'Johnny Baseball' studies Red Sox sins, successes

Saturday afternoon, my muse and I went to the American Repertory Theater in Brattle Square, Cambridge, to see "Johnny Baseball," the ART's attempt to combine Boston baseball with Broadway showtunes ... and a social conscience, too. Based on the entertaining and thought-provoking show that followed, I would say the ART succeeded in its effort.
If you’re a Boston Red Sox fan, chances are you know that the club went a remarkable 86 years between World Series championships -- from 1918 to 2004 -- a dry spell attributed by some to owner Harry Frazee sending Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1920. The lyrics of “Johnny Baseball” ask us whether the Curse was rooted in something more heinous.
The Red Sox were the last major-league team to integrate -- in 1959, over a decade after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. They also passed up chances to integrate in 1945 (when Robinson participated in a dubious tryout for the Sox) and in later years, when future star Willie Mays played on a Boston minor-league team but was not picked up by the big club. This, “Johnny Baseball” argues, and not getting rid of Ruth, is the true source of shame for the Sox.
The play makes its case in the story of its three main characters: Johnny O’Brien, a white fictional Sox pitcher in the late nineteen-teens; Daisy Wyatt, an African-American nightclub singer; and Tim Wyatt O’Brien, their African-American son. All three characters experience the sting of racism in Boston -- most poignantly when Tim, a promising minor-league pitcher, and Mays participate in a sham tryout for the Red Sox … and Johnny shows his frustration at the team’s racism by punching GM Joe Cronin, who subsequently says that Tim will never pitch in the big leagues. This leads Tim to disown his father and place a curse on the Sox.
This revisiting of history, and the subsequent redemption for both Tim and the Sox, help us see America’s game of baseball as both a symptom of and cure for America’s sin of racism. By 2004, as a young Fenway fan tells an older Tim, the Sox are a team that reflects the diversity of the United States, with players who are white, Latin American and African-American. It is time to lift the Curse … which, as we all know, the Sox did that year.
History, of course, is much more nuanced. Although the Sox were the last to integrate, once they did, fans soon became familiar with a diverse constellation of stars, such as the Cuban pitcher Luis Tiant and the African-American right fielder Jim Rice in the 1970s. Yes, racial problems persisted, such as in the Winter Haven, Fla., spring training troubles, but the increasing diversification of their roster and coaching staff (Rice became a hitting coach after his playing days ended) shows that the Sox did try, however imperfectly, to redeem the sins of their prejudiced past.
We should also ask whether baseball’s present is as upbeat as the finale of the musical. Members of the media have noted a declining African-American participation in baseball in general, not only on the Red Sox. It would be sad to see the efforts of the Robinsons and Rices go in vain. And yet on this year’s Sox, the team has seen several African-American players play notable roles, such as Darnell McDonald and Bill Hall. In baseball, as well as on stage, the hard work of redemption and reconciliation evoked by “Johnny Baseball” continues.

Sausages and Citizenship at Fenway

On the surface, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would defend people from another country who have illegally immigrated to the United States. If you’re illegal, and you’re caught, you should be sent home. Case closed.
But some folks want to do more than just deport illegal immigrants. Not only do they want to send them out the door, they want to hit them with that door on the way out and slam it shut in their faces while singing, “Now go, walk out the door, don’t turn around now, you’re not welcome anymore,” Gloria Gaynor-style. And this is why people across the US have marshaled their strength against the Arizona immigration law that Gov. Jan Brewer signed on April 23.
The latest example of such demonstrations against the Arizona law is the immigration-rights rally outside Fenway Park when the Boston Red Sox played the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday. Standing behind the sausage vendors on Landsdowne Street, protesters held signs with messages highlighting the fact that almost 23 percent of baseball players are immigrants, and urging baseball commissioner Bud Selig to withdraw the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix.
Granted, the Arizona law has plenty of defenders. Sixty percent of voters supported it in a nationwide Rasmussen Reports poll in late April, Newsmax magazine reported. But if immigration-rights advocates keep getting their message out, like they did on Tuesday, maybe that number will change. For the law is a mix of redundancy and repugnancy. “The law … makes it a crime to be in the country illegally,” Newsmax reported. (Isn’t that kind of repetitive?) If an immigrant can’t prove that he or she has the proper documents to reside in the US, they could face arrest, a jail sentence of up to six months, and a $2,500 fine … as opposed to simple deportation. “Piling on,” I believe, is the equivalent expression in sports.
Fenway is not the first sports venue where immigration-rights advocates denounced the law. The National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns showed their distaste for their state’s legislation by wearing “Los Suns” jerseys, reflecting the Mexican and Central American heritage of many of the 460,000 or so illegal immigrants in Arizona. New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick considered this move pure cynicism, wondering whether the Suns owners would have been so magnanimous if they “discovered that hordes of people were sneaking into Suns' games without paying.” One of the reader comments to Mushnick’s piece, however, put him straight: “(If) those same people had to sit two-to-a-seat, clean up other people's vomit and repair broken urinals once they've sneaked in, then maybe management wouldn't be so opposed to it.”
It was refreshing to see that people are so committed to mobilizing against the meanness in Arizona that they showed up to a Boston ballpark to protest. (Too bad they probably didn’t get to enjoy the game.) Boston and Massachusetts enjoyed a reputation for fairness in the 19th century that, while sullied at times in recent decades, has continued with the immigration issue. Here’s hoping the immigration-rights advocates who made their stand at Fenway continue spreading their message.

The Brussels of America

It was a big weekend for Boston pro sports rivalries. In basketball, the Celtics beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 97-87, to even their playoff series at two games apiece. In baseball, the New York Yankees won two of three against the Red Sox. The question underlying each rivalry is the same: Who's better? Not which team is better ... but which city. The rivalries aren't ending anytime soon, but we may have a surprise winner in the "which-city-is-best" category. Cleveland.
This may surprise some readers. Boston has history and an intellectual tradition, and merits the title "The Athens of America." New York, with its Wall Street power, has drawn comparisons to Sparta. Next to these East Coast metropolises, Cleveland is "The Brussels of America." (Brussels, the Belgian capital, was voted the most boring city in Europe.)
Last week, Boston Globe sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy made a case for Cleveland over Boston, but his reasoning had little to do with what daily life was actually like in either city. (A sample point in Cleveland's favor: "It’s where Eliot Ness served as city safety director.") Worse, many of his Cleveland anecdotes worked against the Mistake By the Lake, such as the infamous 10-cent beer night at a Cleveland Indians game in 1974, "when fans rioted after consuming too many eight-ounce Stroh’s." Based on such logic, Bostonians and New Yorkers might dismiss pro-Cleveland sentiment.
It was the Cleveland Plain Dealer, however, that made a plainer, more effective case. City residents enjoy day-to-day advantages over Bostonians (and, by extension, New Yorkers). The cost of living is cheaper, housing is less expensive, museums are free. And oh yes, there is the traffic issue.

Twenty-minute commutes in Cleveland put you home, in your driveway and walking in the front door. You want to run an errand in Cleveland, you just run it. You don't have to plan it out like a trip to Europe, trying to figure out the few times when the roads won't be so clogged that you lose an entire day just to buy some laundry detergent.

Those statements would make Cleveland the envy of anyone who has idled in traffic on the Tobin Bridge in Boston or the George Washington Bridge in New York.
And how often do East Coasters like me go to all the museums and monuments and stadiums, anyway? What's more important -- having civic ornaments we rarely visit, or having less stress when we go to work, look for housing, or balance a budget? Ironically, the most effective line in Shaughnessy's column was one he took to be a point against Cleveland: "It’s got clean, wide streets that are (unfortunately) never crowded with traffic nor people." No, Dan, the word is "fortunately."
Cavaliers superstar LeBron James has a chance to leave Cleveland after the season as a free agent. Don't do it, LeBron. The Cavs may never win a championship, but like everyone else in Cleveland, your day-to-day happiness will continue to sprout in the Brussels of America.

Volunteering for McCain -- I'm Lovin' It

McDonald's Cartoon
Originally uploaded by rbtenorio

McCain and McDonald's -- these are the two themes Satan tries to tie together, using his liberal friend's fondness for both the Arizona senator and a No. 2 value meal (Quarter Pounder with cheese) in the latest episode of "The Devil Made Me Blog It"! Merci to my muse for suggesting a Red Sox connection as well. I got the poll numbers from RealClearPolitics.

PS - On a serious note, my best wishes go out to Barack Obama for his grandmother's health.