jedi, they had to come up with a new new bad guy and so they resurrected the bad guy from the first trilogy.  First of all, really creative move there.  Secondly, Palpatine had been vaporized in the Death Star’s nuclear core, but now he’s alive again; so, he got better?  It’s not like he was wounded and crawled away, like the killer in a horror movie, he was VAPORIZED.  No one comes back from that.  Third, him still being alive makes all the joy the characters felt at the end of Return of the Jedi to be false—they really hadn’t killed Palpatine, so there was no reason to have a party and hand out medals to everybody except Chewbaca.

Also, I swear Palpatine’s taunts to Rey saying, “Go on, strike me down, save your friends . . .” were pretty much identical to the taunts he threw at Luke in return of the Jedi.  I have trouble remembering them because I have seen the Family Guy parody of the original trilogy too many times, and their portrayal of Palpatine being a total jerk was the best thing in the series.

One of the reasons I preferred Last Jedi was that I felt writer/director Rian Johnson did a better job bringing out the personalities of the characters and not making them chess pieces being moved around a board.  One thing the sequel trilogy completely missed was the emotional story at the center of the original trilogy, the love story of Han and Leia.  The original movies somehow overcame George Lucas’ inability to write good dialog (it is part of Star Wars folklore that Han Solo’s response of “I know,” to Leia’s profession of love was ad libbed by Harrison Ford) and created a love story around all the techno babble. 

In Rise of Skywalker, everyone is too busy running around to fall in love.  It is established early in Force Awakens that Finn finds Rey attractive, enough to lie about being in the resistance, and she seems to feel similarly about him.  But at the end of Rise of Skywalker she is back on Tattooine, moving into Luke’s old farmhouse (I hope she was able to get the Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru stains off the porch), apparently alone.  Does she end up with Finn?  With Poe?  There characters are so busy moving around the chessboard there is no room for emotional attachments to form. 

The biggest flaw in Rise of Skywalker is that it ends exactly where Return of the Jedi ends, with the bad guys beaten and everyone celebrating (it is supposed to be a big deal that two women are shown kissing during the celebration, but humans are also kissing giant slug-like creatures, so it is hardly a banner day for the LGBTQ).  At least Chewy gets a medal this time.  The ending of the nine-episode series needed bigger stakes, it needed to build to something that felt inevitable since the original movie.  The original trilogy felt all of one piece, while the sequel trilogy movies all felt like they were cobbled together independently, which they were.

I recall being disappointed when I saw Force Awakens and found out that after the events of Return of the Jedi the bad guys were STILL in control and the good guys were scattered do-gooders.  Why was the Dark Side so resilient?  The Rise of Skywalker should have ended with the Dark Side permanently defeated, no more talk about “balance” in The Force, just a perpetual happy ever after.  That would have felt like a bigger win than the victory at the end of Return of the Jedi (which wasn’t a victory at all as Palpatine survived to threaten the galaxy again).

The Marvel Cinematic Universe wrapped up its 22-movie series with the cataclysmic Avengers: Endgame, which threw the kitchen sink and a few other household appliances into its resolution.  The Star Wars Saga should have ended its nine-film run with something . . . well not quite as big, but perhaps relatively proportional.  The stakes at the end of The Rise of Skywalker are exactly as big as the stakes at the end of Return of the Jedi.  Jedi was the end of the first trilogy; the ending of the 10-film series should have been much bigger.

Of course, such an ending would have made creating additional Star Wars movies difficult.  Technically, the sequel trilogy films are well-made, the acting is great (actors Daisy Ridley and John Boyega should have more successful careers than Mark Hamill and Carrie Fischer; Adam Driver already has more Oscar nominations than Harrison Ford), and they are quite entertaining.  But as a resolution to the greatest trilogy of movie trilogies ever made, they are uninteresting and flat.  It is disappointing that with all of the resources at his command, J.J. Abrams decided to set his sights so low and be content to essentially remake the earlier films.

But then this is the guy who turned the second of his Star Trek movies into a remake of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  So, there was a precedent.

Trash cans are the new steroids

Trash cans are the new steroids

The Astros held their long-awaited press conference last week, and if anyone was paying attention (and they were) the fact is that the Astros didn’t actually apologize for anything.

What are the hallmarks of a proper apology?  It must be unconditional; no fair saying you’re sorry “if you were offended.”  You have to describe what you are apologizing for accurately and in detail.  You have to acknowledge the fairness of people being upset over what you did.  And you have to allow the injured party to decide how to proceed on their terms.

The Astros, for the most part, did none of these.  Some of the “apologies” I heard came close, but none were truly unconditional.  They limited the apology to “their fans,” and did not apologize to the LA Dodgers, the NY Yankees, or any of the players they victimized by their sign stealing.  They did not apologize to baseball fans in general.  They did not apologize to the Commissioner, or the ghosts of Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle. 

None went into any detail about what they did.  What I mostly heard were players apologizing not for cheating, but for “the choices I made.”  It wasn’t wrong for you to make a choice; it was wrong that you choose to cheat.  I didn’t hear anyone say what they did was “cheating.”  The closest was possibly owner Jim Crane who said they apologized because they “broke the rules.”  Of course, this immediately followed his assertion that what they did in no way impacted the games that were played, causing someone to ask, “then why are you apologizing?” eliciting Crane’s answer.  He seemed to be saying what they did wasn’t wrong, it was just against some silly rule.  He might as well have said, “We’re apologizing because the Commissioner told us to.”

His assertion that the game wasn’t impacted by their cheating (excuse me, “rule breaking”) is in line with Mark McGuire’s long-time stance that he didn’t gain any advantage by taking steroids. The only time he ever conceded that steroids helped him hit home runs was when Bob Costas pointed out that if steroids helped him heal from injury, then that means he played in games he wouldn’t have been able to but for steroids.  But McGuire always maintained he didn’t hit home run because of steroids, he hit home runs because he worked out like crazy (what he overlooks is that he was bale to work out like crazy because steroids allowed him to recover faster). 

Crane was obviously trying to staunch the cries (mostly from Dodger and Yankee fans) that the Astros should forfeit their 2017 World Series title and 2019 American League pennant.  I’m against revisionist history; everyone will associate the 2017 Astros with cheating and adjust their opinions accordingly but taking away titles doesn’t erase the memories of fans.  Now if the Commissioner were to take away their rings and bonuses, that might be something.  Frankly, after hearing the arrogance of Crane saying the game wasn’t impacted (and then one minute later asserting he had never said that) makes me rethink my position; maybe the only way to get through to people like this is to strip away what they worked (and cheated) for so hard to get.

If the sign stealing didn’t give them a competitive edge, then why did they do it?  Practice?

What struck me listening to various players was that they were clearly all coached by the same PR person, because they all said they “wanted to move forward.”  This reminded me of Mark McGuire testifying at a Congressional hearing on steroids and saying he “wasn’t there to talk about the past.”  Yes, that was why you were there.  Naturally the Astros want to “move forward,” but as someone at ESPN said, that’s not their decision.  The people that you cheated will let you know when it is time to move on.  I’m guessing that will only be after many, many high and tight pitches under your chins and in your ribs.

This is all keeping in the public persona of the Astros since they stopped tanking and started winning.  There have been other rumors about cheating, like Gerrit Cole’s spin rate on his pitches going up significantly, possibly due to a sticky substance.  There was the ugly incident when an assistant GM berated a female reporter about a reliever who had been suspended for domestic abuse, and then the Astros attacked the reporter and denied hat it happened (they eventually fired the assistant GM but not the people who denied her allegations). 

The Astros have not apologized to many of those injured by their cheating.  They have not described how the plan came about and how it was implemented; many still haven’t said, “I’m a cheater.”  They have not acknowledged that the result of their sign stealing was their players had better stats and other teams lost games, maybe in the playoffs.  They have not offered to do any penance at all, which is important given that the Commissioner decided to give blanket immunity to all of those who cheated (seriously, how stupid was that?).  All they want to do is move forward past this, because of course they do.

Given how poorly baseball has handled the worst (non-steroid) cheating scandal since the 1919 Black Sox, and how poorly the NFL handled scandals like the Ray Rice incident (first he is not punished, then was suspended two games, then he is banned for life) and Deflategate (Brady says he is completely innocent after destroying his cell phone, but still gets a 6 game suspension), clearly sports leagues need to hire some criminal prosecutors and defenders to contrive better processes BEFORE they happen.