Fenway Park

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 4/4/2018: Baseball Lies, A Presidential High Crime, And A Judge Makes A Panty Raid

/ Jack Marshall / 163 Comments

 

Wake Up!

1 Fake history, baseball style. Broadcasts of Red Sox games from Fenway Park in Boston refer to “the Pesky Pole,” the official name of the tall, yellow foul pole in right field. It is named in honer of the late Johnny Pesky, who also is honored in a statue outside the park—it featured him and his team mates and longtime friends, Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, and Bobby Doerr. Pesky, with a couple of brief interruptions,was a Red Sox lifer, beginning with his 1942 rookie season, and ending with his death several years ago as an honorary coach. In between, he was Sox minor league manager, the big team’s manager, a hitting coach and a broadcaster.

The Pesky Pole got its name because the notoriously power-free shortstop reputedly hit several of the few he managed to slug in his career by knocking a pitch  around the marker, which arose from  what is now the shortest foul line in baseball. The  low Fenway right field fence veers sharply out from there to over 400 feet, so such homers are considered, and indeed are, lucky flukes. During his brief and undistinguished tenure as a Red Sox radio color man, former Red Sox pitching ace Mel Parnell repeatedly told the story about how Johnny won a game for Mel in 1948 with a pole-shot. This tale led directly to the team officially naming the pole on September 27, 2006, on Pesky’s 87th birthday, with a commemorative plaque placed at its base and everything.

Afterwards, and not before, someone actually checked the game records. Pesky never hit the home run  described by Parnell. He only hit six home runs in Fenway at all, and nobody knows how many hit the pole, looped around the pole, or even went to right field. (Pop-ups hit by Punch-and-Judy hitting shortstops sometimes landed in the screen over the left field wall for home runs, as the cursed Bucky Dent can attest.) Nevertheless, the fake history is in place: the Pesky Pole is named that because Johnny Pesky hit a famous home run off of it, or was famous for looping cheap homers around it, or something.

Baseball excels at creating fake history, the most notable being represented by the locale of its Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, New York. When the museum was envisioned, the accepted story about the game’s origin was the Union general Abner Doubleday invented the sport in 1839 and organized the first game in Cooperstown. After the construction was underway,  research suggested that everything about the Doubleday tale was rumor and myth, but baseball and the museum’s management, in one of the all-time classic examples of adopting the philosophy of the newspaper editor in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence,” went to great lengths to keep the original story before the public. Eventually some hard evidence surfaced suggesting that the game was invented by Alexander Cartwright, who was eventually inducted into the Hall as the game’s creator, while Doubleday is not. Nonetheless, the myth survives. Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, for example,  said in 2010 that “I really believe that Abner Doubleday is the ‘Father of Baseball.'” This is the equivalent of saying that one believes in the Easter Bunny.

Selig was later inducted into the Hall of Fame.

2.Believe it or Not! I would support impeaching  President Trump for his tweeting attacks against Amazon. This is such an abuse of Presidential power that it demands at least a Congressional reprimand or sanction. Amazon lost $53 billion in market value in the wake of the tweets, meaning that investors, retirees, and ordinary Americans lost wealth as well. It is unconscionable for a President of the United States to deliberately target a company, just as it is wrong for a President to punch down at a private citizen, but the consequences of doing what Trump has done to Amazon is far, far worse. The Wall Street Journal suggested in an editorial that if the attack on Amazon was politically motivated because Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, impeachment would be justified. Yes, that would be even worse, but it is not an essential element of this “high crime.” The President of the United States must not abuse his power by intentionally harming lawful businesses.

The foolish resistance is so focused on trying to impeach Trump based on exotic laws and imaginary conspiracies that it doesn’t see the real thing when it’s right in front of its face, and the anti-Trump media has so destroyed its credibility by embracing ridiculous impeachment theories that a valid one will just look like more of the same. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Boston Red Sox And “Hate Speech”

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

SHHHHHHHH!

I don’t know why it is that the Boston Red Sox are leading all of baseball in ethics controversies, but here’s the story:

The Red Sox have been playing the Orioles the last four days, in a series marked by rancor arising from an incident last week that has metastasized into an exchange of words, accusations and attempted beanballs.  After the first game in this series,  Orioles’ outfielder Adam Jones claimed that he had heard racial epithets from the stands, and a bag of peanuts had been thrown at him.  Boston  and the Red Sox in particular have a dubious racial history (the team was the last in baseball ito have a black player), so this immediately became a big story, with the Sox, MLB, the city, and even the governor expressing horror, regret, and outrage. No fan or Orioles player has stepped  forward to substantiate Jones’ accusations. I don’t doubt him, but that is relevant, because in the entire episode as it unfolded, conclusive evidence has been deemed unnecessary. Accusations alone confer guilt. In the next game, Fenway gave Jones a long standing ovation on his first trip to the plate, saying, in essence, “We’re sorry you were treated this way, and we reject that disgusting conduct.” Good. That is the Fenway Park I know.

Then it was reported that another fan who was in the crowd at Fenway  the next night has been banned for life by the Red Sox. Team president Sam Kennedy said that the fan received the lifetime ban for using a racial slur to to describe a Kenyan woman who sang the National Anthem before the game, in a conversation with another fan.

Calvin Hennick, a Boston resident bringing his son to his first Red Sox game as a present for his sixth birthday, wrote on Facebook and confirmed to the Associated Press  that a  fan sitting near him used “nigger” when referring to the National  Anthem singer that night. Hennick asked the man to repeat what he had said, and when he did,Hennick summoned security. The Fenway security ejected the offending fan, who denied using a racial slur….you know, like Giles Corey denied being a witch.

Kennedy thanked Hennick, who is white, for coming forward. Says NBC baseball writer Craig Calcaterra, who once was a lawyer and presumably understood basic principles of justice, process, and fairness, “Kudos to the Red Sox for acting so swiftly.”

The Red Sox acted swiftly, all right.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is this...

Is it fair, proportionate, reasonable and just to ban a baseball spectator for life under these circumstances?

Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms Encore: “Tom Yawkey’s Red Sox Racism, and How Not to Prove It”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Yawkey TributeEvery now and then a comment out of the blue reminds me of a post that I had forgotten. That was the case here. Reading it again for the first time in five years, I was struck by how the crux of the post is still relevant today (that crux has nothing to do with baseball), and indeed how the intervening five years have made what I thought was a bad trend a genuine political and cultural malady.

And the World Series is going on, and I feel badly about the Red Sox having such a miserable season. This post, which few read when it was first published as the blog was attracting (let’s see…) less than 200 views a day as opposed to nearly 4000 a day now, is a good one, and I enjoyed it.  That “self-professed ethicist” has his moments…. Continue reading →

World Series Ethics: He Tipped His Cap

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments
What would Ted Williams have done? We know the answer to THAT question...

What would Ted Williams have done? We know the answer to THAT question…

The Boston Red Sox won the World Series last night, making me happy. Something else happened too.

Some background is in order. The great Ted Williams used to give Boston baseball fans the biggest hat tip in baseball as they cheered him after a home run. This was when he was first known as “the Kid’ and indeed was one, as his Hall of Fame trajectory was obvious from the moment he stepped on a major league field in 1939 at the tender age of 19. Gradually but rapidly, a vicious local press and some ugly incidents in response to a few jackasses in the stands caused the Kid to sour on the admission-paying mortals who booed him when he struck out, and he decided to ignore their cheers, refusing to extend the traditional courtesy of a hat tip to the fans as he rounded the bases after a home run—which, since he was Ted Williams, happened frequently. Williams  spent his whole career in the city of Boston playing before those fans who offended him in his twenties, but right up to and after his final home run, which he hit, famously, in his last at bat, the Red Sox fans got no hat tip from Ted. He rounded the bases the final time as they cheered themselves hoarse, and never looked up or acknowledged their praise. Screw ’em.

That was Red Sox pitcher John Lackey’s attitude toward the current generation of Fenway fans, for similar reasons. He had been signed to a rich, long-term contract in 2010 to be a Red Sox mound ace, but arrived in Boston with his arm deteriorating and his abilities diminished. 2010 was a disappointing season for Lackey and 2011 was worse, as he pitched in pain for a team that was short of hurlers. The 2011 Red Sox became infamous for their late-season collapse and underachieving starting pitchers, and no one on that team was jeered on the field or savaged in the call-in sports shows like John Lackey. He missed the entire next Red Sox season recovering from arm surgery after the 2011 collapse, and thus missed the 2012 debacle that was even worse. In 2013, however, Lackey returned with a renewed right arm, a fit body and a fierce determination to finally live up to the big contract. He did, too. He pitched well all season, and became a key factor in the Boston charge to the World Series, as they rose from last place in their division in 2012 to first.

In 2013, Lackey received nothing but cheers from the surprised and grateful Boston fans. Nevertheless, he adamantly maintained the Kid’s attitude—“Screw ’em”—all season long. As he walked into to the Red Sox dugout after being relieved in another fine pitching performance and the Boston fans saluted him, Lackey refused to reciprocate with the traditional hat tip, all season long and through the play-offs. The fans were fickle hypocrites, and their loyalty conditional. They booed him when he was valiantly pitching hurt and embarrassed in 2011, and he wasn’t going to forget it. They were going to get snubbed like they deserved, and that was the way it was going to be.

Last night the Boston Red Sox won their third World Series in the last ten years. It was the first time the home team fans had been able to witness the deciding game since 1918 (as the Fox announcers informed the presumably senile audience over and over and over again), and John Lackey was the pitching star for the home town team. The night was a love fest for Boston baseball fans, as they cheered every move of their frequently star-crossed and quirky team, and no Red Sox player was cheered more loudly than John Lackey, as he walked off the field for the final time in 2013 in the 7th inning, with his team safely ahead by five runs. They stood and applauded and chanted his name, as he moved deliberately to the Boston dugout, head down, grim, just like Ted on that gray day in 1960 when he hit homer number 521.

Then he tipped his cap.

It was a small thing, the smallest really, only a gesture and for most players, most of the time, an automatic one…except that it symbolized the ethical virtues of grace, forgiveness, gratitude, humility and fairness. This memorable, wonderful night for the Boston Red Sox and the grand old city it represents—my home town– was no time to let bitterness and resentment prevail. Unlike Ted Williams (who wouldn’t make his peace with Boston fans until years later, when he returned as an opposition manager), John Lackey found the strength and decency to let it go.

It was, as I said, a small thing. But it took character, and it was the right thing to do.

______________________________
Graphic: USA Today

Ethics Hero: Neil Diamond

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

 

Kansas City Royals v Boston Red Sox

The pop singer whose ear-worm of a 60’s hit, “Sweet Caroline,” inexplicably became a Fenway Park crowd sing-along tradition made a surprise appearance at the Red Sox-Royals game this afternoon, apparently voluntarily and at his own expense, to contribute to the festivities as Boston celebrated the end of a violent and frightening week. The song has been played at other ballparks in recent days, even at Yankee Stadium, in a show of solidarity with the besieged city and its residents.

Neil Diamond flew to Boston and contacted the Red Sox slightly before game time, saying he was eager to sing along with himself in the seventh inning. Surprised club officials assented. So he wandered out onto the field, looking paunchy, old and happy, and sang into a microphone while his ancient record played—since this was all impromptu, there was no other accompaniment available. And the crowd loved it: you can watch and listen here.

Unlike David Ortiz, Diamond didn’t have to resort to obscenity to give his appearance emphasis. He gave an unsolicited  gift to Boston and Red Sox fans, lending his talents to the celebration without compensation because it was a caring and classy thing to do. It didn’t matter that singing along with his 44 years younger self was hardly flattering, or that the sound was lousy, or even that “Sweet Caroline” is hardly Gershwin or even Billy Joel (I always preferred “Cracklin’ Rosie,” myself).  A big, wealthy recording star simply helped the city’s  healing along by a generous gesture when there was nothing in it for him.

Neil Diamond is a good guy.

 

The Racist Slur on Tea Parties, and an Ethicist’s Lament

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I thought long and hard about whether to write this post, and I resent the fact that I had to think about it at all. But it involves piggy-backing on a theme that has been finding voice on conservative talk radio, and concerns an unfair and dishonest theme being pushed by liberal talk television and certain media pundits. That means that whatever I write will immediately be taken, by those who view the world in narrow ideological terms, as a declaration of alliance when it has nothing to do with politics at all. It has to do with unethical journalism, sloppy reasoning, and dirty politics. I resent the fact that Right Wing radio is so frequently uncivil and unfair  that it sullies every legitimate observation and position that it takes. I resent the fact that so much of the public decides what they believe, not by the quality of the ideas in question, but by the identity of who advocates them. Communication is hard enough without bias serving as a perpetual hurdle to comprehension.

Oh, well….

The effort by certain commentators, TV hosts (notably MSNBC’s troika of Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann), liberal columnists and Democratic Party flacks to stereotype the Tea Party movement as a thinly-veiled racist protest is despicable, unsupportable, dishonest and unfair.  It is also insulting to Americans generally. And yes, I resent that too. Continue reading →

The Ethics of Bigotry, Part III:Tom Yawkey’s Red Sox Racism, and How Not to Prove It

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Tom Yawkey owned the Boston Red Sox for four decades and his wife Jean owned them for one more; it is accurate to say that he was the most influential individual in the storied team’s existence. Yawkey bought the team in the mid-Thirties, after it had suffered through one of the worse stretches of awful play on record, sparked by an earlier owner’s fire sale of its best players, including Babe Ruth. Yawkey ran the Red Sox with an open checkbook and a stated objective of giving the city of Boston the best championship money could buy. Soon the once-pathetic team was fielding all-time greats like Jimmy Foxx, Joe Cronin, Lefty Grove, and a brash young phenom named Ted Williams. By the time Yawkey died in 1976, the Red Sox had one of the largest, most loyal and fanatic fan bases in sports, and the team was entrenched in New England culture. Boston remains properly grateful, and the re-naming of the street outside Fenway Park “Yawkey Way” is no perfunctory tribute. (The names of Yawkey and his wife Jean are spelled out, vertically,  in Morse Code on the famous hand-operated scoreboard on Fenway Park’s left field wall.

The Red Sox came close, but they never won that World Championship under Yawkey.  One of the primary reasons was that the Yawkey way was racist. Continue reading →