"Disco" Dan Ford & his closed stance made memories

Metropolitan Stadium was getting passe in the minds of Minnesota fandom, at the time Dan Ford came along. He was an exciting Twins player. But he is not well remembered today. He entertained us at the time the main features of the '70s were in bloom. We're talking disco among other things. Hey, "Disco" was Dan Ford's nickname.
Research does not readily indicate the basis for Dan's moniker. I have to surmise based on a story that involves manager Gene Mauch. Let's drift back to September 5 of 1978. This was the first autumn after my college graduation. The flashy Ford was not totally attentive. His gait slowed between third and home once. There is an allegation he was hot-dogging, manifested in elbows pumping. Jose Morales delivered a base hit. Ford allowed himself to be passed on the basepaths. The second baserunner must be ruled out in this situation.
The disciplinarian Gene Mauch wasn't going to take such a matter lightly. Roy Smalley was on hand to observe. Ford seemed not to be familiar with the baserunning flaw he had just committed. He seemed to be in a "boogie" to the dugout. Mauch growled at the young man, "You can keep right on going!" Legend has it the manager had clenched teeth. "What are you talking about?" Ford said. Mauch responded: "I can't stand to look at you. Get the hell out of here."
The suggestion was that the flamboyant but easily distracted Ford just mosey on to a disco. The alliterative name "Disco Dan" was born.
Obviously this vignette is not a generous way of introducing Dan Ford for the purpose of profiling him. I found him to be an interesting and appealing ballplayer, capable of swinging with fine power from a very closed batting stance. Often he earned the right to act in a flashy way.
Mauch was a man who needed to feel some humility. We can never forget that he was at the helm of Philadelphia when that team descended into the greatest choke of all time in 1964. Why did Calvin Griffith want the baggage of that reputation associated with his Twins? I had a problem with Mauch because of how he platooned so much. Platooning is fine in theory. But at a certain point you need your best hitters out there. If I remember correctly, Lyman Bostock came up to the bigs at the same time as Ford. I remember the great Bostock complaining publicly about how Mauch set him down one day against a lefthanded pitcher. You'll recall that Bostock was tragically shot and killed in a visit to his home city. This was after he left the Twins for the Angels. He was a guaranteed career .300 hitter. I swear that if Kirby Puckett had come up under Mauch, he would have been sat down against rightys after his first 0-for-4 boxscore line against a righty. It was too much.
What I remember about the kind of team Mauch assembled in the late '70s: he had players who hit for a decent average but didn't offer a whole lot else. The last couple years of the old Metropolitan Stadium was a "dead zone" in Twins history. Big league owners know what they're doing when they say certain cities need a new stadium at a particular juncture. Our franchise got resuscitated after getting comfortable in the Metrodome.
 
A productive ballplayer
Dan Ford roamed the outfield grass. He generated plenty of excitement over his ten years in the bigs. He batted .270 with 121 home runs and 566 RBIs. He moved on from the Twins to play for the California Angels and Baltimore Orioles. He was a regular in the Twins lineup for four seasons. His second season saw him use that closed stance to hit the first home run at the rebuilt Yankee Stadium. This was on April 15, 1976. As an Angel in 1979, "Disco Dan" hit for the cycle in a game against the Seattle Mariners. He was traded to the Orioles for Doug DeCinces and Jeff Schneider.
Wearing the Orioles uniform in May of 1983, Ford homered off Richard Dotson of the White Sox - it was the only hit in a 1-0 win over Chicago, the team whom the Orioles would play for the pennant. Baltimore got past Chicago and then got past Philadelphia in the World Series. Ford hit a home run off the great Philadelphia pitcher Steve Carlton in Game 3 of the fall classic. Had he shown a flamboyant air on the basepaths, I would not have blamed him.
Close your eyes and hear "Do the Hustle" in your head. You'll get the proper motif in your mind for appreciating "Disco" Dan Ford. You might have seen "Saturday Night Fever" on the big screen at that time. Ford looked flashy in the synthetic double-knit uniforms of that time. Your female high school classmates might have worn provocative green and plaid jumpers. I think of the cynical "Gong Show" which reflected the generally cynical times. A result of high interest rates? Don't think this factor doesn't get into our consciousness.
It was an age in which we found humor in references to alcohol consumption. Mothers Against Drunk Driving hadn't asserted themselves yet. And today it isn't mothers, it's lawyers. The double-knit baseball uniforms ran their course.
Ford made his mark albeit not on a Hall of Fame level. I watched him a few times at our old Metropolitan Stadium, Bloomington MN. It seemed his closed stance had the effect of accentuating his power. When he was "on" he could really deliver "frozen ropes." I watched him in person do this off Nolan Ryan (of the Angels) once. The ball went like a rocket to the left field corner. He looked for every edge he could get. In 1980 he was caught using a doctored bat against Cleveland. He hit a ball off the end of the bat and the bat splintered. Bobby Grich commented "boy, all kinds of things came flying out of his bat." Ford got a three-game suspension.
 
A dubious chapter
I have delayed writing about Ford's 1981 photo session (centerfold) for Playgirl Magazine. We don't need this garbage anymore because you can find such garbage on the Internet. Ignore it. Ford rationalized by calling himself a "groundbreaker" with this experience. Other players followed. Big deal.
Ford is proud to note he hit in front of three MVPs: Rod Carew, Don Baylor and Cal Ripkin. He joked "I made them all famous."
Upon retirement, he went back to Louisiana to help run his family's ranch. He says the best part of his life has been baseball. I wish he had stayed with our Twins longer. He would have looked nice in a Twins uniform (no longer synthetic) at our new Metrodome.
Disco music eventually faded. The music form took a lot of derision. I have read that, as a platform for meaningful music, it could be as effective as any other platform. "Do the Hustle." Maybe Ford didn't hustle as well as he might throughout his career. He had a reputation of arriving in the dugout at the last minute, or last instant, before game time. Talented people can have such idiosyncrasies. Maybe they are imbued with confidence. Whatever the case, I have warm memories of "Disco" Dan Ford and that notable closed stance, delivering frozen ropes and homers.
I wish Lyman Bostock had been along for the whole ride.
 
Addendum: Larry Calton was broadcasting for the Twins at the time Dan Ford came up. What a jerk.
  
Addendum #2: Remember when Darrin Nelson was drafted by the Vikings and he didn't want to come here, partly because we "didn't have enough discos?" Remember the photo of a sullen-looking Nelson on the front page of the Minneapolis paper? We had that famous column by a Star Tribune writer in which it was suggested that Nelson ought to come here to experience a Lutheran church potluck with its "red Jello." Today Minnesota is a totally cool state. We forget that we once had reputational challenges. I wonder if we turned the corner when we elected Jesse Ventura governor, or was it the musician "Prince?" We are no longer defined by Ole and Lena and those Lutheran churches. Darrin Nelson? He seemed too small to ever be a really good NFL runningback.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Shall I write about football in the coming fall?

(image from CNN)

Soon I will need to make a decision on whether to write online about MACA football this fall. There is a steady flow of admonitions on the sport of football, or implied admonitions. The warnings become progressively less subtle. A top scientist is so concerned, he recently stated that parents who allow their sons to play football should be charged with child abuse.
We follow rules about how kids need to be seat-belted into the car. Then we have them put on a helmet and send them onto a football field where they engage in high-speed collisions with other boys. The helmet gives an illusion. It protects boys from fractured skulls, as if we should even be thinking about that. It does not protect them from having their brains, in effect, rattled. The evidence mounts higher all the time.
 
Following my own drummer
It is not uncommon for me to be on a different page from sports parents. I found it impossible through the years to supply enough attention for all of the teams, all of the time, to keep a majority of them fundamentally happy. In this case I'll probably come up against the sentiment of sports parents again. They will be so eager to feel that "rush" of excitement that comes with going to the local stadium and seeing their sons seek victory, earning those waves of cheers. It's sort of a sugar high that is transitory. The cheers encourage the boys to put aside the pain and the constant risk of injury, not just to their brains but all over. Why should medical resources be applied for treating these kids when they needn't play this barbaric game in the first place? Just stop playing. Apply your time more constructively.
 
Advantages here in Morris
I expect the MACA football team will do well again in 2017. I would suggest this is largely because of Morris being blessed with such a state of the art football facility. Various communities have made the commitment to an artificial turf field. Once they do this, they will try to encourage a maximum number of boys to "go out for football" because there's a monetary incentive, to show that the expense toward the facility is justified. This is morally abhorrent.
Also, the communities that do not have the means or the interest in doing this will likely see interest in football erode. Their teams will start losing more which will prompt continued erosion. Finally, many of these towns will opt not to have football. Either that or they'll send only the most athletically gifted boys to a nearby community. At least this protects the other boys who might otherwise go out for football because of peer pressure. A leading researcher of football has said that "no boys should play football just because of peer pressure." This individual is one of many saying that football should become a club sport, not sponsored by schools.
Maybe someday we'll see our Big Cat Stadium as the home for a regional club team. A better possibility would be for football to vanish off the face of the earth. Let's not get too excited about the best scenario happening. There are too many mysteriously shallow-minded parents who simply want to experience those transitory thrills of being at the stadium, cheering. It sure isn't painful for the parents or other "fans."
The boys can endure the pain because they keep hearing the cheers. If the fans stop coming, football would certainly disappear. Occasionally we see a news item about a school board member somewhere trying to speak the truth. The wave must grow.
 
Legacy of militarism?
Football may have been developed as a model for militarism in an age when we were expected to get involved in major wars periodically. We raised our sons to be warriors. Our culture isn't the same today. We keep our volunteer troops of today active in places like Afghanistan - I'm not even sure what that's all about. I assure you that if we had a draft, we'd hear more about it.
The invasion of Iraq has been described as the worst foreign policy decision in U.S. history. Saddam Hussein knew how to deal with the likes of Isis. Of course he was brutal but he was a secular leader. He was a regional strongman. That's what works in that part of the world. Tragically we had to send our local Guardsmen over there. When those Guardsmen returned, there was a welcome back at the P.E. Center in Morris that was so grand and glorious. Strike up the band.
The Viet Nam soldiers got no such reception when they came back. In fact, they were told not to wear their uniforms on the way home.
Phasing out the sport of football would be a logical way of proclaiming that the human race is entering a new era. It's about time. Should I blog about MACA football this year? Very good question. I could reason that if the Morris school district continues to sponsor football, I should accept that as an appropriate imprimatur. Ultimately though I must respect my concerns. Maybe I'll do it (write about it). We'll see.
Problem is, our schools shouldn't be sponsoring gladiators. Too many parents are glib, flippant and superficial about defending the sport.
- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Chico Ruiz steals home and puts hex on Philadelphia?

Major league baseball was unusually blessed in 1964. We saw extremely tight pennant races in both leagues. I'm sad the Chicago White Sox couldn't pull out the American League pennant. It would have been nice seeing Moose Skowron play in another World Series. Instead we got the Yankees walking their treadmill toward another A.L. flag. It would be their last of that era. Our Minnesota Twins dislodged them from their perch in '65. And then in '66, the Yankees sank like a rock.
The National League story in 1964 was epic. The Cardinals with a young Lou Brock emerged on top. Cincinnati was easily in the hunt. Let's consider Philadelphia. Those red-trimmed uniforms looked oh so grand for most of the '64 summer. Gene Mauch was at the helm. Maybe that was a sign that Philadelphia fans should have been whistling past the graveyard.
Mauch's Phils showed great command through most of the summer. What a blessed summer it must have seemed in the City of Brotherly Love. John Callison hit a walk-off home run to win the All-Star Game for the Nationals. The crafty Jim Bunning was in his prime - he pitched a perfect game in June vs. the new York Mets. Chris Short was in the groove as pitcher. Richie Allen, later to be known as Dick Allen, was spectacular as a rookie.
Early August saw Philadelphia really turn on the jets. Man oh man. For two weeks they looked like world-beaters. They went from 1 1/2 games up to 7 1/2 games, the latter bulge happening on August 20. Could Phils fans relax after that 12-4 stretch?
 
A date of fate in baseball annals
Bring on Monday, Sept. 21. The Phils sported a win total of 90 compared to 60 losses. They were 6 1/2 games up on second place with only 12 games left to play. It was an evening game in the City of Brotherly Love (an ironic name when you consider the city had an image of racism). A crowd of a little over 20,000 was present to see the Phillies take on that other team with red trim: Cincinnati. This was the Cincinnati team that had Frank Robinson. Robinson would go on to make his biggest mark with the Baltimore Orioles. In '64 he was the Reds' best hitter.
The Reds sported a record of 83-66. Dick Sisler was the manager, having taken the reins from the terminally ill Fred Hutchinson. Vada Pinson wielded a bat for those Reds. Oh, and there was Pete Rose, not yet a superstar but budding. Jim O'Toole and Jim Maloney were leading pitchers. I can't help but remember O'Toole in Jim Bouton's 1970 book "Ball Four," standing out as the classic troubled pitcher with a perpetually sore arm, in the "Diathermy" machine all the time, remember?
The September 21 game had Jon Tsitouris pitching for Cincinnati and Art Mahaffey taking the mound for Philadelphia. A bad omen for Philadelphia was being snakebit with runners in scoring position: 0-for-8.
The top of the sixth seemed to be when the baseball gods did their thing. Chico Ruiz singled to right field. Remember that name. Pinson hit a long single to right that advanced Ruiz to third, although Pinson was thrown out at second by outfielder Callison. Robinson strides up to bat. Nice scoring opportunity, right? His average was .306 and he had 27 home runs.
There were two outs so the Reds apparently needed Robinson to hit safely. Chico Ruiz had other thoughts dancing in his head. Mahaffey went into his long windup. Ruiz becomes like a bat out of hell, tearing for home a la steal. The steal of home is always an exotic play. We here in Minnesota associate it with Rod Carew.
Not only did this play succeed with Ruiz, it became legendary as it appeared to be a hex vs. the Phillies. Mahaffey uncorked a wild pitch. Ruiz scored and the Reds won 1-0. The game ended with the Phillies advancing the tying run to third with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, but shortstop Ruben Amaro struck out to end the game.
Writer Ray Kelly observed: "Nobody tries to steal home with a slugging great like Frank Robinson at the plate. Not in the sixth inning of a scoreless game." Mahaffey was quoted saying: "Now you must realize that with two outs and two strikes, if you throw a strike, Frank Robinson swings and knocks Chico Ruiz's head off. It was just so stupid." Stupid like a fox, I guess.
 
The Phils' advantage erodes
The Phillies still had a lead of 5 1/2 games with eleven games left. Now the stage is set for the famous choke of the '64 Phillies: a ten-game loss streak. It was so bad, it didn't matter that they won their last two games of the season (over the Reds). The Cardinals went 9-3 to close out the season. The Cardinals won the pennant on the last day as they beat the Mets 11-5.
A sabermetric analysis has shown that Ruiz's steal of home was not a bad percentage play. In the book "The Hidden Game of Baseball," authors John Thorn and Pete Palmer write that "the two-out steal of home is the unknown great percentage play." Ruiz said "it just came to my mind. In this game, you either do or you don't."
I was nine years old in 1964. Kids back then could have quite strong emotional connections with their home baseball team. Looking back, I often think how unfortunate this connection was - it was out of proportion. So you can imagine how many young Phillies fans felt as their team crashed in 1964. Samuel Alito of our U.S. Supreme Court was a big admirer of outfielder Callison. Callison seemed a lot like our Twin Bob Allison. Richie Allen was like Tony Oliva.
It was a golden age of baseball. Integration of the game had proceeded well enough - halting at times but adequate - and we did not yet have the disruption of zealous unionism and excessive drug use. I will always wonder if those '64 Phillies could have won the world championship in '64. Just as I wonder if our 1967 Minnesota Twins could have done it after getting edged out for the pennant! We close our eyes and imagine.
Ruiz entered baseball annals permanently with his unique, impulsive play, a play that impacted fate!
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

It's the time of summer for spiritual slumber

The image shows the Papa John's clowns who once entertained at summer events in the Morris area. Photo by Del Sarlette.
 
We're in the laziest part of summer, aren't we? In between Prairie Pioneer Days (PPD) and the fair, that's it.
Our family asks little of Prairie Pioneer Days, just that we can enjoy an early afternoon lunch at Luther's Eatery. It seems that PPD has lost several of the special features it once had. That's sad but not real disheartening. It's a social hub and that is what is most important.
There was nothing like PPD when I was a kid. An exception was the year of the Morris Centennial. What special memories I have of that. The year was 1971 and Morris truly came alive that summer. I don't know why people couldn't get the bright idea to do something annually like that. We got on board in the early 1980s with PPD. There was a time when the FFA kids built a replica of the famous "alfalfa arch" across East 7th Street. We all need to be reminded of the historical significance of the alfalfa arch.
I wonder if the day will come when Superior Industries will take over PPD just as this company has made inroads with the county fair. I'm not clear on when exactly Superior has the fair reserved for itself. I told an acquaintance of mine who's on the fair board that "I guess this is one of those small town things where 'you just have to know.' " I don't like these small town phenomena.
The way Superior expands as if by magic, I have fears that this operation will snake around to behind our neighborhood of Northridge Drive, and devalue our property.
 
Will football keep its popularity? Should it?
So, after the fair, where does our attention turn? I remember year after year seeing the Tiger football team in pre-season practice at the old East Elementary playground, at the same time as the fair. It was a tap on the shoulder that "fall is near." People would speculate on how our football team might do.
Is such talk becoming an anachronism? There are new waves of news coverage all the time about how football is dangerous to play.
How much longer can the sport withstand all the startling revelations? You must have seen the headlines last week. "CTE" is a dangerous thing to court. No game can possibly be worth the risk of incurring this.
A sea change in society's notions can be slow and grudging to develop. I mean, who wants football to just fade away? Hasn't it been a mammoth sort of phenomenon in our popular culture? Frankly, hasn't it grown into an addiction? So, we're talking about overcoming an addiction. So as with any addiction, we have to be ready to stand up, as if at an AA gathering, and admit we have a problem. We need to admit the nature of the problem in frank terms.
Why on earth are our brains so programmed to feeling this turn-on, by the sight of men running with a football or catching a football, seeking yardage and touchdowns? It's terrible. Someday we will all admit this to ourselves.
A few years ago you'd occasionally see a news nugget from somewhere about how a school board member would suggest that football be removed. None of these could really break through. Many onlookers were reluctant to say these individuals were out in left field, but at the same time there was a "whistling past the graveyard" quality to their reaction. They could not deny the factual foundation for arguments being put forth. But my goodness, cancelling football? Who would want to be responsible for a suggestion like that?
There is still hesitance toward the notion. But I sense that momentum is slowly building toward that "sea change" that would marginalize football. It has been predicted that football will have its last bastion in the U.S. Southeast. The sport will more and more be associated with players who have a dysfunctional family background. Intelligent people will know better and act accordingly.
I suspect that Morris Area Chokio Alberta will have a football team again for 2017. Have there been any football naysayers in our community, people in important public positions willing to air their skepticism? If society is reluctant to go this route, maybe insurance companies will straighten everyone out. That and lawyers.
 
Remember the "earthen pool?"
It's the end of July and it seems we're all in slumber now, spiritually. I think it's a blessed time of year. Remember the days of the "earthen pool" at Pomme de Terre City Park? That's getting more distant in our community's history. It seemed quite successful for a time. It faded toward the end partly because of a tragedy that happened out there.
I don't think the "spray park" has been an adequate substitute. This community has bandied about for years the idea of outdoor swim recreation. Well, the Alexandria lakes aren't that far away. I have often enjoyed the Lake Latoka public swimming beach.
- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

The power of a typewriter and unencumbered thought

Only once in my life did I stay in a movie theater to see the same movie back to back. It was "All the President's Men."
Hollywood is great for designating heroes and villains. A common fault of Hollywood is to caricature these people, lest their (stupid) audience has a hard time delineating. Remember "Mr. Potter" of "It's a Wonderful Life?" A prime example. Also, that British army officer in "The Patriot." By the tine that officer got killed, my only thought was "why did we have to wait so long?"
"It's a Wonderful Life" would not be considered such a classic today - maybe not a classic at all - if it hadn't been in the public domain at a time when rapidly proliferating TV channels were looking for material to run.
"All the President's Men" with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman mesmerized me. Yeah, I ended up as a newspaper writer myself. I was amazed at the power a person could wield with a typewriter, a newspaper job and the freedom to think unencumbered about what was right and what was wrong.
 
Echoes from a previous time
Memories of Watergate come rushing back because of what we are seeing with the Trump administration today. Trump's supporters say the public really doesn't care about the Russia stuff. They say it's a narrow obsession of certain elements within the media. But deep into Watergate, polls showed the public didn't much care about that either. These polls make sense because in the day to day lives of ordinary people, such matters appear to have little impact. However, the powers that be in Washington D.C. need to be held to rules. Along with that, we absolutely need the free press in spite of how Trump rants about that: "fake news!"
Nixon and his people tried to quarantine the Washington Post as if Watergate was limited to the narrow interests of that paper. The Washington Post could have gotten cowed. Why didn't that happen? We think of the Washington Post as a paper with a national constituency, but its soul is invested in Washington D.C. or that "Beltway" as it's called. As such it feels called upon to keep the reputation of its immediate community sound and intact. It's in the interests of the Beltway for established rules to survive and be applied. So the Washington Post with "Woodward and Bernstein" was persistent.
Bad guys and good guys? In reality so much falls into a shade of gray. The key to Watergate and its accelerating revelations was the disgruntled FBI person, Mark Felt, who was doing nothing more than back-biting and revenge-seeking, the kind of motivations we are all familiar with. Felt funneled that information to those salivating reporters. The rest is history.
Nixon governed from the middle and did some arguably good things, like creating the EPA. I would fault him primarily for staying stuck in Viet Nam. It's an unforgivable sin. It was LBJ's war that was oh so stubborn to stomp out. The war headlines were endless as I grew up. We had a friend of the family from Brainerd who was killed by friendly fire in Viet Nam. I cannot rule out "fragging."
My first summer out of high school was the peak of Watergate revelations, creating that rolling snowball that culminated with Nixon's resignation in August of 1974.
 
A waltz inspired by Watergate
Should a new Watergate movie be made? I would say no because it's too painful to have to reflect on the sheer stupidity that was the mother's milk of the scandal. The late Walt Sarlette of Morris wrote a waltz for our Tempo Kings dance group - we called it "The Watergate Waltz." Del Sarlette and I had some fun beyond that. Del wrote "I Didn't Want To Do It" in parenthesis under the title - this was a takeoff on the old Harry James tune "You Made Me Love You." "I Didn't Want To Do It" was inserted under that title. I suggested that "fast 4" be noted as the rhythm which was ridiculous because it was a waltz. Del wrote "fast 4" with the additional words: "(possible parole after 2").
Del put down some credits, including "Arranged by G. Gordon Liddy." We had "Music by H.R. Haldeman" and "Lyrics by John Dean (deleted)." It was a fun-sounding waltz and had the sax players grab their clarinets for a part. It was fun thinking of all the wearisome machinations of Watergate while hearing this lively waltz. Kudos to the late Mr. Sarlette who ought to be viewed as an iconic figure from this community's history.
The focus now is on Russia. It was because of the Soviet Union and the Cold War that us schoolkids were pushed so bad when we were in school. We had to "beat the Russians." We suspected the Russian people really weren't that different from us. This was a message we took away from the movie "The Russians Are Coming." Remember that classic with Alan Arkin as a Russian? Del says this is one of the movies that could never be re-made. (I say the same thing about "The Dirty Dozen." Lee Marvin's role could never be reprised.)
So, I sat through two shows of "All the President's Men" at the twin cinema theaters next to Crossroads Shopping Center, St. Cloud, during the disco '70s. My own approach as a writer was probably shaped by all that. It's not a philosophy that works well in today's news media. Today's writers tend to defer to authority at the local level. It's knee-jerk and sometimes rather fallible. But at the macro level we still need the crusaders. How on earth are the Trump family issues going to turn out? Heaven only knows. The key as always will be the maintenance of the free press.
- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Fast-moving Trump/Russia story goes hurtling along

My current post on "I Love Morris" pushes us back to 1973. We go there because of the parallels between the Trump/Russia thing and Watergate. I suggest we shouldn't be too hasty making parallels.
I just clicked on "publish" for the "I Love Morris" post even though I wrote it yesterday. Alas, the Trump/Russia story is moving so fast, anything is at risk of becoming dated. I don't like to be too hasty posting. A day's wait means I might catch some little issue that needs to be straightened out.
Perhaps I should gulp some coffee and get my timeline a little more confined. I'm writing this post as I watch "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, a show where certainly they gulp coffee. It's the must-see for updating one's knowledge of the incredible Trump/Russia imbroglio.
Already I hear that the comparison with the summer of 1973 should maybe be put aside. Because, now it seems we're into the summer of 1974. At that point there is no rallying for the president (Nixon) anymore. We had all become quite battle fatigued. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon because of the sheer fatigue that was dragging down the nation. At least this is how Ford argued. He may have lost his bid to retain the presidency as a result. Yes, we were fatigued by Watergate but in order to gain resolution we should have ascertained more facts. Instead we ended up in kind of a netherworld.
Where are we headed now? I argue in "I Love Morris" that there's no way we can predict. We might assume that the outcome will be essentially similar to 1974. I'm checking CNBC and I see the futures are pointing upward again. The financial markets seem a world apart. Can this pattern hold indefinitely? Should we dismiss all the D.C. scandal-mongering as an amusement or distraction, only?
Not when the Republican Party is flirting with an actual overhauling of health care. Someone like Ted Cruz is amusing to watch as a character who pushes this firm political ideology. He gets attention with his extremism. This bright shiny object of a human being casts a shadow with his rhetoric. Conservatives present their principles in a way that makes us sympathetic to a degree. These principles work in an ideal world where everyone can carry their own weight. No messy complications arise in people's lives. No one suddenly needs to go to a nursing home. No one suddenly gets a serious chronic health condition.
I had a wise friend in college who said: "Republicans are great for arguing on principle, but Republicans don't care about people." Republicans have gotten a tremendous amount of traction over the recent past, becoming what I have called "the default political party" in America. In the current political climate, for whatever reason, you don't really need to explain yourself if you're a Republican. Democrats seem rather stigmatized. Democrats are forced on the defensive and have to explain themselves more. I am waiting for this to change.
Give Republicans just a little more power and they might actually craft and push through a draconian health care bill. And then there will be real world consequences of all our sympathy to the GOP cause. Cruz will have actually helped craft legislation affecting your very own life. So he's no longer a mere curiosity.
President Trump called a pep rally to promote the draconian health care bill out of the House of Representatives. This after Trump said in the campaign that all of America would get a health care package ("overturning Obamacare") that would be better for all. He uses hyperbole that is totally child-like. And yet we haven't risen up against this yet. We are fighting the donor class of the Republican Party.
The White House is becoming a festering boil on this country. It is embroiled in an indefinite struggle merely for survival, as if any of us really ought to care about those deceiving people. It's almost like a drug-induced fantasy. We don't know if Trump will start talking to portraits on the wall the way Nixon did. His presidency may be beyond salvage.
It would be interesting if he suddenly declared himself a Democrat and called in Chuck Schumer for some meetings.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Tony Cloninger's incredible feat in 1966 summer

I was eleven years old in 1966. My family lost a friend to friendly fire in Viet Nam. He was from Brainerd, my mom's hometown. The mid-1960s was a time of escalation of the Viet Nam conflict. Major league baseball was like a pleasant elixir helping us put aside, to a degree, the anxiety of the war, a war that it seemed we could do nothing about. "Let Daddy do his work," as "Dr. Evil" would say to his son. We Americans had to "let Daddy do his work" in terms of letting the Viet Nam war grow, against all logic.
If it happened before, it could happen again.
In 1966 our Minnesota Twins were a year removed from their pinnacle year of the 1960s. We won the pennant in '65 and then lost the World Series in seven games to the Dodgers. It's strange how we seem to remember nothing abut the '66 season. We still had an arguably super team. But we were not No. 1 in the league this time. We were No. 2 among the ten teams. America is a land that prioritizes being No. 1. I'm sure there were many pleasant afternoons and evenings at our Metropolitan Stadium, when our powerful Twins dispatched the opposition. But 1966 gets lost in obscurity in our collective memory, because in '65 we were No. 1, not in '66.
In 1966 the Braves were in their first year in Atlanta. Strange how Milwaukee could not do what was needed to keep the Braves. The Braves had been a highly exciting team with many interesting individuals in Milwaukee. Milwaukee would later show it could support big league ball with the Brewers. But something went haywire and caused those Hank Aaron-led Braves to migrate south. They had spent 13 seasons in the brew town.
Aaron, Joe Torre, Ed Mathews and Rico Carty took their act to Georgia. In '91 our Twins would dispatch the Braves in the fall showcase.
 
A pitcher who could hit
Tony Cloninger was a 25-year-old pitcher in 1966. I remember from playing the APBA simulation game that Cloninger was a superb-hitting pitcher, rather like having a DH in the order instead of the typical anemic-hitting pitcher. I remember that Cloninger was the Braves' staff ace in 1964, still in Milwaukee, when the Braves were involved in a suspenseful pennant race with several other teams. Warren Spahn was still with the Braves. Unfortunately he fell off from his prime. He had such a sturdy arm for so many years. Had he coaxed one more stellar season from that left arm, the Braves would have certainly won the '64 pennant. Instead they got edged out, as St. Louis with a young Lou Brock won the pennant and then went on to beat the Yankees in the World Series.
Cloninger's APBA card for 1964 suggested he was something other than a pitcher. But a pitcher he was, with hitting numbers that showed he could be quite the asset in that department.
Let's drift back in time to that 1966 summer when the Braves were established in their new home of downtown Atlanta. Let's park on the date of July 3, 1966, in the midst of the holiday slowdown for the Fourth. The setting was San Francisco, Candlestick Park with its mystifying winds. It was Sunday afternoon at the heart of the Independence Day spirit.
The Alou brothers batted leadoff for the two teams: Felipe for the Braves and Jesus for the Giants. Jim Bouton wrote that teammates didn't pronounce Jesus in the proper way, HAY-soos, but rather like the Biblical man, in the typical irreverent spirit of big league players of that era. They weren't paid or treated as well as they should have been. Therefore they could develop bitter or cynical edges.
The Braves weren't excelling as of July 3 as they were in eighth place among the ten N.L. teams. They were 15 games behind the league-leading Giants. The July 3 game developed in an explosive way just like the fireworks. Cloninger had a seven-run lead before he even went out to the mound in the bottom of the first. He had quite the role in getting that early spurt. How that rally developed: Felipe Alou popped out, Mack Jones singled, Aaron forced Jones to second, then here come the fireworks: Carty singled to right. Torre homered to deep center. Frank Bolling and Woody Woodward singled, chasing Giants pitcher Joe Gibbon. (Going through all these names revives memories of my baseball card collection!)
Denis Menke - yes, just one "n" in Denis - drew a walk from Bob Priddy. Priddy was probably relieved to get to the pitcher, Cloninger. Cloninger worked Priddy to a full count. Then, fireworks: Cloninger hit the ball to almost the same spot as Torre's homer: a grand slam. The ball cleared the 410-foot sign. Ah, six hits, seven runs. A Carty homer made the score 8-0 in the second.
 
Here we go again!
The fourth inning saw Carty trot down to first with a walk. Torre got on by error and Bolling singled to score Carty. There were two outs with two baserunners on when Menke came up to bat. Menke walked as he had done previously. The sacks were loaded again with Cloninger set to bring his bat to the plate. The count was 0-and-1 when Cloninger socked his second bases-loaded homer of the game, a liner over the opposite field fence in right. The score after 3 1/2 innings was 13-0.
Aaron hit his league-leading 25th home run in the fifth. The eighth inning saw Cloninger hit a run-scoring single. The final score was 17-3, quite a way to mark America's birthday. Cloninger's RBI total of nine on the day was quite the new standard for pitchers. The Braves sent 52 batters to face Giants pitching. Five Braves each had at least three hits.
 
Sharp on the mound too
Cloninger pitched a complete game, scattering seven hits while allowing three earned runs. He fanned five batters and walked two. He won for the sixth time in his last seven starts, raising his record to 9-7. He quipped after that July 3 game: "Funny thing, nobody is asking me about my pitching."
Fans left Candlestick Park wide-eyed to be sure.
Major league baseball fascinated me through the '60s as I passed through junior high, a rather arduous time of life typically. Baseball was an escape for me, a taste of the exciting "macro" world away from my mundane "micro" world of where I lived. How much more joy we would have felt, with no Viet Nam war as a horrible, devilish specter. We miss you, Richard Ungerecht.
- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com