The Tyranny Of Belief

This past summer, particularly when asked questions about this kind of issue after the death of my mother-in-law, I came to a realization about my religious beliefs that has been a long time coming and that offered me considerable peace of mind in that regard. I determined that when it comes to what I believe about questions such as “Is there a God?” I don’t believe anything. I don’t believe that this is some sort of god or higher being or power, but, at the same time, I don’t believe that there is not some sort of god or higher being or power. It’s not atheism, since, as I understand atheism, that it the belief that there is no god. It’s probably closer to agnosticism, but, as I understand agnosticism, that involves doubting the existence of God and that’s not quite it either, since I don’t really “doubt” that there is a God, just as I don’t “doubt” that there is not a God. “Doubt” is too strong of a word. Rather than doubting anything, I simply don’t believe anything and I’m perfectly willing to accept that any of all kinds of possibilities may exist.

In determining this, I also realized that that is exactly as I like it. After years of considering and deliberating on this kind of issue, starting with my experiences growing up going to Catholic school, I was finally at peace with my beliefs or, more accurately, my lack of beliefs. So, I am particularly disturbed by the state of religious discourse in the United States. For instance, in December, as I read coverage of George W. Bush’s statements indicating that he is not a hard line creationist, along with the discussion board that accompanied that coverage, I was incredibly discouraged by the ways in which people forced one into one camp or the other in the ways that they discussed issues of religion. I had a similar feeling yesterday as I read a story about how some Christian clerics are upset with Barack Obama for including in his inaugural speech mention of “non-believers” along with various religious people when he said, “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers." Given a statement that simply states that there are all kinds of religious beliefs, including lack of belief, among the many people who make up the country, it is quite scary to have religious leaders of some kind, like the Christian clergy quoted in the article, who want to claim the United States as only consisting of or only the product of people who believe in a god of some kind or, even more specifically, as only consisting of or only the product of people who are Christians. Where then do I fit into this and how in any way does that constitute democracy?

The issue goes deeper than the comments of these Christian clerics, though. Notice, for instance, the polls that appear on the website covering this story about Obama’s statement. The second poll asks one “Do you believe in a higher power?” and offers two options: Yes and No. Where, then, do I fit into that when I don’t believe in a higher power, yet I don’t not believe in a higher power, so neither “Yes” nor “No” really accurately sums up my position? Again, I don’t have a place and I have to wonder about the consequences of this for a working democracy. If the discourse itself is already being cast as a binary of either believing in a higher power or not, then the concept of “a higher power” and the need to believe in that higher power or not believe in that higher power dominate thought and expression and limit the available options for thought and expression. Those who believe in a higher power have a privileged position in the discussion. Those who do not believe in a higher power have a less-privileged position in the discussion, yet they still have a position. And what about those of us who do not believe, but do not not believe? … Apparently, at least if my case is anything like typical, somewhere in our mid-30s we finally figure out that the very terms of the discourse have had us spinning our wheels for most of our lives.

Prepare for the End of the World ...

A certain R.E.M. song is going through my head ...

As someone who lived in Arizona for seven years, I'm really amazed to be saying that the Arizona Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl. They did seem to be headed in the right direction the last two seasons, but this seemed to be early for them to be getting to the Super Bowl. Still, things fell right in terms of matchups for them this season and here they are. I think just about any Arizonan would say that they weren't sure they'd ever see the day.

NCC-1701PEZ

So, when I went to amazon.com today, I noticed the Star Trek PEZ collection that’s being featured. I couldn’t help but notice the order from the center in which the PEZ dispensers are arranged and what that tells us about identity politics. Starting with Captain Kirk (first to the left of the center) and alternating each side, that order is:

The white guy from Iowa (Kirk)
The Vulcan – i.e., the alien who is otherwise a white guy and has a northern U.S. white accent (Spock)
The white guy from the U.S. South (McCoy)
The white Scottish guy (Scotty)
The white Russian guy (Chekhov)
The Asian guy (Sulu)
The black woman from the U.S. (Uhura)

Star Trek has been heralded for the vision of a diverse future that it represented, yet I’m far from the first one to note the racial/ethnic/gender hierarchy that was still reflected in the main crew of the Enterprise. Certainly, there are arguments to consider that suggest that some other arrangement of these characters along that hierarchy might not have played out so well in the mid-1960s and, thus, that, for its time, this offered a step toward equality—a step that, as many certainly would argue, was built upon as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager featured a black male captain and a white female captain, respectively. Still (and I say this as an openly self-acknowledged Star Trek fan), as the show is celebrated with commemorative artifacts like this PEZ collection, I think it remains important that that celebration not forget the limitations on the vision of equality that the show depicted and that are reconfirmed in the commemorative item itself.

Current MLB Hall of Famers

So, the other day, I posted who I would have voted for on the 2009 Major League Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. As I’m sure most of us know by now, Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice got in … while, unfortunately, Jesse Orosco only got one vote. (Whatever is this world coming too???)

Now, I’d like to discuss which active players, if they stopped playing today, I would consider worthy of induction in the Hall of Fame. (I’m defining an “active” player for these purposes as someone who played for a major league team in the 2008 season and, at least to my knowledge, has not yet officially retired. So, for instance, Sammy Sosa’s not considered, since, even though he’s looking to come back, he didn’t play for a major league team in 2008, while, on the other hand, Greg Maddux and Mike Mussina are out because they officially retired.) Here’s the list, in alphabetical order, of players who I would unequivocally vote into the Hall of Fame: Tom Glavine, Ken Griffey, Trevor Hoffman, Derek Jeter, Randy Johnson, Jeff Kent, Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, Ivan Rodriguez, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, John Smoltz, Ichiro Suzuki, Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, and Omar Vizquel. The only one of these players who gives me any real pause is Sheffield, but a glance at his numbers and I’m sold. One more home run this year, putting him at the 500 mark, and I don’t even have that hesitation. I know some people claim that 500 home runs may not mean as much as it used to and, thus, shouldn’t be an “automatic” for making the Hall. I still, though, think of it as an automatic and, besides, Sheffield’s 251 career steals and 2615 hits give him credibility beyond the 500 home runs.

Additionally, there are two players whom I would give very heavy consideration. They are Vladimir Guerrero and Chipper Jones. Jones may very well belong in the previous group and, given one or two more decent seasons, I’ll pretty surely elevate him there. I also think Guerrero is well on his way to the above list, but just needs a couple more good seasons to make it unequivocal. So, if both ended their careers today, I’d have to think about, but, I’ll bet, in the end, I’d say they go in.

After that, there are 7 other players whom I would consider, though I don’t think I would vote for any of them. They are Moises Alou, Garret Anderson, Carlos Delgado, Jim Edmonds, Luis Gonzalez, Todd Helton, and Andy Pettitte. I’ve written about Anderson before as a really good player who tends to be overlooked and I do like him a lot, but if he quit today I don’t think he’d have done enough for me to say he gets in. It looks like Carlos Delgado is slowing down quite a bit, but if he can manage to put together another good season or two, I might give him stronger consideration. Of course, if he does that, he’ll get to 500 home runs and he’d meet that “automatic” criteria. Jim Edmonds has the weakest offensive numbers of this group, but his defense counts for something. Still, I don’t really think he’s a Hall of Famer and I think I’m really just giving him a look out of respect for the nice career he’s had. Alou is probably the second weakest candidate on this list and, again, I’m probably just acknowledging his nice career by considering him, but wouldn’t end up ever strongly considering him. A few years ago, Helton looked well on his way, but he’s dropped off considerably since then and right now wouldn’t have done enough to make it. Still, he may have a few good seasons left and, if he does produce them, I’d give him a good amount of consideration. That, then, leaves two players who I approach from radically different perspectives.

First is Andy Pettitte. Pettitte tends to really bother me. When Pettitte admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs, he tended to be given a much bigger break than many others, including plenty of discourse about how good of a guy he is—discourse that tended to be attached to his Christianity (like this piece by Jayson Stark). Yet, it just seemed to me to be one more example of someone being considered a “moral” person simply because he was very publicly Christian, regardless of what actions he had taken. This is exactly the kind of discourse that George W. Bush relied upon in sickening fashion and it’s really tough to take with Pettitte who, well before he admitted to his use of performance-enhancing drugs, wrote a book instructing children about how to live life appropriately. So, the way that Pettitte is depicted disgusts me and I just want to refuse to consider him for the Hall of Fame. However, he does warrant some consideration, given his 215 wins and the significant role that he played in all of the Yankee championship teams of the 1990s and 2000s. However, two things stand out here to me. One is that his numbers of complete games and shutouts pale in comparison to his contemporaries. In his career, Pettitte has 25 complete games. Mark Mulder, who has fallen completely apart after a few good seasons, has as many as Pettitte. C.C. Sabathia, who is still just 28 years old, has one more than Pettitte. Even Jon Lieber has pitched as many complete games as Pettitte. Even more striking, though, is shutouts. Pettitte has amassed only 4 shutouts in his career. Tom Gordon spent more than 80 percent of his career as a reliever and has as many shutouts as Pettitte. I don’t like to take one statistic and hold it up to suggest that despite all kinds of other great things, this keeps someone from making it (the way some folks do with on-base percentage for Andre Dawson), but, given a very marginal case to begin with, this does seem to speak heavily about Pettitte’s performance. He won a good number of games, but by handing it over to the bullpen a lot to finish it off for him. If he wasn’t on the Yankees and/or if he had not had Mariano Rivera at the ends of games, does he even end up at 200 wins? The second thing that stands out here is that his ERA is 3.89. That doesn’t bother me in and of itself, but when essentially having the same ERA (at 3.90) has been considered a dent in Jack Morris’s case by many folks, then the same has to go for Pettitte. As I wrote a few days ago, I’d vote for Jack Morris. So, the 3.89 ERA doesn’t disqualify Pettitte in my mind, but Morris certainly goes way before him, given that Morris seems to have him beat everywhere (or almost everywhere) else. All of that said, I don’t think I’d vote for Pettitte for the Hall of Fame if he stopped playing today, but I’d make myself look at his case to make sure I wasn’t being too dismissive, given the distaste that I associate with him.

On the opposite side is Luis Gonzalez. By the numbers, I think Gonzalez has the best credentials from this group of players. That includes, from among this group, the most hits, the most doubles, the most triples, the second-most home runs (to Delgado), the second-most RBIs (again, to Delgado), the most total bases, the most runs scored, the most walks, and, of course, one of the most memorable moments in World Series history. So, maybe he deserves more consideration and I think I might be devaluing him for a reason that is similar, but in an opposite direction, to my efforts to make sure I look at Pettitte. Since the mid-1990s, Gonzalez has been my favorite player and, so, I want to be sure that I’m not being too generous to him because of that. However, I don’t think he’ll get very much consideration for the Hall of Fame when his time comes to be considered. I really want to put him in, but, in the end, if he quit today, I think I’d leave him out. But, then again, when I look at his career numbers vis-à-vis Mark Grace, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, and Jim Rice, and others who I said I’d put in if I could vote for all the folks I want to, he stacks up favorably. So, in the end, I guess Gonzalez would go into that big field of players who I’d consider every year and vote for if I could vote for all of them.

I know that there are some players I may be leaving out here (Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and even Jamie Moyer come to mind as possibilities to consider), but they’re sort of on the next rung down, with the possibility of moving up, depending on what they do in the coming couple of seasons.

My Hypothetical 2009 Hall of Fame Ballot

So, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted on my blog and what better to bring me back than one of the most anticipated days of the major league baseball calendar: On Monday, we’ll find out the results of this year’s balloting for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Of course, as I have mentioned previously on this blog, “Hall of Fame” seems like a misnomer to me, since the balloting usually works like a “Hall of Excellence” instead. I’ll put that issue aside for the moment and proceed with this blog entry as if I’m thinking of it as a “Hall of Excellence,” as it is typically conceived.

Since I’m an academic and not a sportswriter, I don’t get to vote in the election, though that does raise what I think could be some intriguing questions about who should be voting for the Hall of Fame. I mean, I could probably make an argument that, having been a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) for more than 10 years, I’ve got at least as much credibility as many baseball writers in voting for this thing. But that sounds like a good idea for another post somewhere down the road. For now, I’m going to focus on who I’d vote for if I had a say. So, here, generally, is how I see the folks on this year’s ballot, grouped by order of my sense of their merit for induction:

Unequivocally, I’d vote for them (4 players): Rickey Henderson, Mark McGwire, Tim Raines, and Andre Dawson. Rickey Henderson is the no-brainer on everyone’s list this year. McGwire would be in, but for the steroid stuff, and that doesn’t make him unworthy in my thinking, so he’s right there, too. I didn’t realize how good Raines was until I looked at his numbers last year. It seems to me that he definitely belongs there and might have been a sure thing, if he hadn’t been Henderson’s contemporary. Dawson is probably, for many people, the biggest question mark as unequivocal of the four I’ve named here, but he’s been that way for me since the day he hit the ballot. When I asked myself in the late 1980s and early 1990s which current players were definite Hall-of-Famers someday, I didn’t think twice in adding Dawson’s name to the list. I maintain that conviction today. I think ESPN writer Jayson Stark’s comments on Andre Dawson, especially the line “All I know is that every who's-the-best-player-in-the-National-League conversation in the 1980s included his name,” seem to hit the mark.

I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of these guys as Hall-of-Famers when they played, but I see their merits and would vote for them (2 players): Bert Blyleven and Jim Rice. If twenty years ago, someone gave me a choice between these two and made me choose one for the Hall of Fame, I’m pretty sure I would have picked Rice, but I wouldn’t have thought he definitely belonged and for a number of years I wouldn’t have included him on this list. He never struck me as being as dominant as I guess he was. I suppose that’s because about half of his “great” period was before I was old enough to recognize that kind of thing. Blyleven suffers similarly for me, since I’m a child of the 80s, but, of course, many who covered him in the 1970s have had to be convinced of his merits, too. Basically, I look at the cases and statistics for these two and see them as belonging, but I did have to be convinced. To a certain extent, Raines could go here, since I did have to look at his numbers to be convinced last year, but two things put him in the prior group: (1) one glance at his numbers convinced me; I look again at the cases for Blyleven and Rice every year and (2) twenty years ago, if you put Raines in that choice I mentioned and made me pick one of him, Rice, or Blyleven, I would have said Raines belongs there well before either of the other two.

I once had him in the unequivocal category, cooled off him after his career ended, and then came back to him (1 player): Jack Morris. In the 1980s, when Morris was at his peak, I would have considered him a lock. When he retired, though, I wasn’t sure he had done enough and I remember thinking one or two more good seasons would have put him in. So, I cooled on thinking of him as a Hall-of-Famer, given that he didn’t win 300 games and his ERA was 3.90. On further consideration a couple of years ago, I decided he belongs. 254 wins is pretty good and plenty of players have made it with a win total in the mid-200s before. He also gets credit for his postseason performances. I mean, right now I’d say Curt Schilling should be a Hall-of-Famer because, while his statistical numbers aren’t as high as some of his contemporaries, his postseason performances count for something. If I do that, I think I need to do the same for Morris. So, Morris would get my vote.

Vying for slots 8-10 this year (10 players): Harold Baines, David Cone, Mark Grace, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Jesse Orosco, Dave Parker, Lee Smith, Alan Trammell. I tend to have a very inclusive view of the Hall of Fame, so I would almost assuredly vote for the maximum of 10 players every year. Thus, how many slots on my ballot would be available after the folks I’m sure I’d vote for would change from year to year. If, for instance, Rickey Henderson had managed to keep playing longer than he did, he wouldn’t be on the ballot this year and that would open a slot for someone else. Also, whether Jim Rice makes it or not, this is his last year of eligibility, so next year that would open a slot where he would have been. Of course, the 2010 ballot will include Roberto Alomar, Barry Larkin, and Fred McGriff, who, I’m sure, are all players for whom I would vote. So, there might actually be less slots available next year. This year, there are three slots available and I think each of the ten players I’ve listed deserves, in varying amounts, at least some consideration. If the ballot had a maximum of 15 instead of 10, I’d likely add 8 of these players instead of just 3. If it had a maximum of 20 instead of 10, I’d probably vote for all of these folks, for a total of 17. I’m not going to go into much detail about all of them here and my 3 choices from among this group tend to vary from time to time, but I think right now I’d vote for Baines, Murphy, and Smith. Baines did hold on forever but, in some ways at least, he compares favorably with Jim Rice. So, I suppose if Rice gets in, in my mind Baines does, too. Murphy was really good in the 1980s and, while he didn’t quite make some of the “big” milestone numerical markers, his excellence in the 1980s puts him slightly ahead of many of the others here. Finally, I think ending his career as the all-time saves leader (and having only Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman pass him since, in an era of even more closer specialization than Smith’s era) counts for enough to put him ahead of the rest of this pack. That said, if I had two more slots available, I think they’d go to Mark Grace and Jesse Orosco. For Grace, he did have a heck of a career, with a ton of hits, especially doubles. I tend to think he was among the best players of the 1990s. For Orosco, I think being the all-time leader in appearances (and by a pretty significant margin) counts for something and he really was an effective pitcher for almost all of that time, while playing at the position (though he was a closer for a few season, most of his career was middle relief) that probably gets the least respect in all of baseball. Of course, as a Mets fan, maybe I’m just giving him too much credit for the last out of the 1986 World Series.

Definitely wouldn’t make my ballot (6 players): Jay Bell, Ron Gant, Dan Plesac, Greg Vaughn, Mo Vaughn, Matt Williams. I almost put Jay Bell in the above category, but when I thought about whether or not I’d include him if I had a maximum of 20, I had to say no. So, he goes here. I guess he’s the line of my inclusiveness for the Hall of Fame. The only other one on here at whom I’d even take a second look is Matt Williams, who had a very nice career and might have beaten Mark McGwire to breaking Roger Maris’ single-season home run record if not for the 1994 work stoppage. I suppose Mo Vaughn might deserve a little consideration for his early and mid-1990s play, especially his MVP season, but, as I mentioned, I’m a Mets fan. That probably says enough about Mo … or should that be Les? … Vaughn.