Category: Guest Authors

Babe Ruth Promised Johnny Sylvester A Home Run And Kept It

Babe Ruth Promised Johnny Sylvester A Home Run And Kept It

By Joe Guzzardi

Baseball is rich with legend and lore. At the center of many of the most well-known stories is Babe Ruth. The Big Bam’s 1932 called shot off Chicago Cubs pitcher Charlie Root is still contested today. But in the 1926 World Series, when New York Yankees faced off against the St. Louis Cardinals, details about Ruth’s promise to a hospitalized young boy, Johnny Sylvester, have, over the elapsed decades, become muddled.

Charlie Poekel’s book, “Babe and the Kid,” sets the record straight. Eleven-year-old Johnny, kicked in the head by a horse and considered at death’s door, was a huge New York Yankees fan. His father, a well-connected New Jersey executive, got word to the Yankees that his son’s spirits would be lifted if the team could do something special for Johnny.

The Yankees received the message and sent an autographed ball to Johnny in care of his father’s New York office. One side read: “We’re glad to know you knocked the bug for a home run.” On the ball’s other side, Ruth wrote, “I’ll knock a homer for you on Wednesday’s game.” The Cardinals also sent an autographed baseball that included 14 players and Rogers Hornsby’s signature: “Hoping you will soon be batting 1,000 percent in good health.” Historians consider Hornsby baseball’s best-ever right-handed hitter; the “Rajah” hit .400 or better three times.

Babe Ruth Promised Johnny Sylvester A Home Run And Kept It
Babe Ruth and Johnny Sylvester

Although many accounts have Ruth at Johnny’s bedside when he made his promise, on game day October 6 the Bambino was in St. Louis where he hit three home runs, and led the Yankees to a 10-5 victory that tied the series 2-2. Johnny’s doctors noticed that his temperature miraculously dropped two degrees, and within a few days, the boy was back home. Then followed an even greater surprise for Johnny. Ruth strode into Johnny’s room where he spent about half an hour. When a shocked Johnny finally could form words, he expressed regret that the Yankees lost the series. Tactfully, Sylvester didn’t mention that Ruth made the seventh game’s final out when he was caught stealing, the greatest baserunning blunder in the sport’s history.

While the Ruth baseball was Johnny’s most treasured possession, Lou Gehrig sent a signed game-used ball; Wimbledon tennis champion “Big” Bill Tilden and football great Red Grange, the University of Illinois’ “Galloping Ghost,” gifted an autographed football and a tennis racquet. Each wrote personal letters to Sylvester.

As Johnny grew into adulthood, he attended Princeton, starred on the university’s varsity hockey team, and once scored a hat trick, three goals in a single game. In 1942, his application to serve as an apprentice in the U.S. Navy was accepted, and he spent most of World War II in the Pacific Theater as a lieutenant commanding submarine chaser 520s that patrolled offshore for enemy activity.

Johnny ended his naval service in 1945, and two years later, April 27, 1947, the nation celebrated “Babe Ruth Day.” Attention then returned to the by-now familiar Ruth-Sylvester saga. Ruth, however, had recently been in New York’s French Hospital for 81 days; no visitors allowed. Cancer had cut Ruth’s time short. The Daily News brokered a reunion – 21 years after their initial meeting – that included Ruth, Sylvester and his wife Marita. Babe to Johnny: “The last time I saw you, you were a skinny little kid.” Johnny to Babe: “I’m all grown up now, thanks to you.”

A few minutes of friendly banter followed as Johnny pulled out the ball that Ruth signed. Seeing the signatures again, Ruth spoke wistfully about his 1926 teammates. When their time together ended, Johnny observed to Marita that Ruth had lost weight, and, dressed in pajamas and bathrobe, was gaunt. As he took one last look around before leaving Ruth’s apartment, Johnny said: “Ain’t he a swell guy.”

On a sweltering August 19, 1948, thousands lined up around St. Patrick’s Cathedral to pay their final respects to Ruth. Inside, at a service presided over by His Eminence Francis Cardinal Spellman, and assisted by 44 Roman Catholic priests and 12 altar boys, sitting front and center was Johnny Sylvester, linked forever in baseball lore to Babe Ruth.

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

Babe Ruth Promised Johnny Sylvester A Home Run And Kept It

Overview Of Alternative Party Candidates In Pennsylvania

Overview Of Alternative Party Candidates In Pennsylvania

By Bob Small

The Pennsylvania Department of State’s website has a way to search by political party and election. Also you can search by position like state sSenate candidates.  One can als search by district.

So I searched for “alternative parties.”

Parties that have at least onecandidate on the ballot in Pennsylvania’s 2022 general election, Nov. 8, are:

Libertarian17
Green5
Keystone5
Independent2
Fostering the Vote1
SWP (Socialist Workers Party)1

There are 31 candidates who are not major party. Most are running to spread their ideas and don’t really expect to get elected.

There are non-listed candidates running, some with party support, most without. Ron Johnson, for instance has the support of the Pa. Constitution Party, but was unable to obtain enough signatures to attain ballot status.  Then there were other candidates, mostly Libertarian and SWP candidates, who had enough signatures until the state. decided, with less than a week to go, that they needed more signatures.  See this video for details.

Imagine, if you will, that the Houston Astros were allowed four outs per inning but the Phillies only were allowed three. That’s how it is between Dems and GOP and the alternative parties.

I only know about Fostering the Vote, because I live in the 165th District and can vote for Bill Foster, which will be a future post. There are more candidates, I’m sure, running  on a very local basis as purely write-ins. Unless they can provide a strong internet basis, as an Everett Stern manages, we probably won’t ever hear of them. 

As of my last count, The Libertarians have 179 Elected Officials, and the Greens 20 in Pennsylvania.

In a better future society we need these candidates running with a more realistic chance of getting elected, though I’m not sure how, and if, this ever happens.

Please update me if I have missed any parties and/or candidates in Pennsylvania.

Overview Of Alternative Party Candidates In Pennsylvania
Overview Of Alternative Party Candidates In Pennsylvania

Erik Gerhardt Wants More Liberty And Less Government

Erik Gerhardt Wants More Liberty And Less Government

By Bob Small

Erik Gerhardt clearly states his manifesto on his campaign website: The Constitution was written to control the power of the Government, not to constrict the Liberties of its people.

Gerhardt, 37 of Pennsburg, is the Libertarian candidate for US Senator in Pennsylvania.

“We can promote the independence our founding fathers intended by eliminating property taxes,” he said. “Most taxes are nothing short of theft”.

Erik Gerhardt Wants More Liberty
Erik Gerhardt

He also stated the “non-aggression principle” (NAP) his party embraces, namely there is no right to use force except in retaliation.  

With regard to abortion, Gerhardt defends the Dodd decision but wants the issue decided in Pennsylvania via referendum. He says he’d like the morning-after pill to be readily available.

“The court’s decision was the right one and the states and their people should have a constitutional question added to the ballot to have the people decide on the issue,” he said.

Gerhardt began working in construction at the age of 16 and started his own business ECG Carpentry, in 2015.

Gerhardt says se need better education for our children, less and fewer taxes and sustainable business plans to not steal from our citizens. 

In this GoErie.co interview, Gerhardt describes his three step plan to assist small business, which include triple deductions for businesses with four employees or less, another health care deduction when they break that threshold and health care not being bound by state lines.

His plan for police reform, as described in this Williamsport Sun-Gazette article, includes jujitsu training for recruits.

Hopefully, this 37 year old from Pennsburg can bring many of his ideas to the public during this election cycle. 

Erik Gerhardt Wants More Liberty And Less Government

Too Many People Destroys Nature

Too Many People Destroys Nature

By Maria Fotopoulos

Wildlife populations have plummeted 69 percent since 1970. That’s the major takeaway from the recent Living Planet Report 2022 released by the nonprofit organization, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The dismal report is a follow-up to the equally shocking 2014 report that Earth lost 50 percent of wildlife in 40 years.

“Despite 30 years of policy interventions to stop biodiversity loss we continue to observe similar declines to those shown in previous reports,” says the WWF. The report notes that conservation is helping, but urgent action is needed to reverse loss of the natural world.

You think?

All biodiversity – wild living plants, animals, insects, marine creatures – is essential to human survival. Healthy ecosystems mean food, balance on the planet and well-being for all. As the WWF report puts it, “Terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems – for example forests, grasslands, wetlands, mangrove swamps and the oceans – provide us with services essential for human well-being such as food and feed, medicines, energy and fibers. They regulate climate, natural hazards and extreme events, air quality, the quantity and quality of fresh water, pollination and the dispersal of seeds, pests and diseases, soils, ocean acidification, and the creation and maintenance of habitats.”

So it’s not just about saving the “pretty animals” – although, that is reason enough.

Too Many People Destroys Nature

The Living Planet Report 2022, authored by 89 contributors, looked at populations of amphibians, birds, fish, mammals and reptiles, analyzing almost 32,000 populations of 5,230 species worldwide. The findings showed that the hardest hit wildlife are freshwater species, declining by an average of 83 percent since 1970. From a regional view, the most devastated area is Latin America and the islands of the Caribbean, which have seen a 94 percent decline in wildlife populations, followed by Africa, with a 66 percent decline. Wildlife of the Asia-Pacific region declined by 55 percent; North America, 20 percent and Europe, 18 percent.

WWF proposes an ambitious and probably unrealistic goal, given the current state of humanity: creating a world that is “nature positive by 2030.” This means ensuring there’s more natural world by decade end than in 2020.

Amidst so much bad news, there are some positives. The report emphasizes the importance of connectivity, a theme emerging in the U.S. and in other countries. While we have been good in America, for example, about establishing national and state parks and wildlife sanctuaries, what we missed was the importance of connecting these spaces for wildlife. Conservationists and environmentalists are increasingly talking about this and working to build in more connectivity, because animals gotta move!

The WWF report also has encouraging news about mangroves, the “forests of the sea” that are important reservoirs of biodiversity. While they still are being deforested, the destruction has been “reduced dramatically since the 1980s,” writes WWF, with “plausible scenarios where the global mangrove area may stabilize or even increase by 2070.”

Nonetheless, the few positives the report indicates are far outweighed by persistent losses. And unfortunately, WWF focuses heavily on climate change to make its arguments for dramatic changes in all aspects of how we live, including changing to more “plant-based products in our diets,” even while referencing that, at this point, the loss of wild living things continues to be driven primarily by habitat loss, or what WWF refers to as “land use.” (According to WWF, “Yet every year we lose roughly 10 million hectares of forests …” Words matter; we don’t “lose” them; they’re taken down by human processes for the most part.) “While climate change has not been the dominant driver of the loss of biodiversity to date, unless we limit warming to less than 2○C, and preferably 1.5○C, climate change is likely to become the dominant cause of biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystem services in the coming decades,” per the report.

Large numbers of people tune out as soon as they hear the words “climate change,” so if powerful organizations want to convince everyone of the need to preserve biodiversity, using climate change as the cudgel is not a winning strategy. “Climate change” or “climate” is used more than 90 times in the 115-page report, while “population” in the context of too many people is barely mentioned – called only an “indirect driver” of biodiversity loss – and “overpopulation” isn’t mentioned.

Overpopulation is not an indirect driver of biodiversity loss; it is a prime driver. The dramatic increase in human population parallels the loss of biodiversity. That WWF ignores the fact of an Earth overpopulated with humans – 8 billion potentially headed to 11 or 12 billion – is a stunning omission. Any serious effort to create a sustainable planet and reverse the tremendous loss of biodiversity must address human population growth.

The report talks about agricultural expansion, water scarcity, timber extraction, mining, infrastructure development and overgrazing, among other impacts, but fails to emphasize that these all are human-driven activities. The rate of those activities increasing is all driven by ever-increasing numbers of humans. The greater the number of people, the more impact. Yes, better practices and reduced consumption will help, but if there’s no real drive to stabilize human population and then reduce it (by noncoercive and nonviolent means) to sustainable numbers, loss of biodiversity will continue. Incremental gains from better practices and reduced consumption will be lost as more and more people are added to the planet.

As with most of the large, mainstream environmental nonprofits, WWF appears, based on this report, to be driven by the mantra of reducing global warming, now called climate change, and the sister mantra of diversity, inclusion and equity. The climate change/DIE agenda is the goal that cannot be questioned with the World Economic Forum, the Davos crowd, a majority of corporations and Western governments occupied by progressives and leftists, committed activists and eco-terrorists, along with others – groups, organizations and individuals committed to the destruction of our current energy system.

In the mania and aggression of these folks to destroy the petroleum industry, they’ve failed to explain how extractive industries for copper and lithium, for example – necessary raw materials for EVs – will not be extremely damaging to the environment, or if there are even sufficient raw materials to drive the change they want. On a planet with 1.4 billion primarily petrol-driven vehicles, the climate change prophets also fail to explain how shifting to EVs, on the short timeline proposed, can occur without major chaos and disruption. And vehicles are just one part of the petroleum-based economy. Other than continually repeating that fossil fuels have to “stay in the ground,” there’s little real discussion on what will power a world of 8 billion or more people.

Yes, we’re in a pickle. But ignoring the elephant in the room – human overpopulation – will only add to decades of failure and not serve the rapidly declining populations of the wildlife we love.

Maria Fotopoulos writes about the connection between overpopulation and biodiversity loss, and from time to time other topics that confound her. On FB @BetheChangeforAnimals

Too Many People Destroys Nature

Fracking Motivates Green Gubernatorial Candidate In Pa

Fracking Motivates Green Gubernatorial Candidate In Pa

By Bob Small

It’s crystal clear what movitivates Upper Uwchlan resident Christine “PK” Digiulio candidacy for Pennsylvania governor. 

It’s the Mariner East Pipeline. The Green Party nominee says she wants the  waters around her to remain pure.

She is the co-founder of Watchdogs of Southeastern Pennsylvania (WASEPA) and the Better Path Coalition 

Fracking Motivates Green Gubernatorial Candidate In Pa
Christine “PK” Digiulio

She notes that the Pennsylvania Constitution states The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment Article 1, Section 27

Ms. Digiulio, aka PK Ditty, was an analytical chemist for the US Department of Defense. She is a graduate of Lock Haven University. 

She said that Energy Transfer Partners, the owner of Sunoco Logistics Partners which is building Mariner East, has paid more than $20 Million in fines and penalties related to pipeline construction that began in 2017. 

She calls this the “pay to pollute” regulations of corporations.

Fracking Motivates Green Gubernatorial Candidate In Pa

Biden’s Cartel-Enriching Border Betrayal

Biden’s Cartel-Enriching Border Betrayal

By Joe Guzzardi

Only a handful of insiders realize the true magnitude of the border crisis and its consequences.

Those in the know include defanged Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, neutered Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, journalists whose truthful reporting rarely makes national headlines, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and his White House superiors. Otherwise, the dangers that open borders represent are kept tightly under wraps to avoid bad optics. The world, however, knows that accessing the U.S. interior is merely a matter of getting to the border, crossing and beginning the journey – often White House-aided and abetted – to the final destination for those who enter illegally. In President Biden’s eyes, the world is welcome.

In mid-August, for example, CBP caught ten illegal immigrant adults posing as the ubiquitous unaccompanied alien child (UAC). The phony minors, apprehended at Texas’ El Paso Sector, ranged in age from 18 to 26; by law, UACs must not have reached age 18. All were Guatemalans who claimed to be minors to avoid deportation.

Days later, at the Del Rio Valley Sector, agents stopped an 18-wheeler crammed with 150 smuggled aliens that included 17 gang members, one sex offender and one convicted of murder. MS-13 members were among the identified gangsters. This fiscal year, an estimated 130,000 UACs, some self-defined, have entered. The CBP press release on the DRV action concluded, vaguely: “All subjects were processed accordingly.”

Biden’s Cartel-Enriching Border Betrayal

The Coalition Against Trafficking Women, Latin American branch, estimates that 60 percentof Latin American children who embark on a U.S.-bound journey, either alone or with smugglers, are captured by cartels, and then forced into pornography or drug trafficking. In addition to enduring a moral nightmare, those migrants who successfully make it to the U.S. interior will have outstanding debts owed to the coyotes and cartels that will take them a lifetime to payoff. To make sure that smuggling accounts are settled, the aliens are forced to wear GPS wristbands so that the cartel can monitor their movements. Cartels are the world’s most powerful criminal organizations and have created the largest form of modern slavery. The New York Times estimated that cartel revenues reached $13 billion this year, up from $500 million in 2018, a 26x increase in fewer than five years.

Over the years, illegal immigration has reached such extraordinarily high levels that it begat more illegal immigration. Decades of porous borders, inadequate interior enforcement and the current welcoming environment have facilitated today’s historic and continuous wave.

In 2018, during interviews in Guatemala’s tiny 17,000 residents-strong Concepción Chiquirichapa, reporters learned that almost everyone has family, or knows someone with family, in the U.S. Think about what that amazing statistic conveys: individuals thousands of miles away from Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, and with few transportation options in their remote villages, have departed for the U.S., confident that they’ll get in, and will remain indefinitely.

But neither unlawfully present parents nor their children who are joining them, trafficked or not, deserve a free pass from the Biden administration. In previous UAC waves, 60 percent of the children were handed over to illegally residing parents. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, in the Southern District of Texas, wrote of several instances in which parents “initiated the conspiracy to smuggle minors into the country illegally,” a reference to contracting with traffickers.

Then, Hanen continued, instead of enforcing immigration laws, “DHS completed the criminal conspiracy…by delivering the minors into the custody of the parent living illegally in the United States.” Hanen’s message: Nonenforcement encourages parents to pay coyotes to bring their minor children north. UACs will continue to flock to the border as long as their illegal alien U.S. families can criminally bring their children to the U.S. without concern for their own removal. Judge Hanen’s criminal conspiracy allegation is tough talk, but accurate. And with the entire U.S. a sanctuary nation, nonenforcement’s failures and the fallout are painfully obvious.

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Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Biden’s Cartel-Enriching Border Betrayal

Anti Trump Group Headed By Democrat?

Anti Trump Group Headed By Democrat?

By Bob Small

At first glance the Republican Accountability Project (RAC) sounds like the beginnings of an uncivil war between the pro and  anti-Trump factions of the Republican Party.  Possibly similar to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) being expelled from the Communist Party in 1938.

Or maybe how the Biden/Clinton factions have dealt with the AOC/Sanders faction. 

Well, yes and no.

“We can’t support a Republican Party that is too extreme to govern,” the RAC says.

Their website features Liz Cheyney, Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey, among many.  No one can question their bonafides or legacy.   We’ve definitely arrived at the anti-Trump section of the Republican Party.

They’ve even launched a campaign “Republican Voters against Mastriano”

They also list five other gubernatorial candidates they are against.  See their website for details.

Anti Trump Group Headed By Democrat?

However, and this is a big however, when you look at their chairman of the board, it is none other than a favorite son of Harvard, one Bill Kristol, professional intellectual.

Bill Kristol, was the founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, now editor-in-chief of The Bulwark. He was also Dan Quayle’s chief of staff to Dan Quayle and called “Dan Quayle’s Brain” by The New Republic.  

What’s wrong with this picture, then.  Well, let me just quote a tweet from Bill Kristol from Feb. 1, 2020: “Not presumably forever, not perhaps for a day after Nov. 3, 2020: not on every issue or in every way until then. But for the time being one has to say: We are all Democrats now.”

How do we regard this organization then, with both GOP and Democratic leadership?  Is this a GOP Fifth Column or merely a bi-partisan effort to save the GOP from extremism.

The decision is yours.

Hoeppner Socialist And Only Challenger To Dwight Evens

Hoeppner Socialist And Only Challenger To Dwight Evens

By Bob Small

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is one of at least 20 communist/socialist parties listed in Politics1.com

Why so many? The factions run candidates as a way to get their message out.

The separations started in 1938 when CPUSA (Communist Party of the USA) expelled all Trotskyites, under orders from Joseph Stalin. who was then halfway through his dictatorship.  Stalin allegedly ordered the assassination of Trotsky less than two years later.

The three Communist/ Socialist Parties had received over one million votes in the 1932 election, a high water mark for the Left in this country, with James Hudson Mauer of Pennsylvania being the running mate of Norman Thomas.  

Chris Hoeppner is the only surviving member of four SWP members originally on the Pennsylvania ballot, a story that the Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties are all too familiar with and requires a separate post.

He is the only opposition to incumbent Democrat Dwight Evans in the Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District as the Republicans neglected to put up a candidate.  The district includes  most of center city Philadelphia, along with parts of North and West Philly.  It is the most Democratic congressional district in the nation.  In 2020 it gave Joe Biden 91 percent of the vote.

Hoeppner is a freight rail conductor and a member of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation union (SMART). He lives in South Philly.

Chris was quoted in a September Article of the Militant, the offical newspaper of the SWP regarding the looming railroad strike strike.

“Railworkers need to get our voices heard. The big-business media is only going to tell the companies side of the story,” he said . “The problems we face, particularly the challenges of having a life outside of work, of spending time with our families, is widespread in the working class”.

Hoeppner Socialist And Only Challenger To Dwight Evens
Hoeppner Socialist And Only Challenger To Dwight Evens

The Acerra’s All-Brothers Baseball Team: Italian-American Heritage Month

The Acerra’s All-Brothers Baseball Team: Italian-American Heritage Month

By Joe Guzzardi

In 1997, the Cooperstown Hall of Fame honored the Acerra family, an all-Italian, 12-brother semi-pro team that played .700 winning baseball from 1938 to 1952. Between 1860 and 1940, 29 baseball teams were made up entirely of brothers; the Acerras played longer than any other.

Honored isn’t the same as inducted, so the brothers didn’t join the powerful Italian-American contingent that has Hall of Fame plaques: the New York Yankees’ Joe DiMaggio, Tony Lazzeri, Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto. More recently, Joe Torre, Tommy La Russa and Craig Biggio joined the Cooperstown greats. Among the Italian-American baseball standouts born too soon to benefit from today’s watered-down Hall of Fame standards were Sal “the Barber” Maglie, a New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers and Yankees pitcher, and Rocco Domenico Colavito, a nine-time All-Star with 374 career home runs.

The Acerras’ wonderful story is one of strong family ties, and exceptional baseball skills. Louis “Pop” Acerra coached his sons, part of his family of 17 children. The team consisted of Alfred and Edward as catcher, James and Robert on the mound, Charles at first base, Louis Jr. at second base, Fred at shortstop, Richard at third base and sharing outfield duties, Paul, Joseph, William and Anthony. Back then, girls didn’t play baseball, so Pop’s five daughters rooted from the sidelines along with the family dog “Pitch.” Neighbors couldn’t remember a time when the brothers weren’t out in their yard playing catch or hitting fungos to each other.

The age difference between oldest brother, Anthony, to the youngest, Louis Jr. was 25 years. While being scouted by major league teams, their playing ages were as young as 17 and as old as 40. For 22 consecutive years, the Long Branch High School baseball team fielded an Acerra brother.

The Acerra’s All-Brothers Baseball Team
The Acerra Brothers Baseball Team

Officially formed in 1938, and under Pop’s watchful eye, over the next 14 years, the team played throughout the East Coast. In 1948, the sibling squad challenged the New York Yankees to an exhibition game, an offer the Bronx Bombers rejected. During World War II, the team temporarily disbanded. Defending America’s freedom was more important than baseball. At different times, six brothers enlisted; when they all returned, the team resumed playing. The brothers turned down college scholarships and offers to play professional baseball. Alfred, the catcher, continued to play after losing sight in one eye. Attempting to bunt, the ball bounced off Alfred’s bat, and struck him directly in the eye. Within months, Alfred was back behind the plate. Brother Freddie said: “He was a pretty good catcher for a guy with one eye.”

In 1946, the Acerras joined the Long Branch City (New Jersey) Twilight Baseball League, and during the next six years, won the championship four times. When the Acerras played, the stands were always packed with fans.

Along their road to success, the Acerras became the talk of the town. In 1947, Life and Look magazines and Ripley’s Believe it or Not ran features on the brothers. The Acerras also appeared on the popular “Once in a Lifetime” nightly radio program.

By 1952, the brothers had married and were raising children. The team’s playing days were over. But 45 years after their last game, the seven still-living brothers accepted the HOF’s invitation to participate in its annual ceremony. James M. Accera, pitcher Jimmy’s son, donated his Dad’s uniform and glove which now are in the same museum with the artifacts of the lives of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Willie Mays.

Acerra said, “This just touches the surface of a family that stayed a family, behind all the baseball and athletic achievements. A family that never allowed sibling rivalry and infighting or success to tear them apart. Their team was a reflection of something greater, something that 14 years, many hardships, the lure of professional contracts, and even a World War could not destroy.”

Acerra’s loving memory stands as a reminder that the team’s accomplishments were more about family values than baseball, and how the national pastime unified them in brotherly love.

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

The Acerra’s All-Brothers Baseball Team

Clinton’s Post 1994 Mid-Term Immigration Awakening

Clinton’s Post 1994 Mid-Term Immigration Awakening

By Joe Guzzardi

Every now and again, both during and after his two-term presidency, Bill Clinton espoused sound immigration thoughts that focused on the nation’s best interests. Most recently, Clinton, without naming Joe Biden, took direct aim at the sitting president’s open border fiasco.

On a CNN podcast, and in response to a question about economic migrants who are, in the host’s description, “gaming” the asylum system, Clinton replied that “there’s a limit” at which point open borders will cause “severe disruption.” Clinton added that the established immigration protocols, presumably a reference to the traditional agencies that assist incoming immigrants, function on the assumption that border conditions would “be more normal.”

“Severe disruption” may be the kindest way to describe the chaos in the Rio Grande Valley and other entry points along the Southwest Border. And severely disrupted is an understatement to define the conditions in sanctuary cities New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. where the mayors are grappling unsuccessfully to accommodate the migrants that Texas and Florida governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis send north. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul summoned the National Guard to help Adams with his plan, still in flux, to relocate the migrants to a Randall Island tent city. Adams, who declared the incoming migrants’ need for assistance “a humanitarian crisis,” pleaded to no avail with Biden for a minimum $500 million emergency aid infusion. Having no money to deal with incoming migrants is as disruptive, to use Clinton’s word, as conditions get.

Clinton has long been aware of over-immigration’s effect on American citizens. In his 1995 State of the Union address, given shortly after Republicans picked up eight Senate seats and a net 54 House seats post a GOP mid-term rout to win congressional control for the first time in four decades, Clinton spoke about the anxiety Americans experience during periods of unchecked immigration. Clinton listed many dangers that illegal immigration presents to Americans that included illegal hiring, the subsequent U.S. job losses and providing costly social services. Clinton’s word-for-word conclusion: “It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.”

Clintons Post 1994 Mid-Term Immigration Awakening

During his SOU speech, Clinton mentioned Barbara Jordan, the former U.S. representative who chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. The commission’s goal was to establish “credible, coherent immigrant and immigration policy.” The African-American Democrat from Texas endorsed significant legal immigration reductions with an emphasis on high-skilled admissions, fewer refugees, more deportations and a chain migration overhaul that would limit sponsorship to nuclear family members. Jordan distilled her immigration vision in a sentence: “Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave.

However, Jordan died just months after releasing her report, after which a civil rights, Hispanic advocacy coalition opposed to Jordan’s immigration goals strong-armed Clinton into backing away. Had Jordan lived, her presence would have kept Clinton committed to her commonsense immigration reform rules.

Should the GOP manage to recapture Congress, no sure thing, the results won’t spawn a 1995-style immigration awareness in Biden similar to Clinton’s. As Vice President, Biden continuously hailed “constant” and “unrelenting” immigration stream “in large numbers” as America’s source of strength. Given the red carpet welcome Biden has extended to millions of illegal immigrants and got-aways, complete with, in many cases, parole and work authorization, a presidential immigration awakening is highly improbable.

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Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Clinton’s Post 1994 Mid-Term Immigration Awakening