The Lou Gehrig tributes by MLB this weekend made me go back to the New York Times archives to see how the events were reported at the time. Sure enough, there was a story about plans to honor Gehrig including a reunion of the 1927 New York Yankees.
The 27' Yankees are regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, teams of all time. But over time they've become Ruth, Gehrig and twenty-two anonymous players. By the time Gehrig made his famous speech, most of the supporting cast was already fading from memory.
Which is why New York Times writer John Kieran took the time to write an article featuring some of the lesser known Yankees from the 1920's like third baseman Joe Dugan, backup catcher Benny Bengough, and the talented (but not well known) Bob Meusel.
Meusel was a .300 hitter with power who occupied the #5 spot behind Ruth and Gehrig in 1927. He was good enough to actually bat cleanup ahead of Gehrig in the 1926 World Series loss to the Cardinals.
In the course of recounting Meusel's accomplishments at the plate and in the field, Kieran recounted this story:
"With the Yankees in those old days was a pitcher who was a bit boastful of his prowess as a strong man, an all around athlete, and a two gun guy from the wild Southwest. He carried a gun in his suitcase, too. One night in a Pullman scuffle this desparado declared himself mightily incensed and began to threaten some of the scufflers with the gun. Bob Meusel stepped in, grabbed the gun slapped the alleged desparado across the face and promised to chase him off the club if he ever showed a gun again while he was with the Yankees."
Kieran named no names, so there the story sat. Curiosity wouldn't let it stay there.
Who was the armed Yankee pitcher? We know he was an "all around athlete" and from the Southwest. How many pitchers could there be from the Southwest on the Yankees during the time Meusel played with them?
Just one.
Rip Collins real name was Harry Warren Collins. He got the name "Rip" after a brand of whisky. The big right hander played one season with Meusel (1921). That was the year Ruth hit 59 home runs (then a record) and took the Yankees to the World Series for the first time.
Collins had been a college football player for Texas A&M. He was well known for punting 23 times against Texas in 1915 for an average of 55 yards a kick. Thirteen of the punts were fumbled and one of the fumbles lead to the only touchdown of the game, scored by Collins himself. The Aggies upset Texas 13-0, which indeed would have made Collins the "all around athlete" of the story.
Not surprisingly, Collins disappears from Yankee history the next season. The RedSox, Tigers, and Browns stuck with him long enough for Collins to post a 108-82 record but he never lived up to his potential.
What does a "desparado" do after baseball? In Collins case law enforcement. He found more productive uses for his fondness for fire arms and became a sheriff back in Texas.
What if this happened today instead of 1921?
For one thing, we would be blogging about it for months to come. The authorities would have suspended Collins. The New York Times would have used to incident to editorialize on gun control. ESPN would post hourly updates, with grim faced reporters expressing shock and outrage.
Collins would have been filmed leaving Yankee Stadium behind a cordon of security and a team of lawyers. Meusel would decline comment (which he apparently did in the best of times). And the Babe? Ruth would appeared on camera with his cigars chastizing reporters for making a big deal over nothing.
That was then, this is now. The Yankees are a corporation, Steve McNair is shot dead by an automatic weapon, and the Iranians are working on getting nukes.
The NCAA is "vacating" 14 Florida State wins because sixty-one athletes cheated on an online music history course.
What you ask, is vacating?
It is not a forfeit, because the teams who lost to FSU won't have a victory added to their records. Statistics of individual players won't be affected. But the team record will be adjusted to reflect the use in ineligible players and Bobby Bowden will not be credited with the wins.
Bowden, previously one win behind Joe Paterno on the all-time coaching wins list, is now fifteen down.
So, let's see what's what.
According to the NCAA, there were fourteen games in which players scored touchdowns, punted, ran, kicked field goals, passed for yardage, and tackled. All those things occurred. But Florida State didn't win and Bobby Bowden had nothing to do with it.
In the games the same players participated in which Florida State lost, the games counted and Bowden takes a loss. All the stats count.
Why?
Because, alone among all the organizations in the world today, the NCAA can adjust reality. Quietly, and without public notice, the NCAA is hard at work rewriting the entire history of college football to remove an past unpleasantness.
O.J. Simpson has been vacated from USC and didn't win the Heisman trophy.
Knute Rockne's plane flight in Kansas was vacated.
Nothing which happened off the field involving any University of Miami football player in the 1980s and 1990s really took place. These events, if spoken of at all, are being classified as "suspicious activity of an undetermined and unquantifiable nature unrelated to the NCAA or any of its member institutions".
The accusations of sexual assault at the University of Colorado between 1997 and 2004 have been vacated.
The Southern Conference does not exist and is a figment of your imagination.
Steve Spurrier? We have no record of anyone by that name.
The 1997 point shaving scandal at Boston College? Didn't happen.
The twenty-four Florida Gator football players arrested since Urban Meyer arrived on campus have had all criminal activity vacated it what were reclassified as "a series of unfortunate misunderstandings".
Southern Methodist University never existed.
No Alabama football player ever sold improperly acquired textbooks. This incident has been vacated. Instead, the Alabama players will now be reported as collecting used text books to distribute to local high school students as part of a mentoring program voluntarily established by the players.
The University of Toledo is a rumor, and no point shaving ever occurred at that school. If it exists. Which we aren't saying it does.
The Northern Colorado backup punter who stabbed a teammate competing for the same job was cleaning fish and never stabbed his rival for the job.
Unfortunately for the NCAA, rewriting history usually doesn't succeed. Nobody really cares which victories the authorities say count or don't. The Bowden-Paterno record will be decided on the field and not in an administrative office.
The NCAA could do more good if it enacted real punishments instead of phony revisions after the fact. Make FSU bowl inelligible for a season. Take away more than the paltry two scholarships they voluntarily chose to give up.
There's one other thing the NCAA could have done.
Put some real chain of command accountability in football programs by suspending coaches. If the FSU football program was as out of control as the NCAA maintains, then put Bowden on the bench. It would send a powerful signal that today's millionaire coaches club could hardly ignore.
The only thing the NCAA has vacated at FSU is real responsibility.
Unlike the US economy, bad governance can't put a dent in baseball. It has an internal consistency which not even a weak commissioner, steroidal malcontents, clueless owners, addled GM's, and Scott Boras can ruin.
But they do try.
Ignore the 300 pound transvestite at the family picnic that is the designated hitter.
The most ridiculous affront to baseball (and common sense) is the division setup which renders the regular season not meaningless, but not exactly entrancing. A system by which we spend each September trying to whip up excitement over who will finish second.
The wild card.
Fail to win more games than your hated rival? Not to worry. You can always be the Al Franken of baseball. "I'm good enough. And smart enough. And I won one more game than the rest of those losers." (Or words to that effect).
As an added bonus, since you've battled down to the wire in a "pennant race" your team has a sharpened edge going into the playoffs and just as much chance as the team which won more games than any other in the league.
Wild card teams have been to nine World Series and won four of them. They have made the championship series roughly fifty percent of the time.
Baseball's response has been to rhapsodize about the number of teams whose fans have thrilled to the race for second place. To point out how often "the little guys" get to the playoffs as a result.
Little guys like the Yankees and RedSox, who own nine of the fifteen wildcard (pennants?) in the American League.
Want to know how not to go to the World Series? Have the best record in your league. Only four times this decade has the team with the best regular season record in their league gone to the World Series. And never, not a single time, have to two best teams in the regular season faced each other in the World Series.
So what is the World Series?
Nothing more than the last round of the playoffs. Which is a great thing if you are the NBA or the NHL but not so good if you play 162 games and want to finish the season before the first snow fall.
How to fix it.
You could, but it won't happen.
Simple reason. Let's say you are the General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. If baseball had four "leagues" instead of six divisions someone (usually Pittsbugh) would be in 8th place. Or, call it by it's proper name, last place.
Put a bad team in a small division and you're just two places out of fourth. Place that same team in a smaller division and you can finish fifth (and last). But fifth sounds much better than the abject mediocrity of eigth.
The wild card system, and it's occasional Tampa Bay Rays or Colorado Rockies intrusion into post season also allows baseball to ignore the ability of income heavy teams to buy a spot in the playoffs year after year, while fully one third of the teams are out of the running before the season starts.
"What problem. Look at the Rays. See, small market teams can compete."
Nonsense.
Which brings us to another reason MLB will never fix the broken division system.
The leagues are unbalanced. Fourteen teams in the AL and sixteen in the NL.
Why?
Probably because major league owners are as capable of coming in out of the rain and agreeing to fix an obvious problem as Manny Ramirez is of being a good teammate. Plus, the odds of finding two more suckers to join the club to make thirty-two teams is getting slimmer as the economy worsens.
The best thing for baseball would be four eight team "leagues" aligned geographically. The Mets and Yankees, Cubs and WhiteSox, Reds and Indians, Dodgers and Angels, Giants and A's should be in the same division and fans should get a full schedule of these matchups instead of the "treat" of "special" interleague games.
Four leagues (and no interleague play) would make the post season matter. A shorter playoff system would make baseball's postseason mean something again and drive up TV ratings. As it stands now, owning the rights to broadcast the first round of the playoffs is owning the rights to a whole lot of nothing.
There is only one way things will change. That is for the TV networks to force the issue. When the ratings finally get low enough that the networks refuse to pay for the farce the playoff system has become, then something will happen.
Until then, just remember, the 2009 World Series is coming soon.
Who would you invite to dinner if you could pick from anyone in all of history?
It's one of those "what if" questions designed to get people talking. The usual response is naming great thinkers, religious figures, and politicians. Nobody really would want to meet Shakespeare or Lincoln, but if we said who we'd really want to meet we'd appear shallow.
I don't have a problem with appearing shallow. When they compile the list of the 500 deep thinkers of 2009, my name won't be on the list. I've got cable TV. Why would I want to waste time solving global warming when ESPN 2 has the Division III croquet championships?
I have two lines of thought about the whole question of who to invite to this hypothetical dinner. There's the people I'd like to meet, and the people I'd like to put together in a room to watch the fights break out.
I'd put Jim Brown, with his robes and attitude, next to Ty Cobb. Bobby Knight would probably enjoy that show. He'd be there, right next to Stephon Marbury. They could talk about the virtues of team play and defense.
Maybe I'd invite Brett Favre and sit him next to the guy who played the insurance salesman on "Groundhog Day". "You're probably thinking about retirement. Two words for you Brett. I can call you Brett? Term life. Am I right, or am I right."
Kobe and Shaq would make good dinner companions. Shaq could tell Kobe how great LeBron James is, and Kobe could show him his ring. That he won. By himself.
You'd invite Randy Johnson, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, and Mark McGwire and then listen to the sound of the clock slowly ticking away the long, silent hours.
But if I had to play it straight up and invite four people I'd really like to have met it wouldn't be difficult to pick them out.
It isn't a party without Babe Ruth. The one guy who the other three famous guys would be in awe of. And the least pretentious man in the room. I think it would be fun to be called "Kid" by the Babe. The bar tab and food bill would be enormous, but who would care?
Don Meredith. How could a Cowboy fan not invite Meredith? The stories he could tell. Landry, the title games with Green Bay, Monday night football with Cosell. And when we all would end up a little worse for wear, he could lead us in a few country songs.
Roberto Clemente. Why? Because he's the biggest mystery among the Hall of Famers. The press knocked him for most of his career, and he wasn't that open with them. I'd want to ask him how it felt to play the game. To be able to do things nobody else could on a baseball field.
Charles Barkley. I know, I know. He's everything his worst critics say about him. But he's never at a loss for words. And you know you'd end up laughing hard before the evening was over.
There's only one thing I'd have to be sure of before I'd agree to this mythical dinner party.
Nobody tells Howard Cosell where we're meeting up at.
My record at predictions is almost perfect. Had it not been for that one time I accidentally was right it would be perfect.
Still I make predictions. Why? Because people who do it as badly as I do go on television or the internet and do it every day. It looks like fun.
You hope for that one great day where somehow you actually do get something right. People remember that. The bonus is there are so many wrong predictions by professional sports media it is virtually impossible to remember any of them.
Which brings me to Michael Vick. And Brigadier General Charles Pomeroy Stone.
When the Civil War started the Union Army lacked competent officers. Stone (a Democrat) was an old hand who had fought in the Mexican War. He quickly made Brigadier General in 1861 and helped prepare the defenses of Washington at a time they were very weak.
In October of the first year of the war, Stone's command was sent on a reconnaissance in force just west of DC at Leasburg. Stone was blessed, and I used the word with all the sarcasm which can drip off a computer keyboard, with a subordinate who was a good friend of the President and a US Senator.
Colonel Edwin D. Baker, Republican Senator of Oregon, was a man of great accomplishment and greater ego. He took his small command over the Potomac River without orders, not knowing what force was in front of him, and came near to getting it wiped out. Late in the day, his back to a seventy foot bluff, he died leading his men into one magnificent mess. Bodies were floating by the nation's capital for days.
Being a politician, and being a friend of the President, it came to pass that Baker was blameless. Someone had to be responsible, so a whisper campaign was started against Stone. He must be a spy, he was too soft on the Virginians, he sent Baker off to be killed because he was a closet Confederate.
So Stone, on next to no evidence, is rounded up and thrown in jail without charge. He is in poor health, more than a bit disconcerted at being arrested, and is confined in a fort in New York Harbor. In the winter. The hope is that time, tide, and drafty quarters will kill him off.
Stone, however, was made of sterner stuff and lived. Eventually, Congress passed a law requiring he be charged or released and the Articles of War (which mandated a charge be levied within ninety days). The Lincoln administration kept him in jail for eighty-nine days after the bill passed just for spite.
An administration official was asked why Stone was still being held when everyone knew he was innocent. The response was that he served as an example to other Democrat officers who might not be cooperative with the adminstration. He is worth, said the official, a division in the field while sitting in jail.
Which brings us to Michael Vick.
Michael Vick won't be back this year. Michael Vick may not even be back next year.
Why?
Because Michael Vick is worth more to the NFL not playing than he is on the field. If Commissioner Goodale refuses to reinstate Vick it will be a rather frightening example to NFL players that, as the Buffalo Springfield once sang, "Step out of line, the man come, and take you away."
The millionaire boys club which is the NFL begrudgingly pays top dollar to players. But they prefer to purchase a certain level of behavior with their money. The fewer dreadlocks, tattoos, arrests, and attitudes the better.
If Vick is allowed to come back this fall, what is the message? Business as usual. You go out at 3 a.m. Got some residue in the ash tray and an automatic weapon under the seat. What are they going to do, fire you?
Well, maybe they can.
If Michael Vick is suspended for a year or more, maybe you think twice. Or, in some instances, maybe you actually think for the first time in your young life. And go home before midnight and get an unlisted number so none of the fast company you keep can reach out and renew acquaintances.
Another thing people miss about Vick is the very real chance that a full season suspension this year effectively finishes him as a star quarterback. Football is ten times faster on the field than on TV, and missing a season means slower reads and reaction. Missing two seasons as a quarterback almost certainly means you never get back to where you were, if at all.
Which is OK by the NFL.
Prediction. Goodale keeps Vick on the sideline this year and maybe out through the first part of the season after that. Three missed training camps equals no more Michael Vick, at least as a quarterback. It also means no PETA protestors in the packed parking lot (say that one three times fast).
What become of General Stone? After he was let go he was reinstated but followed by detectives constantly. He served in Mississippi before getting fed up with it all and resigning in 1864. Married a Southern girl, did a little gold mining, and eventually hired out as a general in the Egyptian Army.
An engineer by trade, Stone eventually came back to New York and got a job on a big project. Seems they were planning a statue out in the harbor and they needed someone do design the massive pedestal it would sit on.
They call it the Statue of Liberty.
Will Michael Vick make a mark when he's done playing?
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