Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

The response to a mass shooting in a liberal state or city: If only you had gun-friendly laws, a good guy with a gun would have stopped the carnage. There have been mass shootings in Montana and elsewhere where the restrictions on guns are few. Where was that “good guy” with a gun? And the mass shootings continue.

A highly placed source has confidentially informed me why so many ICE agents wear masks. They are concealing that they are aliens. No, not people from a foreign government, but beings from another planet. Apparently, ICE cannot find enough American humans to do the job.

A new friend insisted that I read Showdown at Gucci Culch: Lawmakers, Lobbyists, and the Unlikely Triumph of Tax Reform (1987) by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum & Alan S. Murray. The book chronicles the passage of the 1986 tax reform bill. The book contained more detail than I cared to read, but some details had an up-to-date relevance. For example, the authors point out that at the close of nineteenth century, federal revenue came from tariffs and excise taxes, which operated similarly to sales taxes as an exaction on consumers and placed a heavy burden on low-income Americans. An income tax was considered a fairer way to raise money to fund the government. The Revenue Act of 1913 simultaneously imposed a tax on large incomes and reduced tariff rates. We are now taking the opposite course by reducing taxes on large incomes and increasing tariff rates. The 1986 tax reform was led by President Ronald Reagan, and we are diverging from it. That 1986 package incorporated the largest corporate tax increase in history. Now, of course, we are reducing corporate taxes. We now also ignore what is known and obvious: Our taxes are uneven and unfair in part because some people simply don’t pay them. In 1986, there were estimates that every dollar of increased IRS enforcement led to the collection of ten dollars of previously uncollected tax revenue. We, of course, now reduce enforcement by the IRS.

As the night wears on, my curiosity increases. What will Dee Dee Gatton be wearing at The National News Desk?

Pesky pronouns. I call the Roomba “he.” The spouse calls the Roomba “she.” What is right? Neither of us thinks of Roomba as an “it.” Surely not “they.”

I was driving across Manhattan to get to the entrance of the FDR drive at 96th Street. The traffic slowed as I got to the traffic light. I could see a panhandler approaching. Most often I gently shake my head indicating not today, but this was one of those every so often days when I dug for my wallet. The spouse beat me and handed me a bill. The panhandler blessed me, smiled, and asked what I had not expected. “Are you a Yankee or Mets fan?” I replied, “How many Mets fans do you get here.” He did not answer but said that Aaron Judge had just driven through. The panhandler told me that Judge was on his way to Yankee stadium where the team was playing the Astros that night. Just before the traffic started moving again, he said, almost laughing, “He makes a gazillion dollars, and he did not give me a cent.” And then, “Have a good rest of the day.” I turned to the spouse, “I still love New York.”

Posted on by rjonakait

If It’s Close, It’s an Out

The baseball season is closing in on its home stretch. (Mixed sports metaphors.) The baseball season is always long with much boredom and some excitement. (Shohei is oh-mazing; Judge is airing them out; and Skenes may be a new pitching phenom.) Perhaps this should get me to reminisce about my baseball career, but that was mediocre (a generous assessment) and ended with high school. (However, I did hit a walk-off home run in my first organized game. I was twelve. I never matched that highlight. Cue Springsteen and “Glory Days.”) Instead, for some reason I am thinking about my professional baseball career, for during summers of my high school years, I umpired games for which I got paid.

My town did not have the official Little League youth baseball, but it had its own version run by the Recreation Department. It had divisions by age—nine and ten, eleven and twelve, up to eighteen.

I got the job by passing a test but not one that measured the ability to call a baseball game with any accuracy. Instead, it was like a school exam, except this one was on the rules of baseball. I went off to Joe Hauser’s, the local sporting goods store. (Hauser, known as Unser Joe, had his own amazing baseball career. You can check it out.) I bought a baseball rules book and read it a few times. I was good at tests and was confident, especially because I had been tipped off to the trick question that appeared every year. It asked what the proper call was if a line drive hit the pitching rubber and bounced back into foul territory between third and home without touching anyone. Of course, the correct answer is “Foul ball!” (Every semi-literate baseball fan knows that the distance from the pitching rubber to home plate is sixty feet six inches, but most do not know whether that is to the front or back of home plate. Even fewer know where the measurement is to the front or back or center of the pitching rubber.) Not everyone who took the exam on a spring evening (all boys, of course; I don’t know what would have happened if a girl had showed up to be an umpire) was a diligent student, but I was, and I easily got one of the open umpire slots.

In every job I have had, I have learned things. With that first job, I may have learned something about discipline and responsibility, and so on. But I certainly learned in detail about baseball rules. I also learned a few tips about umpiring, but I can’t imagine how. We had no mentoring about calling balls and strikes or about baserunners. Maybe I read it somewhere; maybe somebody who had umpired for a while told me that it was easy to determine when a pitched ball was too high: Crouch down until your eyes are level with the top of the strike zone. Of course, any pitch above that was a ball. Balls thrown near knee height were much harder to call.

In those days there were separate crews of umpires for the National and American Leagues. In the days before the American League adopted the designated hitter, the game in both leagues was supposed to be the same. Even so, the umpires did some things differently. They wore different protective gear and also positioned themselves differently. The American Leaguers stood squarely behind the catcher and looked over his head. The National Leaguers looked over the catcher’s shoulder. My favorite team was in the National League so I adopted the shoulder position.

I thought that I knew how to call balls and strikes, but I quickly learned that calling the bases was not as simple as I may have assumed. I was the only umpire in games with nine- and ten-year olds or for eleven- and twelve-year olds. I had to make all the calls at home plate and at other bases as well. When there was going to be a play at first base, I would jog out to a place between the pitcher and the base. Most often the call was obvious, but soon I learned the limits of human eyesight. If the call was close, I could watch when the feet were on the bag or I could watch when the first baseman caught the ball. I could not do both. Then, somehow, I learned that umpiring was not just seeing but also listening. Major league umpires at first base watched the feet but listened to hear the ball being caught. If the sound preceded the sight of the runner’s foot on the bag, he quickly looked up to see whether the ball was secure or being bobbled.

Tag plays presented their own problems. Sometimes it was hard to be in the correct position to make the call. (In the majors, if there is a runner on first, the second base umpire moves from the outfield to the infield to best observe a likely tag play. That infield position leads to the possibility of umpire interference, which seldom happens, but is almost never understood by the fans when it does.) Even if I was in the correct position, it was sometimes difficult to tell whether the fielder swiped the runner with the ball. Even if that was clear, a similar problem could occur at first base. The tag was often on the rump or back or shoulder of the runner, and it could be difficult sometimes to tell whether the foot got to the base before or after the tag. I didn’t need to make a hard call often. For the under twelves, runners could not leave the base until the ball was pitched. There were few attempted steals unless the ball got away from the catcher, and then the call was usually obvious. Outfield throws were often wild or looping leading to an easy call, but the few close plays could be important to the game. I never learned how to deal effectively with making a bad call. Once when I umpired an all-star game, I stuck out my right hand for a strike on a pitch that was way too high. I knew my mistake instantly, but I had no guidance on what I should do and let the call stand. To this day I feel sort of bad about it.

There was another situation that I felt unsure about: when, if ever, to throw a kid out of the game. Thankfully, this seldom occurred. The ten-and-unders were mostly unformed in the personality department and almost never presented a problem. The eleven- and twelve-year-olds, however, were on their way to being human beings. Many were quick-witted or wiseasses, filled with jokes to throw at me, curious about the world (mostly that meant trying to find out what high school was like and whether it was true you might get attracted to girls). So there came a time when one young player swore at me. I asked him what he had said to give him a chance to back away or apologize for the expletive. He repeated it (whatever it was), and I tossed him from the game. That made me uncomfortable. Was I wrong?

On the other hand, I don’t remember ever getting the indicator wrong. This is a little plastic thingamabob placed in the left hand. Mine had three holes and three wheels. Turning the wheels made different numbers appear in the holes to indicate balls, strikes, and outs. (Fancier ones also had an innings opening.) With my indicator, I at least always had the count right.

I also learned that it paid to get to work early. There were four fields where I umpired, and gear—masks and chest protectors–for four umpires. I needed a mask that could accommodate my glasses, but the other guys, who could see unaided, were good about letting me have the one that worked for me. The chest protectors also were not all the same, and sometimes this mattered. The spectrum of physical development of twelve-year-old boys is broad. Some of them are close to adulthood, and these big guys often were the pitchers. These kids played on a softball diamond, and the ball hurled from forty-six feet arrived at the plate with remarkable rapidity. This was not just the batter’s problem; remember, I umpired standing behind home plate. Often the pitcher’s skill far outshone the catcher’s, and I could not be sure that the pitches would not hit me. If I knew it was going to be one of those days, I got to the park extra early to snatch up the only blowup chest protector, which best absorbed the thump of a thrown ball. Even so, I still could leave with a bruise or two.

I quickly learned that I hated umpiring nine- and ten-year-olds. This was in the old days, so this was not T-ball or a game in which an adult tossed underhanded to a batter. No. There was a pitcher and a batter, and the pitcher invariably could not pitch and the batter invariably could not hit. And if a ball miraculously got into play, the fielders could neither catch nor throw. These young ones could not play the game. Period. This was also the time before the mercy rule, which allowed a game to be called if one team got really far ahead. Thus, the games could be interminable. Every time I umpired one of these games, I felt as though the hourglass sand was endlessly replenished. On these days, I woke up hoping to hear a downpour that meant the game would be cancelled. You can gauge how much I hated this by the fact that I did not get paid if the game was not played. The loss of money was worth not having to umpire these endless games. When I did umpire the ten and unders, though, I did not cheat in my calls. Nevertheless, if the pitched ball could be a ball or strike, it was a strike. If the runner could have been safe or out, he was out. It seemed important to move this endless game towards a conclusion.

At the time I felt that there was a bigger life lesson here: If it’s close, it’s a strike. If it’s close, it’s an out. But now, almost seven decades later, I still don’t know what that lesson is.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

The baseball game was on a streaming service. When I muted the sound to read, closed captioning came on. I assume that the captions were not entirely accurate, or the commentary was unusual. One time when I looked up from my book, I found out that the Yankees were playing the “Baltimore Oreos” and another time a player struck out with a “swing animist.

The main point to watching the Yankees right now is Aaron Judge. Each time he comes to bat, I wonder what his birth mother is thinking.

I don’t know the couple, but from public presentations they look happy. There are pictures of them looking tenderly and smiling at each other and laughing together. No one seems to doubt their marital devotion, and perhaps more wives could learn from this marriage. Wives should never, ever, ever burden their husbands with the stuff that is truly important to them. Keep it to yourself and don’t share. And husbands—and I suspect this will be easier for many of us—should never, ever pry into what our wives consider important. Apparently, this has worked for Ginni and Clarence Thomas.

Whenever there is an evacuation order because of a predicted natural disaster, some people don’t leave. Who are they? Are they just a random collection of the affected people? Or do they tend to share certain demographic characteristics? If so, what are they? And is more effort and money spent helping these people on average after the event compared to those who evacuated? Do we ever try to collect that difference from them?

Hurricane Ian should produce self-reflection, but I doubt Ron DeSantis does much of that. He has been quite strong in stating that the current federal administration from the President on down comprise incompetent socialists. Even so, the man came hat in hand–close to groveling–asking for federal assistance for Florida. He was met with words of graciousness: This is America, and this is what Americans do: help each other. Did DeSantis blush? I didn’t see it, did you? He should have. A decade ago when new to Congress he voted against aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy. He had “principled reasons,” which few ever thought were sincere. It was a political stunt to appeal to supporters who were happy to stick it to the liberal Northeast. Those “principled reasons” are not mentioned by DeSantis now as he begs for federal aid. The virtue of DeSantis is flexible, as flexible as . . . . What simile do you have? I’ll try one. His virtue is as flexible as that of Brett Favre’s.

Brett Favre might have been the poster child for the Mississippi scandal, but clearly there is corruption there that goes beyond one ex-football player. Case in point is the shocking water problem in Jackson, which gets reported as a problem separate from the use of welfare money for volleyball courts. But they are both examples of the same broken system that is Mississippi. There are reasons why it is so poor. I have a car old enough to have an outmoded sound system with a CD player. My collection of discs has been sitting untouched on shelves for years, and I thought I would listen to them again while driving. I grabbed four or five, and by happenstance found myself listening to Nina Simone singing her famous song from years ago, Mississippi goddam. I recommend it.

I was told this was a state motto of Alabama: Thank God for Mississippi.

Brett Favre has said that he thought that he had suffered three concussions in his pro football career, which ended in 2010. He counted three because he had been knocked unconscious three times. (Gosh. How many times have you been rendered unconscious by your work?) Since then, he has learned more about concussions, and has realized that every time he saw stars or heard ringing in his ears, he probably had a concussion. By those standards, he had “thousands” of concussions. He has talked, quite touchingly, about not remembering part of the childhood of his oldest daughter and that he does not remember at all her playing soccer. (Hence his eagerness to build a volleyball court in her honor?) Perhaps these are extenuating circumstances for Favre (well, no, they’re not), but I doubt that Ron DeSantis has similar extenuating circumstances for his flexible virtues. Instead, he is like a pocket left after floodwaters recede, scum.