Category: Guest Authors

Cooperstown Must Tighten Standards To Restore Excellence

By Joe Guzzardi

With the Hall of Fame induction ceremony set for the July 21-24 weekend, here’s a baseball quiz. The question: What do Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Scott Rolen and Fred McGriff have in common? Not many fans are fooled. Although Ruth, Cobb, Rolen and McGriff have skill levels that range from extraordinary to above average but not great, all four are Hall of Fame inductees. In many scribes’ minds, the vast talent gap between the enshrined great and the very good is proof that the institution has lost its exclusivity. In too many cases, induction isn’t warranted.

Ruth and Cobb are baseball titans elected along with Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson in 1936; the five superstars represent first-ever HOF class. In 2022, on his sixth ballot appearance, Rolen squeaked into the Hall with 76.3 percent of the vote, 1.3 percent over the minimum 75 percent required. McGriff took a more circuitous route. After failing to reach the mandatory 75 percent for 10 consecutive years, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, as per its rules, dropped McGriff’s name from the ballot. A few years later, McGriff reappeared on the Contemporary Era committee where he was unanimously elected. The Contemporary Baseball Era includes players from 1980 to the present day, while the Classic Baseball Era spans the period prior to 1980 and includes Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues stars. In other words, just because the BBWAA initially rejects a player – and in some cases, resoundingly rejects – doesn’t mean that he won’t reappear on either Classic or Contemporary Era ballot.

Rolen and McGriff are very good players and would be welcome additions to any roster. But they’re not Hall of Fame worthy. Without getting too deeply into sabermetric weeds, McGriff in his 19-year career notably hit 30 home runs or more 10 times and led the league in that category twice. But McGriff never finished higher than fourth in Most Valuable Player award voting, a telling evaluation of his overall value to the six teams he played for. Many feel that Hall of Fame inductees should be the dominant players of their era, not merely key contributors.

Rolen’s Hall of Fame credentials are less persuasive than McGriff’s. Like McGriff, Rolen never finished higher than fourth in MVP balloting, but he had no league-leading categories, and was elected on the basis of his eight Gold Gloves – nice, but not Hall of Fame stuff.

The moment a debate about a candidate’s credentials arises, he’s probably not Hall of Fame material. Center field: Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio; Right field: Henry Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson; Catchers: Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Bill Dickey, Pitchers: Bob Feller, Tom Seaver, Whitey Ford – no one argues about their top place among the greats. But when five failed ballots have been cast, and on the sixth, the player gets elected by the slimmest margin, as is Rolen’s case, he doesn’t belong.

The solution: eliminate the extra committees which are designed to expand the total inductees, reduce the ten-year eligibility to three years, and increase the approval margin from 75 percent to 90 percent. The truly great will easily reach the 90 percent plateau, while those who fall short will remain on the outside looking in. Hall of Fame members returning to Cooperstown to honor the Class of 2023 include: Jeff Bagwell, Harold Baines, Johnny Bench, Craig Biggio, Bert Blyleven, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Rod Carew, Orlando Cepeda, Andre Dawson, Rollie Fingers, Pat Gillick, Tom Glavine, Goose Gossage, Rickey Henderson, Whitey Herzog, Trevor Hoffman, Fergie Jenkins, Derek Jeter, Randy Johnson, Chipper Jones, Jim Kaat, Tony La Russa, Barry Larkin, Greg Maddux, Juan Marichal, Fred McGriff, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Eddie Murray, Mike Mussina, Tony Oliva, David Ortiz, Tony Pérez, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Cal Ripken, Scott Rolen, Ryne Sandberg, John Schuerholz, Bud Selig, Ted Simmons, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Joe Torre, Alan Trammell, Larry Walker, Billy Williams, Dave Winfield and Robin Yount. Not all would reach 90 percent.

Baseball will never see another class like 1936, but the BBWAA should keep Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Johnson and Mathewson’s greatness in mind when they vote.

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

Cooperstown Must Tighten Standards To Restore Excellence

Employers Voice Annual False Lament About Labor Shortage 

By Joe Guzzardi

People may be fleeing New York and Chicago for sunny Florida, but not many are looking for jobs once they arrive. Or so goes the claim. The Census Bureau identified Florida, whose population between 2021 and 2022 increased by 1.9 percent to 22,244,823, as the nation’s fastest growing state. New arrivals, which include the 3.1 million that relocated to Florida during the last decade, were unevenly distributed among the state’s 67 counties. A third of the newcomers settled in Orange, Hillsborough, Lee, Polk and Palm Beach.

Despite so many new residents, CareerSource Palm Beach County officials said that their analysis of 2023 H-2B foreign worker visa applications showed that a record 52 employers, including hotels, clubs and resorts, are seeking to bring people from other countries to fill an also record number of positions, 3,123. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and other ritzy golf clubs are among the visa petitioners.

Companies filing requests this year include The Breakers in Palm Beach, BallenIsles Country Club also in Palm Beach Gardens and The Polo Club of Boca Raton. Listed too are 111 positions for the Mar-a-Lago club that serves as the former president’s main residence and another 51 jobs for Trump’s golf clubs in Jupiter and suburban West Palm Beach.

The notion that the nation’s most exclusive resorts can’t find employees, and must import workers, simply doesn’t compute. In addition to the millions of newcomers, Florida has 13 state universities, 26 community colleges and 32 private colleges with tens of thousands of students willing to work to earn money to contribute to their tuition and living costs. But the probability is that those coveted jobs at upscale locations will go to H-2B workers because employers prefer cheap foreign-born, nonimmigrant visa holders to Americans. The White House is onboard with subverting U.S. workers too. Last year, the Biden administration made 55,000 additional visas available on top of the annual 66,000 allotment, the largest H-2B visa increase since 2017.

Every year, the media promotes the false idea that employers can’t find workers and that the only solution is more H-2B visa workers. But a quick look at the southern border proves that plenty of people are available to work, and their totals increase every day. Millions of migrants have crossed into the U.S., with the vast majority having received parole, a classification that includes work permission. Numerous studies published by liberal-leaning Washington think tanks have determined that, despite Chamber of Commerce and other corporate lobbyists’ insistence, the U.S. doesn’t have a labor shortage. After studying the top 15 H-2B occupations that include the leisure industry, the Economic Policy Institute concluded that persistently flat wages undermine the claim that labor shortages exist.

Nevertheless, Congress’ House Appropriations Committee proposed expansions in both the H-2B and the related H-2A guest worker programs for fiscal 2024. Behind closed doors, these increases also might be slipped into a House continuing resolution. Any guest worker visa increase, especially during this extended and ongoing open border period, is a harmful if not devastating blow to low-skilled black and Hispanic Americans who have low worker participation rates and are experiencing rising unemployment. As reported in The Hill on July 7, the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that “black Americans make up nearly 90 percent of those who are unemployed in the U.S. since April.”

Even though blacks and Hispanics are the demographic that Democrats court and depend on for their re-election, Congress’ annual behind-the-scenes maneuvering for increases in H-2As and H-2Bs stacks the deck against their long-time voting base. The U.S. labor market needs a pause in employment-authorized immigration whether its paroled migrants or congressionally approved visa hikes. In the meantime, if employers sincerely believe that the labor market has a worker shortage, they could adopt the historic, tried-and-true solution – offer higher wages.

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Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Employers Voice Annual False Lament About Labor Shortage 

RFK Jr Is Biden’s Biggest Problem

By Joe Guzzardi

The biggest threat to Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection is not the opposition GOP, but rather fellow Democrat Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

If Biden allows Democratic primary debates to take place, and as of early July, neither the president nor the DNC has indicated that they would permit them, Kennedy would have a direct opportunity to challenge the administration’s open border policy that has prevailed since Day One. Under normal circumstances, the incumbent’s party doesn’t hold primaries, but Kennedy is polling at 31 percent in a Newsweek poll taken among 2020 Biden voters, and a Washington Post-ABC poll found that 62 percent of Americans said they would be “dissatisfied” or “angry” if Biden were reelected.

Would-be voters who hope for a more above-board, democratic process got a rude awakening when the DNC rearranged the primary voting states. New Hampshire and Iowa, where Biden did poorly, were pushed back behind South Carolina which essentially sewed up the president’s nomination. For voters who think that the fix may be in, canceling debates and rescheduling primaries that favor Biden give credence to their suspicions.

Unlike Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the border czar, Kennedy has visited the border at hotspot Yuma, Ariz., a town with a population of fewer than 100,000 that is flooded with 6,000 migrants weekly. Officials in the border town say the unsustainable scenario has driven the community to the brink of collapse. Illegal crossers have created $22 million in unreimbursed hospital expenses, and the gotaways trapsing across pathogen-tested agricultural acreage endanger Yuma’s crops, valued at $4 billion annually.

Kennedy shared his first-hand Yuma experiences with Manchester, N.H.’s WMUR9, and brought to light facts, some gruesome, that have been hidden by the establishment media. Kennedy said that he expected to see mostly Central American crossers, but that the first busload was mostly military-age Africans from Senegal. More busloads included families from Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tibet, Kazakhstan, Nepal, China, Pakistan and other countries. After a cursory interview with Customs and Border Protection, Kennedy watched illegal immigrants board airplanes provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. While he was in Yuma, Kennedy learned that pregnant migrants occupied 32 of the 35 available hospital beds. Local women have traveled to San Diego or Phoenix to have their babies delivered.

The cartels “control all the immigration,” Kennedy said, and “recognized a huge profit opportunity.” They communicate broadly via videos and social media to recruit people worldwide. The business-savvy cartels have lawyers who work with them in various countries to tell prospective recruits exactly what to do to get into the U.S.: get on a plane to Mexico City where the cartel will help secure a visa, and then get passage on an internal Mexicali-bound plane. Once at Mexicali, the cartel arranges for parking lots full of buses to take migrants on the final leg of their journey.

Meanwhile, for the 1 million-plus legal immigrants who arrive every year, and the millions more who have waited in line for years, Kennedy said that Biden’s border mess is “a stick in the eye.” For citizens who want to maintain a sovereign America, Kennedy stated the obvious: “No country can survive if it can’t control its borders.”

To emphasize the humanitarian crisis that Biden permits, if not encourages, Kennedy spoke of the “rape tree…where the cartels extract their final payment from women who come across.” Human traffickers hang the undergarments of women and young girls as a trophy display and challenge to other cartel members. Amnesty International reported that 60 percent of all women and girls trafficked north to be brought over the open U.S.-Mexican border are raped along the way. Parents send their minor-age girls off with morning-after pills, knowing that rape is probable.

In the end, Kennedy said that the border is “a humanitarian crisis that we’re creating through government negligence. And we need to end it for everybody’s sake.” Assuming Kennedy were to make immigration a campaign focal point, a logical conclusion given what he saw at the border, Biden would have little to say in defense of his persistent disregard for immigration law, as U.S. communities like Yuma have paid the price for his disdain.

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Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Like The Old Gray Mare, All Star Game ‘Ain’t What She Used To Be’

By Joe Guzzardi

Time was when the Major League Baseball All-Star Game was a special event. Fans were eager to see the superstars of the National League and American League compete on one field in one special game. But interleague play, which began in 1997, put the kibosh on that. Here’s Philadelphia Phillies’ outfielder Ron Gant’s reaction, shared by many, to interleague play: “To match the Phillies and Orioles in the regular season is to store your milk in the cupboard. The game is curdling. It has already curdled! What once was a special pastime is now a soulless contrivance….”

Interleague baseball killed the ASG, and the commissioner’s office buried it with pointless add-ons like the Futures Game, the Home Run Derby and poor taste’s nadir, the Red Carpet Show. None of the gimmicks that segue into the game help viewership which has been in freefall for years. The 2022 Midsummer Classic drew an all-time low of 7.5 million viewers. During the 1990s, the television audience routinely exceeded 20 million.

Fans disappointed in Commissioner Rob Manfred’s heavy-handedness in altering how for decades the traditional game had been played — the universal designated hitter and the ghost runner in extra innings are two glaring examples — should brace themselves. Within the next few years, Manfred, determined to drive a stake into traditional baseball’s heart, envisions a complete MLB overhaul.

The San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers would no longer be in the same division. Ditto the Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles. Manfred’s scheme is dependent on the Oakland A’s moving to Las Vegas and Tampa Bay building a new stadium. Once those two steps are completed, Charlotte and Nashville will be awarded new franchises. They’ll be uncompetitive for years. As Manfred sees baseball, revenue is everything, and the game’s rich history is inconsequential. The average team’s value is $2.1 billion; the New York Yankees’ value tops the list at $6 billion.

To appreciate lost history, turn the calendar back to 1946 when a baseball-starved nation welcomed back World War II heroes, many of them future Hall of Famers, who would play in Fenway Park’s ASG, the site of the canceled 1945 tilt. The National League’s squad included Johnny Mize, Stan Musial, Enos Slaughter and Pee Wee Reese. On the American League roster were the DiMaggio brothers — Joe and Dom — Bob Feller and Ted Williams.

All 35,000 eyes were on Williams, a Marine Corp Naval Aviator. Fans wondered if “The Kid,” Williams’ preferred nickname, could pick up where he left off in 1942, his last year before his active service began. Williams’ 1942 Triple Crown statistics set a high bar; BA, .356; HR, 36 and RBI, 137. Although Williams’ 1946 year-end stats were a few points shy of his 1942 totals, his ASG performance ranks as one of the best-ever. Williams went four for four, and became the first player to drive in five runs in a single game as the American League dominated, 12–0. The Kid’s two home runs, two singles and a walk accounted for 10 total bases, a still-standing ASG record. One of Ted’s blasts came off of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Rip Sewell’s eephus pitch, a soft, parabolic lob that soared 30 feet off the ground before it floated back to earth. Sewell’s pitch and Ted’s homer provided the fans with comic relief during the rout.

Out in Ted’s hometown of San Diego, his mother May and her Union Street neighbors listened to Mel Allen call the game. When asked how she felt about her son becoming the first player to drive in five runs in an ASG, the devoted Salvation Army volunteer said: “All my prayers were answered. The game was perfectly marvelous…Ted’s a wonderful boy.”

May’s prayers, however, didn’t prevent 1946 from ending on a sour note for the Red Sox and Ted. In the World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals bested the Sox 4–3, and in his only World Series appearance held The Kid to a measly .200 batting average. A humiliated, humbled Williams looked back on the World Series as the lowest point in his otherwise glorious career.

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

George M Cohan Was Yankee Doodle Boy

By Joe Guzzardi

George M. Cohan, the son of Irish immigrants – often described as the man who owned Broadway – dominated American theater from 1901 until 1940. During that four-decade period, the man born on the Fourth of July produced 80 Broadway shows, many of which he wrote himself, and wrote more than 1,000 songs. Although Cohan liked to describe himself as “just a song and dance man,” he was a skilled actor, playwright and a director who once advised Spencer Tracy: “Spencer, you have to act less,” counsel that guided the great screen actor to his many understated performances.

Cohan got his start as one of the four Cohans, a late 19th century vaudeville act that included his father Jere, mother Nellie, George’s sister Josie and George. First carried onto the stage when he was four months old, in 1900 George and his family left hometown Providence, R.I., and headed for Broadway’s bright lights.

Soon after, Cohan met Sam Harris who became George’s friend and partner. For decades, the team paired up for dozens of unqualified stage successes, the first of which, Little Johnny Jones, came in 1904. The play opened in Hartford, Conn., where, upon hearing Cohan sing the words:

“I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy

 A Yankee Doodle do or die

 A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam’s

 Born on the Fourth of July.”

The electrified audience jumped out of their seats, applauding feverishly. The patriotically stirring, flag-waving tune reflected Cohan’s unflinching devotion to his country. Cohan had three loves: his family, the theater and the United States.

In 1905, in his play George Washington, Jr., Cohan wrote another American tribute, “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” Sitting next to a Civil War veteran who had been active during Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg, Pa., Cohan listened as the old man, who tenderly stroked the U.S. flag he held in his lap, said, “She’s a grand old rag.” Recalling the veteran’s words, Cohan originally named his song “Grand Old Rag.” But listeners, not knowing the backstory, objected, so he changed the title. In his lyrics, however, Cohan kept the reference intact:

“You’re a grand old rag, you’re a high-flying flag

 And forever in peace may you wave

 You’re the emblem of the land I love

 The home of the free and the brave.”

At World War I’s outbreak, Cohan penned another patriotic song, “Over There,” the era’s most popular tune:

“Over there, over there

 Send the word, send the word over there,

 That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming

 The drums rum-tumming everywhere.”

In 1936, Congress awarded Cohan the Congressional Gold Medal, not only because of his songwriting and acting talent, but also because his work instilled in Americans’ hearts a loyal and patriotic spirit and projected the grandeur that the U.S. represented to people around the world.

Six years later, in 1942, Jimmy Cagney portrayed Cohan in “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” his Oscar-winning, Best Actor role. The same year, surrounded by friends and family at his home, Cohan lost his battle with intestinal cancer. Cohan’s funeral, a Solemn Requiem Mass attended by thousands, was held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. For the first time in St. Patrick’s history, the organist played a secular song. In a slow, soft funeral march tempo, “Over There” overwhelmed mourners who sobbed uncontrollably. The funeral procession up Fifth Avenue proceeded to the Bronx where Cohan was laid to rest in Woodlawn Cemetery with his mother, father and sister. The burial marked the last stop in the Four Cohans’ journey.

Toward the end of Cohan’s life, long-time friend George Buck reminded him that no one had ever matched George’s theatrical triumphs. “Doesn’t that make you proud?” Buck asked. Cohan replied: “No complaints, kid. No complaints.” His daughter Mary, at his bedside, said that she was certain that George M. died a happy man, a fitting final act for an artist who delighted so many for so long.

Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated columnist. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

George M Cohan Was Yankee Doodle Boy