Dignity First. Always Dignity.

Matthew 5:38-40

    [ Eye for Eye ] “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.

    Matthew 5:37-41 (in Context) Matthew 5 (Whole Chapter)

I got into it on Facebook the other day with a guy who insisted on calling President Obama “obozo the clown”. He justified this ridiculous action by stating all of Obama’s wrong doings.

I’d just like to weigh in one last time and state in the clearest possible terms that dignity is EVERYTHING! Even when Jesus stood naked and bloody before His accusers, He stood with dignity because He CHOSE to be dignified.

There is an interesting back story about Matthew 5:38-40 – “Turn the other cheek”. In biblical times it was an incredible social offense to do anything with one’s left hand. If you wanted to offer someone the worst possible insult you would strike their face with the back side of your hand. Because of the abhorred nature of the use of one’s left hand, the insult had to be delivered with the right hand onto the right cheek. However, it was considered a gesture of extreme love to gently place the palm of your hand onto the face of a friend or loved one. Again, because of the social convention mandating the exclusive use of the right hand in all things this greeting had to be applied to the left cheek. Thus; “… If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” In other words, give them a chance to either take the high road or refuse it. But regardless of what they do, present yourself with dignity.

When I insist that we show respect to the office of the presidency by referring to its occupant in a dignified manner, I’m repeating what the Lord told us regarding those we don’t respect. When I voted in the primary I saw a note on the screen that said “You are voting for the President of the United States of America.” I got a wave of breathlessness at the thought. People are dying in the streets of Syria and have in the last year done so in Egypt, Iran, and Libya and before that behind the Iron Curtain, and even in this country for the privilege of doing what we now take for granted.

Not long ago on Megan Kelly’s show, America Live, [Fox News contributor] Jehmu Greene referred to Tucker Carlson as a “Bow Tie’N White Boy” after which Kelly closed the show with a disclaimer of Greene’s racist comment. Carlson did not engage the statement except to call Greene out for name calling. Because he took the dignified rout in counterpoint to Green’s racism, Carlson came out on top while she crashed and burned.

I can’t stand the current occupant of the White House on any level. He is feckless and deceitful. He is a malignant narcissist whose despicable actions will only accelerate exponentially if he is re-elected. But despite all that – and much more – he was duly elected to the highest office in our land by a plurality of voters on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, 2008. Therefore, whether I like him or not he is our president and must be referred to as Mr. President or President Obama or, at the very least, simply Obama. He is the Commander in Chief of Armed forces of our country and, therefore, his orders must be carried out without question. And those in the military who rebel against his authority in any way because they don’t like his politics and actions must be punished within the guidelines of the military uniform code of conduct.

If we are to engage in this very necessary debate, doesn’t it behoove us to proceed with dignity? Yes it should be rigorous. Yes it should be deeply confrontational. But I just wonder how the people who have died for this country as well as her Founding Fathers would respond were they to come back from the grave and hear such juvenile, playground born references as “laimstream media” or “obozo the clown” or “Obummer” being employed in such a vital and solemn process. I wonder how the Lord would respond to it. 

This is serious stuff. It’s not a joke or a place to try out our amateur comedy routines.

The watchword is dignity. And as it says on a bracelet I where, “God Is Watching”

Doing Right – If You Have to Ask How Much it Costs, You Probably Can’t Afford it

“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.”
(Romans 7:21 ESV)

I try to do the right thing (by Biblical standards) at every turn. I’m not saying I succeed every time – not by a long shot. But I do honestly try and I take my share of hits for the effort. However, I have a friend who is the first to do the right and good thing as long as there’s no risk involved. But when the seas get choppy this person scurries to hide in whatever gray area can be found rather than remaining tied to the mast.

While I truly believe my friend is a nice guy who wants to do the right thing every time, he doesn’t understand that his beloved grey area doesn’t just hide him from the cost or danger of what might happen if he makes the hard decisions. It also hides him from the feeling of knowing that he took the high road no matter the cost. Worst of all, it keeps him from hearing God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

I believe the most common sin that is “close at hand” as described in Romans 7:21 is the longing for life to be easy or non-confrontational and the temptation to measure the cost (in financial, political, professional or social terms) of the moral necessity to walk the narrow path so often untraveled. We want to be able to do the right thing so long as it has no danger or, at the very least, so long as the price associated with the act is manageable. When we box the right choices of life into those tightly fitting parameters we will always wake up at night knowing that we have no real intention of “doing right”.

The whole body of Romans 7 talks about dying for God’s Righteousness. That means our fears have to die. The desires of our flesh have to die. Because we are broken at our core that death has to occur every day, every hour, indeed, every time we make a decision. That is the only way the Righteousness of God can ever shine through us. It’s also the only way we can ever have harmony in life.

We Have a Choice

I was reading in Romans this morning and a passage jumped out at me:

“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Romans 5:18-21 ESV)

The thing that struck me in this passage was that while we had no choice but to wear the sin of Adam, we can choose to either continue to wear it or throw it off through the salvation of Jesus Christ. Far too often people choose to wear the sins of their parents, their past, their environments and their habits and addictions in the same way they choose to live as victims of bad things that have befallen them “out of the blue”.

It’s true that you couldn’t choose the things your parents may have done or the disease with which you may have been afflicted nor can you change the past. But you can choose to move through all of it. However, you can’t do it alone. And you can’t do it “with a little help from your friends”. Two people trying to beat sin together is like two junkies trying to beat heroin together.

Those who try to help friends or loved ones through tough times by assuring them that God will never let us face anything we can’t handle are doing a huge disservice. The fact is life is full of things we could NEVER face on our own. God’s promise is that we will never have to face those impossible situations without Him.

During the dark times of our life we are never in a cave. It’s always a tunnel that we can walk through if we just keep walking with the Lord leading the way. He never promised that He would protect us from hard times anymore than he would protect us from our own broken nature. But he did say that if we continually reach out for His hand we would find light in our darkest night, food in the most barren land, courage in our weakest state and, most importantly, salvation.

Such a Day!

Back in 2010 I went to Haiti on an assignment for the magazine. I was in a good bit of pain as I was still getting over hip replacement and surgery on both shoulders. So while I was there a 14 year old Haitian volunteer named Jonathan Cancoul was assigned to help with my gear. We struck up a friendship and I took some “GQ” pictures of him that he wanted to show off to his friends with.

During the load out of the event – which was on the field of the national soccer stadium – Jonathan and I were watching from the stands while he told me about how much he would love to be a photographer. I decided I needed some close shots of the action. So on a lark I gave the camera to Jonathan, showed him how it works and sent him down onto the field with instructions not to be shy.

The shots he gave me were perfect. Unfortunately, I was robbed at the Haitian airport as I was leaving and among the things stolen were the cards for camera. Over 700 shots were lost including those taken of and by my new friend. The pain was horrific! It hit me like a battering ram.

A year later I get a call on a hectic day – during which I wasn’t in the best mood – from a person with a foreign accent asking if this is Mr. Michael Beck. It sounded a lot like one of the sales calls from a foreign call center that I’d been warding of in great numbers at the time. However, for some reason I chose not to hang up as I am normally inclined to do. I confirmed that I am Michael Beck and he asked, “How are you today sir?” Somewhat curtly I responded with, “I’m very busy today. How can I help you?”

In the best [broken] English he could muster, he said, “I am Jonathan Concoul, you’re friend from Haiti.” In a flash I was up to speed with what was really going on. The exchange was difficult because his English was so choppy. One of his questions split my soul down the middle. “Could send me please the pictures you toll of me.” I had to brake his heart and tell him about the theft. He was deeply disappointed. But by the end of the conversation he had gleaned that I am on Facebook and within the hour I got a friend request from him.

Now about every few days he pops up with “How are you Mr. Michael?” or “How is you kind wife?” and we’ll chat for a while. Despite the lack of contact after my return from Haiti, I’d never forgotten that he desperately wanted to photograph the world around him. I dearly wanted to make that happen. But money is extremely tight for us and such a gift was hard to come by.

Finally we came upon the resources and we bought a pretty nice little high resolution pocket camera. But getting it down to him was now the next challenge. My good wife Carolyn works for the North American Mission Board, which one of the missionary arms of the Southern Baptist Convention. One of the men in her office has a son and daughter-in-law who are missionaries in Haiti with whom we made contact. We found out how to chart a path from Carolyn’s office to our new missionary friends in Haiti and gave them a number at which Jonathan can be reached.

Here is the facebook message I got from Jonathan this morning:

“Dear Mr. Michael, Right now my joy is shining, I’m really happy to receive the camera today, I did not expect to get what you send me 20 USD, I am very happy with everything, the camera, the Bible, and the 20 USD. Thank you from my heart, and my family.
Said hello to your wife for me, and say that I would love to meet her, and I like it a lot.
May God bless you”

Please know that I am no sharing this story to boast of what a great thing we did. Instead, I am sharing the story of how deeply we can be blessed when we trust God to put the pieces together. We don’t have children and never will. But today God allowed the words of a young Haitian boy to give me just a slight taste of how a father must feel on a good day.

As I told Carolyn earlier today, Paul penned some of the most beautiful words ever written on the subject of love and joy from a prison cell the likes of which would make today’s prisons resemble the Las Vegas Hilton. Read Jonathan’s words again and note the way this boy speaks of the same love and joy from the din and desolation of the prison known as Port Au Prince.

Today is a good day and I thank God for putting all the pieces together.

Requiem for a Religion

When I was seven years old my father took me out to our back yard in Marietta, Georgia where he put a catcher’s mitt on my hand and showed me how it worked. That was the first time I ever played catch with my dad (or anyone else for that matter). Soon after that my older brother Billy joined the team and with that the joy of baseball that saw my father through countless springs, summers and falls had been successfully handed down to his kids. The process would be complete in later years when my two younger brothers and even my sister would fallow.

As time passed and the Air Force bounced us all over the country one of the few things we were able to take everywhere was baseball. Being the new kid on the block was never easy. But I knew that no matter what the differences the between us new comers and the kids around us might be, baseball would always show up just in time to break the ice and balance at least some of the social inequality. We were kids and Mom and Dad were grownups and that meant there was very little we could really relate to each other with as peers. But we stood upon level ground when we argued openly about the game.

In game 5 of the World Series between the Mets and Orioles, Mets left fielder Cleon Jones said he’d been hit in the foot by a pitch and headed toward first base. The home plate umpire didn’t agree. There was a “discussion” involving Mets manager Gil Hodges wherein somebody decided, to have a look at the ball. If it hit Jones’ foot there should be a smudge of shoe polish on the ball. There was and Jones was given first base.

Later that inning Jones scored on Donn Clendenon’s third home run of the Series. Al Weis hit a home run an inning later that tied the game. Ron Swoboda banged out a double in the 8th that along two Baltimore errors gave New York a 5-3 win and the Series.

Shortly before that my father had taught me how to put a nice polish on a pair of shoes. When the next Little League season rolled around I lade copious amounts of polish on my shoes the night before opening day – just in case. I lived for the game. I treated it like a religion.

A couple year after the miracle at Shea the first really serious injury to the game (in my life) occurred in the form of the designated hitter rule. The “greater minds” of the game thought life would somehow be better if pitchers didn’t bat. The end result was the American League would never have the ironic joy of seeing a pitcher hit a grand slam because the number eight hitter had been walked to bring him up with two outs. It ripped a massive chunk out of the strategy of the game. I never watched a regular season American League game again. I thought that in real baseball, pitchers bat.

Over the years I marked time by the [baseball] seasons. I remember that I was on a practice field in Marietta when we saw the first C-5 roll off the line. I was on a practice field in Hawaii when I overheard my father our black assistant coach discussing the breaking news that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot. While Bill Clinton was lying to Congress about Monica Lewinsky, baseball was heading for its own train wreck.

In 1994 the game ground to a halt with a strike. When the dust settled the owners had lost close to a billion dollars. But the players had lost their fans. Granted, Cal Ripken did a lot to bring them back. But it was slow going. You see, we never forgot the day the players told us we don’t matter. In an effort to rekindle the relationship (and bring in more revenue) “Greater Minds” created a third division. The result was the “wild card” entry into the play off. This meant a team could get into the play offs without winning its division. That, of course, was the second serious injury to the game in my lifetime.

Three years later we all got so caught up in the shock and awe of the slug fest between Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa that we never even noticed how out of place and completely unnatural it was. Meanwhile, Ken Griffey, Jr. hit 50 dingers the old fashioned way and no one even noticed. Soon after that the veil was lifted off of the phenomenon of power to find what we all suspected. Steroids.

You had to know it was happening. But maybe we just didn’t want to believe it. Then the worst possible thing happened. Barry Bonds showed up in ‘95 with a head and feet that had grown three sized. He looked at everyone and their gape jawed disbelief and said, “What?” In 2001 he hit 74 home runs breaking the record that McGuire had cheated to set and took his new record home with the promise that he wasn’t through defiling the game. Indeed not. The rat came back year after year and finally in 2007 he broke the most hallowed of all baseball records. He passed the great and supremely humble Hank Aaron’s record of 755 home runs finishing out the season with 762.

New and suitably stiff (albeit long overdue) rules brought the steroid era to a close, but only after several players, Players Association president Donald Fehr and Commissioner Bud Selig got publicly caned by Congress. To be sure it was deeply gratifying to see the Giants dump Bonds with no one else in baseball willing to so much as answer the phone. It was great fun to imagine him at parties telling people how wonderful it was to set the record knowing full well no one was buying it. And while he didn’t get near the sentence I was hoping for, it was even good to see the verdict come down. But the damage had been done. It was in the books. Suddenly records didn’t seem to matter in a game that was once a statistician’s heaven.

Despite it all I hung in there. After the strike in ’94 I saw people walking away from the game. My father, the one who put this needle in my arm in the first place, became a steadfast fan of the Minnesota Vikings’ football franchise. I couldn’t believe it. I just could understand how you could turn your back on something that had brought so much pleasure and excitement throughout your whole life. Then the crack in my love for the game came in 2002 when I saw a news clip of Tom Glavine (the second most despicable player to ever take the field) leaving a difficult labor negotiation session with a strike hanging in the balance. Had the strike happened the game would have never recovered. That point was brought up to Glavine as he charged through the mob of reports. A writer asked, “Hey Tom, how do you feel about the fact that this strike could end baseball?”

Without hesitating or even looking up he replied, “If that’s what it takes.” I met Glavine at a concert a few years later and despite my absolute admiration for his prowess during his career, I couldn’t bring myself to reach out and touch his greasy hand.

Going into the last game of 2011 New York Mets’ Shortstop Jose Rayes was leading Milwaukee Left Fielder Ryan Braun by one percentage point for the batting title. Before the game he told management that he wanted to be pulled if he got a hit during his first at-bat. He laid down a bunt single and was pulled for a pinch runner. The hit gave Reyes’ a .337057 average putting him 2 ½ percentage points ahead of Braun who needed to go 3 for 4 to grab the lead but went hitless in four at-at-bats and fell to .332.

Thus Reyes had a sure bet on a huge pay bump in the coming free agency negotiations and the lowly Mets finally had their first batting title (for what it was worth). On the other hand, the fans got yet another disillusioning slap in the face at the hands of yet another punk who placed items on a resume´ over the integrity of the game. Additionally the game had another layer of dignity stripped away despite that fact that all of this happened on what will most likely be called the most exiting regular season day in the history of baseball. I was reaching farther than I ever had to maintain my love for the game.

Then it happened. My wife and I were at her mother’s birthday party in late November when a cousin told me that the decision had been made to add a new layer of wild card teams. To be clear, half the teams in the game will get a shot at post season play despite not being anywhere near the top of their divisions. I know to someone who doesn’t follow sports it may be difficult to understand or even take seriously the pain I felt at this news. But those who suffer the curse of sports fandom can fully appreciate the fact that my extremities went numb. I had heard the rumors that this was being discussed. But I never thought it would actually happen in a million years. Nevertheless, there it was.

This meant the odds of the two best teams of the season actually playing in the World Series will be so long as to qualify the unlikely occurrence as a sports anomaly at best. The World Series will carry the same weight as the World Baseball Classic or Olympic Baseball. Indeed, as I wrote last year, with the rule that bases home field advantage in the World Series upon the outcome of the All Star Game we have reached the sadly long foreseeable time when both events have equal irrelevance.

As of 2012 the only way we can truly identify the best team of the year is to consult the win loss tally on the regular season. The World Series has no bearing on the question. So why not skip all the pseudo drama (and risk of injury) associated with the “post season” and just send the trophy and jewelry to team with the best record in baseball and have done with it? In typical fashion that “pillar of integrity” Bud Selig defended the continued watering down of the great American pastime by saying “all the other sports do it.” Isn’t that what a teenage girl says when she’s busted by her mother with a bag of weed and a three pack of condoms? “All the other kids do it.”

With this new rule there is no reason to stick out a 162 game season because there’s nothing at the end but the disease of egalitarianism that is seeping into every aspect of American life and sapping it of its color and distinctiveness. Today is opening day. It’s the day I have longed for every year like a person whose head has been under water awaits that first big gulp of air. I have long said the only thing that gets me through miserable heat, humidity and drudgery of summer is baseball and the only thing that gets me through four months without baseball is the merciful lack of miserable heat and humidity. But now the one redeeming quality of summer is gone and for the first time since my father put that catcher’s mitt on my hand, I simply don’t care that today is opening day.

I am so repulsed by what has happened that I can’t even watch baseball commercials. Remember how I said that I can’t understand a person turning their back on the game. Well now I get it. Every year I volunteer my time and photograph a golf tournament for The Johnny Foundation. The founder of the organization, Lisa Leathers, knows that I love baseball and every year as she shows her gratitude by giving me an historical book on the game. When she heard that I’ve “lost that loving feeling” she lamented that she would now have to find some other way to thank me – as if just saying “thank you” wouldn’t be enough. I told her to keep the books coming. I’ll always love the game and want to take in its history, especially now that there is no more history to make.

I wonder how the Vikings will do this year.

Don’t You Get It? It Just Doesn’t Matter!

By Michael A. Beck

Dramatic (and historic) ending of game six notwithstanding, this was little more than an exciting seven game series in October. However, the notion that it might have determined the best team in baseball is hopelessly absurd. Not only did the “World Series champs” fail to finish at the top of their division, but they held their breaths to see if Atlanta would complete an inevitable face plant to find out if they would be the best team of all the losers who couldn’t top their respective divisions. When baseball went to divisional play in 1969 it abandoned a system that guaranteed the result of the World Series to be the presentation of the best team in the game for a given year.

Later in ’95 when a third division was added and thus the ridiculous notion of a wild-card team so was the more and more pervasive social concept that teams (and people) shouldn’t be “punished” simply because they aren’t good enough to make the cut. While that may sooth some shattered egos and broken hearts I would remind every true baseball fan of the immortal words of Jimmy Dugan who said, “There’s no crying in baseball!” As Brother Billy says, “The only reason to stick out a 162 game season is to see the climactic final dust-up between the two biggest kids on the block. Without the guarantee of that, what’s the point of everything leading up to October?’

Now it’s rumored there will be more wild-card slots added to the game, which will create yet another layer of playoffs. This means the odds of the two best teams of the season actually playing in the World Series will be so long as to qualify the unlikely occurrence as a sports anomaly at best. Soon, as is the case in Hockey, there will be more teams that make the play-offs than don’t, at which point the World Series will carry the same weight as the World Baseball Classic or Olympic Baseball. Indeed, with the rule that bases home field advantage in the World Series upon the outcome of the All Star Game we have reached the sadly long foreseeable time when both events have equal irrelevance.

Today the only way we can truly identify the best team of the year is to consult the win loss tally on the regular season. The World Series has no bearing on the question. So why not skip all the pseudo drama (and risk of injury) associated with the “post season” and just send the Phillies their trophy and jewelry and have done with it? In typical fashion that pillar of integrity Bud Selig defended the continued watering down of the great American pastime by saying “all the other sports do it.” Isn’t that what a teenage girl says when she’s busted by her mother with a bag of weed and a three pack of condoms? “All the other kids do it.”

So yes, the tight finishes of games one and two, the slug-fest in game three and the sensational ending of game six after a feckless start were all great fun to watch. It was even a bit awe inspiring to see a team fall so soundly asleep as to strand 12 runners in post season play, which the newly crowned “World Series Champs” managed to pull off in game five. The symmetry of Jack and Joe Buck’s calls of the walk-off homers of 1991 and 2011 was also fun to realize.

But alas it was little more than a fanciful way to end the season. To any true lover of the game it had no other meaning. Those who came away from this year’s Fall Classic with a sense of respect for the St. Louis Cardinals would be wise to remember what Joe Buck and Tim McCarver repeated over and over throughout the Series, “They crashed the party.” Tareq & Michaele Salahi crashed a party at the White House. They didn’t get any respect for simply having gotten in the door and past security and neither will the Cards for having crashed this party…

Not among those of us who care.

Get off the Bus Already!

By Michael A. Beck

I have to open by saying that I cannot stand Barack Obama. My ardent disdain for him has absolutely nothing to do with the color of his skin, but with the fact that he is a responsibility dodging dilettante who is just dying to go down to Zuccotti Park, take off his shirt and proudly reveal the Hammer & Sickle tattooed on his chest for all to see. However, that being said, I have to also say that I am getting sick and tired to death of people like John McCain and Sean Hannity as well as many others who are going on and on about Obama’s Canadian-made coach.

Of course it’s a Canadian-made coach. You know why? There are no American coach manufacturers! Every time Sarah Palin goes out on a bus tour she takes a Canadian-made coach. When McCain was on the trail in ’08 he was in a Canadian-made coach. When Sean Hannity traveled the country on his concert tours he traveled on the same model bus as Obama only Hannity’s bus had a red paint job. Whenever ESPN sends its guys out on the road in the big bus, it’s a Canadian-made coach. Indeed, every national politician with any budget at all and every concert tour in the U.S. all travel in Canadian-made coaches.

The shell of the bus is made by a company in Canada called Prevost (pronounced Prayvoe). When companies or individuals purchase a shell (at a rough cost of $300,000), it is ferried to one of several coach conversion companies in the U.S. where it is then turned into the rolling mansion it is destined to become at an additional cost of as much as $700,000 and even more in some cases.

When U2’s gigantic 200 truck “360 Tour” rolled though the country I didn’t hear anyone prattling on about the fact that its crew were on Canadian-made coaches. The fact is the 20-odd buses they traveled on were leased from a coach company in Florida owned and operated by Americans. I don’t hear anyone complaining when their favorite NASCAR driver lounges on the infield at Talladega in a Canadian-made coach.

Toby Keith may have a Ford endorsement but he and his band and his crew travel on, you guessed it… Canadian-made coaches. All made by the same company for the same purpose in the same little town in Canada.

Look, I’m the last one on earth to stand up in defense of the most indefensible president since Carter. And mind you that’s not what I’m doing here. But if you want to bust on the guy you have a universe of righteous cannon fodder. The paint job on the bus has a menacing look to it that works as the perfect metaphor for the way Obama’s liberal juggernaut is rolling over all of us. There is Obamacare, stimulus and this “jobs bill” he’s flogging around the country. Additionally there is the nightmare created by his lap dog Eric Holder at DOJ, Solyndra and lest we forget, housing numbers are at their lowest since WWII while 17% of Americans are either unemployed or under-employed.

So with all of that and much more to use as a political target pinned prominently upon the back of our right honorable Rookie- in- Chief, why the ridiculous and more than just a little hypocritical nonsense about a bus? Even Fox News made it clear that McCain used the same Canadian-made coach during his run in ’08 going on to stipulate that Obama’s bus was converted by a company in Tennessee.

As the incredible Phillip Rogers song says, “Let’s beat Obama with a Cain”. I’m all about it. There’s no question that he’s got to go. But anyone who makes this Canadian bus argument or even agrees with it looks just like the toothless hillbilly the left is trying to paint all conservatives to be. So the next time you hear someone making a laughing stock of themselves over Obama’s Canadian-made coach pull them aside, hip them to the legitimate hot spots on Obama’s record and remind them that not one person is going to be swayed from voting for the guy because he not rambling around the country in an American-made yellow school bus.

If that doesn’t work, buy them a set of dentures and a straw hat, and move along because as I am fond of saying…

You can’t stop stupid.

Herman Cain is Janeane Garofalo’s Worst Nightmare!

by Michael A. Beck This was published on iOwnTheWorld.com on 9/29/2011

Here we go. With the emergence of Herman Cain as the winner of the latest [Fox/Google] Republican debate and the Florida straw poll, we can now expect to see the bigoted hypocrisy of the left kick into high gear. I have always thought highly of Cain but never figured he had a chance. Even now there is a huge hole in his resume´ where governmental experience should be. That aside, the left is terrified of him because he represents a black alternative to President Obama with solid quantifiable and feasible solutions to the economic issues that Obama can’t wrap his arms around. That is the worst possible development for the lefties. Since before Obama was elected, liberals have made hay within its ranks off of the ridiculous claim that we on the right don’t like Obama because he’s black.

In light of Cain’s jump into the top tier of the pack, the liberal accusation of mindless racist hatred is in serious jeopardy. However, because there is no way the left will ever back down from its flagrant use of the race card, we can now look for Janeane Garofalo, Chris Matthews, Maxine Waters and many other “well respected” spokespeople on the left to lean into the strategy of ad hominem attacks with renewed vigor. Conversely, we can also look for the president to support the tactic by acting as if it isn’t happening with equally renewed selective myopia.

In the coming days and weeks we will see a massive push to paint Herman Cain as “Uncle Tom”. But for that label to be applied correctly one has to show that Cain is helping to promote a system that keeps chains on the hands and feet of blacks and the “massah’s” whip upon their backs. Unfortunately for the left, that’s a hard assertion to maintain. Herman Cain is just one of countless people who have made the conscious decision to walk away from the victim-oriented zeitgeist that has been force-fed to the black community of America since the horrible dawn of Johnson’s “Great Society”.

The mindset I’m referring to is responsible for falsely telling blacks that they aren’t capable of succeeding on their own and, therefore, must be given one mulligan after another everywhere in life in the form of such criminally racists acts as Affirmative Action. But when one looks at blacks who have declined the handout from their pseudo-benefactors and decided to play the game cleanly, one sees CEOs at such firms as American Express, IBM, UPS, and yes, Godfather’s Pizza. Self-motivating blacks have climbed to the top seats of the entertainment industry, sports, the military and government. Indeed, it is difficult to find any part of American society that has not been penetrated and mastered by blacks who have chosen to do it on their own.

To say that current day right-wing conservative white America is putting forth a concerted effort to hold blacks back just isn’t true. Indeed, put as frankly as possible, it’s a lie and anyone who says it is a bold faced liar. That’s not to say that blacks in America aren’t being held back. It just means that conservative Americans are not the ones doing it. Remember that it was Ronald Reagan who appointed the first black National Security Adviser and it was the much-maligned George W. Bush who appointed not only the first, but the first TWO black Secretaries of State.

When Jackie Robinson was finally invited to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers he did so under the harshest conditions ever faced by a player in Major League Baseball before or since. And yet he came out on the other end of his first season with 12 home runs, a league-leading 29 stolen bases, a .297 batting average, a .427 slugging percentage, and 125 runs scored. His Herculean performance earned him the inaugural Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award. That is an important distinction because it wasn’t just the first time a black person won the award. It was the first time the award was presented to anyone by baseball. The first person to ever be called the Rookie of the Year in Major League Baseball was also the first black player to ever play the game.

It must also be stated that it was a mean old white Christian who gave Robinson the chance to kick his way through a door that would never be closed again. And it wasn’t just baseball players or even black athletes in general who would eventually come through that door. Soon the entire Civil Rights movement would march through the door unlocked by a white man who would today be called a bigot because of his faith and a black man whom Janeane Garofalo would today call “Uncle Tom” for his involvement with Branch Rickey.

The claim that I am a racist simply because I don’t like Barack Obama and want him out of office doesn’t hold up in the plain light of intellectual thought. It either presumes that I am incapable of thinking beyond the color of a person’s skin or it supposes that Barack Obama is perfect with no flaws that might cause a person to disagree with his political or philosophical position. Both possibilities are deeply damaged. If I were one who hates a person over the color of their skin, would I want to replace one person of that skin color with another of the same color? If the political right-wing of this country were made up of people who hate blacks, how could the only black man in the race have run so completely away with the straw poll in Florida? On the other hand, if I can be immediately dismissed as a racist and never heard from again no one has to listen to my legitimate reasons for wanting Obama gone from office.

I don’t know if Herman Cain can come away with the nomination because of his aforementioned lack of experience. I do know that I will vote for him on every ballot upon which I see his name. I also know that he is the worst scenario Janeane Garofalo could possibly envision. Herman Cain is not an “Uncle Tom” by any stretch of the imagination. He is far worse than that. He has escaped the chains of the oldest and most oppressive slave plantation in our country’s history…

LIBERAL AMERICA.

Epic! Simply Epic!

The last day of the 2011 baseball season was by all accounts the most exciting regular season day we have ever seen in the history of the game. Despite the cheap ticket grabbing existence of the wild card, the fight for the two last spots of this season will always be regarded as one of those days that even people who don’t care for the game will remember.

No team has ever been seven runs down in the last game of the season and come back to win securing a playoff berth. Yet that’s exactly what the Tampa Bay Rays did against the Yankees after starting the 2011 season by playing 62 consecutive innings without holding a lead. This was the first time the Yanks had lost a lead in the 8th inning or later since 1953. The Rays dug deep and came up with gold in outstanding fashion as Dan Johnson, who was batting .108 when he came up in the bottom of the 9th, and tied the game by hitting a homerun with two balls, two strikes and two outs. Prior to this game Johnson hadn’t hit a homerun since April 8 when he ended the aforementioned 62 game schneid with a two run knock. Evan Longoria who won the game with a walk-off homerun in the 12th now stands next to Bobby Thompson as the only players to ever hit walk-off homeruns in the final game of the season to push their team into the post-season.

In stark contrast to the Rays, no team has ever fallen as far and as fast as the Boston Red Sox did to miss the playoff cut on the last day of the season. Indeed, the Sox had not lost a game all year long in which they led in the 8th inning. That stat changed with the one game they had to win against the worst team in their division, which they lost in the 9th inning only three minutes before Longoria would hit his historic walk-off homer. No team has ever entered September in first place and finished the month with a worse record than Boston did this year (7-19). Longoria would later say he heard of the Red Sox loss as he was stepping into the batter’s box in the 12th.

The Atlanta Braves didn’t fare much better than the Sox. Their loss to the Phillies, which was the ultimate result of a blown save by rock star rookie closer Craig Kimbrel, was the third time in the last 20 days the Braves lost a game that they led in the 9th inning or later. As of September 2 the Braves lost 18 of 26 games tying the record in the National League for having the largest lead in September and not making the playoffs. This left Atlanta fans to wonder why manager Fredi Gonzalez continually played right fielding fallen star Jayson Heyward who seems to have lost his eye when phenom Jose Constanza sat on the bench. In 42 games Constanza put up a .303 average with two homeruns and 10 RBI’s. He scored 21 runs and only struck out 14 times out of 109 times at bat. The X-factor about Constanza is that he has blinding, game-changing speed that was dreadfully missing on the last days of the season.

By contrast, the St. Louis Cardinals were the recipients of Atlanta’s mismanaged disaster coming from 8 ½ games back in the wild card race to clinch on the last day.

The one word that seems to apply to every aspect of this mind numbing five hours that seared the senses of baseball fans the world over is “epic”. The individual and team performances were absolutely epic in both soul-crushing failure and glorious success. The come backs and the collapses were nothing short of epic.

However, lost in the blinding glare of the games in Baltimore, Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Houston is one other performance that was in its own right truly epic. It was the epic cowardice of New York Mets shortstop/second baseman Jose Reyes who asked to be pulled from the game in the event he got a hit in his first at bat. This was proof of the fact that there is a difference between a gifted player and a great player. In keeping with his wishes Reyes – one of the fastest players in baseball – was replaced with a pinch runner when he laid down a bunt single in the first inning against the Cincinnati Reds on the last day of the season. There was nothing wrong with this prima donna that would have precluded his ability to play. He just wanted to hedge his bets as he moved into free agency at the end of this year.

Going into the game Reyes was in a race for the National League batting title with Milwaukee Brewers third baseman Ryan Braun. Ducking out of the game like a thief in the night after going 1-for-1 secured a .337 batting average for Reyes whereas Braun, who played the whole game against the Pittsburg Pirates, went 0-for-4 finishing with a .332 average on the year. The result was the first batting title in Mets history. However, had Reyes stayed in the game and gone 1-for 4 he still would have finished two percentage points above Braun to grab the title without the ill-will that shall [hopefully] follow him around for as long as records are kept in the game of baseball.

Lou Gehrig played for the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1939. During that time he played in every game that was scheduled. While he did leave some of those games before they were over due to injury or illness, it never would have occurred to him to leave a game to protect a statistical lead in order to bolster his personal record. He didn’t need to take such a low road. Three of the top six RBI seasons in history belong to Gehrig who also holds the all time record for grand slams (23). Gehrig played with fierce competitiveness from the beginning to the end of his career when amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) finally made it impossible for him to take the field. In the end he had a .340 life time batting average with 493 homeruns, 2,171 hits, 1,995 RBI’s, an on base percentage of .447, a .632 slugging percentage and a record for consecutive games played that would stand for 56 years.

When Jackie Robinson was finally invited to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers he did so under the harshest conditions ever faced by a player in Major League Baseball before or since. He was warned by Brooklyn Dodgers’ owner Branch Rickey that he would be treated worse than he could imagine and that for the first three years he would not be allowed to respond in any way. And yet he came out on the other end of his first season with 12 home runs, a league-leading 29 stolen bases, a .297 batting average, a .427 slugging percentage, and 125 runs scored. His Herculean performance earned him the inaugural Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award. That is an important distinction because it wasn’t just the first time a black person won the award. It was the first time the award was presented to anyone in baseball. The first person to ever be called the Rookie of the Year in Major League Baseball was also the first black player to ever play the game.

If you take 755 homeruns out of Hank Aaron’s record you still have over 3,000 hits and let’s be very clear about the fact that Hammerin’ Hank wasn’t manipulating the game just to pad his stats for when it came time to negotiate for a batter contract. For the largest part of his career Hank Aaron couldn’t stay in the same hotel as the white players on his team. He couldn’t eat in the same restaurants or use the same restrooms. Yet he still managed to set records for RBI’S (2,297), total bases (6,856), extra-base hits (1,477) and consecutive seasons with 150 or more hits (17). And then there is the big one. As Aaron was drawing near the 715 homeruns mark he did it with enormous pressure. It wasn’t the same pressure Roger Maris dealt with when he bore down on the single season homerun record. He had to deal with death threats to himself and his family. In the famous video clip of Aaron finally touching the plate after beating Babe Ruth’s 715 record his mother rushes to him and holds him tightly as if to never let go. She would later say, “If they were going to shoot him they would have to do it through me”.

Ted Williams played the game under the nicknames “The Kid”, “The Splendid Splinter”, “Teddy Ballgame”, “The Thumper” and, the most valued of all, “The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived”. Williams had a life time batting average of .344 with 521 homeruns, 2,654 hits and 1,839 RBI’s. One might ask how it is that we can call this guy “The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived” when he fell short of the 3,000 hit club and 28 other players did not? There have also been many players with more RBI’s. It’s hard to say what would have happened had Williams not interrupted his career with a total of five years of wartime military service as an aviator in WWII and Korea. On the last day of the 1941 season Williams’ Red Sox played a double header with the Philadelphia Athletics. Williams woke up that day with a .400 average. Knowing that this was the last day of the season, player manager Joe Cronin told “The Kid” that he could sit the games out if he wanted to. But Williams refused the offer and played both games. By the end of the first game he had gone 4-for-5 finishing up with a narrow four percentage points above .400. Had he gone 0-4 in the second game of the twin bill he would have finished with a .399 average. Instead he went 2-3 and became the last player to hit over 400.

Any list of the classiest players to ever take the field has got to have Chipper Jones close to the top. He holds the Major League record for most consecutive games with an extra-base hit (14 – tied with Paul Waner). He had 8 consecutive 100-plus RBI seasons (1996–2003), 14 consecutive 20-plus homerun seasons (1995–2008); tied for the MLB record with Eddie Mathews for most 20-plus homerun seasons to start a career, and set the record for most homeruns in a season by a National League switch hitter (45 in 1999; since tied by Lance Berkman). He has the third-most home runs for a switch hitter, behind Eddie Murray (504) and Mickey Mantle (536) and he was 2008 NL (and MLB) Batting Champ with a .364 average. In 2008 Jones had the highest on-base percentage with .470 and he currently has a 29-game hitting streak against the Philadelphia Phillies who presently possess the most potent pitching battery since Maddux, Smoltz and Glavin. In 1995, he led all major league rookies in RBIs (86), games played (145), games started (123), plate appearances (602), at bats (524) and runs scored (87). That year, he finished second in Rookie of the Year balloting behind Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Hideo Nomo.

To date Jones has 2,615 hits, 1,561 RBI’s, 526 doubles and 454 homeruns. Granted, Jones’ homerun, RBI and hits stats don’t reach those of Eddie Murray, and Mickey Mantle. However, it must be recognized that over the course of his career Jones missed 205 games primarily due to injuries. By now you have to be asking how all of this makes Jones such a class act. Simple. When he was missing game after game due to injuries many of his colleagues were bouncing right back through the use of steroids during a dark time forever known as “The Steroid Era”. Had Chipper the same low character as people like Roger Clemmons, Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and, of course, Barry Bonds, he would have played a vast majority of the games he missed. He also would have had a shot at eclipsing all of the records he fell short of with the added benefit of having his feet and head grow three sizes.

Instead, Jones played it straight and came up shy of those ahead of him. It’s hard to say if any of that is a consolation or helps him sleep at night. But it makes all the difference to those of us who watch closely and care.

This year Mariano Rivera crossed the threshold of 600 saves as his teammate Derek Jeeter passed the 3,000 hit mark. With one exception all of the performances and milestones listed in this piece came at the hands of men who had one thing in common. They all woke up with the intention of going out and being better than they were the day before. Yes they wanted to break and reestablish records. And those who did are proud of their accomplishments. However, it never would have occurred to Derek Jeeter, Mariano Rivera, Chipper Jones, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson, Lou Gehrig or Ryan Braun to ever do something so cynical and cowardly as to sit out a game to manipulate their way into the record books.

They understood the only way a record can have validity is when it is compared to the odds that stand against the achievement. As the National League batting leaders went into the last day of the 2011 season they were separated by one percentage point (Braun .334, Reyes .335). To any true competitor this was an irresistible challenge. But to Reyes (and his agent) this was an opportunity to lock in a resume´ feature that would surely garner more money in his next contract. What did Mets’ management care? They were 25 games off the pace and had nothing to lose by letting “little miss thing” sit the game out. On the other hand, they would pick up their first ever batting title.

There is nothing wrong with a person in any field seeking to advance their career. In the world of sports there are many legitimate ways of doing that and they all involve performance and endurance. Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Mickey Mantle, Cal Ripkin, Derek Jeeter, Mariano Rivera, Chipper Jones, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson, Lou Gehrig and many others like them reached milestones and set records against and in spite of the odds. The problem with Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemons, and Jose Reyes (and by extension the clubs they played for) is that they reached milestones and set records against and in spite of the ethical notion of pure competition.

In the world of baseball wherein statistics are a point of myopic if not obsessive focus, that’s a hard bell to un-ring.

Woops

I know this seems a bit goofy, but if you know me well you know that goofy is a big part of who I am. When I created this site I had a dyslexic moment as I was creating my username, which would intimately become my URL. I misspelled my own name. Yeah, yeah, go ahead, say what you want. It’s not like you’ll be the first. But I have my good traits, the just don’t involve speeling.

Anyway, as there is no way to correct the username or the URL the only options were to leave the mistake or build a new site. Door number two looked better. So I have taken all of the posts and moved them to the new site, which is http://michaelabeck.wordpress.com where I will be posting from here on out.

Thanks for the patience.

m