Sunday, July 07, 2002
Solidarity
Nomar gets it:
Garciaparra acknowledged that the top players make exorbitant sums that afford them special lifestyles. But he insisted the struggle with the owners is about labor rights more than money.
''I know we're fortunate,'' he said. ''I know I'm lucky to be able to put this uniform on day in and out. I know I'm lucky to be able to take care of my family. All I'm saying is, we're just like fans who are labor workers, and we're fighting against someone who is trying infringe on our rights, exactly like they would" (Hohler, The Boston Globe).
Despite the amount of money ballplayers make, it is a labor rights issue. I continue to be astounded when regular working stiff baseball fans side with the owners against the players. It's this kind of rollover to management in most workplaces that has led to people having to piss in a cup in order to sell underwear at Wal-Mart for minimum wage.
Don't hold it against ballplayers, even those with the multiyear multimillion contracts, if they refuse to kow tow to ownership the way most of the US labor force has.
Teddy Beisbol
Just when I think Ted Williams couldn't get any cooler I find out the guy was part Chicano.
Herrera is part of a story that was never told publicly in full until baseball historian Bill Nowlin unearthed it, an effort that led Williams to become the first inductee, last February in San Francisco, in the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame. May Venzor Williams was born in El Paso to parents of Mexican and Basque heritage (Edes, The Boston Globe).
In my mind that makes him even more red white and blue American than he already was. We are all mixed bloods in the USA despite what some of the race baiting whackos think.
Dr. Evil
In a plot that sounds straight out of an Austin Powers movie:
Cryonics involves freezing the body in the hopes of reviving it in the future, or, at the very least using its DNA for one reason or another …
It is believed Williams's body will be heading to Scottsdale, Ariz., (ironically, a scene of many Ted Williams spring training exploits) to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation …
The going rate to freeze and store an entire body is $120,000, but that's not bad enough. For $50,000, they'll store the head. Just the idea of Ted Williams's head lying in a freezer somewhere in Arizona should be enough for Red Sox Nation to rustle up a posse to go after his kid (Ryan, The Boston Globe).
I don't know what to say.
