Category: Joe Guzzardi

Globalist Billionaire MLB Owner Import Players

By Joe Guzzardi

On March 17, Major League Baseball celebrated its Opening Day but, alas, not on U.S. soil. In one of its innumerable money grabs, MLB’s first games that counted in the season’s standings have been played in Mexico, Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul, and San Juan. Opening Day was once considered an informal national holiday, hopefully a sunny, spring day to eat peanuts, popcorn and Cracker Jacks while watching great baseball. The uplifting sentiment doesn’t transfer when the first game is played in the Tokyo Dome with its offerings of nori bento, sukiyaki and cod roe potato salad. The National Pastime concept, as it was once treasured, is dead and buried.

I’m fed up with MLB’s PED abuse tolerance, a federal felony, its acceptance of shifty and dishonest PED testimony to Congress, another felony, and its winking to federal authorities about known human trafficking of Cubans to a safe third country where they establish a fake identity, elude immigration officials, and then proceed to the U.S. and an MLB roster spot, innumerable felonies. Eddie Dominguez, a decorated Boston Police Department officer, FBI special task force agent, and for six years a member of MLB’s Department of Investigations wrote that, “When it comes to Cuban players, human traffickers, and all that goes with it [crimes], MLB isn’t interested.”

Looking at the facts, some could conclude that MLB has the smacking of a criminal enterprise. At the least, MLB is profoundly anti-American worker as attested to by the 30 training camps in the Dominican Republic and zero in the U.S. as well as its rush to sign high-ticket Japanese players. Remember, playing baseball is a job complete with a contract.  Maybe the Japanese are better than the American kid fresh off the Texas Longhorns campus, but the college youth is just as entertaining to watch. If you doubt me, tune in to the College World Series. Still, about 40 percent of Opening Day rosters featured foreign-born players from more than a dozen international countries.

Jose Abreau, a former Chicago White Sox MVP and now a free agent, testified before Congress that on the last leg of his journey from Cuba to Haiti to Miami, he ate his fake passport. Abreau knew that customs officials would instantly identify his phony documentation and arrest him. The Cuban national received immunity in exchange for his tell-all testimony. A series of crimes helped Abreau launch his career and paved the way to earning more than $150 million with $30 million more due from the when it released him.

My vigorous resistance to baseball’s corporatization is to have made the same vow that I did in 2023— to not watch either on television or in person or to listen to a single MLB inning. Abstinence was easy. I filled my baseball cravings with local high school and NCAA games, the Independent League, the Pony League World Series and minor leagues. I’m kicking myself that I weakened in 2024, a mistake I’ll try not to make again this year. One thing I can swear to on The Bible: I will not buy a MLB ticket or waste one thin dime on its flimsy, overpriced promotional junk.  If I had more years to live, I would aspire to the New York Yankees’ World Series championship shortstop and NBC broadcaster Tony Kubek’s accomplishment. In 1994, Kubek walked away from his lucrative television contract—$1.2 million annually adjusted for inflation— and has not watched one second of baseball in the three decades since. Kubek: “I hate what the game’s become, the greed, the nastiness.” Kubek, now 89, could have added hypocritical. Gambling is everywhere in baseball. Get your bets down! But contemptible, hard-hearted Commissioner Rob Manfred granted no forgiveness to one of baseball’s greatest, hardest playing, and the all-time hits leader. For his misdemeanor gambling offense 35 years ago, Pete Rose went to his grave, banned from the Hall of Fame.

No decision in baseball’s 150-plus years has fundamentally altered it for the worse than MLB’s elimination of 42 minor league affiliates before the 2021 season. Pulling out of 25% of its minor league towns would reportedly cut costs on what baseball’s suits considered an anachronistic player development system. Bring on the computers and the Ivy League geeks who know how to extract the minutia about launch angles, exit velocities and other mumbo-jumbo that traditionalists could care less about. As former All-Star and World Series champion Jayson Worth said, “the super nerds…are ruining the game. Just put the laptops out there and let them play.”

Dinosaur fans like me are living in a whole new and diminished baseball world. New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman explains: “Bottom line is this is big business … This should be run like a Wall Street boardroom where you pursue assets. No different than if you’re in the oil industry and you want to buy some oil rigs out in the gulf.” Forbes valued the Yankees’ franchise at $8.2 billion, the wealthiest among MLB teams.

Sadly, too few of my fellow baseball afficionados adhere to my admittedly hardline stance. Imagine my delight then when I came upon investigative journalist Will Bardenwerper’s new book “Homestand, Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America” who wrote eloquently about the consequences on communities who lose their minor league franchises. On MLB’s chopping block were working-class communities like Pulaski, Virginia; Elizabethton, Tennessee; Bluefield, West Virginia; Williamsport, Pennsylvania; and Batavia, New York. The decision by billionaire, globalist major league owners to extinguish community ball clubs, some of the few remaining places where people could still find happiness and connection, for affordable prices as they had for generations, merely to save the equivalent of one major league minimum salary per franchise, $760,000, struck Bardenwerper as emblematic of so much of what was wrong with today’s America. Stadium workers lose their jobs, local restaurants and coffee shops struggle to stay afloat, and senior citizens lose a hallowed ballpark gathering place. But since the communities and their workers are blue-collar, globalists like MLB’s principals don’t care enough about small-town America’s fate to reconsider the damning effect their money-grubbing strategy will have.

The minor leagues’ contraction accelerated its ownership evolution from local mom and pop owners to private equity financiers who have been circling the teams that have thus far escaped MLB’s scythe. In just a few years, one enterprise, Diamond Baseball Holdings (DBH), has gobbled up a staggering 41 of the remaining 120 clubs. DBH is, in other words, a baseball holding company—just like the conglomerates on the Big Board.

Bardenwerper’s book focuses on Batavia, New York and its’ Muckdogs. Batavia is a small city on the Rust Belt’s periphery but for over a century, Batavia had enjoyed something special, a minor league ball club. Locals treasured being part of a direct pipeline from their cozy ballparks to the grand cathedrals of the game like Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. Just as importantly, they had a place to come together and enjoy the company of friends and neighbors, at affordable prices, on warm summer nights. Industries and factories may have left, but baseball did not.

Minor league professional baseball in Batavia dated back to the 1897 establishment of the Batavia Giants. The old railroad town had featured the New York-Penn League team almost continuously since its establishment in 1939. The Muckdogs, one of the teams disaffiliated in 2021, had been central to the life of the town for decades. For communities like Batavia, the local minor league ballpark meant cheerful shouts from kids playing catch in the shade of the bleachers, exuberant teenagers roaming about just as their parents had decades before, and grandparents bundled up to protect from the summer night’s chill.  

While the value of such happiness couldn’t be neatly quantified on an MLB spreadsheet — perhaps because happiness like that cannot be measured and marketed — the inefficiencies within the system or, in the words of potentate Manfred, the “stuff around the edges” that could be “cleaned up” to create “some economic flexibility that we can use.”

The small city in western New York between Rochester and Buffalo, Batavia was once full of heavy industry but has always been surrounded by fertile farmland, the local “mucklands” that inspired the team’s name. Prosperous in the first half of the twentieth century, Batavia began to struggle economically when the New York State Thruway bypassed Main Street, leading to the gradual death of many local businesses, as passing travelers no longer even knew they were there. Urban renewal projects, in which many of the historic old buildings along Main Street were bulldozed to make room for modern, brutalist style constructions, ravaged the once stately downtown. This was followed by the exit of much of its remaining industry in the 1980s and 90s.

Minor league baseball in Batavia was special in part because of what had been, at least on paper, its very ordinariness. The Muckdogs didn’t enjoy the highest attendance of the clubs that had been eliminated, nor had it been on the cutting edge of wacky baseball promotions like the Savannah Bananas.

In the wake of MLB’s cuts, Batavia refused to surrender baseball, rallying behind the creation of a new Muckdogs club, made up of amateur players competing in a summer collegiate league. With an extraordinary effort and much sacrifice from many people, driven by a community that would not allow its baseball team to disappear, Batavia survived. Pleasant summer evenings at the ballpark once seemed timeless but MLB’s craven decision put them on the endangered list. Through the vigorous efforts of its vibrant community, the crack of the bat will still be heard during the summer of 2025. Muckdogs fans of all ages will gather on warm summer evenings to overlook the tenderly manicured Dwyer Stadium.

The elitest billionaires are a mighty foe. But their fat bankrolls are not big enough to prevent Batavia’s dedicated fans from watching their beloved Muckdogs.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Will Bardenwerper served in Iraq as an Airborne Ranger-qualified infantry officer and was awarded a Combat Infantryman Badge and a Bronze Star. He has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other major publications. Before working in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he earned a B.A. from Princeton University and an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University.

Buy “Homestand, Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America” here. Mr. Bardenwerper’s other books are here.

Plyler v Doe Needs Reconsideration

By Joe Guzzardi

In Tennessee, controversial House Bill 793 and SB 836 that allow Tennessee school districts to deny enrollment to illegal alien students have taken another step toward becoming law. The bills would give permission to Tennessee schools to verify that, before enrolling them, children are citizens or have legal immigrant or visa status. Schools could then deny enrollment to the children who cannot prove their status or charge them tuition. The two versions differ in one key respect: the House bill makes it optional to check student immigration status. In the Senate version, immigration status checks are mandatory in Tennessee’s more than 1700 public schools and all public charter schools. The bills’ sponsors argued that the legislation is needed to both quantify the number of illegal alien students attending Tennessee schools and to protect the state’s limited financial resources. Opponents protested that the bill violates constitutional protections, particularly the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Plyler v. Doe, which guarantees access to public education regardless of immigration status.

On both sides of the aisle, passions ran high. House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons slammed the bill, and repeated clichés like, “Our country has a broken immigration system” and that the bill is about “punishing innocent children.” During the committee hearing, from the GOP side, Rep. Monty Fritts said, “We’re not talking about immigrants, we’re talking about illegals. There’s a distinct difference. There is no greater act of rebellion in these U.S. than illegally coming across that border.” The National Immigration Law Center issued a statement after the Senate vote that called the action a “shameful attempt to take away Tennessee children’s freedom.” The immigration advocacy firm is, it said, “prepared to defend the right to education for all alongside our partners in court.”

In June 2024, the Federation of American Immigration Reform wrote that under Plyler v. Doe, local schools are obligated to provide illegal alien children with a taxpayer-funded K-12 education. The cost is staggering. The nation’s price tag for educating illegal aliens’ children in 2022 was $70.8 billion. The data preceded the historic illegal immigrant surge that began in 2021 when President Joe Biden took office. Using Florida Rep. Aaron Bean’s conservative estimate of 500,000 new illegal aliens in U.S. public schools, the recent influx has added at least $9.7 billion in additional taxpayer costs. Bean chairs the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, and summed up Plyler v. Doe’s effect on the nation’s classrooms in two words: “Wreaking havoc.”

Parents’ frustration with the ever-expanding illegal aliens’ enrollment is understandable. Every teacher minute spent with a non-English speaking student, some of whom come in and out of the classroom depending on their parents’ work obligations, is one less moment spent with a citizen pupil. The Nation’s Report Card which showed sharp declines in reading and math scores for 9-year-olds, is attributable to, at least in part, the steady arrival of non-English speaking pupils.

Plyler v. Doe must take into consideration the nation’s current population levels. In 1982, the year SCOTUS handed down its ruling, the U.S. had 232 million residents including roughly sixteen million legal and illegal immigrants. A Center for Immigration Studies analysis showed that government’s January 2025 Current Population Survey (CPS) fixed the foreign-born or legal and illegal immigrant population at 53.3 million and 15.8 percent of the total U.S. population— both new record highs. The January CPS is the first government survey adjusted to better reflect the recent surge in illegal immigrants. Unlike border statistics, the CPS measures the number of immigrants in the country, which is what determines their impact on society including education. Without adjusting for those the survey missed, the estimated illegal immigrant population accounted for 5.4 million or two-thirds of the 8.3 million increase in the foreign-born population since January 2021. CIS’ best estimate is that 11.5 to 12.5 million legal and illegal immigrants settled in the country in the last four years.

Given the dramatic illegal immigration surge over the last 40 years, states’ request to reevaluate Plyler v. Doe is a modest proposal. States spend billions to educate Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students while citizen children get less of their teachers’ attention. In the meantime, while Plyler v. Doe review plays out in the courts, the federal government, which writes and approves immigration law, should pay for states’ illegal aliens’ education, an unfunded mandate. The bills’ sponsors have said they hope the legislation could serve as a test case for the Supreme Court to revisit its 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision. “If Plyler v. Doe were to stand, the federal government might finally step up and send the states the money to fund these students,” said a GOP representative. On LEP programs, Congress contributes barely 1 percent of the cost despite the federal requirement for states to educate the children of illegal aliens. Congress’ indifference to citizen children’s diluted education while it funds an ongoing illegal immigrant surge into already overcrowded classrooms represents yet another America last policy.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Plyler v Doe Needs Reconsideration Plyler v Doe Needs Reconsideration

Orioles’ Irishmen Lit Up Scoreboard

By Joe Guzzardi

June 24, 1901, was a grand day for the Irish batsmen played who for the Baltimore Orioles’ third baseman-manager John J. McGraw, the son of Irish immigrants. Of the teams 22 hits in its 17-6 romp over the Detroit Tigers, Irishmen banged out 17. The Orioles had a team well-stocked with Hall of Fame-bound Irish hitters, and some of baseball histories most famous personalities.

Among the future Cooperstown inductees, McGraw was universally hated for grabbing runners rounding third by their belts, tripping or spiking them to keep them from reaching home. His colorful language directed toward umpires led to quick ejections; the “Little Napoleon” got the thumb 117 times. Not that McGraw paid attention to it, but his language was so foul that owners issued a ruling “A Measure for the Suppression of Obscene, Indecent and Vulgar Language on the Ball Field.” More than one hundred years after he hung up his spikes, McGraw still ranks third in on base percentage, .466, behind Ted Williams and Babe Ruth. McGraw reached base by choking up so far that he could have hit the pitcher’s offering with either end of his war club. Before the game began, McGraw ordered the field drenched and then left to dry until it was hard as cement. Once he reached the plate, McGraw would execute his famous “Baltimore Chop,” a batted ball which bounced high over infielder’s heads. By the time the bulb descended, McGraw stood safely on first base. Although rarely credited as such, McGraw—Mr. McGraw to his players— invented inside baseball and was unquestionably the Dead Ball Era’s most influential figure.

As a manager, McGraw had few peers. In 29 full seasons as the Giants’ pilot that spanned from 1902 to 1932, he led the New York Giants to 10 National League pennants, three World Series championships, and 21 first- or second-place finishes. His 2,763 managerial victories were second only to Connie Mack‘s 3,731 for the rest of the 20th century, but in 1927 Mack himself proclaimed, “There has been only one manager — and his name is McGraw.”

Another Orioles’ future Cooperstown inductee was Wilbert Robinson, one of the era’s best catchers and beloved by all. “Uncle Robbie,” led the Brooklyn Robins to two National League pennants. The incident for which Robinson is most famous occurred during Brooklyn’s 1915 Daytona Beach training camp. Aviator Ruth Lawl was making daily flights in the area, dropping golf balls as a publicity gimmick for the local courses. Eventually camp chatter among the Robins turned to the idea of catching a baseball dropped from the plane. Robinson, 53, accepted the challenge. On the big day, Law left the baseball back in her hotel room, and substituted a grapefruit which, when she released it from high altitude, landed in Robinson’s mitt and exploded, knocking him down and drenching him in warm juice. Thinking his own blood covered him, Robbie screamed for help, but his players were too doubled over with laughter to respond. Robinson was serious about baseball, however. The New York Times baseball scribe John Kiernan wrote that Robinson “… knew baseball as the spotted setter knows the secrets of quail hunting, by instinct and experience.” During his years with the Orioles, Robinson developed a close and long-lasting friendship with teammate John McGraw, 10 years his junior. The two men eventually went into business together, opening the Diamond Café, a Baltimore billiards parlor that featured a bar, a dining room, and a bowling alley.

Other Irish greats that appeared in that day’s lineup included Roger Bresnahan, a catcher who upgraded that position’s protective gear and during his career played all nine positions; Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity who, during August 1903, pitched and won both ends of a doubleheader three times; and “Turkey” Mike Donlin, so called because of his strut up to the plate. Donlin, one of the Dead Ball era’s best hitters who went six for six in the O’s rout of Detroit, was also a flamboyant playboy and heavy drinker whose misbehavior often landed him in jail. Later in his life, Donlin starred on Broadway and eventually on Hollywood’s silver screen where in starred in features directed by John Ford. Donlin’s career batting average was an impressive .340.

Irish players, born into humble immigrant circumstances and eager to succeed, dominated early 20^th century baseball. Too many of their accomplishments have been overshadowed by the hype around lesser skilled but heavily promoted modern day players.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Orioles’ Irishmen Lit Up Scoreboard

Sanctuary City Mayors Unbending in Defending Lawless Policies  

By Joe Guzzardi

On March 5, four of the tough-talking big city mayors appeared before the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. New York’s Eric Adams, Chicago’s Brandon Johnson, Denver’s Mike Johnston and Boston’s Michelle Wu faced probing questions from Committee Chair James Comer and other members about their sanctuary policies which allow inadmissible aliens to seek and receive harbor. Sanctuary cities also block Immigration and Customs Enforcement from carrying out immigration laws.

Comer opened by asking the four if they considered their city “a sanctuary.” Only Adams answered yes. The others deflected. Johnson said Chicago is a “welcoming city,”; Wu, Boston is “a safe city,” and Johnston offered a word salad. Wu repeatedly claimed that Boston is the nation’s safest city, but in the FBI’s newly released 2023 crime data, Boston ranked 16th safest of the nation’s 50 largest cities when measured against total violent crime

The defiant mayors made familiar but misleading talking points to support their unbending sanctuary city status. They maintained that without illegal immigrants their local work force would evaporate, that their “welcoming” posture is consistent with America’s open-arms immigration history. They also insisted that the answer to their problems is “comprehensive immigration reform,” code words for amnesty. Wu leaned heavily on her family’s history as the child of non-English speaking Taiwanese who raised their daughter on Chicago’s Southside. Johnson made repeated efforts to blame Texas Governor Greg Abbott for sending busloads of illegal immigrants to Chicago.

Under direct questioning, Wu did poorly. Missouri’s U.S. Rep. Eric Burlison dug in and asked Wu if there is an “acceptable number” of illegal aliens before she feels the city is overrun. Wu replied that she doesn’t decide who comes into the country or where they go, only how they are treated when they get to Boston. Wu ordered Burlison to do his job and pass legislation, another reference to amnesty. When asked several times to provide hard figures for the taxpayer expense to care for illegal aliens, Wu couldn’t provide a number. She said no cost data is available because Boston doesn’t inquire about immigration status. Neither Wu nor Chicago’s Johnson would explicitly answer Comer’s question about whether they would turn over illegal immigrant criminals to ICE.

Johnson drew Republican lawmakers’ ire for limiting his cost estimate at roughly 1 percent of his city’s budget while Denver’s and New York City’s Johnston and Adams provided concrete numbers at $79 million over the past two years and $6.9 billion, respectively. Wu was hammered for saying Boston doesn’t keep track. “You don’t ask how much money the city of Boston has spent on illegal immigration — are you out of your mind? Do you manage your budget?” asked Florida U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds.  She does not, as evidenced by her hiring of a legal team to coach her, the Washington D.C. law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel, which charges $950 an hour, according to the Boston Herald.  In all, Wu spent $650,000 on legal fees and to transport eight staffers and her one-month-old infant to the hearing.

Adams came under intense fire from his fellow Democrats for his alleged deal making with the Trump administration. New York Democrats Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez and Laura Gillen along with California’s Robert Garcia demanded that Adams resign for his purported quid-pro-quo deal to cooperate with ICE in exchange for DOJ ordering federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against the mayor. Adams vigorously denied any type of deal.

The Cato Institute’s David Bier, the minority witness, was on hand to give the pro-mayor, pro-sanctuary city testifiers a helping hand. Bier presented only the positive side of the sanctuary city debate—illegal aliens pay taxes but no mention of the services they consume, states have limited power to cooperate with the federal government, but no citation of the Supremacy Clause, Congress should follow the guidelines recommended by the Major City Chiefs Association, not those that National Border Patrol Council established, etc.

After six hours of contentious testimony, the next step is in the administration’s hands. AG Bondi has sued Chicago, Illinois and New York State for their sanctuary policies. Bondi called Wu “an insult to law enforcement,” and promised to intensify her efforts in Boston. Before the hearing, Wu sent condolences to Lemark Jaramillo’s family; police identified Jaramillo as the perpetrator who attempted to stab Chick-fil-A patrons and was then shot to death by an off-duty police officer.

After the hearing ended, Florida’s Anna Paulina Luna wrote on X, “I just referred the sanctuary city mayors to the Department of Justice for CRIMINAL investigations based on evidence from their own comments and policies, proving that they were breaking federal law.” Four other Republicans indicated that they too would file charges against the insolent mayors. Criminal charges, along withholding federal funds from the rebellious mayors’ cities, is the best way to end the illegal sanctuary city quagmire. The law is clear: Title 8, U.S. Code § 1324 is a federal law that makes it illegal to bring in and harbor illegal aliens and prohibits the unlawful employment of aliens. 

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Sanctuary City Mayors Unbending in Defending Lawless Policies  

LA Was Once Largest Farming County

By Joe Guzzardi

For the lucky few among us who grew up during the 1950s in Southern California, and specifically around the Pacific Palisades/Malibu area, the non-stop video coverage of the massive wildfire was impossible to watch. My thoughts took me back to when the state lived up to its golden image. In their book “From Cows to Cement,” authors Rachel Surls and Judith Gerberk documented Los Angeles County’s agricultural history which was once America’s largest farming county. Today, L.A., once a silkworm center, is the U.S.’ largest urban county. After World War II, around 1945, people moved to Los Angeles in waves to build factories, large office buildings, cookie cutter housing and other edifices that drove land prices ever-upward. Values slowly but inevitably rose; land boom followed land boom. As property assessments soared, farmers couldn’t resist the lucrative opportunity to cash in. A less esthetic L.A. survived, with farmland replaced by cement. By 2023, Los Angeles County had become the nation’s most populous, with nearly 10 million residents, more than about 25% of California’s total population. In 1950, the county’s population was 4.2 million. Today, L.A. County is one of the nation’s largest, covering more than 4,000 square miles. If it were a state, it would be the country’s eighth largest.

Underneath Los Angeles’ urban cement nightmare lay thousands of acres of once-productive farmland. Farming was Los Angeles’ hub from its 1781 founding into the mid-twentieth century. Over the four decades between 1909 to 1949, Los Angeles grew from a farming community into an agricultural powerhouse. Farmers experimented with a multitude of crops, from fruits and vegetables, to hemp, cotton, and flowers. Livestock was important too, with major stockyards that competed with Chicago and Omaha. Hundreds of dairy and poultry farms flourished.

Intrastate transplants went west for more than business opportunities. The sunny and warm weather was a lure. To mid-western arrivals, the beaches were unparalleled. California’s coastline which stretches out over 840 miles has over 420 public beaches, the star gem of which is Malibu. Beach Boys’ songs and movies like “Beach Blanket Bingo” drew a picture of non-stop fun in the sun. All age groups that in-migrated to California found their way to the beach to suntan, fish off the pier, dine in one of the popular just-caught fish restaurants or to hang out, but also to build homes as close to the beaches as their pocketbooks could afford. The celebrities and other wealthy elite built on the ocean’s edge unconcerned about the mudslides that heavy precipitation brings.

The recent Palisades fires followed by pounding rains have created an ecological threat to the Pacific Ocean. Debris and toxins released from the fires will damage kelp forests and lead to destructive algae blooms that snuff out ocean life. The much-needed rain will mark the beginning of the worst effects in the ocean. “The Malibu coastline is extremely unique,” said Dan Pondella, Occidental College biology professor and Southern California Marine Institute research director, “It’s probably the highest density of fishes throughout Southern California.” When rain mixes with debris from burn scars, a slurry of mud, rocks and rubble pour into ocean, which Pondella said acts like both sandpaper and a blackout curtain for the fragile kelp forests. “You’ll see anything from reduced light, which limits photosynthesis in plant and algal growth, to reefs actually being completely buried in ash,” he said. The ash layer remains in the environment for a long time. When the Woolsey Fire tore through Malibu in 2018, it dumped thousands of tons of ash into the ocean, which Pondella’s team was still finding in reefs five years later. More bad news: Wildlife officials reported that a toxic algae outbreak has left as many as 50 sea lions sickened and stranded on Malibu beaches in the past week.

For the next few years as clean up and rebuilding continue, Malibu’s good times are over. When friends ask what it was like to grow up near California’s beaches, I can’t come up with a description that would do my experience justice. I simply say, “I wish you’d been there with me to appreciate it.”

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

LA Was Once Largest Farming County

When Clemente And Mays Roamed The Same Outfield

By Joe Guzzardi

During the seven-plus decades that I’ve been a baseball fan, I’ve watched games at all levels— Little and Pony League World Series, high school, the NCAA World Series and countless major and minor league games. When friends ask about my most memorable baseball moments, I answer going to Puerto Rico Winter League (PRWL) games. I’m not alone in my judgment. Dick Young, a New York-based columnist who wrote about the Yankees, Giants, Mets and the Brooklyn Dodgers for more than 50 years said that the most exciting games he ever covered were between the San Juan Senators against its neighbor, the Santurce Crabbers.

Thomas E. Van Hyning’s new book, “The Caribbean Series: Latin America’s Annual Baseball Tournament, 1949-2024,” transported me back to those wonderful days in the mid-1950s through the early 1960s, when as a Puerto Rico resident, I watched some of MLB and the Negro National League’s (NNL) best “peloteros,” as the fans referred to them. Among the league batting champions were Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, and Orlando Cepeda; NNL stars Willard Brown and Buster Clarkson won the runs batted in titles. Crabbers’ mound stalwarts were the Giants Ruben Gomez, a 28-year regular in the PRWL and Chicago Cubs ace and Sam “Toothpick” Jones, the first black pitcher to toss an MLB no-hitter. Santurce fielded the most successful PRWL teams of the 1950s. Author Van Hyning compared Santurce to the New York Yankees, “a franchise with a rich history and a winning tradition.” The Crabbers were all of that and more in the first season I watched them, 1954-1955. Most thrilling of all, in the Crabbers’ outfield, Clemente played left field with Mays in center, a fans’ delight as the duo roamed the deepest recesses of magnificent Sixto Escobar Stadium to snag long line drives. Well-traveled fans called Sixto Escobar the Fenway Park by the ocean. Clemente and Mays played together in numerous All-Star games, but the only time they played side-by-side continuously was as Santurce teammates.

Clemente respected Mays, with whom he had friendly competition, but Roberto didn’t worship the 1954 NL MVP. Instead, Clemente admired Monte Irvin, his childhood baseball hero who played for the Giants and, earlier, the NNL’s Newark Eagles. Mays played only one season with the Crabbers, 1954/1955, but what a season it was: batting average, .395, with 12 HRs and 33 RBIs in truncated season. “Ole, mira,” came the chants for Mays, the Spanish translation of, “Say, hey.” Clemente captured the 1956/1957 batting crown with the decade’s highest average, .396. During his 15-years-long PRWL career, Clemente played for the Crabbers, the Caguas Criollos, and the agaSenators, and against topflight MLB pitching, had career total of hitting .323, with thirty-five homers, and 269 RBIs. Clemente also had two managing stints with the Senators and guided the team to the playoffs twice.

Clemente was destined for stardom from the day that Brooklyn Dodgers scout Al Campanis, who had managed Cuba’s Cienfuegos Elephantes that winter, attended a tryout at Sixto Escobar. Campanis graded Clemente, then 18, as either A or A+ in the essential five-tools category—hitting, hitting for power, fielding, throwing, and speed. In his report to Dodgers’ management, Campanis wrote, “Has all the tools and likes to play. A real good-looking prospect.” On Nov. 22, 1954, the Pirates selected the 20-year-old Puerto Rican prospect from the Brooklyn Dodgers in MLB’s Rule 5 Draft. The Dodgers didn’t need Clemente that first season — outfielders Duke Snider and Carl Furillo hit .309 and .314 respectively, combined to hit sixty-eight home runs and helped Brooklyn win the 1955 World Series. But letting Clemente get away was an obvious Dodgers’ mistake when he won the ’66 NL MVP Award, four NL batting crowns and led the Pirates to World Series championships in ’60 and ’71. Over the course of his 18 MLB seasons, Clemente slashed .345/.382/.466 against the Dodgers with seventeen triples and twenty-one home runs in 291 career games. He didn’t hit higher than .330 against any other MLB team and is the only Hall of Famer to have been selected in the Rule 5 Draft.

The Crabbers, led by Mays’ .440 average and Clemente’s series-leading eight runs scored, topped off an excellent season by winning the 1955 Caribbean World Series. I moved back to the mainland before I would have seen a long string of Cooperstown Hall of Famers like Bob Gibson, Frank Robinson, Jim Palmer, Robin Yount, and Reggie Jackson. As I read Van Hyning’s book, thoughts of those great evenings I spent in Sixto Escobar Stadium, enjoying the warm Caribbean trade winds and top-flight baseball came back to me as though they happened yesterday.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

When Clemente And Mays Roamed The Same Outfield

Dems’ Roadmap Out of Their Funk

By Joe Guzzardi

If the Democrats are as battered, bruised and confused as has been repeatedly written, then the party should act immediately to remove Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). After the 2024 drubbing that Democrats were on the short end of, and with defeated presidential candidate Kamala Harris permanently out of DC politics, Schumer is an omni-present reminder of the party’s failure. When last seen, Schumer was protesting in front of the Treasury Building alongside Maxine Waters (R-Calif.), “We will win. We won’t lose,” a reference to Elon Musk’s DOGE. Yelling and arm-waving is a bad image for Waters, age 86, Schumer, 75, Elizabeth Warren (D-MA.), another shrieking protester, age 75, and the floundering Democratic Party. Waters has been a congressional fixture for 36 years, Schumer, 45 years, and Warren, 10 years although she has been hanging around Washington in various capacities for 30 years. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), 80, Senate Minority Whip, is a 42-year congressional veteran who will assumedly run for a sixth term in 2026. Durbin’s signature issue, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the unpopular and unconstitutional DACA, has been stuck in legislative quicksand for two decades.  Some DACAs are now over forty, have protection from deportation, work authorization, jobs, and families that include American citizen children.

When the American Federation of Government Employees gathered on Capitol Hill and rallied “to save the civil service” and to oppose President Trump’s push to reduce federal government’s workforce size, Maxine Dexter, (D-Ore.) said, “…we have to f… Trump.” Free speech rights may protect Dexter, an M.D. and first term U.S. Representative, but her vulgar comment could be construed as a threat to the president, a felony that carries a maximum jail sentence of up to five years and a fine not to exceed $250,000. As President Teddy Roosevelt said, “Profanity is the parlance of the fool.”

Whether engaged in free speech or felonious behavior, the Democrats’ strategy is wrong. Insistence that the Trump administration represents a “constitutional crisis” does not resonate with voters, too reminiscent of the endless pre-election assertion that fascist DJT would be a “threat to democracy.” Tennis players’ comportment could help guide Democrats to get over their automatic hysterics of all-things Trump. In tennis, after the match, the loser and winner meet at the net, shake hands, and pat each other on the back. The loser returns to the locker room, not grousing but committed to reviewing the match tapes, identifying strategically what led to his loss, and dedicating himself to practicing longer and harder to win next time. Before the upcoming tournament, the loser fires his coach, his trainer, and his dietician; he sheds deadwood. Getting rid of power-obsessed, entrenched Schumer and Durbin would be hard unless former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is summoned. Pelosi put the skids to President Biden, her friend of 50 years, to end his re-election bid. Even if Schumer and Durbin retire or are pressured to resign, New York and Illinois will remain blue, but the rest of the 2026 Senate election calendar looks grim for Democrats, especially after Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) announced their retirements

Looking back at November, woeful Kamala Harris deserves the lion’s share of the blame for her landslide defeat. Harris was a bad candidate who ran a horrible campaign. Her candidacy was, as Democratic strategist James Carville said, like starting the seventh string quarterback in the Superbowl. But the Democrats’ bench is wafer-thin. California Governor Gavin Newsom, Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) or any of the other possible candidates would have fared worse than Harris. They all shared the impossible task of winning while saddled with President Biden’s burdensome baggage—an open border that admitted more than 10 million unvetted illegal aliens, national debt increases of more than $6 trillion, and brazen disregard for the Supreme Court’s ruling that he could not forgive student debt, a decision he disobeyed when he subsequently discharged  multiple billions in indebtedness, and then bragged about his defiance of SCOTUS.  Not for nothing did President Biden have a 35% approval rating among likely voters.

On a nationally televised interview, the host asked his guest Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson if Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had knocked on his door to present the Democrat plan. In the imaginary conversation, Jefferies would say to Johnson, “We agree that government waste and fraud must be eliminated. But we have produced a better plan you should consider.” Johnson replied to the interviewer that no one from the aisle’s other side had, at any time, reached out to him. The Democrats undertaking—to forget about President Trump, he won, you lost. Make a sound plan, promote it nationwide, sell it to the voters, a task that is within your reach. Statistics compiled in 2024 show that of the 210 million registered voters 38.8 million are Republicans and forty-nine million are Democrats. The new and improved Democratic roadmap should be to stop harping about President Trump and instead explain why Americans deserve your party’s vote.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Pam Bondi Onslaught Righting Old Wrongs

By Joe Guzzardi

When President Donald Trump talks to his pillow every evening, he’s thanking his lucky stars that his original Attorney General nominee, the controversial Florida U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz, dropped out. Trump’s second choice, Pam Bondi, is off at break-neck speed to right many of the wrongs done by the prior administration. The same day that the U.S. Senate confirmed Bondi, she issued several memos including one to put DOJ employees on alert that if they allow their personal political views to interfere with defending federal priorities, they could be fired. Another memo Bondi distributed to her staff created what the new AG called a “Weaponizing Working Group.” The group will, among its other missions, investigate special council Jack Smith’s part in two federal criminal cases against President Trump: one over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, surge on the U.S. Capitol and another on his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Bondi directed the newly created group to examine potential federal weaponization cooperation with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s and New York Attorney General Letitia James’ offices.

Most important to voters who voted for and support President Trump’s commitment to removing criminal aliens, Bondi ordered a pause on distributing funds to sanctuary jurisdictions, cities or counties that refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or abide by federal immigration law. Enforcement advocates have for years urged both Republican and Democratic administrations to stop funding self-appointed sanctuary cites that are, in truth, a refuge for criminals. San Francisco and other sanctuary cities and states sued the Trump administration; Bondi’s overdue actions against immigration lawbreakers have been temporarily enjoined, but better times are coming. Sure enough, Bondi has also sued for their immigration crimes the States of Illinois and New York as well as AG James and DMV head Mark Schroeder. “We sued Illinois. New York did not listen, now you’re [NY] next. This is a new DOJ, and we are taking steps to protect Americans,” Bondi told reporters. “New York has chosen to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens.” As an example, Bondi pointed to New York’s Green Light Law that prohibits the state’s sheriff’s department and other agencies from sharing motor vehicle data with federal authorities for purposes of immigration enforcement. “They have a ‘tip-off’ provision that requires New York’s DMV commissioner to promptly inform any illegal alien when a federal immigration agency has requested their information,” Bondi added. “It’s tipping off an illegal alien. And it’s unconstitutional, and that’s why we filed this lawsuit.”

Not only has Bondi expressed her determination to end the practice of harboring criminal illegal aliens, but border czar Tom Homan has strongly stated that governors and mayors who obstruct ICE in its mission or any other party that interferes could be prosecuted. Neither Bondi nor Homan could have imagined that, after her forceful and specific memos, FBI agents would have leaked information that allowed Tren de Aragua gang members to avoid capture. Allowing personal political views to interfere with federal law enforcement is punishable by, at a minimum, dismissal. Last week, Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested that the FBI leaked information about when and where the raids would occur. “Some of the information we are receiving tends to lead toward the FBI,” Homan said in a nationally televised interview wherein he also vowed to recommend to the Justice Department that the leakers be prosecuted.

Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, strongly pro-law enforcement, promised Homan that not only will these persons lose their jobs and pensions, but they will also go to jail, adding that the leaks about ICE raids targeting Venezuelan TdA members are “giving the bad guys a heads-up so they can escape apprehension.”

Once Noem and Homan identify the traitorous agents, the soon-to-be appointed new FBI director Kash Patel can start to root out the abundant rot.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Pam Bondi Onslaught Righting Old Wrongs

US Workers Lost Ground to Immigrants In January

By Joe Guzzardi

As always, the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report requires scrutiny to uncover the nuances that obscure the truth. On February 7, the BLS released the January 2025 economic report. Throughout former President Biden’s four-year term, analysts cast a skeptical eye on what they claimed were inflated job creation totals. Last Labor Day, the BLS confirmed a significant error, and confessed to overstating job creation numbers from March 2023 to March 2024 by at least 818,000, the largest miscalculation in 15 years.

In January, total non-farm payroll employment rose by 143,000, with job gains concentrated in low-paying sectors including health care, retail trade, and social assistance. Conversely, employment declined in higher-paying industries such as mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction.

Immigration experts have long speculated about how the Biden administration’s border policies would manifest in monthly BLS data. During Biden’s presidency, millions of illegal aliens crossed the border, most requiring employment to support themselves. The CBP-One mobile phone app—an illegal Biden maneuver—was officially announced in 2023 but actually had begun in 2021, providing a means for illegal aliens to fly to their preferred U.S. city. The administration unconstitutionally granted them parole, an immigration status that includes employment authorization. The impact of these newly admitted millions on the workforce was inevitable, though it was unlikely to be highlighted during Biden’s tenure. Immigration, typically a taboo subject for Biden and his staff, was rarely discussed except in positive terms.

The Center for Immigration Studies’ (CIS) Director of Research, Steven Camarota, analyzed the January 2025 Household Survey, which finally accounted for the substantial legal and illegal immigration surge since 2020. The significant population increase predictably influenced the labor market. The new BLS data revealed that since January 2020—the period just before COVID and the immigration surge—88 percent of all employment growth has gone to legal and illegal immigrants, often referred to as foreign-born. Immigrant-dominated employment occurred simultaneously with a near-record share, 22.1 percent, of working-age U.S.-born men detached from the labor force.

As CIS previously noted, earlier surveys’ failure to fully account for the illegal immigration flow resulted in an underestimation of the total U.S. population. Good news for American workers appears on the horizon. President Trump’s commitment to securing the border and his immediate cancellation of the CBP-One app have dampened prospective illegal aliens’ enthusiasm for entering the U.S. unlawfully. In January, the U.S. manufacturing sector expanded for the first time after 26 months of contraction, as the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI)—an indicator of prevailing economic trends in manufacturing and service sectors—registered 50.9 percent, 1.7 percentage points higher than the seasonally adjusted 49.2 percent reported in December.

Of the subindexes that directly factor into PMI, new orders, production, employment, and supplier deliveries were in expansion territory compared to only two subindexes showing improvement in December, the last full month of the Biden administration. PMI has surged since President Trump’s November election, as manufacturers and buyers anticipate more business-friendly policies.

The remainder of the first calendar quarter will reveal whether Trump’s presidency truly represents an America-first agenda or if his current popularity is merely a temporary blip on the four-year political radar.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org