Posted by Fitz<\/p>\n
Since the Carpetbagger is away and has foolishly let the riffraff in I can devote a post to something far more important than politics. I mean, of course, baseball. Why the Carpetbagger does not expend more energy (or, for that matter, any energy) discussing America\u2019s pastime is a subject for another post. For now, let\u2019s just say that the words \u2018bottle baby\u2019 pop into my mind.<\/p>\n
Anyway, over the last few days, while other bloggers have been actually listening to carefully crafted and vetted political speeches \u2013 or getting their first taste of banquet buffet chicken at the DNC, I have been following several important baseball stories. Why are they important? Because all of us, including the politicians reading scripts to the chicken gobbling media, could learn something from them. This is a real American story. Human, flawed, they are three troubled men. Each touched greatness; two held on, one failed. As sports columnist Jason Stark noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n Eckersley changed his life in the winter of 1986 when his sister-in-law videotaped one of his drunken episodes and then forced him to sit down and watch it later. The video literally sobered him up, and he went on to become one of the game’s dominant closers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n During his acceptance speech Eckersley not only discussed his battle with alcoholism, he even thanked ex-teammate Rick Manning<\/a>, who played a role in the breakup of his first marriage. The common theme in both Eckersley and Molitor\u2019s speeches was accepting personal responsibility and gratitude for life\u2019s opportunities. I would argue that Pete Rose is not the only well known public figure<\/a> who has not learned either of these lessons.<\/p>\n The other baseball story that caught my attention just got wide coverage today<\/a>. Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi<\/a> is suffering from an intestinal parasite. According to reports, his trainer claims it may be entamoeba histolytica<\/a>, which is potentially life threatening. Reports also note that Giambi\u2019s teammate, pitcher Kevin Brown<\/a>, has also been suffering from an intestinal parasite. My first thought on reading this was, what on earth are those guys doing in that dugout? Entamoeba histolytica is normally only contracted from fecal contamination of food or water. Surely a pair of multi-millionaires can afford bottled water and un-tainted food.<\/p>\n Then I realized, maybe they just ate a bologna sandwich. Seriously, the USDA warns that consumers may contract Listeriosis<\/a> from processed foods produced in America. Listeriosis is caused by listeria monocytogenes<\/a>, a bacteria that, you guessed it, is typically passed by fecal contamination. At the risk of touching on politics, I have to wonder. In an era of mad cow disease why can\u2019t the White House make it clear to the USDA\u2019s Food Safety and Inspection Service, that \u2018exposing processed foods to fecal matter after they have been cooked is bad, and should be strongly discouraged<\/i>\u2019?<\/p>\n After all, this is not some poor schmuck scarfing an cold hot dog from the fridge, pro-business or not, the administration should realize, this is baseball<\/i>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Posted by Fitz Since the Carpetbagger is away and has foolishly let the riffraff in I can devote a post to something far more important than politics. I mean, of course, baseball. Why the Carpetbagger does not expend more energy (or, for that matter, any energy) discussing America\u2019s pastime is a subject for another post. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nCase in point, Paul Molitor<\/a> and Dennis Eckersley<\/a> were recently inducted into baseball\u2019s hall of fame, Pete Rose<\/a> was not. Molitor and Eckersley\u2019s speeches are well worth watching. They make it clear that this is not a quintessential American story. Two wholesome lads did not pull themselves to the top through God fearing hard work and clean living, while a deceitful gambling addict is given his just deserts.<\/p>\n