Business & Commercial

Baseball Meritocracy Ethics: How Can MLB Keep Lousy Teams From Getting Into The World Series?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Playoff creep has made the regular season almost irrelevant in the NHL and the NBA, and Major League Baseball has been struggling with how to avoid a similar fate ever since it stopped automatically sending the two teams with the best records in the American League and the National League directly to the World Series. That last happened in 1968 when there were just ten teams in each league: now there are 15, with six divisions. The champs of each get into post-season play-offs, with three Wild Card teams, mandatory because otherwise random luck can have a mediocre and inferior team making the play-offs by winning a weak division while teams with a better records are left at home watching the games on TV, just because they happened to be competing with stronger teams in their division.

Fairness and perception are the issues at hand, as well as maintaining the quality of the World Series. Last year’s edition, with the L.A. Dodgers squeaking out an extra-inning, deciding game victory over an evenly matched Toronto team, gave the sport a boost that carried into this season. Pairing the Dodger with a mediocre team is a recipe for embarrassment on baseball’s biggest stage. No team with a losing record has ever represented its league, but this season that situation could indeed occur. That highlights a flaw in the system. Now what?

In “How to keep losing teams out of MLB playoffs,” ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle does an excellent job explaining the problem and analyzing potential fixes. Right now, there are just five teams (out of 15) in the American League with winning records: the leaders in the three divisions, and two more teams (including the Red Sox) in the Eastern Division. Those two teams, Boston and the Yankees, seem to have wrapped up the first two Wild Card slots, but six teams, all with losing records, are in contention for the third Wild Card, and a single losing streak by the leaders in the Central and Western divisions could give those losing champions as well. If the American League playoffs started today, the top three records in the league would all reside on one half of the bracket, with the Tampa Bay Rays awaiting the winner of a wild-card series between the Yankees and Red Sox. On the other side of the bracket, the leaders in the Central Division, the Chicago White Sox ,would receive a bye to face the winner between the Astros (72-69), winners in the West, and the Cleveland Guardians (70-70), the third Wild Card.

FanGraphs projects Chicago to win the Central with 84 wins, with Cleveland taking final wild card with 82 wins and Houston winning the West with only 82 wins. Those would be three of the six worst records to ever qualify for the postseason in a full season, yet one of those teams would be guaranteed to play for the AL Championship in the ALCS.

Here are Doolittle’s candidates for remedies going forward. This season, of course, all baseball fans can do is cross their fingers. Doolittle’s commentary will be in quotes:

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Not Unethical, Just…Ick. And Sad.

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I don’t know how to categorize this. Perhaps the issue is how popular culture and show business make attention junkies out of people, making them do what former “Baywatch” (and “E.T.” !) actress Erika Eleniak is doing: making an exhibition of herself for sickos and fetishists, exchanging any shred of dignity for money.

I confess to always haveing a warm place in my heart for Erika. I first saw her as the girl Elliot kisses like John Wayne kissed Maureen O’Hara in “The Quiet Man” because he was psychically linked to E.T. who was watching the movie on TV. Next time I saw Erika she popped out of a cake naked in “Under Siege,” and then it was on to playing Ellie May Clampett in the movie version of “The Beverley Hillbillies,” then to “Baywatch.” Next came middle age and the fast slide to Hallmark films, then reality shows. Erika had some star power, but she wasn’t exactly Meryl Streep.

Now TMZ brings the depressing report that at 56, Elliot’s true love joined OnlyFans to let foot fetishists pay to see her apparently still-comely feet. Soon she was enticed into more daring peep shows. Erika is earning $10,000 a week, with 1,100 ill people who are eager to pay to gawk at an over-the-hill actress as she debases herself.

I wrote about this phenomenon in April in one of the “Confronting My Biases” posts. But then the OnlyFans sellout was Shannon Elizabeth, whose career, if you can call it that, makes Erika seem like Katherine Hepburn by comparison.

Today Erika has arms covered with tattoos, which, as I wrote recently, is often a symptom of someone coping with deep emotional pain. I can’t find anything exactly unethical in this scenario, except to think that if there weren’t an OnlyFans, someone like Erika would have to find a more promising, nurturing, productive way to find fulfillment in her post-celebrity existance. Now she’s at a dead end, a lucrative one, perhaps, but still perilously close to a life nadir.

In “Nightmare Alley,” Tyrone Power ends up as a carnival geek, biting the heads off of live chickens. That’s worse, certainly, but then his character only starts out as carnival barker who once said of the geek, “I can’t understand how anybody could get so low.”

I wonder what Erika Eleniak, when she was young and gorgeous with what seemed like a vibrant career ahead of her, would have said about women who expose themselves to creepy men, alone, through a video camera in their bedroom.

I’m really sorry, Erika.

So is Elliot.

It’s Sort of Comforting, In A Way, That Ann Coulter Is Just As Big An Unethical Jerk As Way Back When People Took Her Seriously…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Here’s Ann on her substack (of course she has a substack) still pounding away on “The Great Replacement” theory:

Americans see videos of thousands of Muslims marching through London and Paris, and say, Europe is finished. Shocked at the unassimilable cultures being dumped on them, Europeans imagine no one has ever suffered so much.

So it’s unanimous. The U.S. is so lucky to have Hispanic immigrants instead of Muslims!

The consensus opinion could not be more wrong. Europe has only just begun its experiment with “multiculturalism.” The U.S. is so far along on this journey, it would be a miracle for the country to survive another half century in any recognizable form.

In addition to being screwed by the sizable group of Americans always clamoring for cheap labor, the U.S. is uniquely screwed by its geography, as pointed out by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington twenty years ago. We are the only developed country that shares a border with a third world country—and that border is 2,000 miles long, protected by a picket fence. Moreover, the income gap between Mexico and America is greater than any other two contiguous countries in the world.

But why not cheer for the U.S. becoming another Mexico, as The Wall Street Journal does? Think of all that cheap labor!

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Baseball Ethics Quiz: The Hug

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Peyton Tolle is a Boston Red Sox rookie and already a team mate and fan favorite for his big extrovert personality that matches his huge frame (6’6,” about 260 pounds), highlighted by Tolle’s obvious joy at playing a kid’s game for a living.

In yesterday’s Red Sox 9-8 extra-innings win over the Seattle Mariners (The Red Sox are having one of their most entertaining seasons ever), Tolle, was Boston’s starting pitcher, did something that nobody could recall any previous major league baseball player doing. As you can see above, when the hulking Tolle went to tag out Mariners player Dominic Canzone on the first base line after fielding a bouncer back to him on the mound, he preceded his tag with a smile and a hug.

Some old timers gag when they see opposing team players even chatting cordially at first base. The unwritten rule of baseball was that on the field the other team was literally a mortal foe, and its players were to be treated as such. In the 1960s a player who did what Tolle did would be excoriated, fined, exiled to the manager’s “dog house” and probably demoted to the minors.

Last night the Red Sox players seemed to get a kick out of their exuberant rookie’s latest surprise—he also likes playing tricks on team mates—saying, “That’s Tolle!” as the agreed-upon answer when questioned by reporters after the game. The sports media was all positive, with ESPN calling The Hug “The most wholesome play of the season.”

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Ethics Hero: Tuskegee University President Dr. Mark Brown

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Now and then there are moments when I feel that indeed I have not lived in vain.

Tuskegee University president Dr. Mark Brown (above), a retired Air Force major general, issued a memo to all students of the “traditional black institution” this academic year declaring that all students will be required to follow a dress code right out of 1962.

“The university has developed a new policy for student attire on campus, classroom attendance, and cell phone use in classrooms,” Brown wrote in a message to students. “Tuskegee students now have a dress code for public and professional places. The Student Handbook requires students to arrive on campus with a business suit and proper shoes for a business meeting. Students are prohibited from wearing revealing clothing in class, to the cafeteria or in official settings like Convocation. They are also not able to wear bedroom shoes, bonnets, or du-rags to class or the cafeteria. The goal here is not meant to restrict you from enjoying the Tuskegee Experience, but to prepare you with a solid foundation for the workforce you will enter once you leave Tuskegee. Employers are less forgiving and too often presentation may overrule stellar preparation.”

“Tuskegee University continues to prepare the best and brightest for a lifetime of success,” Brown added. “With these changes, we want to ensure every student is as prepared as they can be. I look forward to seeing you in August.”

To which I say,

Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?

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Ethics Dunce: CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Those of us who had high hopes that New York Times leftist cult exile Bari Weiss can be trusted to reform CBS News as a trailblazing journalism organization that rededicates itself to true objectivity, integrity and trustworthiness have been betrayed and disappointed again.

CBS News’s Editor-in-Chief, briefly principled in sacking some prominent “60 Minutes” hacks and propagandists, is seeking to hire that paragon of brilliance, that journalism ethics champion and conflicts-of-interest watchdog, that distinguished lawyer and Constitution scholar, Chris Cuomo.

This is signature significance. If Weiss thinks it’s responsible to hire a proven biased and incompetent dimwit like the Fredo of the Cuomo family, she’s just another ethics-free suit seeking ratings over competent journalism. Cuomo is arguably an even worse excuse for a broadcast journalist than Don Lemon, though it’s neck-and neck. Yet the Independent reports,

“In a bid to attract more big-name talent, the editor-in-chief is in talks with Cuomo to join the network, sources told Status. Oliver Darcy, a journalist at the publication, said Weiss was “enraptured” by Cuomo and had already met him in person. The pair, he reports, met for a meal and have often swapped text messages. If a deal did go ahead, Cuomo would join CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil as another high-profile Weiss appointee.”

She’s “enraptured” by that idiot? Great. Oh, why not just hire Scott Pelley back? He’s an unapologetic Axis agent and partisan hack, but at least his IQ hits three digits.

I’m beginning to fear, especially after the Washington Post was just ordered to hire back an opinion columnist who lies for her party and this revolting development, that the U.S. will never have the trustworthy journalism a democracy needs to thrive.

Ethics Quiz: The “Racist” Halloween Costume

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Is it stupid woke Halloween controversy season already? Sadly, it is.

Target removed a Halloween clown costume from its website and presumably its stores after social media mobs claimed that it was racist, evoking blackface and minstrel shows. As we know, companies are infamous weenies any time the race card is played against them, and virtually always grovel an apology. Thus Target sobbed on social media this week,

“An apology from us: We removed an offensive Halloween costume that should never have been part of our assortment. It is no longer for sale. As a company, we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry. We know this is especially hurtful for our Black guests, team members and partners. Removing the costume is an important first step, and we are looking closely at how this happened and what needs to change to ensure this won’t happen again.”

I am strongly inclined to view this as another “Gotcha!” exercise from the race-obsessed. Talk about a case of “If you hear the dog whistle, you’re the dog” ! Let’s see: what aspect of the costume evokes blackface or minstrelsy? Did blackface performer swear orange costumes like that? Noooo. Did they wear black gloves on their hands? No! Did they wear little clown hats? Ruffles around their necks like Bozo? Also no. So what exactly creates the “minstrel show” vibe?It’s the fact that Target hired a black kid to model the costume! Put a white child in that thing and it looks like what it is: a clown costume.

Let me get this straight: Admirably, Target doesn’t see racist images at every turn, and hired a black model, when it should have hired a white model because the black kid made race-obsessed victim-mongers think of blackface. That wasn’t blackface, that was a child’s black face!

Is it the smile that’s the problem? You know, evoking this…

…? Again, it’s the actual black face wearing that smile that triggered the easily race-triggered. As for the smile , which the race-hustler think deliberately evokes “Mr. Bones” above, it is a creepy, killer clown smile, as worn by the murderous clown in Season 4 of “American Horror Story”…

Does that character evoke blackface and minstrel shows?

We are never going to get out from under the iron boot of race hustlers until companies and celebrities stop capitulating to race-baiting like this. On the other side of this ugly coin, what realistic, sound business options did Target have? Well, it could have asked whether its critics want the company to discriminate against black models. It could have educated the public and its customers about what is and isn’t blackface and minstrel imagery. It could have put a warning in the constume’s package, “Do not buy if your kid is black. The Woke and wonderful will think he’s in blackface.”

Or is this another example of the ditty, “He was right, dead right, as he sped along, but he’s just as dead as if he were wrong”? If standing on principle loses a company sales and public support, is it ethical?

Your Ethics Alarms Early Halloween Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Was Target right to apologize and pull the offending costume?

Sorry! A Jason Arday Ethics Train Wreck Update Because Attention Should Be Paid

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

There should be lots of topics to discuss on today the Friday Open Forum, which is going up next, but first, despite having promised to never post on the nauseating Jason Arday mess again, events dictate that I have to break that promise, because not doing my job regarding the EA mission would be more unethical than breaking a promise based on a premise that turned out to be false. It’s an ethics conflict. (I wonder why MAGA types have so much trouble with the concept. President Trump has delivered on a higher percentage of his campaign promises than any President since James K. Polk, and yet defectors like Tucker Carlson and Margery Taylor Greene—who would want to be a member of that club?— are furious because he started a necessary war that should have been started about 50 years ago. Morons.)

But I digress. Over in Europe, which stands as a frightening example of how quickly cultures can lose core values, Nathan Cofnas, who was the first to extensively expose Arday an academic fraud, announced that he has been suspended by Ghent University in Belgium and expects to be fired. His offense? “Discrimination”—-meaning that pointing out that a black academic star that Cambridge University had created out of DEI nothingness was in truth a serial plagiarist was racist. The school rector, Petra De Sutter issued a statement on l’affaire Arday asserting that freedom of speech “is not unlimited. It goes hand in hand with responsibility and may be restricted in order to protect the rights of others.”

Tell us more about the freedom to lie to the public and jump in line in front of genuine scholars because of one’s color, Petra!

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“When They Go Low, We Go High…” Suuure, Democrats: You Can’t Go Much Lower Than This

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Several of my Trump Deranged, “Knee-Jerk-Democrats-To-The-Death-Even-If-Their-Party- Started-Sending-Dissenters-To-Gulags” friends tell me that they are all exited about flavor-of-the-week Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga) ending up as the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee in 2028. Morons. Desperate morons. In addition to the fact that Democrats have painted themselves into a “must-have-a-DEI-President-or-bust” corner (I’m going to see how many of these I can have in a single post: that’s three), Ossoff has already proven that he is an irredeemable asshole. The latest smoking gun evidence was his snide innuendo that President Trump’s ever-present aide, Natalie Harp, is some kind of POTUS comfort woman.

Sen. Ossoff slimed the President this week by saying, “He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” The Axis loved it because its members are contemptible and have no ethical values left; Joseph Welch’s kill shot to Senator Joe McCarthy would be appropriate here if directed at “the resistance,” Democrats, progressives and the news media: “Have you no sense of decency?” No, in fact they don’t. The Axis cheers because Ossoff proved he could “troll” Trump. What he really proved is that he’s such an asshole that he would cast aspersions on a hard-working, patriotic young woman’s morals and rectitude, which in former, more ethical times would guarantee a law suit and maybe a duel.

Nevertheless, the Axis news media, disgusting and unethical to its core and getting worse by the second, pounced. “With All My Heart, Natalie.’ Trump’s Most Devoted Aide Emerges: President Trump’s White House aide Natalie Harp is always by his side. What, exactly, does she do?” snickered the New York Times. (Why look! Permanent Times Trump-slimer Maggie Haberman co-authored the piece! I’m shocked! Shocked!). Then we have similar “Riiight-she’s-his-“aide”-and you-know-what-she’s-aiding” (that’s four) stories from the The Independent, NBC News, The Guardian, MS NOW, The Hill, CBS News, Daily Mail, Bloomberg, Yahoo News, Washington Post, Daily Kos, and more. “Meet Natalie Harp, the aide so close to Trump she once rode in an SUV trunk to accompany him” slobbers CNN.  “Yes, We Absolutely Should Talk About Natalie Harp”  writes Media Matters’ (Talk about “Have you no decency?”) Paul Waldman.

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Ethics Dunce: Playboy

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Item: 2018. The Miss America Pageant puts Gretchen Carlson, former Fox blonde turned #MeToo icon, in charge. She says it is no longer a beauty pageant. Result: the end of Miss America.

Item: 2021. Victoria’s Secret brings in Megan Rapinoe, vocal butch lesbian athlete and LGBTQ activist to rebrand the female sex fantasy company. Result: Uh, no. It quickly returned to its core values after a period of confusion, sales and turnovers…which included Megan.

Item: 2023. Budweiser brings on feminist marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid who decided America’s top-selling beer needed to be pitched to a younger market, so she made male cross-dressing self-identified female Dylan Mulvaney the symbol of Bud Light in an ad campaign, because there’s nothing that appeals to middle-aged, bear-drinking football fans like “chicks with dicks.”

I just learned that “Playboy’s” new editor is gay in “I’ll make Playboy playful again, says its new gay editor/Phillip Picardi,” Quote:

“He wants to “destigmatise male sexuality”, he says, and “help men to build a healthier relationship” with the women in their lives. “I’m hoping we can be a space for men who feel caught between needing to be manosphere-adjacent and needing to be the performative liberal male,” he says…. “We should promote the idea that we can be excited about sex and we can be excited about each other and excited about touching each other,” he says with a cheeky grin.”

To me, that model on the current Playboy cover is androgynous, scuzzy, and reminiscent of what Hustler thought was sexy. But I am not a marketing target for Playboy, (or Hustler) and never was.

“Playboy” is already the walking dead, but still, the Santayana quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” is germane here, as is the principle that when an institution, tradition or product no longer has a place in the culture, you can’t save it by destroying its identity and integrity by pretending that it’s something else. Let these things die with dignity, or at least go down fighting.