Bleeding ‘Cubbie blues’

 Bill Knight column for 8-12, 13 or 14, 2021

 It wasn’t the White Sox sweeping the weekend series with the Cubs – which fielded a team dramatically different after trading one-third of their Opening Day lineup – as much as the Cubs hours earlier getting approval to radically change Addison and Sheffield with a huge sportsbook addition.

“It’s never a good look to dump payroll the way the Cubs have this year and then release plans to spend a bunch of money on an addition to the ballpark,” said Jon Strong of Cubs Insider. “It’s really difficult to believe the oft-repeated line that all surplus revenue will go directly back into the baseball payroll when we see things like this.”

Nothing’s sacred.

Indeed, the Ricketts family bought the Cubs for $700 million in 2009, and it’s now valued at $3.36 billion, so perhaps their priority was always commercial development. Maybe the 2016 World Series win was mostly valuable to them by serving their real-estate holdings.

Of course, “most rational humans, which include a good number of Cubs fans, understand baseball is a business and stars tend to get traded for one reason or another, usually relating to money,” wrote Tribune sports columnist Paul Sullivan.

However, the selloff was historic in impacts as well as scope.

“STATS tells us that there had never been a team in the modern era that traded three different players and had to watch all of them hit a home run in their first game with a new team,” wrote Jayson Stark in The Athletic. “Rizzo homered in his first game with the Yankees, Baez homered in his first game with the Mets, and Kris Bryant homered in his first game as a Giant.”

One Sox trade shows the Cubs may hope for an instant grain, said Brett Taylor from Bleacher Nation.

“The Cubs opted for two big leaguers [pitcher Cody Heuer and second baseman Nick Madrigal for reliever Craig Kimbrel] instead of prospects,” he wrote. “The Cubs wanted to get the best returns they could and fill up the farm system, but also set themselves up to be competitive in the very near-term.”

At the Sun-Times, Cubs beat reporter Russell Dorsey wrote, “It’s not a question of if the Cubs are in a rebuild … The real question is how long.”

Another question fans have (as Butch and Sundance said in the movie): “Who are those guys?”

Further, who’s such an imminent contributor that memories of the controversial 1982 trade sending Cubs shortstop Ivan DeJesus to the Phillies for shortstop Larry Bowa and “throw-in” infielder Ryan Sandberg might resurface, and who’s “in development”? (As for some newbies becoming trade bait for off-season acquisitions, comments by Rizzo and Bryant indicated feelings of disrespect, and, as Ryan O’Rourke of cubbiescrib.com wrote, “Why would any player worth their salt want to deal with that if that’s how they treat marquee players?”)

Before rage at ownership becomes derision for players, fans may note there already were fresh faces who’ve shown promise: right-handed pitcher (RHP) Manuel Rodriguez, LHP Justin Steele, RHP Keegan Thompson, and utility man Patrick Wisdom. Plus, Jonathan Mayo of MLBPipeline.com ranked 9 of the dozen acquired in the deadline trades among Major League Baseball’s 41 top prospects.

Still, here are the transactions and details from STATS and Baseball-Reference:

In exchange for Javier Baez and Trevor Williams, the Mets sent outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong (19, with a .417 batting average [BA] in one minor-league season).

For Kris Bryant, the Giants sent RHP Caleb Kilian (24, with a 2.78 earned-run average [ERA] over two minor-league seasons) and outfielder Alexander Canario (21, .277 over four minor-league seasons).

For Andrew Chafin, the A’s sent outfielder Greg Deichmann (26, batting .247 over three Triple-A seasons) and RHP Daniel Palencia (21, with a 6.91 ERA in six Class-A games).

For Kimbrel, again, the Sox sent Madrigal (24, batting .317 after two seasons with the Sox) and RHP Heuer (25, posting a 3.53 ERA over 61 major-league games).

For Jake Marisnick, the Padres sent RHP Anderson Espinoza (23, with a 3.58 ERA over three minor-league seasons).

For Joc Pederson, the Braves sent first baseman Bryce Ball (23, a husky power hitter averaging a homer every 17 at-bats in the minors).

For Anthony Rizzo, the Yankees sent RHP Alexander Vizcaíno (24, with a 5.01 ERA over five minor-league campaigns) and outfielder Kevin Alcantara (19, .278 BA).

For Ryan Tepara, the White Sox sent LHP Bailey Horn (23, with a 5.63 ERA over 14 minor-league games this summer).

 

Cubs chair Tom Ricketts told the Marquee Sports Network he’s not directly involved in personnel decisions, but added that GM Jed Hoyer will have “financial resources,” which presumably come from the billionaire Ricketts clan.

So, at Wrigley’s new sportsbook addition, I wouldn’t bet against an overpriced beer being dumped on Ricketts’ head.

U.S. workers lose a tireless advocate with Trumka’s death

Bill Knight column for 8-9, 10 or 11, 2021

 Richard Trumka and I first crossed paths at a union’s national convention in New York City, where I was about to accept an award, and he was AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer and the keynote speaker.

A Newspaper Guild unionist at Peoria, then San Diego, I felt like The Who opening for Jimi Hendrix at 1967’s Monterey Pop Festival.

Trumka, who died Thursday of an apparent heart attack at the age of 72, was as friendly and soft-spoken as Hendrix, but also as fiery as the legendary rocker’s guitar pyrotechnics.

He asked me, straight-faced, if I were related to the Knight family that owned the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain – then embroiled in labor strife in several cities, and I quickly said, “No, sir.”

Then Trumka cracked a smile, laughed and poked me, adding, “I knew that. I checked it out.”

AFL-CIO president for 12 years, Trumka was elected to the post in 2009 following 14 years as its secretary-treasurer and leader of the United Mine Workers (UMW) before that.

The third generation of his Pennsylvania family to work as a miner, he earned a law degree from Villanova and then worked as a UMW attorney until 1982, when he was elected as a 33-year-old reformer to lead the union.

On Thursday, tributes started pouring in immediately, ranging from power brokers to grassroots activists.

“Richard Trumka dedicated his life to the labor movement and the right to organize,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “Richard's leadership transcended a single movement, as he fought with principle and persistence to defend the dignity of every person.”

The progressive group Pride at Work, the largest national organization advocating for LGBTQIA+ working people, echoed Pelosi.

“President Trumka dedicated his life to fighting for working people across the country and around the world,” said Pride at Work National Co-President Shellea Allen. He was “a rock and leader in our labor movement. He will be missed.”

Trumka led a federation with some 12 million members and steered it in a more aggressive direction, but overall membership had decline to about 12% of U.S. workers during his tenure, mostly due to strong anti-union actions by employers and weak labor-law enforcement. Still, he was influential and became close to Presidents Obama and Biden, the latter benefiting from his input in planning comprehensive infrastructure and job initiatives.

Plus, despite an erosion of membership since the 1950s, unions are on an upswing.

Apart from possible impressions from a lot of typical news stories, unions won most National Labor Relations Board elections during the pandemic – and the last decade. Reuters News reports 72% of the 5,804 public and private union elections in the past five years were in favor of workers trying to organize, according to data from the NLRB.

Nine out of every 10 petitions to form bargaining units were won by unions last year, the highest rate of success in at least 10 years. Even in the decade, workers won more than half the NLRB-supervised elections, Reuters showed.

Further, a 2020 Gallup poll found that 65% of Americans approve of labor unions – almost a 50-year high of public support, up 16% since 2008. Politically, 82% of Democrats approve of unions; 61% of Independents, and even 45% of Republicans. Also, adults ages 18–34 support unions at an even higher level —71%, the Economic Policy Institute reported in April.

In addition, the percentage of Americans who say they’d join a union in their workplace if they could is 50% higher than in 1995 – about half now (48%) compared to 32% 26 years ago.

The AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer, Liz Shuler, reportedly will assume duties as president until the federation’s Executive Council picks a successor. The AFL-CIO’s next presidential election had been set for this year, but it was postponed until next year because of the COVID pandemic.

Reflecting on Trumka’s death – and life – reminds me of lines from Hendrix’ stunning version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”:

“Businessmen, they drink my wine,

Plowmen dig my earth.

None will level on the line,
Nobody offered his word.”

Anti-vaxxers jeopardizing everyone

Bill Knight column for 8-5, 6 or 7, 2021

 

  “Questions” and “confusion” can’t fully describe the response to the resurgence of the pandemic due to a strong variant and a stubborn segment of those hesitant to get vaccinations despite advice from doctors and even victims of COVID-19.

“Exasperation” perhaps (and maybe “mystified” why Republican leaders are seemingly sacrificing their own supporters just to disagree with President Biden and officials’ efforts to protect everyday Americans).

Reportedly, more than 60% of U.S. counties should now mask up. Illinois is reporting almost 1,300 new cases a day, the state Department of Public Health says.

Biden last week said federal employees must get vaccinated or wear masks and be tested frequently, urging private companies to do the same. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka agreed, federal judges ruled that public universities can require vaccinations, and the Justice Department extended that authority to private firms. Employers are starting to act, from restaurants in Atlanta to bars in San Francisco to shops in Provincetown, Mass., plus Disney, Facebook, Google, Walmart and the Washington Post all extending their vaccination mandates.

Mandates are justified. A recent YouGov poll for The Economist showed that 13% of Americans resist the vaccination, refuse to wear masks, and aren’t worried about COVID: literally a triple threat.

In Illinois, Democratic Gov. Pritzker again invoked emergency powers through Aug. 21 to urge vaccinations, and he’s considering mandating state workers get vaccinated or tested regularly, like New York’s Democratic Gov. Cuomo did. On the other extreme, Texas’ ambitious Republican Gov. Abbott issued an order prohibiting vaccination or mask mandates – even as victims who’d formerly declined the shots publicly expressed regret, and a handful of GOP governors including Hutchison of Arkansas and Ivey of Alabama are defying the party and encouraging vaccinations.

Last week, Tennessee Republican Congressman David Byrd, who doubted the extent of the pandemic until he contracted the virus and spent 55 days on a ventilator, encouraged vaccinations to help “others to act against an enemy that knows no skin color, economic status or political affiliation.”

A group of some 50 national medical groups including the American Medical Association called for mandatory vaccinations for workers in health care and long-term care residences.

“This is the logical fulfillment of the ethical commitment of all health-care workers to put patients as well as residents of long-term care facilities first,” the group said in a public letter.

The presence of the Delta variant and the absence of vaccinated people mean we all compete against anti-vaxxers and the variant(s), with illness or death the dangers.

An Associated Press investigation showed that more than 98% of COVID hospitalizations and deaths are unvaccinated people.

“Vaccines have proven to be the single most effective way to prevent serious illness and death, and [Pritzker] encourages all eligible Illinoisans to get vaccinated,” said Pritzker spokeswoman Emily Bittner, “As private hospitals and employers move to mandate vaccination for their employees, the administration is also reviewing its options.”

About 30% of eligible Americans remain unvaccinated, and though factors include resistance by youth and hesitancy by people of color and the poor, the main reason is political. Kaiser Family Foundation said partisanship is “one of the main factors” in vaccination hesitancy as many accept nonsense about microchips, altered DNA or infertility, and polls show viewers of Fox, Newsmax and One America News are likely to be against vaccinations.

Vaccinations aren’t new. For decades, schoolkids have had to have the MMR and DTaP vaccinations; adults routinely get flu and pneumonia shots yearly; and the Supreme Court in 1905 said vaccination mandates were lawful during an outbreak of smallpox, the same plague that forced George Washington in 1777 to require troops to vaccinate.

Meanwhile, Pew Research this summer reported that “the only solidly Republican age demographic last year was 75 and over,” David Faris reported in The Week magazine. Not only is that age group more likely to pass away, seniors are more vulnerable to COVID.

Correlation isn’t cause, but counties that voted for Trump in 2020 have low vaccination rates. For example, in Illinois (which statewide has 63% vaccinated), 57% of Alexander County voters went for Trump, and just 15% of residents are vaccinated. Likewise, Trump got 65% of ballots in Henderson County, where only 21% are vaccinated, and Trump got 80% of the vote in Fayette County, where just 23% got the shots.

Republicans are hurting themselves!

For the nation, vaccination hesitancy has deteriorated from “personal choice” selfishness to outright disregard for community health, and everyone else shouldn’t be held hostage by anti-vaxxers.

Last question: People are dying needlessly, so are Tucker Carlson and the anti-vax Right-wingers legally responsible for the consequences of knowingly, recklessly spreading disinformation? Apart from libel, aren’t there laws about “depraved indifference” and “negligent homicide”?

The passing of Jack – of all trades

 

Bill Knight column for 8-2, 3 or 4, 2021

 In addition to a personal appreciation for well-turned obituaries, a favorite book is New York sportswriter Red Smith’s anthology “To Absent Friends,” an affectionate tribute to departed associates and an obligation few journalists want to fulfill.

But a new absent friend, Jack Bradley, must be remembered as one of Illinois’ best photojournalists in what now seems like newspapers’ Golden Age some 60 years ago, and as an outgoing, caring character.

Bradley died July 18 in the 89^th year of a life well-lived, months after surviving COVID-19 at the Illinois Veterans Home in LaSalle (where 36 residents in the 200-bed facility died from the virus).

A veteran of the Korean War, where he was a combat motion-picture cameraman, Bradley became Peoria TV’s first newsreel photographer in 1954. He then moved to newspapers, where he was a photojournalist for decades, when he served stints as president of the Illinois Press Photographers Association and the National Press Photographers Association.

Jack also served the community: at Bradley University’s library (which has a collection of his photos), the Peoria County Board, the historic Springdale Cemetery, where he was instrumental in its restoration, especially “Soldier’s Hill,” and the Newspaper Guild labor union a few years before me.

Though he’d left the paper, Jack not only welcomed me there with encouraging words, but offered suggestions for stories. That became a long-time pattern, showing him to be one of those folks who had more ideas and inspirations than time and ways to do them himself. He helped many with stories and projects, labors of love he embraced as his own.

From central Illinois’ hangings to the history of journalism in the state, Jack’s notions seemed nonstop. Plus, his sense of possible features dovetailed with a devotion to news. Once, he interrupted his own business duties at a regional fair to alert me – assigned to file something on deadline about the prominent but routine event, which usually meant light yarns about kids, carnival rides, livestock, etc. – that a loose horse trampled a few people, causing injuries.

Bright and thoughtful, he suggested I ask out the wonderful woman who married me a year later, even volunteering to handle flowers and other arrangements at our wedding reception.

Always energetic, he was dedicated to relaxation, too, hunting and fishing, bringing my son and me to his wonderland basement where a wall-to-wall railroad setup was stunning in scope and detail not far from the Santa Fe line that ran through his town, and helping launch a Friday-afternoon gathering at a German tavern where many foreign beers were sampled and pitchers consumed by reporters, artists, actors and authors.

Congenial, even jovial, Bradley could be demanding, too. After asking me to edit and write an introduction to his book of photographs, “Midwestern Gothic,” he thanked me, used the introduction, and then ignored most of my layouts to triple the number of pictures used.

His most famous image, “Me” – the 1963 portrait of the moment when a deaf boy heard sounds for the first time – was published in hundreds of newspapers worldwide, plus Life magazine, Readers Digest, and the Associated Press’s “The Instant It Happened,” a collection of the top 100 photographs of the century.

It sits in our office, ensuring such moments and memories of Jack and his work and life will endure.

A military-honors ceremony for Bradley will be held at 10 a.m. Aug 5 on Soldiers Hill in Springdale Cemetery in Peoria.

Anti-protest laws unneeded, dangerous

Bill Knight column for 7-29, 30 or 31, 2021

 

A troubling trend of anti-protest legislation is growing, but recent successes in Republican statehouses isn’t new. There were earlier attempts, including one in Democratic-majority Illinois that failed, barely.

Illinois dodged a bullet – or a Buick.

The “crackdown” isn’t necessary since laws exist to punish violators, and implied permission to run over demonstrators with cars is crazy. But its intention is to chill involvement – “part of a larger trend of conservative, Right-wing efforts at the state level designed to counter the goals of social movements,” commented Traci Yoder of the National Lawyers Guild.

As lawmakers dabble in restricting protests, imagine how anti-protest laws would be applied to a White counterdemonstrator in camo at a Black Lives Matter rally and then picture a Black man driving through a gun-rights march.

That’s chilling alright, but not the way Right-wingers want.

In Illinois in 2019, HB 1633 sought to increase penalties for nonviolent conduct at some demonstrations. Backed by the fossil-fuel industry, it passed the Illinois House that April, 77-28.

Despite a clever divide-and-conquer tactic exempting unions from its provisions (ex-Illinois AFL-CIO president Michael Corrigan and Mark Denzler, president of the anti-union Illinois Manufacturers Association sent a joint letter endorsing the bill), a diverse coalition including unions (such as the Illinois Federation of Teachers, Letter Carriers and SEIU) plus civil-liberties advocates, environmental organizations and community groups like the Jane Addams Senior Caucus finally explained that it may have been intended as a warning to protestors, but it also was a step in a slippery slope toward repressing 1st Amendment rights.

“Any legislator who is concerned about climate change, about free speech, about criminal justice, now would be the time to stand up against this bill, which bad on all of these things,” Natural Resources Defense Council/Illinois’ J.C. Kibbey said.

The bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Michael Hastings (D-Matteson), pulled the measure, presumably due to criticism after its passage in the House, telling CapitolFax’s Rich Miller, “I had serious concerns as to some of the provisions.”

So, yes, Illinois evaded a bullet aimed at citizens’ rights of free speech, assembly and seeking redress.

Two years later, other state capitals moved from hosting lobbyists from Chevron, Dow and Shell, plus pipelines and refineries, to welcoming critics of Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and some 80 bills have been introduced in 34 states recently, according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNPL).

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, “It’s no coincidence that these bills were introduced by politicians who harshly criticized calls for racial justice and police accountability.”

The Right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) wrote the model bill targeting protests, and versions redefine “riots” to include as few as three people, and make people just attending demonstrations vulnerable to prosecution – even if they break no laws.

Some also limit liabilities for those who run over protestors with cars. (USA Today reported 104 incidents of vehicles driving into protestors last summer, 8 by police, but the current campaign’s implicit acceptance of the act could spark copycat action. In fact, a motorist in June plowed into a small group of protestors in Minneapolis, killing one and injuring three.

Opponents caution that anti-protest isn’t about preventing property damage, but to silence activists in reaction to actions like the Black Lives Matter actions from coast to coast and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock.

The main goal isn’t to protect the public or even private corporations. It’s to curtail demonstrations, especially effective ones such as mass gatherings, dramatic actions or civil disobedience by having some think, “The penalties aren’t worth the risk.”

If such laws had been enacted in the last few years, ACLU attorney Max Gaston told In These Times magazine, “virtually every major demonstration, from the Women’s March to the March for Our Lives, would have involved a heightened level of danger from police and counter-protestors.”

In Florida, where the bill passed, Democratic State Sen. Jason W. B. Pizzo commented to the Washington Post that the law is as “overreaching dragnet,” a “solution in search of a problem.”

Law-enforcement advocate Barney Bishop tried to defend Florida’s bill as even-handed, claiming to Salon, “Florida is as opposed to the Proud Boys as we are to far-Left groups,” but he added that violence is incited by people like “George Soros and Antifa and Black Lives Matter” (although 95% of BLM protests last year were peaceful, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project).

The laws’ “language is so sweeping that it encompasses way more than what people imagine,” said ICNPF’s Elly Page.

Do Americans think the country decided to severely criminalize peaceful protests to protect profits, campaign contributors and obstructionists?

No.