Author: opinionstogo

Joe Maddon At Home In Hyde Park

When I was a kid in Philadelphia, my family lived about two blocks from the house where the Phillies’All-Star shortstop, Granny Hamner, resided. (I doubt that anyone other than Tom McEwen, Don Zimmer and Larry Thornberry would remember him.) This wasn’t the Philly suburbs, mind you, but a city neighborhood of row (not town) houses. Little did I realize what an anomaly that would become – a prominent sports celebrity living in a neighborhood.

Now, because such celebs tend to make a whole lot of money and too many people want a piece of their time, they’re pretty much relegated to gated communities and other high-end variations on an exclusive-enclave theme. You see them at the stadium or arena or maybe a banquet or VIP event – not reading the paper at Indigo or Starbucks after a morning stroll or bike ride.

Unless you’re talking about Devil Rays’ manager Joe Maddon.

Much has been made of his “new breed” style. A college-educated, iPod-savvy, red-wine savoring, diet-conscious bicycle enthusiast. His gray hair is semi-spiked. He doesn’t need a cuspidor. His girl friend just graduated from law school.

After all his years with the Angels of Anaheim, Maddon, 52, figured he’d try to replicate his California experience by living, once again, on the beach after he was hired by the Rays. But one of his players gave him a heads up about what might suit him best in the Tampa Bay area.

“Josh Paul (a catcher, who also has moved on to the Rays) said that I needed to check out Hyde Park,” said Maddon. “He said it was my kind of place. He was right. You don’t find many neighborhoods right in the city like this any more. And Bayshore is obviously special.”

Granted, Hyde Park is more ritzy than “Rocky,” but it’s also a leafy, historic, family-friendly neighborhood. It has its share of doctors, lawyers, and industry captains, but certainly no sports celebrities.

Maddon is currently renting there with an eye on several bungalows. He needs one with a garage apartment – to accommodate visiting family and friends from Pennsylvania. He owns a late 19th century Victorian house in his native Hazelton, Pa., and is enamored of the Craftsman bungalow architectural touches he sees around him.

“I’m comfortable here,” he underscored.

One footnote to Maddon’s current, temporary townhouse setup. “Tampa Bay Illustrated,” the upscale lifestyle magazine, has a Maddon feature upcoming for its July issue. “TBI” came by for a photo shoot last month expecting, well, the luxury digs of a major league manager. Maybe some languid shots by the pool or a lavishly appointed living room or a posh, in-home theater.

They got more of a “bachelor apartment,” according to Maddon.

Reportedly, creative minds ultimately carried the day.

Vintage Philly

Speaking of baseball, anomalies and my home town, the “Philadelphia Inquirer” recently ran a nostalgia piece on Babe Ruth. On Sept. 3, 1923, Ruth, 28, led the New York Yankees to a doubleheader sweep of the Philadelphia Athletics. Immediately afterwards, Ruth left Shibe Park – still in uniform – and was whisked by private car to the blue-collar Kensington section of the city and the rectory of the Ascension of Our Lord Catholic Church. There he changed into an Ascension uniform.

He would play first base and bat clean-up in a charity game to raise money to pay for a new Ascension ball field. The well-promoted exhibition drew an overflow crowd estimated at an unprecedented (for non-Major League) 10,000 fans. Ruth went one-for-four, including a towering blast that was estimated at 600 feet by observers. He also stole a base. But Ascension lost 2-1 to Lit Bros.

The Philadelphia media was understandably all over the event – but cut the Bambino no slack on his triple-header endurance test for charity. “Ruth’s Bat Fails Ascension Club” read the headline in the next day’s “Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.”

A vintage Philly media moment.

A more contemporary take on Philadelphia’s famously fault-finding media came from Phillies’ Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt, whose career spanned most of the 1970s and ’80s.

“Philadelphia is the only city,” deadpanned Schmidt, “where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day.”

Still a great line.

Still true.

Quoteworthy

It can be argued that Jim Norman, chairman of the Hillsborough County Commission, has been on the wrong side of some issues. A senseless sports complex, the too-long deferred hike in impact fees, uncommunicated plans for hotel room-tax revenues and deference to the wit and wisdom of Ronda Storms come readily to mind.

But it’s only fair to parcel out well-earned plaudits as well. His response during the recent discussion of changes in the county’s public art program was a classic and spot on. The sheriff’s office wanted to waive the public art requirement on the Falkenburg Road Jail expansion.

Norman suggested “razor wire” would be appropriate public art for jails.

Bayshore Safety

So far, so good, it would seem with the new traffic signal at Bayshore Boulevard and Howard Avenue. The northbound traffic flow appears relatively unaffected. No reports of motorists not adapting to the infrequently used, pedestrian-activated signal.

However, there’s still a clear and present danger: those ubiquitous u-turns and NASCAR wannabes who merge during rush hours and take up parts of both inside lanes.

*ESPN

There’s a lot not to like about Barry Bonds and his enhanced performances since 1999. But Bonds has not lacked for enablers. Major League Baseball and the Players’ Association were never credible in denial. And the media played along.

Much of it still does. None more so than ESPN.

There have been ESPN cut-ins for live coverage of every Bonds’ at-bat. As in when will he tie or pass Babe Ruth’s 714 home run total? Since when did passing the player in second place warrant that kind of coverage? Much less doing so under a steroid cloud.

Hank Aaron (755), whose dark cloud was the vestiges of racism, wasn’t accorded the Second Coming treatment when he passed Willie Mays (660) before surpassing Ruth.

Nothing, however, is as journalistically repugnant as ESPN’s weekly reality show, “Bonds on Bonds.” It’s as “real” as Bonds wants to make it. It’s his forum.

It gives show biz a bad name.

Give ESPN an * too.

Priorities: Oil, Environment, Iran – and Cuba?

It’s being billed as the “irony of ironies.”

It’s the Cuba-China plan for oil drilling on Cuba’s side of the Florida Strait, less than 50 miles from Key West. India also could collaborate. And it’s all legal. Since 1977 — and renewed less than six months ago — the United States and Cuba have agreed by treaty to be rational about something: we will divide the Strait and preserve each other’s economic rights. That includes, perforce, the commodity of commodities — oil.

But the U.S., of course, is precluded from any involvement. Too environmentally close to drill, which is true, and too politically explosive to explore sensible options, which is a travesty. Except for the treaty, ironically, normal diplomatic compromise has been largely oxymoronic throughout the 43 fruitless years of the Cuban trade embargo.

Time to go unilateral again.

To that end, Florida’s Democratic Senator Bill Nelson has introduced a measure that would block renewal of that (recently renewed) 1977 treaty and deny foreign companies access to U.S. markets if they were to persist in drilling off the coast of Cuba. The denial and revocation of (foreign executives’) visas is part of the Nelson bill.

Not exactly the Dale Carnegie approach to foreign policy. In a world with too many countries already looking geopolitically askance at the U.S., the timing couldn’t be worse for such Strait talk.

But then Florida’s other senator, the Republican Mel Martinez, reverts to parochial form. As in pandering to South Florida’s Cuban-American exile crowd. No, he hasn’t signed on to the Nelson bill. But Martinez’s press secretary, Ken Lundberg, explains – to the degree possible — his reasoning: the Nelson measure “could present problems with the entire Cuban embargo. There’s no question there are some who might use this (oil issue) as leverage to reopen the entire situation.”

Dios mio! Say it ain’t so, Mel.

The real issues here are energy, the environment and America’s credibility in trying to rally support for sanctions against a truly legitimate target — the uranium-enriching Iran of the apocalyptic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And Martinez is concerned about how the counterproductive Cuban embargo may be impacted?

We’re beset by the unholy alliance of energy crisis and civilizational clash and Martinez is still stuck in a time warp, fighting the Cold War.

Entitlement Housing

Much has been made of the inconsistencies of the Tampa Housing Authority’s application of eviction guidelines. The THA answers to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which makes the (“One Strike”) rules. HUD, however, does permit housing authorities to use discretion in allowing for extenuating circumstances.

And where there is flexibility and less than uniform enforcement of rules, there will be disparities and, at the very least, perceptions of unfairness. It comes with the territory – and that territory includes the THA’s responsibility to do what it deems best to reduce violent crime and drug use.

Now cue Connie Burton, the poster tenant for public housing eviction melodrama.

She’s a former resident of the Robles Park Village public housing property who was evicted – after six years of legal resistance – in 2005. The eviction scrum dates to the 1999 arrest of her son, who was charged with selling drugs at Robles. He’s still in jail.

Along the litigious way, in which the THA incurred $472,000 in legal fees, she turned down the authority’s compromise – a move-to-the-front-of-the-line Section 8 voucher. Burton remains feisty and defiant. She thinks she was singled out because she’s an outspoken community activist who has publicly criticized THA president Jerome Ryans. She relishes having cost the THA nearly $500,000 to defend the legality of federal policy that ultimately involved the U.S. Supreme Court. She took it that far on principle, she maintains, and has no regrets.

Would that her eviction battle and the constitutionality of HUD’s rules were the only principles in play here. Putting aside the issue of whether HUD should have reimbursed THA and how THA could have better spent that money, there’s the whole concept of public housing itself.

Public housing – not unlike unemployment compensation and welfare benefits – was never intended to be anything other than a governmental hand – not a hand out. For those down on their luck and needing help getting through a tough time – not to be defined as decades or generations.

In the case of the ample and able-bodied Burton, now 50, she had been at Robles since 1987. Eighteen years. Taxpayer-subsidized entitlement housing for the majority of her adult life.

There would be a principle there too — were it not for the eviction of self-reliance and personal pride.

Showtime

The changing of the White House press secretary guard – Fox News’ smooth Tony Snow for the beleaguered Scott McClellan – underscores the reality of being the president’s point man to the Washington press corps. To be effective, that person has to be a performer – and an insider. McClellan was neither.

Ari Fleischer, McClellan’s predecessor, did it fairly well. He took his lumps, but he was nobody’s piñata. Mike McCurry, one of Bill Clinton’s press secretaries, did it even better.

The job is about more than “briefing.” It’s about having a presence and being able to give as well as you get from the often preening, gotcha crowd always on the prowl for conflict. A disarming wit is a prerequisite for the performance. As is the intuition to know the difference between a self-serving sound bite sure to make the evening news shows – and a red-flag comment sure to cost the administration globally. There’s good reason to assume that everybody who matters is paying attention.

But you can’t be all sizzle and no steak. The press secretary has to be more than just a better jouster. He has to be obviously in command of the facts. That only happens if he’s a player behind the scenes. He can’t just be a flack sent out to stay on rote message.

Especially now, with the president’s poll ratings and credibility tanking to Nixonian depths. Let’s just say that Snow, a proven performer, had some leverage to assure he would be an insider with all the access he needs.

Moussaoui Musing

For many Americans, it will never be possible to square the life sentence given convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui with the horrific happenings of that awful day. His vile, anti-American manner only magnified matters.

As it turned out, no chance of parole and 23 hours a day of solitary confinement will have to do.

There was, however, one capital punishment option apparently not considered. Life in prison – in the general population.

Lightning: Winning Ways Linger On

It’s now been the better part of a fortnight since we said “So long, Stanley.” The Lightning, alas, was finally pried away from its two-year, lockout-extended grip on the Stanley Cup.

The disappointment was the culmination of the perfect hockey storm.

The colossally stupid lockout produced a salary cap at precisely the time that the Lightning had a bounty of prime-time players they wanted to keep. The cap, in effect, precluded that, and goalie Nikolai Khabibulin cashed in by bolting for bigger bucks in Chicago. Ironically, one of the targeted beneficiaries of a cap would be smaller-market franchises such as Tampa Bay that can never outspend the New Yorks and Chicagos.

A few others also left, but nobody, especially in big games, stands as tall as a top goalie. Without one, you can’t win enough – let alone win it all with a John Grahame between the pipes. It was the beginning of the end of the reign.

And, true, there were other factors, including rule changes that magnified mobility chinks in the defensive armor and the luck of the draw in getting up-tempo, high-scoring Ottawa, the worst possible match-up for the Lightning, in the playoffs’ first round. And maybe that oversized Stanley Cup banner and those loudly expectant, sell-out crowds in a sequel-obsessed culture induced more pressure than inspiration.

The cap, the rules, the anxiety. Hat tricked by fate.

But let’s also remember this. In a professional sports universe that is too often defined and dominated by its rap-sheet prodigies, talented boors and celebrity mutants, the Lightning wore their championship mantle well. Individually and collectively, they made a city and a region proud. They were fun to rally around – and identify with.

They play an incredibly intense, collision-course game in front of frenzied fans — yet manage to keep it all in perspective. Tough and nice are not incompatible.

The players come from uniformly middle-class backgrounds and act like they know they’re fortunate to make a very good living playing a game. They are usually cut clean and typically well spoken in more than one language. They look like John Lynch on skates.

As a league, note that when a player scores, it only results in a fleeting moment of exuberance – not some “look-at-me,” cartoonish choreography. And there are no NHL edicts telling players that “business casual” attire — when representing one’s employer – doesn’t include (backwards) ball cap-doo-rag-shades-T-shirt-and-bling ensembles.

When’s the last time a Lightning player has been mentioned in the context of drug bust, DUI arrest, battery, sexual assault, road rage, weapons possession, parole violation or paternity suit? Or just generically acting like an arrogant horse’s hindquarters in public?

No, the National Hockey League is not the Ice Capades. But we also know what else it’s not.

Go, Bolts.