Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2007-09-20, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2007. PAGE 5. Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt I like it here T he one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has been erased like a blackboard, only to be rebuilt and then erased again. But baseball has marked time while America has rolled by like a procession of steamrollers. – From Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella I’m not much for baseball trivia. I couldn’t name three guys in the Blue Jays lineup and I wouldn’t know an ERA from an RBI from an NDP or an AFL CIO. But I know a baseball milestone when we reach it. That happened this summer when Phil Rizzuto died. It wasn’t a big surprise. The guy was 89 and hadn’t dressed for a game since 1954 when all television sets were black and white and Louis St. Laurent was our PM. Even when he played shortstop, Rizzuto wasn’t the flashiest guy on the field. He was a small man playing on a team that included legendary giants like Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. It’s difficult to cast much of a shadow in company like that, especially when you only stand five foot six in your cleats and weigh less than the bat boy. And Rizzuto was no powerhouse slugger. Barry Bonds is closing in on 800 career home runs? Rizzuto hit only 38 in his entire 13-year career. “My stats don’t shout,” Rizzuto once remarked. “They kind of whisper.” Rizzuto won’t be remembered so much for what he accomplished on the field. It was what he did in the broadcast booth that makes him a baseball immortal. “The Scooter” spent less than a decade and a half playing ball, but he spent the next four decades talking about it as the official announcer for all New York Yankees games. And as an announcer, he broke every rule in the book. He was an unabashed ‘homer’. He loved the Yankees like family and barely acknowledged the teams they were playing. His favourite expression was ‘Holy Cow’. He used it to described a Yankee double play, the sunset or the hot dog he had eaten at lunch. He used air time to congratulate any friends he had who were celebrating a birthday or an anniversary. He would interrupt the play-by- play to send out best wishes to a pal laid up in hospital with a broken leg. He would keep Yankee fans au courant with news of his wife’s shopping sprees and who came over for dinner last night. He was also a flaming neurotic and he talked about that, too. He told the fans how much he feared snakes. And rats. And lightning. Also traffic. Rizzuto had an obsessive fixation about getting stuck in traffic. So much so that he once left the broadcast booth during the seventh inning in order to beat the other cars out of Yankee Stadium and get over the bridge to his home in New Jersey. Hey. The Yankees had a big lead anyway. Rizzuto was an oddball, but he was following a baseball tradition of oddball commentators. Babe Ruth was once presented to King George VI during a North American royal tour. “Your majesty, may I present Mister George Herman Ruth.” intoned the master of ceremonies. “Mister Ruth, this is King George VI.” “How ya doin’, King?” said Ruth. But it was Yogi Berra, a teammate of Rizzuto’s who really gave The Scooter a run in the non-sequitur department. The Yankee catcher’s observations were frequently Zen-like. Watching Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris clobber back-to-back homeruns, Berra murmured, “It’s deja vue all over again.” He also said “You’ve got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might not get there.” Most of the time Yogi’s comments were just dopey. When asked if he wanted his pizza cut into four or eight slices, Berra said “Better make it four…I don’t think I could eat eight.” His math wasn’t so hot when it came to baseball, either. “Ninety per cent of this game,” Berra said, “is half mental.” But little Phil Rizzuto holds the world record for most inappropriate comment on the air. During a ball game in 1978, the play-by- play was interrupted by a news bulletin that Pope Paul VI had died. After the bulletin, a chastened Rizzuto came back on the air with “Holy Cow. That kind of puts a damper on even a Yankee win.” U.S. baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti once wrote “Baseball breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.” Well, maybe. But it provides a lot of belly laughs along the way. Arthur Black Parties have their differences T wo roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. — Robert Frost In his poem The Road Not Taken the poet ruminates on what it means to make choices. In choosing a path, one is always left to wonder whether the one they’ve taken is the right one. In going through our life journey we are often faced with decisions, knowing as well that after making our choice there is rarely an opportunity to go back. And whether we think about it or not, we are making some kind of choice almost every second of every day. Some of these are easier than others, of course, such as deep thoughts on whether to have a hot dog or hamburger. Yet even those that seem inconsequential can have an impact. After all, which of those two less than nutritious meals offers the greater bang for the caloric buck? (For the record, I’d opt for the burger, which is lower in saturated fat, contains B vitamins, and is a good source of protein.) Amazingly it can also be the seemingly insignificant detail that can alter our course forever. Sometimes what the outcome would be had we chosen a different path is more obvious. Deciding not to get up to lock that forgotten door, or not taking the extra moment to turn off a piece of machinery before doing a bit of maintenance, can both have dire consequences. And no one is left wondering what would have happened had a different choice been made. More often, however, we make decisions that lead us along our journey with the certainty that things would be different had we chosen another route but never really sure in what way. In the quiet of the still night, having become a mid-life insomniac, I often think about the course my life has taken and how great a role my choices played in charting that course. It can be a fun and harmless diversion. (A much wiser decision than waking Mark for a chat.) As with most people I’ve hit my share of potholes along the way. And with no one else to blame for most of them, it’s interesting to ponder where I might be now had I avoided them. In these moments, there is a song by Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman that always comes to mind. It speaks of looking back at words that should have been said, doors that should have been opened, squandered tears and the many times the piper has been paid. “If I had changed a single day, what went amiss or went astray, I may have never found my way to you.” Okay, so it’s a mushy love song, but the intent is the same. Are you happy where you are? There are no opportunities to go back and try a different path to see where it leads. In retrospect I know that there were times when my choices weren’t the wisest. I know there were times when I let adversity win. There were times of regret and missed opportunities. So sometimes, I find myself wondering what it would have meant if I had taken the ‘right’ path. Then I always remember that if you’re happy now, then you’d have to think you’ve already taken the right path, wrong as it may have seemed. I remember, then that every choice I have made in life has brought me to here. And I really do like being here. Other Views Take me out to the ball game Many voters are saying there are so few differences in policies between the two main parties in Ontario’s Oct. 10 election they are having difficulty choosing between them. But they should look a little closer. The platforms of Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty and Progressive Conservative leader John Tory have been called uncannily similar and failing to offer the different visions of the province’s future to which voters are entitled. The two leaders have been called soul- mates, identical twins and tweedledum and tweedledee. These assessments can be understood, because this election does not provide the sharp contrasts between the parties of recent predecessors, when the Conservatives were led by the ultra-right Mike Harris, slashing taxes and services, and his paler successor, Ernie Eves, and the Liberals by the more moderate McGuinty and Lyn Mcleod. McGuinty and Tory, who has always been a centrist Conservative, are both striving for the same votes in the middle of the political spectrum, which is where most voters are after losing enthusiasm for Harris and his cuts. McGuinty and Tory also have similarities in style. The Liberal leader’s most frequent boast is he has headed off conflicts with public servants and the Tory Conservatives’ first preoccupation as leader was urging the parties to be more civil, while Harris looked for fights and called one opponent an asshole. Both McGuinty and Tory would spend a lot more on the key areas of health, education and police. When McGuinty came up with his only novel idea of the campaign, a statutory holiday with pay each February, Tory echoed it is a time of year when workers need a break, although he probably was motivated more by worry he would lose votes if he put a damper on an extra day off. Voters unable to sort out who is whom could look at the New Democratic Party, but polls have shown many reluctant to do so and – to turn back to the original issue – there are differences between the Liberals and Conservatives. The most striking is Tory’s promise to fund private, faith-based schools, which the Conservatives say is fair because the province funds Catholic schools. McGuinty has countered this would further divide children of different faiths, who benefit when educated together. It is a significant issue worth debating in an election. McGuinty has said he would increase the minimum wage from $8 an hour to $10.25 by 2010, but only after being pushed when the NDP won votes on it in by-elections. Tory has replied more cautiously the minimum wage must be increased and he would set a realistic figure that would allow those receiving it to live in dignity, but give employers time to adjust and avoid job losses. Tory is promising to cut wait times for doctors’ services by allowing patients to use private clinics, providing they accept payments from provincial medicare and do not allow private patients to jump queues. But McGuinty counters this would weaken the public plan by putting its money into private clinics. McGuinty would reduce emissions that cause climate change by six per cent below 1990 levels by 2014, 15 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. Tory would cut emissions by 10 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2050, slightly slower than McGuinty. But there is no way of assuring either party will keep such distant targets and whether they were dragged out of a hat anyway. McGuinty, also to reduce pollution, is promising to phase out all coal-fired electricity generating stations by 2014, but failed to meet earlier promised deadlines. Tory says he would move immediately to clean up the coal-fired plants, phase out coal when this becomes practical and meanwhile pour millions into developing technology to reduce pollution. These differences between the parties are not as dramatic as many of the past, but when voters couple them with their records they provide some guide to making a choice. Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be signed and should include a daytime telephone number for the purpose of verification only. Letters that are not signed will not be printed. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity and content, using fair comment as our guideline. The Citizen reserves the right to refuse any letter on the basis of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise.