I caught up with a couple of old friends about a week ago. It was wonderful in so many ways but troubling in others. I won't pour out my whole soul in this post -- I find it difficult to put it back where it belongs and, besides, there will be other posts, I hope -- but the not-so-wonderful parts were variations on my deep desire to connect with others. In the first phone conversation, it was painful to disagree so strongly with someone I love and respect so much. The second conversation was smooth sailing all the way, but I can involuntarily turn anything into a negative and all too frequently do. Our conversation was free and easy and gave me a lot of pleasure. But, as I told him, I'll eventually reframe it as "I've set the bar for 'Chuck's' expectations of me too high," and I'll be afraid to talk to you again ... afraid of disappointing you, afraid of disappointing me.
Suicide's nothing to joke about but one of my best friends from high school and I were only half-joking -- well, at least I was only half-joking, which means together we were at least one-quarter serious -- when, debriefing after a double-date that couldn't have gone better, we said, "We can't top that! We should just kill ourselves right now!" I react to joy that way a lot. I don't mean with suicidal ideation -- that's ten other posts, and it's not usually associated with positive experiences -- but with fear, fear that I've raised expectations too high and it's all downhill from here, fear that I'll see in someone's eyes, or hear in someone's voice, or even sense in someone's body language, "Where's that Other Guy who was so fun to be with?" I got heaps of praise from my father, as well as my mother, but my dad's way of telling me I'd screwed up was, "I'm disappointed in you."
In retrospect, I wish he'd said, "No watching baseball for a week, son." Now that would have been a serious punishment for me back then -- it still would be now! -- but instead of worrying that I wasn't good enough for him, I would have worried about not missing another week of baseball. I'm not a father, I'm no expert in childhood development, and my parents did a whole lot of things right. And the things they did wrong almost always came with good intentions. But kids should be worrying about whether they'll miss their favorite show or get grounded, not whether their parents will love them if they don't do what's expected of them.
Back to catching up with my buddies: I sang in an a capella group with them in college and, the day after the conversation with the second, who was the leader of the group in many ways, I was feeling so light that I sang to my wife. It probably wasn't the first time since our wedding day -- when the three group members who were able to attend joined me in serenading her -- but I'm sorry to say that it's a rarity. When I was singing almost every day back in college, I noticed a strange thing: I was in better voice after I cried or laughed. My theory is that the relaxation that follows a good cry, or a good laugh, includes a literal relaxation of the vocal chords. (A big part of singing well is just "getting out of the way" of the instrument that is your body, not to sound too precious.)
Then again, I sing bass and also find -- even if you never sing but just talk over breakfast, you may have noticed the same thing -- that I often wake up in the morning with a more resonant voice and an ability to hit lower notes. Forget about "Then again": maybe that's a second example of how relaxation -- is one ever more relaxed than after a good night's sleep? -- I know what you're thinking but let's keep this clean, people -- improves one's singing. Anyway, I didn't do much crying in my conversation with Chuck, but I laughed a lot in both talks, and damn it if my voice wasn't better!
I sang a few bars from the only solo I sang in that college singing group -- garnered when a morning audition helped my bass voice hit the low notes! -- and then followed that up with some attempts at singing first tenor (the highest voice part in an all-male group), hitting high notes I didn't think I could reach anymore. I was so tickled by the whole experience that I fantasized about calling Chuck the next day and "auditioning" for the part of first tenor. It was all silly and just-for-fun, but that was the beauty of it. I was proud of the way my voice sounded, I was unafraid of calling my old buddy again (even at the risk of making a damn fool of myself), and I was feeling free and easy.
It was less than 24 hours later that the thought of doing what I just described seemed an impossibility and the memory a hazy dream. Not only was I not able to hit those high notes, I was no longer that same guy who had the confidence, serenity, and sheer zest for life to goof around like that. Where did that other guy go? I can lose myself so thoroughly that the above is nothing. When I'm truly lost I don't have words for the experience, so I certainly wouldn't be writing something like this. I probably wouldn't be writing at all, and every syllable out of my mouth would be accompanied by pain. I'm hearing the warning bells go off -- you see, in my mind, I just came close to saying that I was safe from "losing myself so thoroughly," and that's tantamount to placing a curse on myself -- so I feel the need to tread lightly. I'm not superstitious in my head but I can be in my gut, and I do think there is something real about self-fulfilling prophecies.
I have a particularly skeptical mind, but my body is as suggestible as they come. I can't watch a person with a facial or vocal tic -- hell, I can't think about it -- without following suit. Most people find it incredibly difficult to heed the absurd admonition, "Don't think about purple elephants!"; I usually find it difficult to filter out just about anything. So perhaps I should say that, intellectually, I have a skeptical mind but, viscerally, all bets are off. Just talking about how I'm in a good place -- or at least not a dark place -- can lead me where I don't want to go. I've wondered for decades why I am like that and how much control I have, or could have, over that awful cascade. For now, I'll just say that I've witnessed the pattern, and it scares the hell out of me. As for the general subject of superstition, I like what ballplayer-turned-announcer Mark Grace had to say: "I'm not superstitious. It's bad luck!"
My wife suggested several days ago that I write about catching up with my old friends. I'm contrarian enough that I knew I'd at least resist the suggestion, though it's been marinating in my head ever since. I thought this would be a jumping-off point for talking about other things -- the logical implications of disagreeing so strongly with someone whose judgment you respect at least as emphatically, the difficulty of convincing someone on the other side of the political spectrum to see it your way, the loneliness of moving from liberalism toward conservatism and having so few friends and acquaintances join you on the journey -- and noticing what you hadn't noticed when you were a liberal, that conservatives are so frequently maligned, and often by people you have great admiration for -- but those topics will have to wait for another day, if I ever decide to take them on. It turns out the introduction to this little essay was the essay.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Media Bias & Taheri's Charges Against Obama
Honest to God, I was about to compliment the New York Times for playing it straight and calling out the Democrats and Senator Obama for their shameful politicization of the anti-Ahmadinejad rally. (See my September 18 post, "Partisan?") But then I noticed that the text I was reading, via Power Line blog, came from the New York Post, not the Times!
Yesterday's post made a passing reference to "Amir Taheri's underreported claim that Obama has conducted inappropriate — and illegal — negotiations with Iraqi leaders." One of my countless loyal readers asked me to provide documentation for the story, and I responded in a comment. But the subject is important enough, and my comment was certainly long enough, to merit its own separate post. Here is that comment, with some modifications:
Taheri's original op-ed appeared in the New York Post — there's that newspaper again — on September 15. (The link is to an updated version from the following day.) You'll notice that Taheri names his source and that the source is a prominent Iraqi, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. On September 19, Taheri had more to say.
Senator Obama's own words from his June 16, 2008 NBC interview are consistent with Taheri's, and Zebari's, claims: "Obama said that he had told Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari that 'the Congress should be involved in any negotiations regarding the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq' and 'suggested it may be better to wait until the next administration to negotiate such an agreement.'"
Even the Obama campaign's response to the initial op-ed supports Taheri's contentions, if inadvertently: "Senator Obama has consistently said that any security arrangements that outlast this administration should have the backing of the US Congress — especially given the fact that the Iraqi parliament will have the opportunity to vote on it." (emphasis added)
Taheri's piece for National Review Online demonstrates how well-accepted the "golden rule of American politics" of not "trying to second-guess the present administration in its negotiations with [foreign countries]" is. Taheri recounts learning about this unwritten rule decades ago from such disparate politicians as Senator Edward Kennedy and President Ronald Reagan (before he was president). He includes a recent example, too, from a meeting with Senator Hillary Clinton.
Taheri calls it a golden rule and I referred to as an unwritten rule, but it's actually federal law. The Logan Act "forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments." Apparently, there has only been one indictment under the Logan Act, but that's in large part because such indictments have not been sought. I think that's wise: in all but the most egregious cases, it is better to "prosecute" potential violations of the Logan Act in the political arena rather than in the criminal. I certainly don't know enough to "pronounce Obama guilty," but the accusations are serious and have yet to be rebutted.
Is Taheri's source reliable? Is the purported NBC quotation legitimate? Is the campaign's statement accurate and placed in proper context? It's hard for the average citizen to know, since Taheri's reportage has essentially been ignored. Why has this important story received such scant attention from the media?
Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan was accused of conspiring with the Iranians to delay the release of the hostages until after the 1980 elections. "After twelve years of news reports looking into the alleged conspiracy, both houses of the US Congress held separate inquiries into the issue, and journalists from sources such as Newsweek and The New Republic looked into the charges. Both Congressional inquires, as well as the majority of investigative reports, found that the charges were groundless." There was a Playboy Magazine article in October 1988 about the subject entitled "An election held hostage." There was a multi-page New York Times op-ed still alleging Reagan's guilt in April 1991 called "The Election Story of the Decade."
President Reagan was exonerated, but the accusations were considered serious enough for journalists and Congressional committees to examine them for over a decade! Don't Amir Taheri's charges, which quote the Iraqi Foreign Minister and are consistent with statements from Senator Obama and his campaign, deserve some consideration?
One can offer up plenty of anecdotal evidence for media bias against Republicans and conservatives, yet it's probably impossible to prove because of its subjective quality. But is it really so hard for fair-minded people of all political stripes to see a double standard at play here?
I'm all ears.
UPDATE (9/21/08, 6:18 am): I said above that "I certainly don't know enough to 'pronounce Obama guilty,' but the accusations are serious and have yet to be rebutted." The first clause still stands, but I erred in not noticing that an attempt to rebut the accusations had already been made. However, I find Jake Tapper's piece overwrought and not entirely convincing. The tone is more that of a political operative than a detached fact-checker.
The Obama campaign says that Taheri's report was marked by "outright distortions." Tapper adds that the other "[a]ttendees of the meeting back Obama's account" and seems to think it's significant that Republican senator Chuck Hagel is part of that group. But Hagel is known in Republican circles as a RINO (Republican in Name Only — not to worry, there's an epithet for the other side: a DINO is a Democrat in Name Only). In addition, Hagel was right by Obama's side for his tour of foreign countries, he clearly seems to be supporting him in the election — "Chuck Hagel is quickly becoming Barack Obama's answer to Joe Lieberman" is the way political reporter Sam Stein put it — and he may even be angling for a cabinet position.
That doesn't mean Hagel isn't telling the truth, but if Tapper actually believes the "R" that comes after Hagel's name adds credibility to his vouching for Obama's account, then one has to question Tapper's credibility as a political observer. The only sources Tapper actually quotes are spokesmen for Hagel and Obama. (Aside: I know the genders of nouns can be controversial, but if you're going to refer to Mike Buttry as a Hagel spokesman, then don't refer to Wendy Morigi as an Obama spokesperson.)
The assertion by Obama advisers that it's possible "that either Zebari or Taheri confused the Strategic Framework Agreement — which Obama feels should be reviewed by Congress — with the Status of Forces Agreement, which Obama says the Bush administration should negotiate with the Iraqis as soon as possible" is interesting. I am not familiar enough with the terminology to know if the advisers are using fancy jargon to obfuscate, but the usually dependable Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit) said that he did not see "a lot of daylight between what Taheri said and the Obama campaign's response."
Moreover, if the quote from the NBC interview is accurate, then Obama himself referred to the Status of Forces Agreement, not the Strategic Framework Agreement. A tape or transcript of that interview would be very helpful.
On the other hand, the Instapundit — and the following speaks to the fairness with which Professor Reynolds approaches stories — updated his post to include a link to the Jake Tapper piece that is the basis for this update and adds that "[d]espite the weakness of Obama's denial, Republicans and Bush Administration officials are casting serious doubt on the story." I'm unimpressed by unnamed sources — and there are plenty of career diplomats whose agendas differ from those of the administrations they serve — but perhaps Taheri did get the story wrong.
What I find troubling is that Tapper goes into high dudgeon with "[w]hat actually demands an explanation is why the McCain campaign was so willing to give credence to such a questionable story with such tremendous international implications" when the very McCain adviser he quotes as "expressing outrage" (Randy Scheuneman) uses qualifiers such as "reportedly" and "If news reports are accurate." And I don't find anything untoward about the Scheuneman statement that touched off Tapper's diatribe: "The charge that he sought to delay the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq raises serious questions about Sen. Obama's judgment, and it demands an explanation." Read the words of the "detached reporter" and compare them to the McCain adviser's, and decide for yourself who is more inflammatory and unwilling to consider the other point of view. I'm not saying that Tapper is an Obama partisan, but he's acting like one here.
Perhaps the Obama campaign has provided the explanation that McCain's adviser says the situation demanded. I'm unsure, especially since the relevant sources are unnamed and the terminology is confusing. If the quote from the NBC interview is accurate, then the explanation given by Obama's advisers is clearly false. In any case, this remains a legitimate avenue for investigation, and the tone taken by Tapper's piece serves only to stifle such investigation.
Yesterday's post made a passing reference to "Amir Taheri's underreported claim that Obama has conducted inappropriate — and illegal — negotiations with Iraqi leaders." One of my countless loyal readers asked me to provide documentation for the story, and I responded in a comment. But the subject is important enough, and my comment was certainly long enough, to merit its own separate post. Here is that comment, with some modifications:
Taheri's original op-ed appeared in the New York Post — there's that newspaper again — on September 15. (The link is to an updated version from the following day.) You'll notice that Taheri names his source and that the source is a prominent Iraqi, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. On September 19, Taheri had more to say.
Senator Obama's own words from his June 16, 2008 NBC interview are consistent with Taheri's, and Zebari's, claims: "Obama said that he had told Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari that 'the Congress should be involved in any negotiations regarding the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq' and 'suggested it may be better to wait until the next administration to negotiate such an agreement.'"
Even the Obama campaign's response to the initial op-ed supports Taheri's contentions, if inadvertently: "Senator Obama has consistently said that any security arrangements that outlast this administration should have the backing of the US Congress — especially given the fact that the Iraqi parliament will have the opportunity to vote on it." (emphasis added)
Taheri's piece for National Review Online demonstrates how well-accepted the "golden rule of American politics" of not "trying to second-guess the present administration in its negotiations with [foreign countries]" is. Taheri recounts learning about this unwritten rule decades ago from such disparate politicians as Senator Edward Kennedy and President Ronald Reagan (before he was president). He includes a recent example, too, from a meeting with Senator Hillary Clinton.
Taheri calls it a golden rule and I referred to as an unwritten rule, but it's actually federal law. The Logan Act "forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments." Apparently, there has only been one indictment under the Logan Act, but that's in large part because such indictments have not been sought. I think that's wise: in all but the most egregious cases, it is better to "prosecute" potential violations of the Logan Act in the political arena rather than in the criminal. I certainly don't know enough to "pronounce Obama guilty," but the accusations are serious and have yet to be rebutted.
Is Taheri's source reliable? Is the purported NBC quotation legitimate? Is the campaign's statement accurate and placed in proper context? It's hard for the average citizen to know, since Taheri's reportage has essentially been ignored. Why has this important story received such scant attention from the media?
Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan was accused of conspiring with the Iranians to delay the release of the hostages until after the 1980 elections. "After twelve years of news reports looking into the alleged conspiracy, both houses of the US Congress held separate inquiries into the issue, and journalists from sources such as Newsweek and The New Republic looked into the charges. Both Congressional inquires, as well as the majority of investigative reports, found that the charges were groundless." There was a Playboy Magazine article in October 1988 about the subject entitled "An election held hostage." There was a multi-page New York Times op-ed still alleging Reagan's guilt in April 1991 called "The Election Story of the Decade."
President Reagan was exonerated, but the accusations were considered serious enough for journalists and Congressional committees to examine them for over a decade! Don't Amir Taheri's charges, which quote the Iraqi Foreign Minister and are consistent with statements from Senator Obama and his campaign, deserve some consideration?
One can offer up plenty of anecdotal evidence for media bias against Republicans and conservatives, yet it's probably impossible to prove because of its subjective quality. But is it really so hard for fair-minded people of all political stripes to see a double standard at play here?
I'm all ears.
UPDATE (9/21/08, 6:18 am): I said above that "I certainly don't know enough to 'pronounce Obama guilty,' but the accusations are serious and have yet to be rebutted." The first clause still stands, but I erred in not noticing that an attempt to rebut the accusations had already been made. However, I find Jake Tapper's piece overwrought and not entirely convincing. The tone is more that of a political operative than a detached fact-checker.
The Obama campaign says that Taheri's report was marked by "outright distortions." Tapper adds that the other "[a]ttendees of the meeting back Obama's account" and seems to think it's significant that Republican senator Chuck Hagel is part of that group. But Hagel is known in Republican circles as a RINO (Republican in Name Only — not to worry, there's an epithet for the other side: a DINO is a Democrat in Name Only). In addition, Hagel was right by Obama's side for his tour of foreign countries, he clearly seems to be supporting him in the election — "Chuck Hagel is quickly becoming Barack Obama's answer to Joe Lieberman" is the way political reporter Sam Stein put it — and he may even be angling for a cabinet position.
That doesn't mean Hagel isn't telling the truth, but if Tapper actually believes the "R" that comes after Hagel's name adds credibility to his vouching for Obama's account, then one has to question Tapper's credibility as a political observer. The only sources Tapper actually quotes are spokesmen for Hagel and Obama. (Aside: I know the genders of nouns can be controversial, but if you're going to refer to Mike Buttry as a Hagel spokesman, then don't refer to Wendy Morigi as an Obama spokesperson.)
The assertion by Obama advisers that it's possible "that either Zebari or Taheri confused the Strategic Framework Agreement — which Obama feels should be reviewed by Congress — with the Status of Forces Agreement, which Obama says the Bush administration should negotiate with the Iraqis as soon as possible" is interesting. I am not familiar enough with the terminology to know if the advisers are using fancy jargon to obfuscate, but the usually dependable Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit) said that he did not see "a lot of daylight between what Taheri said and the Obama campaign's response."
Moreover, if the quote from the NBC interview is accurate, then Obama himself referred to the Status of Forces Agreement, not the Strategic Framework Agreement. A tape or transcript of that interview would be very helpful.
On the other hand, the Instapundit — and the following speaks to the fairness with which Professor Reynolds approaches stories — updated his post to include a link to the Jake Tapper piece that is the basis for this update and adds that "[d]espite the weakness of Obama's denial, Republicans and Bush Administration officials are casting serious doubt on the story." I'm unimpressed by unnamed sources — and there are plenty of career diplomats whose agendas differ from those of the administrations they serve — but perhaps Taheri did get the story wrong.
What I find troubling is that Tapper goes into high dudgeon with "[w]hat actually demands an explanation is why the McCain campaign was so willing to give credence to such a questionable story with such tremendous international implications" when the very McCain adviser he quotes as "expressing outrage" (Randy Scheuneman) uses qualifiers such as "reportedly" and "If news reports are accurate." And I don't find anything untoward about the Scheuneman statement that touched off Tapper's diatribe: "The charge that he sought to delay the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq raises serious questions about Sen. Obama's judgment, and it demands an explanation." Read the words of the "detached reporter" and compare them to the McCain adviser's, and decide for yourself who is more inflammatory and unwilling to consider the other point of view. I'm not saying that Tapper is an Obama partisan, but he's acting like one here.
Perhaps the Obama campaign has provided the explanation that McCain's adviser says the situation demanded. I'm unsure, especially since the relevant sources are unnamed and the terminology is confusing. If the quote from the NBC interview is accurate, then the explanation given by Obama's advisers is clearly false. In any case, this remains a legitimate avenue for investigation, and the tone taken by Tapper's piece serves only to stifle such investigation.
Some Things I'd Like to Post On and Someone Else's Insightful Essay
I wanted to post on Senator Obama's incredibly dishonest Spanish-language ad. I wanted to post on Amir Taheri's underreported claim that Obama has conducted inappropriate -- and illegal -- negotiations with Iraqi leaders, encouraging them to delay agreements with the U.S. until after the election. I wanted to post on the role the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act may have played in our current financial and housing crises.
But I'm feeling weary today and not inclined to do much writing. For now, I'll just link to a piece on mythmaking and reality, written by an author I truly admire. I'll also add his blog, which features long essays that are as inspiring as they are inspired, to the list at the right of this page.
Perhaps I'll blog on those other topics another day. Or perhaps I'll just link to other writers who have already done them justice.
But I'm feeling weary today and not inclined to do much writing. For now, I'll just link to a piece on mythmaking and reality, written by an author I truly admire. I'll also add his blog, which features long essays that are as inspiring as they are inspired, to the list at the right of this page.
Perhaps I'll blog on those other topics another day. Or perhaps I'll just link to other writers who have already done them justice.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Partisan?
It's tough enough to communicate when words are used carelessly or ambiguously. But when a word is used to mean the very opposite of what it actually means, it's almost impossible to communicate.
George Orwell wrote so many quotable things that it's easy to find something of his that supports your point of view, especially when it's removed from context. But I'd hope that we can all agree that this disappointing story (see the update) demonstrates pure Orwellian doublespeak.
Now it's partisan when both sides are invited to attend events? Events on issues that Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and all people of good will should be able to agree?
UPDATE (9/18/08, 6:51 pm): Sarah Palin has been disinvited from this event. How sad and entirely unnecessary. The Democrats who exerted heavy pressure on the organizers of the anti-Ahmadinejad rally (he's speaking at the United Nations) should be ashamed of themselves. I understand the difficult position that the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and its president, Malcolm Hoenlein, were placed in and their desire to keep the focus on protesting Ahmadinejad's being given a platform at the UN. But I'm disappointed that they caved into partisan pressure.
They invited Governor Palin, and Senator Clinton before her, for entirely nonpartisan reasons. It was the Democrats who made a partisan issue of it. If Obama were the post-partisan he claimed to be, he would end this nonsense by publicly encouraging the event organizers to re-invite Palin and follow the advice given by Senator McCain and attend the protest himself, or if he's otherwise engaged, send his vice-presidential running mate in his stead.
George Orwell wrote so many quotable things that it's easy to find something of his that supports your point of view, especially when it's removed from context. But I'd hope that we can all agree that this disappointing story (see the update) demonstrates pure Orwellian doublespeak.
Now it's partisan when both sides are invited to attend events? Events on issues that Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and all people of good will should be able to agree?
UPDATE (9/18/08, 6:51 pm): Sarah Palin has been disinvited from this event. How sad and entirely unnecessary. The Democrats who exerted heavy pressure on the organizers of the anti-Ahmadinejad rally (he's speaking at the United Nations) should be ashamed of themselves. I understand the difficult position that the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and its president, Malcolm Hoenlein, were placed in and their desire to keep the focus on protesting Ahmadinejad's being given a platform at the UN. But I'm disappointed that they caved into partisan pressure.
They invited Governor Palin, and Senator Clinton before her, for entirely nonpartisan reasons. It was the Democrats who made a partisan issue of it. If Obama were the post-partisan he claimed to be, he would end this nonsense by publicly encouraging the event organizers to re-invite Palin and follow the advice given by Senator McCain and attend the protest himself, or if he's otherwise engaged, send his vice-presidential running mate in his stead.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The Unintended Consequences of a Biased Media
If this were an isolated incident then it would be, well, just an isolated incident. How's that for a tautology? I don't feel like making the case for media bias against Republicans and conservatives -- it's obvious to me and obviously non-existent to others -- and it's been made many times before (here's just one small example) -- but I don't think such bias does anyone any good, including Democrats and liberals, even including their candidates.
That latter part is counterintuitive -- and yes, sometimes giving a candidate a free ride helps put him in office -- but in national elections, especially with the growth of talk radio and the Internet, it's often harmful to the Democrats when their eventual nominee isn't challenged enough by the media. The candidate doesn't get the vetting he would have during the primaries, a vetting which might have toughened him up for the rest of the campaign or made the Democrats choose a different nominee.
A lot of Democrats had buyer's remorse in 2004 when they realized they'd chosen a candidate who had some serious skeletons in his closet -- I'll be happy to debate anyone as to whether the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were honorable men or smear merchants -- and if the media had covered that story (the Vets had been telling it for months, and the networks and newspapers were paying it as much mind as they would, four years later, the story of Senator Edwards' lies and infidelity), either Senator Kerry would have been better prepared to respond to it or the Democrats would have nominated another candidate. And that candidate, who could not have been less dynamic than Kerry if he'd tried -- I'm assuming the rules would have prohibited a potentially renominated Vice-President Gore from using slides during the presidential debates -- might very well have won the election.
Senator Obama is an outstanding orator. Sometimes I find his rhetoric lofty but vacuous, while other times I find it substantive and powerful. But he's never been nearly as impressive when speaking extemporaneously, and his stump speeches -- for all his talk of change -- seem to have repeated the same stories, the same one-liners, and the same clichés (even if they're novel the first time, they're bound to become clichés by the hundredth) for months and months.
But the media only spoke of his political dynamism and didn't address this crack in his oratorical armor. Senator McCain made a proposal that was unprecedented in modern presidential history: to engage in dual town meetings, answering unscreened questions from ordinary citizens and without the formality and strictures of a typical presidential debate. Obama rejected the proposal.
Shouldn't the media have been curious as to why the man whose speeches many had compared to the greatest in our nation's history -- the finest of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy -- did not want to field questions side-by-side with his opponent? When it comes to written speeches performed with a teleprompter, McCain is not in the same league as Obama -- I don't think he's even playing the same sport -- but when he's speaking extemporaneously, McCain seems much more comfortable and effective than Obama.
Politically, it was probably a wise decision for Obama to reject McCain's proposal. But it's hard to rationalize the media's decision to virtually ignore that rejection, especially given Obama's claim to offer a new type of politics, one marked by post-partisanship and focused on policy. In the short run, it might have helped him for these paradoxes -- the great speaker who ducks the opportunity to speak side-by-side with the mediocre one, a man who wants the campaign to be about issues but doesn't want audiences hearing him and his opponent expressing their opinions in the same setting -- to have been ignored.
But here we are, less than 50 days before Election Day, and even CNN can't ignore this. Does it help Senator Obama that people are learning now that he's lost without a teleprompter? Does it help the Democrats? People see that Governor Palin, who's been on the national scene for half a month, has been lambasted because her first two speeches were scripted and delivered with a teleprompter and her first several stump speeches repeated a lot of the same notes. Now they see the media, for the first time, noticing that Senator Obama has been doing the very same thing for almost two years. Has the double standard now become impossible for the American public to ignore?
That latter part is counterintuitive -- and yes, sometimes giving a candidate a free ride helps put him in office -- but in national elections, especially with the growth of talk radio and the Internet, it's often harmful to the Democrats when their eventual nominee isn't challenged enough by the media. The candidate doesn't get the vetting he would have during the primaries, a vetting which might have toughened him up for the rest of the campaign or made the Democrats choose a different nominee.
A lot of Democrats had buyer's remorse in 2004 when they realized they'd chosen a candidate who had some serious skeletons in his closet -- I'll be happy to debate anyone as to whether the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were honorable men or smear merchants -- and if the media had covered that story (the Vets had been telling it for months, and the networks and newspapers were paying it as much mind as they would, four years later, the story of Senator Edwards' lies and infidelity), either Senator Kerry would have been better prepared to respond to it or the Democrats would have nominated another candidate. And that candidate, who could not have been less dynamic than Kerry if he'd tried -- I'm assuming the rules would have prohibited a potentially renominated Vice-President Gore from using slides during the presidential debates -- might very well have won the election.
Senator Obama is an outstanding orator. Sometimes I find his rhetoric lofty but vacuous, while other times I find it substantive and powerful. But he's never been nearly as impressive when speaking extemporaneously, and his stump speeches -- for all his talk of change -- seem to have repeated the same stories, the same one-liners, and the same clichés (even if they're novel the first time, they're bound to become clichés by the hundredth) for months and months.
But the media only spoke of his political dynamism and didn't address this crack in his oratorical armor. Senator McCain made a proposal that was unprecedented in modern presidential history: to engage in dual town meetings, answering unscreened questions from ordinary citizens and without the formality and strictures of a typical presidential debate. Obama rejected the proposal.
Shouldn't the media have been curious as to why the man whose speeches many had compared to the greatest in our nation's history -- the finest of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy -- did not want to field questions side-by-side with his opponent? When it comes to written speeches performed with a teleprompter, McCain is not in the same league as Obama -- I don't think he's even playing the same sport -- but when he's speaking extemporaneously, McCain seems much more comfortable and effective than Obama.
Politically, it was probably a wise decision for Obama to reject McCain's proposal. But it's hard to rationalize the media's decision to virtually ignore that rejection, especially given Obama's claim to offer a new type of politics, one marked by post-partisanship and focused on policy. In the short run, it might have helped him for these paradoxes -- the great speaker who ducks the opportunity to speak side-by-side with the mediocre one, a man who wants the campaign to be about issues but doesn't want audiences hearing him and his opponent expressing their opinions in the same setting -- to have been ignored.
But here we are, less than 50 days before Election Day, and even CNN can't ignore this. Does it help Senator Obama that people are learning now that he's lost without a teleprompter? Does it help the Democrats? People see that Governor Palin, who's been on the national scene for half a month, has been lambasted because her first two speeches were scripted and delivered with a teleprompter and her first several stump speeches repeated a lot of the same notes. Now they see the media, for the first time, noticing that Senator Obama has been doing the very same thing for almost two years. Has the double standard now become impossible for the American public to ignore?
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The Next Pitch
When a guy has played 23 seasons and started 737 games, it's hard to say that his next start is the most important of his career. Then again, Greg Maddux would always say that his next start is his most important one, just as he'd say that his next pitch is his most important. And he'd mean it.
He's won 354 games, tied for both eighth highest in baseball history and the highest total of his generation. (He is only nine wins shy of 363, the highest win-total since WWII, the highest win-total since Jackie Robinson and the courageous African-American ballplayers that followed him broke the color barrier.) Greg -- we're not on a first-name basis, but I'm hoping he won't mind -- has won four Cy Young Awards. He's won seventeen Gold Gloves, the most of any ballplayer, not just any pitcher. He's competed in twelve post-seasons and won a World Series. He won at least fifteen wins for seventeen consecutive seasons, breaking the record previously held by ... Cy Young.
Many of us think Greg Maddux is the greatest pitcher of his generation. Some of us thought so well before credible allegations were made that Roger Clemens had used steroids to enhance his performance.
I'll say more about Maddux's character later, but here's a taste: When he won number 354, tying Clemens, Mad Dog was asked to compare himself to the Rocket. He praised him to the hilt, adding that "everybody knows" it's harder to pitch in the American League -- where Clemens spent most of his career -- than in the National. When asked, in a recent Internet chat with fans, whether he thought Clemens had cheated, his answer was an unequivocal "No."
I was a die-hard Cubs' fan until the Cubs made the preposterous decision to not aggressively pursue Maddux after his 1992 season and let him sign with the Braves. He never wanted to leave Chicago and the Cubs, even though he wasn't pitching for a winning club. All he did was follow up his 1992 Cy Young Award with ones in 1993, 1994, and 1995.
He was not just the first to win four in a row; he was the first to win three consecutively. Randy Johnson later repeated the feat (1999-2002), and the 6'10" left-hander believes Maddux is the best he's seen. Part of what makes Maddux so special is that he's never been a dominant hurler that could overpower hitters with a 98 mph fastball, like Clemens or Johnson. At his best, maybe he topped out in the low-90s, and for some time his fastball has been in the mid-80s, perhaps the lowest speed in the league (though former teammate, and fellow aging veteran, Jamie Moyer might hold that crown).
Baseball people use the word velocity to mean the speed of a pitcher's pitches. It's an unfortunate misnomer, especially in Maddux's case, since velocity includes both speed and direction. Though his pitches didn't have much speech on them even when he was racking up Cy Young awards, they've always had great movement and location. With the possible exception of Satchel Paige, there has been no pitcher in baseball history as capable of making the ball go exactly where he wants it to.
A recent story in ESPN The Magazine related the time, just last season, that a reluctant Maddux pitched to the Padres' bullpen catcher (Ben Risinger) ... while Risinger had his eyes closed. (Bullpen coach Darrel Akerfelds yelled "Now!" to tell him when to squeeze his mitt.) The first glanced off the top of the catcher's mitt. ("That's enough," Maddux said, walking away.) "One more," Risinger insisted. The second hit him "square in the pocket," but either Akerfelds or Risinger was too slow, and the ball didn't stick. (Another "That's enough" and another "One more," this one with a "Please?" that reads like a little kid asking if can stay up for just a little longer?) The third time was the charm. Akerfelds and Risinger broke out into uncontrollable laughter, while Maddux "looked on with a wry smile, shaking his head."
It's hard for me to explain the things, beyond the unbelievable statistics, that make Greg Maddux such a special ballplayer, such a special person, really. Athletes call them "intangibles," and Maddux leads the world in them. You'd never hear him tell the story that I just retold from the ESPN article. You'd never hear him talk about the coaching he's given teammates -- even former teammates -- even a non-teammate whom Jamie Moyer asked him to help after Moyer beat him 1-0 -- an opponent whom Maddux had the ridiculously bad luck of facing just one week later, just three weeks ago, after being traded to the Dodgers. Greg's advice was too good: his mound opponent, who'd been in a tailspin, threw a dominating game, and Maddux's second debut with the Dodgers -- in his first debut, in the last two months of the 2006 season, his 6-3 record and 3.30 ERA helped propel them to the playoffs -- ended in a loss.
I've watched almost every pitch he's thrown in his 23 seasons and 737 starts, and I have yet to see him betray even a momentary wince when a player behind him messes up. I've read just about every word he's said publicly and yet in none of those words has he called out -- criticized -- a teammate or put the onus for a loss on anyone but himself. Believe me, there were many times he would have been richly justified in doing so, but that's just not the way he rolls. I use that casual expression because that's the way Greg comes across. It never seems like he's just saying the polite thing -- or saying the right thing but with an invisible wink. He means it.
The irony is that Maddux, who is as calm as can be after every start -- win, loss, or no decision -- leads the league in a category I haven't mentioned yet: swear words. Some rookie umpires misinterpret the one-word vulgarities that jump out of Maddux's mouth after bad pitches as criticisms of bad calls. But those %$#^s are directed at one person, and one person only, himself. The comedy is that he'll yell at himself even when the result of the pitch is a success: an out, a strike, etc. Perhaps the only trait I can say I share with my idol is that neither of us is a consequentialist.
All he concerns himself with is how well he executes the pitch (and plays the field, and swings the bat). The results are, literally, out of his hands. And as soon as the swear word is out of his mouth, so is the frustration out of his brain. His focus is on to the next pitch, the most important pitch. You'd be tempted to say he has a Zen-Buddhist philosophy in which his attention is on the labor, not the "fruits of the labor." But that's hard to square with the guy who once showed up extra-early to the Braves' clubhouse with breakfast sandwiches for everyone ... and then watched teammate after teammate react with confusion, which morphed into a roomful of laughter, when they realized that he'd taken a bite out of every single one. Then again, I've heard tales of Zen masters who spent a whole lot of time laughing, so maybe that does describe him.
Just don't tell him I said so. He's the most modest, most unassuming superstar that's ever played the game, any game.
So why did I say Maddux's next start might be his most important ever? Mostly because I'm a lot more selfish than he is. The Dodgers have just fourteen regular-season games left and lead the NL West by 4.5 games. I watched the Padres go down in flames the last few days last season (and the Cubs do the same the last couple weeks three seasons before) -- in case I didn't make myself clear, I've been a "freelance Maddux fan" since 1993: wherever he goes, I go -- so, believe me, I'm not taking it for granted that the Dodgers will reach the post-season. But, given that they've won twelve of thirteen while the Diamondbacks have collapsed -- moving, unbelievably, from 4.5 games behind Arizona to 4.5 ahead in just two weeks -- today's game is not a "must win" for the team.
Being so team-oriented and unselfish, that's the only kind of result Maddux really cares about in baseball, a team win. He's so focused that he never looks ahead, not even a pitch ahead ... except if it's to set up a batter, but that's a whole 'nother post. So, unlike me, I don't think Maddux has looked ahead to the post-season or given any thought to the question that's been worrying me lately: will the Dodgers make the playoffs but leave Greg out of the pitching rotation?
Pitching staffs have used five-man rotations for decades, but in the post-season, the rotation usually consists of four, or even three, pitchers. If the Dodgers make the playoffs, barring unforeseen injury the first two spots are set: Derek Lowe and Chad Billingsley. But the third and fourth -- if there is one -- are up for grabs. Clayton Kershaw, the rookie who's as young as Maddux was when he reached the major leagues -- in 1986 -- has been inconsistent but shown streaks of brilliance, including in Saturday's six-inning, one-run win. One could describe Hiroki Kuroda, also technically a rookie but a former star in Japan, in much the same words. And then there's the wild-card, Brad Penny, who's only recently returned from the disabled list (and pitched just once, retiring none of the three batters he faced), but who's been a dominant pitcher in the past and just might steal away that third or fourth spot.
The third and fourth, if it isn't a sweep, games of the Division Series I hope the Dodgers will play in would be played at home, at Dodger Stadium. Kershaw, Kuroda, and Maddux have all performed brilliantly at home this season. Maddux's home ERA is the lowest of the three (2.65, compared to Kershaw's 3.27 and Kuroda's 3.54), but he also had a different home for most of the season and, particularly for a 42-year-old, "What have you done for me lately?" is the question on every one's lips.
I wrote earlier how I thought Dodgers' manager Joe Torre had misused Maddux in two of his four starts, setting him up for failure, but the fact is that Maddux's record with the Dodgers is 1-3. His first start (and loss) began propitiously but ended disastrously. His second start, also a loss, in which he allowed only two earned runs, was marred by awful defense, most of it Jeff Kent's, who finally admitted two days later that he'd been playing injured. He was placed on the disabled list and underwent minor knee-surgery.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Kent's last game was the eighth of an eight-game losing streak and that the team has won twelve of thirteen since. That's another thing that makes Maddux a special player: while Kent probably thought he was being manly for playing through the pain and maybe even convinced himself he was helping the Dodgers, the truth is he was hurting his team as much as his knee. Maddux, on the other hand, always tells his manager when he's "done," when he thinks the team would be better off with him off the field and a "fresh arm," as Chuck Tanner used to refer to relief pitchers, on the mound.
But a loss is a loss, and Maddux was 0-2 after his two first starts with the 2008 Dodgers. He won the next game, a home game, 5-2, but he lost the one after that. The team had just swept the Diamondbacks to capture sole possession of first place for the first time since the first week of the season(!), and Torre was concerned enough that the players might suffer a letdown that he called a team meeting before the game. He had reason to be concerned. The offense didn't score a run against the last-place Padres and the team looked flat -- that's what Torre said: Maddux blamed the loss on himself for giving up two first-inning runs -- but again, even though Maddux allowed a respectable four runs in six innings, a loss is a loss.
Maddux has pitched only one of his four games since joining the Dodgers at home, and he won it. Two of his three other starts have been fine, but fine isn't always good enough when managers are deciding whom to start in critical post-season games. Today's start is on the road, at challenging Coors Field, while his final two regular-season starts should come at home. I know Joe Torre has great regard for Maddux, but he's only managed him for a few weeks, and the final two weeks of the season will essentially be an audition for the third and fourth spots in the post-season rotation, assuming the Dodgers get there.
Kuroda and Kershaw both pitched very well, though not dominantly, in their last starts. Penny is waiting in the wings, champing at the bit for a chance to get back into the rotation.
I think Torre can be convinced -- even wants to be convinced -- that Maddux's veteran presence is just what the Dodgers need in Game 3 of the Division Series. But Maddux will have to convince him.
A solid performance in today's game against the Rockies, ideally a win in which he pitches at least six innings, would go a long way toward persuading Torre. Is today's start the most important of Maddux's 23-year career? "Of course," he would say, but only because every next start -- every next pitch -- is the most important to him. I think it also might be the most important start for getting him a spot in that post-season rotation.
He can't secure it today -- he'll need to pitch well in those final two starts, those final home starts -- but he could lose it. Colorado is the toughest team he'll face in his last three starts of the regular season, and his mound opponent, Aaron Cook, is no slouch.
I've used the word "final" a few times, and I felt a lump in my throat each time I wrote it. It's possible that these next three starts will be the final three of Maddux's season, if either the Dodgers suffer a collapse in the next two weeks or he doesn't earn a spot in the post-season rotation. It's also possible that these next three starts will be the, gulp, final three of Maddux's career, since he said during spring training, with little fanfare, that he might retire at the end of the season.
But it's way too soon to think about that. It's way too soon to think about the post-season rotation. And it's way too soon to think about the second and third games Maddux will pitch in these next two weeks. I'll do my best to follow my idol's cue and just concentrate on today's game, on the first batter of today's game, on the first pitch.
UPDATE (9/14, 4:27 pm): That may be the best seven innings I've seen from Maddux in years: 0 runs, 2 hits, 3 strikeouts, 0 walks, 68 pitches ... at hitter-friendly Coors Field. You can't get a W if your team doesn't score, though. Kudos to Aaron Cook for pitching out of trouble and throwing a great game himself. I'll be curious to find out whether they removed Maddux purely for offensive purposes with two outs in the top of the 8th. (The pinch hitter singled, Juan Pierre singled, and there was a small window for Greg to be the pitcher of record with a lead -- but it closed quickly when Matt Kemp grounded out to end the inning.)
Maddux's record is still 1-3 with the Dodgers, but there's no way Torre wasn't impressed with what he saw today. It's frankly the best start I've seen from a Dodgers' starter not named Derek Lowe since Maddux joined the club, and it was arguably just as good as Lowe's best -- especially since it came at Coors Field, where routine fly balls have a tendency to turn into home runs. He kept the ball down consistently, hit his spots consistently, fielded his position beautifully, and wriggled out of the one threat the Rockies were able to muster. After nearly gloving Clint Barmes' grounder -- and then tracking down the deflection and nearly throwing out Barmes at first -- he was faced with a runner at second with no outs after Barmes stole the base. Up against the heart of the order, he got both Matt Holliday and Brad Hawpe to pop up and then retired Garrett Atkins on a ground out. Vintage Maddux.
The game goes to the bottom of the 9th with the score 0-0. This doesn't happen at Coors Field! Let's hope the Dodgers can manage to make this an extra-inning game, and then I'll let you know how many games at Coors Field have gone to the 10th with the game tied at zero. It can't be many.
I got the answer. This is the first game ever to reach extra innings at Coors Field with no runs having been scored. Unbelievable!
He's won 354 games, tied for both eighth highest in baseball history and the highest total of his generation. (He is only nine wins shy of 363, the highest win-total since WWII, the highest win-total since Jackie Robinson and the courageous African-American ballplayers that followed him broke the color barrier.) Greg -- we're not on a first-name basis, but I'm hoping he won't mind -- has won four Cy Young Awards. He's won seventeen Gold Gloves, the most of any ballplayer, not just any pitcher. He's competed in twelve post-seasons and won a World Series. He won at least fifteen wins for seventeen consecutive seasons, breaking the record previously held by ... Cy Young.
Many of us think Greg Maddux is the greatest pitcher of his generation. Some of us thought so well before credible allegations were made that Roger Clemens had used steroids to enhance his performance.
I'll say more about Maddux's character later, but here's a taste: When he won number 354, tying Clemens, Mad Dog was asked to compare himself to the Rocket. He praised him to the hilt, adding that "everybody knows" it's harder to pitch in the American League -- where Clemens spent most of his career -- than in the National. When asked, in a recent Internet chat with fans, whether he thought Clemens had cheated, his answer was an unequivocal "No."
I was a die-hard Cubs' fan until the Cubs made the preposterous decision to not aggressively pursue Maddux after his 1992 season and let him sign with the Braves. He never wanted to leave Chicago and the Cubs, even though he wasn't pitching for a winning club. All he did was follow up his 1992 Cy Young Award with ones in 1993, 1994, and 1995.
He was not just the first to win four in a row; he was the first to win three consecutively. Randy Johnson later repeated the feat (1999-2002), and the 6'10" left-hander believes Maddux is the best he's seen. Part of what makes Maddux so special is that he's never been a dominant hurler that could overpower hitters with a 98 mph fastball, like Clemens or Johnson. At his best, maybe he topped out in the low-90s, and for some time his fastball has been in the mid-80s, perhaps the lowest speed in the league (though former teammate, and fellow aging veteran, Jamie Moyer might hold that crown).
Baseball people use the word velocity to mean the speed of a pitcher's pitches. It's an unfortunate misnomer, especially in Maddux's case, since velocity includes both speed and direction. Though his pitches didn't have much speech on them even when he was racking up Cy Young awards, they've always had great movement and location. With the possible exception of Satchel Paige, there has been no pitcher in baseball history as capable of making the ball go exactly where he wants it to.
A recent story in ESPN The Magazine related the time, just last season, that a reluctant Maddux pitched to the Padres' bullpen catcher (Ben Risinger) ... while Risinger had his eyes closed. (Bullpen coach Darrel Akerfelds yelled "Now!" to tell him when to squeeze his mitt.) The first glanced off the top of the catcher's mitt. ("That's enough," Maddux said, walking away.) "One more," Risinger insisted. The second hit him "square in the pocket," but either Akerfelds or Risinger was too slow, and the ball didn't stick. (Another "That's enough" and another "One more," this one with a "Please?" that reads like a little kid asking if can stay up for just a little longer?) The third time was the charm. Akerfelds and Risinger broke out into uncontrollable laughter, while Maddux "looked on with a wry smile, shaking his head."
It's hard for me to explain the things, beyond the unbelievable statistics, that make Greg Maddux such a special ballplayer, such a special person, really. Athletes call them "intangibles," and Maddux leads the world in them. You'd never hear him tell the story that I just retold from the ESPN article. You'd never hear him talk about the coaching he's given teammates -- even former teammates -- even a non-teammate whom Jamie Moyer asked him to help after Moyer beat him 1-0 -- an opponent whom Maddux had the ridiculously bad luck of facing just one week later, just three weeks ago, after being traded to the Dodgers. Greg's advice was too good: his mound opponent, who'd been in a tailspin, threw a dominating game, and Maddux's second debut with the Dodgers -- in his first debut, in the last two months of the 2006 season, his 6-3 record and 3.30 ERA helped propel them to the playoffs -- ended in a loss.
I've watched almost every pitch he's thrown in his 23 seasons and 737 starts, and I have yet to see him betray even a momentary wince when a player behind him messes up. I've read just about every word he's said publicly and yet in none of those words has he called out -- criticized -- a teammate or put the onus for a loss on anyone but himself. Believe me, there were many times he would have been richly justified in doing so, but that's just not the way he rolls. I use that casual expression because that's the way Greg comes across. It never seems like he's just saying the polite thing -- or saying the right thing but with an invisible wink. He means it.
The irony is that Maddux, who is as calm as can be after every start -- win, loss, or no decision -- leads the league in a category I haven't mentioned yet: swear words. Some rookie umpires misinterpret the one-word vulgarities that jump out of Maddux's mouth after bad pitches as criticisms of bad calls. But those %$#^s are directed at one person, and one person only, himself. The comedy is that he'll yell at himself even when the result of the pitch is a success: an out, a strike, etc. Perhaps the only trait I can say I share with my idol is that neither of us is a consequentialist.
All he concerns himself with is how well he executes the pitch (and plays the field, and swings the bat). The results are, literally, out of his hands. And as soon as the swear word is out of his mouth, so is the frustration out of his brain. His focus is on to the next pitch, the most important pitch. You'd be tempted to say he has a Zen-Buddhist philosophy in which his attention is on the labor, not the "fruits of the labor." But that's hard to square with the guy who once showed up extra-early to the Braves' clubhouse with breakfast sandwiches for everyone ... and then watched teammate after teammate react with confusion, which morphed into a roomful of laughter, when they realized that he'd taken a bite out of every single one. Then again, I've heard tales of Zen masters who spent a whole lot of time laughing, so maybe that does describe him.
Just don't tell him I said so. He's the most modest, most unassuming superstar that's ever played the game, any game.
So why did I say Maddux's next start might be his most important ever? Mostly because I'm a lot more selfish than he is. The Dodgers have just fourteen regular-season games left and lead the NL West by 4.5 games. I watched the Padres go down in flames the last few days last season (and the Cubs do the same the last couple weeks three seasons before) -- in case I didn't make myself clear, I've been a "freelance Maddux fan" since 1993: wherever he goes, I go -- so, believe me, I'm not taking it for granted that the Dodgers will reach the post-season. But, given that they've won twelve of thirteen while the Diamondbacks have collapsed -- moving, unbelievably, from 4.5 games behind Arizona to 4.5 ahead in just two weeks -- today's game is not a "must win" for the team.
Being so team-oriented and unselfish, that's the only kind of result Maddux really cares about in baseball, a team win. He's so focused that he never looks ahead, not even a pitch ahead ... except if it's to set up a batter, but that's a whole 'nother post. So, unlike me, I don't think Maddux has looked ahead to the post-season or given any thought to the question that's been worrying me lately: will the Dodgers make the playoffs but leave Greg out of the pitching rotation?
Pitching staffs have used five-man rotations for decades, but in the post-season, the rotation usually consists of four, or even three, pitchers. If the Dodgers make the playoffs, barring unforeseen injury the first two spots are set: Derek Lowe and Chad Billingsley. But the third and fourth -- if there is one -- are up for grabs. Clayton Kershaw, the rookie who's as young as Maddux was when he reached the major leagues -- in 1986 -- has been inconsistent but shown streaks of brilliance, including in Saturday's six-inning, one-run win. One could describe Hiroki Kuroda, also technically a rookie but a former star in Japan, in much the same words. And then there's the wild-card, Brad Penny, who's only recently returned from the disabled list (and pitched just once, retiring none of the three batters he faced), but who's been a dominant pitcher in the past and just might steal away that third or fourth spot.
The third and fourth, if it isn't a sweep, games of the Division Series I hope the Dodgers will play in would be played at home, at Dodger Stadium. Kershaw, Kuroda, and Maddux have all performed brilliantly at home this season. Maddux's home ERA is the lowest of the three (2.65, compared to Kershaw's 3.27 and Kuroda's 3.54), but he also had a different home for most of the season and, particularly for a 42-year-old, "What have you done for me lately?" is the question on every one's lips.
I wrote earlier how I thought Dodgers' manager Joe Torre had misused Maddux in two of his four starts, setting him up for failure, but the fact is that Maddux's record with the Dodgers is 1-3. His first start (and loss) began propitiously but ended disastrously. His second start, also a loss, in which he allowed only two earned runs, was marred by awful defense, most of it Jeff Kent's, who finally admitted two days later that he'd been playing injured. He was placed on the disabled list and underwent minor knee-surgery.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Kent's last game was the eighth of an eight-game losing streak and that the team has won twelve of thirteen since. That's another thing that makes Maddux a special player: while Kent probably thought he was being manly for playing through the pain and maybe even convinced himself he was helping the Dodgers, the truth is he was hurting his team as much as his knee. Maddux, on the other hand, always tells his manager when he's "done," when he thinks the team would be better off with him off the field and a "fresh arm," as Chuck Tanner used to refer to relief pitchers, on the mound.
But a loss is a loss, and Maddux was 0-2 after his two first starts with the 2008 Dodgers. He won the next game, a home game, 5-2, but he lost the one after that. The team had just swept the Diamondbacks to capture sole possession of first place for the first time since the first week of the season(!), and Torre was concerned enough that the players might suffer a letdown that he called a team meeting before the game. He had reason to be concerned. The offense didn't score a run against the last-place Padres and the team looked flat -- that's what Torre said: Maddux blamed the loss on himself for giving up two first-inning runs -- but again, even though Maddux allowed a respectable four runs in six innings, a loss is a loss.
Maddux has pitched only one of his four games since joining the Dodgers at home, and he won it. Two of his three other starts have been fine, but fine isn't always good enough when managers are deciding whom to start in critical post-season games. Today's start is on the road, at challenging Coors Field, while his final two regular-season starts should come at home. I know Joe Torre has great regard for Maddux, but he's only managed him for a few weeks, and the final two weeks of the season will essentially be an audition for the third and fourth spots in the post-season rotation, assuming the Dodgers get there.
Kuroda and Kershaw both pitched very well, though not dominantly, in their last starts. Penny is waiting in the wings, champing at the bit for a chance to get back into the rotation.
I think Torre can be convinced -- even wants to be convinced -- that Maddux's veteran presence is just what the Dodgers need in Game 3 of the Division Series. But Maddux will have to convince him.
A solid performance in today's game against the Rockies, ideally a win in which he pitches at least six innings, would go a long way toward persuading Torre. Is today's start the most important of Maddux's 23-year career? "Of course," he would say, but only because every next start -- every next pitch -- is the most important to him. I think it also might be the most important start for getting him a spot in that post-season rotation.
He can't secure it today -- he'll need to pitch well in those final two starts, those final home starts -- but he could lose it. Colorado is the toughest team he'll face in his last three starts of the regular season, and his mound opponent, Aaron Cook, is no slouch.
I've used the word "final" a few times, and I felt a lump in my throat each time I wrote it. It's possible that these next three starts will be the final three of Maddux's season, if either the Dodgers suffer a collapse in the next two weeks or he doesn't earn a spot in the post-season rotation. It's also possible that these next three starts will be the, gulp, final three of Maddux's career, since he said during spring training, with little fanfare, that he might retire at the end of the season.
But it's way too soon to think about that. It's way too soon to think about the post-season rotation. And it's way too soon to think about the second and third games Maddux will pitch in these next two weeks. I'll do my best to follow my idol's cue and just concentrate on today's game, on the first batter of today's game, on the first pitch.
UPDATE (9/14, 4:27 pm): That may be the best seven innings I've seen from Maddux in years: 0 runs, 2 hits, 3 strikeouts, 0 walks, 68 pitches ... at hitter-friendly Coors Field. You can't get a W if your team doesn't score, though. Kudos to Aaron Cook for pitching out of trouble and throwing a great game himself. I'll be curious to find out whether they removed Maddux purely for offensive purposes with two outs in the top of the 8th. (The pinch hitter singled, Juan Pierre singled, and there was a small window for Greg to be the pitcher of record with a lead -- but it closed quickly when Matt Kemp grounded out to end the inning.)
Maddux's record is still 1-3 with the Dodgers, but there's no way Torre wasn't impressed with what he saw today. It's frankly the best start I've seen from a Dodgers' starter not named Derek Lowe since Maddux joined the club, and it was arguably just as good as Lowe's best -- especially since it came at Coors Field, where routine fly balls have a tendency to turn into home runs. He kept the ball down consistently, hit his spots consistently, fielded his position beautifully, and wriggled out of the one threat the Rockies were able to muster. After nearly gloving Clint Barmes' grounder -- and then tracking down the deflection and nearly throwing out Barmes at first -- he was faced with a runner at second with no outs after Barmes stole the base. Up against the heart of the order, he got both Matt Holliday and Brad Hawpe to pop up and then retired Garrett Atkins on a ground out. Vintage Maddux.
The game goes to the bottom of the 9th with the score 0-0. This doesn't happen at Coors Field! Let's hope the Dodgers can manage to make this an extra-inning game, and then I'll let you know how many games at Coors Field have gone to the 10th with the game tied at zero. It can't be many.
I got the answer. This is the first game ever to reach extra innings at Coors Field with no runs having been scored. Unbelievable!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Today
It's an important day. I wish I had something profound to say, but I don't.
It's important to remember.
I remembered.
I read some moving columns from seven years ago, and a few from today.
It's not enough.
I didn't want you to think I'd forgotten.
It's important to remember.
I remembered.
I read some moving columns from seven years ago, and a few from today.
It's not enough.
I didn't want you to think I'd forgotten.
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