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America Bigger Than Baseball — Remembering Jerry Coleman

By Joe Guzzardi

Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Coleman was a New York Yankees second baseman who won the 1949 Rookie of the Year award, and in 1950, the World Series Most Valuable Player award. After his playing career ended in 1957, Coleman broadcast New York Yankees, California Angels and then, for 40 years, San Diego Padres games. Coleman also had a brief, unsuccessful stint as the Padres manager.

Although Ted Williams and Coleman served in World War II and Korea, only Coleman saw active duty in both conflicts. In World War II, Williams was a stateside flying instructor, while Coleman flew Douglas SBD Dauntless bombers over the Pacific.

Williams and Coleman were flying buddies in Korea. During Williams’ 39 Korean combat missions, often as Colonel John Glenn’s wingman, enemy fire hit the plane of “Teddy Ballgame” and forced a crash landing. But as harrowing as Williams’ experience was, during one flight deep into North Korea, Coleman watched his tentmate Max Harper, flying just ahead of him, get shot down and perish. Despite the emotional burden of seeing his good friend killed in battle, Coleman carried on.

In his autobiography “An American Journey: My Life on the Field, In the Air and On the Air,” Coleman wrote about his early, challenging youth in San Francisco. Coleman’s father, Gerald, a former Pacific Coast League catcher with the San Francisco Seals and the Seattle Rainiers, drank heavily. One evening, suspecting that his wife Pearl was two-timing him, Gerald followed her to a local nightclub, and shot her several times, a crime for which he was never prosecuted. Young Coleman went to live with his grandmother, and excelled at sandlot baseball and high school basketball. In 1944, he enrolled in the Navy’s V-5 flight training program at age 18, the minimum age for the training. Coleman eagerly enlisted; he feared that World War II might end before he saw action.

The war over, the Yankees activated Coleman just in time for the thrilling 1949 pennant race that the Bronx Bombers won on the season’s last day when the team beat the Boston Red Sox. Coleman had his career year in 1950, but the Marines recalled him at the end of the 1951 season. By 1953, he had learned to fly Corsair attack planes, and was sent to Korea. By the end of the 1953 season, the 29-year-old Coleman, now physically and emotionally exhausted, returned to the Yankees where he struggled in his few token appearances. Coleman’s on-the-field slump continued in 1954 and 1955. By 1957, the playing days of the 33-year-old Coleman were over, and he embarked on his broadcasting career which eventually landed him in the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame where he received the Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in baseball broadcasting.

Coleman’s only baseball regret was when he piloted the Padres in the 1980s. San Diego finished last in their division, and Coleman happily returned to the broadcast booth where he spent more than four decades in total calling the Padres games.

When Coleman died at age 89 in La Jolla, Calif., he was a San Diego icon, most often known around town by his nickname, “The Colonel.” C. Paul Rogers III in his Society for Baseball Research Coleman biographywrote that the bona fide war hero was buried with full military honors, including a 21-gun salute and an F-18 flyover in the missing-man formation.

Looking back at his long and memorable life, Coleman said that he was most proud of his U.S. Marine Corp dive-bomber, fighter pilot days during his 57 World War II missions, and 63 Korean War missions. Coleman won 13 Air Metals, two Distinguished Flying Cross citations, the World War II Victory Metal, and eight other awards. Coleman once said that America “is bigger than baseball.”

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

America Bigger Than Baseball — Remembering Jerry Coleman

Biden Immigration Policy Swamping Arizona

By Joe Guzzardi

In Arizona, residents are increasingly frustrated and often angry at President Biden’s disregard for their safety and well-being as border patrol agents green-light illegal immigrants into the state. Last month, the Tucson Sector border patrol agents apprehended a cluster of 124 migrants, 105 of which were unaccompanied minors. Tucson Sector Chief John Modlin said that during the pre-Biden era, agents normally detained groups of single adults. On duty at the Douglas Station, horse patrol unit agents encountered 32 illegal border crossers from Mexico dressed in camouflage to blend in with the desert shrubs.

Unlike Texas that has plans to build eight emergency shelters with capacities of up to 14,000 children, including facilities at San Antonio and El Paso military bases, Arizona had been releasing migrant families into Yuma, Ajo and Gila Bend where nonprofits attempt to care for them. CBP also built “soft-sided facilities,” air-conditioned outdoor tents in Tucson and in Yuma that increased holding capacity for families and children.

But now that the Biden administration’s border mismanagement has reached Scottsdale’s high-rent district, where the median home price is $700,000, locals have protested more vocally. As part of a $530 millionagreement between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Texas-based nonprofit, Family Endeavors, a vacant Scottsdale hotel will provide up to 1,239 beds. A former Biden staffer facilitated the deal.

Yuma Mayor Doug Nicholls criticized the hotel plan and said it “actually encourages” more illegal immigration because the migrants know “they’re going to be released to an American hotel where they get room service….” Municipal officials said they only received one day’s notice. Protestors carrying “Save America” signs and the United States flag noted that armed guards surrounded the hotel, and that their reasonable concerns were ignored. Throughout Arizona, BLM bumper stickers and signs – Biden Loves Minors – are popping up.

A letter from Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich to the hotel property principals listed his questions, all unanswered, and his grave concerns about the detention center. First, who is in the facility and when would they leave? Second, will the migrants eventually filtrate into the community? Third, is a Scottsdale hotel the best location to house the migrants?

In his statement, Brnovich echoed Arizonans’ concerns. Brnovich wrote that Biden “is using Arizona as an experiment with his reckless border policies. I will continue to stand up for Arizonans and do everything I can to stop the Biden Administration’s attempt to abolish ICE. All of us will pay the price, not only with our tax dollars, but also with our national security, and the safety of our families.”

Arizonans and other states may be surprised to learn that, when it comes to expanding immigration, the Biden administration is just getting warmed up. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State announced that Central American migrants, often illegally in the U.S., with pending – not approved – asylum claims will be able to petition for their minors to join them. The Central American Minors Refugee and Parole(CAM) program originated in the Obama administration, and the Trump administration temporarily ended it. CAM represents another Biden administration overreach that will allow previously inadmissible aliens a legal path to the U.S., and access to affirmative benefits, employment authorization and eventually citizenship.

The majority of the tens of thousands of migrants who have unlawfully entered the U.S. since Biden took office will file asylum claims, and wait an average of 930 days for a decision. During that period, and with the Biden administration’s blessing, their Central American children and certain of their relatives will travel north on U.S. taxpayer-funded journeys. Also potentially included in the CAM free-for-all could be adult caregivers – grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles.

Looking back at the 2020 presidential election, neither Arizonans nor any other of the 49 states voted for a huge immigration increase, but that’s what they’re getting. Arizona certainly is not an open-borders promoter. Biden’s Arizona campaign was a nonstarter, and he won there by the narrowest margin, about 10,000 votes. Largely because President Trump turned off Arizona’s Republicans, for the first time since 1996, the former red state turned blue. But 10,000 votes aren’t a mandate to restructure Arizona, impose heavy costs on the existing residents, and underwrite the uninvited aliens’ daily lives.

Before providing for more migrants, Biden should give Arizona’s existing immigrant population a chance to achieve the coveted middle-class lifestyle. Currently, the state’s population is 31.7 percent Hispanic; 27 percent speak a language other than English at home, and the per capital income is $30,700.

Arizonans have mixed opinions about immigration. But they’re near-unanimous that they should have a voice in how federal immigration policy is determined, especially when it expands the state’s total population, and presents more societal challenges. Under the Biden regime, Arizonans, like the rest of America, are on the sidelines watching the illegal immigrant influx continue unabated.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Biden Immigration Policy Swamping Arizona

Biden Immigration Policy Swamping Arizona

Economics Drives Migration, Not Violence Or Climate

By Joe Guzzardi

The University of Houston’s Borders, Trade, and Immigration Institute (BTI), a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence unit, describes itself as a “a multi-disciplinary team of national and international experts” that works to create “technology-driven solutions, data-informed policies, workforce development opportunities … and trans-disciplinary education.”

In accordance with its mission to secure U.S. borders, facilitate legitimate trade and travel, and ensure immigration integrity, BTI released its report titled, “Economic Motivations of Migrants from the Northern Triangle.” BTI’s findings would have been valuable to Vice President Kamala Harris prior to her failed trip to Guatemala and Mexico to discuss migration’s root causes, and could have saved her the time, trouble and embarrassment. Based on BTI’s biannual surveys, researchers learned that, overwhelmingly, migrants left their home countries for economic reasons. The causes that the immigration lobby, congressional advocates and refugee resettlement groups most often cite, violence and natural disasters, barely register, if at all. Family reunification ranks second as a pull factor, but significantly behind economics.
 
When BTI asked Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans to identify the specific cause that prompted them to leave their home countries, 68 percent, 92 percent and 83 percent, respectively, named lack of employment or poor economic conditions. Only in El Salvador did violence register at 19 percent. Natural disasters scored 0 percent across the board.
 
As for the mainstream media’s unfounded claim that fear of violence is the Northern Triangle’s biggest push factor, BTI’s findings repudiated that falsehood. Asked if in the 12 months leading up to migrating, the surveyed person or any family member had actually been a victim of robbery or assault, threats or extortion, intimidation by gangs or criminal groups, religious or political persecution, domestic or family violence, conflicts with another person, homicide of a relative or an acquaintance, or violence in the local community, by a huge margin, often as high as 100 percent, the replies were “no.”
 
BTI found that for Northern Triangle migrants, U.S. employment increases their incomes ten-fold, an irresistible pull factor. Economics are the key, not only to the Northern Triangle job-seeking aliens, but also to the countries that they leave behind that are increasingly remittance-dependent, especially after the steep decline in monies sent back home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the first six months of 2020, remittances from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala dropped 8 percent, 4.2 percent, and 0.9 percent, respectively, or $219 million, $108 million and $47 million. These totals represent the largest percentage decline since 2009’s first six months when the Great Recession’s effect was felt most severely.
 
Biden’s critics are convinced that his administration has no interest in ending the illegal alien influx. Since Biden created the border surge, enforcement advocates are certain that he has little interest in ending the nation-busting problem, especially since an easy solution is readily at hand – E-Verify, the online program that would require employers to check their new hires’ eligibility. Only U.S. citizens and lawfully present immigrants can keep the jobs that they had recently been hired to perform.
 
For 40 years, government officials have known that jobs are the core attraction not just for Northern Triangle migrants, but from those coming to the U.S. from across the globe. In 1981, the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy concluded in its final report that “All studies indicate that undocumented/illegal aliens are attracted to this country by U.S. employment opportunities.” The New York Times followed up with an Op-Ed that powerfully reinforced the commission’s findings. The Times wrote that the best illegal immigration deterrent is to “make it harder for them [migrants] to get the jobs that lure them.” In turn, continued The Times, the most efficient way to achieve that goal “is to make it illegal for employers to hire them…. Without effective verification, there can be no effective enforcement of the borders.”
 
Since 1996, a full quarter of a century, Congress has half-heartedly kicked around various versions of E-Verify. None proved acceptable, and the program has never been nationally mandated, a remarkable disregard for national sovereignty and an insult to American workers. Pre-pandemic, U.S. workers had been displaced by about 8 million illegal immigrants of its total 12 million estimated population in nonfarm administrative, construction, manufacturing, leisure and health care jobs. As of 2020, more than 967,000 employers use E-Verify at more than 2.4 million worksites, with 1,500 new participating companies added weekly. Somehow, and to America’s detriment, E-Verify’s free cost, simplicity and its success have left Congress unswayed.
 
 
Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Economics Drives Migration, Not Violence Or Climate

Economics Drives Migration, Not Violence Or Climate