Looking Back

I've been stuck in a rut with writing my next post for over a month now. 

I started one about Ryan Braun's half-hearted explanation/apology and how it reflected what a bully he is, particularly with regard to the sample collector, Dino Laurenzi, Jr., about whom and his suspected biases he went on at great length in his "I'm innocent" press conference in 2012, but who only merited the following in his admission of guilt: "I sincerely apologize to everybody involved in the arbitration process, including the collector, Dino Laurenzi, Jr." when Braun finally fessed up and admitted to cheating this summer.

But I have grown bored with Braun and his ego-centric behavior, and, frankly, bored with my loathing of him.

I began another post about my prediction at the start of the year that this was a seminal year for the status of soccer in the U.S., from the Men's National Team, which was largely in turmoil and not playing particularly well at the time, to the Women's National Team which was trying to adjust to Life With(out) Pia, to the new women's league and where each was at now. But work and vacation got in the way, and I decided to wait until after the U.S. v. Mexico matches (the women this week, the men next week) to proclaim my current judgment on those issues. (But here's a teaser - Sydney Leroux is good.)

The third one that I started and never finished is the one I regret the most not completing. It celebrated the achievements of two friends, one a coach, the other a golfer. The coach achieved this June what he had long deserved - the right to call himself a State Championship coach. I considered him one of my closest coaching colleagues at Charleston Catholic, and I intended to recognize his achievement, not just in winning a championship (finally), but in always doing things the right way as well as his success in mentoring several generations of athletes, which far outweighs anything he or they will ever accomplish on the field.

Catholic players celebrate their state championship
(photo from WVMetroNews).

The other friend is a far better golfer than me, but had never had a hole-in-one (although he did have a double eagle - an "albatross" - which is a far more difficult and rare achievement) before making his first ace late this year. I would have held him up as use an example of how good things come to those who wait.

But that post, too, went unpublished as it seemed that timeliness was important and ultimately unachievable.

Then today I had an epiphany of sorts as I listened to an NPR interview with Trent Reznor and realized that I am closing in on the 100th post of this blog that began with a whimper more than three years ago.

Reznor spoke in the interview of the changes in his perspective and his music; from the angry but "meticulous" noise of Nine Inch Nails to that of his new album which is much more melodic and at times downright mainstream. He also talked about writing about what he's feeling, what he believes in, and how he wants his music to sound at any particular time. And about trying not to care about what his fans (or former fans) may think.

I appreciate what Reznor is saying. When I first decided to write a blog, I admit it was largely self-promotion (or "business development" as lawyers like to say). I did, though, have enough self-awareness to realize that if I started another employment or internet law blog I'd soon lose interest and hate the idea, the writing, and the idea of writing.

Where I differ with Reznor is that I do care about whether anyone reads my posts and what they think about them. Unlike Reznor, I'm hardly a recognized member of this particular community. And just as importantly because it would be pure narcissism to write and not care whether my readers enjoy, or at least give thought to, what I write.

So, no retrospective as we near another landmark (the two I did near the first and second anniversaries of this blog are among the least read of all my posts -- I'm a little slow but I come around eventually). But an acknowledgement that I've found topics that have kept my interest for almost 100 times now and the hope that occasionally they've done the same for you.

Now if you'll excuse my I've got a black t-shirt to put on and some NIN to listen to ...

Time to Even it Up?

What I kind of remember about 1968:

The USS Pueblo.

My Lai.

The Chicago Democratic Convention.

What I remember about 1968:

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos.

What happened in 1968 that is still so clear it's like it happened yesterday:

Bobby Kennedy's assassination.

The World Series.

It's hard to convey to anyone born decades later than me how crazy it was to be a 10-year-old in 1968. Everything seemed relatively safe in my sleepy little Michigan town. Until "everything" started to explode.  Dr. King, the Olympics, the riots, the election, the Chicago cops. Who could you trust? Where was it safe? 

I watched most of the 1968 World Series at school. Not on my tablet. Not on my i-phone. On a grainy black and white t.v. in my school cafeteria. I hung with every pitch and at-bat, as did my classmates, Detroit, and most of the Mitten State.

The Tigers helped everyone forget, for a while anyway, the turmoil that was 1968. It brought together a  city and a state torn apart by race, by inequality, by war. And it allowed all of us, for at least seven magical games, to think about something simple - competition. And to collectively succeed at something when success at anything seemed impossible.

Baseball was my sport as a kid. It was the only sport I played as an organized competition and the one I followed more than any other as a fan. I still have my baseball card collection. I can still name the starting nine of the Tigers that year (from memory, without cheating: c Bill Freehan; 1b Norm Cash; 2b Dick McAuliffe; 3b Don Wert; ss Ray Oyler; lf Willie Horton; cf Mickey Stanley; rf Al Kaline/Jim Northrup; pinch-hitter extraordinaire Gates Brown). I remember Denny McLain's 31 wins, and the pitching of Mickey Lolich, and Earl Wilson, and Joe Sparma, and John Hiller.

One of my boyhood heroes.

The Tigers romped through the American League that season, winning the pennant by 12 games. But ahead lay the St. Louis Cardinals and their pitching monster, Bob Gibson. The Tigers went down in the Series 3-1 at a time when only two teams had ever come back from such a deficit to win a seven game series. Gibson was unhittable in Games One and Four, and yet, somehow, a self-described pot bellied, big eared unheralded guy named Mickey stopped him and the Cards in Game Seven to win the Series.

All of this seemed relevant this evening, as I watched the Tigers clinch their 11th American League crown and await their National League opponent, which appears likely, for the fourth time, to be the St. Louis Cardinals. The "Gashouse Gang" Cardinals beat the Bengals in 1934, the Tigers won in '68, and the Cardinals were best again in 2006. It seems time to me to even that scoreline.

The ultimate twist of fate? While this ten year-old was watching the series in his little town in Michigan, rooting for the Tigers, there was a nine year-old girl watching in a small town outside of St. Louis, rooting just as hard for the Cardinals. We have been married now for 30 years. A lesson, perhaps, that sports can divide as well as unite. 

Civics 101

Okay folks, let's get something straight that I thought should have been clear after my post about Ryan Braun.

Most of us likely first learned this in 8th grade Civics class and since then have forgotten, misunderstood, misconstrued, or just plain ignored it. And it is this: "not guilty" does not mean "innocent."

I've been following the criminal trials of sports figures in Pennsylvania and DC with considerable interest over the past few weeks. I would assume that most lawyers, even those with limited criminal law experience (like me) saw the verdict in the Roger Clemens trial coming. The decision to take the Clemens case to trial, in the wake of the debacle of the Barry Bonds trial, was questionable to begin with. That the "star" witness of the government, Brian MacNamee, was a slimy, lying personal trainer/drug dealer didn't help.

The first trial ended by mistrial due to prosecutorial shenanigans that could have ended the case right then and there. Whether by mistake or a conscious decision, the prosecutors showed the jury a video tape that contained testimony that the Judge had already, clearly, ruled was not admissible. If it was a mistake, it was one that, in the words of the presiding Judge, "a first year law student" wouldn't make. If it was intentional, then it evidenced the desperateness with which the prosecution viewed its case. Either way, it wasn't a good sign.

When the Judge ruled that double jeopardy did not attach to the first trial, that the prosecution decided to take a second shot at Clemens was not surprising, but troubling. After seven weeks of laborious testimony the jury found Clemens not guilty. According to one of the jurors interviewed after the trial, the jury didn't believe MacNamee. Surprise!

Predictably, the Clemens verdict was announced as a complete exoneration. Surprisingly, the declaration came not from Clemens (who perhaps has at least learned something about prevarication through this process and merely said that he was grateful to the jurors and glad it was over) but from his grandstanding attorney, Rusty Hardin. After the verdict Hardin proclaimed: “I hope those in the public who made up their minds before there was a trial will now back up and entertain the possibility of what he (Clemens) has always said -- using steroids and HGH is cheating and was totally contrary to his entire career." 

Sorry Rusty, but the bit about steroid use being "totally contrary" to Clemens' career is simply absurd. Everything about Clemens' career, and particularly the dramatic, inexplicable improvement in his performance in his mid-to-late 30's (for example, his ERA at age 33 -- in the 1995 season-- was 4.18; at 34, 2.63; at 35, 2.05; and at 36, 2.65) screams PED use.

The decision of the government to try Clemens not once but twice on a case with flimsy physical evidence (cotton swabs in a beer can? Seriously?) and a reprehensible star witness likely gives Clemens ammunition to proclaim his innocence when staking a claim for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame, something that would likely be unimaginable (see, McGwire, Mark, and Sosa, Sammy) if his lying to Congress had merely been ignored.

Clemens posing with wife Debbie.
She admitted to being injected with HGH. 

Which, of course, may be the other problem. As an officer of the court, I firmly believe that oaths should be taken seriously and those who lie under oath should be punished. But can anyone in the general public get all that worked up about lying to Congress, particularly since people in much higher postiions (i.e., President, Supreme Court Justice) have done it and gotten away with it in the past? And don't even get me started with the propensity of politicians to lie -- there's an entire cottage industry devoted to fact-checking political ads for heaven's sake.

To be honest, my interest in the Roger Clemens perjury trial waxed and waned with its interminability, while that in the Jerry Sandusky case did not, as the prosecution wrapped up its case in less than four days of testimony. The prosecution undoubtedly could have called more witnesses and introduced more physical evidence but likely thought they ran the risk of numbing the jury to the gruesome and overwhelming testimony against Sandusky.

Some were surprised that the jury took as long as it did in deliberation and expressed concern that they might actually be considering a not guilty verdict. I thought at the time (and news articles afterwards have seemed to bear this out) that the jury was simply doing what the judge had instructed them to do: carefully consider the evidence with regard to each and every crime with which Sandusky was charged.

That the jury found Sandusky not guilty on three of the 48 counts against him speaks volumes of the care with which the jury considered the evidence and the charges, and likely makes any potential appeal by Sandusky much more difficult. That one of those counts was one against the unnamed and unidentified child that former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary testified about is also damning, as the jurors found his testimony particularly helpful in their overall deliberations, and yet apparently decided that there was not sufficient evidence of a sexual act in that case.

Both in the Clemens and Sandusky trials our system of justice was served. In Clemens case, it probably never should have gotten to that point. But while Sandusky was guilty, over and over again, Clemens was not found innocent. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

Patriotic Correctness Redux

I am not a fan of Ozzie Guillen. Nor of Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez, despite what some of my more conservative friends may think. And unlike my attitude towards Rick Pitino, I don't see those inclinations changing anytime soon.

Nevertheless, I am perplexed by tone of the criticism by Major League Baseball and head shill Bud Selig (you can add him to that list in the first paragraph as far as I'm concerned too) to a statement that Guillen recently made regarding Castro that led to a five game suspension from his new job as manager of the Miami (formerly Florida) Marlins.

In an interview with Time Magazine, Guillen, who has a notoriously large mouth which one foot or the other often seems to occupy, allegedly made comments that supported Castro. While initially saying that he "love(s) Fidel Castro" even Guillen immediately saw the danger in that comment and amended it somewhat.  "I respect Fidel Castro," Guillen said. "You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for he last 60 years, but that mother____ is still here."

Let me be clear: while I am not privy to Guillen's contract with the Marlins, I assume that the team is perfectly within its rights to suspend him for the comments he made as not in the best interest of the team. In fact, given Guillen's past history of stupid utterances reflecting his homophobia and, indeed, expressing his admiration for Castro, I would be astonished if Guillen's contract did not have a clause allowing him to be disciplined or terminated for comments deemed detrimental to the club.

While Guillen has (unconvincingly) tried to explain his comments by saying that he was thinking in Spanish and talking in English during the interview (so, Spanish for the word "love" really means "hate"?), I think we're missing something a little more fundamental here. 

It's clear that Selig didn't see Guillen's punishment as sufficient to quell the uproar in Miami over his comments. So, instead, he went out of his way to proclaim Guillen's opinions as, essentially, un-American in a transparent attempt to pander to the city's Cuban-American community (and to avoid losing their support at the turnstiles, on which Selig is banking to turn around the moribund franchise and fill its brand-new $515 million ballpark).

In his statement, Selig intoned, in part: "As I have often said, baseball is a social institution with important social responsibilities. All of our 30 Clubs play significant roles within their local communities, and I expect those who represent Major League Baseball to act with the kind of respect and sensitivity that the game's many cultures deserve."

So, basically, whatever your largest potential audience is in any location, pander to them. Only offer opinions with which they agree. And that bit about social responsibilities? Well, as long as the First Amendment isn't included, we're all for them.

Selig's hypocrisy is compounded, of course, by the fact that he took no action, and made no proclamation, about Guillen's comments regarding Castro in 2008. And most significantly, by his own appearance in Havana, seated beside Fidel himself, in 1998 at an Orioles-Cuban All-Star team exhibition.

Orioles owner Peter Angelos, Fidel Castro, and Bud Selig.
I know what you're thinking. It's not Photoshopped.

And so, we have the 2012 Selig, trying to sell tickets in Miami to the Cuban-American community by denouncing Guillen as not meeting MLB's "important social responsibilities" while we gaze at the 1998 version of Selig sitting next to the man Guillen is criticized for admiring. Why? 

Money. It was okay for Bud to sit next to Fidel in 1998 because, well, because Bud thought it the best way for baseball to make a few bucks at the time. And, now, it's okay for Bud to eviscerate Guillen for admiring the man he once sat next to because, well, because Bud thinks that's the best way for baseball to make a few bucks.

At least Joesph McCarthy had an ideological basis for his witch hunt. Trampling an entire nation's First Amendment rights in the name of freedom, while horrifying and divisive, had a patina of patriotism. Selig's trampling of an individual's rights has no such gloss. It's just business as usual for Bud, according to what he believes is best for his business. And if that pesky Constitution gets in the way? Well, just place yourself on the side of "social responsibility" and everything will be fine.

The Entitled Athlete

Turns out I wasn't the only one who thought that David Brooks got it wrong.

The blogosphere has been full of commentary about Brooks' commentary regarding Jeremy Lin. Most take the position that Brooks didn't know what the heck he was talking about when attempting to make the point that it's difficult for an athlete to be religious and succeed at the highest level.

A sports story that unfolded this past week has legitimized Brooks' thought that preparation for, and success at, the highest level of professional sports tends to result in selfishness rather than the selflessness that many religions demand.

Brooks did meander about in his recent column, concluding that religious athletes in general, and Jeremy Lin in particular, struggle in balancing the self-sacrifice that the Judeo-Christian ethic (although Brooks more broadly concludes "the religious ethos") demands with the will to excel in sports, and the fame and attention that come with that success. In response, I argued that sports can, especially at the amateur level, teach us the same things that that our religions require of us: to work for the common good; to subsume ones' personal achievements to the benefit of the team; that the repetition of practice moves us a little closer to unattainable perfection.

Ryan Braun, however, did his best this past week to prove that often arrogance, self-importance, and a sense of entitlement often go hand-in-hand with athletic success. 

Braun is the baseball player for the Milwaukee Brewers who tested positive for steroids (at 20 times the normal level, mind you, when four times is enough to warrant a finding of doping) during last season's playoffs. An arbitration hearing was held on his appeal from the 50 game suspension that he was dealt in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the teams and the Players' Union. Braun won his appeal, apparently on the technicality that the protocol for the MLB drug testing procedure had not been followed.  According to ESPN:

In his appeal, Braun didn't argue evidence of tampering and didn't dispute the science, but argued protocol had not been followed.  Multiple sources confirmed to ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn that Braun questioned the chain of custody and collection procedure.

So, essentially, good lawyering and a technicality got Braun off. As a lawyer who has heard a "not guilty" verdict on behalf of his client, I appreciate the arbitrator's decision for exactly what it was -- a finding for Braun because MLB did not follow its protocol. That decision, however, was not a proclamation of innocence.

But Braun couldn't let it go at that. Instead, the day after the arbitration decision was handed down, he held a press conference at which he announced the decision as one of vindication. "I will continue to take the high road," Braun said. "We won because the truth was on my side. I was a victim of a process that completely broke down and failed as it was applied to me in this case. Today's about making sure this never happens to anyone else who plays this game." He also took a swipe at the man whose job it was to collect, store, and ship Braun's sample by saying that "we spoke to biochemists and scientists, and asked them how difficult it would be for someone to taint the sample.  They said, if they were motivated, it would be extremely easy."

Mr. Not Guilty Proclaims his Innocence.

So much for the high road.

What Braun didn't say, of course, is that there was no evidence that his sample had been tampered with. Or that his lawyers had argued that it had been. Or the complete lack of ability of the "motivated" villain to tamper with the sample of a specific player, since the samples are identified only by a number, not name, and are sealed in the player's presence. Or why MLB, especially since its Commissioner is the former owner of the club for whom Braun toils and whose statue sits outside of Miller Park where he plays 81 times a season, would condone, let alone instigate, the tampering.

Braun's throwing of the sample collector under the bus resulted in the collector coming forward to defend himself. Yes, Ryan, he has a name, and a reputation to protect. In doing so, Dino Laurenzi, Jr. made it even more clear than it already had been that while Braun had succeeded in beating the rap, the evidence against him was indisputable.

In choosing to incorrectly proclaim his vindication when it didn't occur, Braun perhaps didn't act much differently than others would have given the opportunity. That he chose to justify his false innocence by singling out someone who by all appearances was just doing his job, who had no explained or even conjectured bias against Braun, is a completely selfish act that certainly fits Brooks' profile of the modern professional athlete. None of Braun's actions, from the time that he gave the sample up through his lawyer's response to Laurenzi's statement, have been intended to benefit anyone but Braun.

Braun, of course, is not alone when it comes to boorish behavior by athletes. In fact, just this past week Tiger Woods, the poster-child for self-absorbed athletes everywhere, engaged in yet another attempt to intimidate a reporter who asked a question that Woods did not believe required a response.

There is no doubt that athletics can teach us values consistent with those of our religions. But there is also no doubt that the single-mindedness necessary to achieve at the highest level of sports, the unshakable belief in oneself that he or she can make it to the top, and the fawning attention from parents, coaches, hangers-on, fans and often the media that accompanies that success can also create self-centered individuals who, other than their value as entertainers, have nothing to offer to society as a whole.