Monthly Archives: September 2013

College Football’s Money Tree

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George Will writes here about the college football money tree. He begins by describing the head injuries that are the necessary result of playing the game of football and continues by describing the income derived from the play of the players, and the salaries paid to head football coaches.

The suggestion, is, of course, that this is a world beyond the control of college administrators.

For my “Questions About the NFL Concussion Settlement”, that shows how those players and the league have settled the issues concerning brain injury, go here. There is a NCAA lawsuit as well, but no settlement soon, I am told.

MLB Playoffs: Fall Baseball is War, Part Three

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On September 19, I wrote about highly competitive games in MLB the night before. here and the same battles occurred last night. Detroit won a 5-4 game versus Seattle, Cleveland beat Houston in eleven innings, 2-1. San Francisco beat the Mets 2-1, LAD beat the Diamondbacks 7-6, Washington beat the Marlins 3-2 and Colorado beat the Cardinals 7-6 in fifteen innings.  There were other games, but these were the notable one run and extra-innings games that show the intensity of the last month of the season.  
Of particular note are the San Francisco and Colorado victories where both teams are trying to avoid last place and the ignominy that goes with that. See here for a discussion of teams and pride.

MLB Playoffs: Fall Baseball is War, Part Two

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On September 3, I wrote that “Fall Baseball is War” here. With that in mind, September 18 was the Battle of the Bulge. The stituation going into that night’s games found Detroit, Atlanta, La Dodgers, Boston and Oakland comfortably in first place in their divisions, and St. Louis two games ahead of Pittsburgh. but Pittsburgh, and Cincinatti 2.5 game back, along with St. Louis will make up the Division winner and NL Wild Card races, so there is little drama in the National League, unless, of course, Washington wins them all going forward.

The war is in the American League Wild Card race where Tampa Bay and Texas now lead, but Cleveland is  .5 games back and Baltimore, New York and Kansas City are within  2.5. Anything can happen and the teams that are hot will prevail.

The fact that Fall Baseball is War is shown by the scores last night. The Angels beat Oakland 4-3 in ten innings, Baltimore beat Boston 5-3 in twelve innings, Tampa Bay beat Texas 4-3 in twelve innings, Cincinnati beat Houston 6-5 in thirteen innings, and Miami beat Philadelphia  4-3 in ten innings. The five extra inning games were joined with the Yankees 4-3 (four in the eighth for the Yankees) win over Toronto, San Diego beat Pittsburgh 3-2, scoring two in the ninth, St. Louis beat Colorado 4-3, and the New York Mets beat San Francisco 5-4  scoring four in the bottom of the ninth. So the five extra inning games were matched by four one run games. 

These bitterly contested games came after 152 had been played and only the AL Wild to be decided. What is most indicative of the furious nature of Fall Baseball is that Houston, with only 51 wins and 101 losses, battled Cincinnati in a thirteen inning game, and Miami with 56 wins and 96 losses went ten to beat the Phillies. The intense comprtitiveness of a MLB season never lets up. Baseball players never quit. Every at-bat, every pitch thrown in reflected in their careet records and is used to deterine salaries for the coming year or multi-years. Even the last batter, on the last pitch thrown to a Houston player, will be trying with all his skill to make a hit, and the pitcher making that pitch will be trying to get an out. This is the very nature of a Major League Season, the long season, where the differences between teams at this point may appear to be great, but really comes down to the ability to win the Fifth Games, of which there are thirty-two each year. (SEE: Fifth Game Theory). These are the games, won or lost, that determine winners, even down to the last game.

The Real Effect of the Syrian Matter

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The recent threat of military action against Assad’s Syrian forces because of the use of chemical weapons to kill 1,429 Syrian civilians raises more questions. The questions are why at this time, what was the result sought, how was that to be accomplished, and what is the effect on the US?

The first question is the one I find most disturbing. In the Syrian civil war, over 110,000 deaths have occured.  Prior to the use of chemical weapons, there was a lot of talk, but no threats of military action, so  why is the death of the 1,429 due to gas the trigger for Tomahawk missles? 

My first thought is that Obama realy did think differently over the use of gas. His “redline” reflected this feeling. He finds this particularly horrific, but how about the dead 110,000, isn’t this also horrific? (A friend suggested to me that if Obama thought killings by gun fire were horrific, he would bomb Chicago, but that’s a separate issue.)  I have a dislike for gas, as you can’t avoid it and the death is particularly painful. The President’s “redline” comment may have been a reaction to this same fear. So the answer to the question, Why at this time?, is that the President reacted visceraly to the use of gas and the photos of dead children. He shouldn’t have done so, but he did.

That raises the next question, What was the result sought?  It seems this was never figrured out at the White House or Foggy Bottom (State Department).  Launching cruise missles from destroyers does not change nations as the impact is, as John Kerry pointed out and Bill Clinton found out, incredibly small.   A Predator drone strike on Assad’s home would have sent a different, but more precise message. Furthermore, Obama said his goal was not regime change. So what was it? Was he trying to degrade the Syrian military so that the al Queda led opposition could prevail? I guess not as that is regime change. 

What has been the effect of this event? First, we have alllowed the clever Vladimir Putin to emerge as the alpha male in the Mid East and that is a major change. We want the US President to be the alpha, but American influence there and in the world, is vastly diminished. If the
President can threaten Assad cver his use of chemical weapons, be faced down by the Russians, and have his action rejected by the Congress, he has no power anywhere. This is a major threat to US influence and our world position. Obama said he would fundamentaly change the US, and he has done so.
Does this now mean that any leader, say in Venezuela, can use chemical weapons, and fear naught from the US? I think that is the outcome of this matter. The President conducts foreigh policy, but now that is subject to Russian approval and congressional agreement. A significant degrading of his regime.

What is the danger from this degraded position? A President will attempt to restore his luster and to do so, he must take action somewhere. His instinct ante is to not do anything that’s why he did not send aircraft to protect our Ambassador in Benghazi. His visceral reaction to the gassed kids in Syria put him in an image protection mode that was dashed on the rocks. He will think of something and that is problematic. He has already threatened the Iranian government, for example. There is also the domestic consideration that rattling sabers in the Middle East distracts from the real domestic problems we have to deal with.  That may be the major focus for Obama, who is first a domestic politician facing a congressional election in just over a year.

The Syrian threat is now over and Assad has prevailed and has empowered his Russian ally.  This story will end with the end of the Syrian Civll War but the effect on our Presidency will linger for a long time. Even our al Queda allies in Syria have voiced displeasure with Obama, and that is  something I never thought I would write.

Wild Card Race on September 16; Yankees Falter

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The AL Wild Card race is becoming clearer. In two weeks the regular season will be over, and,we will know more, and may even have a playoff for the playoffs, an interesting scenario.  This morning finds Texas and Tampa Bay tied at 81-67 for the two Wild Card slots. Cleveland is now only  .5 games behind, with Baltimore  2.5 back and New York 3 back. On August 23 Here that the Yankees, due to the easy schedule in the last twelve games had a real chance to make the Wild Card, however, the Yankees have faltered. Where they had to win half the games against the better teams, Baltimore and Boston, they have lost 8 of 12, and dominate the lesser teams, they beat Chicago times. The poor showing against Boston, especially, where they lost 7 of 8, is the reason they remain 3 games back. The Red Sox, I am certain, regale in their role in the Yankees apparent demise. 

The Orioles likewise, lost 6 of 8 against NY and Cleveland. They did win 5 of 8 against Toronto and the White Sox. They remain 2.5 games behind.

The team that has won according to the dominate/breakeven rule is the Cleveland Indians. They won 6 of 7 against the Mets and White Sox in September, and won 4 of 7 against KC, Balitmore and Detroit. They are  .5 games behind. If any of the three teams are to make the Wild Card, it seems the Indians are the team.  They will  have to pass Tampa or Texas to do that.

Texas has only won 1 of 10 recently and play Tampa Bay and KC 7 times this week.  They finish with Houston and LAA. Tampa Bay, of course, has the 4 against Texas at home this week and then play 7 against NYY and Baltimore before the final three in Toronto.

Tampa Bay and Cleveland are the probable winners here. However, baseball has strange twists. Yesterday, trying to win its twelth in a row against Minnesota, ran into a Twins team that hadn’t scored in 25 innings only to have the Twins score twice in the 7th on a single by Chris Parmelee, BA  .223 and four times in the 8th, three runs coming on a homerun by Josimil Pinto, a catcher who spent the Summer in AA, to win the game. Tampa Bay will remember that piitch to Pinto if they fail to make the playoffs. That final three in Toronto are critical.

There is another race worth noting and that is to avoid the Igniminy and the MLB Cellar Dweller, Here.  In the NL West, San Francisco, San Diego are tied and Colorado 1 game down for last place. Maybe they will all tie for last, or, as they would describe it, fourth, place and all will avoid the Ignominy of the Cellar Dweller.

The last two weeks of the regular season, like all of September is War, after that we have the playoffs and then the long, cold Winterl

Stonewall Jackson’s Greatest Tactical Victory

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Confederate General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson was a spectacular general. He is famous for his Chancellorsville attack that nearly destroyed the Union Army of the Potomac in May 1863, yet it was his victory at Harper’s Ferry September 12-15, 1862, was his most brilliant. This victory captured 12.600 federal troops and made the battle of Antietam on September 17 possible. That was the bloodiest single day of the war. NOTE: Jackson was shot by friendly fire from a North Carolina regiment at the conclusion of the Chancellorsville battle and died several days later of pneumonia. 

Thanks to RealHistory, an account of that battle that details Jackson’s tactical brilliance is available Here. This is an important article for Civil War historians, of which I am one, and asks the question of what this brilliant tactician would have done if he had lived to lead his corp at Gettysburg. This corp, failed to take the high ground of Culp’s Hill on the first day of that battle and allowed Union General Meade to maintain the very defensible Cemetery Ridge line that was the key to the battle.

My friend, George Will, says that Meade would have withdrawn from Gettysburg and taken up a position at the equally formidable Pipe Creek line and won the battle there, but his family is from Illinois and mine from North Carolina.

I find Harper’s Ferry to be a mystical place and this article describes its military importance in 1862.

More on Union Decertification from Powerlineblog.com

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My friend John Hinderaker of the Powerlineblog.com also picked up on the significance of the union decertification movement that I commented on yesterday.  Here and below

As HInderaker describes it , “Defunding the left” was one of the objectives of the Republican uprising of 1994; unfortunately, that goal went unrealized. This is one of the basic differences between Left and Right: conservative candidates and organizations have to raise money from individuals who contribute voluntarily, out of conviction, while Democrats and liberal organizations are able to extract money by force from taxpayers and others. The Left has managed to institutionalize itself.

Labor unions are the most notorious example of this phenomenon, although by no means the only one. In many states, Democratic politicians have enacted laws that compel workers to contribute to labor unions; union bosses, in turn, take much of that money and contribute it to Democratic politicians. This is the real “dirty money” in politics.

Most people do not realize the extent to which unions dominate special interest spending on elections. When you talk about special interests, it is hardly worth mentioning any other than unions. This chart, from Open Secrets, shows the fifteen largest contributors to federal campaigns during the period 1989-2012. Ten of the fifteen are unions:

Not a single one of the top fifteen gives primarily to Republicans.

The unions’ greatest enemy is freedom of choice. Experience shows that most people, given the option, will decline to join unions. Currently, this is being borne out in Wisconsin, where Governor Walker’s public sector union reforms–among other things, his legislation ended forced union membership in the public sector and required unions to be recertified annually–have allowed state and local employees to abandon unions in droves. One of the most stunning results is the extent to which public sector unions are being decertified. The most recent instance is the Kenosha school district, as Right Wisconsin reports:

Now that Wisconsin’s educators have been given the right to choose whether or not to belong to a labor union, the unions are struggling to attract enough members to stay afloat. Proving all along that the union leaders didn’t really represent their members, as much as sponge off of them.

Under a provision of Act 10, public employee unions are required to file for annual re-certification by August 30 if they wish to remain a recognized bargaining unit. Thursday Afternoon, Mark Belling broke the news that only 37 percent of the teachers in the Kenosha Unified School District voted to reauthorize the union in a recent vote. … Kenosha Unified is the third largest school district in the state.

Wisconsin’s public sector unions may soon be on life support:

In 2010 — the year that Walker was elected governor — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 48 was thriving, having enrolled more than 9,000 workers and reporting income exceeding $7 million.

By the end of 2012, District Council 48 was down to just under 3,500 dues-paying members — a loss of nearly two-thirds of its represented workers. …

Other public employee unions are faring only marginally better. Most have lost between 30% and 60% of their members in the past two years.

With their ability to extract dues by compulsion taken away and their memberships plummeting, Wisconsin’s public sector unions will no longer be able to funnel millions of dollars into the Democratic Party’s coffers. Freedom is a wonderful thing.”

What we have here is a significant move that may serve to level the political landscape by removing the forced contribution to liberal candidates that compulsory union membership causes is reduced if not eliminated. Where is worked in Wisconsin, and Michigan, it is far less likely in my state of Minnesota where the unions are intertwined and with indistinguishable from the DFL party. 

 

Teachers Union Decertified in Wisconsin, and This Is a Big Deal

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For most of my business and professional life, I have been involved in labor relations. I was educated at a Quaker School and an Ivy League college, so my view of the labor movement, as absorbed from the teachers, was one of beneficent admiration for early labor leaders, John L Lewis, George Meaney, Walter Reuther and the like were seen as significant leaders for the down trodden workers in industry. There was the task of unifying labor in an organization that could combat the size and organization of corporations. These leaders took on the coal miners, and the auto companies and drove hard bargains to the benefit of the rank and file. It was the Golden Age of the labor movement. Then the decline began.
The decline was due to improved management that reduced workplace tension, the growth of federal and state laws that eliminated discrimination for age, race and gender, and the fact that union membership actually acted as a barrier to success as it imposed seniority systems and extracted dues, usually something close to $1,000.00 per year at current values. Unions just weren’t needed any more. The effect is that private sector union membership is down to 6.5% and declining.

In the public work place, that number is 36% of public workers. The Public Union-Democrat relationship is the most incestuous in the world of labor relations. Here, a Mayor and city council (of Detroit?) make a deal to pay a public union a large wage and provide a large pension and early retirement (so a new worker can be paid benefits and pay dues), and gold plated health plan, all paid for by the tax payers of that city. (This is a true story, as you may have guessed.) The quid pro quo was that the rank and file vote for the Democratic Mayor and City Council and that the union, enjoying its inflated wage structure, would rebate wages received as dues as campaign contributions. It was a perfect symbiotic relationship. It worked for police, firemen, and even teachers, but was highly destructive of city finance and high taxes forced tax payers to the suburbs.

The teachers in several locations seemed to be bothered by the trade off, however, that meant that good teachers could not be rewarded as the seniority system protected bad teachers, and the control over teacher’s lives by the union was really repulsive. It is also expensive. The remedy that the labor laws afford is called decertification. This is the opposite of the certification of the union. Decert petitions are still fairly rare, however, in Wisconsin, a major decertification has occurred. Read more about it here. Blog: Teachers Union Decertified in Wisconsin.

What this means is that the teachers now control their lives, they are graded on their competence and the pride is restored, kids will be taught better and each teacher just received a $1,000.00 raise, not bad for the ten seconds it took to vote on the decertification petition. This means that school boards must treat the teachers well, and they will, but the Democrats on those boards will be wondering why the campaign donations have stopped, as the teachers have decided that they have a better use for their money.

The

MLB Playoff tiebreaker rules

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The addition of the second wild card to the MLB Playoff System this year offers some interesting scenarios with regard to ties at the end of the regular season on September 29. The rules are here. These rules take into consideration the multiple scenarios that this very competitive year offers. 

The AL standings this morning has Texas and Tampa Bay as wild card leaders, but New York, Cleveland, Baltimore, and, now, Kansas City are within two games of the second wild card leader, Tampa Bay. As they say, “you’ve got to be kidding, right?” 

I wrote on September 10 here that the Indians may have a slight edge over the Yankees. I am not so sure of that now. Cleveland has a hard time in critical games, see here and the Yankees are winning the Fifth Games with regularity. See Fifth Game Theory here.
The Yankees won another Fifth Game last night with a two run ninth inning homerun. Baltimore made it a perfect Fifth Game by scoring one in the bottom of the ninth but lost 5-4.

I am convinced that there is no way to predict the outcome of the AL Wild Card race, but everyone pay attention, it will be wild.

Watch Walter Johnson’s Pitching Mechanics

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On September 6, I posted an analysis of Babe Ruth’s swing. Click here to view the video. Here is an analysis of Walter Johnson’s pitching motion. There are similarities, as arm speed and bat speed are critical in both pitching and hitting. This is very instructive. Click here to view the video.