Anti-Americanism in America; A Rare Tribute to the Yankees

While Chandra Levy's body lies at the bottom of the Chesapeake, 58-year-old George Harrison prepares for an imminent and dignified death. Think of all the rock stars who wish they'd written pop classics like "Only a Northern Song," "Taxman," "Apple Scruffs," "Long, Long, Long," "Think for Yourself" or "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." No one can bother George anymore.

1. Let's Make Lots of Money. Junior and I usually take a livery car home from Yankee Stadium-the subway is less hospitable to fans wearing Bosox hats-and he always has to be reminded to keep his trap shut when I horse-trade with the driver. Last Saturday afternoon, after a poignant, two-inning Old Timers' Day game commemorating the '61 Yanks and then the regularly scheduled contest with the Blue Jays, I had my hands full with this character who chased us down at a beverage cart. He wanted $50 for the ride, and after being waved off like a Mark Green shill, came down a measly two bucks. He was told to scram, that I never pay more than $40, and we eventually sealed the deal.

But once that exchange was over, Felipe-who's been living in New York just over a year, relocated from San Juan-and I had a pretty spirited conversation while my bushed son read the latest issue of MAD. Felipe didn't know squat about local geography, but paid strict attention to my directions, unlike some smart-ass drivers who don't believe the customer's always right. He was eager to chat about politics. Make Puerto Rico the 51st state! he told me, as if I had some influence with Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton. Señor, I'm with you, and why not add Cuba as well. He agreed.

I admired his unrepentant lust for the green. The game was still in progress when we left, so he asked how the Yanks were doing, and I told him it was all tied up. "Hmm," he said, "I'll have to rush back up here. I love it when those Yankees win, the fans are happy and drunk and I make big tips. If they lose, everyone takes the train; it's no good, no good for my business." As it turned out, closer Mariano Rivera blew the three-and-a-half hour game in the ninth, leaving the Yanks in a first-place tie with the Bosox, who got creamed by the Chicago White Sox. (The Yankees regained the AL East lead on Sunday, with a fine outing by the uneven Mike Mussina, while the Sox once again were outslugged in Chicago.)

Felipe was a chatterbox, which sometimes bugs me, but his sheer enthusiasm for his life in the New World was refreshing and a real change from the grizzled, often rude Russians who more often than not pick me up in Manhattan.

It might be my imagination, but in the last six months, I've noticed a marked decrease in the number of cabbies who wear turbans, have shrines on their dashboards or stink to high heaven, mostly from bad incense. A couple of years ago, these guys ruled the streets: did I miss some religious decree that sent them all away? Could be, and I hope it's true that this wave of drivers has climbed the economic ladder, ceding the grueling taxi beat to the latest rush of immigrants.

2. Where Have You Gone, Jake Gibbs? My dad and I went to an Old Timers' Day back in '67, when the Yanks had blessedly descended into a lengthy skein of second-division finishes. Mickey Mantle was on his last legs and so Dooley Womack, Horace Clarke, Roy White, Tom Tresh and wife-swapping Fritz Peterson were the also-rans who represented a team that had dominated the Major Leagues for decades. I saw Joe DiMaggio at the Stadium for the first time, along with Allie Reynolds, Phil Rizzuto, Vic Raschi and Tommy Henrich; the rest were a blur that've been lost in a jumble of memories, although perhaps in my sunset years I'll be able to recite the exact lineup.

I despise the Yankees, like any Red Sox partisan, but you can't deny their history, and the pageantry on this sunny 2001 afternoon was spectacular. I could've done without Billy Crystal at the microphone, mostly delivering a commercial for his HBO movie 61*-which I liked very much-but the rest was terrific. One after another, the old stars were introduced and jogged to the field: Whitey Ford, Clete Boyer, Hank Bauer, Yogi, Don Larsen, Jim Bouton, Moose Skowron, Joe Pepitone (by far the hippest 60s Yank), Ralph Houk, Graig Nettles, Goose Gossage, Reggie Jackson and Bobby Murcer. There were tributes to teammates who'd died in the last year, and when David Mantle and Kevin and Richard Maris were introduced, looking just like their dads, two fellows in front of us had tears in their eyes. Bauer was coaching first, and if it was a little strange seeing Doc Gooden, so recently retired, playing first, well, they had to make up two teams.

Pepitone, traded to the Houston Astros in '69, told the Daily News' Bill Madden about the Yankees' quick dismissal of players who they deemed no longer useful. He was less bitter than Johnny Blanchard, Murcer and Bauer, and said: "Even though Houston was a culture shock for me-can you imagine me in that cow town?-and I had to leave my hairstyle salon, it was good for me to get away from the Yankees. All my friends, Mickey, Clete (Boyer), Roger, had either retired or been traded. I was the same, but the team wasn't."

Bouton had some choice remarks for Spencer Fordin, site manager of Yankees.com. He recalled players back in the 60s: "Vietnam? That was an annoying thing going on somewhere else. They didn't even know where it was on the map. Baseball players didn't read the front page of the newspaper. [They'd go] right to the sports section, and they didn't even like what was written there."

His opinion of the sport today? "I don't like the runs. They've destroyed the subtle beauty of the game... When was the last time you saw a squeeze bunt?? You don't need a squeeze bunt in a 16-12 game... The players are better-the game is worse."

I'm not a baseball purist, longing for the era of eight teams in each league, but here's an example of one superior aspect of the old days. There was just one song played in between innings of the veterans' game: "Duke of Earl." When the current Yanks went up against the Jays, we were blasted back to reality in the bottom of the first with a deafening "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses, followed by the standard assortment of pop atrocities.

In that vein, the best sports article I've read all year appeared on The Wall Street Journal's July 10 front page, a piece by Jonathan Eig about the dying ritual of fans vigilantly scoring the game. It wasn't that long ago that you'd see a slew of guys in the ballpark, transistor radio attached to one ear while they scribbled baseball hieroglyphics, lost in their own world. I remember a roommate of mine in Baltimore, back in '77, keeping score of a Pirates game at home, even though he had two final exams the next day.

Eig writes: "These are cruel and lonely times for baseball's die-hard scorekeepers, fans who wouldn't dream of attending a baseball game without keeping a written record of every hit, walk, out, error and run scored. Theirs is a tradition that dates back more than 150 years. But at tonight's All-Star Game in Seattle, as at most Major League Baseball games these days, old-fashioned scorekeeping will be scarcely seen...

"Team officials and others who watch the game closely say that the scorecard is vanishing faster than the $2 hot dog. At many ballparks, the humble cardboard sheets, which typically sold for a dollar, have been replaced by thick, glossy magazines, often selling for $4 or $5. The new programs include a page or two for keeping score, but vendors say most customers are interested only in the pictures and rosters. The evidence: Fewer requests for pencils."

3. The Times Is a Five-Letter Word. Need more evidence that The Washington Post is the United States' legitimate liberal newspaper of record? The anti-American New York Times ceded that honorific years ago, and its plummet into the company of fringe publications like The Nation and The Progressive has accelerated remarkably since George W. Bush won the presidency last year.

Compare the front-page leads in both dailies from last Saturday about the violent demonstrations in Genoa.

The Times: "A 23-year-old Italian protester was shot and killed today by a police officer during a riot less than two miles from a gathering of leaders of the world's largest industrialized nations, who were protected by a 13-foot fence that anti-globalization demonstrators had vowed to breach.

"The killing in Genoa, a medieval seaport converted into a 21st-century citadel, is the first death during an anti-globalization demonstration since the movement tempestuously surfaced at a World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999. Today's grim milestone deepened an already widespread feeling that these kinds of international conferences and the vast and often violent protests they inspire cannot go on unchanged any longer."

True to form, the first head of state quoted in Alessandra Stanley and David E. Sanger's article was France's President Jacques Chirac, who said, "One hundred thousand people don't get upset unless there is a problem in their hearts and spirits." President Bush's reaction wasn't noted until the 13th paragraph, after considerable space was given to the opinions of Vittorio Agnoletti, "head of the Genoa Social Forum, an umbrella association of more than 700 anti-globalization groups," who called for an immediate suspension of the summit.

The Post: "For hours, shock troops of the two sides pelted each other. Demonstrators threw rocks and firebombs, police in full-body armor fired tear gas and swung clubs. But then on a street of this city's Piazza Tommaseo, the melee suddenly took a life.

"Demonstrators in black ski masks set upon a stopped police vehicle, they jumped on the roof and smashed the windows with crowbars. The young officers inside were screaming, in pain, terror and fury, witnesses said.

"One protester hoisted a fire extinguisher above his head with both hands, and aimed at the open rear window of the vehicle. An officer aimed with a pistol and shot, witnesses said. The protester fell. The jeep then ran over him, according to a Reuters photographer who watched the shooting.

"The scene marked a new level of violence in the protests that for the past 18 months have erupted almost every time leaders of the major industrial countries, global corporations or banks gather. For leaders of the Group of Eight, or G-8, industrial nations, starting a summit inside a 13th-century palace here, talk turned to how to get together in the future without having to impose what amounts to martial law on their host city.

"Nearly 100 demonstrators and security officials were injured during the day, as a crowd that police estimated in the tens of thousands gathered in Genoa after months of organizing, largely via the Internet. They represented a range of causes, from socialism to vegetarianism, but most shared an opposition to the increasingly worldwide reach of major corporations, which opponents contend are enriching executives at the expense of the poor and the environment."

Post reporters Mike Allen and Sarah Delaney, cognizant their article was printed in the United States, ignored France's ethics-challenged Chirac and gave Bush's comments the most play. The President, anticipating the throng of anarchists, vegetarians, thrill-seekers and committed leftists, said before he flew to Genoa: "To those folks, I say, instead of addressing policies that represent the poor, you embrace policies that lock poor people into poverty, and that's unacceptable to the United States. Trade has been the best avenue for economic growth for all countries and I reject the isolationism and protectionism that dominates those who will try to disrupt the meetings in Genoa."

Quite a contrast from Bill Clinton in Seattle two years ago, when he openly sympathized with the creeps who later trashed that city.

4. The Jelly Jungle on W. 43rd St. Another split between the Times and Post came on July 22, when both papers ran pieces about the GOP's moderate House members. The Times, in its lead editorial, "The G.O.P.'s Unsung Centrists," reached the absurd conclusion that Bush's agenda will ultimately be held hostage by this small group of Republicans who've become more important to the White House since the Democrats took control of the Senate. Read this stunner: "The moderates' discontent has already been amply ventilated on issues relating to the environment and energy. Mr. Bush and his key advisers [translated: Karl Rove] do not seem to grasp that many Republican suburbanites and affluent party contributors are also ardent environmentalists who give their time and money to conservation organizations."

Funny, if you've been a diligent Times student in the past year, until now all of Bush's financial support has come via millionaires from the oil and banking industries. Ever since the administration made a huge early mistake by temporarily jettisoning President Clinton's 11:59 p.m. reduction of arsenic levels in water-not that the Times criticized Clinton for failing to enact that legislation during his eight-year White House tenure-everyone's become a Robert Redford-like environmentalist. That's not accurate, but it suits Howell Raines' agenda of anti-Bush propaganda.

The Post article-headlined "For GOP House Moderates, a Season of Discontent: Legislators Struggle to Effect Change Within Their Party While Remaining Loyal to Their Leadership"-was more balanced. Reporter Juliet Eilperin acknowledged the growing political influence of mostly Northeastern moderate Republicans, but refused to pretend, as did the Times, that the group was following the example of legacy-driven Sen. John McCain.

True, Eilperin's piece wasn't an editorial, but that's also a key difference between the competing newspapers: At the Times, every political story, whether it's a front-page news or analysis piece, editorial or op-ed column, is indistinguishable in its point of view. The Times' reporter Richard Berke might as well be writing for Raines' section; ditto for Adam Clymer or David Sanger.

The Post, while not "objective" in the mythical First Rule of Journalism sense that some still hypocritically espouse, is at least far more restrained in its reporting. An example from Eilperin's story on the moderates: "'It's a struggle. You want to serve as a reminder to the conference that these are issues we feel very deeply about,' said Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who led the unsuccessful fight last week to ensure Bush's faith-based initiative did not exempt religious groups from state and local nondiscrimination laws. 'At the same time, we're loath to participate with the Democrats because we know they're using us for a tactical advantage.'"

5. On the Other Hand... Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is a far right-wing newspaper that, along with lunatic FreeRepublic.com, is about as reliable as its socialist counterparts In These Times and Salon.com. The Tribune-Review's July 18 obit-largely inaccurate-of The Washington Post's Katharine Graham was a disgraceful exercise in bad taste.

Whether you agreed with Graham's politics or not-politics that, in fact, were increasingly middle-of-the-road-the woman was an admirable publishing executive. Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate triumph was one of the most significant stories of the 20th century: the only downside was that it encouraged far too many snotty college students, enticed by the sudden glamour of the profession, to become journalists when they'd be better suited for insurance agencies, or fetching coffee for Alan Dershowitz. But that wasn't Graham's fault.

The Tribune-Review wrote, in part: "[Graham] married Felix Frankfurter's brilliant law clerk, Philip Graham, who took over running The Post, which her father purchased at a bankruptcy sale. Graham built the paper but became estranged from Kay. She had him committed to a mental hospital, and he was clearly intending divorce when she signed him out and took him for a weekend outing during which he was found shot. His death was ruled a suicide. Within 48 hours, she declared herself the publisher... She truly was one of a kind."

6. Still in the Muck. I've had minimal interest in the Lizzie Grubman Hamptons scandal, except to heave at the multimillion-dollar lawsuits filed by victims of her SUV-tantrum several weeks ago. She seems rather despicable, judging by her "fuck you, white trash" comment directed at a bouncer before she mowed down 16 people, but it's a larger indictment of today's society that people just assume a few broken bones entitles them to huge cash settlements. Better that Grubman does a year-long stretch in the hoosegow, and then about 10 years of community service in Spanish Harlem.

Leave it to Liz Smith to defend the skanky publicist. In her July 22 syndicated column Smith recounted a recent dinner party where she "sat near a woman I respect as much as any other human being in the world." (Considering Smith's career of shameless sucking-up to celebrities, instead of spilling gossip that actually has some bite, the mere mention of "respect" is worthless. What, has Tom Cruise or Tina Brown not been in touch recently?)

Smith continues: "She happens to be a successful, talented (brilliant even), secular Jewish person who lives in N.Y.C. and East Hampton. This woman commented that the public furor against Lizzie is simply thinly-disguised anti-Semitism on the part of Hamptons residents who resent the influx of dot-com millionaires, nouveau riche baby boomers and people who build 30-bedroom houses in their potato fields."

Right. Like the Hamptons weren't infested by celebrities-Jewish, Christian, white, black or yellow-years ago, way before the word "dot-com" was even used by more than 100 people.

I prefer Grubman's quote in this week's New York-first noted by the Post's "Page Six" on Sunday. She says: "I'm used to being in control in my business. It's so frustrating to sit back every day while people make these false accusations and spread rumors and draw awful cartoons and not be able to say anything because my lawyers have instructed me not to."

Yes, those awful cartoons. Power to the fucking white trash!

7. When in Doubt, Smear Bartley. The abrupt announcement last week that Paul Gigot will replace Robert Bartley as The Wall Street Journal's editorial page editor this September was met with predictable derision in the mainstream press. The worst article was found in the July 19 Daily News, in which Eric Herman hunt-and-pecked this imaginative lead sentence: "Wall Street Journal's orchestra of conservative editorial writers is about to get a new conductor." Herman repeated the accusation that the Journal's series of critical editorials about Hillary Clinton's former Rose Law Firm partners was a cause for one of them, Vince Foster, to commit suicide. Bartley responded: "We set out to say there was something wrong with the character of the administration, and I think that's been amply vindicated."

Herman also quotes retired Baltimore Sun columnist Jack Germond-"who many consider a liberal," which is like saying of Tom DeLay "who many consider a conservative"-and the cranky old-school pundit proved that he's as nasty as ever. "A lot of editorial pages are really bland and no one would ever accuse Bartley of being bland," he said, and then speculated that Gigot would "be more mainstream conservative" than Bartley, who's "way off far beyond even the normal fringe."

That's nonsense. In his weekly column, "Thinking Things Over," Bartley has recently advocated "fringe" ideas like lengthy congressional debate on stem cell research; encouraging the expansion of free trade in Latin America; and accelerating the rate of immigration, especially from Mexico.

His July 16 piece, headlined "Let the Economy Recover," contained this sensible conclusion: "The biggest threat is that recessions reduce government revenues and create deficits or, currently, reduce surpluses. The classic blunder is to raise taxes, as in 1932 and 1990 and in the drumbeats we hear today. Nothing is better calculated to thwart the natural momentum of recovery than taking money out of the private sector. But then, ever since mankind came down from the ice floes, tribal chiefs have always looked for any excuse to claim more of what the people produce."

Smarmy Slate editor Michael Kinsley told The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, apparently without irony: "[The Journal's editorial page is] a central cog in the vast right-wing conspiracy," and that the paper's editorials are often "irresponsible" and "intellectually dishonest." As opposed to the "intellectually honest" editorials of The New York Times, I suppose.

Gigot, 46, whose Friday "Potomac Watch" column in the Journal is among the most influential in the country, wasn't buying any of this talking-points criticism. He told Kurtz: "I'm elated, excited, a little daunted. It's a big challenge... Bartley is probably, with Abe Rosenthal and Ben Bradlee, one of the most important editors in the last 30 years. He's left a tremendous legacy and it's impossible to replace him."

July 23

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