Who's Pretentious?: A Dated Baseball Report; Lazio vs. That Corrupt Bitch

Who's Pretentious?; A Dated Baseball Report Pardon me for a brief sojourn into Roger Angell- and George Will-ville. Maybe it's age that causes political pundits and poets to write about baseball in terms that the bleacher bums?unfairly denied their suds at Yankee Stadium?or box-seat fans, for that matter, don't really want to read. Highbrow sports prose is an oxymoron of the most obnoxious sort. I agree with most of Will's conservative views, but his columns can be tough sledding. The boorish and staff-researched references to Wordsworth, Homer and Dickens, to name just a few, are even worse than his pinch-faced appearances on the tube. (Although I'm fully aware that it's their mutual love of the game that caused Will?who skewered President Bush?and Gov. George W. Bush to bond.) But when he and The New Yorker's Angell ladle out pretentious essays about the Temple of Baseball, it's enough to make you a hockey fan.

The three-game series at the Stadium was swell if you root for the Sox; the only blight was Derek Jeter coming off the disabled list and punching out some hits during Saturday's 8-3 victory for the home team. That afternoon game happened to be the one that Mrs. M, Junior, MUGGER III and I attended. My youngest son, after the requisite cotton candy, soda and hotdog, got bored, and he and my wife departed early so he could ride his Razor scooter in Tribeca. Junior, who's developed into a huge baseball fan, was disappointed when I said, "Let's beat the crowds," and took him home at the end of the seventh. My friend Rick, another Sox fan, was sitting near us in the same section, and just as the Yanks got up to bat in the sixth, I told him, "I'm smelling trouble." He agreed. If you're a Sox fan you really do believe in the Curse of the Bambino, despite my seven-year-old's protestations that the hex has been wiped out because it's a new century. It was Smalltown New York that day, as we ran into one of Junior's classmates from school on the subway to the game, and then later, while we were waiting for a Coke vendor at the Stadium, a teammate from the New York Press Bears, Victor Biondolillo.

On Friday night, Mrs. M and I had just come back from another extraordinary dinner at Tribeca's new Roc, and Junior was transfixed in front of the 56-inch tv, watching that idiot who fell or jumped into the net behind home plate. He told me the essentials of the game up to that point. Soon he fell asleep, but Ramon Martinez had just about put the Yanks down, doing a fair imitation of his brother Pedro in leading the Sox to a 4-1 win.

Not to cut Will and Angell any slack, but there has to be a happy medium between writing that elevates baseball players to the status of Roman warriors and the stupid output of most beat sportswriters. For example, after the series was completed, Gordon Edes of The Boston Globe wrote on May 30: "(An aside to Mr. T. Kennedy, Hyannisport: Your excellency, with all due respect, your beloved clan is in danger of losing its status as First Family in the commonwealth. For all the celebrated accomplishments of you and your brothers, we humbly direct your attention to the weekend results from the Bronx: The Brothers Martinez 2, Yankees 1. Ask not what Red Sox Nation can do for you, ask what you can do for Red Sox Nation.)"

The Boston Herald's Howie Carr must've retched upon reading that tripe.

I didn't write about the three-game series last week because I thought I might jinx the Sox: another superstition bites the dust since they've?as of this dispatch?lost five in a row.

And my friend Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, might be advised to keep his written comments confined to why Tom Ridge will doom the GOP this fall, and not delve into the sociology of Yankee fans. Writing a short piece for NR's online site on May 30, Lowry did get one thing right?that Baltimore's absurdly overrated Camden Yards is "a yuppified bit of nostalgic fakery"?but in enthusing over Yankee Stadium, certainly the best baseball park in the country aside from Boston's Fenway, Lowry gets a little snooty himself.

He writes: "All this said, it would be nice to be able to bring your children, or parents, or girlfriend to the Stadium, without worrying about what slobbering foolishness they might witness. A compromise is in order. Let the rowdies in the bleachers?where few civilized people will want to venture anyway?keep their beer, but render some other significant chunk of the Stadium alcohol-free. Then, the House that Ruth Built will truly offer something for everyone."

That slur against people who sit in the bleachers, the cheapest seats at the Stadium, is beneath Lowry, who usually produces smart commentary. I don't suppose he grew up in the Tri-State area, but plenty of us remember baking in the outfield's sun, thrilled by what was then the $2 bleacher admission charge, happy to see the game from another perspective. Besides, it's not only the "uncivilized" bleacher denizens who get rowdy. I've had beer spilled all over my Savile Row suit in the fifth row of the box seats behind the Yanks' dugout; as a kid, sat in rightfield by the foul pole during a New York-Cleveland doubleheader and saw four fat guys barf their guts out after drinking a cup of suds every inning; and was almost assaulted late in the season back in '86, when the Red Sox ruled and I was dumb enough to wear a Bosox cap. This was in the "civilized" loge section.

Lowry's magazine's friendly competitor, The Weekly Standard, ran an excellent cover story in its June 5 edition, called "Hating John Rocker: A Case Study in Liberal Hysteria." The author of the piece, Dennis Prager, eviscerates the reflexive media reaction to the relief pitcher's off-the-cuff, and dumb, comments to a clever Sports Illustrated reporter late last year. (Jeff Pearlman was the SI writer, and a chance meeting between him and his subject in Atlanta just this past Sunday caused a stir: Rocker told Pearlman, "Do you know what I can do to you?") Because the Braves pitcher made some nasty remarks about New York City and its "gorgeous mosaic" of citizens?and if you're from a rural town in the South, New York must seem like Mars?he was suspended by the cowardly commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig, and forced to endure sensitivity counseling. Using the same logic, I have no idea why Al Sharpton or Pat Buchanan isn't similarly condemned. Sure, they both have legions of detractors, but also loyal followings. Rocker's only friends are some Braves fans and teammates and any Major League Baseball owner who'd love to buy him from Atlanta to save games for his team.

Prager's is a splendid story, studded with examples of mindless thinking on the part of the media. He's especially derisive about Jay Leno, the late night talk-show comedian who attacks only "safe targets." Here's one particularly smart excerpt from Prager's piece: "There is little question that a media mob set out after Rocker not for reasons of moral principle or damage to the sport but because, for all their talk against hatred, many liberals have a great deal of hate, and the liberal media frequently foment it. Had Rocker beaten his girlfriend or wife, he would have been ignored. Had he choked his coach as Latrell Sprewell, now a beloved New York Knicks player, did, he might have received a sympathetic 3,000 word profile in the New York Times Magazine. Had he sold heroin, he would have been punished, but no columnist or editorialist or comic would have humiliated him, no fans would have cursed him as tens of thousands did recently in Los Angeles and as packed stadiums no doubt will in New York when his team plays there at the end of June."

New York's dailies were all over the latest Rocker controversy on June 5. Talk about blowing a tiny incident out of proportion?the coverage made William Randolph Hearst's thump-a-thump jingoism look tame by comparison. George Vecsey, in the Times, was the worst offender: he claims that most of Rocker's teammates want him traded or sold. Maybe, maybe not. If his pitching continues to stink, I'd agree. The craziest part of Vecsey's idiotic and contradictory article comes early on, when he writes: "The Braves are one of the classy organizations in sports, and plan to remain so." Really? Having a bombastic fruitcake like Ted Turner, who names his own team's stadium after himself, is "class"? But then, Vecsey, soulmate to Hillary Clinton, slips: "What kind of signal is it that management permits the display of the Georgia flag with the Confederate emblem directly in front of the Braves' dugout while the national anthem is being played?"

So what is it, George: "class" or racism?

Hours before New York Press went to print, Rocker, in another incredible cave-in to rampant liberalism, was demoted to the Braves' Triple-A team in Richmond?and fined a reported $5000?for his behavior toward SI's Pearlman.

June Line: Lazio by Three Points Rick Lazio certainly wasn't my first choice to replace Rudy Giuliani as Hillary Clinton's GOP opponent in New York's Senate race. His fake run last summer, when it was clear the nomination was locked up for the Mayor, was smarmy and self-aggrandizing. Still, I don't understand the media's insistence on treating the four-term Congressman as if he's a teenager. Remember, the man is 42, defeated Tom Downey?best bud of slumlord Al Gore?in a major '92 upset and is hardly the youngest person ever to seek a job in the U.S. Senate. Liberals, who gush about Sen. Ted Kennedy as one of the century's most accomplished legislators?delusional thinking at its most obvious?forget that his family's political machine bought his Massachusetts seat back in '62, long before he had to contemplate wearing a girdle. President John F. Kennedy was in his mid-30s when he defeated Henry Cabot Lodge in 1952; Delaware's Sen. Joe Biden was even younger when he was first elected.

Yet New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has dubbed Lazio "Little Ricky," an unfortunate nickname that'll probably stick. Writing about the split lip he suffered at a parade last month, Dowd wrote: "But when Little Ricky went tumbling down, the stature issue came bubbling up. He looked like an eager puppy springing out of the gate and going all splay-legged. Republicans fretted again: Is he ready for the big show?"

Dowd is mostly a nonpartisan bitch: she'll go after any politician as long as she can work a Hollywood blockbuster into her 800 words. But when the going gets tough, you can count on Dowd to side with her disgraceful colleague Frank Rich?although not as hysterically?and so Gore is fairly safe this fall.

And Hamptons blowhard Jerry Della Femina, a Lazio supporter no less, stoked this silliness by writing in the May 28 Daily News: "My problem is that for the life of me I can't see Rick Lazio in the Senate of the United States of America. Instead, I keep seeing him as the ambitious second-in-command of a Ford dealership in Huntington, L.I." The New Republic's Michelle Cottle, providing her own unasked-for spin in the June 12 issue, also calls Lazio "Little Ricky" and claims he's not up to the rigors of an election that's dwarfed only by the Bush-Gore battle. The Suffolk County Congressman is up against a "Goliath in a pantsuit," Cottle writes. Sure. A "Goliath" who can't rise above 50 percent in the polls. A "Goliath" who makes outrageous claims at rallies, like this one in Manhattan last week: "For 30 years, I have fought for children and families, for women and workers. And in this campaign, I've stood up for New Yorkers who needed a voice. I'm not afraid of the tough fights."

As Rick Brookhiser eloquently pointed out in the June 5 New York Observer: "Mrs. Clinton's only two marks on public affairs were to ruin her husband's first term, by producing a Rube Goldberg health care plan, and to be his beard for 25 years." What is all this baloney that Mrs. Clinton spews about being a champion of the downtrodden, especially the children? Does writing an innocuous book like It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us qualify her as a policy expert? She ought to be consistent. In order for Bill Clinton to get himself reelected in '96 he had to horse-trade with the GOP-controlled Congress. Which meant the welfare reform bill, an overdue piece of legislation, which conservatives favor, but one that I doubt "the New Yorkers who needed a voice" endorsed. I doubt her good friend Al Sharpton thought much of it either.

Slate's Supreme Court correspondent Dahlia Lithwick took leave from Washington, DC, to attend a Lazio rally at Katz's Deli last week. It's very difficult to stomach Beltway reporters' writing about New York, and Lithwick provided an absurd article, "Rick Lazio, The Spice Boy Candidate," on June 2. She begins: "The sidewalks of the Lower East Side are paved with litter and the streets smell like fresh goat." As any New Yorker knows, this simply isn't true anymore; it's a stereotype from before the Giuliani administration. I know you can favorably compare the Lower East Side's cleanliness level with that of those desolate stretches of concrete in Washington. The gentrification of the East Village and the Lower East Side is such an old story that even The New York Times has written about it; I guess the Pony Express still exists if someone like Lithwick smells "fresh goat" near Katz's.

It gets worse. Not a word in Lithwick's stupid article is devoted to Lazio's career in Congress. Instead, it's all Talk magazine breathlessness. The only difference is that the Slate writer gushes over a Long Island Italian who eats corned beef erotically rather than about the size of Prince William's willie and what lucky gals get to sample it. Lithwick: "Until today I was only amused by the puppy-splat candidate. Now I find myself in a near-swoon. He is, as the Republicans intended, adorable. Tim Robbins meets Reggie from the Archie comic books. But married to Betty, not Veronica. Creamy skin that cannot be sprayed on. A heart-stopping smile of undistilled delight."

This woman "covers" the Supreme Court for Slate? Amazing. Aside from the silliness about Lazio's looks, whether satirical or not, what's this jazz about him being "as the Republicans intended, adorable"? I happen to think that Lazio has a better chance of defeating Clinton than Giuliani did, but that's probably a minority view, especially among the state's Republican leaders. Rudy is anything but "adorable," even in his new "humanized" state.

Also writing for Slate, on May 19, Jacob Weisberg mercifully sticks to politics. It's his notion that it doesn't matter who the GOP puts up against Hillary: even if Giuliani "were in good health and happily married" he'd have been creamed. Likewise for Lazio. Why? Because of the Al Gore's-coattails effect. This is quite a leap. While it's true that Bill Clinton won New York by margins of 16 and 28 points, respectively, in the '92 and '96 elections, it doesn't follow that the Vice President will win the state by such a huge number. It's safe to say that New York, unlike California, is pretty much a gimme for Gore, but it'd be surprising, considering the popularity gulf between him and his boss, to see him win by a landslide.

The antipathy toward Hillary is so strong that she'd need a massive, know-nothing turnout to squeeze by. Which isn't likely, especially since Gore's a bore and there's no Rudy to vote against. Remember that Bobby Kennedy, brother of the then-recently martyred president, and technically less of a carpetbagger than Hillary, defeated Republican Kenneth Keating by a narrow margin in '64, while LBJ stomped Barry Goldwater. It goes without saying that RFK was associated with a far more beloved president than Gore is.

The New York Observer's Joe Conason had some difficulty in his column last Wednesday believing the results of the Zogby poll that showed Lazio and Hillary Clinton in a statistical dead heat, mostly because Zogby's work appears in the New York Post. Zogby's a Democrat, as I'm sure Conason knows, and although he couldn't have known it at the time, just last Sunday, June 4, the pro-Hillary Daily News showed similar results in its own poll, with Lazio down just four points to the First Lady. But never mind the polls. My favorite snippet from Conason's continued defense of the Clintons was when he accused the Post of "alternately depict[ing] Hillary as Lady Macbeth and the Wicked Witch of the West."

Joe, you're right. And so is the Post, although perhaps the tabloid is being a bit charitable.

JUNE 5

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