Ain’t No Party Like A Solstice Party

The Countdown Continues

Newcomer #3 - Joe Mauer. Mauer is far and away my toughest call. He had two separate careers; he was one of the premiere players in the game in his twenties, but after a major injury and a positional change he was an average player at best in his final five seasons. Was his peak great enough & long enough to warrant a place in the Hall? It’s a coin flip for me.

When he was great he was one of the game’s elite. In the entire history of Major League Baseball, there have been a total of 7 occasions in which a catcher won a batting title. Mauer won 3 of those. Not only that, but in 2009 he achieved the rare accomplishment of leading the AL in all 3 triple slash categories. He won an MVP Award, along with 3 Gold Gloves and 5 Silver Sluggers. He was not just on Hall of Fame track, he was riding in the express lane.

It came to a quick end when he suffered a concussion in the 2013 season. Except for a ceremonial appearance behind the plate in his final game, he never caught again, spending the remainder of his career at first base and DH. Whether it was due to lingering effects of the concussion, or the cumulative toll that catching takes on a body, his production dropped drastically at the same time.

So, is that enough? He finished with a career batting average above .300 and a career on base percentage of .388. That is very impressive for a catcher. I really lean back and forth on Mauer. If I actually had the privilege of voting, I would almost certainly spend more time contemplating his case than anyone else. In real life I don’t so there’s no need to overthink it. He figuratively stands on the border of my “yes” or “no” line. Right now I’ll probably say “yes” but that could easily change tomorrow and then change back in the other direction the following day.

Holdover #3 - Billy Wagner. I set the bar higher for closers than I do for other positions. It can be a fickle role, so many guys come & go with either brief periods of success or inconsistent year to year production. For a reliever to be Hall worthy, he really needs to be both dominant and reliable. In my eyes Billy Wagner passes that test, although I won’t argue for his inclusion too passionately. There are legitimate arguments that one could make against his candidacy, and I can’t really disagree with any of them, but I find his “pro” case more compelling.

You want dominance, you got it. His career WHIP ranks third best all-time for pitchers with at least 900 career innings. His strikeout rate is #1. You want consistency? He only had one season with an ERA+ below 140, and he was often much better than that, finishing above 200 in 6 separate seasons. You prefer high counting numbers? He ranks 6th all time saves.

There’s one big rub, however. I used a 900 inning qualification on those rate stats. He came of age in the era of the one inning closer, but that still seems like an awfully low total of innings pitched. And it’s impossible to ignore the elephant in the room, his poor postseason history. It’s a little unfair to use playoff stats to automatically brand someone as unclutch, what with small sample sizes and all. Relievers are especially susceptible to that. A hitter can start off a playoff series by going 0 for 13 yet turn around with, say, 6 extra base hits in the next 3 games and suddenly his stats look normal. A reliever can’t do that. There just aren’t enough available innings to stabilize stats following one bad outing. Even with that acknowledgement, Wagner’s playoff numbers are terrible.

He pitched in 7 separate postseasons, and only once did his team manage to win a series. That obviously can’t all be placed at his feet, but it’s also true that his career playoff ERA is an astonishing 10.03. He’s not the sole reason his teams fell short so often, but he certainly did not help. A couple of times could be chalked up to mere coincidence, but that many times? It’s not enough for me to cross him off of my hypothetical ballot, but I understand why for some people it would.

An Annual Tradition That I Miss

For years one of the most reliable sources of joy this season was the final episode of David Letterman’s show before the end of year break. There were two featured elements of the episode which each provided their own unique pleasure. What made it so special was the fact that it developed so organically, nothing was prefabricated about it. It was an hour of television that I used to look so forward to each year. Even better, the traditions began and developed when Letterman was still in detached irony mode. It was wonderful to see him act so sincere.

Component #1 was the annual visit from Jay Thomas, which happened by happy accident. Letterman had made a gag over the absurd decorations on the studio Christmas tree, more specifically a meatball on top of the tree instead of a star. His guest one year was quarterback Vinny Testaverde, and Letterman ran a quarterback challenge in which he and Testaverde took turns attempting to knock the meatball off with a football. Thomas was the second guest that night & grew frustrated watching a professional quarterback miss so many throws. So he left the green room, walked on stage, grabbed a football, and knocked the meatball off with one throw.

That sealed the deal; every year thereafter until Letterman ended the show Jay Thomas would be the main guest on the final show of the year. They would genially chat (Thomas wouldn’t always have a project to promote) and they would end with their football competition. The highlight of these appearances was when Thomas would share what Letterman described as the greatest talk show anecdote ever told. I’m not sure how accurate that claim was, but the pure glee in Letterman’s face as he listened to the story for the umpteenth time was infectious. And the line “they’ll believe me, citizen!” was just perfect. The simple addition of the word “citizen” added so much to the picture that Thomas painted.

And the episode, and the year, would end with Darlene Love. The timing of her initial appearance was interesting; the tradition started in 1986. At that time the Phil Spector Christmas album was out of print, so Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) wasn’t in regular rotation, at least on New York radio stations. At the time the only songs from the collection that generally received seasonal airplay were the Ronettes tunes. By this point Love had already begun portraying Danny Glover’s wife in the Lethal Weapon movies, so she wasn’t obscure, but she wasn’t universally well known for her singing career.

But Paul Shaffer was a huge fan, and helped book her to sign Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) on the show. Letterman wasn’t familiar with the song, but was blown away by her performance. She returned every year since, the Spector collection was soon back in print, her song has become a holiday standard, and her concert schedule is now annual booked solid this time of year. She is just as worthy of the title Queen Of Christmas as Mariah is. The performance itself became more elaborate over the years. Initially she simply performed with Shaffer’s basic band; year by year more musicians would join in until it eventually became a full blown Wall of Sound extravaganza with more than a couple dozen musicians and backup singers ending the year in the most joyous manner possible.

The Fall & Further Fall Of America’s Mayor

This may come as a shock to many of you, but I’ll say it. I was not particularly fond of Rudy Giuliani when he was Mayor of New York. I know, shocker, right? To be fair, he deserves credit for his handling of the aftermath of the 9/11 attack. He set the perfect tone with his initial press appearance that day, showing the proper balance of grief & determination. And he attended so many funerals; that could not have been easy. It’s the other 7 3/4 years of his time in office that I have issue with.

Even his biggest accomplishment, the drastic drop in crime in New York, comes with a few asterisks. What people tend to ignore is that crime statistics were already on a notable downward trend during David Dinkins’s term, and numbers were dropping in cities all across the country, not just in New York. But the narrative was too easy. Ooh, New York was a scary place in which to live & work with a black man in charge, let’s put in a tough talking former prosecutor, he’ll set things straight. Sure, one can make the argument that his policies accelerated the process, but to simply reduce the issue that Big Bad Rudy single-handedly ended crime on his own is lazy thinking.

To me, his biggest weakness (beyond the barely-veiled way in which he appealed to racism) was his thin skin. Every politician in an executive position hears constant criticism; it comes with the territory. Giuliani was either unwilling or unable to differentiate between automatic partisan blowback from his political opponents and genuine feedback from constituents. He would treat every instance of criticism, no matter how benign, as a vicious personal attack and would respond in kind.

The Shakespearean tragedy of it all for Rudy is that he could have simply exploited his America’s Mayor branding into a lucrative post-mayoral career and left it at that. Setting aside his spectacularly unsuccessful Presidential run, he could have spent his days cashing in on the lecture circuit and retiring a wealthy man. But he couldn’t help himself, turning himself into a perpetual troll before sealing his fate by hitching himself to the Trump Wagon.

For a time it looked like that would pay off as well. I clearly remember an appearance he made on MSNBC early on Election Night 2016. He was making the rounds as one of Trump’s primary surrogates; this was well before the vote totals were coming in & most of us were still confident that Hilary Clinton was on her way to an easy victory. Ah, how naive we were! During Rudy’s appearance Chris Matthews asked him a simple question, “Are you proud?” It seemed reasonable, why was he debasing himself for THAT man? A few hours later, he would have the last laugh.

Unfortunately, he would get more and more deranged as time went on. His nadir would come with the 2020 election. Was his worst moment the press conference with melting hair dye running down the side of his head? Or was it Four Seasons Total Landscaping? Now, the man is completely ruined, his reputation and bank account both totally depleted. I try to save my schadenfreude for people who really deserve it. Giuliani really deserves it. He will spend his remaining days as a broken man, and knowing the way Trump rolls it’s not as if he is likely to be supportive in any way. Sometimes karma does exist.

TV Of the 21st Century - When They See Us

It seems fitting to discuss this miniseries in today’s newsletter; what was done to these 5 young men was part of the anti-crime hysteria that helped vault Giuliani to the mayor’s office. This series, written and directed by Ava DuVernay, depicts the railroading of 5 African-American & Hispanic youths for a brutal crime that they did not commit.

I should state for the record that I was as guilty of a rush to judgement as anyone. On a night in 1989 a female jogger in Central Park was sexually assaulted and beaten into a coma. On the same night bands of youths took part in criminal mischief in different areas of the park & a significant number of young men were arrested as part of the sweep. This was around the time the term “wilding” had come in vogue. That played right into the fears that many had at the time; if savage groups of teenagers are roaming through our public spaces, is anyone safe?

I didn’t fall for the over the top paranoia, but I was certain that the 5 who were arrested for the crime were guilty. There were videotaped confessions, after all. I didn’t understand at the time that all of them had been coerced. I wasn’t alone in my certainty. Clear lines were drawn between those who were convinced of their guilt or innocence. And a well-known New York real estate mogul, who at that time rarely delved into politics and was best known for massive displays of ego, took out full page ads in the newspapers demanding that the death penalty return.

The miniseries effectively told the story of this incident. Knowing the fates of the 5 men, it was heartbreaking to watch them go about their day just before the night of mayhem began. To see one of them enjoying a pleasant meal with his girlfriend in a diner makes you want to scream “no!” before he steps out to join the disorganized pacts of teens running into the park. Make no mistake, the 5 men were guilty to varying degrees of crime that evening, but all were misdemeanors. None were guilty of the rape, nor did any deserve to lose precious years of their lives in the criminal justice system.

The cast was filled with tremendous actors at the tops of their games - Niecy Nash, Michael K. Williams, John Leguizamo, Aunjanue Ellis - but there were 2 true standouts. Babyfaced Asante Blackk portrayed Kevin Richardson, and because he looks so young it was easy to see how he was swallowed up by the system. And Jharrel Jerome cemented his rising stardom as Korey Wise. The story ran from the night of the attack all the way to their eventual exoneration, but Jerome was the only actor to portray both the teen & adult versions of his character. He, along with Nash as his mother, served as the moral center of the tragedy. And any performance by Williams comes with added poignancy, particularly in this case. He was Antron McCray’s father, struggling with an inability to fully support his son as he was unsure of his guilt or innocence.

It’s hard to exactly call this a happy ending, but the 5 were eventually released years after the actual rapist confessed to the crime. The group who had been called the Central Park 5 are now known as the Exonerated 5, and just last year, Yusef Salaam was elected to a seat on New York’s City Council. The miniseries covers a lot of ground in only 4 episodes, and some have criticized the way that prosecutor Linda Fairstein was depicted. Overall, this was an outstanding and important piece of work.

Originally aired on & currently streaming on: Netflix

Bat!

Finally, turning towards a television show with a completely opposite tone… FX announced that the coming 6th season of What We Do In the Shadows will be its last. I suppose it’s always better to leave too early than to stick around too long, but this is a bummer. WWDITS is the most reliably laugh out loud comedy on TV. If it’s any consolation this frees up Matt Berry’s schedule so that we can get the Matt Berry/Werner Herzog buddy comedy that we all deserve.

Closing Laughs

Have you started your shopping yet? Might be time to get a start on that. See you all again for Festivus Eve on Friday. I’ll try to keep my airing of grievances to a minimum.