ABOUT LAST NIGHT's DEBATE • Cleveland Heads to World Series

I was a 19-year-old college sophomore majoring in political science when I learned to recognize a certain kind of b.s. I wasn't a serious student at the time but I did habitually keep up on current affairs. I was an avid reader of the weekly newsmagazines — Newsweek, Time, US News & World Report — the New York Times and the local Philadelphia Bulletin. I was well armed to defend my opinions in the debates about the world that college students engage with gusto.

One of my roommates — the starting halfback on our mediocre football team — regularly throttled my arguments in our debates by his uncanny use of statistics. He could always take the wind out of my sails by referencing irrefutably numbers like 67% of this or 73% of that. My shoulders would shrink as my arguments bumped against the stony force of his numerical fortress.

Halfway through football season, it dawned on me that, unlike our more scholarly roommates — Doug and Wilbur — Toby seldom could be found with his nose in a book, much less any source of facts that could back his positions. When I began to challenge Toby to cite his sources he would feign loss of memory or retreat into ambiguity. Gaining the upper hand, I relentlessly pounded him to cite even one source.

Finally, one day Toby collapsed in paroxysms of sheepish laughter when forced to admit that his vaunted stats were all concocted. The four of us celebrated his tattered charade with some suds at the local pub.

Toby was a sweet and amiable guy, literally a Philadelphia Quaker, who is unbelievably close to becoming the next president of the United States. But I think of him whenever I listen to his characterological antithesis: the ignorant, immoral, unethical, unhinged, New York charlatan whose braggadocio would put even Art Modell to shame.

According to this celebrity telemarketer, everything President Obama or Hillary Clinton have done is a "disaster", an utter failure, and “the worst in history". Every country in the world is beating us in trade. Nobody respects us. Our generals suck. Crime is at historic highs. Our inner cities uniformly suck. Life has never been worse for African Americans. The Chinese and Mexicans outsmart us daily and will soon overrun the country. Unless radical foreign terrorists beat them to it.

Only the Great Telemarketer can save us! Want proof? He has built a Great Company! (Don't mention the multiple bankruptcies, failed casinos — how can you lose your shirt running a casino? — or ask to see his tax returns!) He knows more about ISIS than the generals. He will restore law and order. He will hire the best the people to run the government. (No other president has ever thought of that.) He will bring jobs, jobs, jobs to all of us who need them. And he's gonna build us a huge horizontal tower that somebody else will pay for.

And nobody respects women more than he does. Because he has a big brain.

This stuff is all so clear that the telemarketer doesn't need to cite a single statistic, much less offer a plan. His greatness is so evident, as attested to by Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Don King, and Pastor Darrell Scott, that only the vastest of conspiracies — comprised of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and elected officials in thousands of jurisdictions — could deny him coronation as King, er, president of the United States.

Donald Trump's political career began with his leading the birther movement, a bogus and bigoted dog-whistle assault upon the legitimacy of Barack Obama's citizenship status. His biography claims graduation from a prep military academy (five military deferments for the star athlete) and the University of Pennsylvania. But I suspect his resume omits his true place of higher learning: the Barnum and Bailey School of Fake, Fear, and Fool from which he undoubtedly graduated summa cum sleazy.

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The Cleveland Indians won the American League pennant in Toronto yesterday afternoon, defeating the Blue Jays behind a rookie pitcher's splendid effort, some timely hitting, and baseball's best bullpen.

I didn't want the accomplishment to go unmentioned here, notwithstanding our muted enthusiasm for the team due to its horrid racist mascot, which represents in our view a narrow-minded clinging to offensive traditionalism evocative of the Confederate flag symbolizes to the South.

Apart from that, we share delight in the team's success. For those of you who will be jumping on the bandwagon for the World Series ride, we thought we'd share what we said leading up to the playoffs about the reasons for the team's success to some of our foreign correspondents stationed in places like Maine, Florida, Washington DC, and Seattle, WA.

First and foremost, the Indians are where they are because of a guy who can no longer run, throw, hit or catch. Manager Tito Francona, besides having a deep understanding and love for the game, has uncommon leadership skills that makes all his players focus on team goals as opposed to individual ones. His players have all bought in, which means they stay focused and persevere no matter the obstacles. Guys stay ready and confident, and step up to perform when called upon.

Ups and downs are inevitable in a long season. Francona has kept his guys on an even keel and a steady march. He has a track record of success in this that commands respect. No current manager has a better post-season record, which includes a fabulous 8-0 World Series record.

Add to this the fact that is difficult to name the one indispensable player on the team. It's easy to say Andrew Miller, the mid-season acquisition who was named MVP of the American League Championship Series. But where would the team be without, in no particular order, Francisco Lindor, Jason Kipnis, Corey Kluber, Carlos Santana, Rajai Davis, Jose Ramirez, Mike Napoli, Coco Crisp, Cody Allen, Brian Shaw, Dan Otero, and on and on. Every one of these guys has had bad games, days, or mini-slumps. But their teammates have consistently picked them up. You never know who will be the hero on any given day. It's no longer a surprise when it turns out to be Tyler Naquin or Ryan Merritt.

Individually, the team has only one everyday superstar, the shortstop Lindor, and he is just budding. But collectively, they have the best infield in the League, with bat or glove, the best manager, the best bullpen, and the best base running, a bona fide ace in Kluber, and a lineup where any spot one through nine can deliver the clutch hit or the sacrifice bunt. They have a bunch of guys who believe in each other and their leader. And they have home field advantage backed by Cavaliers momentum. They may be underdogs to whoever emerges from the Dodgers-Cubs series, but they have the best chance to win a World Series since 1954. And Willie Mays has retired.

Go Cleveland!

Cleveland's Sorry Sports Scene, Richard Sherman, urban trollers, Jazz, Black History Month

Since this is a commentary about Cleveland’s abysmal professional sports environment, I probably should post it tomorrow on Ground Hog Day. Like the movie, we seem to relive the same scenes over and over.

Collectively, the Haslam Browns, the Gilbert Cavaliers and the Dolan Indians are about as sad a trio of professional sports teams as exist in America. It would pain me less to acknowledge this sorry truth if I hadn’t been infected with an especially virulent case of hometown sports fever back in the Fifties. The Browns were the best team in pro football the first decade of my life, and the Indians won a couple of pennants and even a World Series during that same decade, though I hadn’t yet become emotionally chained to the city.

Even those glory days come with historical asterisks, however. The Browns’ best teams pre-dated the Super Bowl era, and several even pre-dated their admission to the NFL. The 1964 championship Browns team can be seen pretty much as an anomaly that unfortunately obscured the magisterially micro-mismanagement skills of one Art Modell.

Sad to say, the best three year football stretch in Cleveland over the past two decades occurred in those three or four years in the late ‘90s when we had no NFL entry.

The Cleveland Cavaliers were born during my early adulthood but still snuck into my sports heart. My favorite Cavs teams was the Miracle of Richfield bunch of the late ‘70s. They played as a unit, unselfishly sharing the ball. It didn’t matter who took the shot. Subsequent Cavs teams have had better talent. While this year’s team has some excellent talent, they play so disjointedly, selfishly, and with so little basketball intelligence that they are actually ugly to watch. [Exceptions: Andy Varajao, Tristan Thompson and newcomer Luol Deng.]

The Dolan baseball club is probably the best managed of Cleveland’s professional sports teams. However, they operate with the least money in the sport where money matters most. And they will be rightly cursed so long as they support the ugliest and most racist totem in pro sports.

I am given to occasionally reading the comments on various news stories of civic importance. I know beforehand that if the story involves any element of race or “inner-city” or increasingly, inner-ring suburbia, the commenters will be especially vitriolic. This phenomenon extended this week even to the announcement that The Ohio State University has selected an accomplished African American as its next president. While I don’t recall either the Plain Dealer or the Columbus Dispatch making much if any reference to his race, there was a healthy dosage of affirmative action commentary among the trolls. I suspect that these people are among the Chief Wahoo’s most fervent defenders.

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On a related note, these trollers are probably among the most vociferous attackers of the tastefully named Richard Sherman, star cornerback of the Seattle Seahawks. Sherman was the hyper vocal face of the Seahawks who made amped up over-the-top Muhammad Ali-like comments when a microphone was stuck in his face immediately after he made a tremendously acrobatic play that ensured his team would be in tomorrow’s Super Bowl. Sherman’s intemperate, adrenaline-fueled remarks, coupled with his defiant manner and flowing dreadlocks, made it easy for incognito critics to call him a thug. While a gladiator on the field, Richard Sherman is actually one of the most intelligent, best-educated and thoughtful professional athletes on the scene today. Doubters may want to take a look at this profile of the man, written before the season started.

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We intend in 2014 to do a better job providing local coverage of what some like to call “America’s music”, more familiarly known as jazz. We start with noting tonight’s Nighttown appearance of Dr. Phillip Martin [hat tip to local jazz aficionado Evan Morse]. Saxophonist Martin is crafting a dual career as a jazz sax man [clearly influenced by Grover Washington] with being a practicing dentist in Washington DC. For more info on tonight’s show, which starts at 8:30PM, visit here or here.

Elsewhere, also in Cleveland Heights, local singer Anita Keys will be performing at Rockefellers, 3099 Mayfield Road. Call 216.321.0477 for more info.

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Finally, I was initially hilarious when I first heard about Atlanta’s two-inch blizzard earlier in the week. I became more sensitive as I learned about stranded students, the elderly, distraught caregivers, and expectant mothers.

I turned off the cable news accounts as “the snow event” [the Atlanta local’s current term of art] because of the disgusting efforts of the so-called news broadcasters efforts to assign blame. [Those folk would fit in well in Cleveland.]

No doubt, some of those castigating public officials, from the governor on down, were those opposed to almost all non-military government spending.

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Today is the first day of Black History Month. In a few days the primary election season will be in full spring for a host of state, county, and local offices, including judicial races. Your Congressman will also be on the ballot.

There is a relationship between our history, the kind of policies our government advances or retards, who become our community spokespersons, the quality of our educational systems, the future of our children and our communities, and how involved we are in the political and civic process. Voting in the May primary is an essential duty. But it is not sufficient. Now is not too early to begin the process of self-education about who is running and doing some serious candidate vetting. We will do our part to help.

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