Jerry Rushford sent me a link to this wonderful piece by Jeff Strauss in the L. A. Times, wanting to know if I’d really written the article under a pen name.
Here’s part of the piece:
Every year, I tell the kids that I have four goals: 1. to have fun; 2. to help the kids become better baseball players; 3. to help them become a better baseball team; and 4. to have fun. (Twice? Corny? Yeah, I know.) From my point of view, this was an excellent year on all four counts.
So congratulations to everybody! And thanks to my assistants and to all the parents for the applause and waters and snacks and sunscreen. You were great and made coaching a constant pleasure.
That’s it. You can have your children back now. But if you’re driving by the John Burroughs Middle School on a late Tuesday afternoon and you see a guy with a touch of gray in his curly hair wandering around on the field looking a little lost, toss your kids and maybe a ball and a Gatorade over the fence. I’ll have ‘em back by dark. Or just after.
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Don’t miss Larry’s insights about the immigration law debate.
This is what baseball’s all about! Thanks for giving us that link, Mike.
Thanks for the baseball story, Mike! You could have written it! Thanks also for the link to my page. . .the immigration challenge needs the engagement of people of faith.
A guy I used to coach with in Majors (my son will be a senior on our High School team this year) used to give our kids the very same talk with his numbers 1 and 4 being the same.
A couple of crashing non sequiturs in that Texas Monthly piece that cannot go unexposed and unchallenged:
1. “But, as I say, most opponents of reform are not labor activists! There is undoubtedly a racist undercurrent at work in much of the anti-immigrant sentiment we are hearing these days.”
Are we to understand that there are only two possibilities here? With tacit venom toward the vast center, the author summarily dismisses any possibility that there are other dynamics at play, to wit, people who are neither racists nor labor activists, people who love the many Mexican (and other nationals) immigrants who enrich our nation’s life and culture but who have exhausted their patience with the wink-wink, nudge-nudge, we’ll-fix-it-later-after-the-mushroom-cloud indifference toward border security. Someone who sees merit in at least exerting some control over the border so as to ensure we know who is here and where we can find them is not by definition a racist, as Draper (and those who agree with him) surely imply - in fact, that’s too generous: the racism charge is explicit! - by statements such as #1. It is uncharitable and slanderous to stake out that position.
2. “Draper makes it very clear that we are all implicated in the ‘illegalities’ of the current situation, just as was the case with his grandfather. Turning all of the fury, the rhetoric and the animosity against the undocumented worker demonstrates the worst sort of our nation’s hypocritical denial.”
Emphatically no. This is a classic, political dodge. If we are all responsible, then as a practical matter noone is responsible at all. There is plenty of cynicism to be found across the political spectrum, to be sure, but what is also clear is that we elect representatives on the basis of what they tell us they will do, and when they don’t do it (for the sake of ensuring their political futures), we are left holding the bag; and then we replace them with someone who does the same thing.
This “we are all guilty” nonsense is tiresome and loathsome. Our so-called “leaders” simply do not have the political will to do what needs to be done. There is no shortage of creative ideas on the table to solve these problems incrementally but rigorously and with compassion for the vulnerable. In the meantime, certain “activists” need to quit preaching their self-righteousness at us under the well-worn rhetorical guise, pretending to lump themselves in with the “all of us” who are “guilty” but inwardly affirming their innocence because they write tear-jerking articles in some rag.
BTW, the “fury” is not directed primarily at the workers, but at the incestuous economic, political and bureaucratic realities that invite - and reward, make no mistake about it - some immigrants’ illegal behavior. Draper oughta measure his words more carefully. Anger and frustration are not hate, even though it is convenient to equate them with it.
qb
I loved Larry’s take on immigration to our country by people south of the border. We don’t hear that side very often. Maybe Texans should speak up much louder. They know more than anyone.
The only real problem that hasn’t been addressed is who else can come over too that can do us harm. It isn’t 1969 and the Mexican that is the problem, it is the border that isn’t secured from people who remember 911. How can it all be made right?
I have tears in my eyes after reading Jeff Strauss’ piece. This is my son’s fourth summer playing baseball (he’s still in the thick of it, in fact) and his coach could be Jeff. I already have a knot in my stomach thinking about the end of the season, when we won’t get to see this great group of kids and their parents two or three times a week at games and practices. Jeff sounds like a great coach, great role model, and just all-around great guy.
You must have one tuff ball team if their parents “toss (their) kids … over the fence.”
Take a look at this Immigration video. It’s a bit long but WELL worth the look! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7WJeqxuOfQ
Hi Mike
Baseball isn’t played where we are currently living here in Zambia. But the heart of the joy of playing all out and having a great time is. We took our worker home to his village and drove by a football game(soccer) that was wild and enthuisastic. Barefoot and running on this cleared pasture like field, boys of all sizes were laughing and kicking and jumping all aound trying to score a goal. Your article and the commnents of others confirm what is important. Thanks for the words. These and the memory of those kids having fun ofset the sometimes ugly attitudes by adults at little league games.
I watched some baseball for the first time in a while last night and once again felt that boyhood urge to hit a major-league homerun.
I guess it will never go away. I’m a member of a forum about football and figure now I’ll have to join a forum about baseball.