The View from Right Field

Why Do We Let Vladimir Putin Lie?

The big brouhaha (or at least one of the big brouhahas) in Washington this week was somebody in the Administration calling Benjamin Netanyahu a “chickensh*t.”  I am not exactly sure how this is intended to help our relations with Israel (or the Israeli people), but maybe the Administration doesn’t care.

In any case, to the point of this post:  If we are willing to say this about the leader of one of our friends, why won’t we come out and say that Vladimir Putin is a liar?  When Russian troops went into Crimea, President Putin denied Russian troops were there.  Later, of course, he commended the Russian troops who went into Crimea.  But did anybody call him a liar for saying there were no Russian troops there?  I don’t think so.  And, if they did, it certainly didn’t get as much publicity as what we said about Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Now, the Russians have been saying there are no Russian troops in eastern Ukraine and that any Russians who are there are volunteers or soldiers on vacation.  As an article in the Financial Times last week shows, this is not true; there are Russian troops in eastern Ukraine.  I don’t know how to say this more clearly, so let me say it again: There are Russian troops in eastern Ukraine.  And some of them have gone in after the ceasefire on September 5. 

Harlon Hill, RIP

I am not a football fan anymore.  I gave it up in the 1970s.  Too many deliberate injuries.  People trying to injure guys on the other team so they couldn’t play.  I got tired of it.

But I was a football fan, and a Chicago Bears fan, before that.  My favorite player was Harlon Hill, who passed away last Thursday at the age of 80.  He played wide end (to show you how long ago that was, they don’t have a position called that any more) for the Bears in the 1950s.  He was rookie of the year in 1954 and most valuable player in 1955.  Back in the ‘50s, a team could find players that nobody else knew about.  George Halas found Harlon Hill at Florence State Teachers College in Florence, Alabama.

I don’t remember a whole lot about Harlon Hill.  I was pretty young.  But he was my favorite player, and even today, whenever I hear the number 87, I think of him.

If you can get through the Chicago Tribune’s digital wall, Fred Mitchell has a nice remembrance of Harlon Hill here.  Here is an excerpt:

“In college, Hill was the favorite target of quarterback George Lindsey, who would become an actor and played ‘Goober Pyle’ on the Andy Griffith Show.

Hill said Lindsey's favorite play to call in the huddle was: ‘Harlon, go long.’”

Here’s my Harlon Hill football card:

Paying Players to Injure Their Opponents and Why I Don’t Like Pro Football

The big story regarding the National Football League in the last few days has been the “bounty” system that the defensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints ran whereby players would get special bonuses for injuring their opponents or at least knocking them out of the game. The greater the injury, the bigger the bonus.

The surprising thing is that people are surprised. Deliberately injuring players on the other team is a good part of what football, especially the NFL, is about – or at least has become. You win the game by taking out the other team’s quarterback. People talk about it all the time, so why is there any surprise that players should get bonuses, a/k/a bounties, for doing it?

The NFL has become little more than a game of really big men deliberately trying to injure each other – and shortening their life expectancies in the process. If other people want to watch it, fine. I’ll skip it.

Obama’s Department of Justice Takes on the NCAA and BCS. Las Vegas Gives Points to Those Betting on DOJ.

The Associated Press has reported that the Department of Justice has written to the NCAA, asking why they have the BCS system instead of a playoff system.  According to the article:

“In a letter this week, the [D]epartment [of Justice]'s antitrust chief, Christine Varney, asked NCAA president Mark Emmert why a playoff system isn't used in football, unlike in other sports; what steps the NCAA has taken to create one; and whether Emmert thinks there are aspects of the BCS system that don't serve the interest of fans, schools and players.

‘Your views would be relevant in helping us to determine the best course of action with regard to the BCS,’ she wrote.

‘Serious questions continue to arise suggesting the current Bowl Championship Series system may not be conducted consistent with the competition principles expressed in the federal antitrust laws,’ Varney said.”

Four comments.  First, huh?  Isn’t there something more important the Department of Justice could be doing?

Second, maybe we are better off if Barack Obama’s Department of Justice is worrying about this instead of something else.  At least they won’t messing up something important if they are spending their time trying to figure out whether Division 1-A college football should have a playoff system.

Third, at a time of huge federal deficits, I think we have found at least a few jobs at the Department of Justice which can be cut (i.e., anybody who is working on this).

Fourth, back in 2008, then-Senator Obama said “he was going to ‘to throw my weight around a little bit' to nudge college football toward a playoff system.”  It’s good to see that, having already fulfilled all of his other campaign promises, he is finally getting around to this one.

Rafael Nadal and Ernie Banks

With Rafael Nadal having completed a career grand slam in tennis on Monday by winning the U.S. Open and this Friday being the 57th anniversary of Ernie Banks’ first game with the Chicago Cubs, this post seemed timely:

There was a fascinating article in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal about Rafael Nadal: “The Little Racket That Changed Tennis.”  It talked about how Nadal uses a lightweight racket with a really thin handle.  When Nadal was starting to play tennis, his uncle, who was his coach, as well as a table tennis champion, wanted a racket that his nephew could whip around like a ping pong paddle.  He found one, a lightweight women’s racket with a tiny grip.  It worked, and Rafa still uses a racket that is lighter and has a thinner grip than most other men.  (In fact, according to the article, Nadal’s 4-1/4 inch grip is a size smaller than the grip that most women use.)

Thinking about Nadal’s lightweight racket with its thin grip reminded me of a certain shortstop who came to the Cubs in September of 1953 from the Kansas City Monarchs.  Ernie Banks used a 31-ounce bat (which was light) with a really thin handle, which he could whip around, like Nadal and his tennis racket.

A truth-in-blogging caveat:  When I mentioned this idea to somebody who knows a lot more about tennis than I do, he disagreed with my comparison.  He said that Nadal uses a lightweight racket to be able to put more top spin on his shots, which was not what Ernie was doing.

While this person may be technically right, I think I’m right, too.  While Ernie wasn’t using his light-weight, thin-handled bat to put top spin on a baseball, he was using a new kind of bat, one he could really whip around because of its light weight and thin handle, to be one of the best in his sport.  Rafa is doing it in tennis.  Ernie did it in baseball.

Why I Hope Chicago Does Not Get the Olympics

In just a few days we will find out if Chicago gets the 2016 Olympics. An Olympics can be exciting. When the Olympics were in Atlanta in 1996, we planned our vacation almost a year in advance to be able to go. It was a lot of fun, and I am glad we went. But when it comes to the question of Chicago getting the 2016 Olympics, I am not so excited. In fact, I have come to hope that Chicago does not get the Olympics. And I have come to hope that way for one simple reason: Corruption.

Illinois has never been a particularly honest state, at least within my memory. Orville Hodge. Paul Powell. Otto Kerner. George Ryan. More councilmen, judges, and government employees than you can remember. And it seems to be getting worse. So many newscasts tell us of city employees or others who have been convicted of corruption that it does not seem like news anymore.

Given all of the corruption we have in regular times, can you imagine how much more corruption we would have if Chicago got the Olympics? There would billions and billions of dollars available to be stolen and ripped off, to disappear into the pockets of contractors and politicians and friends of politicians. It would, in its own way, be the Olympics of corruption.

We need to clean Chicago up. We need to clean Cook County up. We need to clean the State of Illinois up. The Olympics, with all of the money to be spent and bribes to be paid and graft to be taken, would make the job of cleaning up our governments even more difficult. The job will be hard enough as it is; we don’t need to make it harder.

Ultimately, it is more important to finally beat corruption and take back our governments for honest Illinoisans than it is to have an Olympics in Chicago. What does it profiteth a city or a county or a state if it wins the Olympics and loses its soul? And that is why I hope Chicago does not get the Olympics.

-----------
Update (9/24/09 11:30 p.m.):  Fixed a typo in the fourth paragraph.

Further Update (9/25/09 12:40 a.m.):  To improve the readibility of the post, I deleted the following, which had been the first sentence of the fourth paragraph: "And that is why I do not want Chicago to get the Olympics."