Big Papi Comments on Donald Trump's Wall

David Ortiz and Derek Jeter

As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
II Timothy 4:6-7

We want our athletes to be heroes. We want them to be good as well as great.

We know that there is no moral value in hitting a home run, or throwing a touchdown pass, or sinking a three pointer, but we cannot help ourselves.

When it comes to athletes, I am a profound skeptic. But I can’t help myself.

In spite of all the evidence, I want to believe that Ted Williams was a good person. 

And I haven't yet gotten over my disappointment with Lance Armstrong.

Of course, there have been some athletes who have combined exceptional goodness with athletic greatness: Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, and Robert Gordon Orr come to mind. Al Kaline. Stan Musial. Roberto Clemente. And I would probably add Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Jerry West if they had not committed the unforgiveable sin of playing for the Lakers.

And somewhere in that constellation, I see David Ortiz.

He is not perfect. In 2009 a New York Times report said that he was one of 104 Major League players who tested positive for something in a 2003 drug check that was supposed to be confidential. His excuse is that he was careless in the use of a supplement. 

But it’s hard not to love Big Papi. His career numbers are staggering. And it’s not just what he did, but when he did it. I am skeptical of calling someone a “clutch” hitter, but Ortiz may be the exception. Before Ortiz came to the Red Sox they had not won a World Series in more than eight decades. Since his arrival they have won three.

Major League Baseball has a rule against fraternizing with fans or with members of the opposing team. The rule, 3.09, reads in full: 

“Players in uniform shall not address or mingle with spectators, nor sit in the stands before, during, or after a game. No manager, coach or player shall address any spectator before or during a game. Players of opposing teams shall not fraternize at any time while in uniform.”

Big Papi pays no attention. He is friends with everyone and everyone loves him. He talks to the fans when he is on deck waiting to bat. When he gets on base, he is always smiling. And he is always talking to the players on the other team. 

In an interview in Spanish with Jorge Ortiz of USA Today, he was asked to comment on the status of Latinos and immigrants in the United States, particularly in light of the current presidential campaign.

Ortiz, who became an American citizen in 2008, said that he does not normally comment on political issues and is not particularly knowledgeable about politics. But he said that Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall to seal off the southern border and have Mexico pay for it, and Trump’s statements about Mexico sending rapists and criminals to the USA, “didn’t sit well with me.”

“When you speak like that about us, it’s a slap in the face,” said Ortiz.

“I walk around sometimes, and I see Mexican people trying to earn a living in an honest way. And to hear somebody make those kinds of comments, it hits you. I think as Latin people we deserve better. Things have gotten much better in that regard. … As Latin people we deserve respect, no matter where you’re from. And especially our Mexican brothers, who come here willing to do all the dirty work.

“Latin people here in the United States are the spark plug of the country’s economy. Whoever opposes that is going to lose. And not just Latin people but immigrants. I’m talking about people who come from Africa, from Asia, other places. All those people come here with one goal, to realize the American dream, and you have to include them in our group.”

It means something that David Ortiz, who is one of the most popular athletes in America and also one of the most well-known Latinos in America, would take the risk of speaking out. 

In an instant, he put a face on the issue. And not just any face. A beloved face, larger than life.

I first heard about the interview on sports talk radio as I was driving home for lunch yesterday. And I was appalled by the comments. 

The hosts spoke as if they were talking about a child. They noted that David admitted he really didn’t know very much about politics. 

"Doesn’t he know we’re talking about illegal immigrants?" they asked. Donald Trump isn’t going to deport all immigrants, just the illegals. Trump didn’t say all Mexicans were rapists. David just doesn’t understand the issue. And it went on like that.

I guess if you are a very large black guy with an accent who smiles all the time and seems to love everybody it’s easy for people to think you are not very smart. Now we know why Bill Russell smiled so seldom.

For the record, I think David understands precisely what the issues are.

And you don’t need a Ph.D. in Political Science to feel a slap in the face.

Thank you for reading. Your comments are welcome here or on Facebook. Please feel free to share on social media.

The Sounds of Summer

Don Orsillo salutes the fans at Fenway Park for the last time, September 27, 2015

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."

Those words were written by A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1977, before he was President of Yale, or the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. He was a lifelong Red Sox fan and he died before seeing a season that ended in anything but heartbreak. 

Red Sox radio announcer Joe Castiglione read those words at the close of the last game of the season this past Sunday. Joe (those of us who have spent many summer evenings listening to him cannot help speaking as if he were one of the family) traditionally reads that passage at the close of every season. Joe is currently tied with the late (and very, very great) Ned Martin for the longest tenure among Red Sox broadcasters at 32 years.

And Joe will be back next year.

Baseball broadcasters tend to have long tenures. The Dodgers recently announced that Vin Scully will be back for his 67th season next spring. He was calling the games when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. I remember listening to him calling World Series Games when they were still in the afternoon. “Pull up a chair,” he would say, “if you’re just joining us, we’ve got good one.” And then he would tell us what had happened while I was riding the bus home from school.

Scully is the best ever. The Babe Ruth of broadcasting. Ned Martin was never so well known, but I loved the way he could weave together Shakespeare and baseball. So Martin is my number two. But Joe is right up there. And I’m glad he will be back again.

On the television side, there is grief and despair in Red Sox Nation. Don Orsillo will not be back. He was unceremoniously dumped after fifteen years. Fans are irate, in part at least because it seems utterly bizarre that after a terrible season in which the team was often unwatchable, they seemed to think that the answer was to fire Don Orsillo. The team was not just bad. They didn’t just lose. They were often unwatchable. On the TV side, Orsillo and partner Jerry Remy did their best to give fans a reason to stay tuned. But there is only so much you can do when the team seemed unable to hit, or field, or pitch, or even remember how many outs there were.

Orsillo will be replaced by Joe Castiglione’s radio partner, Dave O’Brien. That is both good news and bad news. O'Brien is one of the best play by play guys in the country. But his talents for description and storytelling come through much better on the radio than on TV. His TV announcing on ESPN is excellent, but his radio announcing is even better.

And baseball is a game for radio. There are very few announcers who live up to the possibilities of baseball on the radio. Scully, Ned Martin, Jon Miller, Joe Castiglione, and Dave (again, he’s like family). The folks who filled in over the summer when Dave O’Brien was doing TV games for ESPN did not fill me with confidence.

Don Orsillo will be calling games for the San Diego Padres next summer, replacing the legendary Dick Enberg, who is retiring. It sounds like a dream job, unless you grew up in New England rooting for the Red Sox, and studied under Joe Castiglione at Northeastern (Joe teaches broadcasting in the off season) and interned at Fenway Park, and your dream job was announcing for the Red Sox.

It was a sad ending to the season. Joe and Dave have often seemed like brothers. If they are not friends, then they present a good facsimile of friendship. And Don was Joe’s protégé and star pupil. 

A few weeks ago, not long after the news came out that Don would not be back, the Red Sox were playing the Yankees at Fenway. Jerry and Don carried on as if nothing was wrong. They were, as always, themselves. Late in the game, with the Red Sox trailing 12-3, the action on the field was less than riveting, but that did not deter them. They were busy analyzing video of Orsillo shagging fly balls last spring at Jet Blue Park, the Red Sox stadium in Fort Myers, Florida. Orsillo was in left field, in front of the wall that copies the Green Monster at Fenway.

Richard Sandomir recounted the exchange in an article in the New York Times.

“That ball you caught up against the wall,” Remy asked with feigned seriousness, “was that hit or was that lobbed?”

“Oh, it was hit,” Orsillo said insistently. “Driven.”

It was classic. Dave will be good, maybe even great. But we will miss Don.

Something Worth Remembering

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
Exodus 20:4-6

Everyone knows the saying about the “sins of the parents being visited upon their children,” and not just children, but grandchildren and great grandchildren.

It’s one of those biblical ideas that has faithful people scratching their heads, and the more secular among us pointing to it as one more place where religion gets it wrong. It seems wrong in spite of the fact that we know it to be true. We know that the bad choices of one generation often affect succeeding generations. We have studied the ways in which the treaties imposed at the end of World War I set in motion the forces that led to World War II. We know about the legacy of slavery.

But the second part of that passage is often overlooked. Righteousness endures to the thousandth generation. In other words, forever.

It is a remarkable concept. When we bend the arc of history away from justice, it is serious, and it makes a difference that may last generations. But when we bend the arc toward justice, that act is never lost. Human beings may forget, but the moral universe is changed forever.

George Shuba died last week in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, at the age of 89. Shuba played seven seasons for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He had a smooth stroke at the plate and was called Shotgun because of his ability to spray line drives around the outfield. He played in three World Series, including Brooklyn’s only World Championship in 1955.

I knew who George Shuba was from reading about the glory years of the old Dodgers, but I did not know what Paul Harvey liked to call “the rest of the story,” until I read Richard Goldstein’s obituary in the New York Times.

What he accomplished in the Major Leagues was minor, compared to the legacy of one game in the Minor Leagues in 1946. On April 18 of that year Shuba was playing left field for the Montreal Royals. He hit three home runs in that opening game of the season, but that wasn’t what makes the game memorable. In the third inning, Jackie Robinson, playing in his first game organized baseball, hit a three run homer. When he crossed home plate, Shuba, who was waiting on deck as the next hitter, stepped up and shook his hand.

The handshake would have been nothing special if Robinson had been white, but in the hyper sensitive context of Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier, it was a huge moment. And it was captured forever in that iconic Associated Press photo at the top of this post.

After retiring from baseball, George Shuba returned to Youngstown, raised a family, and worked as a postal clerk. When he went to schools in the Youngstown area to talk about racial tolerance, he always carried a copy of that photo with him. His son Michael remembers that when he came home from school with a report of racial bullying, his rather would point to the old photograph and tell him: “Look up at that photo. I want you to remember what that stands for. You treat all people equally.”

When the Season Ends

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped and summer was gone.”

Those words were written by A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1977, before he was President of Yale, or the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. He was a lifelong Red Sox fan and he died before seeing a season that ended in anything but heartbreak. Long time Red Sox announcer Joe Castiglione traditionally reads those words at the close of every season.

There will be no October baseball in Boston this year. The amazing team that went from last place in 2012 to winning the World Series in 2013 has sunk back to last place. And so I find myself looking back to years past. The 1946 World Series produced one of my favorite Red Sox stories.

In the bottom of the eighth inning of seventh game of the 1946 World Series, the Red Sox and Cardinals were tied 3-3. The game was played in St. Louis, and the Cardinals were at bat. Enos Slaughter was on first base and Harry Walker was at the plate. Walker hit one into the gap in left centerfield. Slaughter, who was known for his speed, was already running. When Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky took the throw from the outfield, Slaughter had already rounded third. Pesky turned toward the infield and threw to the plate, but it was too late. Slaughter had scored, the Cardinals had the lead, and the radio announcer screamed, “Pesky held the ball! He held the ball. Johnny Pesky held the ball!”

That one play sent Enos Slaughter to the Hall of Fame and kept Johnny Pesky out. The story was that Slaughter had scored from first base on a single, because Pesky held the ball. It was a career defining moment for both men. And that one play has followed John Pesky for the nearly sixty years since then. Years later, at a football game, after a running back had committed his second fumble, someone in the stands yelled, “Give the ball to Pesky, he’ll hold onto it!” It is part of the legacy of Red Sox Nation, like Bucky Dent’s home run and Bill Buckner’s error (another guy who, except for that one play, would probably be in the Hall of Fame).

The real story, however, is more complicated than the legend and it tells us more about the character of Johnny Pesky than it does about his baseball skills.

The Red Sox had been trailing 3-1 in the top of the inning, when Dom DiMaggio doubled to drive in two runs and tie the score. Unfortunately, Dom pulled a hamstring running to second and had to leave the game. He was replaced by a journeyman outfielder named Leon Culberson. The change was critical, because Dom DiMaggio was the best defensive centerfielder in the American League (yes, Yankee fans, he was better than his more famous brother, Joe). Culberson was a competent player, but not at the same level as DiMaggio, and he could not match Dom’s throwing arm, which was probably the strongest in the league.

When Walker came to bat, with Slaughter on first, DiMaggio motioned frantically to Culberson from the dugout, trying to move him toward left field. Eventually, he took a step or two, but not enough. When the ball was hit, Culberson was slow to react, and threw weakly to Pesky, who had come out into the outfield to take the throw. If you watch films of the game, you’ll see Pesky turn and throw without any hesitation. But since the dominant record of the game etched in the memory of fans came from the radio announcer, that was the image that stuck. And though most people think Slaughter scored from first on a single, Walker’s hit was actually a double.

Slaughter himself said that he never would have tried to score if DiMaggio had been playing center. And when Dom was asked whether he thought he could have thrown Slaughter out, he answered with certainty, “I would have thrown him out—at third!”

Over the years, when Pesky was asked about the play, he would smile and say, “Well, I guess I must have hesitated when I looked in to the infield.” He stuck with that explanation because the alternative would have violated one of Pesky’s core principles: you never blame your teammates. He would rather take the fault himself than blame Culberson for a bad throw.

People who knew him say that Johnny Pesky was a simple guy. He didn’t spend time wondering what should have been or could have been, or why he had to be the one to carry the blame for the loss. He considered himself lucky to have been paid to play a game. And lucky to have been a part of some great teams.

In sports, coaches and commentators will often speak of character when their teams come from behind to win the game in the last minute or the last inning, as if athletic success had an intrinsic moral quality. But when I think of character, I’ll remember Johnny Pesky, smiling at his critics.

Sometimes the Good Guys Win

8Finally, beloved,^* whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about^* these things.

Philippians 4:8

R. A. Dickey is one of the best stories in baseball this year.

At age 37 he is one of the oldest pitchers in a starting rotation. He is also the only current knuckleballer. His 18-5 record of wins and losses is second in the National League, an improbable achievement, since his team, the New York Mets, has an overall record of 66 wins and 80 losses. At 2.68, his earned run average leads the league. He’s also first in complete games and in shutouts. He’s second in WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched), strikeouts, and innings pitched.

Dickey’s life has not been easy. He grew up with an alcoholic mother and was sexually abused by a baby-sitter. His refuge was athletics. But his path to the Major Leagues was not an easy one. He was an Academic All-American at Tennessee and was drafted in the first round by the Texas Rangers in 1996, but a routine physical showed there was something the matter with his arm. His right elbow was missing a ligament. Dickey recalls, “They thought they had drafted damaged goods, and I went back to Nashville thinking that I may never throw for a professional team again.”

Eventually, the Rangers did sign him for $75,000, a small fraction of what they had originally offered. He bounced around the minors with little success. In 2006, after re-inventing himself as a knuckleballer, he got another chance to start a major league game, but he gave up 6 runs and was immediately demoted to the minors in Oklahoma.

His minor league exile led to a baptismal experience that changed his life. One night after a game he decided that he wanted to swim across the Missouri River. It was not long after he waded into the water that he discovered that the current and the undertow were much worse than he had anticipated. "Every stroke was a determined stroke to try to survive an experience where I [thought that I] may drown,” he said. "I had given myself over to the fact that this was it, I wasn't going to make it. The undertow was pulling me down."

His feet touched bottom just as he was giving up and prepared to sink and let the water fill his lungs. He was able to make his way toward the shore where a teammate pulled him out of the river. "I look at it as almost a baptism of sorts," Dickey said. "I went into the Missouri River; I was hanging on by a thread professionally. ... And when I came out of the river, I ended up going 11-2 with a 2.80 ERA and became the Pacific Coast League pitcher of the year. I think when I came out of the river, I was so consumed with just wanting to live in the present well — wanting to enjoy every second — that I think that carried over directly into my pitching, and I just cared about each pitch singularly. ... And I decided that that's how I wanted to live my life."

The Mets are not on television very often and I have only watched him pitch once. It was a game against the Yankees and he did not display his best stuff. But he did show me something at least as important. After nearly hitting Alex Rodriguez in the head with a wayward knuckleball, he took a couple of steps toward home plate and shouted an apology.

Remembering Johnny Pesky

We are not dismayed by our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Romans 5:3-5

Johnny Pesky was the heart and soul of Red Sox Nation. More than Ted Williams or Carl Yastrzemski, he personified the team. He was the one constant over the decades. And like so much of Red Sox history, his story is centered in one play. For most sports fans, it is the story of a mistake, but for those who look more deeply, it is a parable.

In the bottom of the eighth inning of seventh game of the 1946 World Series, the Red Sox and Cardinals were tied 3-3. The game was played in St. Louis, and the Cardinals were at bat. Enos Slaughter was on first base and Harry Walker was at the plate. Walker hit one into the gap in left centerfield. Slaughter, who was known for his speed, was already running. When Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky took the throw from the outfield, Slaughter had already rounded third. Pesky turned toward the infield and threw to the plate, but it was too late. Slaughter had scored, the Cardinals had the lead, and the radio announcer screamed, “Pesky held the ball! He held the ball. Johnny Pesky held the ball!”

That one play sent Enos Slaughter to the Hall of Fame and kept Johnny Pesky out. The story was that Slaughter had scored from first base on a single, because Pesky held the ball. It was a career defining moment for both men. And that one play has followed John Pesky for the nearly sixty years since then. Years later, at a football game, after a running back had committed his second fumble, someone in the stands yelled, “Give the ball to Pesky, he’ll hold onto it!” It is part of the legacy of Red Sox Nation, like Bucky Dent’s home run and Bill Buckner’s error (another guy who, except for that one play, would probably be in the Hall of Fame).

In his book, “Teammates,” David Halberstam asked Dom DiMaggio and Bobby Doerr about that play. The real story is more complicated than the legend and it tells us more about the character of Johnny Pesky than it does about his baseball skills.

The Red Sox had been trailing 3-1 in the top of the inning, when Dom DiMaggio doubled to drive in two runs and tie the score. Unfortunately, Dom pulled a hamstring running to second and had to leave the game. He was replaced by a journeyman outfielder named Leon Culberson. The change was critical, because Dom DiMaggio was the best defensive centerfielder in the American League (yes, Yankee fans, he was better than his more famous brother, Joe). Culberson was a competent player, but not at the same level as DiMaggio, and he could not match Dom’s throwing arm, which was probably the strongest in the league.

When Walker came to bat, with Slaughter on first, DiMaggio motioned frantically to Culberson from the dugout, trying to move him toward left field. Eventually, he took a step or two, but not enough. When the ball was hit, Culberson was slow to react, and threw weakly to Pesky, who had come out into the outfield to take the throw. If you watch films of the game, you’ll see Pesky turn and throw without any hesitation. But since the dominant record of the game etched in the memory of fans came from the radio announcer, that was the image that stuck. And though most people think Slaughter scored from first on a single, Walker’s hit was actually a double.

Slaughter himself said that he never would have tried to score if DiMaggio had been playing center. And when Dom was asked whether he thought he could have thrown Slaughter out, he answered with certainty, “I would have thrown him out—at third!”

Over the years, when Pesky was asked about the play, he would smile and say, “Well, I guess I must have hesitated when I looked in to the infield.” He stuck with that explanation because the alternative would have violated one of Pesky’s core principles: you never blame your teammates. He would rather take the fault himself than blame Culberson for a bad throw.

People who knew him say that Johnny Pesky was a simple guy. He didn’t spend any time wondering what should have been or could have been, or why he had to be the one to carry the blame for the loss. He considered himself lucky to have been paid to play a game. And lucky to have been a part of some great teams.

In sports, coaches and commentators will often speak of character when their teams come from behind to win the game in the last minute or the last inning, as if athletic success had an intrinsic moral quality. But when I think of character, I’ll think of John Pesky, smiling at his critics.