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Endeavors Elsewhere

Me, Elsewhere: John Rocker and Johan Santana, Together At Last

I wanted to alert loyal Scratchbomb readers to a couple of posts I’ve penned elsewhere that went up in the last few days. First, for Vice, a look at creep ne plus ultra John Rocker, who’s just released his long awaited (by no one) memoirs entitled Scars and Stripes. (GET IT?) Rocker’s been making the rounds withe bottom-barrelest right wing news sites, and one such profile was the inspiration for my piece. Spoiler alert: I’m not a big fan!

One thing I’d completely forgotten about when I wrote this article (which is just as well, since it probably wouldn’t have fit) is how half-assed Rocker’s “apology” was when he came to New York for the first time after his infamous Sports Illustrated profile. While doing my research for Yells For Ourselves, I rediscovered coverage of his return to NYC, and it’s sickening how much he tries to weasel out of saying he’s sorry, like he’s Racist Fonzie.

Rocker recorded a video they played on Diamond Vision at Shea in which he said, among other things, “Many people perceived these comments to be malicious, and for this again I apologize.” In other words, It’s YOUR fault for being offended. “I am not the evil person that has been portrayed.” It’s the media’s fault for reporting exactly what I said.

Rocker’s the kind of bully who, if you punched him back, would run to the principal and insist you started the altercation. I realize that writing about him at all is just fuel for his warped fire, but good lord, he cannot fall off the face of the earth fast enough for me.

I also took time to write about non-horrible people. Last week, the Mets finally saw one of their pitchers throw a no hitter. Maybe you heard about it? It was a cause for much rejoicing, which is why I was so perturbed by a post at Deadspin that wondered if Mets fans wished another pitcher had done it. I disagree strenuously with that premise for several reasons. To find them all out, you’ll have to read this post I did for The Classical. Or, barring that, have someone read it to you.

Speaking of which, Jon Stewart’s piece on The Daily Show about attending Johan’s no-no with his family was heartwarming in a Jon Stewart-y sort of way. When it comes to baseball + children, I can get embarrassingly sentimental. This ESPN ad still brings a tear to the eye, and every time a broadcast shows a dad with a small kid in the stands, I get all misty. I’m sure the same is true for many parents who also sublimate their emotions into sporting events. Go team!

Pointless Nostalgia, Politics Schmolitics

Stamped

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Of the remaining GOP presidential hopefuls, Newt Gingrich has the ugliest soul.

Rick Santorum possesses some vile views on gay rights and abortion (like thinking rape victims who get pregnant should just accept this “gift from god”), but he seems like such a brutally strange and damaged person that I’d pity him if he weren’t in such a position of power. Ron Paul seems sincere and I don’t disagree with his anti-war and anti-war-on-drugs stances, even if some his other positions bug me (not to mention his ugly newsletters, the racist content of which he’s never explained satisfatorily). Mitt Romney has the nonplussed cheesiness of a local news anchor.

All members of this trio possess varying degrees of harmlessness, as far as I’m concerned. So with Rick Perry out of the race, Gingrich stands above all of them as, hands down, the worst human being of the bunch.

Among them, Gingrich is the most eager practitioner of Bully Politics. This has been a feature of the Republican arsenal ever since Barry Goldwater and part of the general pushback against New Deal/Great Society ideals we’ve seen since those days. However, it’s never been practiced more brutally than now, and never more gleefully than by Newt. When he talks about making kids work as janitors, there is vengeance, and almost glee, in his voice. When he sneers at Juan Williams during a debate, he all but invites the riled-up audience to attack his outnumbered questioner and seems not too concerned about the consequences. He is never happier than when he attacks those can least defend themselves.

When Gingrich called Obama a “food stamp president,” it was an obvious dog-whistle statement. (Subtext: “Remember, guys, he’s BLACK. And he’s gonna give YOUR money to OTHER BLACK PEOPLE.”) But apart from the badly disguised racism, it was also part and parcel with the delight he takes from attacking the least of us, joyfully positing that the poorest among us are the most deserving of our scorn and ridicule.

Hearing this, I had an immediate, visceral, infuriated reaction, for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate at first. Yes, it was a reprehensible attitude, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly it bothered me so much. And then it all flooded back to me, a memory I’d done my best to bury: My family was once on food stamps.

Continue reading Stamped →

Baseball

Bless You, Random Vandal

If you follow my Twitter feed, you know that the one team I truly, deeply hate is the Florida Marlins. There are other teams I dislike at various times for various reasons, but the Marlins are the only one who incite in me a white-hot burning rage.

Why? I delineated many of the reasons in this piece, so it seems pointless (and blood pressure raising) to do so again. But one cause I just glanced over was their owner, Jeff Loria, who I daresay could out-douche George Steinbrenner at The Boss’s infantile height.

Loria is the man most responsible for choking off the Expos at the root so they could move out of Montreal. Granted, he couldn’t have done this if Bud Selig et al weren’t so keen on making it happen, but the fact remains that he, more than anyone else, destroyed that franchise. (For some arcane reason, this move also necessary to allow the current Red Sox ownership to take over. It is a complicated tapestry of deceit.) He picked a needless public fight with Joe Girardi (who has done just fine for himself elsewhere), and fired another good skipper in Fredi Gonzalez, thereby serving up the next manager for a division rival (the Braves) up on a silver platter. He keeps his payroll at poverty levels (by baseball standards) and bullied Miami into building him a new stadium, only to be revealed as a lying scumbag who puts MLB revenue sharing money into his own pocket.

He has a huge man-crush on Hanley Ramirez to the detriment of his other players, despite the fact that shortstop’s tantrums and lack of hustle have increased at the same rate his performance has declined. He is also the kind of person who would buy his team the largest–and therefore best!–World Series rings ever when they came out of nowhere to win a title in 2003. And quickly returned to nowhere, as he dismantled the team piece by piece. Take a big steamy gawk at this thing and tell me this man should own a baseball team. Go ahead, I dare you.

That is why I have taken particular delight in this altered entry on Loria’s Wikipedia page. Bless you, random vandal. You are truly doing the Lord’s work. (Hat tip to @jameskann whose tweeting alerted me to this.)