Best Irish Baseball Players, Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Best Irish Baseball Players, Happy St. Patrick’s Day

By Joe Guzzardi


In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I set out to determine the best-ever Irish baseball players. The task was more challenging than I imagined, but also more rewarding. Reviewing the Irish baseball greats and their stellar diamond accomplishments was a welcome diversion from the troubled world around us.

To get started, I read the Society for American Baseball Research’s player biographies and then referred to Baseball-Almanac’s statistical records. Early on, I realized that identifying a single best-ever Irish player is impossible. I broke the Irish greats into four groups: best hitter, best pitcher, best manager and most influential – the player responsible for creating a baseball buzz that brought droves of new, but still curious, late 19th century fans to the ballpark.

Irish players, mostly Irish-Americans, have been an integral part of the American baseball scene since the post-Civil War era when the sport enjoyed its first popularity surge. By the mid-1880s, just after the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs was formed, players could earn $10,000 a year at a time when the average annual income was $800. Understandably, good athletes were drawn to baseball. Like Italian and Eastern European immigrants, the Irish knew that when they played baseball, they were taking steps toward becoming full-fledged Americans.

Best Irish batsman is Cleveland-born “Big” Ed Delahanty. The eldest of five MLB brothers, Big Ed played most of his career, 1888-1903, with the Philadelphia Quakers, the Phillies, the Cleveland Infants and the Washington Senators. During his 16-year career, Big Ed hit .400 or better three times, and ended up with a .346 career average, the fifth best in baseball history, a .411 on-base percentage, and a .505 slugging average. Delahanty was an excellent right fielder with a rifle arm.

Toward his career’s end, Delahanty’s wife became gravely ill; he lost money at the race track, and he went on extended drinking binges. On July 2, 1903, riding a train across the International Railway Bridge over the Niagara River, Delahanty abruptly left the train, stumbled onto the bridge, fell into the river and drowned. Some speculate that Big Ed committed suicide, others claim he was pushed by an irate night watchman with whom he’d scuffled. The circumstances surrounding Big Ed’s death have never been resolved.

Best Irish mounds man is Tony “the Count” Mullane. The affable, County Cork-born pitcher was a well-known rake and a skilled boxer, as well as a competitive ice and roller skater. During his 13-year career from 1881-1894, mostly with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, Mullane won 30 or more games in five consecutive seasons. In 1884, the height of his career, the Boston Herald wrote about Mullane that he’s “a most effective pitcher; his delivery is low and his command of the ball wonderful. He pitches with left or right arm equally well.” The ambidextrous Mullane racked up 284 career wins.

Best Irish Manager: No list of Irish greats is complete without Troy, NY’s John J. McGraw. McGraw could have appeared as a player with his .344 career batting average and .466 on base percentage. But McGraw is most often remembered as the New York Giants manager who, during his 30 years at the helm, led his team to three World Series crowns.

“In Tales from the Deadball Era,” Mark Halfon wrote that McGraw was an argumentative, profane, belligerent manager who “took no prisoners in a battle for baseball supremacy. Opposing clubs had to prepare for any eventuality when they faced him. The Reds, for example, worried that he [McGraw] contaminated their drinking water. McGraw may not have tainted the water, but it was not beneath him,” Halfon concluded.

Best Irish Baseball Players, Happy St. Patrick's Day

As outstanding as Delahanty, Mullane and McGraw’s contributions were, they pale compared to another Troy-native, Mike “King” Kelly. King was baseball’s first 15-year-old player, first matinee idol, first $10,000 earner, first to write his own autobiography – “Play Ball, Stories from the Ball Field” – first to have a song written about him – “Slide Kelly Slide” – and the first catcher to wear a glove and chest protector. Kelly, because of his ability and charisma, changed baseball from a simple, pastoral game into America’s most popular sport.

In his biography about Kelly, “Slide Kelly Slide,” Marty Appel wrote, “There was never a better or more brilliant player. Colorful beyond description, he was the light and the life of the game. … He was one of the quickest thinkers that ever took a signal. He originated more trick plays than all players put together.… As a drawing card, he was the greatest of his time. Fandom around the circuit always welcomed the Chicago White Stockings, with the great [Cap] Anson and his lieutenant, King Kelly.”

Between 1878 and 1891, Kelly played with eight teams, six of which won National League titles. During that period, Kelly won two batting titles and led the league in runs scored three times. Like Delahanty, however, Kelly loved to gamble, spent money recklessly and couldn’t stay out of saloons. King Kelly, sometimes called, “The Only Kelly” died at age 36 of pneumonia.

Delahanty, Mullane, McGraw and Kelly, great Irish players all, revered by a growing legion of early 20th century baseball bugs, but whose names time has obscured, deserve recognition on St. Patrick’s Day, 2022.
 

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association Member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Best Irish Baseball Players, Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Next Wave Of Refugees To US Likely Ukrainian

Next Wave Of Refugees To US Likely Ukrainian

By Joe Guzzardi

Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine has brought devastation or death to hundreds of thousands of people. Around the globe, Russia’s assault on the Ukraine has outraged fair-minded people. Russia is 28-times Ukraine’s size, has twice its population, and its military has more than 1 million active-duty personnel, more than four times Ukraine’s force strength. Russia also has 378,000 reserve personnel and 250,000 paramilitary troops who are ready for active duty at any time. Through March 8, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported more than 500 civilian deaths in the Ukraine and more than 900 injured, but noted that the total is likely higher.

Whenever and however the brutal war ends, millions of Ukrainians will be displaced, as well as Russians vocally opposed to the war who fear President Vladimir Putin’s retaliation. Between the invasion’s beginning and March 6, more than 13,000 anti-war protesters were arrested. Russia’s crackdown on dissenters includes blocking access to Facebook and Twitter which could disseminate anti-war news that Putin wants hushed up. In early March, Putin signed legislation under which people suspected of spreading “fake news” about Russian forces could face up to 15 years in prison.

The UN Refugee agency reported that 2 million Ukrainians have fled their country, mostly to Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. But the news agency Reuters found that, at the U.S.-Mexico border, a growing number of Russian and Ukrainian nationals have been encountered. In Mexico, the migrants buy “throwaway” vehicles and then drive across the border into the United States to seek asylum. Assuming the Russian invasion continues, tens of thousands more displaced Eastern Europeans could eventually reach the U.S. to make their asylum claims.

Next Wave Of Refugees To US Likely Ukrainian

Illegal entry attempts could increase as visas become increasingly difficult to obtain. A Miami immigration lawyer fluent in Russian, Andrey Plaksin said he is overwhelmed with calls and emails inquiring about the visa process and their availability. One option that might help Eastern Europeans get to the U.S. would be if they applied for a nonimmigrant tourist or work visa, assuming they could find a U.S. consular post open and accepting appointments.

Once inside the U.S., they would face minimal chance of deportation. Almost immediately after the invasion began, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas granted Ukrainians living in the U.S. before March 1 temporary protected status for 18 months, protecting them from deportation for that period. Historically, TPS is quasi-automatically rolled over in 18-month increments for periods as long as two decades.

By an overwhelming margin, Americans and Congress wants to help Ukrainian citizens and other countries that Putin may be determined to destroy. Eight in tenvoters are following the Ukraine crisis closely, and 70 percent favor strong sanctions against Russia.

But with the Russia-Ukraine war coming just weeks after the U.S. airlift that took Afghan nationals to overseas U.S. military bases, then to the American homeland, and with the illegal immigration invasion ongoing, with no end in sight, many question how the country can environmentally sustain itself. Projecting Biden’s first year immigration totals over his four-year term – about 2 million illegal immigrants, 650,000 “got aways,” 1 million-plus lawful permanent residents and tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees – and the U.S. will have about 8 million illegal immigrants that Customs and Border Protection processed, and roughly 2.5 million “got aways” now in the interior, safe from deportation. The Afghan resettlement is over, but a Ukrainian surge could surpass those numbers.

To the existing totals, remember that demographers must include the roughly 3.1 family members that lawfully present immigrants, including refugees/asylees, will petition to be admitted to the country, as well as the families that they’ll start or add to once in the U.S.

Despite the Biden administration’s ballyhoo about a future green America, he’s ignored the huge carbon footprint that thousands of new immigrants will make as housing, roads, schools and hospitals are built to accommodate the needs of them and their offspring.

Fifty years ago, the Rockefeller Commission Report, “Population and the American Future,” was submitted to Congress. The report urged population stabilization at the 1972 level, 211 million. Instead, population has soared to the current 334 million, and is projected to reach about 400 million by mid-century. Be mindful that these totals are pre-Biden’s expansive open borders and resettlement policies.

Fewer people would relieve, at least in part, many of America’s social ailments, including most obviously sprawl and overcrowding. Yet stable population’s obvious benefits have escaped every presidential administration, Republican and Democrat, since Richard Nixon. A half-century of disregard for population growth has had no noticeable benefits for most Americans. For the donor class elite, however, growth is good – for them.

Joe Guzzardi is a PFIR analyst who has written about immigration and its consequences for 35 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Next Wave Of Refugees To US Likely Ukrainian Next Wave Of Refugees To US Likely Ukrainian Next Wave Of Refugees

s 3720 Displaces US Tech Workers

s 3720 Displaces US Tech Workers

By Joe Guzzardi

Like all America, Capitol Hill is focused on Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine and watching the continuous updates with apprehension. But even though Congress’ attention is diverted, its dreary business which often includes American worker displacement continues.
 
Last week, Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin introduced S. 3720, the “H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act.” Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are cosponsors.
 
Over the decades, the H-1B and the L-1 visas for international transfers have displaced hundreds of thousands of mostly U.S. tech workers, but also other white-collar professionals. Moreover, the easy availability of foreign nationals in the labor market dims the employment prospects for recent U.S. college graduates.
 
The new legislation is touted as bipartisan which immigration realists define as a squishy Republican teaming up with a radical Democrat to promote a bad bill with the media and their congressional peers. Remember the bipartisan 2013 Gang of Eight amnesty wherein four Republicans and four Democrats all had the same F- immigration grade. Or think back further to 2005 and another bipartisan hoax, the McCain-Kennedy immigration billauthored by the most extreme immigration advocates, the Arizona Republican and the Massachusetts Democrat.
 
Although Grassley during his 33 years in Congress has been reliably pro-border and interior enforcement, staunchly opposed to refugee and asylum fraud, he’s been an equally dependable voice for more employment-based visas for foreign nationals. The jointly issued press release from Grassley and Durbin sounded upbeat and encouraging. Grassley: “Our bill takes steps to ensure that the programs [H-1B and L-1] work for Americans and skilled foreign workers alike.” Durbin: “For years, outsourcing companies have used legal loopholes to displace qualified American workers, exploit foreign workers, and facilitate the outsourcing of American jobs. Our legislation would fix these broken programs, protect workers, and put an end to these abuses.” Unfortunately, S. 3720 does none of that, but has extensive flaws that, predictably, are harmful to U.S. tech workers.
 
S. 3720 proposes to eliminate the current random H-1B lottery and replace it with a presumably better system, each a noble goal. But it falls far short and instead prioritizes for the coveted visa four different categories of international students with degrees from U.S. universities: students with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), students with advanced degrees in non-STEM fields, students with bachelor’s degrees in STEM, and students with bachelor’s degrees in non-STEM. The new system would strongly favor the thousands of Indian and Chinese nationals currently enrolled in U.S. university STEM programs.
 
Conspicuously absent from S. 3720 is an effort to eliminate the dual intent of the H-1B. Originally intended as a temporary visa wherein the workers eventually returned home, under the Immigration Act of 1990, the H-1B became a dual-intent visa when Congress subsequently allowed the visa holders to apply for a Green Card. The ill-fated congressional decision gave employers undue control over their international employees, a type of modern-day indentured servitude. H-1B visa employees’ failure to comply with employers’ often unreasonable mandates – excessive unpaid overtime or inadequate working conditions – could result in threats to deport the noncompliant worker, and dash their Green Card hopes. Dual intent also created a huge Green Card backlog, an estimated 9 million.

 s 3720 Displaces US Tech


 
True H-1B and L-1 visa reform would ideally put programs on an extended pause with an eye on eliminating them. Both visas are American job killers, serving only to enable employers to hire cheap, pliant labor. In their Atlantic Council report, Ron Hira and Bharath Gopalaswamy summed up the H-1B program that the Grassley-Durbin legislation does little or nothing to improve. They wrote: “The current system undercuts opportunities for U.S. workers and enables the exploitation of H-1B workers, many of whom are underpaid, vulnerable to abuse, and frequently placed in poor working conditions…. the program has never been fixed to meet the original promises made by Congress of safeguarding U.S. jobs. Instead, the program has been expanded to allow even larger numbers of H-1B workers, admitting them for longer periods of time, while its flawed governing rules have remained as they were in 1990.”
 
The authors recommended that H-1B workers be paid competitively, that employers prove beyond any doubt that they’ve recruited Americans and that visas be allocated to those who truly are the best and brightest by prioritizing selection based on highest wages. The legislation proposed by Durbin and Grassley does nothing to improve the H-1B program or to enact the reasonable, achievable solutions that Hira and Gopalaswamy recommended.
 
Instead, S. 3720 reshuffles the H-1B selection process to prioritize those who came in as international students and obtained an advanced degree in STEM and are paid the minimum prevailing wage. In other words, with the Grassley-Durbin bill, the bulk of H-1B visas would go not to Indian contract workers brought in through outsourcing firms, as is the current situation, but instead to international students who already have access to the Optional Training Program, the nation’s largest guest worker program.
 
 
Joe Guzzardi is a PFIR analyst who has written about immigration and its consequences for 35 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

s 3720 Displaces US Tech Workers s 3720 Displaces US Tech

Lockout Gives Fans Chance to Enjoy Real Baseball

Lockout Gives Fans Chance to Enjoy Real Baseball

By Joe Guzzardi

Totally disgusted, indignant fans have a message for near-universally detested MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, multi-billion-dollar net worth owners, Major League Baseball Players Association’s Executive Director Tony Clark, and the pampered, overpaid, multi-million- dollar-earning players. Take your overpriced tickets, tasteless hot dogs, warm, flat beer, launch angles, exit velocities, pitch counts and stuff them. The commissioner, owners, union and players have grievously misjudged the baseball nation’s post-pandemic, inflation-ravaged, Ukraine war-anxious mood. The last thing baseball bugs want to hear is well-heeled, privileged elitists carping about their lot and the perceived injustices they’re suffering.

The whiners have forgotten that fans have plenty of baseball options, all better than getting fleeced and bored stiff at the old ball yard where game time averages 3:10. High school, junior college and NCAA college games are underway. Parking at some venues is free, and the proceeds from concessions go right back to the athletic department to help buy equipment and defray travel expenses, not to further enrich billionaires.

Junior college provides a launching pad for players who aspire to Division 1 and represents an opportunity for them to get bigger, stronger, better and catch the attention of scouts. Among the JUCOS who became MLB superstars are Jackie Robinson, Albert Pujols, Kirby Puckett, Curt Schilling, Mike Piazza, Jorge Posada and Bryce Harper.

At D-1 baseball, the skill level is high. Last weekend, No. 1 ranked Texas and UCLA, Tennessee, Louisiana State and Oklahoma State – all major programs – played in the nationally televised Shriners Children’s College Classic. The teams played nine inning doubleheaders. The Longhorns have a rich history that sent Roger Clemens, Brandon Belt, Huston Street and others to the bigs. The Bruins have placed 28 UCLANs in the Big Show, including standouts Brandon Crawford, Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer. Take today’s young players out of their collegiate uniforms and put them in MLB jerseys, and few fans would notice any drop off in the quality of play. Pitchers throw 90 mph-plus; the fielders make wide-ranging plays, and batters hit with power.

At the collegiate level, coaches stress fundamental baseball, something sorely lacking in the big leagues. University of Southern California’s late, legendary coach Rod Dedeaux’s guiding philosophy: “Never make the same mistake once.” Dedeaux’s students listened. During his 45 years as USC coach from 1942 to 1986, Dedeaux’s teams won 11 CWS titles, including five in a row. Many Trojans went on to stellar MLB careers: Tom Seaver, Randy Johnson, Mark McGwire, Dave Kingman and Fred Lynn.

For televised baseball, viewers have lots of offerings. ESPN will air the top NCAA teams between now and June 27, the date the College World Series ends. If MLB isn’t back in action for the summer months, then fans can check out the 76 Independent League teams. The season ticket package for the Independent League Chicago Dogs is a better value than a single seat at the Cubs’ Wrigley Field, average ticket price $83. The casual, fun times that Independent League baseball offers are available from coast to coast: the Bakersfield Train Robbers, the Kansas City Monarchs, the Milwaukee Milkmen and the New York Boulders. Some teams offer “kids eat free” games, an anathema to MLB owners who charge eye-popping prices for food and beverages. True fans know that the game is the thing, not the guys who play it.

Negotiations between the owners and the players are going poorly. They resent and distrust each other. Even though they sign the checks, the owners can’t believe the salaries players earn. Contracts signed pre-lockout include 37-year-old Max Scherzer’s $130 million, three-year deal with the New York Mets, a record-setting $43 million per season. When last heard from, Scherzer begged off from a crucial World Series pitching turn: “arm fatigue.” Money flows so freely in baseball that the Washington Nationals’ 24-year-old outfielder Juan Soto rejected a $350 million, 13-year extension. Soto’s reasoning: when he becomes a free agent after the 2024 season, he anticipates he can ink a $500 million deal.

Lockout Gives Fans Chance to Enjoy Real Baseball

No one knows when the ugly, take-no-prisoners negotiations will end. The only certainty is that baseball, already losing fans to professional football, basketball and soccer, has sustained another black eye, something it can ill-afford. The old-fashioned, field of dreams romantic vision of baseball as the national pastime, with fathers and sons playing backyard catch, is gone forever. In its place stands the image of nasty haggling over whether players’ minimum annual salaries can reach $755,000 or whether they’ll have to settle for the owners’ $640,000 offer.

Enough! More can be gained from focusing on the great college teams and their coaches’ insights. Bob Leach, who played for Dedeaux on the Trojans’ 1974-1976 teams wrote this about his coach: “Most of us players thought we were in training to become major leaguers. In reality, we were all serving an internship for life. In addition to making great baseball teams, he was more importantly passing on his wisdom and experience so that we could succeed in any setting.” Too bad that Dedeaux’s understanding of the human condition hasn’t reached Manfred, Clark, Scherzer, et al.

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

Lockout Gives Fans Chance to Enjoy Real Baseball Lockout Gives Fans Chance to Enjoy Real Baseball

Border Invasion Marches On Is Real State Of The Union

Border Invasion Marches On Is Real State Of The Union

By Joe Guzzardi

After forcefully chastising Russia and its aggression against the Ukraine, claiming credit for ending the COVID-19 pandemic and creating jobs, promising to combat inflation and taking a bow for his Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court nomination, President Biden finally in his State of the Union spoke about the Southwest border.

Biden’s mention of the border surprised many because his immigration policies are an unmitigated disaster and cannot truthfully be described otherwise. Many wondered what border Biden might have been referring to. From Biden’s speech: “We need to secure the border, and fix the immigration system.” Promising to “fix the immigration system” is widely recognized code for amnesty.

Predictably, Biden then segued into providing “a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, those on temporary status, farm workers, and essential workers.” He continued to: “revise our laws so businesses have the workers they need and families don’t wait decades to reunite.” Decoding, Biden meant amnesty for deferred action for childhood arrivals and temporary protected status holders, agriculture workers and “essential workers” whose skills have never been identified. More employment-based visas are included in Biden’s immigration vision. The total number of amnesty recipients would be millions.

Biden defended his largess when he claimed that amnesty is “the right thing to do,” and he cited as fellow advocates for increased immigration the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s biggest, deepest pocketed cheap labor lobby. In 2021, the Chamber spent $95 million lobbying the federal government, $23 million more than the second most powerful lobby, the National Association of Realtors.

So reality-detached were Biden’s immigration comments that viewers wondered what he was talking about. As the president, Biden has willfully allowed 2 million illegal aliens, and several hundred thousand “got-aways” from more than 100 nations, to cross into sovereign America where his Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has delivered them, either by air or land, into the interior of the United States.

Border Invasion Marches On Is Real State Of The Union

Many different words are used to describe what Biden has sanctioned at the border – disaster, crisis, ruinous, calamity, tragedy and catastrophe. But inarguably the most accurate, most descriptive, most troubling word is invasion. With the full encouragement of DHS Secretary Mayorkas, Biden has overseen and given his blessing to the invasion which is still ongoing at this very moment. Border patrol agents have been stripped of their responsibilities to defend the homeland and are instead processing illegal immigrants, many whose true identities cannot be vouched for with cast-iron certainty.

On the other hand, what can be reported with 100 percent confidence is that Biden’s open borders have led to a financial windfall for Mexican cartels, the most ruthless and vicious criminals conceivable. The Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that drug and human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar business. Drug trafficking also has resulted in needless fentanyl deaths, especially among young Americans. In 2020, fentanyl deaths topped COVID, car crashes and suicide as the leading cause of deaths.

The extent of the invasion is, in large part, hidden from an unsuspecting America, and persists. Only individuals who make it a point to learn what’s happening will understand the reality. Here for example is data that Health and Human Services, the agency responsible for providing care for children under age 18 without lawful immigration status, provided to Arizona U.S. Representative Andy Biggs. Of the 146,248 unaccompanied children resettled since January 20, 2021, only 55,125 were placed with parents. Others were placed with siblings or distant relatives, and an alarming 19,726 sponsors could not be reached for a wellness check on the minor. The alien children’s physical and emotional conditions are unknown. While some are technically minors, some also claim MS-13 gang membership.

As Biden spoke, Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi looked on, applauding and nodding in agreement. Harris, the so-called border czar, is a spectacular failure. The closest Harris has been to the border’s hot spot, the Del Rio Valley, is 450 miles away in El Paso. In the meantime, illegal immigration from Quito, Ecuador, 2,500 miles from the Del Rio Valley, has increased seven-fold since 2020. Because illegal immigration has spiked to record highs, aliens are adrift, struggling to find employment, even day labor jobs.

During the run-up to 9 pm EST, Biden practiced his speech, got input from his staff and his ghost writer, and yet went with an immigration narrative that he knew was deceptive, perhaps intended as a cruel, unfunny joke on his political opponents. Final takeaways from the president’s SOU: Biden has no plans to change course and has deliberately taken a path that, left unchecked, will destroy sovereign America.

Joe Guzzardi is a PFIR analyst who writes about immigration and its consequences. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joe.guzzardi@substack.com.

Border Invasion Marches On Is Real State Of The Union Border Invasion Marches On Is Real State Of The Union

Tom Seaver Returned To New York A Winner

Tom Seaver Returned To New York A Winner

By Joe Guzzardi

When Washington Nationals’ 23-year-old Juan Soto rejected a 13-year, $350 million contract, he unwittingly exposed why MLB fans have had enough. By today’s ludicrous payroll standards, $350 million isn’t enough money for a kid who grew up in the Dominican Republic where the per capital income is less than $8,000.

But Fernando Tatis signed with the San Diego Padres for $340 million over 14 years. Hence, on the advice of Soto’s agent, Scott Boras, the young star should sit tight, and wait for an even larger offer when, at the 2024 season’s end, he hits the free agent market. A half a billion dollars could await Soto, perhaps from the bottomless money pit known as the New York Yankees, team value $5.2 billion. For Soto and Boras, the old axiom, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” is – wise though it may be – passé.

Salary squabbles of the multimillion-dollar magnitude, Soto/Boras versus multi-billionaire Nats owners the Lerner family, are a big turnoff to baseball fans. At least the 1977 New York Mets during its very public haggle with its superstar pitcher Tom Seaver gave its rabid followers drama aplenty that played out for months.

During the summer of 1977, Mets’ ownership staggered the baseball world when, after a long simmering salary dispute between Seaver and owner M. Donald Grant, it traded its future first ballot Hall of Famer to the Cincinnati Reds for four then-considered low-level prospects: pitcher Pat Zachry, second baseman Doug Flynn and outfielders Steve Henderson and Dan Norman. At the time, Seaver earned $1.2 million($5.6 million in 2022 adjusted-for-inflation dollars).

The ”Midnight Massacre,” as the trades became known, plunged the Mets into their darkest era. The team finished last in 1977 and lost 95 or more games in each of the next three seasons under manager Joe Torre, who would be fired after a 41-62 record in the strike-shortened 1981 season.

Tom Seaver Returned To New York A Winner

During the 1970s, I lived in Manhattan. I wasn’t a Mets fan, but like all New Yorkers, I followed every movement, allegation and counter-allegation made by Seaver, Grant and Grant’s pro-management tout, New York Daily News columnist Dick Young who spent 45 years on the baseball beat, the last one of them demeaning the Mets’ ace as a greedy ingrate. Seaver had been pleading with the penurious Grant to fork out the necessary money on available free agents to help lift the Mets into contention. Young and Grant may have been the only two baseball bugs in New York’s five boroughs who thought that Seaver didn’t deserve a salary bump.

Further infuriating Mets fans, Grant, besides dumping Seaver and his salary off to the Reds, made two other horrible deadline trades involving key players. Grant ordered general manager Joe McDonald to deal the Mets’ top home run slugger, Dave Kingman, who had also been involved in rancorous contract negotiations, to the San Diego Padres for Bobby Valentine. In a third trade, McDonald sent utility man Mike Phillips to the St. Louis Cardinals for outfielder Joel Youngblood.

Fun fact sidebar: In 1982, Youngblood made baseball history by getting a hit in two different cities, for two different teams, against two Hall of Fame pitchers the same day. As a Mets in Chicago, he singled off Ferguson Jenkins. Then, traded by the Mets to the Montreal Expos, Youngblood hopped a plane to Philadelphia in time to pinch hit a single off Steve Carlton.

To Grant’s dismay, Seaver flourished in his new Cincinnati environment. Over the balance of the 1977 season, he went 14-3 to finish his year at 21-6. Included among Seaver’s wins was what writers dubbed the “Shootout at Shea” that pitted “Atomic Tom” against his former teammate and friend, Jerry Koosman. On Sunday, August 21, a capacity crowd of 46,265 greeted Seaver with chants of “SEA-VER, SEA-VER!” while the stadium organ played “Hello Dolly, we’re so glad to see you back where you belong.”Seaver, who limited the Mets to six hits while striking out 11 in a 5-1 victory, pitched his best; Koosman (8-16), who volunteered for the thankless pitching assignment, struggled and gave up the game’s five runs before being knocked out in the eighth.

After the game, Seaver said, “I’m glad it’s over, very glad. I’m exhausted physically and mentally. It was no fun out there at all.” Koosman added: “It’s tough to pitch against a superstar. You know you’ve got to be at your best. I was kind of disappointed when it got out of hand. But let’s face it. Tom Seaver is the best pitcher in baseball.”

For the Mets, the post-trade era was a disaster. Attendance at Shea plummeted, and the Mets would not have another winning season until 1984. Seaver returned to the Mets in 1983 for one season and pitched effectively. Seaver then had a three-year stint with the Chicago White Sox, and a final year with the Boston Red Sox, but his best years were behind him. His combined four-year American League record was an unSeaver-like 38-35, ERA 3.69.

Seaver again returned to the New York scene when he broadcast Yankees’ games with the irrepressible Phil Rizzuto. The Rizzuto-Seaver tandem was baseball’s odd, but delightful couple. The University of Southern California golden boy and Rizzuto, who often called his booth partner a “huckleberry” while spontaneously extoling the pleasures of the cannolis fans brought him, worked together from 1989 to 1993. Then, after a six-year baseball hiatus, Seaver joined the Mets broadcast team from 1999-2005 before he returned to California to start Seaver Vineyards.

Seaver retired with a 311-205 record with an ERA of 2.86 and 3,640 strikeouts. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1992 with the highest-ever percentage of first place votes for a starting pitcher, 99 percent.

In 1988, the Mets retired Seaver’s number 41. Twenty years later, the Mets invited Seaver to Shea Stadium to throw out the final pitch before the team moved to Citi Field where he also threw out the 2009 Opening Day first pitch.

An ESPN poll that included HOF pitchers Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Jim Palmer, Nolan Ryan, Bert Blyleven, Don Sutton and Carlton voted Seaver their generation’s best pitcher. Hank Aaron added that in his 12,364 at-bats, Seaver was the toughest he ever faced.

In 2020, at age 75, Seaver passed away in his native California. See the Mets video tribute here to George Thomas Seaver, the player fans called “Tom Terrific.”

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

Tom Seaver Returned To New York A Winner Tom Seaver Returned To New York A Winner Tom Seaver Returned To New York A Winner

5 Million Ukrainian Refugees Possible

5 Million Ukrainian Refugees Possible

By Joe Guzzardi

Ukrainians’ fate in the country’s Russia-perpetrated war is, on February’s last day, unclear. At first thought to be overwhelmed by the Russian invasion, everyday Ukrainians without military experience have chosen not to flee their country, but have elected instead to remain and volunteer to defend their sovereignty. Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov said that 25,000 guns have been handed over to territorial defense members in the Kyiv region alone. In Kyiv’s streets, President Volodymyr Zelensky, surrounded by his key staff members, vowed to defend Ukrainian independence.

Men between the ages of 18 and 60 must stay to fight. A Ukrainian man told a reporter that people have swapped their keyboards and pencils for guns. Women in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth largest city with a population of 1 million, spent the weekend making Molotov cocktails. The Biden administration urged Zelensky to leave Kyiv and offered to evacuate him, but he scoffed at the request. Zelensky said, “I need ammunition, not a ride,” as he vowed to fight with other Ukrainians. Taken together, these are all signs that Ukraine’s residents and its leadership will mount fierce resistance to the invading Russians.

Back in the U.S., Richard Durbin, (D-Ill.), the U.S. Senate’s second highest ranking Democrat, visited Chicago’s Ukrainian Culture Center to show his support for the Zelensky government and to criticize Putin for defying world order and Russian aggression “against an innocent nation like Ukraine.”

5 Million Ukrainian Refugees Possible

Members of the Senate and the Biden administration met Thursday to discuss sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine and Poland, which has welcomed refugees, said Durbin, who co-chairs with Ohio Republican Rob Portman the Senate Ukraine Caucus. The meeting resulted in sanctions that will target Russian banks, oligarchs and high-tech sectors. Biden promised that the U.S. will impose export controls and sanction oligarchs, and most importantly, the U.S. Treasury will take what it called “unprecedented action” against Russia’s two largest financial institutions, Public Joint Stock Company Sberbank of Russia (Sberbank) and VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company (VTB Bank),” measures “drastically altering their fundamental ability to operate.” The actions were authorized pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 14024, which permits sanctions against Russia for its harmful foreign activities, including violating international law’s core principles like respect for sovereign states’ territorial integrity.

Treasury’s February 24 press release stated, “On a daily basis, Russian financial institutions conduct about $46 billion worth of foreign exchange transactions globally, 80 percent of which are in U.S. dollars. The vast majority of those transactions will now be disrupted. By cutting off Russia’s two largest banks — which combined make up more than half of the total banking system in Russia by asset value — from processing payments through the U.S. financial system. The Russian financial institutions subject to today’s action can no longer benefit from the remarkable reach, efficiency, and security of the U.S. financial system.”

Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden came under pressure from Durbin and others to grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for the 1 million Ukrainian citizens living in the U.S. Under TPS, created as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, foreign nationals can remain in the event of a military uprising or natural disaster, regardless of their immigration status, and would receive lifetime valid work permits.

Although the Russian invasion is an appropriate example of TPS use, the program has repeatedly proven permanent, not temporary. The current list of 12 TPS countries includes Sudan, effective 1997, and El Salvador, effective 2001. The Biden administration added Venezuela and Burma to bring the total TPS-qualified nations from ten to 12.

The Council on National Security and Immigration and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Refugee endorsed Durbin’s TPS suggestion, and the Lutheran Immigration Refugee Service has asked the Biden administration “to prepare for this new humanitarian emergency [Ukraine].”

The latest Associated Press-NORC poll reveals that just 26 percent of Americans want the U.S. to have a “major role” in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, while an overwhelming 72 percent said the U.S. should have a “minor role” or “no role” at all. The poll findings could be attributed to citizens still processing the cataclysmic fallout from the Afghanistan debacle that includes resettling about 150,000 of that country’s refugees during the last several months.

Depending on how long the conflict lasts, Ukrainian refugees could, the United Nation predicts, exceed 5 million. Zelensky said that he’s unconvinced that negotiations between the two countries, announced late Sunday, will be successful. Western nations should agree to resettle displaced Ukrainians as close to their native land as possible so that when peace returns, they can easily go home – the only place they want to live.

Joe Guzzardi is a PFIR analyst who has written about immigration and its consequences for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org or joe.guzzardi@substack.com.

5 Million Ukrainian Refugees Possible

Hard Part of Afghan Assimilation Now Begins

Hard Part of Afghan Assimilation Now Begins

By Joe Guzzardi

Afghan evacuee resettlement is now in Phase Three, the crucial stage where assimilation, the Biden administration’s forbidden word, will determine how their American lives evolve.

Phase One occurred when the Afghans boarded, some peacefully, others with force, outbound planes. Phase Two happened when evacuees were temporarily housed in U.S. military bases abroad and across America. And last week, the Biden administration announced that the last group of evacuees has been relocated from a New Jersey military site to more than 200 communities, joining 76,000 other Afghans spread across the U.S. since America abruptly withdrew from Kabul. Children comprise about 40 percent of the total evacuee population.

Since the evacuees first stepped foot onto U.S. soil, they’ve benefited from a special halal food menu, faith-based services, English language instruction, vaccinations for COVID-19 and other diseases including measles, assistance with immigration paperwork, and medical services for medevacked patients and pre-natal treatment for pregnant women.

Hard Part of Afghan Assimilation Now Begins

For now, at least, the media, based on information given to it by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is reporting that, with cooperation from nonprofit resettlement agencies and private citizen groups, the Afghans are transitioning smoothly into their new circumstances. “I think the biggest lesson for the administration to take away from this operation is that the American public is overwhelmingly in support of immigrants and refugees being a part of their communities,” said National Immigration Forum president Ali Noorani optimistically.

But now comes the challenging part of the Afghans’ long journey. From unpublished data CBS News obtained, of the more than 67,000 Afghans processed at the domestic military bases, 35,128 evacuees – or over half – have been resettled in Texas, California, Virginia, Washington, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida and Arizona. The evacuees’ presence will place additional burdens on the states’ already strained budgets for public schools, health care and other affirmative services, costs that will hit taxpayers in their pocketbooks. Individual states had no voice in the resettlement process. As of year-end 2021, analysts estimated that the cost to resettle Afghans was about $7 billion.

Another concern that officials continue to gloss over is how thoroughly the Afghan evacuees were vetted. Under intense questioning during a November Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted that, despite some news reports to the contrary, “We are not conducting in-person, full refugee interviews of 100 percent” of Afghan evacuees. Those unvetted may pose a threat to the homeland.

The immediate urgency among the resettlement agencies is addressing the evacuees’ immigration status. For now, they’ve been granted humanitarian parole, usually reserved for individual, emergency cases, not granted to thousands at a time. Under immigration law, the Afghans aren’t eligible for permanent residency. Qualifying as refugees, potentially another option for a Green Card, takes years to complete. While their status gets sorted out, the evacuees will receive lifetime valid work permits, a benefit that will allow them to enter the labor market.

An important but unresolved question concerns the wisdom of removing people from their native land, culture, language, families and religion, and placing them literally overnight in an entirely different society and surrounding. In a Foreign Affairs article titled “Help Refugees Help Themselves,” authors Alexander Betts, University of Oxford Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, and Paul Collier, a British development economist, wrote that an effective refugee policy should “improve the lives of the refugees in the short term” and the prospects of the region [from where they migrated] in the long term, and it should also serve the economic and security interests of the host states.

Restated, Betts and Collier think refugees, or in this case, evacuees, should return home to build back the country that they fled. Collier expanded on his concept in The New York Times when he wrote that the U.S. priority should be to design refugee policies that will “reconcile our duty of rescue with the legitimate concerns of post-conflict governments to attract back the people who could rebuild their countries.” Lawful permanent residency does the opposite; it keeps people anchored to the U.S.

The solution of Betts and Collier has support from, among others, the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who said of refugees at a conference in Sweden, “Receive them, help them, educate them … but ultimately they should develop their own country.”

Talk has already started about how to frame a Ukrainian resettlement policy should the Ukraine’s conflict with Russia escalate. The Biden White House as well as future presidential administrations should realize that the U.S. has limits to growth and to its capacity to correct, through resettlement, all that ails the world.

Joe Guzzardi is a PFIR analyst who writes about immigration and its consequences. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joe.guzzardi@substack.com.

Hard Part of Afghan Assimilation Now Begins

Don Newcombe Used Alcoholic Tragedy To Heal Others

Don Newcombe Used Alcoholic Tragedy To Heal Others

By Joe Guzzardi

Late in his long and memorable life, Brooklyn Dodgers ace Don Newcombe said that helping people get sober meant more to him than all his baseball accomplishments. Considering that the 6’4”/240-lb. Newcombe won the 1949 Rookie of the Year award, captured the first Cy Young Award in 1956, and in that same year was named the National League’s Most Valuable Player, his statement about the importance of helping others is powerful.

Newcombe is the only player in baseball history to win ROY, MVP and Cy Young titles. In 1956, “Big Newk” went 27-7, an improvement over his 1955 20-5 record. For good measure, Newcombe during those two years, hit a combined .298, with nine home runs and 16 extra base hits. During his career with the Dodgers, the Cincinnati Reds and the Cleveland Indians, Newcombe won 163 games and had a stellar .614 winning percentage. Newcombe could always wield the lumber; his batting average for his 12-year Major League Baseball stint was .269 with 52 extra base hits that included 15 home runs.

Newcombe, the third black MLB pitcher after the Dodgers’ Dan Bankhead and the Cleveland Indians’ Satchel Paige, was a workhorse who routinely pitched on two days of rest, and in 1950 started both ends of a double header against the Philadelphia Phillies. In the opener, Newk hurled a complete game shutout and, in the nightcap, pitched into the seventh inning. Newcombe’s pitching line for the day: 16 IP, H 11, ER 2, BB 2, SO 3. During the Korean War, when the U.S. Army drafted the New York Giants’ Willie Mays and Newcombe. Dodger manager Chuck Dressen cried foul. “Losing Newcombe is worse than losing Mays. Where can you get a pitcher like that?” he asked.

As he dominated National League batters, unbeknownst to his teammates, Newcombe was deeply caught up in alcoholism’s throes. After the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, Newcombe’s time with the team became short-lived. The pitcher had a fear of flying, and his fellow Dodgers noticed that he relied on alcohol to overcome his apprehensions. Society for American Baseball Research historian Russell Bergtold wrote that 1957 was a turning point for Newcombe. The Dodgers, 84-70, finished in third place, 14 games behind the Milwaukee Braves. Newcombe was an unimpressive 11-12, but made off-the-field headlines for the wrong reasons. On August 21, after pitching a five-hit shutout over the Cincinnati Reds, Newcombe was driving his father home when he struck a four-year-old boy with his car. A few months later, Newcombe and two of his brothers were accused of assaulting a former East Orange New Jersey policeman at Newcombe’s Newark tavern. The vehicle incident was settled out of court for $5,000, and the Newcombe brothers were acquitted in court trial.

Alcohol may have been the common denominator in Newcombe’s troubles with the law. In 1965, Newcombe told the monthly magazine “Ebony” that for many years “he was a stupefied, wife-abusing, child-frightening, falling-down drunk,” behavior that explained his temperamental, belligerent baseball outbursts and led to his 1960 divorce from wife Freddie Green. To finance his alcohol dependency, Newcombe sold his 1955 World Series ring and an expensive watch before he declared bankruptcy. Peter O’Malley, then-Dodgers vice president, bought back the ring and watch, and returned them to a grateful Newcombe. Finally, in 1966, Newcombe’s second wife, Billie Roberts, threatened to leave him, and take their two children unless he quit drinking.

Roberts’ ultimatum was the catalyst that put the pitcher on a life-long campaign to raise awareness about, and fight against, alcohol abuse. As a recovering alcoholic, Newk created the Dodger’s substance abuse awareness program, and became a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism consultant, as well as the New Beginning Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program special projects director. Newcombe rejoined the Dodger organization in the late 1970s and served as the team’s Director of Community Affairs. In March 2009, he was named special advisor to Dodgers chairman Frank McCourt.

Looking back, Newcombe said that alcohol may have cost him his place in the Hall of Fame: “I was only 34 [when he retired], but the alcohol had taken its toll. I think it shortened my major-league career by about six or seven years. I regret that I didn’t take better care of myself in the latter part of my career because I would like to have made the Hall of Fame, where I think I belong.”

On his website, Newcombe wrote: “What I have done after my baseball career and being able to help people with their lives and getting their lives back on track and they become human beings again – means more to me than all the things I did in baseball.”

After a long illness, Newcombe died at age 92 in Los Angeles in 2019 knowing that he had helped many of his fellow Dodgers get sober and live happier, more fulfilling lives.

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

Don Newcombe Used Alcoholic Tragedy To Heal Others Don Newcombe Used Alcoholic Tragedy To Heal Others
Don Newcombe Used Alcoholic Tragedy To Heal Others

Biden Violates Take Care Clause

Biden Violates Take Care Clause

By Joe Guzzardi

Finally! Vice President Kamala Harris, during a recent interview, said that the effects of the Biden administration’s border policy won’t be realized “overnight.” Let’s calculate just how accurate Harris is. Between now and January 2024, and using 2021 when 2 million aliens crossed into the United States as a model, the Biden administration will likely allow 8 million illegal immigrants to unlawfully enter and settle in the U.S. The “effect” on local communities, schools, transportation and hospitals will be incalculable.

The 2 million total excludes what border agents refer to as “gotaways,” individuals who evaded Border Patrol capture and now roam the interior freely. Once inside the U.S., they may or may not be found, or eventually deported.

One example is Geraldo Pando, a multiple-times deportee with a 35-page criminal history that includes felonies committed in Colorado. He was arrested for vandalizing the U.S. Capitol Police headquarters and released. A week later he was defacing Washington’s Union Station with swastikas. The Biden administration’s soft-on-crime policy and tolerance of unlawful immigration prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement from processing Pando for deportation.

Official ICE statistics prove how passive the Biden administration is about deporting criminals. During 2021, according to a preliminary ICE release, only 55,590 immigration violators were removed. For comparison, deportations totaled 267,258 in FY 2019; under Biden, ICE removals have decreased by nearly 80 percent. Moreover, the first four months of FY 2021 occurred during the Trump presidency – a period when ICE removals were significantly higher. Approximately 28,000 of the FY 2021 removals of the 55,590 occurred while President Trump was still in office.

In the meantime, the worst criminal elements are laughing at the U.S. for its willingness to open its borders and to allow and encourage felonious behavior, including some U.S. citizen-perpetrated, that reaps billions in illicit cash. Wrong-doers, aware of the fortunes that can be gained through drug and human trafficking, devise increasingly clever schemes to smuggle aliens. Benign looking vehicles are the method of choice. Last year near the Texas border, agents seized a white ice cream truck with its flavors and Frito Pie advertised on the side. Inside, agents found 15 illegal immigrants, and two American citizens stacked on top of each other. Then in mid-February, agents found a child daycare van loaded with more than 20 Guatemalans. Agents also apprehended two aliens who had child sex offenses on their records and MS-13 gang members.

Nearly nonexistent enforcement and specifically the passivity of Biden, Harris and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have created a nation-altering crisis. Mayorkas acknowledged that he’s allowed border chaos to fester. In an audio recording which agents taped during their January meeting with Mayorkas at the Yuma Sector, the secretary said that his job has grown increasingly difficult at the start of this year, more so than 2021, which he admitted was “very, very difficult.” Mayorkas added that with worldwide migrants surging the border, he expects no pause in alien crossings. In fact, warmer spring weather could exacerbate border agents’ overload.

Border agents don’t want to hear Mayorkas confess to his poor performance; they’re abundantly aware of his multiple failures. The agents hoped for, but didn’t get, his pledge to allow them to return to their duties – protecting the homeland, not processing family units for release into the interior.

Biden hasn’t so much as hinted at a course change that might deviate from his administration’s repeated federal immigration law violations and its dismissal of the Constitution’s Take Care Clause, which means the President has a duty to ensure that U.S. laws are faithfully executed. The president’s sworn duty is to make sure that those around him faithfully execute the nation’s laws, a responsibility that Mayorkas has blatantly shirked.

A PFIR analyst, Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joeguzzardi.substack.com.

Biden Violates Take Care Clause

Biden Violates Take Care Clause