Brian Sims, the only openly gay candidate for lieutenant governor was involved in a recent kerfuffle. His campaign posted an ad that ended with the phrase “ENDORSED JOSH SHAPIRO”, which meant to say that Josh Shapiro, the only Democrat running for governor, had endorsed him. The only problem was that, that earlier this year, the state representative that Josh Shapiro had endorsed was Austin Davis of Allegheny County, who hopes to become the first African American elected to the Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor’s office.
In March, Brian Sims lost the support of both the state Democratic leaders and some parts of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transexual) Community.
One possible reason for the state Democrats to endorse a Shapiro-Davis ticket is geographical balance. Shapiro is from Montgomery County and Davis is from Allegheny County. Another possible reason is that David might help with the African American vote, which the Dems heavily depend on.
Of course, it should be noted that neither major party would endorse a candidate who exhibits too much independent thinking.
In a March 3 press conference, more than 40 LGBTQ leaders threw their lot in with Austin Davis.
Among the charges against Brian Sims is his failure to have any legislation passed after a decade in office. He is also alleged to have an abrasive personality –along with many, if not most, of his fellow legislators. Those are the only charges filed against him that could be found.
It should be noted that by necessity there is a great deal pragmatism at work in the LGBTQ Community, as there is in any marginalized community. “The LGBTQ community is not a monolith,” said LGBTQ Victory Fund spokesperson Elliott Imse. The LGBTQ community decided to endorse Davis over Sims.
Why is Josh Shapiro the only Dem Candidate, while the GOP has 10? That’s for another column.
The hour is late to save America from the White House-sanctioned, sovereignty-busting illegal immigrant invasion. To draw a baseball parallel, patriotic citizens are in the bottom of the eighth inning, getting a 6-0 shellacking from the America-last Biden administration. Still, citizens have two at bats – six outs – remaining, time enough to battle back and overcome, assuming their rally starts immediately.
Some observers wonder how things at the border went so wrong, so fast. The explanation is simple: Cheating and lying from Biden, Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Vice President Kamala Harris and the administration’s inner circle of unelected cronies – U.S. Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice, Obama Foundation interim president Valerie Jarrett and Michelle and Barack Obama, who have managed to amass $70 million in wealth since their days in the White House. They threw spit balls and stole signs, and no one holds them accountable.
Biden’s cheating at a criminal, unconstitutional level is indisputable. For his presidency’s entirety, Biden has knowingly, willingly and flagrantly broken numerous immigration laws. The president has defied the entire Immigration and Nationality Act, legislation that defines who can immigrate to the U.S., spells out the procedure for applying for a visa and from where the applications must be submitted, and specifies the rules that new immigrants are legally obligated to follow. These have been dismissed without conferring with Congress. King Biden rules by decree. Shamelessly, even when the courts rule against him, Biden’s brazen rejection of immigration law enforcement proceeds unabated.
In early March, the U.S. District Court of North Texas enjoined the Biden administration’s policy of excepting unaccompanied alien minors from Title 42, and it largely denied the administration’s efforts to dismiss the lawsuit that Texas and Attorney General Ken Paxton filed. The court’s final order found that the Biden administration’s actions are: “arbitrary, capricious … or otherwise not in accordance with law.” Biden ignored the court’s injunction. Instead, the administration continued to resettle significant numbers of UACs into the U.S. – 122,000 unaccompanied migrant children were put in shelters in 2021 – which has led to the largest wave of criminal child smuggling in human history. The flood of resettled illegal alien teens and minors will drain public school resources, overcrowd hospitals and provide a pipeline for Northern Triangle gangs like MS-13.
In another announcement that will, like increased public education and health care costs, add to taxpayers’ burdens, Biden’s DHS Secretary Mayorkas proposed a new rule that would allow migrants to use public welfare benefits like SNAP, CHIP and Medicaid while their Green Card applications are under review. Mayorkas’ proposal violates the public charge principal which states that newly arrived immigrants must be self-sufficient and not dependent on taxpayer subsidies.
Biden isn’t the least bit hesitant to publicly lie about his immigration agenda. In his State of the Union address, with 38 million television viewerstuned in, Biden said: “We need to secure our border, and fix the immigration system” – the chaotic “system” he and Mayorkas created. Since Biden’s January SOU speech, the border crisis has intensified, and will get worse in late May once Title 42 ends.
A healthy part of the blame for the border mess lies with voters who always get the government they vote for. Biden’s campaign commitmentsincluded halting illegal immigrant deportations for 100 days, ending the border wall construction and granting amnesty to unlawfully present aliens. Biden chose as his running mate Calif. Sen. Kamala Harris, whose Senate voting record was among the most liberal.
Before elected to the Senate, and speaking as California’s Attorney General, Harris said “an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal.” Since her appointment as faux border czar, Harris has shown that she, like her boss, can lie, too. Said Harris: “While we are clear that people should not come to the border now, we also understand that we will enforce the law and that we also – because we can chew gum and walk at the same time – must address root causes…” Identifying migration’s root causes, Harris concluded, will end illegal immigration. But migration’s root causes turned out to be the unprecedented, uninterrupted immigration lawbreaking of Biden and Harris.
What happens between now and the November 2022 mid-term election, a date that might mark a turning point for enforcement, depends once again on voters. Democrats have at least four vulnerable open borders incumbents on the ballot in Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and New Mexico, more than enough seats to flip the 50-50 deadlocked Upper Chamber, an important step in stabilizing the border invasion. At this historic low point in border enforcement, stabilization would represent a triumph.
More Alternatives For Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor
By Bob Small
Returning to Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor’s race, there are two very distinct GOP female candidates, as per Politics1.com: Carrie Lewis Delrosso and Clarice Schillinger (see previous post)
State Rep. Carrie Lewis DelRosso (R-Oakmont) defeated long-time House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, who had served as a state representative for almost three decades. She is a self-described pro-lifer and second-amendment advocate. She also supports affordable health care, fewer regulations, and time limits for the Pennsylvania legislature, and opposes higher state taxes.
Ms. DelRosso sees expected Democrat gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro, as “an extension of the disastrous Wolf administration, pandering to liberal interest groups and further wrecking an already wounded state economy.” She runs Carrie Lewis Delrosso LLC, a company that does business consulting, marketing, and public relations. She describes herself as “a working mother of three”.
Meanwhile, Brian Sims, the first openly gay state representative (182nd) is running to become the first openly gay lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania. He is a civil-rights lawyer who has served as the president of the Board of Directors of Equality Pennsylvania and as chairman of Gallop (Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of Philadelphia).
As a college football player and team captain, he helped lead Bloomsberg University to the 2000 Division 2 National Championship Game. He later came out as gay to the team.
This would provide at least one person in the State House who would be affected by pending legislation on the issue of gay rights.
Russ Diamond is one of the few state-wide candidates that I have actually met, which occurred when I was advocating for the The Political Party Equality Act in the 2000s.
Diamond not only met with us but also spoke at one of our rallies.
He received a Public Service Achievement Award from Common Cause of Pennsylvania, among many awards. He is an author, musician and private pilot. He and his wife Beth, live in his family home in Annville., built by his great-grandparents.
Though his positions and mine don’t always align, I think he deserves respect for his experience and accomplishments. How about an openly conservative lieutenant governor?
More Alternatives For Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor
In 1866, Lipman Pike became the first great professional Jewish baseball player when he signed a $20-a-week contract to hold down the hot corner for the Philadelphia Athletics. Lip, as Pike was known, was a dominant power hitter who, in his 425 National Association and National League games between 1871 and 1881, hit .322 with a slugging average of .468. Accounts of those early games noted that Pike hit numerous home runs that soared beyond outfielders’ reach. When the popular Pike passed away prematurely at age 48, The Sporting News, baseball’s Bible, published a tribute that include these glowing comments: “Pike…was one of the few sons of Israel who ever drifted to the business of ball playing. He was a handsome fellow when he was here, and the way he used to hit that ball was responsible for many a scene of enthusiasm at the old avenue grounds.”
Since Pike, many more Jewish superstars have excelled on the diamond. Most famous among them is Sandy Koufax, the Dodgers’ Hall of Fame lefty who was the first pitcher to win three Cy Young Awards, and the only pitcher to capture the award when it was given to just one major leaguer. Koufax won pitching’s Triple Crown – wins, strike outs and ERA, in 1963, 1965 and 1966, and hurled four no-hitters, one of them a perfect game.
Hank Greenberg is another Jewish baseball standout, and a World War II hero. Greenberg’s power statistics are on a par with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams and Jimmie Foxx. After enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Greenberg rose to First Lieutenant, and was active in the China-Burma-India Theater. Al Rosen, a four-year World War II Navy vet and Cleveland Indians third baseman, is the only player to win both the Most Valuable Player, and the MLB Executive of the Year awards. Rosen, a successful amateur boxer with a vicious right upper cut who described himself as “one tough Jew,” unanimously won his MVP in 1953, and for his front office efforts that guided the San Francisco Giants’ from first to last place in 1987, he was elected Executive of the Year.
In baseball circles, Koufax, Greenberg and Rosen are well-known. But the compelling 1923 tale about Mose Solomon, the “Rabbi of Swat,” blends the long-gone Class C low minor Southwestern League’s Hutchinson Wheat Shockers with early 1900s Jewish immigration to New York, the World Champion Giants, its manager John J. McGraw and his desperate but ultimately futile search for a slugger who could match Babe Ruth’s home run power, thereby siphoning off Ruth-crazed bugs from the hated Yankees.
In his book, “The League of Outsider Baseball,” Gary Cieradkowski wrote that when word reached McGraw that by September 1923 Solomon had blasted a then-professional record 49 homers, was hitting .421, leading the league in doubles, hits and runs scored, the Giants manager was convinced that the “Jewish Babe Ruth” would spearhead the Jints to financial success. Within the blink of an eye, the Giants paid the Wheat Shockers $4,500 for Solomon’s contract, and soon thereafter “The Rabbi of Swat” was riding the rail toward New York. But McGraw soon realized he had no place in the lineup for Kansas’ home run phenom. The Giants’ first base position and its outfield were populated by future HOFers George “High Pockets” Kelly, Casey Stengel, Ross Youngs and Hack Wilson. While Solomon rode the pine, the very vocal cranks demanded that the Jewish Babe Ruth be put into a game.
McGraw gave in, and on the season’s last home tilt Solomon hit a game-winning double against the Philadelphia Phillies. Solomon got into one more game in 1923, and ended his season – and his major league career – with three hits in eight at bats, a .375 batting average. The Rabbi’s problem was, as scouts said, “He could poke’em, but he couldn’t pick’em,” a reference to Solomon’s 31 errors in 108 games in Kansas. Solomon was promptly dispatched back to the minors where he resumed his lusty batting prowess – seven seasons of .300 or higher.
When Mose realized his baseball days were behind him, he took up semi-pro football, and played effectively until injuries sidelined him for good – a lucky break for the Rabbi as things turned out. Solomon and his wife moved to Miami where he started a long, lucrative real estate business until his peaceful 1965 death.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and an Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
When the subject is California and the state’s extreme politics, nothing ever surprises. But even long-time California skeptics admit that Senate Bill 960 (SB 960) raises eyebrows for its audacity and disregard for public safety.
Introduced by State Senator Nancy Skinner, a Democrat who represents District 9 and its radical cities of Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond, the bill proposes to allow non-U.S. citizens to become California law enforcement officers. Skinner’s bill removes the condition that an individual must be a citizen or a lawful United States permanent resident to become a police officer, a step too far in many Californians’ opinion. Since Skinner’s legislation doesn’t specifically ban illegal immigrants from the non-U.S. citizen category, the conclusion that many have reached is that SB 960 would allow illegally present aliens to wear the badge. The bill originally passed committee 4-1, has been read twice, and will soon get a third and final reading before it can proceed to the floor for debate.
SB 960 has sparked controversy, and the first to speak out is Skinner herself. At a March 22 Senate Public Safety Committee hearing, Skinner insisted that her bill “only allows those who are living here legally and have the legal ability to work here – through a visa, a Green Card – to become peace officers.” She added, “I just want to be clear on that.” Despite Skinner’s insistence, SB 960 is at best murky on the permissibility of illegal immigrants becoming law enforcement officers.
To give Skinner the possible benefit of doubt, SB 960 may be the consequence of her district’s inability to retain police officers. The Mercury News reported that Oakland is the state’s “most watched police department with both a federal monitor and strong civilian oversight.” As a result of the intense oversight, officers are leaving the Oakland PD in unprecedented numbers, from an average of about four per month late last year to 10 or 15 a month since then.
Despite federal and municipal oversight, in 2021 OPD investigated 134 homicides, the most since 2012, and the city endured a 21 percent increase in shootings. Crime rates in Berkeley and Richmond are equally terrible. In Berkeley, a crime occurs on average once every 70 minutes; in Richmond, once every 158 minutes. Berkeley isn’t the only challenged city in the state. The Los Angeles Police Department has 296 vacant officer positions and almost 500 fewer on-duty officers than it did this time last year, according to LAPD reports.
Whatever the solution is to the Bay Area and sanctuary state California’s rising crime rates and its dwindling number of police officers on the payroll, rewarding illegal aliens with the vital job of enforcing the law isn’t the answer. One of the existing provisions to qualify as a California police officer is that the candidate complete a background check that confirms his or her good moral character. Since little information can be confirmed about an illegal immigrant’s life prior to voluntarily and illegally coming to the U.S., no meaningful background check can be performed. Known for certain, however, is that entering the U.S. without inspection violates U.S. immigration law which furthermore means that the prospective police candidate’s first action was criminal.
Blue states like New York, Illinois, Oregon, Washington and California have pushed to promote illegal immigrants to the same level as legal immigrants, a grave injustice to the foreign-born who followed the proper procedures to attain lawful permanent resident status. Opening up good, albeit dangerous, jobs like police officer to illegal aliens is a disservice all the way around – to citizens who want protection provided by the most qualified and best trained, to citizens seeking high-paying jobs with affirmative benefits, and to the U.S. homeland which is always imperiled.
Specifically, border agents have encountered 838,685 illegal aliens since October 1, fiscal year 2022’s beginning, to February; Biden has released 37.9 percent, or 318,700. Add to 838,685, hundreds of thousands more migrant gotaways not included in the official total.
Assuming the pace at which agents apprehend or encounter illegals keeps up – 167,737 per month pre-Title 42 removal – the alien encounter total by fiscal year end September 30 will exceed 2 million. And if Biden releases aliens at the same rate, another unsupervised 760,000 illegals will be at large. Skinner’s ill-conceived idea to give law enforcement jobs to noncitizens, a category that may include illegal aliens, is foolish and dangerous.
The Alliance for a New Immigration Consensus, a cheap labor lobby with a fancy-sounding name, has set as its goal more immigration under the guise of helping employers find the workers they claim are in short supply.
The alliance’s letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell starts with the dramatic statement that “at no other point in recent history has the need for immigration reform been greater than it is today. Simply put, the system is broken.”
The GWB Institute has an aggressive pro-immigration agenda that includes, reminiscent of 43’s White House days, promoting amnesty, accepting more refugees and asylees, and citizenship for deferred action for childhood arrivals, aka DREAMers.
For the Bush boys, George and Jeb!, the apple doesn’t fall far from their father’s tree. Bush #43 pushed for amnesty throughout his eight White House years. The dismal 2016 presidential campaign of Jeb! centered on expanded immigration – a Wall Street Journal story quoted Bush’s critics and called him “an apostle for amnesty.” Father of GWB and Jeb, George H.W. Bush, #41, signed the Immigration Act of 1990, disastrous legislation that paved the way over three-plus decades for millions of imported workers that displaced American workers. George and his wife Laura are, even during this unprecedented period of an ongoing border invasion, unbending immigration promoters who, along with the powerful, deep-pocketed Chamber of Commerce, ceaselessly demand more.
In March, Laura and GWB invited four deferred action for childhood arrival recipients, an immigration lawyer and the American Nursery & Landscape Association legislative chair to the George W. Bush Presidential Center where the former president doubled down on the broken immigration system meme. To be sure, the immigration system is broken, but for reasons never mentioned by Bush or other supporters of higher immigration levels. For decades, congressionally approved, presidentially signed immigration laws have been blatantly trampled on while Congress ignores and often rewards the violators.
When Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorkas lift Title 42 at the end of May, officials expect 18,000 daily illegal immigrant encounters, an approximate 500,000 monthly total that should, but doesn’t, satisfy the most ardent immigration advocates. Not surprisingly, the half a million per month illegal immigrants that take up U.S. residency will represent the largest contributor to the nation’s future population growth. They will compete with Americans for jobs, medical care and classroom seats, and will help exacerbate the affordable housing shortage, an issue of grave concern in border states like California, Arizona and New Mexico. California’s median home price is projected to rise 5.5 percent in 2022 to hit $834,000. Exorbitant housing costs represent an insurmountable problem for newly arrived aliens who need shelter.
The Journal of Housing Economics researched immigration’s effect on housing costs, and concluded that an increase in the number of immigrants equal to 1 percent of a metropolitan statistical area’s total population was linked with a 0.8 percent increase in rents and a 0.8 percent increase in home prices. The same immigrant increase created a 1.6 percent rise in rents and a 9.6 percent rise in home prices in surrounding metropolitan statistical areas. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget defines a metropolitan statistical area as an urbanized area with a minimum 50,000 population.
Indisputable evidence – eliminating Title 42 as an illegal immigration deterrent – proves positively that more immigration is coming, although the final number, whatever that total may end up being, will never satisfy the Bushes, the Chamber of Commerce or the Biden administration. The donor class and elitists will score a big win. To Biden and his inner circle’s obvious satisfaction, unprecedented mass immigration devastates mainstream America.
PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Since his first day in the White House, President Joe Biden has embarked on a nonstop journey to dismantle existing immigration laws, at first through Executive Orders, and more recently word of mouth. Biden’s criminal disregard for congressionally approved, presidentially signed immigration laws led to a 2 million-strong illegal alien invasion at the Southwest Border last year, plus 500,000 “gotaways” that eluded border patrol agents, and the numbers tick up daily.
On April 1, the CDC announced that it will end the Title 42 regulation on May 23. Title 42 allowed border patrol agents the wherewithal to expel, on the basis of COVID-19, some migrants who wanted to enter the U.S. and claim asylum. But at the same time, the agents processed family units and other so-called vulnerable migrants who were eventually bussed or flown to the U.S. interior.
The immigration crisis of the year past will soon look like a Sunday morning walk in the park. All hell is about to break out on the border. Immediately after the news broke about Title 42 and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ confirmation that the restriction would be lifted, Internet images of global migrants lined up to get past Mexican police, and proceed to the U.S. border, appeared on various sites.
Mayorkas, Biden’s co-conspirator in the dismantling of America, immediately began with double talk. Once the order is lifted, Mayorkas said that individuals will be processed under standard procedure. In a prepared statement, Mayorkas said that smugglers will spread misinformation about U.S. admission to take advantage of vulnerable migrants. But Mayorkas concluded with: “Let me be clear: those unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the United States will be removed.”
Sounds tough, but no one believes him. Mayorkas’ statement about removal directly conflicts with his earlier pronouncement that simply being illegally present doesn’t qualify an alien for deportation. In other words, current or future migrants have no concerns about being returned to their home countries. If they wish to stay, they’ll stay. Like his boss Biden, Mayorkas is a great one for making up new faux immigration laws as he goes along, but acting on them as if they are congressionally approved. Existing immigration law is crystal clear: those unlawfully present are deportable.
Despite pleas from his fellow Democrats to retain Title 42, Biden shows no sign of backing away from his open border tolerance. At least two Texas Democrats have asked Biden to delay ending the policy until Southern Border apprehensions and encounters slow. U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, and Vicente Gonzales, a McAllen Democrat, joined several of their Republican colleagues earlier this week in a letter to Mayorkas and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. In part, their letter read: “… small border communities lack the appropriate housing, transportation, and healthcare infrastructure to manage the ongoing release of migrant populations into their jurisdictions.”
Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema, Mark Kelly and Joe Manchin implored Biden to enforce Title 42, but to no avail. Sinema and Kelly urged Biden to formulate an as-yet-undrafted replacement plan for Title 42. Manchin called Biden’s move “a frightening decision” that will lead to record-breaking illegal immigration during the current fiscal year.
Arizona Sheriff Mark Dannels, National Sheriffs Association Border Security Committee chair, stated the obvious when he said that Biden has forsaken border law enforcement, that his Cochise County is “already beyond a crisis” and that border-related crime has cost local taxpayers more than $1 million. Under Biden, Dannels said that he’s seen the “erosion of infrastructure and the rule of law.” Checkpoints have been shuttered, and a Border Patrol station is down to a skeleton crew. In summary, Dannels, a 37-year law enforcement veteran, said what many Americans, whether they live on the border or in the interior, have already concluded: “We have been abandoned; let’s just say that.”
Veteran observers of D.C. politics can’t quite figure out Biden and his immigration policy. Mid-term elections are seven months away, Biden’s favorability polling among likely voters is in the tank; 53 percentdisapprove, and his immigration handling stands even lower at 59 percent disapproval. As unlikely as it may seem, the staunch America-last Democrats and Biden’s inner circle of globalists are content to lose their jobs, and take their party down with them, over an open border immigration policy that no one wants and harms everybody – first and foremost, blacks, Hispanics and other minorities.
PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Opening Day 1939 Or When Athletes Really Were Heroes
By Joe Guzzardi
To diehard baseball fans’ delight, but to traditionalists’ chagrin, Opening Day is here. But MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and the players union have agreed to so many preposterous rule changes that fans might have trouble recognizing the game they once revered as the national pastime.
The designated hitter, an American League abomination since 1973, will now be utilized in National League; the ghost runner, so-called even though he’s clearly visible to all, will begin the 10th inning on second base; post-season playoffs will be expanded to include 12 teams instead of 10, with the top two seeds getting a first-round bye, and, most laughable, special rules have been approved for individual players, the Shohei Ohtani rule.Madison Bumgarner, San Francisco Giants 2014 World Series Most Valuable Player now pitching for the Arizona Diamondbacks, best summed up the latest baseball nonsense. Said Bumgarner: “I don’t know, I’m sure we’ll have a different rule in three months, maybe the next year after that. We’ll just make it up as we go. We’ll see whatever they like, the flavor of the week.… Maybe we’ll start playing with a wiffle ball or something.”
None of the 2022 changes are surprising. The players, despite their average $4.5 million annual salaries, want to get off the field and to their awaiting post-game buffets ASAP. Expanded playoffs mean more money for the players and owners, and the Ohtani rule helps keeps baseball’s biggest draw on the field longer.
Pity the beleaguered Cleveland cranks who must put up with MLB nonsense and their team’s woke new nickname, the Guardians. The Indians are gone, and their 100-plus year history down the memory hole where they’ll co-exist with their old mascot, Chief Wahoo. Indian fans can take comfort, however, in their rich past. Fire-balling 21-year-old Bob Feller, a World War II hero, started seven Opening Days, and in the 1940 game, he pitched a no-hitter. On the road in Chicago and at the White Sox Comiskey Park, Feller, in 40-degree weather, fired a 1-0 no hitter, the first of three in his career, along with 12 one-hitters.
More to the point about the former Indians, now Guardians, in 1939, Feller got the nod to open the season, this time at home in Cleveland Stadium against the Detroit Tigers. The Cleveland weather was so frigid that only about 24,000 fans showed up in a ball park that accommodated 80,000 to watch Feller dominate the Tigers 5-1, and shut down future Hall of Famers Charlie Gehringer and Hank Greenberg, although the pair did draw their team’s only two walks. In his compete game win, Feller struck out 10, and allowed three hits.
Those fans that braved the cold got a special treat. Judy Garland, only 16 but already an MGM contract player, sang the National Anthem. Garland had completed filming on The Wizard of Oz; the movie was in the can as they say in Hollywood, but had not been released. In Cleveland for a two-week performance at the old State Theater, Garland got her manager’s permission to attend the senior prom at the University School, a local prep school. Since young Judy’s schedule didn’t allow much time for socializing, her manager okayed the prom.
On game day, despite the bitter, wet weather, Garland willingly posed for photos with Indians’ manager Oscar Vit and the Tigers’ pilot Del Baker. And – get this – she also posed in a magnificent full-feathered Indian headdress.
Although both superstars in their respective professions, the lives of Feller and Garland took different directions. From an early age, relentless overwork that studio bosses forced upon her, despite her tender age, eventually led to Garland’s drug and alcohol abuse. Garland had financial trouble with the Internal Revenue Service for nonpayment of back taxes, and eventually died in London from a drug overdose at age 47.
Feller, a teen standout like Garland, was so popular at such a young age that NBC broadcast his high school graduation to a national audience. “Rapid Robert,” as Feller was called, went on to a Hall of Fame career, and served as a U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer during World War II where he earned six campaign ribbons and eight battle stars. Ironically, because he was attending to his cancer-stricken, dying father, the patriotic Feller had a military deferment, but nevertheless enlisted only days after Pearl Harbor.
After Feller’s death at age 91, Mike Hegan, then-Indians’ broadcaster and son of former Feller battery mate Jim Hegan, said that the Indians of the 40s and 50s were the face of Cleveland, and Bob was the face of the Indians. Hegan continued: “But, Bob transcended more than that era. In this day of free agency and switching teams, Bob Feller remained loyal to the city and the team for over 70 years. You will likely not see that kind of mutual loyalty and admiration ever again.”
The Guardians’ woke ownership, the meddling, menacing Manfred and the selfish players union have little concept of loyalty or of honoring baseball’s rich tradition. As Bummy said, “It is what it is,” like it or lump it.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
Opening Day 1939 Or When Athletes Really Were Heroes Opening Day 1939 Or When Athletes Really Were Heroes Opening Day 1939 Or When Athletes Really Were Heroes
Open School Advocate Clarice Schillinger Seeks Lt. Gov. Seat
By Bob Small
Returning to the Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Race, we have two very distinct GOP female candidates, as per Politics1.com: Carrie Lewis DelRosso and Clarice Schillinger, both of whom are Republicans.
We will cover Carrie Lewis Delrosso in a future post.
After the primaries, she created Back to School Pa., a statewide initiative that has given out over $600,000 to school board candidates, and provides candidate training and providing them with statewide media access. She was featured in a March 1, 2021 article in the New York Times. The funding, it should be added, comes from various sources:
She is married to Mike Schillinger, a carpenter and they have three children.
She first became an activist working to clean up the now-shuttered Willow Grove Naval Air Station thought to be a source of cancer in Horsham, Warminster, and Warrington, due to chemicals leaking into the groundwater.
It is now a superfund site.
However, she has made one serious enemy inSimon Campell, a transplanted Brit who has recorded a serious of four YouTube videos titled Bollocks.
The only previous female lieutenant governor in Pa was the indomitable Catherine Baker Knoll, who served from 2003-2008 under Gove Ed Rendell. For a good overview of her life, including her favorite motorcycle helmets, see The Steel Woman of the Steel City.
Open School Advocate Clarice Schillinger Seeks Lt. Gov. Seat
Afro American Lt Gov Candidates From Both Parties In Pa
By Bob Small
According to the University of Virginia Center for Politics, almost half the states elect lieutenant governors separately from governors. This can lead to governors being from the other party than lieutenant governor though not normally in Pennsylvania.
Politics1.com lists 13 Candidates for lieutenant governor, 11 men and two women, nine of whom are Republican along with four Democrats. This includes the current incumbent Democrat, John Fetterman, who is also a candidate for US Senate. About half of these candidates are current or former state representatives.
Among the Afro-American candidates who are seeking to break the color barrier at this office in 2022 are; Austin Davis, a state rep from Mon Valley whom Democrat gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro has endorsed; Republican Chris Frye who is the first Afro-American Mayor of New Castle, Pa. in it’s 200 year history and is e is pro-life, anti CRT, and believes in less government and more faith; and Republican and Hatboro resident James Jones , a Navy veteran and the founder of Silverback Commodities, who describes himself as a pro-life Christian constitutionalist and “Frederick Douglas Conservative.”
Austin Davis
Chris Frye
James Jones
Afro American Lt Gov Candidates From Both Parties In Pa
