The Sporting Life

Did you know there is a Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame located on California Street in San Francisco?

It’s a non-profit charitable organization established to honor sports legends to benefit youth sports programs. The entire site is a goldmine of information for those interested in sports.

The section of the Hall of Fame site that intrigued me was its Inductees page. Here you can find the names of many Bay Area sports heroes, the dates of their induction, their sport, and the location of the Plaque awarded to them. You can also click on their names and find pictures and brief biographies. As I scrolled through the list of names, I recognized all of them, but a few were more familiar than others.

The very first name of the list was Frankie Albert. He was a quarterback for Stanford and later the Niners QB. His trademark touch was a leap in the air to throw a pass. When I was a kid, I watched him play in the old Kezar Stadium. He starred in a movie called The Spirit of Stanford.

Then there was flamboyant Max Baer. He was the heavyweight boxing champion of the world who lost his title to the Cinderella Man, Jimmy Braddock. Although born in Omaha, Max grew up in Livermore and began his boxing career in Oakland. He was widely known as a playboy and appeared in several movies, most notably The Prizefighter and the Lady, which coincidentally was on HBO today. Max, Sr. was the father of Max, Jr. of Beverly Hillbillies fame and the older brother of Buddy Baer, also a boxer and a Hollywood actor.

Of course John Brodie is included. John later became a professional golfer and I once met him briefly on the course when a friend introduced us. He is about a foot and a half taller than me. And a better golfer, I might add.

Two of the DiMaggio brothers, Dom and Joe, were both inductees. As a Yankee, Joltin’ Joe, the Yankee Clipper, ran off a string of hits in 56 consecutive games, a record unbroken still. Overshadowed by his brother, Joe, Dom nevertheless was a star outfielder with the Boston Red Sox. A third brother, Vince, also played baseball and enjoyed an outstanding career with the Cincinnati Reds, New York Giants, the Pirates, and the Phillies. He hasn’t been inducted, but one certainly hopes that he will someday.

There are more heroes than we have space to talk about here. Suffice to say, almost all of the sports are represented, Baseball, Figure Skating, Tennis, Swimming, Golf, Basketball, Track, Horse Racing, and Boxing.

The Hall of Fame makes it clear that the Bay Area has produced more than its share of sports heroes.

Technorati Tags: Kezar Stadium,Frankie Albert,Max Baer,The DiMaggio Brothers,John Brodie,Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame

The Bullpen

So, la Gavaratta spent $139,700 on a bullpen.

He adopted the idea from New York City’s Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg. I wonder what kind of bullpen we’re talking about.

• A holding cell for irate citizens, nosy, impudent reporters, and ambitious senior staffers who aspire to the status of Alpha Mayor?
• A place where bored relief pitchers sit on wooden benches, chewing tobacco, and spitting?
• A rodeo enclosure where the bulls snort and manufacture cow patties as they wait to stomp some dumb cowboy’s head.

I have a hunch Herr Gabermeister’s version is all of these and more, kind of like a zoo with one giant enclosure where ambitious predators and ovine prey warily scope out one another. In politics, ambition trumps friendship and staff advisors are like appendages, useful only as things to blame when something goes amiss. Will self-interest be the ultimate demise of GN’s bullpen? Advisors are ambitious, too.

Newsom justifies his bullpen with interesting rationales for public consumption.

He thinks, for example, that his top advisors will work much better together than in cubicles of their own. Is he in for a surprise. Individuals thrown together in groups don’t work together. They spend a lot of time watching one another. The minute one picks up a phone, silence descends over the room like thick fog as everyone strains to listen.

Newsom also thinks he will have easy access to his assembled advisors, thus facilitating the immediate development of policies without memos flying around like confetti. He’s living in la-la land if he really believes paperwork will decrease. Instead of memos to one another or to Gav, his advisors will fill their desk drawers with ubiquitous “Memorandum for the Record,” an interesting bureaucratic innovation of long standing.

MFR’s, as they are commonly called, are notes to oneself recapping a conversation or a meeting for the purpose of covering one’s ass in case some ambitious SOB resorts to the “sandbagging” strategy. In a bureaucracy, a sandbagger is someone who has played a critical role in a decision or an action and then lies about it or stands silent when the shit hits the fan and some poor soul is splattered.

The story of The Caine Mutiny is a perfect example of sandbagging. Lt. Tom Keefer, a devious wordsmith who aspires to become a world-famous author, incites rather dull second-in-command, Lt. Steve Maryk, into removing erratic Captain Queeg from command without authority, a clear mutiny under Naval regulations. When Lt. Maryk’s court-martial inevitably rolls around, Lt. Keefer denies any involvement in the mutiny. Thankfully, a really brainy attorney gets Maryk off. But that’s fiction. Real life is a mite fuzzier.

If anyone believes sandbaggers like Keefer are rare, they are living in a fantasy world. In every group, at least one weasel absorbs everything and then at an appropriate moment, approaches the boss in private to report the daily doings.

I have a hunch that Newsom adopted Bloomberg’s bullpen idea for unstated reasons, such as a Machiavellian desire to make sure no individual or no power clique emerges to provide advice he doesn’t want to hear. Politicians are, if anything, ever alert for suspicious goings on. In a large, open room, the boss can easily spot who hangs with whom. In private cubicles, funny things happen.

One puzzling angle of Newsom’s move is a return to an ancient practice. The bullpen model of management originated when alpha cavemen squatted around an open fire and decided the fate of their clan. And of course, we all remember those old Western movies in which a hapless hunter, trapper, cowboy, or Army shavetail is captured or staggers into an Indian encampment where all of the chiefs gather around a fire and decide how many ponies the outsider has to ante up for a night with an Indian maiden.

And in the 20^th Century, business and government offices often were no more than large, open rooms with everyone in plain sight of the boss who sat comfortably behind a glass enclosure watching his underlings. The concept of offices and cubicles is a recent innovation based on the theory that people simply work better in a quiet environment. In other words, privacy is progressive thinking.

Now, Newsom wants to return to the golden age of yesteryear. What next? A horse-drawn muni?

A last thought: The zoo group isn’t going to work well together for another reason. They’ll spend a lot of time fighting over who controls that giant-sized television screen. Porn Channel 6 or Playboy? God. Decisions, decisions. Get out the MFRs.

I did not know that

Hulk Hogan’s real name is Terry Bollea. His wife, Linda, has just filed for divorce.

Unranked Arkansas beat top-ranked LSU 50-48. Gah-ah-lay! (Well, I knew that but threw it in because it surprised me).

San Francisco icon Johnny Mathis was born in Gilmer, Texas.

The birth name of Tony Bennett of I left my heart in San Francisco fame is Anthony Dominick Benedetto.

The most famous San Franciscan of all, Yankee Clipper, Joe Dimaggio, was born in Martinez.

The end of a long weekend is rolling around, and that always means fluff and puff and lightheartedness.

Do. Not. Drink. And. Drive. Over. The. Holiday. Season.

Do. Not. Drink. And. Drive. Ever.

The Games of Life

Baseball is a game I love. I played the game as a youngster, long before parents became involved and organized and programmed the free spirit out of it.

The truth is, us kids were better at organizing our games than a whole host of Little Leagues officials, coaches, and concerned parents. In high school, nine or ten of us would pile in a couple of jalopies and drive around to neighboring towns looking for a game. We’d pull into a town, stop at a gas station or store and ask if anyone in town wanted to play. Next thing we knew, the whole town would gather at the park or even in an empty field. That’s the way kids ought to play baseball.

Golf is also a game I love. I took up the sport in my thirties and never became an accomplished golfer. But that was never important to me. I loved the whole atmosphere, the outdoors, the sunshine, the camaraderie, the lying about how many strokes someone had on the last hole. Golf still remains a social game for me.

It’s unfortunate that Michelle Wie has taken another tack. Golf is a business for her and for her handlers. Sure, she enjoys the game, but she isn’t on the course for the sheer enjoyment of playing. She wants to outplay the men. She wants to set records. She wants to make a lot of money. Sometimes I wonder if these are her goals or the goals of someone or some outside group exerting adult pressure on this child.

Michelle Wie’s career has taken the mother all nose dives since she became a pro a couple of years ago. The latest disaster occurred just yesterday when she withdrew from the LPGA championship after complaining of an exacerbated wrist injury.

It seems to me that now is the time for serious soul searching by Michelle, by her parents, and by the money interests guiding her career. This is a 17-year old girl who ought to take a breather from the pressures and injuries she has encountered since becoming a pro. She should put her pro career on hold, attend college, and then pick it up.

In the final analysis, she’ll be better off over time. She deserves a break.