On Oct. 30, 2001 — six weeks after 9/11 — President George W. Bush threw out the first pitch of Game Three of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Yankee Stadium. Somehow we can’t imagine President Donald J. … — On Oct. 30, 2001 — six weeks after 9/11 — President George W. Bush threw out the first pitch of Game Three of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Yankee Stadium. Somehow we can’t imagine President Donald J. Trump doing this. Photograph by Eric Draper/White House.

Don't take him out to the ballgame -- Trump and criticism

October 30, 2019

When I was a child, I would avoid watching or hearing and reading about my beloved New York Yankees. Part of it was superstition. If I ignored them, they would win. But mostly this was about my avoiding the pain of their losing. If I didn’t know it happened, it was as if it didn’t happen and they would remain perfect in my mind.

Send in the clowns -- Boris and the Donald

July 29, 2019

Graig Nettles, the great New York Yankees’ third baseman of the 1970s, once observed that if you want an entertainer, hire (comedian) George Jessel — meaning that he was paid to hit and vacuum up ground balls from opposing batsmen, something he was quite entertaining at.

But in today’s world, it’s not enough to be good at what you do. You have to be relatable.

Against political correctness (with a caveat)

April 27, 2019

My cousin-hosts served up an intense political discussion along with delicious herb-crusted lamb chops for Easter dinner. As with most American families, mine is made up of Democrats and Republicans, Trumpettes and never-Trumpers. Me, I’m a moderate-independent, although I caucus with the Dems, so to speak.

About the only thing we all agree on is that we’re lifelong Yankee fans. So what did I, they wondered, think of the New York Yankees banning Kate Smith’s rendition of “God Bless America” because she sang a song about “darkies” that Paul Robeson, the great African-American actor-singer, also sang?

Don Rodolfo Giuliani de la Mancha, a tragicomedy in two acts

May 8, 2018

Tragedy, they say, returns as farce and so it is with Rudolph Giuliani – former New York City prosecutor and “America’s mayor” – who in defending his new client President Donald J. Trumpet to “Fox News’” Sean Hannity contradicted him on the Stormy Daniels matter, perhaps putting him in legal jeopardy. More tellingly, Rudy Two Shoes told Hannity he might have “to get on my charger and go into (Robert Mueller’s) offices with a lance” to defend his damsel in distress, his Dulcinea – Ivanka Trump. (I think I speak for women everywhere when I say Ivanka can take care of herself.) …

Whose art is it anyway? Harvey Weinstein and the film fan

October 22, 2017

Among the questions to emerge from the Harvey Weinstein scandal is one that human beings of conscience have been grappling with forever: Is it ethical to support the work of a scoundrel?

At first glance, the answer would appear to be simple: Art transcends biography. You wouldn’t rebuff a child because his father was a murderer, would you? So why hate the brainchild of a Weinstein or a Woody Allen – who, tellingly cautioned about a “witch hunt” against Weinstein – or a Mel Gibson or any other artist/athlete accused of heinous behavior?

But it’s more complex than that, isn’t it? ...

‘The way it is’: Kaepernick and the NFL protests

October 17, 2017

On Tuesday, the NFL owners and representative players will meet to discuss the National Anthem protest that has been a driving issue this season – this as protest initiator and former San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback Colin Kaepernick filed a grievance against the NFL, saying the 32 owners colluded to keep him out of the league because of his activism.

A bit of background: “The Star-Spangled Banner” has been played before NFL games since at least 2009 at the behest of the U.S. Department of Defense, ostensibly to bolster recruiting. The NFL rulebook says that teams must be suited up and on the field before the Anthem begins, standing facing the flag, with their helmets in their left hands and their right hands over their hearts. In the third preseason game of 2016, a reporter noted Kaepernick sitting through the Anthem to protest police brutality against people of color.

‘Damn Yankees’ again

October 15, 2017

I was a child of the 1960s when rooting for the New York Yankees was not like rooting for the proverbial U.S. Steel but more like rooting for a company forever on the brink of going belly up. How bad were the Yanks of the late ’60s and early ‘70s? Put it this way: The team would have some of the extra players dress in street clothes and fill in the seats behind home plate at Yankee Stadium to make it look like someone was actually at the games. (Ah, the Horace Clarke Era. No offense to Horace, a lovely, hard-working and decidedly mediocre second baseman who became the face of those wilderness years, 1967-73.)

We can remember those days fondly, because as every Yankee fan knows the trajectory of the Bronx Bombers – like President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s view of the arc of civilization – has, despite some zigzagging, been ever upward. ...