The View from Right Field

Break

All four of us are going on vacation for a couple of weeks.  I'll be back about January 10.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

What Christmas Is All About

Charlie Brown:  "Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"

Linus: "Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights, please?

          "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. And they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men.’

          "That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

-- from "A Charlie Brown Christmas"

Greg Maddux: A Master Retires

Because of less important things, like Rod Blagojevich’s arrest, the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates to just about zero, and similar matters, I have not been able to get to the most significant event of the last two weeks, the thing that I really wanted to write about: Greg Maddux’s retirement.

Over the years I have been lucky enough to see Greg Maddux pitch a number of times. The first time was in 1988 (even though he came up two years before that). The last time was in October of this year. I saw his last game with the Cubs – twice, on September 30, 1992 and July 29, 2006. I also saw his last games in Wrigley Field with the Braves (October 3, 2003; it was also his last game with the Braves), the Padres (May 15 of this year) and the Dodgers (October 1 of this year).

The October 3, 2003 game was the third game of the NL Division Series. The newspapers billed it as "Cy Young" (Mark Prior) versus "Cy Old" (Greg Maddux). The Cubs won the game, 3 to 1, largely because a brief shower just before the game started made the infield so slick that the Braves first baseman slipped on an infield grounder in the first inning. Ultimately, two runs scored because of that slip. Without that slip, who knows who would have won the game – or the series. (A side note. After that game "Cy Old" won 66 more games; "Cy Young" won 18, only one of them in the last three years.)

Many people have talked about watching Greg Maddux. Somebody from the Braves (it may have been Leo Mazzone, I’m not sure) said that Maddux was so masterful you felt like you should wear a tuxedo to watch him pitch. When he was with the Braves, I would sometimes watch their games on TV just to see him. When he was with the Cubs, I would make sure I got to the park early enough so I could watch him warm up. I read somewhere that when Maddux warmed up, most of his throws would be from the stretch, instead of using a full windup. When he was asked why, he said because you make most of your really important pitches from the stretch – because that is how you pitch when runners are on base.

Gene Wojciechowski wrote in Cubs Nation that, in 2004, when Maddux was back with the Cubs, he apologized to umpires for the actions of some of his teammates. Maddux understood that it wasn’t necessary to treat the umpires like jerks. He also understood that it wasn’t smart.

But mostly it was the games, whether it was the complete game shutout he threw in his last game with the Cubs in 1992 or the six-plus innings he threw on July 29, 2006, just before he was traded to the Dodgers. Or maybe it was just a game my kids and I saw in Milwaukee in 2005. Maddux pitched six innings, giving up three runs. Michael Wuertz walked two batters in the seventh, but Mike Remlinger got out of the jam. Remlinger gave up a run in the bottom of the eighth on a double and a single, to cut the lead to 5 to 4, but Ryan Dempster came in to get a double play to end the inning and then set the Brewers down 1-2-3 in the ninth. A Cubs win, seeing Maddux pitch, and a great save by Dempster. It was a wonderful hour and 45-minute drive home.

Finally, it was the scoreless inning of relief he threw in the first game of the playoffs this year. It was sort of unfortunate. He had gotten a lot of applause (more than some Cubs players) when they introduced the players before the game. But when he came in to pitch the ninth, while I was glad to see him, but I couldn’t applaud. It was a playoff game, after all.

One more thought, also from 2005. When Matt Murton came up from Double A West Tenn in July, he would sit next to Maddux in the dugout, even though Maddux was a pitcher and Murton was a hitter (often pitchers and hitters don’t mix; they do, after all, belong to different castes) because Murton knew how much he could learn by just listening to Greg Maddux.

And so, Greg Maddux has retired. I am glad I got to see him play, and I am glad he was a Cub as long as he was – even if it wasn’t as long as it should have been.

The Return of the Monarch Butterflies – and Other Returns Closer to Home

The Wall Street Journal had an article yesterday about Mexican efforts to protect the forests west of Mexico City to which hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies return each November.

"‘It’s absolutely unique,’ says Lincoln Brower, research professor of biology at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, who has been studying the monarchs for five decades. ‘The monarchs settle in the same forests their grandparents or great-grandparents had been in the year before. They’ll often stay in the same trees.’"

It may be amazing, but I can assure you it is not unique. If you want to see the same thing closer to home, go out to Wrigley Field on Opening Day – or any other day of the season. Just like so many other Cubs fans, my children and I sit in the same seats where I sat with my dad 50 years ago. And someday they will sit in those seats with their children, too.

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Update (12/20/08 5:55 p.m.): Last paragraph changed slightly.

Are 0% Interest Rates a Good Idea?

On Tuesday the Federal Reserve took some dramatic steps in its continuing efforts to deal with our economic situation. Among their actions was a cut in the Fed’s target interest rate (for overnight loans between banks) from 1% to between zero and ¼%. The Fed also announced this rate is likely to stay at that level "for some time".

I am not an economist and there may be good reasons for cutting interest rates yet again, but I have to wonder if this was a good idea. I find it hard to believe people will do things with this interest rate at 0% to ¼% that they wouldn’t do if it was 1%.

Also, I worry about the psychological impact of setting interest rates, even one that only applies to overnight borrowing between banks, at basically 0%. As The Wall Street Journal said yesterday, "the larger economic problem today isn’t an overall lack of liquidity. It is fear and uncertainty." Similarly, Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University, said in November that "President-elect Barack Obama faces the very important task of restoring confidence in our nation’s economy." In September Robert Samuelson said, "It’s all about confidence, stupid. Every financial system depends on trust."

Which brings me back to the question of 0% interest rates. Do 0% rates tell us that the government is intelligently using every instrument at its disposal to solve our economic problems? Or do they say that government doesn’t know what to do and it is trying anything it can think of, no matter how silly the idea may seem?

My concern is that, while experts may believe the former, ordinary people, who do after all make up the economy, will think it means the latter. And instead of confidence, we will get more fear and uncertainty.

The problem is that uncertainty stops people from doing things, like buying and investing, at the very time that we need people to do these things. Fear of the future causes people to hold back and not spend. While holding back is understandable for people individually, it is bad for the economy as a whole. If people hold back, it is going to be harder to get out of this recession. But people are going to hold back until their confidence is restored. And I do not think 0% interest rates are going to help restore confidence.

President-Elect Obama to Take the Train to Washington

Reports are that President-Elect Obama will take a train to Washington for his inauguration. This is apparently another of his efforts to invoke the memory of Abraham Lincoln, though President-Elect Obama will just take the train from Philadelphia instead of all the way from Springfield.

Two comments on this plan, one serious and the other not so. First, the not-so-serious comment: So, President-Elect Obama wants to take the train to Washington for his inauguration, just like Abraham Lincoln. Does that mean Obama is going to get off the train in Baltimore and sneak into Washington in the middle of the night, dressed up like an old woman?

Second, the serious comment. President-Elect Obama has said Abraham Lincoln is one of his heroes. There can be no objection to that. There may not be a better role model for a public official than Abraham Lincoln. But I wonder if President-Elect Obama is talking about Abraham Lincoln too much. I wonder if he isn’t pushing the comparison with Lincoln too far. Comparisons with people like Abraham Lincoln should come from others, not from one’s self.

I would urge President-Elect Obama to de-emphasize the Lincoln comparisons. If someday he deserves the comparisons, they will come. If he doesn’t, he will look the poorer for having tried to make them himself.

"Politics As Usual" – Still and Again

When Rod Blagojevich ran for Governor of Illinois in 2002, he promised to end "politics as usual" in Springfield. He didn’t do it, of course - except possibly to make things worse.

However, when the news about Governor Blagojevich hit this week, it looked like politicians might actually start to think of the people, instead of themselves. Leaders from both parties called for a special election to fill President-elect Obama’s Senate seat. The governor shouldn’t decide, they said. The voters of Illinois ought to choose.

But then Harry Reid started thinking. A special election would take a lot of time, and that would mean the Senate Democrats would be down a vote when crucial votes came up in the Senate, for example to stop a filibuster.

Even worse, with all the negative publicity about Blagojevich, and maybe some other Democrats, a Republican might actually win the seat.

And so, Harry Reid said maybe there shouldn’t be a special election, after all. Other Democrats picked up the same theme, including some in Illinois who just a day or two before were talking about a special election and the people’s right to choose.

In other words, instead of protecting the people’s right to choose, leading Democrats are now more concerned about protecting the number of Democratic senators in Washington.

Oh well, that’s just politics, "politics as usual".

Why Do We Even Need a Replacement for Barack Obama?

I have an idea. Instead of all dealing with all of the problems of trying to appoint somebody to replace President-elect Obama as senator from Illinois, why don’t we just leave the seat vacant? I mean it’s not like Obama did anything in the Senate during the last two years. He hardly showed up at all, and we got along fine. Why don’t we just wait until 2010? It might be a lot easier.

Illinois Corruption: Whose Fault Is It Really?

What is the more amazing (or disturbing or appalling): That Rod Blagojevich allegedly tried to, in effect, sell the open U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by President-elect Barack Obama (and all the other illegal things U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is alleging Governor Blagojevich did) or that the people of Illinois re-elected him governor in 2006 even though we knew what he was?

I will agree Governor Blagojevich hadn’t tried to sell a U.S. Senate seat back in 2006, but that may have been because he hadn’t had a chance. There were plenty of allegations of corruption swirling about Governor Blagojevich even then. But the people of Illinois re-elected him anyway.

So who is more at fault: Rod Blagojevich for trying to sell a Senate seat (and for everything else he is alleged to have done) or the people of Illinois for re-electing him in 2006?

To me, it’s the voters of Illinois. We knew what Rod Blagojevich was, and we re-elected him anyway.

Lucy Van Pelt Goes to Cooperstown

Charles M Schulz is dead, but the voting by the Veterans Committee of the Baseball Hall of Fame reminds me of nothing so much as the annual "Peanuts" strip in which Lucy would encourage Charlie Brown to kick the football she was holding. Lucy would come up with a new reason every year as to why, this year, she wasn’t going to pull the ball away. Charlie Brown would be doubtful, but finally Lucy would convince him to try once more. And then, every year, she would pull the football away just as Charlie Brown was going to kick it.

So it is with the alleged elections that the Veterans Committee has for the Baseball Hall of Fame. (I say "alleged" elections because in real elections somebody needs to get elected, at least once in a while.) Ever since the Hall of Fame had to get rid of the committee that had previously handled decisions about veteran players (because of a particularly unfortunate choice in 2001), the Hall of Fame keeps telling us, and, more importantly, the veteran players themselves, that now they have a system that will treat people fairly. And the players, some of whom are better than many of those already in the Hall of Fame, get their hopes up. And every time, in each of the last four alleged elections, the Veterans Committee has pulled the football away, just as the veterans started to believe again, and not picked anybody.

If the Hall of Fame does not think any of these players deserve to get into the Hall of Fame, that’s fine. But they should be honest about it. They shouldn’t have an election and let people get their hopes up and then crush them, time after time. If nobody is going to get chosen, don’t pretend you are ever going to pick somebody – and don’t have an election.

Let’s face it. Nobody is ever going to get chosen under the current system or any variation of it. If that is true, to continue to have elections and get people’s hopes up is just mean. I don’t think anybody is trying to be mean, but that is the result of what they are doing, and to continue to do this time after time, knowing with reasonable certainty what the result will be, is, at some point, being deliberately mean.

And that is the difference between Lucy Van Pelt and the Baseball Hall of Fame. Lucy Van Pelt and Charlie Brown are just characters in a cartoon strip. They aren’t real. But the veteran players who are having their hopes raised and then crushed time after time by the people in Cooperstown, they are real. They are real people with real feelings. The people in Cooperstown need to start remembering that.