The World Series And Immigration
By Joe Guzzardi
Congratulations to the (almost) all-American
Philadelphia Phillies who on
October 29 defeated the (almost) all-American
Tampa Bay Rays to win the 2008 World Series.<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
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The
Fightin' Phils victory represents three early
Christmas presents wrapped into oneâ€â€two for me and one for you.
For me:
<UL style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in" =disc>
<LI =Msonormal style="COLOR: maroon; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in"><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Firstâ€â€I'm vindicated![/I][/B] </LI>[/list]
Over the past few years, I've written numerous
blogs and
columns about the folly of obligatory baseball diversity. My conviction that Americansâ€â€and teams
made up of Americansâ€â€produce the best baseball on the planet can no longer be intelligently debated.
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<LI =Msonormal style="COLOR: maroon; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in"><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Secondâ€â€I can write about the Phillies this week![/I][/B] </LI>[/list]
Which means I don't have to do a column about
Barack Obama,
John McCain, the possibility of an amnesty (the
notorious Ruben Navarette just
endorsed my skepticism) or the Wall Street financial disaster. I cannot begin to express what an enormous relief that is!
And for you:
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<LI =Msonormal style="COLOR: maroon; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in"><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">You can read a column about the national pastime![/I][/B] </LI>[/list]
<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">...<I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"> [/I][/B]instead of any of the aforementioned, dreary topics.
The champion Phillies are led by a
core contingent of American players that includes six of its starting eight: first base, Ryan Howard; second base, Chase Utley; shortstop Jimmy Rollins, left field; Pat Burrell; center field, Shane Victorino; right field,
Jayson Werth.
On the mound, the Phillies' American-born pitchers dominated: series Most Valuable Player Cole amels, Brett Meyers, Jamie Moyer and Joe Blanton. Brad Lidge,
a perfect 41 of 41 in save opportunities during the regular season, loomed large in the bullpen.
The Phillies didn't learn their baseball in the <?:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 /><ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Dominican Republic</ST1
LACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION> at a training camp established by one of the major league franchises.
Utley starred at UCLA;
Lidge, Notre Dame; Burrell,
Miami and
Howard, <ST1
LACE w:st="on"><ST1
LACENAME w:st="on">Missouri</ST1
LACENAME> <ST1
LACE w:st="on">State</ST1
LACE></ST1
LACE>.
As for
Vicorino,
Rollins (2007 National League Most Valuable Player) and Hamels, they played their first baseball in <ST1
LACE w:st="on">Maui</ST1
LACE> and sunny <ST1:STATE w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">California</ST1
LACE></ST1:STATE>.
Most of the Phillies are a homegrown group that came up through the <ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Philadelphia</ST1
LACE></ST1:CITY> system.
A brief review of how the Phillies became champs tells all you need to know.
For the second year in a row, the Phillies beat out the diversity-crazed
New York Mets in the final days of the season. So c
ommitted to multiculturalism were the Mets that, at various times during the season, the team actually wore
jerseys embroidered with
Los Mets.
In 2007, the Mets squandered a seven-game cushion with 17 to play, letting <ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Philadelphia</ST1
LACE></ST1:CITY> charge past them for the NL East title in one of the worst collapses in baseball history.
To guarantee, or so it hoped, a winning team this year the Mets acquired Venezuelan-born superstar pitcher
Johan Santana to a six-year, $138 million contract.
Met outfielder Carlos Beltran warned the Phillies that, with the addition of Santana, the Mets were the team to beat. What could go wrong?
As it turned out, plenty!
In a <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">"déjàvu all over again"[/B] scenario, the Phillies rallied to win the division title again this year after trailing New York by 3 1/2 games in September.
At the Phillies' World Series celebration in front of thousands of fans, Rollins got the biggest cheer when
he said:
"It takes more than one player to bring home a championship."
In fairness to Santana, he pitched well. But I could argue that Phillies' pitcher and Kentuckian
Joe Blanton, acquired in mid-season trade from the Oakland Athletics for the proverbial bunch of broken bats, contributed more.
The Mets, ranked third in percentage of diverse players on its roster, were not the only multicultural train-wreck team.
The Chicago Cubs, the second most diverse, collapsed in an even more ugly fashion than the Mets.
Although <ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Chicago</ST1
LACE></ST1:CITY> won the National League East division, the Los Angeles Dodgers
humiliated the Cubs in the first round of the playoffs outscoring them 20-6 and sweeping them, 3-0.
The Cubs proved that, diverse or not, the team could not hit, field or pitch when it counted. The way <ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Chicago</ST1
LACE></ST1:CITY> played, it would have been lucky to defeat the (completely) all-American NCAA champion
Fresno State Bulldogs.
As for the
Seattle Mariners, baseball's most diverse team, the season was a disaster.
With its players from
Cuba, Venezuela,
Japan, Australia, Curacao, the
Dominican Republic, Korea, Puerto Rico, Canada, and (lest we forget) the United States, the Mariners
lost 101 games, the most in the American League.
For more proof of American dominance, I looked at the
season-ending statistics and analyzed the pitching (wins, strike outs and earned run average) and hitting (average, home runs and runs batted in) performances in the American and National Leagues.
Taking the top five players in each category for a total of sixty rankings, fifty-fifty of the statistically best players are Americans.
Here's still more evidence. Within the next few days, the balance of the post-season awards will be announced.
Among those already named, all are American: the Cy Young Awards went to
San Francisco's Tim Lincecum and
Cleveland's Cliff Lee, and the American and National League are the Rays'
Evan Longoria and the Cubs'
Geovany Soto..
At the risk of redundancy, I'll repeat that the MainStream Media's coverage of baseball and its insistence that diversity means a higher quality of play have motivated me all these years to present the opposingâ€â€and irrefutableâ€â€position:
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<LI =Msonormal style="COLOR: maroon; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in"><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">No relationship exists between the degree of multiculturalism on a team and its success on the field.[/I][/B]
<LI =Msonormal style="COLOR: maroon; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in"><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">To the contrary, the reverse is trueâ€â€the more American players, the greater the likelihood of victory.[/I][/B] </LI>[/list]
What's particularly unfortunate is that in their quest to force-feed fans on the so-called wonders of baseball diversity, journalists miss the sport's most compelling stories.
As reported by
Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci, here's a tale about Phillies' manager Charlie Manuelâ€â€dare I call it heart-warming?â€â€little known outside Philadelphia.
Back up with me to June, when
Jerry Manuel took over the Mets' managerial post, replacing the maligned Willie Randolph. Much was then written about how Manuel would better relate to the Spanish-speaking Mets and would inspire them to greater heights.
Since that analysis included a Hispanic angle, it got a lot of print.
And in truth, Manuel did a better job than <ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Randolph</ST1
LACE></ST1:CITY>.
But managerial changes that result in a team playing better over the short term are a dime a dozen. Baseball history is full of them.
Compare that mundane success to what Charlie Manuel overcame.
When Charlie (who is neither Hispanic nor related to Jerry) was a 19-year-old growing up in <ST1:STATE w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Virginia</ST1
LACE></ST1:STATE>'s <ST1
LACE w:st="on">Blue Ridge Mountains</ST1
LACE>, his father committed suicide. He left a note for Manuel telling him to take care of his mother and ten siblings as best he could.
Out of economic necessity, Manuel turned down athletic scholarships at <ST1:STATE w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">North Carolina</ST1
LACE></ST1:STATE> (basketball) and <ST1:STATE w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Michigan</ST1
LACE></ST1:STATE> (football) to sign for $20,000 to play for the Minnesota Twins. He gave the money to his mother.
For the next four decades, Manuel knocked around the majors, the minors and <ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Japan</ST1
LACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>. Along the way, he beat cancer and heart disease.
Eventually, Manuel landed the Phillies job. <ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Philadelphia</ST1
LACE></ST1:CITY>'s notoriously harsh fans greeted Manuel rudely, calling him a rube and a hick. No one knew that his speech pattern was the result of a youthful stuttering problem.
Throughout it all, Manuel persevered. And, in the end, he did a vastly superior job than Jerry Manuel of getting the maximum performance from his players.
In closing I notice that I haven't said much about the biggest surprise in baseball historyâ€â€the <ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Tampa</ST1
LACE></ST1:CITY> Bay Rays. I'll save that column for the
"hot stove league" sometime between now and spring training.
In the meantime, hats off to the all-American Phillies.
Next week I'll return to business as usual.
Steel yourselfâ€â€you know what that means.
Joe [email him] is a California native who recently fled the state because of over-immigration, over-population and a rapidly deteriorating quality of life. He has moved to Pittsburgh, PA where the air is clean and the growth rate stable. A long-time instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School, Guzzardi has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It currently appears in the Lodi News-Sentinel.
http://vdare.com/guzzardi/081114_baseball.htm
