Leaving Madoff-Canseco


I will not crucify A-rod for the sins of Madoff-Canseco.

Oversight was lax by decree during the Madoff-Canseco.


Little oversight of Madoff$.

Even less for Canseco$.


Yet such has it been, even before the Madoff-Canseco.

That’s why we call exceptions to the rule of the Madoff-Canseco… heroes.



Okay. Let's take a trip.

Get the DeLorean out of the garage.

You drive. I'll do the Travelogue.

Ignition. (Hope you changed the oil from time to time.)



Back up slowly through A-Rod.

And don’t avert your eyes through Madoff.

The Emperor has no clothes. But weren’t we all born naked?



Take your time backing up, over and down the rocky Goldman pass.

Don’t bail out when you see the houses of Bear, AIG, Merrill and Lehman in flames.

Those houses may deserve to be on fire.

But yours will be too if you waste too much time in judgment.



Keep backing up. No need to stop in Clemens, Sosa or McGwire.

Save your seething righteous indignation for Bush-Cheney.

Put on a Kevlar vest when the flack gets wack in Rumsfeld.

Now brace yourself.

Because watching Bill Clinton modify liberalism to be more market friendly may not hurt at first. But you’ll need a full body MRI to determine if you can live without your soul, the one you put on ice for 8 years.

Make that 16.

Actually 38.

Because… now you’re in Reagan.

Look around.

This is where you really lost your way.



But don’t look too long.

Don't turn into a pillar of salt gawking in Milliken and Lyle Alzado.

But do turn down the Duran-Duran once you’ve reached Canseco proper.
(Because sometimes too much Duran-Duran is just too much Duran-Duran.)


You’re cruising now. Back-back-back-back-back.

Hey, there’s the 1976 East German swim team.

Nixon being ‘Nixon now more than ever’ – tanned and well rested.

Whoa! What the hell was that?
What?!
What the hell did you just say?

This is some Trip. Bad trip. Good trip. Bad but in a good way?

Required 5th grade social studies filmstrip: Raise and pave the Amazon.

Bummer, but full frontal display of aboriginal nudity much appreciated.

Hey teacher, will this test go all the way back to original sin?


Colored lights fly by - Space Odyssey 2001 in Brazile ‘69.

Some may experience this as the Rolling Stones performing "Sympathy for the Devil" at Altamont – particularly the moment when Mick says: 'I shouted out who killed the Kennedys, when after all, it was you and me.'



Had enough?

Change the soundtrack to anything Lennon, Zimmerman or Gaye.

“What’s Happenin' Brother.”

Booker T. in reverse.

60's. 50's. 40’s.

The War.

30’s. 20’s.

Then the War to End all Wars.


Stop. STOP!

Pause.

Breath in. Breath out.



We’re at the beginning of the 20th century.


Now let's travel forward again.

I hear a Scott Joplin rag.

I'm a stand-up comic out on the lip of The Vaudeville Palace:

Tyrus Raymond Cobb was so racist, he once beat an armless black man senseless just for heckling him at old Hilltop Park. 'The Georgia Peach' was suspended, but quickly re-instated, when fellow players, despite hating Cobb personally, protested that he had every right to beat an armless black man senseless. (High hat; a few chuckles from the thin matinee crowd.)

Ty was finally encouraged to retire when it was evident he had gambled on games in which he played; he was very Pete Rose that way. So the Chicago White Sox were not uniquely dirty.


Still rolling forward.

Rogers Hornsby, the greatest right-handed hitter of all time.

Also had a gambling problem - mostly with the ponies.

Sometimes puppies. Less with people, the real players.

He too was encouraged to retire.

Nasty guy. Did I mention he was in the KKK?


The Babe: greatest ballplayer evah (don't forget the pitching).

But he too had what we now consider social ills.

Drank too much too late.
Drank too late too illegal. The prohibition.

Hung with Scarfaces. Ran with the New York Mayor Jimmy Walker.

Jimmy was very Blagojevich.

Ruth never gambled on the outcome, was well compensated by his team. Paid better than President Herbert Hoover.

The Babe said: "I had a better year than him."

But Ruth had his troubles with the ladies.

Rockwellian image: Jolly St. Nick chased through a train car by a hot-jazz flapper.

But the flapper has a knife - wants to use it on Ruth.

Who could blame her? Ruth gave her a social disease.
Which kept him out of the lineup for 2 years total.

Isn’t that cheating the fans?


FF Fast forward. Forget the depression. Skip the wars. Skip the bomb.
The lessons are clearly less clear.

So Mach 2 into the 50's.

Ladies & Gentlemen, please turn your attention to the front row here at the Copa!
It’s Mickey Mantle.

(Whispers) I hear he had a mistress in most cities.
(A bit louder) Hey, who let him cut in line to get that fresh kidney?


Pitchers & Catchers.

Whitey Ford: Mantle's enabler-corrupter.

Handled his booze better than Mick or Billy the Kid.
(Pitchers only work twice a week.)

When Whitey's skills naturally diminished, he found a super deluxe trick pitch for 1963. He’d deep rub, scratch & gouge the ball.
With a melted-smelted raspy ring.
Hidden under a band-aid by J&J.

When the umps caught on ("Hey Slick lay off that Spaldeen will ya?), his catcher Elston Howard did the honors for him with a sharpened eyelet on the back of his mitt.


Gaylord Perry: the best spit 'n vaseline-baller of the 60's, 70's & 80'S.

His dumb play of cheat & faux cheat led him to doors of the Hall of Fame.

To which he was summarily & unjustly elected.

If I could be Pol Pot for a day, I’d year zero Perry and his 300 wins.


And the corkers.
Lesser greats.
Though plenty big league cheats.

Norm Cash: Ordinary hitter in the 50's; spiked to a batting title in ‘61.

He later confessed he had:

1. Cored out his bat on a lathe.

2. Filled the bat with nails and spackle.

3. Then covered the hole with sawdust and glue.

When the umps got savvy, he abandoned bat. And was never so good again.


Graig Nettles: Magician with third base leather, more mortal with the lumber: 6 super-balls popped out of the top of his bat on a foul-tipped swing back in 1973. This was so outrageously funny, that he was neither fined nor suspended for any significant length of time by Commissioner Bowie Mulligan.

Albert Belle: corked bat, corked body. Teammate Jason Grimsley (supplier of human growth hormone to Clemens & Pettitte) crawled through a major league ballpark air duct in the middle of the night to remove Belle's confiscated corked bat from the locked Ump clubhouse.

During one of many roid rages, Belle pegged a heckler with a ball during pre-game BP.

So I put current Cansecos into the context of better quant hedge technology.

Today's roid rager was yesterday's corker, spitballer, gambler. Or skirt chaser.

Or hood wearing Klan Grand dragon.


I crunch current sport into the greater Madoffian fund of funds.

The credo for some time was Lombardi's 'winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.’

Oakland Raider owner Al Davis updated this to 'win baby win’ in the 70's.

He’d beg, borrow and steal x-cons, assassins (Jack Tatum) and cheaters (Alzado).

To build his football dynasty.


At first this seemed a bit tacky, wacky and untoward.

But by the time Reagan entered his second term in 1984, not living by the credo Davis was considered naïve. “Don't you want to win man?!”

So where are the heroes?

Who’s gonna clean up this mess?

I need a shower. Doesn’t anybody shoot straight?


Don’t worry.

Some do live the inherent virtues of virtue.

And these are the players that really matter.


Sports columnist Filip Bondi made the great point that the ongoing ebb of Derek Jeter's powers is comforting.

We know he's real - which makes his accomplishments even more awesome.

Jeter can hang #'s. He'll get 3,000 hits. 300 steals. 200 homers maybe. He’ll end up in the top 10 all time in runs scored. That is the point of the game right? Score the most runs.

But most importantly, instead of looking for the cheaters edge, he always backs up the play in real time.
Any ball in play stays in play until Derek gives it back to the pitcher.


Deep Quant crunchers say Jeter has limited range in the field.
Have the models to prove it.

Yet he's the one who runs across the field to push-pass to Posada.

Kick-starts the title run for post 9/11 New York.

Face plants on the seats to beat the Red Sox during the regular season!

A-rod, closer to the play, got there second, looked at Jeter like: ‘WooHoo! Dude, your face is SO bleeding! I would NEVER do that.’

And A-rod is pretty hustle.


And Jack.

Before Barack.

Before the Jacksons – Jesse, Reggie & Michael.

Before Aaron 715.

Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Malcolm, MLK. And Rosa.

Before Brown vs. Board of Ed.


Jackie Robinson really did break the color barrier by playing baseball.

And we remember him. Top 5 All time.

Not just in Baseball. In US History.


So there is sinning in baseball, in tandem with sins of the bank.

But heroes show before the game is over.

And lift us up from the Madoff-Canseco.

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Thanks be to Estephan: Steve Page. Again. And Again.