Baseball Ethics

I'm going back to my roots now with an essay on Baseball. I don't want to get overly sentimental or nostalgic but I have a long history with the game.
And Pete Rose is a figure from the past that periodically pops up. He was part of the studio commentator for FOX Sports this past post season and others correctly said he reminded them of 'my drunk uncle' with his slurred ramblings on hitting and pitching. Most players are careful with their words but Rose obviously is never wrong when it comes to baseball. So back in 1989 it was exposed that he was gambling on baseball, which is prohibited by baseball rules, and he was gambling on games he was coaching, and probably gambled on games he had played in. There are some obvious ethics issues because even if you 'always bet your team to win' then it will affect how your relieve pitchers...or if you took the over or under (total score) or specifics. It's classic rabbit hole of bad ethics because you suddenly control the game that you have bet on and if you have insider information on your pitching staff then you can bet with that information on your side. It's a testament to how confident Vegas Bookies are that they would take bets from the person involved in managing the team they are betting on. Vegas is confident because they aren't trying to beat a single person, they are trying to 'middle' the line so it can go either way...and that way 50% of people lose and 50% win...and the VIG is the profit. Vegas doesn't want to 'win'. No, they already know they will win the VIG, which is enough. They simply want to speculate on the lines in such a fashion that one incomplete pass, one missed field goal, one interception or fumble, one injury is the difference in the game and no one can predict those intangibles before the game. Well, Vegas can predict them in a way that will leave you heartbroken if you want to get into sports gambling. It's evil and addictive and all wrong for the sport, but it's not going anywhere. So, I pity Rose for having a personality that suited itself to the delusion of thinking oneself superior to Vegas bookmakers. I guarantee Rose lost more than he won and probably lost millions.

MLB recently rejected Rose's appeal to lift the ban. And even though he was banned for life, the current commissioner seemed to suggest that there were conditions that Rose could meet and the ban would be lifted. But Rose has not met those conditions, such as amending his ways, penitence, sorrow, etc. And this can't really be denied because even though most of the world only knows Rose through his commentary stints, it is clear he's no different than he was in 1989. But seated a few feet from Rose was the villainous Alex Rodriguez, who demonstrated equally abominable conduct on and off the field, but 'played the game' when it came time to serve his suspension and acted regretful, etc. It's all bullshit. Rose and ARod are no different at heart. Most players are looking out for themselves. ARod is not banned from baseball.

This is all kind of pointless since Rose doesn't want to coach or play. The only issue is if he's eligible for the Hall of Fame, which is actually a separate entity involving journalists, but since 1991 they have agreed that those people who have been banned from baseball will also not be eligible for Hall of Fame induction. Rose holds the all-time hit record and if you watch a highlights reel of him you see him running to first base on a walk, which is something no other player does. Today, a walk means the player will take off all the armor they wore to the plate and then jug/walk toward the base. Most walk the entire way.

Should the ban be lifted? Yes, and it's simply because as a player Rose was the best example of a true love of the game. No, he didn't really care about other players, he wasn't nice, he was interested in winning for his own purposes. But he has to be on everyone's all-time team list simply because when he played he was playing to win and he played his hardest on every play. That's all you can ask and it qualifies him for Baseball. A lifetime ban is something completely different...I don't even know what would deserve a lifetime ban. There's a list of people banned and they are mostly drug users and gamblers. But the silliness of banning someone with vague conditions, like, have you learned your lesson? I don't get that because it sounds very grade school to me, something in 4th grade. As adults we have to accept that suspensions and punishments should be pro-active. Some good should come out of it. Sure, Rose bet on baseball and he probably lost a ton of money, so we're going to punish him for losing money? You think he wanted to lose money? He loved winning games more than he loved winning money. Any gambler will tell you there is no joy in winning money because it immediately comes with the realization of how much you've lost and how deep in the hole you still are and...hey is the line moving on NY? I'll take the Over. It's instantly forgotten and only the high of betting is where the thrill lies. The winning or losing is totally meaningless. It's the action. So, Rose deserved to be suspended, certainly. But lift the ban and let the teams decide if they want to hire him. That's a decision they will make on their own. Let the Journalists decide if he belongs in the Hall of Fame. It's too much power in the Commissioner's hands to execute a person's career like this. He can suspend them and investigate, but that's all he can do. Consider that Rose was losing $10,000 a day gambling...and maybe $25,000 a week. If he were getting rich of gambling then we could lynch him, but he was losing consistently. So, either he was betting against his own team...and accidentally coaching to win...or he was betting in favor of his team and then losing despite his best efforts. Either way, he sucked at gambling and ultimately played and coached as a competitor, not a gambler.

The last comment I want to make is on ticket scalping. Stub Hub is a ticket brokering network where people can buy tickets at premium rates. Season ticket holders sell their own tickets...and a $17 seat ends up costing $250. This practice is ignored by the Commissioner, who pretends to be interested in integrity. Fine, let's talk about integrity. Let's talk about $1000 for a family to go see a baseball game. How is that good for baseball? I ask you. It's no good and it's within the power of the Commissioner to change it for the integrity of baseball. Will they? No, because they don't care about the fan, they only care about money, which makes them 10x worse than Pete Rose, who was addicted to winning.

I ask you this, The Red Sox remained segregated, despite horrible win-loss record, for 14 years after baseball was desegregated. The 1st Commissioner of baseball, Kenesaw Landis did not oppose desegregation of baseball but he could not force a team to hire a black player. Isn't it possible to look at Pete Rose the same way? To investigate and publicize your findings, but then let the teams and journalists decide what to do. Rose was making bets from the dugout, so I assume the Reds management knew he was gambling, but they decided it was better for baseball to let him remain a coach.

Baseball is no more devoted to integrity than before, so don't be fooled. Baseball cares about money. Pete Rose cares about Pete Rose. Stub Hub cares about Stub Hub. They can talk about integrity, but there is very little in practice and Pete Rose is simply a scapegoat poster child of what happens when you don't play nice and get put in the corner. It's my belief that the game can be cleaned up in many ways to provide fans a better opportunity for honest entertainment.

Self Portrait

Destined for a museum of modern art

I had a vision of starting a whole movement in painting with wax or tinted glue. I think that's sort of what stained glass paint is. Glue with tinting. But the recipe is not so simple to pull off as I added tinted watercolor paint to Elmers glue and got a weird paste. But a few times I got the right consistency and it applied well.

The main point is an ego scrub, what does Oggy look like to Oggy. Is self esteem tied to self-image? I think it is, but is a self-portrait an accurate self-image? The Hermann Hesse short story about Klingsor, the painter, whose last work is a self-portrait that has him crazed and in love and full of rage and hate, is telling. The portrait was also of Hesse as he saw himself writing the story of Klingsor painting himself. There were many layers of the onion. That reminds me of an eatery in Santa Cruz, the Glass Onion, named after the Beatles song.

My self portrait looks better with a background, but then the work itself becomes hard to see.

This is right side up, in case you were wondering

Incidentally, I buried this self portrait in the dirt because I couldn't stand to look at it, believing myself a failure at everything. also, it is glass without a frame and could not store it anywhere without breaking it or cutting myself. So I've set it adrift into the world, homeless and probably shattered emotionally.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Some good content here: I put Media toxicity at the highest alarm rates in degrees of importance. Critical thinking is paramount for any kind of logical development, and the media now seems to be an obstacle to critical thinking. Just based on the precautionary principle I would recommend eliminating all for-profit media from your life. It's mainly a programming tool right now and hinders critical thinking and is ensuring a state of philosophical chaos for humanity. There are so many media satellites in orbit that it's implausible to think about rendering them all offline. It's basically a paradigm where the worst manipulative elements of humanity are currently controlling information and although you can personally ignore it (arguably a vile ostrich approach to existence) you still can't expect everyone to ignore it, so you are trapped either as a sane person in an insane world or an insane person in an insane world. Maybe I'm overestimating how much people pay attention to and react to the News. But then I read something about beheading or political posturing, refugees, protests at mosques, and the rage in my heart tells me that I have been manipulated, and that others can be equally manipulated. So, if we have media that does antagonize and incite violence...then we do not have media, we have neuro-linguistic programming. And maybe we've always had NLP but I like to believe there was a time when we had something less toxic. I think NLP is not automatically an evil, although when it is used secretly embedded within news programming that is supposed to be unbiased information, then I must conclude it's misused. It can also be used in therapy, maybe some kind of patient responds to this reevaluation of self within a neuro-linguistic framework. I'm no expert, but I know the signs of importance when I see them. I've always wanted an analysis of Fox News and I see why no one wants to make one because it's tedious, but it's important. I went through months of analysis of right wing punditry to write an essay on the subject from an analytical perspective and this video demonstrates a more detailed analysis of NLP and media manipulation and the subtle crafting of political spin. I'm not sure if the narrator understand the two parties in the interview likely can only hear each other, so the manipulation that Hannity is doing is purely for the benefit of the audience. His whole goal is to cast a kind of spell on the audience, to entertain and beguile them. It's pure betrayal of critical thinking and I see now that the innocent start of Fox Channel with The Simpsons was a double-edged sword...maybe a textbook example of distraction and shock. While people were thinking Fox was subversive because they created The Simpsons...they were quietly creating a market of manipulation...so the adults who were lured to Fox for cartoons stayed for the entertaining news...and the spell took hold and they lost their minds. Very interesting.

Codependency Anthem

I finally solved the data issue between my phone and my computer (gracias to cheap hi-tech Chinese crap). But these HD cameras create gigantic video files so I have to compress the file so it will upload. This involves editing the footage and saving it as another movie.

Here's the Hoagy tune from 1939, the theme song of the distraught. 
Here's a cool story to go along with it:

I met a drunk girl with big lonely eyes at a bar. She was with her boyfriend but she just oozed self-destructive tendencies and was tired and depressed and I fell in love with her. I dreamed about her and jerked off thinking about her and looked for her at every bar. I thought I saw her vomiting in an alley and went down there to see if she was ok and it was not her and I said, "Sorry, I thought you were someone else."
This went on all Summer and I wanted to kiss her and lay in bed and watch her smoke cigarettes and drive her to the Social Services office to pick up food stamps. We would make love tenderly and she would massage my prostate when I climaxed. Then I saw her boyfriend and we were talking and I was drunk and said, "I have a confession. I am in love with your girlfriend."
We were playing pool and the guy stopped in the middle of taking a shot at the 7 ball.
"Really? Because I've been looking to pawn her off on someone for months. I thought about you but I like you too much."
"But I love her depression, she's wounded."
"No, dude, she's terminal. I wasn't really dating her, she showed up on my doorstep and had nowhere else to go. I couldn't get rid of her."
"She's so dreamy. I could talk her out of slitting her wrists all day long."
"She'd be doing everyone a favor."
"Where is she now?" I asked with heavy desperation in my voice that translated to "Her silky hair beneath the wool beret, where are you my beloved, my angel, my devoted love?"
"Probably in jail. She's been indicted twice for murder." He took the shot at the 7 Ball and sunk it. We were playing 9 Ball and his leave put a lot of green between the cue ball and the 8.
I gasped with ecstasy. This would be the third girlfriend of mine to involve prison.
"Does she need help? I could work a second job to pay for her lawyer. Only the best for her, only the best for my beloved."
"Dude, have you even had a conversation with her? She's sniffing glue, drooling, she has no idea where she is. My 13 year old son finally told me that she has to get out of the house. Then she was shacked up with some junkie and the dude overdoses on her anti-psychotic medication, dies, the second junkie to do that with her drugs, and...hey, are you listening to me?"
I was dreaming of the old scar on her cheek that she didn't even bother to hide with make up, and wondered if it was self-inflicted or caused during one of the many sexual assaults her uncle perpetrated against her.
"What?"
"I'm telling you that she's been indicted twice for homicide. They call her The Black Widow."
"Yeah, she's so awesome. So divine. Can I call her? Would you be offended?"
He eyed the 8 Ball and not only failed to sink it, but he left it hanging on the lip of the pocket...and the 9 Ball was near a side pocket.
"I think it's a really bad idea. She's sincerely sick, she's a junkie and she's mentally ill and she's homeless, has no direction, indicted for two murders, depressed, suicidal, refuses to take any birth control, fucks anyone, she..."
"So I can call her? Do you have her number?"
"Man, man, man..."
"I'll say that I found it in the phone book."
"Don't mention me at all. She fucking called the cops on me, said I had kidnapped her, talking crazy shit about alien abductions. She's bipolar to the max."
"I won't say nothing about you. I just want to take her walking in the park, play tennis with her, go to the theater and watch Grease or Cats because I love her."
"Tennis? Wow, you are hopeless, shit, good luck."
I stood up and sunk the 8 Ball and then sunk the 9 Ball shooting left handed, easy, like a pro. He shrugged and shook my hand.

So, he gives me the number and I call her immediately and tell her the most babbling drunk excuse in the history of cover-ups as to how I got her number and that I've dreamed about her all summer and wanted to meet her and brush her hair and take her to an ice cream shop downtown for ice cream and show her all the special spots around town that only I know about. Her tone of voice is exactly the opposite of how my fantasies about this conversation would be. I imagined she would be breathless and excited and echo all of my longing but instead she said, "Who is this? No I don't remember you. Did we fuck?" In a very gruff and displeased and bothered tone, very suspicious, very leery and annoyed and defensive. No trace of the affection I deeply desired. My heart broke a little. She tells me she will meet me at a bar and I say I can come get her and she says no, she will drive to me.

And so I wait all night nursing sad watery White Russians in polyester disguise, gay men rubbing my plaid knees, whorish bartenders showing cleavage for big tips. I keep asking the bartender what time it is? And the bartender tells me and I say my girlfriend is late. And the bartender gives no response. I tell strangers that my girlfriend is coming to meet me and we're going to the theater later on. And I tell this story for hours and hours until the bar closes and it's only me and I ask if they will stay open a little longer because I think my girlfriend is stuck in traffic. And I call her number again and it goes to voicemail and in my message I beg her to come to the bar. Is she ok?, I can come look for her and I am a mechanic and will fix her car if it is broken. And I talk until the voice mail runs out of memory and then I hold the cell phone like I'm holding her chin before I kiss it and then the bartender kicks me out rudely onto the street and drunk kids walk by and make fun of my polyester pants and jean jacket ensemble and I yell back, "You motherfuckers, I've got an REO Speedwagon concert pin, so fuck you, I've got the pin and my girlfriend and me are going to the Journey concert this summer and we're going to rock our denim jackets and I'll play her sad Hoagy Carmichael songs on the piano and she'll understand."

And the drunk kids throw empty beer cans at me and I wait in the fog but she never comes to the bar and never answers the phone again. Still, I think of her and how she was perfect for me and she wore a horizontal striped Russian Navy shirt and leaned heavily on the bar and had thin shoulders and I don't know why I love you like I do, I don't know why I just do.

Watercolor

The former occupant of my room was a tattoo artist who tattoos water color landscapes. He also painted the walls of his old room like Gauguin in Tahiti. And because I forgot my camera in San Jose I am forced to use a phone's camera and then upload it to a virtual hard drive (because the bluetooth on my computer is broken and I have no data cable) and then retrieve it and upload it again to blogger. These are the dirty details, behind the scenes trade secrets that only Oggy shares with people. And one option on my camera is to upload a scan...and the scan is a photo, that can be edited with the above watercolor effect...and then for some reason is saved as a PDF...that Oggy must reopen on his computer and save after downloading it and cropping it and snipping it with a screen capture. All these ridiculous steps to share a silly photo that was edited...

Photo Edit

I'm digging the guitar. I feel it will be another year or two before the sound starts to free up and my fingers adjust. But thus far I dig it and this picture really looks like a lover's tribute, the curves on the bed, the soft coloring, the undraped nakedness of the guitar and the erotic flowers and the exposed frame of the Nicaraguan hostel, tropical fireworks cracking outside, parades, Leonard Cohen songs drooling from the speakers. "I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best...I don't think of you that often." I want honesty and authenticity in a lover and that's what the guitar gives me, it doesn't tell me what I want to hear, its body language is clear, it gives me back what I give to it it speaks my language and is silent when I chase my primary keyboard love even though it can see me. It is not jealous because the guitar knows I will come back eventually and it will be waiting.